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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Puppy Kicker" data-source="post: 1651102" data-attributes="member: 20284">“Tears in Hell” - McGunfight11:35 PM Monday, July 12thYorktown, VirginiaArmani Determan’s street-honed muscles tensed for action as his fingers clenched the brass knuckles in his pocket.  Mr. Louisville Slugger glanced towards the action on the other side of the McDonalds, just for a second when the shouting started, but it was all the time the street punk needed.  Armani leapt to his feet and propelled his brass-equipped fist towards the batter’s nose.  Cartilage crunched and blood spewed through the air.  “What’s mine is mine, a******.”  Armani struck a dramatic combat pose.  The thump of the slugger’s body hitting the ground was drowned out as the bullets started flying.---Professor Gallivan leveled his Pathfinder at the lithe woman, but in his hurry he displayed his ineptitude with the small pistol.  The shot flew wild.  The .22 round took out an innocent overheated Big Mac behind the counter.The woman responded, the hammer on her pistol slammed home and propelled a .45 slug into Professor Gallivan’s midsection.  The bookish man collapsed to the floor, blood dribbling from his clenched lips.  “The bear….”  Then his eyes closed.“There goes my extra credit.”  Quin slowly stood up and raised his arms to the flickering fluorescent lights.A terrified Meadow tried to slide under the table, but it was too crowded!  Backpacks, a satchel, Happy Meal wrappers, Rebbeca.Meadow took a deep breath.  What am I about to get myself into?  She snatched the professor’s satchel from beneath the table and vaulted the back of the bench towards the door.  She skidded to a halt at the door, fumbling to open it as her momentum and the slick floor carried her into the adjacent wall.“She’s got the satchel!”  The revolver-toting woman pointed at Meadow’s retreating back.  “Get her!”One of the gun-toting men leveled his pistol at Meadow’s back.  “Drop the satchel or die, bitch.”  The other man jammed his gun into Quinton’s ribs.  “No funny stuff.”  Quin shook his head.Rebecca’s voice whimpered up from beneath the table. “Please don’t hurt me, just take my purse.  There’s a cell phone… some money… a nice shade of lipstick?”Meadow managed to get the door open and sprinted out into the rainy darkness, the satchel trailing behind her like an overfed tail.  One of the pistol wielding men followed her, shooting wildly at her retreating form.Putting her pistol to the side the gang leader approached the professor’s body and checked the pulse.  “Good.  Help me get him out of here.”  One eye (and one gun) on Quinton, her crony helped her drag the unconscious professor towards the opposite door.“Get out of my way,” the crony growled at Quin.“Will do, sir.  Just get my things…”  Quinton began to grab handfuls of paper from the table with one arm while he reached under the table with the other and grabbed his backpack.Rebecca dodged Quin’s groping hand and found her own backpack.  Odd.  She was pretty sure she hadn’t left it unzipped….---The baseball batter scrambled between Armani’s legs, skittering across the floor and out of reach of the huge pugilist.  He staggered to his feet several yards from where he’d fallen, readied his bat and turned to face Armani… and was again knocked on his butt.  The little cartilage that was left in his nose disintegrated under Armani's powerful blow.“Take it, punk.  Take it all.”  Armani struck another dramatic combat pose over the KO’d batman, then barely ducked beneath two bullets that whizzed by his head and shattered the window behind him.The gang leader and her crony had dropped the professor and were aiming their pistols at Armani.  He screamed in rage and charged at them.  His powerful legs carried him to the leader in seconds and the brass knuckles slammed into her belly and chest.  Somehow, she stayed on her feet, gasping for air.  The injured woman stepped back, out of the way of the deadly fists.  Her next shot didn't miss.  Her crony's shot didn't miss either.  The force of the two rounds propelled Armani backwards.  A trail of blood sprayed the ceiling above him and lubricated the floor as he slid to a stop against a table.  He did not strike a dramatic combat pose. Quinton Stark III snuck quietly to the door, arms loaded with his backpack and reams of notes.The top of a perfectly-groomed head, a well-powdered forehead, flawlessly plucked and penciled eyebrows, and faultless eyelashes appeared over the edge of the table.  “Can I just go?” asked Rebecca.  “Quin got to go.”  Nobody answered, so she grabbed her purse and backpack and went.---Devin looked around.  Across the restaurant bullets were flying, brass knuckles were pummeling, people were falling.  Over in his corner, not much was happening.  “Looks like a good time to make an exit.”  He picked up the metal briefcase.  He looked at the leather one.  “You work for crooks, Dev.  That doesn’t mean you are one.”  He left it sitting there and slid off the bench seat.  Standing between him and the exit was a woman holding a PDA.  Standing between him and the woman was a man with a sawed-off shotgun.  “I don’t want to hurt you.  But I will.”  The man raised the gun and advanced on Devin.  Devin dropped the briefcase.“There’s something we can agree on.  I don’t want to get hurt.”He saw two of the assailants drag the old guy’s body out the door.  The leader stopped long enough to speak to PDA-woman.  “We need the briefcases.  Get them and get out of here.”  Devin held his hands up and waited.---From outside, more gunshots cracked.  Meadow zigged and zagged and zogged and zugged, trying desperately to avoid the bullets hurling towards her back.  She slid around the end of the McDonalds, dodged around a trash dumpster, and skidded to a stop on the other side of the restaurant.  She peeked around the corner.  Her assailant was nowhere to be seen.Then a chunk of the wall an inch above her head EXPLODED.Meadow leapt around the corner, sprinting for all she was worth towards the parking lot.  She skidded to a halt when she reached it, looking around desperately for an escape route.  The streetlights illuminated Quin.  His butt was sticking out from the driver-side door of his BMW M3 and he was rummaging around in the glove compartment.  “Quin!  Help!”  He backed out of his car and turned around, one hand grasping a small nickel-plated pistol.  He waved at her.  A shot rang out from behind her and she fell, muscle torn from her thigh by the bullet.  The satchel skittered across the parking lot and landed under the bumper of a large white Dodge Caravan.Quin looked around, eyes piercing the darkness for the source of the gunman.  Nothing.  He saw Rebecca, talking frantically into her cell phone, near the door he’d just exited.  Then, from around the corner of the McDonalds a man sprinted into view.  He ran towards Meadow, stopped over her body, looked around on the ground.  The gunman’s eyes met Quin’s the moment Quin squeezed the trigger on his Ruger Service-Six.---“Thank you for calling 911 emergency.  What is your situation?”“Guns!  McDonalds!  Martin!  Victory Boulevard and 17th!”“Has there been a shooting?”Rebecca nodded.“Miss.  Are you there?”Rebecca nodded again.“Miss?”“I said yes!  People are shooting.  Martin was shot!”“Stay calm.  Where are you?”---Armani pushed himself up to his hands and knees.  He watched some old man get dragged out the door by a couple of masked assailants.  He watched the man he came to make the deal with back up with a shotgun in his face.  He watched blood drip from two large and amazingly painful wounds in his chest and shoulder.“It’s all I got.”  He began to crawl towards the leather briefcase, a trail of blood marking his path like a gory Hansel and Gretel tale.  “It’s all I got.  It’s all I got.”They were going to take the gem.  And they were going to take the money.  And he was going to die in this f***ing city with no money and no homies.Armani watched the man with the shotgun glance at the table, just for a second.  Armani watched in amazement as the man he’d come to make the deal with grabbed the shotgun, twisted the shotgun, yanked on the shotgun.  “Oh, that’s some smooth sh**.”Devin pointed his newly earned weapon at his ex-assailants.---Quinton Stark III missed.  The gunman fired a quick shot back at Quin, but the round flew wide as Meadow kicked at his leg.  The gunman sprinted towards the Caravan, ducking for cover behind it as Quin fired another round.  The bullet punched a hole in the van, but the gunman was unscathed.  The gunman returned fire.  He didn’t miss this time.  Quin looked down at the blood ruining one of his favorite silk shirts.  “Bad day at the tables, Mr. Stark.”  He slumped to the ground and tried to crawl towards his M3.Meadow scurried across the parking lot, desperately seeking cover.  She saw Rebecca on the other side of some parked cars, yelling at a cell phone.  “Help me!” Meadow cried.Rebecca scanned the parking lot.  Quin was on the ground, barely moving.  Meadow stumbling towards her, in obvious pain.  There was a man with a gun.  He was looking on the ground for something.“Just remain calm.  Help is on the way,” the Verizonified voice droned on from the cell phone.“People are shooting.  Real guns!  I DO NOT have time to chat right now!”  Rebecca dug through her purse, fumbling for anything to help her ailing classmate.  The car keys!  “Get in the car and drive!”  From the passenger side of her Grand Am she underhanded the keyring towards Meadow.  The Mary Kay keyring vanished into the night, somewhere well out of Meadow’s reach.  Meadow failed to hide her irritation.“Nice toss.”The gunman found what he was searching for – the satchel.  He picked it up and hopped in the driver’s side of the Caravan.  The engine revved to life and the headlights glared at Rebecca and Meadow as they fumbled around the puddle-covered parking lot looking for keys.“Found them!”  Triumphant, Meadow held the keys up.  More gunshots rang from the McDonalds, the sounds of shattering glass.  Quinton saw one of the restaurant patrons fall to the ground.---Devin menaced the two wanna-be ninjas with his newly earned shotgun.  “I don’t want to kill you.  But I will.”  PDA-woman and the recently disarmed man backed up towards the door.  Devin noticed the man he’d come here to meet crawling towards him.  Glad he’s alive, though not by much.  He waved the shotgun again.  “Get out of here!”Devin sensed it.  Somehow he sensed what was about to happen.  His head turned in slow motion.  His eyes focused on the window to his left.  Through the window.  Focused on the barrel of a pistol.  The woman with the revolver.  He saw the pane of glass shatter.  He saw the bullet in slow motion as it approached his head.  He saw nothing.Armani lunged at the shotgun as it fell from Devin’s nerveless fingers.  Lying on the ground, half his body protected by a McTrashcan, he leveled the shotgun at the PDA-woman and her companion.  “If you take a single step towards me I will blow both of your motherf***ing heads off.”  He meant it, but he knew that in his present state the kick from the shotgun would probably finish him off.The assailants didn’t know that.  They rushed from the restaurant without a backward glance, leaving both briefcases untouched.---The masked assailants dragged the professor into the back of the van as Meadow and Rebecca cowered in the Grand Am.  The doors of the van slammed shut and its engine revved into reverse, turned, leapt forward.Quinton, pulling an amazing matador maneuver, hurled himself out of the way as the Dodge Caravan squealed out of the parking lot and nearly overran him.  Rebecca spoke into her cell phone. “The bad guys are in a van.  They’re heading down Victory Boulevard towards Jefferson.  It’s a white Dodge Caravan.  I can’t read the whole license plate… umm…. North Carolina.  Last half is 544.” Frustrated, the students watched as the van disappeared into the darkness.“Thank you.  Please remain calm.”“People are dying.  I’ll be a lot more calm if you can get a darn ambulance out here!”Meadow and Rebecca dug through the trunk of the Mary Kay Grand Am, looking for medical supplies.Quin groaned and leaned against his BMW, the rain washing blood down his silk shirt and onto his Dockers.  “This is why I only eat at Burger King.”</blockquote>

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