As Calhoun ran after Barlow, he glanced at the elevator. Sam Jaywick sat at the back of the car, having slid down it leaving a bloody smear on the wall. His legs were extended out in front of him. His feet just reached the track where the doors ran and kept them closing. Calhoun caught a glimpse of the young man’s face, which seemed strangely at peace considering the state of his bullet-riddled body below.
Calhoun didn’t have time for anything else. He had to deal with Lark Barlow. Every instinct in Calhoun’s body was shouting at him that the threat wasn’t over. In fact, the worst might be still to come.
Calhoun reached the spot where Barlow had disappeared into the stacks. He paused long enough to glance over his shoulder. Some of the hostages had realized that there was no longer anything stopping them from getting out of here. They stampeded toward the escalators, and the others began to follow them, tentatively at first and then in more of a rush.
A shot cracked and a bullet whined off a metal shelf only a foot or so from Calhoun’s head. He had taken his attention off the enemy for too long. He couldn’t afford to do that. Crouching, he caught a flicker of movement at the far end of the long, narrow aisle and snapped a shout that way in return.
Then, instead of charging along that aisle, he darted two over and headed down that one. He moved as fast as possible, not wanting Barlow to be able to track him by sound. Barlow would be doing the same thing, he knew. Keeping quiet and trying to get the drop on him.
But maybe Barlow didn’t have the patience for that, because he called, “Weaver, you hear me?”
Calhoun stopped in his tracks but heard nothing.
“I know you’re there, you big son of a bitch. It’s not like you’d give up after coming this far and killing so many people.” Barlow laughed. Just how many have you killed today, Cal? You think you’re the hero and I’m the bad guy, but I’ll bet you’ve got a hell of a lot more blood on your hands than I do!”
Barlow was right about one thing: Calhoun didn’t think of himself as a hero. Just a guy who could recognize when something needed to be done and who possessed the resolve to do it. He wasn’t really thinking about what Barlow was yammering on about, though. He just tried to home in on the voice. It sounded like it came from two aisles over.
Calhoun looked at the shelves beside him. They were 10 feet tall, so that a member of the library staff had to bring one of the rolling ladders and climb on it to retrieve volumes on the top shelves. The ceiling was 20 feet tall, though, so there was a 10-foot gap between it and the top of the shelves.
Calhoun tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and pushed in some books to several places. That didn’t make any noise, and neither did he as he used the handholds and footholds he had created and started to climb.
"Well, all that's going to change," Barlow went on. "It won't be long now before the big body count will belong to me. I can't blow up the whole campus. I might as well admit that now, but you know what, Cal? I can call you Cal, can't I, since we're about to be blown to atoms together? I can blow this library sky-high. The detonator is right here in my hand, Cal. All I have to do is push it."
Calhoun froze where he was. He didn't want to give away what he was trying to do, so he dropped back to the floor, landing lightly, and called. "Don't do it, Barlow."
That brought another laugh from the terrorist. Or madman. Well, pretty much the same thing.
"Now you talk to me! You don't want to be blown up, do you?"
"I don't really give a shit about that," Calhoun said. "I just don't want you to die thinking that you're some kinda infamous mass murderer. You and me are the only ones left in this building. You blow it up, and we're the only ones you'll kill.
That was a bluff, at least as far as he knew. Donald and Nash were still upstairs with the other hostages he'd freed earlier. He supposed it was possible someone had been watching from a window and had seen the others fleeing, leading them to come downstairs and get out, too, but Calhoun had no way of knowing that. He'd had his own hands too full to keep up with anything else.
"What?" Barlow said. "You're lying!"
"No, I'm not. I don't know who else you might've killed earlier, but blowing up this library won't get anymore victims except two nobodies....you and me, pal."
As he said that, Calhoun wondered about Brooke. Was she still alive, or had the succumbed to her wound? Was she upstairs or already in custody? Calhoun hoped she had survived. Not so much for her sake, although he had a hunch he'd always have a soft spot for her, but because she might be the only one left who could tell the authorities any details about Lark Barlow and his crazy, evil plan. That might help keep someone else from doing something similar in the future.
Barlow was muttering something. Calhoun could make out only a few bad obscenities, but the rest was an incoherent jumble.
Finally, Barlow called, "Don't try to talk me into surrendering. I'll never be taken alive. Victory or death!"
"Colonel Travis at the Alamo," Calhoun said. "Don't dirty up the words of a great man, Barlow." He paused. "If you don't want to be taken alive, forget about blowing anything up. Put that detonator aside, step out, and face me. Just the two of us."
Barlow laughed.
"Head to head? Mano a mano? Just like the showdown in every bad book ever written and every bad movie ever made? So that you'll have the chance to deliver some classic badass line like Yippe-yi-yay----"
“Piss on it,” Calhoun muttered. He swarmed back up the shelves, flung a leg on the top, leaped to the next one, sure now from the conversation where Barlow was, and dropped on top of the nutjob while Barlow was trying to dig that detonator out of his pocket.
He hoped the jolt wouldn’t make it go off.
Barlow screeched curses, hammered fists at Calhoun’s head, and tried to ram a knee into his groin. Calhoun was taller and heavier, but Barlow battled with the strength of a madman and the cramped quarters didn't help, either. Barlow chopped a glancing sidehand blow across Calhoun's throat, and while it wasn't powerful enough to crush his windpipe, for two seconds Calhoun couldn't breathe. Barlow pulled back, managing to jerk something from his pocket.
Calhoun tackled him, and as they both crashed to the floor, the little box slipped from Barlow's fingers and bounced and slid away. He tried to scramble after it, but Calhoun grabbed him and swung him to the side, crashing him into the shelves. Barlow kicked at him, caught him under the chin. That rocked Calhoun's head back and made the world go black for an instant.
Barlow got loose, went after the detonator. Calhoun snagged an ankle and upended him again. Barlow's hand hit the detonator and sent it skidding beneath one of the heaven shelving units. Barlow screamed in frustration.
Since he couldn't reach the detonator, he scrambled to his feet and ran.
Calhoun caught up with him in the study area with its comfortable furniture, where he and Brooke had met earlier that day, even though it seemed like days had passed since then. A diving tackle brought both of them crashing down on the carpet.
Barlow fought like a wildcat. He was strong, wiry, and had blinding speed. Calhoun was extremely fast, especially for such a big man, but Barlow was even faster. He got a hand on Calhoun's face and gouged at his eyes enough that Calhoun was momentarily blinded. He came up on his knees, pawing at his eyes with the back of his left hand.
Barlow leaped to his feet and clawed at the pistol he had stuck behind his belt earlier. Calhoun's vision cleared enough for him to see that. He reached for the gun at the small of his back, drawing faster than he ever had. Sometimes real life just played out like a book or movie.
Final shoot-out!
The shots crashed together. Calhoun felt the impact against his chest and went over backward. As he fell, he watched through eyes gone hazy again as Barlow stumbled to and fro, trying to stop the blood that fountained down from his bullet-torn throat. He couldn't do it, naturally, and after 1 second the gory stream slowed as he heart began slowing to its inevitable stoop. He fell forward, and the blood started to form a slowly spreading pool beneath his body.
Calhoun lay there, mostly numb. He was only vaguely aware of the tactically armored, heavily armed figures that began to swarm around him a few moments later. He heard some kind of erratic thumping like distant heartbeats.
Could that be his heart beating?
Then that went away, and so did he.314Please respect copyright.PENANAbH5VWuHEur
314Please respect copyright.PENANAGipIihpCcB
314Please respect copyright.PENANAAiEMZWOnfJ
The death toll of innocents that day at Stonewall College was 16. It could've been much higher. Easily could have been.
23 terrorists were killed. 5 were taken into custody, including Dr. Brooke Tucker, who was expected to recover---under heavy guard, of course.
Jonell Boone and Regina Ferrant questioned all the surviving members of the group and eventually were convinced that they'd gotten them all. Nobody else was lurking out there, waiting to wreak bloody havoc on Stonewall College.
The campus was closed for 2 weeks to allow repairs to be made and all explosive devices to be removed. Getting rid of the bombs didn't take nearly as long as cleaning up the blood and bullet holes.
Counselors provided by the college were overworked as they tried to help the students cope with the trauma they'd gone through. This had been a macroagression, and some of those already easily triggered snowflakes would never live it down.
That was the trouble with being a snowflake---you melted if things got the least bit warm.
Dr. Albert Nash tendered his resignation from the faculty. He planned to go on a trip to Scotland, to see his ancestral homeland and allow his nerves to recover, he said.
Donald Montecristo stayed enrolled, but he told the other members of his study group that he thought he would be studying on his own from now on.
President Sexton worked almost around the clock trying to keep the college's wealthy patrons---many of whom had kids who'd been affected by the crisis---from pulling all their funding. Vernon Erickson could have led the charge by dropping his donations, and that might've been the death knell for the school. Instead he helped Sexton keep the place open---on one condition.314Please respect copyright.PENANA2yPaxhSxgW
314Please respect copyright.PENANABWoS8Eu1Zz
314Please respect copyright.PENANAubfsoBFJ1o
314Please respect copyright.PENANA4wk4RpLf2v
314Please respect copyright.PENANAVPMkyqHCRo
314Please respect copyright.PENANAbWlWBFXRdo
"At least it's not a damn statue," Calhoun said as he looked at the plaque with his name on it mounted next to the entrance to the Hamilton Memorial Library.
Neil Holt said, "Hey, your grandpa told me he thought about making them rename the whole library, but he decided the plaque was enough, since you didn't die and all."
"Yeah, staying alive fucked it all up, didn't it?"
Calhoun still had a few twinges in his chest now and then from the bullet that had ripped through there, but it didn't hit anything too vital. The minor pains would go away in time. Probably.
He went on. "You know, Jaywick ought to have a plaque, too."
"We'll put something up in the station for him, don't worry." Holt gave a rather slow shake of his hand. "He sure was an unlikable kid."
"Yeah, he was," Calhoun agreed, nodding, "but when the time came, he did what he had to do. Proving that assholes can be heroes just like anybody else."
"Good thing, too, since most of us fall into that category at least some of the time." Holt put a hand on Calhoun's shoulder. "Are you really not coming back as a student?"
"Nope. Let's face it: I'm just not cut out to be in college these days, Chief."
"You could be a campus cop...."
"No way! Spend every day dealing with these----No, just no."
"Okay." Holt stuck his hand out. "Come back to see us sometime, anyway."
"Sure thing," Calhoun said as he shook hands, even though he knew he wouldn't.
Holt headed off. Calhoun decided he would take one more walk around Pleasantview Plaza, since it was a really beautiful autumn day, before he left for good. Classes had started again at last, and although a subdued atmosphere still hung over the campus, it was starting to get back to normal.
Calhoun had walked halfway around the plaza when he became aware that a man had fallen in step beside him. Funny, he hadn't heard the guy come up at all. Even more surprising, when Calhoun glanced over, he recognized the man from Josh Grueskin's gun range.
"Mr. Zavala," he said.
"Well, not exactly, Cal," Zavala said.
"We haven't been introduced, so I guess Josh told you my name like he told me yours."
"Not quite. I've known who you are for a long, long time, Cal. And the name's not really Zavala, although I've gone by that for almost as long. It's Erickson, just like your mother's name. And your grandfather Big Vern's name."
Calhoun stopped and frowned over at the older man.
"What the hell are you telling me?!" he demanded.
"I'm Stu Weaver. I'm your uncle."
ns 172.70.127.134da2