After we turned down Olympia Road, I started to smell smoke. Toxic burning smoke and a glow in the distance. I took off, leaving David behind mid-sentence, only for him to yell and chase after me.
Oh shit, oh shit…
Then I saw.
It was my unit.
As I got closer, I noticed one of the windows overlooking the street on the second floor was open. It was the spare room, and I know I didn’t leave it like that. Then I saw books fly out and land in the yard below.
FUCK!
Charlie!
I bolted for the door, but it was consumed in flames. The whole front of the house and kitchen were up in flames.
No way in.
I ran back to the side of the house, barely dodging a stack of books as they flew by my head.
“CHARLIE!”
“Oh shit!” I turned and it was David. “Is he in there?” His eyes were full of fear.
“Go! Anywhere. Pound on doors. Get help!” I ordered, before turning back to the open window where my books were flying out to safety. Where Charlie should be instead of in my burning god damn house.
“CHARLIE!!!”
Smoke was starting to pour out of the window more heavily. I saw his arm with books being cradled. When he was close enough to the window again, I screamed, “HONEY!”
His face looked out, his eyes looked like they were watering for the toxic fumes, and he was coughingup a lung. “HONEY! Come down to me, please! You’ll have to come out of the window, the door is blocked. I’ll catch you!”
He experienced another coughing fit, but started to crawl out the window when a gun was fired, shot from behind me, hitting my unit, making brick shatter and barely missing Charlie’s leg, making him fall back inside.
I whipped around and standing there, gun raised was Karen.
“He’s going to die a fury death like all you fags deserve.” Karen’s eyes were as hot as the flames burning my unit down. And her hatred is the worst I have ever witnessed. Even worse than her dead husbands.
I gasped out in shock.
I needed to get Charlie out of the hell he was in. “Karen, why are you doing this? Please let him come out. This doesn’t need to happen.”
“He ruined my life and killed my husband. All of you are an abomination to society and don’t deserve to live.” She lowered her gun to me, when I started to move in her direction making me stop in my tracks. “I was on my way to his unit to deal with you both when I saw him leave. So, I followed him here. It wasn’t both of you but at least I would get the main culprit that ruined me. A bonus was that it would leave you living…,” she paused for a breath, then continued in a scream, “feeling what I am feeling!”
The rage in her was making her unstable. The gun was shaking in her grasp as she raised it higher and more level to my head. “But now that you’re here, I might as well finish the both of you. Society will thank me when they find out,” but right as she pulled the trigger, David came flying from the side out of nowhere, slamming into her and making her arm jolt to the side. The shot went wide, the bullet hitting theunit again and they both went down, David on top of her.
Before I could react to jump in, a second shot went off, making David scream, “You bloody bitch!” Then he clocked her once in the face, making the gun go flying to the side.
I got a hold of the gun and tossed it farther out of reach. That’s when I got a clear look, and saw I had blood on my hands.
David was hit in the shoulder. “Fuck, this hurts. What the fuck, man. I already survived a fucking bomb. Did I really need to get fucking shot? What is it with this family? Huh!”
“Jesus, David.” I went to look at him, but he pushed me away.
“No! Go! Get Charlie! I’m fine. It’s just blood. Help’s coming,” he was holding down a struggling Karen, who was spitting, shrieking unspeakable things and trying to kick out from underneath David.
I bolted for the window again and yelled, “CHARLIE! Come on Honey! It’s safe now!”
Nothing.
