Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

the door as he had at Beasley’s. No hesitation. Effortlessly powerful. The decaying doorframe exploded. The door flew in.

Beyond the entrance was a hallway.

And in that hallway, a staggering sight.

Gavin Stokes. Bloodied. Surrounded by three other men.

Including the blond-headed man, who had a gun aimed at Gavin.

Chapter Thirty-One

Four men in the hallway in front of Silence. Centered in the group, a gun to his head, was Gavin Stokes.

Silence’s thoughts slowed.

An engine powering down. The last bit of steam whistling out of a kettle. A baseball rolling to a stop in thick grass.

Things became quiet.

C.C. had always told Silence that his mind was chaotic, and she helped him with methods of sorting his thoughts, calming the anxieties, soothing the storm of activity within his brain. Things like mind mapping, meditation, deep breathing. The techniques had become a toolbox from which he could grab the necessary piece of mental equipment for a specific application.

Through the years, the constant use of those C.C. teachings had led to a cumulative effect, one that came out when adrenaline was flowing the fastest, an immediate internal response to chaos in the external. In moments like these, time slowed, his reactions became molecularly precise, he saw and heard everything, he existed in a vacuum of time, a vortex of space, and all was still.

When paired with the brutal coaching he’d received from Nakiri, his trainer when he was first conscripted into the Watchers, the stillness that had developed from C.C.’s Zen-filled teachings took on a whole new function.

It became a lethal weapon.

The curly-haired man, Mr. Accord, in front of Gavin, a Heckler & Koch P9S in his hand, pointed at Gavin’s face.

Gavin, head arched back, tendons bulging from his neck.

Two other guys. Behind Gavin. One with a long gash across his cheek, blood pouring onto a baggy blue suit.

The other in a gray T-shirt, jeans, grabbing Gavin from behind, fingers yanking his hair.

Mr. Accord’s eyes had found Silence’s in the fraction of sluggish time when the door had burst open, a look of recognition, confusion, dread.

Mr. Accord kept his pistol on Gavin, but in that sliver of a moment, Silence sensed danger from the man’s associates, two electric blips in the quiet nothingness.

They both leveled guns in Silence’s direction.

Silence’s arm raised, going to the left.

He fired.

Striking the suited one, through the shoulder.

The Beretta shifted six inches to the right. Fired.

The round cut through the other man’s neck. An explosion of blood. A wet scream.

Mr. Accord had pulled Gavin in front of him. A human shield. He moved toward the side door.

The bodies fell.

First the suited one. Then the one in the gray T-shirt.

Gavin, too, fell. To his knees. A flash behind him, and Mr. Accord vanished.

Two steps. Silence was beside Gavin, aiming the Beretta downward, at the enemy who was still alive, the suited one.

Another round through the center of the forehead. The man’s eyes remained open, mouth as well.

The Beretta swept to the side. To the other man. The throat wound was catastrophic. He was very much dead.

Silence put a round through his forehead anyway.

A delayed double tap.

You can never be too sure.

Sounds seemed louder. The air felt warmer, more real. Time returned to him.

It had all happened in a couple seconds.

He leapt over Gavin, pressed himself against the wall, threw open the side door, swept his gun across the threshold.

No curly-headed bastard. But an infinite number of nooks and crannies for him to have disappeared into—tents and boxes and shopping carts and dozens of homeless people.

Mr. Accord was gone.

Silence returned to Gavin, who stared in disbelief at the bodies lying next to him. “Holy shit, man! Shit! Holy shit! What are you?”

Silence offered his hand, pulled him to his feet.

The roar of a gunshot.

An explosion beside them, at the floor, inches away from Gavin’s foot.

Chunks of wood, strips of carpet shot to the ceiling.

Mr. Accord…

He was beneath the building.

“Come on!” Silence said.

They ran for the door.

CRACK!

Another shot. A couple feet behind them. Silence felt the tremor through the soles of his shoes.

A yard from the door.

CRACK!

This one blew particles between his jacket and his shirt, peppering his back with stings.

Outside, Jonah stared at Silence through the open doorway, mouth slack, cheeks pallid.

“Run!” Silence shouted, a painful tear in his monstrous throat.

Jonah turned, sprinted off.

CRACK!

Through the doorway, into the homeless camp. Frightened people staring his direction, pointing.

Jonah running ahead of him. Gavin struggling a few feet behind.

Silence looked back.

Mr. Accord was on his stomach, in the open space between the building and the earth, emptying a magazine from the bottom of his H&K, grabbing another from his pocket.

Shit.

“Go! Go!”

CRACK!

A bullet whistled past. People screamed. They scattered in all directions.

CRACK! CRACK!

A woman in front of them took a round to the back, dropped.

Silence ran to the side, behind one of the massive concrete uprights. Jonah and Gavin followed suit.

CRACK! CRACK!

More rounds screamed past. One of them struck the upright with a solid thwack.

The street was ahead. There was the Fiero.

Which was a two-seat vehicle.

Two seats. Three men. A major tactical disadvantage in a situation like this.

Silence was just about to dash toward the Fiero, planning to figure it out when they got there, when Gavin darted in front of him.

“Come on!” Gavin said and went toward a green Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Silence and Jonah followed.

More screaming. People bashed into Silence from all sides.

The smell of bonfires. Urine.

The shots rained from the building.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Another homeless person took a hit, a man in his fifties, a brutal head wound that took off his toboggan hat and a chunk of his skull.

They were to the Jeep. Silence threw open the passenger door, got in, closed it, crouched beneath the window.

Gavin got behind the wheel. Jonah was in the back.

Gavin threw the Jeep into gear, and they screeched off, dodging people as they scattered across the street.

Chapter Thirty-Two

A half hour after the pandemonium at Falconer Street, Finley found himself in an entirely different environment.

A guest room in a suburban home.

A nice bedspread, light blue with stripes, clean and new.