On the Run by M Zeigler (short story to read TXT) 📖

the slider window only to find it locked. Seeing as I can’t get in the easy way I kick the glass with heel of my boot, the window splinters to the ground allowing me easy entrance into the house.

The layout of the downstairs is simple enough, I’m standing in a lounge, looking to my right is an open floor plan kitchen, ahead of me is a small hallway with a little bathroom directly in my view. The Bathroom is clear of any residence so I walk down the hall to the end to find an elegant dining room that opens on the left into a spacious high rise living room. On the far end of the living room is a set of stairs as well as a front door. I’m about to go for the stairs when I hear Bonnie coming in the front door, she fidgets with knob, when it doesn’t budge I start to walk over and open it for her but she kicks the massive mahogany door off its hinges entirely destroying the frame it was attached to.

I tuck one of the Kimbers back into its holster as I once more take lead, this time leading up the stairs. Bonnie follows right behind me to the top, peering around the corner to the right I see the hall way leads into a linen closet, the room directly ahead is empty, the bathroom next door is empty but the room at the very end is closed up tight. “In there.” I announce, down stairs I can hear Devon’s men coming in the backdoor.

“I’ll hold off the hitters, take care of the Mayor.” I encourage Bonnie, she passes by me heading straight for the closed up door. I watch her with clear amazement as she storms right up to the door and kicks it, the door flies off the hinges and frame hitting the wall on the other side of the office.

As soon as Bonnie steps into the room I hear the Mayor begging to be spared, then Bonnie’s voice. “Shut up old man! I’m not here to kill you, that is unless you’ve forgotten who Devon Morgan is!” Bonnie shouts, with her out of my sights I focus to the ground floor where the three women from the car have already entered. I take great pleasure in shooting the one that Bonnie pistol whipped up on the fairground roof top. The woman still has a butterfly bandage on her temple from that smack down, but now she’s going to have a wonderful series of stitches in her shoulder. One shot drops the unsuspecting woman to the floor, I feel bad for shooting her, to an extent. I was raised to never hit a woman, yet here I am about to shoot three. Though I think my mother and father would be on my side if they knew about this battle going on.

“I have no idea who Devon Morgan is! Please, just take whatever you want!” I hear the Mayor shout as I take the second and third shot. All three women are now on the floor screaming in sheer agony holding their shoulders, their backup comes running in, five men in total. Three of which run to their leaders while the other two head for the stairs, these two bandits pull their guns and start shooting. By the grace of god I am not hit but they topple back down the stairs, one is dead with a bullet through the skull and the other is mortally wounded.

“God please forgive me.” I whisper out as I turn to look at the crashing sound coming from the office. Bonnie has an incredibly short Allen Warner held up off the floor by his tie and is walking towards the back wall. “I don’t want your money! Where is Devon Morgan’s hidden files? I swear I will splatter your brains all over this wall if you don’t start talking!” Bonnie screams at the man putting the barrel of her pistol directly in his face.

“Fine! Fine, I’ll tell you just don’t shoot me please!” I beg as the guys helping Devon’s new hit men look up at me, they decide not to push the issue any further and just carry their leaders out of the house. “Where are they?!” Bonnie shouts again, the mayor points shakily towards the back corner of his room. “The top drawer has a false bottom the files are in there.” He says, Bonnie lowers her gun and drops the fat old man to the floor. Her only error in judgment is that she turns her back on Allen, who pulls a thirty eight police special from his waist band, as he takes aim I fire a single warning shot right by his head. He drops the gun with a shout of fear and then looks at me. Bonnie appears in the door way with a mass stack of files all marked with Devon’s name on the front and marked Forgotten which is hardly the truth at this point.

“How long to the Alabama border?” Bonnie asks precisely as she gets to my side. “About an hour at normal drive time if we continue down one twenty nine.” I reply following her down the stairs, way off in the distance I can hear the police sirens which means we need to move and move fast. At the bottom of the stairs I start running for the back door with Bonnie right behind me. Outside the back gate both of us are relieved to find that there is no one to hold us up.

“Bonnie, we both know your lead foot is faster, you drive.” I say tossing the keys over to her as we run in perfect sync towards her car. Once were both in the car she shoves the files to me, starts the car, and peels out of the parking place cutting off two cars as she makes a U turn in the four way stop intersection.

Just as the police are coming down the off ramp towards the mayor’s house, Bonnie is speeding onto the freeway trying to blend in with the traffic following her. Just to make official her false normalcy she actually uses her blinker when merging into traffic.

The word normal leaves this car the moment we are out of sight of the police, Bonnie shifts it into high gear and we are off and running for the Alabama state limits, which in reality is another four hours away. I said an hour so that the police would think we took the toll booth road buying us a little more getaway time.

“Bonnie?” I call over to her when I realize she’s a little too quiet, even after the roof top heist she asked if I was okay and how bad the bleeding was. Looking to the driver’s seat when I get no reply I see that Bonnie is heavily bleeding from a bullet wound through her arm. “Oh hell, here.” I say to Bonnie handing her my shirt. She takes the offered material silently, while driving with her knee she takes the time to wrap my T shirt around her arm.  I can see that she’s in pain which is probably why she’s so quiet, I’m guessing is she speaks she’ll start screaming like the desperado women back at the Mayors house.

“Bonnie, you need to say something. Are you going into shock or something?” I ask her, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “No, Barrette, look at the first file in the stack.” Bonnie says to me with tears whelming her suddenly shale blue eyes. One glimpse at the first file tells me what has her so silent, she is fighting the urge to double back and shoot Devon, for the fact that the first picture in the file is a picture of Bonnie’s grandfather. The attached paper work reads Murder in the first degree, there is a brief write up below that explaining that Devon Morgan went to visit his fourth great uncle only to be caught by one of nurses pinching the oxygen line, by the time doctors responded her grandfather was gone. According to these medical reports Bonnie’s grandfather, Robert Wesley Parker had almost fully recovered from a nasty fight against stage three lung cancer, he had lost a lung and would be on oxygen tanks for the rest of his life but he was going to live.

“That’s why my Grandma Louise wouldn’t talk about his passing, she knew this whole time and she didn’t tell anyone.” Bonnie says sounding hoarse and sad after her bout with screaming at the mayor. “Bonnie, you know as well as I do that she’d have been killed to if she spoke up.” I remind Bonnie who purses her lips trying to pull herself together and stop crying.

“That son of a bitch is going to pay for this.” Bonnie replies, her foot falls firm to the floor, the only thing separating the sole of her shoe and the floor, is the gas pedal. The mustang picks up speed, Bonnie once more resumes to weaving through traffic only with more finesse than normal I guess she’s like me. When she’s upset she just needs to ride, be it a motorcycle or a car, she has to drive fast.

“He’ll pay for what he’s done. I’ve got this all in the works darlin.” I say to her, when I know there is nothing more either of us can say I do what is best for her and turn the radio up. It’s already tuned into the rock station; strange enough their playing Lana Del Rey’s number one hit Burning Desire. For some reason the song brings Bonnie back to a more peaceful mind frame, as peaceful as one can be when they just found their grandfather was murdered by their cousin, that is.

 

Chapter 8

On the Run chapter 8

Violence isn’t the answer

Barrette’s perspective

It was a long day yesterday, Bonnie and I had managed to obtain the files from Allen Warner, on a down side by the time we got through traffic and across state lines the police had been notified to look for us. Thankfully Bonnie and I had switched seats by that point because she was already far too exhausted to outwit and out drive the state troopers that were after us.

Thankfully, somehow by the grace of God we managed to escape and ended up at this tiny long since forgotten hotel somewhere between the Alabama border and Montgomery. Bonnie ended up having me stitch up her arm from the gun shot because she couldn’t do it herself. In total she’s not really appearing all that bothered, something tells me it’s not the first time she’s been shot.

“Is it morning already?” Bonnie groans walking from the bedroom, I look at her to see she’s already dressed and ready to go. Today’s outfit is a bit more bizarre than most of the other outfits she has put together recently. Today is an unusually hot day and Bonnie is making it known that she isn’t happy about the weather. She is wearing a pair of black form fitting jogging shorts, with a cut off AC/DC t shirt for a top. That really isn’t the bizarre garment