Black Friday

  Black Friday
 
  A
  Short Story
  By
  B Y Rogers
 
Copyright 2012
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    http://byrogers.blogspot.com
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    Cover Design by
    Todd Hebertson
       
Black Friday
 
  November 23, 2012
  Midnight
 
  He parked the used Chevrolet Colorado precisely where he had been told, near the street, with the bed of the truck pointing towards the curb. There was a large, narrow cardboard box strapped in the bed of the small truck, about the size and shape of a bicycle box. The young man tried to move the box when he had gotten out of the vehicle, testing its weight, curious about its contents but it wouldn't budge. He was told not to touch it, so he didn't press his luck. He checked the time on his cell phone then grabbed the backpack from the passenger seat as quick as he could. The truck keys at the bottom of his pocket jingling like tiny Christmas bells as he walked across the parking lot toward the megastore. He wore a dirty, faded Red Sox baseball cap underneath his unwashed gray hoodie that he left unzipped around his torso. He quickly moved toward the store, weaving his way between other doomed shoppers who were rushing in the same direction.
  "There he is."
  "I see him. So far so good."
  The short, skinny, white kid really wasn't much more than a child in a seventeen-year-old body but his heart and mind raged with an uncontrollable anger. It had burned for most of a decade. Yet, if you were to ask him, he would tell you he was smart, smarter than most kids his age. And tonight he was feeling smart, very smart indeed. His handlers had told him many times over the past few weeks they had great plans for him. They had played on his ego, telling him how much he was needed. They had fed him pizza and beer, gave him cigarettes and a new game console along with some cash to buy his favorite games, all the while reassuring him that he and he alone possessed the skills, the brains and the courage, to do what needed to be done. They promised him that one day he would be a great leader in the new world army, with soldiers of his own to command. But first there was this mission, this very, very important mission.
  He hadn't felt this wanted in his entire life, not in the endless string of foster homes that had held him captive for as long as he could remember. Not even his adoptive, materialistic parents and their worthless, spoiled brats they were selfishly proud of. Nothing and no one had ever made him feel the way he was feeling except the men who had found him just a few weeks ago. They told him that very soon all of America would know his name. He believed them.
  "I can't see the backpack, my angle isn't right," the less experienced handler said from behind the steering wheel.
  "He's carrying it, low, in his left hand, just as he was told." The older of the two handlers was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. He kept his night vision binoculars on the young man with the pimpled face until he disappeared inside the store across the four-lane street. It was just a few minutes after midnight.
  A huge clot of people were serried together next to the rows of shopping carts, making the boy's progress to the drop point seemingly impossible. Not twenty feet in front of him, two stacks of large, gaily-wrapped boxes rose nearly ten feet from the floor. Two long tables had been set up between the cardboard pillars, where a heaving mound of candy was displayed. The entire affair intruded into the entryway, narrowing the access into the store. To complicate the scene, over a dozen sugar starved, border line obese customers were ransacking the treasure, pushing and shoving each other aside with reckless abandon. The sale hadn't been on for ten minutes and he has seen enough.
  "He's inside. What time is it?"
  "Eight minutes after."
  The teenager had been told precisely what his purpose was, what to do and how much time he had to accomplish it. There was no margin of error if he wanted to escape, if he wanted to live to fight another, if he wanted to live his dream. There could be no delay.
  He reached out with his free hand, knifing his way through the mass of humanity colliding from all directions while clutching the heavy backpack close to his chest with his left arm. It was bulky with all of the weight at the bottom but easy to grasp. He was careful with it. He knew its contents. He fought his way around the confection mob to find hundreds of early bird patrons jostling their shopping carts against each other, searching for the quickest, shortest route to the checkout. They seemed to constantly change lanes as carelessly as they did on the freeways during rush hour every Friday evening.
  He pulled his hood tight around his ball cap and walked to the rear of the first row of consumers, hoping to navigate
    around the traffic. But the line, in fact all of the lines bent and curved haphazardly, stretching deeper into the store. He began pushing his way through the sea of shoppers. "Sorry, that's my mom," he said to the nearest person, pointing randomly at a woman a row or two from where he was. He repeated the lie several more times as he inched his way forward, row-by-row. Eventually he was at the middle cash register, next to a small, human sized cooler offering cold soda to the compulsive buyer. He maneuvered a shopper and her cart out of the way, offering his smiling apology once more. When he was behind the woman he claimed to be his mother, he furtively let the backpack slip from his grip to the floor. He slid it with his foot behind the cooler, squeezing it out of sight. In the frenzied atmosphere for unneeded products that they could not afford, no one noticed. Empty handed, he slipped past the woman with a nod and raced to the exit doors on the north side of the building.
  "What time is it?"
  "12:11. He has four minutes."
  "If he doesn't get out now, he is going to be in there when it happens."
  "So long as he is out of the building before I call, everything will be alright. He can be a little late getting to the corner.  In the end, it doesn't matter either way."
  "What does that mean?"
  The older man did not reply.
  A minute later the homegrown terrorist exited the 200,000 square foot store and, as he had been instructed. He sidled along the building until the incoming crowd thinned. When he was near the corner of the building, he picked up his gait and put his hands in his jacket pockets, again as he had been instructed.
  "He's remembering his cues. All clear," said the first handler as he lowered the binoculars to his lap.
  "He'll make it. Patience."
  The anarchists had parked near the back of a plumbing business across the street where their line of sight to the front doors to the superstore was almost perfect. The man in the driver's seat lightly strummed his fingers on his leg, while the other calmly watched the seconds tick away on his cell phone, as if he were listening to the echo his own heartbeat.
  Perhaps a mile or two to the south, near the mall, the night sky suddenly erupted like a fireball, a brilliant yellow orange glow permeating the darkness. The trees and buildings between the explosion and the store were highlighted as the glare rimmed the horizon like a sunset. A millisecond later a shock wave blew across the treetops, rattling windows and shaking the cars in its path. The boy in the gray hoodie barely stopped to look up.
  The calm man in the car, the one in the passenger seat, raised his eyebrows. He looked at his cell phone as it continued to read 12:14, the colon mark between the hour and minutes blinking away the seconds. "Whoever was given that target was a little impatient," he said. "I will have to speak to him later." The man sitting in the driver's seat did not reply. He felt strange but could not figure out why.
  Less than one minute later, at precisely 12:15, the handler pushed the number five in the middle of his dialer. The speed dial took over. It was just a matter of seconds now. The driver licked his lips and looked out the windshield at the store as his fingers clenched the steering wheel.
  The young man was almost speed walking now, wanting to get as far away as he could without being noticed. He kept his head down, ignoring the glowing light in the distance as best he could. He pulled his cell phone out as he rushed along, checking the time. He looked up, to see where he was going, estimating how much time he had. It was down to seconds, if he wasn't late already.
  Far in the distance, police and fire sirens could be heard wailing in the night air, as if to wake the faint, sleeping stars overhead. As several people in the parking lot stopped and turned toward the south, looking at the glowing atmosphere.
  The cell phone hidden in the backpack stuffed behind the cooler inside the discount store received its signal. The altered power supply, enhanced by a nine-volt battery, sent its electricity out, charging into the detonator not two inches away, which was imbedded inside five pounds of plastic explosive.
  The blast shook everything within a half-mile radius of the super store. Cars on the freeway behind the store were shoved into the next lane from the concussion, banging into each other like bumper cars at the amusement park. It was worse in the parking lot, where those parked closest to the store where tossed on top of each other like logs ready to be burned. Trees around the block shivered in the shockwave while windows in the line of fire shattered and disappeared.
  Inside the store, hundreds of greedy, decadent holiday discount hunters had just been hunted. The fireball consumed everyone and everything near the front of the store, carving a large lacuna in the store front, which was then covered by the collapsed ceiling. Those along the far edges inside the store who were not killed, or maimed and burned beyond the ability to move, panicked after being thrust to the floor. Their senses disconnected, primal instinct took over as they clamored for the exits. Inside the store and out in the parking lot, victims scrambled over the dead and dying in whatever direction their blinded eyes led through the burning inventory. Some raced out the back of the store into the narrow shipping dock. Others found their way through the smoking carnage to the front, exiting out the gaping hole where the doors once stood. Wave after wave of the bleeding and burned innocents stumbled, unable to hear, unwilling to speak, barely able to see, their skulls void of rational thought. A lucky few instinctively tried to help those they could, but there were more needing help than there were helpers.
  Thirty minutes earlier, long before the young man or the handlers had arrived, a soon to be retired couple had retired for the night. Black Friday was a baffling event better left to others, they thought. They were long asleep before the superstore began filling up. Had they been awake, and owned an effective set of binoculars, they would have shaken their heads in horror as they watched from the patio deck in their backyard. But they were much too old for such foolishness so they went to bed as they did every night, right after the news, when the sleeping aid began to take effect. As such, they were not awake when their front door was easily compromised shortly before midnight. A very lean, strong middle-aged man entered their home, deftly walked to their bedroom in the dark as if he had been born blind in the same house. He gently put a silent bullet squarely into each of their dreamless heads. By the time both hands on the kitchen clock seemed to be old mating lovers, the killer had taken up his position on the patio, sitting behind his rifle that was mounted on a tripod, the night scope already in place. He was simply waiting for his cue.
  Despite the explosion, the young man didn't stop until he was under the canopy at the gas station, taking up his position exactly as he was told, next to the garbage can by the gas pumps nearest the store, so he could be recognized in his baseball cap and gray hoodie when he was picked up. By now, he could hear sirens all around him. First responders seemed to be coming and going in every direction, their emergency lights crisscrossing like falling stars. He could see the wounded men and women staggering side-to-side, delirious and incoherent, like in the zombie apocalypse games he played endlessly on his game console. It was just as he had imagined.
  The sniper on the deck had taken his position after the explosion, the butt of his rifle snug against his shoulder. Through his scope, he could see a man with a beer belly helping another man. They were attempting to get to the sidewalk, with a befuddled string of humanity struggling to follow, all limping past the Chevrolet Colorado. When he thought they were enough of them near the street, he put the crosshairs of his scope on the cardboard box in the back of a small truck behind them and calmly squeezed the trigger. The bullet passed unheard overhead of the two men, piercing the bicycle box. The old truck exploded in less than a twinkle of an star a thousand light years away. Everybody within thirty feet, including the man who foolishly wanted to help, died in an explosion he never heard nor felt.
  The soon to be Captain in the new world army was leaning against a gas pump, his knees shaking but his heart singing songs of his newfound freedom. He was practically jumping with glee as he surveyed the scene before him. People were screaming in pain as they ran or stumbled away from the store and the burning truck. There was a body lying prone in flames next to the building where he had walked just moments before. He couldn't tell if it was male or female. He smiled. It was only the beginning and he couldn't be happier. He could see himself, years from now in a Colonel's uniform, with many such bombings credited to his name, and countless, unnamed victims virtually writhing in agony on the ground before him. He could smell victory and retribution in the air.
  The police were moving around the parking lot preventing any volunteers from coming to the rescue. The gas stations at both ends of the street were filling up with spectators. The young man standing at the gas station had to fight the urge to move closer to the mayhem, where he could get a better view, perhaps to laugh in their faces. But like the dutiful recruit he was, he stood his post, unable to see as much as he desired because of all the taller gawkers that were now joining him. Frustrated, he chose instead to simply sit on top of the trash bin.
    From his position on the deck, the sniper could count four separate fires spread out before him. Something sparked on his left, catching his attention. He squinted to see flashing emergency lights on top of a moving vehicle, whirling red and blue before fusing into flashing pink blur. He watched a fire engine lean heavily to the right as it careened into the parking lot, jarring itself over the curb. The gunman looked through his scope as the fire truck coasted to a stop. Well-trained firemen scrambled out in various directions, each with their assignments as the engine came within reach of the burning truck. A square jawed muscular looking fireman stepped off the back with a fire hose in hand, dragging his end toward a hydrant. One man, older, taller and leaner than the first, yanked a wrench out of the side panel and rushed to the hydrant as the first secured the hose to the nozzle. As the hose was being attached, he slapped the wrench over the valve and he held his position, ready to release the water. When the hose was fastened, the fireman stood up then promptly collapsed.
  "What was that?"
  "What?" the older man replied. He was looking at his cell phone, getting ready to make another call.
  "Did you see that? Someone shot him... his head..."
  "Shot who?"
  "Look at that fireman," the revolutionary said, pointing out the windshield. "On the ground next to the fire hydrant. I was looking at him when his helmet exploded."
  The older fireman, the one with the wrench, stood dumbfounded before the square jawed fireman who was laying on the ground, his legs were still twitching. Suddenly the taller, leaner fireman's helmet jerked sideways, twisting off and flying away. The front of the man's head seemed to follow.
  "You want to tell me what is going on? I wasn't told about this."
  "Don't concern yourself with it."
  "Does D.C. know?"
  "No. No need to tell them."
  "Did Geneva sanction it?"
  "Geneva is just the money."
  "Zurich?"
  "I would strongly advise you to not concern yourself."
  Frustrated, the junior handler turned back around, looking at the flock of firemen now surrounding their dead comrades. A cop had arrived, carrying a roll of yellow security tape. He looked at the bodies, dropped the tape and put his hand on his gun, slowly pulling it out as he began to look around.
  "Don't move, don't even slump down in your seat," the senior handler said.
  "Stupid," the sniper said.
  As silently as the first two firemen were struck, the policeman's head jerked backwards violently as most of his skull peppered the coats behind him like malevolent gravel. His body fell, striking the nearest fireman in the chest. Panic reigned as the firemen competed for protection behind the fire engine, leaving the three bodies as they were, their life draining out in the dark. One fireman, a military veteran ducked as he ran to the nearest body. He grabbed the back of the man's coat, dragging him toward the fire engine. He never made it.
  Ambulances streamed in from all directions, each taking the shortest, quickest way into the parking lot, oblivious to the secondary event that was unfolding near the fire hydrant. When no progress was made towards suppressing the fire, another policeman began walking towards the fire truck when a 50-caliber bullet struck him, the bullet piercing his vest before splitting his chest. He went down unnoticed. The man on the patio of the now semi-lifeless house four blocks away, blithely continued his hunt, patiently bringing down as many people as he could, all of them falling to the ground, forgotten in the mayhem.
  "Who you calling now?"
  "Is there anything more I haven't been told about?"
  "No. That is all the surprises."
  "You could have told me."
  "Get ready to make your call. Then we are done for the night."
  The second handler tried to calm his growing anxiety. He was not happy that the battle had not unfolded as he had been told. He did not like being uninformed; it made him feel misinformed, like he couldn't be trusted. Annoyed and confused, he hoped his superior in the other seat did not notice his trembling fingers.  He looked at his cell phone, preparing to make his last call. He looked up at the man for permission.
  The terrorist in the passenger seat nodded his head then looked at his own phone. As he pressed the seven key on his dialer, his trainee pressed the four key. Seconds later, two explosions, one at each end of the block, rocked the area as the tiny food mart sandwiched between the surrounding fuel pumps disappeared. Dozens of new victims vanished, including the young hero who was sitting on top of his trash heap, evaporating into the night like a meteor shower. The station on the north, a quarter mile away from the handlers, lost its underground fuel tanks moments later, the concussion from the blast violently tossing the barricades in the street aside.
  The second handler was mesmerized by what he saw while his director was all business. The bystanders who had drifted in front of their car stood on their toes in a terror they would never forget. War had been declared as far as they knew and they were the enemy. It was 9/11, brought home.
  As the man behind the steering wheel strained to see through the audience in front of him, his controller quickly drew his pistol with the silencer attached, out of his shoulder holster beneath his jacket, putting a bullet into the temple of his partner. He let the dead man slump over against the driver side window where he would be found in the morning.
  The mercenary reached up and with the butt of his pistol, smashed the overhead light before carefully, quietly stepping out of the darkened car. No one noticed. He walked around the back of the building and up the slight incline of the hill to where the sniper was waiting. As he did, he pressed the number one key on this phone. It would take more than a few seconds for his call to be answered.
  Six hours and a quarter of the world away, a phone rang on the desk of a man already very much awake despite such an early hour. It was just one of many calls he would receive in a very short period of time.
  "Ja?"
  "B-four. Done."
  "Danke."
 
  At 1 AM, a black semi-tractor with red stripes was pulling a double trailer south on I-95. The trailers were completely filled with the dreams of every boy and girl for the upcoming holiday, all scheduled for delivery in time for Christmas.
  The driver was a divorced man. He had missed Thanksgiving. If you asked him, he would tell you that he didn't mind, he had no family to be with, no wife nor children. He didn't mind working holidays so at least one other driver could be with their family. But he did care. He just wouldn't say so.
  At that moment, being home was far from his mind. Every radio station on the dial was blaring with the same news. All up and down the east coast, a hundred attacks had killed untold thousands of civilians. He couldn't believe it.
  Several minutes later as he plodded along in the night in his truck in a heavily wooded area, another freedom fighter pointed his RPG towards the approaching semi. It was so easy.