Cacophony [ONC 2023]

5

The man's bullet ripped across Cas' arm, but her aim proved far more accurate, thudding into the man's face and he dropped like a stone, his gun clattering away from unfeeling fingers. Before Henna knew what she was doing, she ran across, picking up the pistol without a care that a man had died. Guns had become a rarity since the world had fallen apart, bullets even more so. She dropped the magazine, counting an almost full clip and turned to see Cas, pointing her gun right at her.

Cas shouted something, muffled by Henna's ear protection, but Henna knew a warning when she saw it. She dived to the side, falling to the surface of the road, right next to the body of the man as bullets tore up the tarmac where she had stood. The man's body shuddered as more bullets pounded onto his back, his unseeing eyes open and staring at Henna.

The automatic gunfire came to an abrupt end and Henna chanced a look over the top of the body to see a woman racing away, toward a building, hammering a fresh clip into her assault rifle. Cas must have fired back, but with so few bullets, she couldn't waste any of them. Henna felt a hand grab the collar of her biker's jacket, dragging her to her feet and toward another abandoned car.

Almost as soon as they reached it, more bullets raked into the rusted, dented metal of the vehicle and Cas pressed her hand against Henna's chest, holding her down. Again the gunfire stopped and Cas jumped to her feet, aiming and firing in one, smooth movement. She only fired once, however, the carriage of the pistol stuck open as the last casing tumbled and fell to the ground.

"How good a shot are you?" Cas pressed her face close to Henna's ear defenders, shouting through the protection. "Doesn't matter. When I move, you wait and then take the shot. You take this bitch down before she kills us, okay?"

Henna nodded. She didn't like the idea of Cas using herself as a target, but they had little option. The woman appeared to have enough ammunition for that rifle that she didn't care how much she wasted, firing on full-automatic. Henna passed Cas the man's pistol she had picked up, giving Cas a thumbs-up, telling her she was ready, as ready as she could be, and Cas nodded, pressing herself against the body of the car, waiting for the suppressing fire to end.

As soon as it did, Cas jumped to her feet once more, running at speed to another car, twenty feet away. She didn't fire anywhere near as haphazard as the woman, trying to make every shot count and their ad hoc plan worked. Henna saw bullets cutting into the road, ricochetting away, pinging from the surface of the car as Cas ran a zigzag path to the other car. Before the gunfire stopped again, Henna rose to her feet, took her bearings and fired two shots.

One shot she used to sight up, the second to hit the woman in the leg. She spun to the side, her back hitting the nearby wall, but that didn't keep her down for long, she drew up the muzzle of the rifle, aiming at Henna, ready to tear Henna apart, only for another shot, from off to the side, catch the woman in the chest. She fell back against the wall, staring down at the blood pouring out of her body, the rifle tilting then falling from her fingers.

Cas took cautious, but fast steps toward the woman, kicking the rifle away from her twitching fingers, keeping her pistol trained on the woman's face. A face that looked up to Cas, her lips moving. Henna had learned a lot since the screaming began and learning to read lips had become a necessity.

"Kill me, please." As Henna moved out from behind the car, holding her pistol ready, the woman repeated her words, tears falling down her cheeks. "Kill me, please."

Cas had no intention of wasting a bullet on the woman. Instead, holding the gun steady with one hand, she rifled through the woman's clothing with the other, her eyes never leaving the pleading, dying woman's face. She tossed two more magazines for the rifle to the side. A pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Dressings and two tins of some kind, the labels missing.