The December Hunt (Work in Progress)

Part 1: The Wedding (v 1.6)

I'm getting too old for this kind of stunt, the man thought to himself as he pulled into the sun-baked church parking lot. He shifted into park and took the keys out of the ignition. Stepping out of the black Lexus sedan, the man pulled down the coat-tails of his tuxedo jacket to straighten out the wrinkles. He looked over to the south end of the church. The church itself was a homely piece of architecture, with solid oak doors set into a clean marble frame in the front. A snappily-dressed usher was standing by the door, with a guestbook laid open on a table in front of him. The man met the usher's gaze, and they exchanged smiles and friendly nods. The tuxedo man stepped over to the church's west end, away from the usher's line of sight, and pulled at the side door leading to the kitchen. It was locked. He was not expecting that, but was also not wholly unfamiliar with the situation he had found himself in. Life is filled not with dead ends, but merely speed bumps, he said to himself. He took four steps back, gauged the approximate height of the deadbolt lock, and sprinted towards the door, launching the sole of his foot into it and breaking open the lock.

Over in the south end, the oak church doors opened into a well-lit foyer, which, in turn, led into a scenic view of a large crowd. The bride's side was on the left, and the groom's side was on the right. The flower girls had left a trail of rose petals on the floor. The crowd stood watching. Rick, a middle-aged detective, held his daughter's hand in the crook of his elbow as he walked the woman of the hour, the beautiful bride, down towards her future. He had hoped this day would be a memorable one. Unfortunately, he was right.

Kane, the tuxedo-clad Lexus driver and Rick's former partner in the police force, was neither looking at the bride nor her father. Instead, he was looking down the barrel of his gun from the side entrance of the church. Rick and his daughter had walked north towards the altar; Kane had stood in the doorway directly west of the groom. He knew that when the bride walks in, no one watches the side doors. Certainly not the groom.

He lined up his front and back sights on his government-issue revolver and pulled the trigger. The explosion brought an abrupt halt to the organ music, the bullet lodged in the groom's shoulder, and the groom went down. The crowd was stunned. Kane walked in to finish off the job, but the bride instinctively stepped in front of Kane, blocking his way. Before anyone could grab the gun, Kane fired again, and the bride, too, went down.

People screamed and ran for the doors. Kane fired twice more into the groom, causing the crowd to duck, their hands instinctively jerking up to the sides of their heads. Rick was standing between his now-dead son-in-law and Kane's gun barrel. Rick knew the revolver well, and he knew that it only held six cartridges at a time. Four shots had been fired, so Kane still had the upper hand.

Amidst the screaming, Kane lifted the gun once more and aimed it at Rick. Before he could fire, Rick's left hand swung up from below and shoved the gun upward, causing the revolver to fire into the wooden church rafters. With his right hand, Rick brought in a swift uppercut to Kane's stomach, and Kane's knees gave out. Before Rick could take the gun, the wood chips blasted off the rafters rained down on Rick's face, and he flinched. Kane dropped the gun out of his right hand and caught it with his left, and he fired his last shot into Rick's foot.

Rick cried out in pain and dropped Kane's right hand, which Kane immediately brought around for a haymaker. Unfortunately for Rick, Kane had been a boxer in his college days, and not the kind that waited for the other guy to recover. Rick's vision went black, and he dropped to the floor. By now the church had emptied itself, and Kane holstered the gun in the back of his pants and pulled his jacket over it, snapping the coat-tails down to remove the wrinkles. He stepped out to the west entrance, took long, brisk strides to his Lexus, opened the driver's door, and climbed in. The engine roared to life, and 10 minutes later Kane was on the 280 going north, with the wind coming in from the sea and the afternoon sun shining down from the west. The radio was announcing breaking news about an "incident" that had occurred at Northshore Methodist Church a few minutes ago. He switched the radio to an 80's pop music station, singing along to an old song he half-remembered from his younger days as he drove.