Divine Retribution

Boris was the first to realise all was not well. As they piled into the street with the bags, he was the first to notice the battered Mercedes parked opposite with its hazard lights flashing and the guy under the hood more interested in what was going on either side of him than what he was trying to fix.

He looked at Slasher and nodded towards the car. And for a split second, Slasher wasn’t sure whether to dart back into the Post Office or make a run for it. He was paralysed with panic. He’d seen this before and his mind started to work on yet another level, trying to remember where he’d witnessed a hit like it before. And all of a sudden that was it; he knew it was a hit. The man pulled away from the bonnet with an automatic weapon held at waist height. He looked at the three of them looking at him and squeezed the trigger.

Bullets started felling people and it was a few seconds before they realised what was going on and the panic set in. Firstly the screams as people started falling and writhing on the pavement, then cars skidding and hitting each other as one driver was hit in the head and blood and brains covered the windscreen and windows. Then the scatter as women and men and children tried to escape the onslaught. It was carnage.

And as quickly as it had begun, it was over when a driver drove straight at the assassin who was too busy killing to see what was about to happen to him. The deafening thud as the car hit and in what seemed like slow motion he was up in the air where he and his weapon parted company and he somersaulted before crashing to the floor like a bag of bones. Della, Slasher and Boris were still rooted to the spot. They hadn’t moved an inch. Della and Slasher smiled bleakly at each other – a sort of unspoken relief that they had survived and transferred the smile in Boris’ direction. He smiled and Della knew immediately there was something terribly wrong. His teeth were outlined in blood and then crimson froth started to escape out of the sides of his mouth and nose. Della knew he’d been shot in the chest.