Chapter 5

The explosion that came out of nowhere, took out not only the double doors of our suite, but a significant portion of the wall on either side of the frame. The room was alive with flying debris, gunfire and lots of shouting. I was off to the side and Evie and Deirdre were in one of the other two bedrooms. Because they were not with me in the living room, or in the master bedroom, they were spared being shredded by the flying projectiles, which all went towards the common wall that faced the explosion.

I couldn’t see, or hear our bodyguards. The smoke and drywall dust clouded the air, but our side should have put in an appearance by the time the dust started to settle.

And they didn’t ... which meant that they were probably dead.

Once our attackers – there were four of them as far as I could see - started to come through the ruined entryway, I had targets and did not hesitate to shoot. Return fire was not in their playbook, and the surprise that accompanied exploding skulls and flying blood caused just enough of a delay to give me a chance to even the odds.

Fortunately one of the shooters died hurling his injured body into the room, which caused him to lose his grip on the automatic shotgun he was carrying. He also had a bandolier of shotgun shells hanging from a shoulder, which I liberated preparatory to making excellent use of his choice in firearms.

Two shooters managed to spring over the sudden clot of dead ones, in the newly made opening. One died trying to clear the room by spraying left to right with an automatic rifle. I wasn’t given a chance to think, look, study the situation, or call out for help. I saw, fired, and fired again, to make sure.

When my hammer clicked on an empty magazine, I switched to the shotgun and took out the second killer, who used the body of his partner to avoid getting dead long enough to shoot me in the abdomen and shoulder.

We had fired simultaneously, but the shotgun made a spectacularly bigger hole in him, than his handgun round made in me.

It still hurt. Oh did it hurt...

The pain replaced the shooting for me. Even as I tried to remain upright and protect Deirdre and Evie, the excruciating pain was putting me down. The sudden silence was a wonderful interlude, but I had to remain conscious until help arrived, or all three of us would be dead when they finally did.

After several seconds of silence, I heard the sound of someone dragging something along the corridor outside the room. If it was one of ours, I needed to go help. If it was one of theirs’ he needed assistance meeting the devil.

The effort required to move from the floor to the hallway was almost more than my body could stand, but I made it, and saw our team leader, bloody and it looked like the kind of gunshot wound that ended with the victim dying. He was hit somewhere high up in the chest. Even horribly injured, the only thing on his mind was to try and come help us. That guy was a real man.

I stumbled to him, moved his hand off the bloody mess, and used my own to apply pressure to his gaping wound. Whatever they had been using went right through his vest. He was holding on, but only barely. He was talking so fast I couldn’t understand a word he said, but eventually he spoke clearly enough for me to hear that the police had been notified were on the way.

That was my signal to toss the shotgun aside and try to look helpless and pathetic, which was a look I’d pretty much perfected in my time as Ross and Terry. With little to do but hold pressure against his chest, I tried to remain conscious until help finally arrived.

As the seconds and minutes ticked away, Evie and Deirdre hollered from behind the locked bedroom doors. I yelled back, as much as I could for them to stay down and keep the door locked. My bodyguard hung on to life and we remained locked in our tableau until the elevator and stairwells doors flew open and cops poured out into the hallway on both sides of us.

The first man through took over for me and gently helped Gavin with his sucking chest wound. The second one through ran around trying to clear the scene. The third officer was a she, and she knelt beside me and tried to get me to talk. Breathing had become almost more than I could bear. Talking was out of my league. Soon she realized the effort it was taking for me to remain awake, and held me until Deirdre and Evie converged on me and crowded down beside her, to comfort me until the ambulance arrived.

They had no more luck getting me to talk than the officer, but they stayed right with me, kneeling in the blood and gore. Neither woman left me for a second until the medical people hauled me and Gavin away. Then, Deirdre was on the phone with Mr. Wellington, and Evie was talking to George as the paramedics rolled me out and away.

I remember being in the ambulance and hearing the paramedic trying to communicate with me. It was a lost cause. Either my hearing was damaged again, or my body was too traumatized for my brain to be capable of processing aural communication. I was caught, once more, in a cocoon of silence, unable to participate with the people trying to save me.

The ride to the local hospital was mercifully short, and I know I saw a doctor approach. By the time he tried to ask me some questions I was fading away, and the last thing I remember was seeing a hypodermic needle. I was out before he used it, though.

Sometime after I passed out my brain began to inventory my life after usurping Ross’ body. My dreams were like a ghastly, ghostly replay of the lowlights of the people, places and things that hurt, scared, or damaged me as I tried to live as Ross, and then Terry.

The flashes of insight gained through reliving all of those events were entertaining, if not pleasant. Scenes rushed across my mental movie screen, filing me with fear, pain, and sorrow.

I HATED the movie of my life as Ross...

... until...

... the moment Hazel killed Ross all over again.

As a viewer, instead of a participant I saw things that slipped by me the first time, in real time. When Hazel dragged Ross from the car and into the grocery store, she looked all around, searching the lot for something, or someone, before committing herself to going in.

She kept looking around until something caught her eye, and then an evil smile overrode her ‘public’ face. Once I understood what she was doing, what happened inside started to make more sense.

Hazel waited for some kind of signal before turning down that particular aisle, and when she did, everything sped up. She seemed to hurry towards the shelf holding the cast iron skillet. When she grabbed it, she turned fully towards the front of the store as if she posing for someone, before swinging it into the side of Ross’ head, obviously killing him and causing me to enter his body.

The universe really did screw up Hazel’s plan by substituting me for Ross when he died. She needed me to die to make the whole snuff film real and realistic. When she saw me, as Ross, lift my head trying to make sense of what was happening as I entered his body, Hazel completely lost her composure, attacking me with a viciousness that didn’t make a bit of sense at the time, but if she was filming her starring role as a psychotic, pedophile, torturing, snuff queen, having Ross fail to die at the appropriate moment really did throw a wrench in the works.