Prompt

The mercedes pulled up beside the bar and the couple stepped out, laughing. The man wore a gold chain and a jersey. The girl was done up fly with a full body and lips. He held her in his arms and she kissed him. Not the kind that anyone, if they lived long enough, would know as fake. Not that contrived giggle or forced smile. It was the way she touched him. The hands. That takes a whole other level to manipulate, and the kind of person it takes to do that is either crazy or manipulative or both. 

Gabrielle knew it. She’d seen it, been there, and lord the world would know one day. When her friends or family came through. When her brother stopped caring about anyone but himself and decided to finally come and help his little sister, alone, an old woman, living on the streets of Chicago. 

The club was a good spot to panhandle. Thursdays were the hot nights for it. Other street folk come out in droves, sure. But Gabrielle, or L as they called her, defended her territory. They didn’t expect a woman to fight the way she did. But she could stand her ground. They didn’t grow up like her and her brother. And sometimes things broke you or made your stronger and well. 

“Made me stronger. I lived,” she said outloud. A couple passed by and L stared them in the eyes, holding her tin mug. They ignored her. 

“I’ve seen it, the star in the sky black as night and burning flames. Carcarocalee. Carcarocaloo. Carca.” 

A quarter fell into her cup and she thanked them, keeping her eyes on the new car that pulled up to the club. The men stepped out, faces covered in masks, pistols at the ready. They stepped inside and the gunfire began. Through the screaming and running, L had the strangest notion. 

“I should go in there.”

The Story Continues..

Gabrielle’s senile mind convinced her to take the first few steps to her demise. She agreed with herself, “I should definitely, go in there.” 

“Where are you going, L?” The man sitting next to her asked. 

“Since when has it become your business?” L was curt. 

The bouncers at the entrance looked menacing and surely in no mood to let a lady like L get anywhere near. Fortunately for her, the bouncers were busy sinking their lifeless nose in their own pool of blood. 

The gun fires continued to rage, coordinating to a symphony with L’s heart-beat and trembling hands; L wasn’t sure the trembling was due to fear or age. The path was laden with dead bodies and in a way, helping her trace the gunmen. “Just follow the dead bodies, Gabrielle,” she told herself. 

It wasn’t long before the gunfire stopped.

“Everyone must be dead,” L said and realized how loud she was. The club was a sight of a bad omen. Band members’ bodies’ lying on the stage, guests strewn all across the room, the smell of blood mixed with a cocktail of alcohol and costly perfume, cold air from the air-conditioner contrasting the warm blood on the floor, was something L wasn’t going to forget too soon. 

“Where are you, dirtbags?” L was trying to find the gunmen. Just then muffled voices came from across the room. L moved with a new vigour towards the room and then she saw them. 

“Hurry, hurry, the cops will be here in ten,” One of the four gunmen said.

“Don’t worry. I will finish in two,” L said. 

“What the?” One of the gunmen stopped short of pulling the trigger. “Ahahah, what are you looking for? Alms, grandma?” 

The other gunmen laughed. One of them, however, was visibly shivering. “Shouldn’t we get rid of her?”  

L thought it must have been his first time.  

“Are you crazy? What harm can she do? Besides, who is going to believe her even if she told someone? Here oldie,” the gunman threw a pack of hundred dollar bills at her, “that should take care of you for a while.”  

“Very kind of you, sir but I need something more,” L said. 

“What?” The masked gunman was certainly not amused. “You take that and go, or I will do what my buddy here asked me to do – dispose of you,” the guy was holding the gun at her. However, at the blink of an eye, L punched through his stomach, and the other gunmen saw her bloodied fist come out of his back. 

“Actually, I hunger for crooked scums like you. I get such a treat only once a year. I can’t miss it.”  

The other fellow beggar of L heard more gunshots, and then all went silent; this time, it was for good.

Epilogue

“Know what, the cops couldn’t find the gunmen that we saw yesterday,” the other beggar told L. Only one was found, but he had lost his mind. No one knows what happened there.” 

L wasn’t interested in the conversation. 

“Didn’t you also go in, yesterday?” the other beggar asked.