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The elevator had stopped but felt as if it were repeatedly lurching to a standstill. Beth reached out to the receptionist’s body where it leant against the buttons. Her fingers tentatively touched a tanned bare shoulder. It was warm but she knew there would be no response. As if to confirm this, the receptionist’s head slid sideways and thudded heavily against the cubicle wall.
The doors had opened into an empty lobby but Beth couldn’t leave her like this.
She was dead, though, and there was nothing more the gunman could do to her. It was Beth he was after, and he was probably descending the last flight of steps.
She scrambled to the sliding lobby doors and waited in front of them as they glided sluggishly open. Her bare feet sprinted across the small faux-cobbled courtyard until Beth found herself standing on the warm concrete of the boulevard. It was still dark, and sporadic traffic zipped by.
Walking to the edge of the sidewalk, she was about to make a dash to the other side when she saw a line of three cabs, two yellow and one blue, moving in a group towards her. It was too good to be true. Beth waved her arms frantically, her robe lifting up her body with the action. She didn’t care what she was exposing.
The front yellow transit slowed, so the others had to as well. Beth continued to wildly signal and heard her own cries for help as she discerned the bemused driver’s face through the glass.
He seemed to have made his mind up about the manic spectre trying to hail his vehicle and accelerated away. The yellow taxi behind him followed suit, but the blue sedan slid over to her.
Beth turned back to the hotel and saw the gunman appearing through the sliding doors. Her hand scrabbled and found the handle of the back seat door and quickly yanked it open. She backed herself into the smell of citrus air freshener and the sound of Johnny Tillotson singing “Poetry In Motion”.
The gunman’s arm lifted like a lever from his side and trained the gun on Beth as he continued striding steadily towards her. Surely he wouldn’t try to shoot her out here, on a public street. She quickly slammed the car door shut behind her, and its glass evaporated.
Beth was on her back, shards raining over her. She hadn’t even heard the shot. The cab was still motionless, and over the sound of the settling fragments she could hear his footsteps.
“Drive. Fucking drive!”
The engine gunned and the vehicle slid her hard against the back seat as it took off. She stayed where she was, spine flat to the leather and the soles of her feet against the door. Wind rushed over her, and she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, urging the taxi to find an extra gear.
But as a second shower of glass sprinkled her face, the engine suddenly slowed and the cab struck something solid. The impact rolled Beth off the seat, a family’s smiles enlarging as her face rammed an ad for Six Flags Magic Mountain on the back of the front seat.
The vehicle settled, but over her jaw singing she could now hear police sirens. How much distance had they put between themselves and the gunman? It couldn’t even have been a hundred feet.
Then she registered the side driver’s window was missing as well. The cabby’s head was no longer skull-shaped; one half of it had been blown out, flaps of his skin and bone opened like petals. His blood was sprayed over the front window. It was all over her as well.
She clamped a hand over her mouth and turned away, her eye line just above the back seat and looking down the boulevard. Cars were surging quickly past and she could see why. He was walking down the sidewalk, his gun arm still rigid.
Beth ducked just as the back windshield erupted over her.
She shook the glass off her head and knew she couldn’t stay in the cab. Looking out of the space where the side window used to be, she saw the sedan was skewed against a concrete bench. If there had been any pedestrians nearby, there weren’t now.
Beth was alone and had to get out of the car. Her fingers trembled against the handle, but the right door wouldn’t open. Maybe the impact had warped the frame?
She was at the roadside again. Would she make it out of a second wreck?
Beth prayed there wasn’t some sort of lock mechanism that was controlled by the driver, and slid quickly over the prickles of broken glass to the other door. She yanked the handle and slammed her shoulder against it for good measure.
The breath was forced from Beth as she dropped harshly onto the road, car tyres screeching as they swerved around her. Nobody was going to stop. Using the blue taxi to shield herself, she looked back towards the gunman. He was about twenty yards away and closing. Tillotson continued obliviously.
She could either try and negotiate the moving traffic and risk him shooting her in the back, or attempt to cross the sidewalk in front of him and head through the double doors of Pageant Kids. There were lights on and she could see a squat man with his back to her vacuuming the dirty yellow aisle carpet between the rows of children’s wear.
She knew she stood more chance there than dodging cars and bullets. Beth ducked and circled around to the front of the cab, concealing herself at the side of the concrete bench. The closer he got, the easier it would be to catch her at the doors. She took one breath and then sprinted across the sidewalk and started banging on the entrance with her fists.
Now she could see the vacuuming man clearly through the glass, she realised he had a pair of earphones on. She beat it harder; feeling her bones bashing the pane and hoping it would break.
She didn’t dare turn around. The gunman knew she was here. He was closing on her, could be running by now. She had a matter of seconds.
Beth could hear her voice shredding in her throat as she screamed at the man inside. “Turn around! Turn around!”
