{fon:homFF0000}
Summer Holidays
{fon:tri}
              
  The room was small and cramped, but the view was perfect. From the
room's single open window you could see the high street with its shops
and crowds spreading into near infinity. The bright summer sun shone
down. He walked into the room through the open door and looked
around. It was empty apart from a wardrobe and a chair. Sunshine came
in through the window, heating the bare floor boards and illuminating
the room. The dust that his footsteps had kicked up bathed in the
yellow beam. The scene was a contradiction in itself. The beauty of
that golden shaft of light and the sounds of the people outside
provided stark contrast to the dilapidation of the room he stood in.
He sighed, took off his jacket and placed the large bag that he had
been carrying in the floor in front of the chair, disturbing even
more dust. He sat heavily on the chair and opened the bag. Inside was
a Desert Eagle large calibre pistol, an Ingram sub-machine gun, a
sawn-off pump action shot gun (an English version that only held
three rounds) and many cases of ammunition; Bullets and shotgun
shells of various sizes. He stood again, put the chair and the bag by
the window, laying the weapons down by the side of the chair and went
over to the cupboard. He opened it to reveal his crowning glory, A
high-calibre rifle with silencer, scope and laser-sight. By its side
was a box of hollow-point bullets. He laid it down next to the other
guns and sat down again, the window in front, the weapons below.

  After a quiet moment of reflection he loaded the rifle,
deliberately taking his time, enjoying the process. Savouring it. He
had made it into a ritual.

  He got himself comfortable by wriggling around in the chair, picked
up the rifle and aimed it out of the window. Through the scope he
could pick out individual members of the previously amorphous shape
of the crowd. A man dressed in biker leathers with shoulder length
hair emerged from Woolworth's with a small box of chocolates. He
walked casually towards a large motorcycle, he was in his sights the
whole time. He squeezed the trigger gently. There was a swift "phut!"
and a large section of the man's skull simply disintegrated. The
woman behind him looked down to see her pretty white blouse
splattered with a deep scarlet mix of blood and brain. The biker
collapsed and continued to decorate the pavement with shredded brain
tissue and a large helping of unusually thick blood. The
Gore-spattered woman was the next to die via a single silenced shot
that passed straight through her chest and smashed the window behind
her. He smiled broadly and readjusted the rifle's position against
his shoulder. The crowd's reaction was as uniform as he had expected;
There was confusion, a moment of stunned silence, then blind panic.
It was amazing. He got back to work. People were going crazy, running
this way and that, tripping of each other, desperate to make it to
cover. No one looked up. Shots rained down on the crowd as it tripped
over itself in waves, becoming an amorphous mass again in its fear.
Here and there appeared large red explosions, heralded by the little
"phut!" sounds. The sun shone down on all of this, completely
oblivious. Few that he hit were afforded the luxury of being merely
wounded, and were ignored by most of the healthy, who were trying to
get into the shops which were already jammed with desperate,
thrashing people. Sirens...The pigs were coming. He was doing well
but it was time to go. When the police arrived he had everything
concealed in holsters except the rifle, which he had placed with the
bag in the wardrobe. He shut the door behind him when he left. At
street level he got a good idea of how well he had done. At least
twenty corpses and a few of the wounded lay on the street adding
their congealing plasma to the pavement and gutter. No one had 
worked out where the bullets had come from, the crowd had totally
dispersed. Some were speaking to a small number of armed police who
were interrogating someone with a wounded arm, an ambulance had not
arrived yet. The blooded desolation spread before him. He walked
silently passed the police, who hadn't noticed him. Once he was a few
metres behind them he turned to look at them. They were in a tight
group with their backs to him. He quietly pulled out the Ingram.
There was a roar of gunfire and they all  collapsed into little
bloodied red and black heaps. He walked away free, unidentified and
feeling whole a lot better. One month later he did it again a few
miles away; From the roof of a DIY store in some cultural wasteland.
He got away then, too.  

{spr:l07}
{end}
