Brain Worms Read online

  Chapter 8

  The snowbirds had just started to arrive in Bullhead City, so the parking lot for the Wal-Mart store was pretty empty. A young man was walking toward the entrance rubbing his temples; he was wearing a dark jacket despite the warm temperatures. An elderly lady began backing her car out of the parking space and did not see the man behind her. The car was moving slowly enough that anyone should have been able to avoid it. The young man wasn't paying attention though. In slow motion the rear fender struck the man and knocked him down. His head struck the bumper of the pickup truck next to him. The woman stopped her car and got out to see what had happened. The young man was sitting on the ground and appeared dazed. She asked him, "Are you all right?"

  His accent was so thick she was not able to understand him at first and repeated her question. This time he shouted, "I'm all right! Leave me alone."

  His anger frightened the woman and she returned to her car not sure what to do next. Her fear increased dramatically when the young man got up and began kicking her car. She locked her doors and started the car. This seemed to enrage him even more and he kicked in one of her back windows. She shifted the car to drive and started to pull away. Suddenly the man was standing on her hood and kicking in her windshield. The windshield crystallized and she could no longer see forward. She tried to drive anyway and struck another car parked in the lot. The man was now screaming at her in a foreign language. She panicked and shifted the car into reverse. She stepped on the accelerator. Rearward motion caused the man to fall from her hood, but she struck another car and was stopped again. Her anxiety increased.

  A few people had already gathered and a retired military officer stepped forward to try and control the situation. He approached the young man saying, "Settle down."

  The young man was already in a full rage. Screaming, he spun toward the man and planted a karate kick into his upper abdomen. He followed with an elbow to the man's temple, crushing his skull. He turned from his lethal attack and again charged the car. The woman inside screamed for help. People grabbed their cell phones to call the police. No one dared approach the young man.

  After he had destroyed all the windows in the car he opened the door and dragged the woman out. He threw her to the ground and got in the car. He started ramming the car behind it and in front of it. The woman tried to escape by crawling, but the rear wheels crushed her legs before she could get away. Everyone was running away! The enraged driver continued to batter all the cars in the parking lot until his weapon would barely move. He then pointed the car toward the store. Its front wheels would barely turn because of sheet metal rubbing against the tires. He floored the accelerator. The rear wheels screeched against the pavement as the car moved toward the store’s glass entryway. The store manager was standing in the doorway but fled as he saw the car approaching. It crashed through the safety glass. The turnstiles had enough strength to stop the vehicle.

  The man tried to open the door but it was jammed. He climbed out the window, still screaming in a foreign language. He knocked over everything in his path as he made his way toward the sporting goods department. Sirens were filling the air as the police arrived.

  As he made his way toward the gun rack, everyone fled the store. When he reached the gun rack and found it was locked, he picked up a baseball bat and began breaking everything in sight. He repeatedly struck the lock securing the shotguns in the rack, but the lock held. He turned his attention back to the glass counter tops. The safety glass was tough and did not break under his battering. He moved to the tool section and picked up a sledgehammer. A single blow was enough to shatter the safety glass. He picked through the pistols but realized they were all air pistols. He used the sledgehammer on the lock securing the shotguns. The lock finally gave way and he grabbed a 12 gauge Remington. Shotgun shells were sitting on the counter, and he began loading the shotgun as the police entered the store.

  Noticing movement, he began shooting across the store. He emptied the shotgun, shooting at the lights and any movement. He reloaded the first shotgun and grabbed another to load also. He kept shooting one shotgun until it was empty, and with the second ready would reload the first. Any movement or light reflection would draw his attention. He had thousands of shotgun shells and was protected behind the heavy cabinet.

  Bullhead City was a quiet town and the police were not used to doing much more than dealing with traffic violations or the occasional drunk. Even domestic disputes were relatively rare in this retirement community. Now their entire on-duty police force, which consisted of two young officers who had never fired weapons at another human being, were trying to control the situation. The police chief was off-duty and somewhere on the Colorado River fishing. The officers made frantic calls to the state troopers but they were in an isolated corner of the state and help would be a while arriving. Loughlin, across the state line in Nevada, had a little larger police force but no legal status in Arizona. They asked for help anyway.

  It seemed as if they had reached a standoff. The gunman was staying behind the counter firing a shotgun repeatedly and destroying the store. As long as they could keep him in the store help would arrive eventually. They would occasionally take a shot in his general direction just to keep him pinned down. The walls all around them were peppered with shotgun pellets. A crowd was gathering in the parking lot and the police wanted to disperse them, but there was no one available to do it.

  The random shooting stopped and the young officers peeked around their cover. Suddenly the young man began running toward the exit with a shotgun in each hand, like a movie character. The closest officer yelled a warning to stop and was rewarded with a shotgun blast that blew his hat off. The second officer took aim and fired his 9 mm Lugar. He thought he hit the gunman, but a shotgun blast forced him to duck as well. The first officer peeked above his cover and began firing but was forced back down again by the shotgun blast. The gunman was now backing through the doorway, occasionally firing one of the shotguns.

  Suddenly, the gunman just fell to the ground. One of the young policemen started toward the door saying, "He's down."

  The policeman who had lost his hat responded, "Are you sure?"

  Cautiously, the first officer approached the gunman. He still clutched one of the shotguns while lying on his back thrashing violently. His hand holding the shotgun was already bloodied from striking the concrete sidewalk and there was a thumping sound as the gunman's head struck the concrete during his convulsions. The policeman approached warily and tried grabbing the shotgun from his hand. Only after he had forcefully pried open the man’s fingers, already contracted in a death-like grip, was he able to take the gun.

  It took a moment for the police to convert from their attack mode to a first aid mode and try to protect the man's head from the concrete. He was now foaming at the mouth and his tongue was bleeding and blackened from having been clinched between his teeth. More sirens could be heard arriving. They were having little success at protecting the man's head from striking the concrete because his convulsions were so forceful. Then the convulsions stopped. The policemen relaxed for a few seconds until they realized the gunman had stopped breathing, too. An ambulance arrived and the officers were relieved to transfer CPR care to the Medic. The man had no pulse and they were unable to pry his mouth open to insert an airway. He was dead.