Terror

Sweat beaded and ran slowly down the back of Tom’s neck. He had been sitting perfectly still for at least thirty minutes now, on the verge of hysterical tears. Precisely twenty-six minutes ago, the Internet café manager, with her bubblegum clenched between her nicotine-yellowed teeth, had answered the phone on what had been a perfectly normal day. She had drawled a bored greeting into the receiver and Tom hadn’t watched her eyes widen, or heard her voice gain at least two octaves; he had been too preoccupied with the smoking hot brunette on the other end of the wire… or with her perky-breasted Elven avatar, at least.

Her name was Mandy, the manager, now with her hands pressed firmly against the glass of the window. A red dot hovered between her leaking eyes, a silent threat that kept us all in place along the walls. In the centre of the floor lay the most unassuming weapon Tom had ever seen; a backpack. After she had got off the phone, Mandy had conveyed the order for everyone to back up against the walls and windows, and asked that everyone keep calm, which of course had triggered chaos. Amidst this, it had somehow been uncovered that no one owned the ugly khaki backpack and whatever it had inside it. It had been ticking ominously ever since the phone call, and the wires snaking out from the inside were plainly visible, almost carelessly so.

The sweat was cooling on his skin now, and Tom shifted restlessly. He had to pee, really badly. In fact, if this whole situation didn’t end soon, he was afraid he might piss himself right here, and that would be horrifying. Not only that, but he was annoyed – he had been seriously inconvenienced by this whole hostage situation. Whoever this terrorist was, he had messed with Tom’s usual evening plan of preparing a TV dinner, watching reruns of Wheel of Fortune and gratifying himself thinking of the Elven babe. In fact, Tom mused, he was very uncomfortable with this whole situation. If it wasn’t for the fear of death, he might have been tempted to confront the man holding the gun outside and give him a good piece of his mind.

Sirens sounded outside and the murmurs of the crowd that had gathered died slowly, as the police pushed all the morbidly curious bystanders back to create a perimeter, or so Tom assumed. Good. The sooner he got out of here, the sooner he could pee. It occurred to Tom that he should be more conscious of his own safety, considering that his life hung in the balance, and yet he couldn’t help but feel a bizarre sense of security. After all, if the sniper hadn’t shot Mandy yet, Tom didn’t think he was likely to at all. And the bomb might just be a prank, maybe one played by some stupid teenagers. Still, Tom didn’t dare to try to defuse it. He valued himself too much, he supposed, or maybe he was just a coward.
The phone rang again, and everyone flinched simultaneously. It was shrill in the silence, unnecessarily loud and seemingly mocking them. Tom moved away from his place on the wall, and gingerly picked up the receiver, almost dropping it with his clumsy fingers and sweaty hands.

“H-Hello?” he squeaked. As soon as the word came out, he blushed. He hadn’t sounded at all manly or in control. He could feel the eyes of the other twelve patrons and Mandy on him, boring in like miniature drills. The person on the other end of the line breathed heavily and Tom’s ears roared. The caller said nothing. Tom replaced the receiver and slowly scooted back to the wall. His ears were still roaring and over them, he could barely hear heavy boots outside, or the police yelling to each other. The window beside Mandy shattered with a deafening crack and everyone screamed. Before he knew what was happening, a yelp tore itself from Tom’s throat, and he found it hard to inhale. His brain felt like it had gone into overdrive. What if the police didn’t get here in time? What if that backpack went off and killed Tom, and the middle-aged mom in here, and the little old lady and her husband, and Mandy? Tom became very aware that everyone here had had lives before this moment, families that they might have been going home to.

“Everyone keep calm. We are going to start trying to get you out.” There was a police officer in full riot gear outside, covering the jagged glass still framing the broken window. There was a crush to get out, people clawing at each other to be the first to safety. Tom hung back; there was no chance he would get to the window, and no guarantee he would even get through, due to the small but prominent belly he had been growing of late.

The small children were passed through the window first, infant and twin toddler boys, each screaming at the tops of their lungs. The mom went next, mostly so she could comfort her children. She hit the ground running towards the extraneous police officers, waiting there to get her to the paramedics outside. The frail elderly were next, a social group of at least five people. Tom stared glumly at the two upper class businessmen who seemed annoyed at this setback to their clearly important lives. Tom knew Mandy would be last – the red dot that still held its place at the bridge of her nose would ensure that.

The crowd dwindled as the police labored, but the hairs on Tom’s neck stood up. Something was wrong here, something was very… The beeping was getting faster. A coil of something prickly and constrictive rose in Tom’s throat like an awakening cobra, and he struggled to breathe. He could feel the fleshy skin of his throat fold in around his trachea, as he tried vainly to suck oxygen from the air. The businessmen, one blond and one redheaded, stared at him with a curious mix of amusement and bewilderment. Tom tried to tell them, tried to let them know, but his feet were moving, and he was halfway through the window when a hail of bullets tore through the remaining windows, and there was a tremendous bang behind him and he couldn’t feel his legs.