Prologue : Mike

It wasn’t fair.
The sun had been out and the shopping district busy as any Saturday in the city. With two o’ clock coming around, wallets were thinning and few could be seen empty handed. No cars traveled those streets and it was no surprise. All four streets of the district were swarmed with people and nothing bigger than a five year old could get by without saying "Excuse me," every few steps. We had just got there then.
"Hey Joshy, you sure it’s a good time to come here?"
I had nodded my head. Of course, it was so much better shopping when there were other people around, the energy was amazing.
"Yup." I had answered and pointed at Old Navy. "Fifty percent off, you know I had to come today."
Mike laughed. "You know, I still can’t believe I deal with you."
I laughed right back. "Well hun, sixteen years’d do that to you."
Mike and I were friends since I was too young to know what a friend was and he was two. We lived right next to each other and never, ever got into fights. He had my back and I had his, and that’s how it was meant to be. Nothing had ever come between our friendship, nothing, and we could tell each other the sort of things that we couldn’t tell anyone, even family. I had helped him with his alcohol issues back when he was fifteen, and he was the first person I could come out too. I’d never had a better friend and he’d told me countless times that he didn’t either. Funny how you don’t think of stuff like that when your picking through shirts for a medium while his end was walking through the doors.
BANG!
The store erupted. Screaming bodies hit the floor to reveal the only thing that should have mattered to anyone, a big beefy man with sleepless eyes and a twelve-gauge shotgun that he pumped after that shot into the roof.
"Shut up…shut up shut up shut UP!" He cried, pumping another round into the roof. "Everyone on the floor!"
The few of us that had remained standing slowly put ourselves on our knees. I glanced over at Mike and he at me, I’d never seen him so afraid in my life. Tears were swelling up in his eyes like he knew something was going to happen to us.
"Alright, now listen up!" His voice was slurred - he started making his way through the people. "I’ve got something I wanna show you!" He unfurled his big, black coat. There was a pile of red sticks, all wired to a simple alarm clock.
"Not one of you moves!" Somewhere close by, a baby started crying. I looked over, saw the mother cradling her daughter and trying to shoosh her without going into hysterics herself. He stepped over and my heart started to race. I can only imagine what the mother of that child was feeling as he leaned over and whispered something I couldn’t hear into her ear.
"Alright, here’s the plan. Alright, alright, how many of you are mothers!" He was speaking slowly and calmly like a normal person. I prayed I wasn’t the only person who saw through that bullshit.
"Alright, you can raise your hands - I’m trying to be morale here. C’mon, mothers stand up with your kids and go stand right over by the exit."
It sounded like a dream come true to them. They all stood and half walked, have ran to where he wanted them to go. Nearly everyone was on the verge of hysterics.
"Alright!" He started talking to them. I leaned over and whispered into Mike’s ear, "I gotta do something he’s full of shit and you know it."
We both stared at each other, searching for whatever it was the other was thinking. Something had to be done and we couldn’t speak. Somehow, I think he knew what I wanted to do when he nodded.
We just needed the opportunity.
"Alright…" He pumped the shotgun.
"No!" Someone to the left of us screamed. "Please their kids for Christ’s sake!"
It was a random man, maybe forty years old with wrinkly features and shaky hands. He had a cane on the floor and something told me he wouldn’t be standing up, not without some sort of aid. The big beefy man walked over, and it was a short walk to the t-shirt rack right by where Mike and I were lying.
"You got a problem sir?" One of the woman near the door manage to slide outside and escape, followed by two others. The rest were to shaken to even move, and by now there were people outside staring through the glass to get a better view of what was happening.
"You aren’t about to kill those people are you? You don’t wanna do that now do you?"
Mike grabbed my arm and squeezed it - the old man’s head burst and he his body crumpled. What was left of his cranium had plastered to the floor like paste. All of Mike’s courage was gone and mine was just barely there.
"Alright!" He turned around, and saw that we had unexpected onlookers. He started moving again, and stopped right in front of the two of us. He smelled like alcohol and I could see Mike squint his eyes and shy away from it. Kid was still sensitive with it.
"What…wait…there were more mommies there before, now where did the rest of our mommies go?"
Sirens sounded from outside and blue and red started flashing. There was a whup - whup - whup of a helicopter hovering above the store.
"Oh, I see how this is." He peeled his jacket off and slammed it into the ground. With a few kicks he got the TNT bomb visible. "Alright, I see now" He pumped the shotgun and too aim.
"Shit!" I cursed and reached out. I got my arm just around his ankle and Mike moved quickly to do the same with the other. He fell face forward as a tremendous wave of people took to the exits. There was a cop on a megaphone, but it was inaudible over all the shouts for survival. Mike and I scrambled to our feet and joined the crowd.
Had to get out before he shot that bomb, before we were dead. There was a clot of people at the revolving doors.
"Shit shit!" Mike cursed and turned around. I did too, to see what had drawn his attention away.
The man wasn’t aiming his shotgun at the bomb - in fact he wasn’t holding a shotgun anymore. Nestled in his grubby hands was a Colt Python, a magnum revolver.
"I’ll get some lives!"
BOOM!
Blood sprayed the air. I tried to catch him. I tried to lift him up and help him, to drag him outside but he had died by then. He’d died. He was on his knees only because I was holding him up but he was already limp.
BOOM! The next bullet sprayed blood all over me yet again but I wasn’t about to let him destroy Mike’s body. That he’d even kill him was enough to send me into a rage.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
More blood everywhere. The doors were clear for the most part and officers were mixed in with the civilians. It was all happening so fast but it felt like a movie on slow play.
BOOM! I heard some of the cops shout, "Freeze!"
Of course, they probably hadn’t heard the first shot or the second. They probably had no idea that he’d already fired six shots into six poor souls who’d never see light again. They had no idea that all six of his shots were expended, or that he had tossed his shotgun way to far away to be able to get it.
I rushed him myself.
I don’t know what I was thinking but I did it myself, with so much hate I was shaking. He saw me coming and put his fists up, the officers called for that stupid ass kid to stop, to let them take care of it. It was the least I could do for Mike to put down that bastard myself.
With a swift roundhouse kick to the head that crumpled his drunken mess to the floor unconscious.

The tide had come in.
The foaming Atlantic water that rolled between my toes brought me back from that horrible memory. It felt like it had been years away, but every calendar I looked at pointed at it being just four days ago. Just four days without my best friend in the whole world.
It felt like an eternity.