Lucifer's Luncheonette Chapter Fifteen: Mommy

I was led, kicking and screaming, to an elevator, and I was pushed into a corner, with everyone but the man operating the elevator pointing his/her gun at me. I grabbed my left arm, which was killing me, and my right shoulder had broken open during the fall and was bleeding slightly. (That might explain how they found the room that Kaplan and I had hid in.)

I heard a ding and the elevator doors slid open, and I was pushed into the nearest room, large, automatic guns pushing into the small of my back. I was pushed into the room and kicked in he stomach for good measure.

The woman that pulled me out from under the desk squatted down and looked at my face, grinning. I was still doubled over and I could only see her if I tilted my eyes as far upward as they would go. "If you think I'm a bitch, wait until you meet Ms. Gotel. I'm Princess Di compared to her." I lifted my head and looked into her face, and then spit in it. However, it was mostly blood, and little spit, that went into her face.

"Bitch!" she yelled, ramming the butt of her gun into my face. I heard a crack and fell backward, and I was sure that my nose was broken.

"Now, now, you aren't starting without me, are you?" I heard a woman say. I looked up and saw a middle-aged woman, maybe fifty, walk into the room with a swagger of confidence. "Well, how are you Miss..." she said, acting as though she couldn't remember my name.

"Oh, now what did your boyfriend scream while you two were fucking in our shower? Erin, is it?" she said, grinning so widely that she revealed a set of yellowed tinted teeth. I don't know why, but the first thing to come to my mind was, Smoker.

"Go to Hell," I said, glaring at her while holding my arm.

"Oh, I'm not the one going to Hell, Missy," the woman said in a babyish voice. "See, God likes people who do his bidding, and he told our great leader to spread his message across the world."

"And the only way to do that was with nuclear weapons and turning innocent people into brainless zombies?" I growled.

"Oh, no," she laughed, holding a hand up to her mouth. "That wasn't the only way. It was just the most fun."

I wanted to slap this bitch so hard, but I was too weak and I knew that any sudden movement would mean a bullet-ridden corpse on the ground: my corpse!

"What shall we do with you, Erin? How about a little torture? Would you like a quick bullet to the head, instead? Maybe a trial?" She said, scratching her head as though she were thinking. Then her face lit up. "Aha! I've got it! We'll let you be a part of our experiment!"

All I could think was, what the hell does she mean by experiment?

I was pulled down a winding series of hallways, past open doors revealing rooms full of people shocked to see the gang of heavily armed men and women with their guns all armed on one woman. You know, I would be a little surprised as well; if I were held their vantage point, that is.

We stopped outside a large metal door, even bigger than one on the Ambassador's bomb shelter. The old woman, "Miss Gotel", punched something into a keypad and the door slid open. I was pushed into the room, followed by everyone else.

Everyone, except Gotel, seemed to be on edge. I looked around the room for the source of the apprehension, but I didn't see anything except a door set in the opposite wall, and a mirror on the wall to my left. I wasn't stupid enough to believe it was real: it was one of those two-way mirrors that lets people watch what's happening in one room from another room without fear of being seen. They used them all the time in police line-ups.

Our little group watched as Gotel dispatched one of the soldiers, a young man who looked like he'd just graduated from high school, to open the door. The rest of the soldiers took their guns off me and trained them on the door.

The young man ran to the door and swung it open, but before he could get away a small hand reached out and grabbed his leg, pulling him into the other room. I cringed as I listened to his screaming, but soon everything was silent except for Gotel's breathing.

I looked around and saw that no one was watching me; their eyes were concentrated on the open doorway. I had slid a few inches away from the group when someone grabbed my good arm and pulled me back. Then I was pushed toward the door while everyone else backed up, except Gotel, who walked over and leaned against the mirror, smirking.

I just stood in the middle of the room, staring at the doorway, waiting for something, anything. I looked over my shoulder and saw that one of the men was punching something into another keypad, obviously trying to open the door.

I cracked my neck and slowly stepped toward the door, knowing that I was going to die. I steeled myself, waiting for whatever it was that had killed the young soldier that had opened the door to come out and rip me apart.

However, all I heard was the sliding of the large metallic door behind me slide open, followed almost immediately by gunshots. I looked over at Gotel, who's mouth was hanging open, then slowly turned around and saw every single one of the soldiers on the ground lying in an enlarging pool of blood.

Then I looked in the big doorway and felt like smiling. There stood Kaplan, holding the machine gun I'd last seen him with.

I felt like running to him and hugging him, but there was something I had to take care of first. I calmly walked to the large pile of bodies and picked up the nearest gun, ignoring Kaplan's self-satisfying grin, which I'm sure fell away when I turned my back to him.

Gotel's face grew pale and she backed as far as she could into the mirror behind her. "What the hell are you doing?" she yelled.

"Just what you've been planning to do to me, only much more humane," I said, raising the gun and aiming it at her. "Just do me one favor: tell the boys in hell that my favorite color is green, for future reference, Bitch." I said.

I pulled the trigger and Gotel's body slammed against the mirror, jerking with each bullet. I emptied the entire gun into her body, every single shot. When it was over, I threw the gun on top of her bloody corpse.

Then I turned and walked to Kaplan, who took me in his arms as I broke down. Then I heard a groaning and remembered that the door at the other end of the room was open. I leaned down and scooped up another gun, and pointed it at the dark doorway.

"Come on, we've got to get out of here now," Kaplan said, pulling at my bad arm.

"Not now," I said, elbowing him in the stomach with my good arm. He let go of me and doubled over, gasping for breath. I kept staring at the doorway, waiting.

A few seconds later I heard the one word that had long pierced my nightmares. I stiffened at the sound, and my mind started racing.

"Mommy!" I heard something, that monster in the other room, calling. "Mommy!"

I watched as the figure finally left its dark room. I recognized everything about it, from the blonde hair to the stubby toes. I even recognized the bullet holes.

"Mommy!" the thing, my son yelled, slowly moving toward me.

"Erin, let's get out of here!" Kaplan gasped, raising his gun at the thing, at my son! I kicked it from his grasp.

"You can't," I whispered, new tears falling. "That's my son, my boy."

Kaplan looked from the advancing figure to me, then to the gun in my hand. "No, it's not," he said. "You told me that your son was dead."

"He's not dead, anymore," I said, helping Kaplan up. Then I shoved him out of the room, into the hallway, and started shooting the keypad, causing the door to close.

"No, Erin!" Kaplan yelled, but he couldn't get to the door in time. I saw the look of fear on his face as the doors closed him off from my view.

"Mommy!" it yelled, mere feet from me now. I fell to my knees, the gun lying limply in my hand. I hung my head and thought of everyone I'd let down. Saira, Julie, the Ambassador, the world. Then came the images of everyone, everything that I had killed. The last person to come into my mind was Kaplan, and then I looked up.

My son stood over me, opening his mouth to tear into me. "Shh, Mommy's here," I whispered, lifting the gun...