The sharp flick of the lighter was the only sound now, the inhalation of a black and mild his only breath. Then another, and another. He dared not look back, what was there would change him forever. The once white walls of the hospital now holed filled and painted in blood. For what? He couldn’t think of a reason. Police sirens were off in the distance, he didn’t really understand why it had taken them this long to get here -- after all, it was a hospital and shots had been fired. Perhaps the other man had clipped the phone lines and used some type of EMP machine to block out cell signals. He didn’t really know, nor did he really care. It was over now, he had won, he was the last man standing and what would he get for his efforts? The chair, or the injection, hell for the string of things he had done up to this point, he’d get the firing squad if America still had it. He shook his head and took another drag of the cancerous stick. It was a bad habit, maybe that’d be what killed him. Maybe in the next two or three minutes, if he was lucky, a sudden onset of fatal lung cancer would strike him and he’d die.
Hmph.
Silly wishes.
He had time, maybe he could walk back in the building and come out like some badass in the movies; sure of what he’d done and not afraid to go down with it. Nah, he had never been that egotistical. His nerves were shot, and he knew what lay behind him - death. He and another man had been chosen to have a shoot out, a gun fight for no reason. Guns blazing in a hospital, cancer patiens, terminal patients, rape victims, wounded vets, they all were victims -- if they weren’t slated to die of their own will, they certainly were when the man behind the tournament picked this location. He hadn’t even saw fit to empty it out first.
Another drag and closer sirens.
His shotgun was spent, so was the Desert Eagle at his side -- he couldn’t bring himself to pick them up. So many bullets lay strewn about, they could call this place a ammo dump.
Fuck it, the man thought, as he fell backwards and rested, watching the smoke from his mouth and cigar float skyward. It was warm and wet, blood perhaps, he was sure he hadn’t pissed himself. It was his own, or so he told himself, it made him feel a little better.
Two Hours Later
“So, why you’d do it? Why’d you go into that hospital and massacre everybody in there?” A cop asked him in the interrogation room.
“It was a gun fight,” the man recanted.
“A gun fight?”
“For no reason.”