Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 9

My father was a Navy Seal for close to sixteen years before he became a civ. I grew up during most of his tours, and whenever he came home, he'd always teach me things he deemed were essential for me to learn.

Being his only child (and a boy), I had to do manly things, he once told me, even when he found out I was gay since gay men were still men. One of them stuck out to me the most when I confessed I was bullied at school.

He told me: If you are going to run from a fight, make sure you have a weapon first—any weapon.

Back then, I thought it was stupid to grab a weapon unless you had to fight. Then again, I guessed my dad had a point. One, if I ever get trapped or caught, I had something aside from using my fist. And two, it'll thwart another attack.

I was eight when he told me this, and he had been grilling it in my mind since then.

I am in a foreign city with low knowledge about its layout and its people. Then, the carnage on the streets pushed me to find a weapon.

The Plane. The deaths. The crazy man. Too many bad things were happening at once—too much of a coincidence to arrive at the exact second.

I needed a weapon, and the shotgun would do.

I was ten feet away from the door. There were too many things that could go wrong once I reached for the shotgun.

Back in Portland, my dad was friends with a lot of cops and veterans. My dad knew a lot of people throughout the years. Portland cops knew him well. And when it came to squad cars, it was a federal law to equip shotguns (and sometimes AR-15s or M16s) in their vehicles for strong firepower (pistols were useless against armored criminals) and stored in magnetically locked mounts.

The locks were the first problem I was going to face.

Five feet away from the door.

My mind raced harder. If I pulled on the gun out of the magnetic locks, it would destroy the weapon. My dad had magnetic gun mounts in his gun locker at home. He'd always warn me not to touch them unless I wanted to be grounded after breaking it. I didn't listen, and I broke his hunting rifle and caught three weeks' grounding.

One: It needed a key. Going for the gun would be of no use. The dead cop was behind me, and I'm pretty sure the police officer would have the magnetic key on his belt. That ruled out going for it.

Two: I had to punch in a code. Like the former, it would be useless. The dead cop was the only one who would know how to open the lock.

Three: I had to press the hidden button to release the lock. Possible and very tricky. If it were a button-released mount, then I'd have to scramble looking for it.

I hoped it was the latter.

I reached the door, and I made the mistake of looking back.

Mr. Ramirez stirred, and he rose. Half of his face and nose were missing, and blood covered his hair. His clothes were shredded, revealing a deep gash on his abdomen. He was staring straight at me.

Even from a distance between us, I could feel him already breathing at the nape of my neck. People were running alongside me while the other violent rioters took others down. Still, the man targeted me like a hound would on an alluring scent.

Mr. Ramirez sprinted toward me, crossing the street within seconds until he was twenty feet away.

I had to act fast.

I jumped into the driver's seat and immediately knew what the magnetic mount was. There were no codes to punch. That was good news, but my heart suddenly sank when I saw that it needed a magnetic key.