Tarvish was on top of the world.

It wouldn’t last. It was Turkey Day in Times Square. That meant that the crowds were there by the millions. He had to exit on the street and walk 2 blocks to his motorcade. The crowds were incredible. The only vehicle operating was Tarvish’s Motorcade. Executive privilege.

Tarvish entered the Escalade and buckled his seatbelt. He feared dying like Gen. Patton. After he told Sgt. Parsons to get a move on it, he heard the first

crack crack

The windshield went red. Parson’s face hit the steering wheel. Tracer rounds started to flash into reality.

“Oh shit”

crackcrackcrackcrackwhooshcrack whooshwhooshpikpickwhooshwhoosh

pii pikpick pikpikpikpikpikpikpikpikpikpikpik

A showerhead of bullets splashed and bounced. The car was a metal cyclone. Tarvish put his head into the legroom of the backseat. He reached into the center console of the SUV. He felt a few quarters. No guns.

“FUCK!” he yelled.

The bullets kept spraying. They were getting closer. Parsons was still dead. The soldier riding shotgun, Tarvish didn’t know. The soldier was shooting slugs through the windshield. Bullets were burning into the car.

Bits of glass were showering down. Tarvish still hadn’t found a gun.

The cracks got louder.

“SIR! We’ve gotta move, SIR!”

The passenger-seat soldier was talking to Tarvish. He kept firing rounds in between “SIR”s.

“SIR! I’m running low, SIR!”

Tarvish looked around and stuck his hand into Parson’s pants. He put his hand on a pistol. A Beretta. 17 shots. That’s what he was working with now.

Bullets whipped into the vehicle from the right. Two of them hit the passenger-seat soldier. Chest-shots. He was down. Tarvish swung the pistol and braced his feet on the right side-door. Bullets entered into the door. Tarvish could feel the metal slugs on his shoes. Tarvish steadied himself. He shot through the door of the Escalade. He made 7 guesses with 7 bullets. He hit his target. The gunshots stopped. 10 rounds left.

It was a maelstrom outside. Tarvish then remembered what day it was. The streets had turned into a stampede. Happy Thanksgiving. The pounding of the metal was growing. From a distance, Tarvish could hear the snap and recoil of the AK-47.

It’ll take more than AKs to kill me Tarvish thought, and then got mad. But the bullets didn’t care one way or other if he was mad. So he became ferocious. At about that moment, Tarvish saw something new.

The Escalade windshield was completely spider-webbed. Past the mangled glass, Tarvish saw a black-masked person. Tarvish whipped a slug into the gunman’s nostril. 9 rounds left.

Tango Down.

Tarvish heard the guns advancing. His guns. Army AR-15s.

They were moving into the street. Must be NYPD. Those boys packed heat.

There must have been half a million people in earshot. They were running in every which direction. Chaos was an understatement. They were a wave of humanity.

“SOLDIER!” he barked, “Can you move?”

“SIR! I can’t feel my left foot, SIR!”

“Soldier, can you move your right foot?”

He kicked his foot up and down and made sure he could in fact do that.

“SIR! I can, SIR!”

Tarvish sat up, flicked the doorknob, and jumped out the left side of the cab. He popped off two rounds to cover fire. He opened the driver-side door, and lugged Parson’s body through to the ground.

“Soldier, you will drive this vehicle into the enemy position. You will do this until you are unable to execute that command. Do you read me?”

“SIR! YES, SIR!”

Tarvish then reached into the cab and gripped him tight on the collar. He pulled, as the passenger-seat soldier kicked. Tarvish fell out onto the curb.

Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the wooden handle of an AK-47. It was bobbing up and down. Tarvish knew it was attached to a gunman.

Tarvish point-and-clicked three times. Once in the chest, twice in the head, Tarvish’s Signature. The first round went in and out through the chest of the gunman into the shoulder of a passerby, a high schooler from Lehighton PA.

He took the AR-15 from the soldier in the passenger’s seat and kicked his torso up into a sitting position. The soldier twisted his legs into the driver’s seat. Glass ate into his butt.

“SOLDIER! Cover fire. Make a perimeter!”

“SIR! YES, SIR!”

As the Escalade drove off, Tarvish could see the action for the first time. No more gunmen on this street. That he could see.

Behind him was the rear Escalade. It suffered the same fate as his. Dead driver, Swiss cheese interior. Tarvish took off running for Times Square. He could see the big Moana balloon. Snaps and cracks from guns echoed off skyscrapers. He was fighting against the sea of humans running away. Not an easy task. He finally got to a clearing and saw the main event. Several cars had spilled out onto Times Square. Each one with a few gunmen.

Tarvish got down on his stomach. A gunman was in range, only 5 yards away. Tarvish took cover behind a dead body. The body, moments ago, had worn an Inhale jacket to watch the Macy’s Parade.

Tarvish was back in RANGER school. He was at the range with father, inhaling deeply, exhaling methodically. His father would be tracking his targets right next to him, giving him private instructions. It was good to be a purebred Army brat. He had to fight his whole life against haters and critics telling him his career was a hand-me-down. “When it comes down to the basics, private” his dad would say, “do what you do with your bullets: hold on tightly and let go lightly.”

Holding on tightly meant never losing your gun. Your grip is the only thing that will save you, be it on your knife, your gun, your cock, or your wife.

Letting go lightly meant that once a bullet was live, active, in the air, it was lighter than a feather, and could, and would, travel through anything in its line.

His father taught him to be light. He nestled on top of the dead body, Tarvish’s bullets had wings.

He settled on one car shot 7 snaps of fire. 4 tangos down

>INHALE< He flipped his barrel an inch and a half, settled on 4 more gunmen He released his mag, >INHALE

He was out. But a dead gunman was down range, with an AK-47. Coming for TarvishHe tossed the AR-15 and got on both hands >INHALE< both feet, and started bear crawling like football practice, but this wasn’t JV, this was real world >INHALE< and dove headfirst into the dead gunman’s body. He was in no man’s land. Whizzes of bullets overhead Working with diligent hands, he gripped onto the AK-47, still strapped to the chest of the dead gunman >INHALE< He lay atop the dead body, and pointed the barrel and pressed his finger into the trigger, popping a fresh round through the brain fluid of the approaching gunman. The AK was set to single fire.

He saw an Escalade spill out onto the road. The passenger-seat soldier! He made the perfect distraction. Tarvish could hear less and less AKs and more and more ARs. It was the NYPD.

Then he saw the final gunman flee from a car. Tarvish got up on his feet, gun in hand, charging onto the street.

“COVER FIRE! GET DOWN!” yelled Tarvish. Two NYPD officers were running next to him, in pursuit of a gunman.

“Eyes on target!” he screamed, “Don’t lose him!”

Tarvish was charging. His formal footwear slipped on the concrete. He was hot on the guy. People were running everywhere. The masked man was still ripping off bullets as he ran.

The spray was catching people. They were falling, some dead, most injured.

Tarvish ran past the Escalade, now crashed into a parade float. At a glance Tarvish could see the passenger-seat soldier was dead. Tarvish needed some height.

He jumped on the hood of the Escalade. It wasn’t high enough. The gunman was rounding a green stage, set for a concert. Tarvish turned and jumped on top of the roof. His weight bent the metal.

With a wide stance Tarvish looked downrange >INHALE

It was a 14-year-old boy. Caucasian. Blond Hair. Tall. Dorky.

Tarvish saw a brilliant flash of light from his right. Might be a muzzle flash. Tar might be shot. His view, however, was locked on the kid. The blond kid.

Time slowed as Tarvish saw blood go airborne. It was over.

He turned right. Toward the brilliant flash of light. Tarvish was pointing straight down the barrel at a photographer. Just a hipper-than-hip photographer. Fearless, looking for the best shot. As Tarvish saw the photographer, he also saw the flash on the camera go off.

The photographer almost used the picture of Tarvish pointing the gun at him. That would have been Un-American. Though Tarvish didn’t know it at that moment, the photographer just snapped the picture that would unite a divided country.

It was a full-body profile of the Chief of Staff of the US Army. Blood dried on his forehead, on top of a Swiss-cheese SUV with a dead US Army Private inside.

That day’s news feed read:

“BREAKING: US GENERAL ENDS MASSACRE”