The diner’s plateglass window exploded in a rain of tiny shards, and the four men continued to fire—their legs spread in a practiced stance, steady and sure. Two of them wore tiny earplugs, the other two did not. The muzzles of all four weapons moved steadily back and forth in a sweeping motion, reminding me of sprinkler heads.
I counted no less than a dozen people on the sidewalk all standing perfectly still, frozen, as if watching a film or a television program as the bullets flew.
I pushed Gerdy down to the pavement, into the narrow space between a Volvo and a Toyota Sentra parked at the curb, and I fell on top of her, sandwiching her body between mine and the blacktop. I wasn’t sure when she had started screaming, but she was screaming now, screaming and kicking at me, but I wouldn’t let her go. I forced her head down, my face lost in her hair.
The shooting seemed to last for hours, although I would later learn all four gunmen used 9mm UZIs, Vector Arms HR4332 SBRs set to full auto—at 650 rounds per second, each of the 32 round extended clips were exhausted in under a second. Each gun had extra clips and reloaded an estimated three times.
The actual shooting time, as recorded by the police van a little more than a block away, was thirty-eight seconds.
When the shooting ended, my ears continued to ring, all other sounds nearly lost, muffled as if there were a thick wet blanket wrapped around my head.
I heard the last of the four car doors slam, followed by squealing tires.
“Stay down!” I shouted in Gerdy’s ear before climbing to my feet and running toward the diner. The blue BMW turned right on Clairton and disappeared.
I closed half the distance before the explosion.
The force of the blast knocked me back to the sidewalk, the sound of it breaking through the ringing of the gunshots. My head cracked against the pavement, and the breath left my lungs with the force of a linebacker shouldering my gut.
A fireball shot through the space where the diner’s plateglass window had been less than two minutes earlier and crossed half of Brownsville Road before disappearing back inside, the lick of some hideous, flaming tongue returning to its mouth.
I scrambled to my feet—part stagger, part run—reached Krendal’s, and climbed through the window frame into the diner, faint moans and screams coming from all around.
Smoke, thick and black, surrounded me, bellowing from somewhere in back. I tripped on an overturned table and nearly fell again when my foot landed between the legs of a chair. I pulled free, and that was when I spotted the first body.
A woman. I could tell only by the fact that she wore a green dress, her hair and face nothing but a charred block of flesh.
I pulled the neck of my Steelers sweatshirt up over my mouth in an attempt to block the smoke, but it did little good. The hot, acrid soupy air burned my lungs, my eyes. I peered into the blackness and saw nothing.
I nearly slipped in the coffee.
The cracked pot was at my feet, black liquid pooling out.
Lurline Waldrip lay beside the mess on the floor.
I dropped to my knees and gently turned her over, rolling her onto her back.
No less than six red spots bloomed on the chest of her pink uniform. Deep red at the center, where the bullets had gone in, less so directly surrounding each spot. One of the spots was between her breasts, at her heart. I knew she wasn’t breathing, I knew that bullet had killed her, but I pressed two fingers against her neck anyway and felt for a pulse, finding nothing.
I heard Dunk then.
I’m not sure how I knew it was him, but somehow I did, a muffled cry a few feet to my left. I didn’t want to leave Lurline like that, lying on the floor in so much filth, but I also knew I had little choice. Breathing was growing harder by the second. I wouldn’t be able to stay inside much longer.
I stood and shuffled through the upended furniture and other obstacles I didn’t want to identify toward the booths that lined the far wall, toward the one closest to the door, Dunk’s favorite.
I found Dunk lying sideways on the booth seat, the lower half of his body crammed under the table, his face and legs covered in blood. Henry Crocket sat across from him, his back to the door, his face pressed against the table, eyes wide and unblinking, fixed on a half-full cup of coffee. A plate of toast and butter was at the center between them both.
The back of Crocket’s head was missing.
A ragged tear started just past the center at the top of his head and ended at the base of his neck, as if a giant had reached down and twisted it off with a large thumb and forefinger. His back was riddled with bullet holes. The booth seat between him and the front of the diner was shredded, a mess of red pleather, stuffing, and plywood, chipped away and splintered.
Dunk groaned again.
I reached down into the booth and wrapped my arms around his waist, pulling his bulky body toward me until we both fell back onto the tile floor at the aisle. He fought me at first, his body going rigid, followed by a scream as the pain of movement washed over him. Then he went limp and silent.
I scurried to my feet again, and my vision went momentarily white. My legs disappeared from beneath me, and I collapsed. I wasn’t getting enough air, and I was going to pass out. If I passed out in here, I wouldn’t be leaving.
I forced myself to stand. Wobbly legs be damned.
