The Spinoza Trilogy by J.R. Rain Page B

Never mind. Where’s the shooter?”
    “ No clue. Someone...hit me from behind.”
    “ Stay here,” said the first officer. “We’ll be back.”
    They dashed off and spread out, quickly searching the upstairs. They convened back at the escalators a few minutes later, conferred with each other, and then headed back down to the second floor mayhem.
    As they had searched the upstairs, I noticed one had checked the “Employees Only” door. He had opened it, looked around inside for a few seconds, and then reemerged and continued on. Obviously he hadn’t found what he was looking, but what he hadn’t noticed was that the touchpad had been completely torn off the wall. Where it was, I had no clue, but it was gone.
    With my head still throbbing and a fantastic pain in my right shoulder, I lurched forward toward the storeroom door.
     
    * * *
     
    With people still shouting below, I drew my gun and opened the “Employees Only” door.
    The room was indeed a storeroom. I could smell dusty books and someone’s lunch. A microwavable pizza, perhaps. The room probably doubled as a break room, too.
    It was also quite dark. I flipped on a switch.
    The back room was, in fact, a longish room, separated by another door. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Now only a few muffled sounds reached me from the craziness outside. I still felt woozy, but I powered through it.
    I continued through the long room, holding my gun out before me.
    The storeroom probably looked like a thousand other bookstore storerooms. Boxes and books everywhere. Broken bookshelves. Dusty display cases crammed in one corner. A circular Formica table sat near a glowing vending machine and a microwave.
    I headed deeper into the room, listening hard. I heard nothing unusual. No sounds of a throat being torn open.
    At that thought, I reached inside my jacket pocket and withdrew the stainless steel crossbow and silver bolt. I goofed with the thing for a few seconds, until I finally knocked back a bolt, thus arming the contraption.
    At least, I hoped it was armed.
    I cautiously stepped through the second doorway, a doorway which was devoid of an actual door, and into what I assumed was a second storeroom. I reached around the corner and flipped on another switch. More books, more broken equipment. Shelving everywhere. And something in the far corner.
    Another door?
    It was easy to miss, especially if you were a cop hurrying through here and wrongly assuming no one was inside. The difference being that I knew someone was hiding somewhere inside this storeroom.
    The door appeared to be blocked by some boxes. But that could have only been an optical illusion. Indeed, the closer I got, the more clearly I saw a narrow path that led through the boxes and to this back door.
    I stepped between the boxes, onto the narrow path. The door was directly in front of me. It was also partially open. From within, I heard some very strange sounds.
    And if I had to guess, I would guess that someone—or something—was feasting hungrily.
    I moved quickly through the narrow corridor of boxes, and as I did so, the sickening noises grew steadily louder from behind the door.
    Without slowing or hesitating, I raised the crossbow, and kicked open the door.
     
    * * *
     
    The small room was mostly dark, but there was enough light from the single dusty bulb behind me to see inside.
    And what I saw was something out of a nightmare.
    James P. Storm was in there, hunched over Veronica, his face buried into her torn and bloody neck. Veronica’s eyes were closed and she could have been dead.
    As Storm turned reluctantly away from her neck, I shot him with the crossbow.
    Had he been any further away, I’m certain I would have missed. But, in this case, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Or a vampire in a coffin.
    As it was, the small arrow whipped through the air and plunged deep into his chest, exactly where I assumed its heart was.
    What happened next still gives me nightmares to