Casey stood against the wall, casually waiting. He smoked a cigarette, not inhaling much, just letting it dangle from his mouth in a jaunty way.
The van came roaring around the corner, a pair of SUV’s flanking it. Right on cue, he thought, as the van and SUV came to a screeching halt across the street from him.
He heard a soft thump next to him. He glanced sideways at the plate glass window. He hugged the building this time, while people in the van and SUV’s came out with their guns.
It was going to be a blood bath, and Casey knew it. Again, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, he turned and went down the alley next to the building.
The door there was locked, but he pulled hard enough to yank it open. He looked down to see a rat at his feet. He bent down, and the rat told him the lay of the land from his perspective. Eight people against the window, facing out. Three people with guns. The rest of the people were laying on the floor, face down with their hands on their heads.
Casey heard more vehicles, and he heard people yelling in a heavy Middle Eastern accent. More than three. But then, the rat was probably trying to find food rather than count how many big moving creatures there were in the coffee house.
The rat guided him to the back door, which led into the kitchen. He begged for food for him, his family. Casey smiled and tried the door. Locked, as he expected. He turned the handle and the lock snapped, loudly to him. He waited. The rat waited.
He slowly pushed open the door. All he could smell was coffee. The rat scurried in first, and when nothing happened to him, Casey slipped inside, leaving the door open a little for the rat to get out. The air was cool, saturated with coffee smells. The rat walked over to the nearest trash bin. No, Casey was going to do better than that. He wandered between the shelves. He could see the kitchen before him, and in there were weapons.
He told the rat to go there first, to see if any big creatures were in there. The rat did as he said, and sat in the middle of the kitchen room, sniffing and looking around. Casey bent down and shuffled over to the kitchen, grabbing a knife off the counter.
He snuck over to the refrigerator, and looked back. He could see three people, their backs turned to him, and beyond them were the people in the window. He opened the refrigerator and slipped out a block of cheese.
He cut off a hefty piece and handed it to the rat, who thanked him profusely and headed back out the door. But before leaving, Casey told him to send as many of his friends as he could, right now, so they could all have some cheese.
Casey sat on the kitchen floor, cutting up pieces of cheese. It didn’t take long before at least a dozen rats came into the kitchen, all different ages and sizes and sexes. Casey said he would give them cheese if all they did was parade out front.
It was against their instincts, but they smelled the food. Casey reassured them all that they would get plenty of cheese, just go out front and be as brazen as possible.
Finally one of the older rats waddled out to the front. A few more followed. Then more.
Someone screamed. A man shouted. Casey left the cheese, getting up and running across the kitchen to the door, where the coffee urns were and a man stood looking down in terror at the rats.
Casey slashed the man’s face with the knife and grabbed his gun. Then he dove behind the counter as someone opened fire on him.
The damn gun was an automatic, which meant it shot first and aimed later. Casey grabbed one of the coffee urns and threw it hard at the window, based on his glance into the room from before.
The plate glass window didn’t shatter. Shit, what was that window made out of, Plexiglass?
Someone dove over the counter and joined Casey. Casey shoved up with the gun, cracking someone in the head, and got slashed across his own chest for his trouble. When he came up, gunfire sprayed him. He felt a bullet hit his skull, and he rocked with the impact. But he didn’t let go of the gun, and he ended up shooting the man in front of him with at least ten shots with the automatic.
He got up to see that the people against the window were down, hopefully not dead, and two men were aiming guns at him. Casey just smiled, and peppered one man, while the other one shot him in the back.
Casey stumbled, falling against the bar, taking down urns as he fell. “Uhhh, I swear,” he said, as the man started coming over to him.
A single shot rang out, and the man fell over.
Casey stopped trying to get up. Bullets wormed their way out of his back, hitting the floor. The rats came over and asked, “More?”