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BANG-BANG! BANG-BANG! Shots rang out. Two of the men were dead from chest and head shots before they hit the ground.  Trent ran to the Overlook Terrace foyer to take cover and engage the final man.  He exhaled, did his best to control the adrenaline shaking his left hand.  He retracted the plastic butt stock into the meaty part of his left shoulder, maneuvered the faint red dot of his EO-Tech site onto the target.  Fuck, I took too long.
    The Hispanic man grabbed the young woman and tried to hold her in front of him as a human shield. She fought back.  Trent watched the scuffle in what seemed like slow motion.  I don’t have a shot!  Fuck!   He sprinted toward them just as they went to the ground.  The man was wrestling with the woman as she screamed in desperation. The child cried uncontrollably. “Mommy!”  The man was in between her legs, holding her down, trying to reposition her to shield him.  The young woman kept screaming and clawing.
    Hughes ran as fast as his legs could carry him.  No, no, no, no!
    Bang! A single shot rang out. 
    What the fuck ?   The woman stopped fighting instantly because of an apparent gunshot wound.
    Blood was everywhere around the woman.  Instead of being red, it was a black sludge, as if it wasn’t oxygenated.  The man rolled off the wounded woman and stumbled away.  Hughes stopped and put two rounds in his back, killing him.  But he was too late.
    “Mommy!  Mommy, you can’t go!” wailed the child. 
    Trent sprinted to his assault pack to retrieve first aid supplies.  He returned to the woman and knelt beside her, pulling out a velcro nylon tourniquet from his pouch and two pressure dressings.
    “My name is Trent.  You’re going to be OK, I promise.” He slung his carbine over his shoulder and stuck his hands into the black sludge to determine the source of bleeding.  He felt sinewy flesh between his fingers.  It felt like an uncooked chicken breast that was severely over-tenderized.  “What’s your name?”  He found the bullet wound seven inches down on the inside of her left leg.  There was a massive exit wound on the other side.  Fuck, it’s her femoral . . .
    The woman stared up at Trent.  She grabbed his collar with a last gasp of strength as he cut off the left leg of her jeans with a set of medical shears from the first aid kit.  “This is Jessica.  Please, I have no one else.  Please take care of her.”
    “Mommy, no!” Jessica buried her face in the neckline of her mother’s blood-stained shirt.
    “Shut up lady, you’re going to be fine! And this is going to fucking hurt! A lot!” Trent continued working on the woman’s leg.  He tied off the tourniquet three inches above the wound.  He did his best to tie the two pressure dressings as efficiently as possible.  “This is going to be the worst part!”  He elevated her leg and put extreme pressure on the wound with his knee.  The woman let out the most chilling groan Trent had ever heard as she passed out from the pain.  Oh God, now what?  How the fuck do you call 911 when the phones aren’t working? 
    Jessica’s wails turned to whimpers as the flow of blood from her mother’s leg slowed to a trickle and finally stopped.  The woman was dead.
    “Mommy?  Mommy?” Jessica was frantic.
    Trent released the pressure from the wound and dropped the woman’s leg to the pavement. He stood and leaned against a nearby car, lit up a cigarette.  His hands and arms were covered in blood to his elbows and he was shaking.  Last week Trent had been scheduled to work each day at a regular job, supervising construction projects in Manhattan.  I’ve killed four times today.  Saw a child orphaned before my eyes.  This isn’t happening.  God, I know we’re not on great terms, but if you exist . . . Please. Help me.  What do I do now? And what the fuck was that thing in the park? Have I finally gone off the rails?  Is any of this real?  Am I in the Walter Reed mental