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I looked over at Branden and whispered to him to be sure to turn the safety off his gun in case something was to happen. Waiting behind the table, I prayed and hoped for the best outcome possible. I was worried, if a fight were coming our way, whether Branden would be able to hold his own.
     
    Less than a minute after hiding behind the table, three men came out of the locker room. The man leading the group was short and plump. He boasted one of the fullest beards I have ever seen. It was such a dark, rich brown, and its length was a surprising eye-catcher to say the least. Followed by the first man were two taller men. Both were unshaven, but lacked the utter magnitude of the first man’s beard. These two grunted through their teeth as they followed the shortest man with bulging garbage sacks.
     
    Just as all three of them cleared the locker room door, the first man looked about the break room. He dropped his bag were he stood. Before both Branden and I knew what was happening, the man reached down to his waistband and drew a pistol. He whipped it in our direction and shot at us.
     
    I dropped down and lay as flat as I could, hoping that the man wouldn’t shoot much lower. Bullet holes appeared in the table just a few inches above me. I cursed repeatedly, frightened beyond control and out of my mind; I thought about running. They had us pinned down, and this was also my first time getting shot at.
     
    “ Stop! Fucking stop!” I yelled.
     
    Silence, for just a moment.
     
    “’ Dafuck you doin’ in here?” a plummy voice said from across the room.
     
    “ By the look of those bags, we’re doing the same thing you are, asshole!” Branden said, poking his head out from behind the table. The short man fired again when Branden’s head protruded.
     
    “ Oh yeah?” he said. “Whatcha got there, boy? I seen that camo gun. It’s nice. Best hand it over if you wanna walk again.”
     
    “ I’m not giving you shit,” Branden yelled to the man, then in an undertone told me what to do.
     
    Branden provided the strength I needed. In a quick flash, I swung my leg up and out from the cover of the table. Lying on his stomach, Branden peeked around the corner of the table, gun up. While the fat man was reacting to my foot, Branden was already firing. I couldn’t tell if he hit the man, but I noticed that there was a pause in gunfire. I peeked my head up and over to survey the room and lifted my heavy rifle to rest it on the table.
     
    One of the taller men was leaving a trail of blood on the floor as he army-crawled in the direction of the door. The other two men were not there. My eyes darted back and forth between multiple other flipped tables and the corners closest to where I saw them last. Thinking that they were just waiting for a moment to get a shot at us, I stayed on guard for a moment while Branden came back under the thin cover of the table to replace the shells he had fired.
     
    Seconds went by slowly. My heart pounded, hands drenched in sweat, and I could feel my body shaking involuntarily. I kept the end of my barrel bouncing and sweeping around the room. Just as I swept over to a table on the far right side of me, I saw a figure appear from a corner on my left. In the brief amount of time it took me to recognize it, a shot was already fired and I flinched. Luckily, the man missed me. I planned to return fire, but the bearded man was running toward the door. I lined my sights up as best as I could, but I’m not very good with moving targets. As you could guess, I missed, and the man escaped the room.
     
    Branden gave chase first, and I followed behind him. We kept our guns pointed where the man went, and we swept the room for the missing third man. We couldn’t spot him quickly, so we assumed he must have run out before the bearded man did. Looking outside from the main desk, we saw the bearded man behind the wheel of the van. The missing man was between the driver and the passenger seat in clear