Countdown to the Visions of David Palmer: Recoil (Volume II of the series)

In anticipation of the release of the second book in The Visions of David Palmer series, titled Recoil, I will be posting a section/excerpt of the first book "The Triangle" once a week until the release of the second book.  Recoil is scheduled for Release December 1, 2013.

Here is this week's post.

Excerpt #1

The Visions of David Palmer: The Triangle

By Stephen Reid Andrews
Copyright 2013
All rights reserved in the author

Blood covers the side of my face, and, because I am uncomfortably lying over an object with my head tilted towards the floor, the blood is dripping towards the top of my head with gravity. I can barely see out of my left eye, and my right eye is obscured with blood. The pain in the back of my head is intense, but the shock with which I am laying on the mall’s floor has numbed me to the full intensity of the sting. Presently, I have no feeling in my limbs.

Everything happened so suddenly that I don’t have any idea what actually caused my injuries. There were several loud bangs which I believe were gunshots. After the bangs, but before I could react or look around to assess the situation, I collapsed and found myself on the ground.

Through the pain and shock, I hear more loud bangs and screaming around me, and I conclude that whatever happened to me is happening to others.

Assuming that I have been shot, I turn my head to the side where I see other people lying on the ground through the forest of chair and table legs in the mall’s food court. Moving my head caused excruciating pain that I had not anticipated, and I resolve not to move any more. When I was younger, I fell and hit my head on the cement playing basketball in the driveway. My head feels like it has been slammed against the cement at least a hundred times, and I can feel myself slipping out of consciousness. I want to lose consciousness to make all the pain go away.

I close my eyes in reaction to the deafening sound of the gunshots still snapping around me. Although I have never been in the military, I imagine that this must be what a war zone with a crossfire sounds like. Within seconds, the gunshots completely stop, and there is only the sound of a baby crying at least thirty feet from me.

Lying motionless on the mall’s floor, I anticipate that I will soon die.

Jennifer! The thought screams through my head just before I let myself slip away. Horrified, I remember why I was at the mall and who I was with. Without moving, I panic as I realize the blood I am laying in may not all be my own. My heart skips with fear as I open my eyes as wide as they will open and scan my surroundings without shifting the position of my head. My greatest fear is realized as, near my waist, I see that I am partially lying over a motionless body. The motionless body is my wife’s. There is a single gunshot wound in the side of her forehead. I want to scream as I realize there is nothing I can do for her. The love of my life is not moving, even to breathe.

I want to hold her, but I can’t move. My body succumbs to shock as the squelching sound of terrified people fills the silence of the mall’s food court. In the far distance I hear a man’s flustered voice calling 911, and I hear the groans of other people who must either be dying or mourning for someone who is dead.

I close my eyes to the nightmare around me as I think to myself. Please God, don't make me live. Please take me.

All is black.