Water Cooler

CEO Cindy Calloway clutched the pistol. She kept a .380 under her desk in her Wilmington, Delaware corner office. When she heard a scream, she moved with swiftness from her crouched position to a bear crawl to the door. On the opposite side, lifeless bodied littered the space against chairs and desks along the floor.

Cindy put her hand against the door. She felt the cool wood and then moved over to unlock it. As the mechanism clicked, she could hear a few more gunshots. When she knew the time had come for her to burst out and start ripping the shots out of the handgun, she took the chance.

There were two of them she could see. She locked a predator in her sight and blasted him away. Next, she scrambled behind a water cooler. With great precision, she fired again and hit the second assailant in the head as well.

She loaded the magazine. No knowledge of other attackers arose. Completely uninjured, she texted 9-1-1 and addressed her fellow living co-workers’ ailments.

A young man named Christopher Waterhouse sat up with a gunshot wound to his legs after he had laid there bleeding for minutes. He sipped from the water and nursed his flesh wounds. Cindy fashioned a tourniquet to minimize and eliminate the blood flow.

“This is what we get for being executives, huh?” he asked, his notion dripped with gallows humor.

“It’s alright, Chris. Paramedics and police are on their way right now,” Cindy reassured. She fireman carried him to the elevator and pressed down to the garage level.

“Thanks, Cind’,” Waterhouse mentioned.

Cindy moved like a warrior. By knowing she had been trained as a US Marine, she thought fast and maneuvered even quicker.

The red and blue lights flickered. She breathed in some relief.