It Could Happen Anywhere

"You need to move," he says with anger and determination to get his way.

"Yeah, fuck you!" She retorts with equal hostility. They both move on about their business without anymore confrontation.

Fifteen feet away, there is a guitarist strumming complex jazz chords in patterns that shouldn't work together, yet somehow sound intriguing enough to draw the attention of the casual passerby. She drops a dollar into his guitar case before moving on.

Across the street there is an unmarked SUV pulling onto the curb with masked men jumping out of all doors, while an innocent person walking down the sidewalk panics and runs in an opposing direction.

"Hey, what the fuck are you doing going after her!" a woman yells at the masked men from down the sidewalk as she grabs her phone and begins recording the entire affair. She begins chasing after the masked men, whom she now notices are all strapped with guns of various sizes.

The man who originally told a woman to move out of his way gathers his attention to what is going on, grabs his phone, and begins the pursuit behind the random woman who yelled, running in front of traffic to cross the street.

The woman who told him to fuck off puts one hand into her purse and palms a blade - she doesn't know what could go down, but she has lived in this city long enough to know that shit can go down. She remembers a time when this city was actually dangerous, and she sees what is happening here and feels that this is actually worse as she gives chase, too.

The woman being chased by the masked men kicks off her heels so she can gain even more momentum as the men are gaining on her. She may have enough experience in heels to be proficient at running in them, but no matter how good you are at such a thing it always makes the bit of difference.

One of the masked men trip over one of the heels, breaking the heel off of it, and fall face first onto the sidewalk. As he falls, his gun sounds off and a bullet embeds itself deeply into his leg. It is the first time he even considered having the safety on.

The guitarist unhooks the guitar jack from the guitar and makes a straight line towards the chasers.

Suddenly, the masked men find themselves outnumbered by a significant margin, but they have yet to notice.

One of the masked men finally catches their prey, tackles her to the ground - which leads to her face grinding into the concrete until blood begins to seep, and two of the other masked men jump on top of her along with the man who forced her to the ground. The woman tries to scream that she can't breath, but she can't find the air to fill her lungs for noise.

The man who told the woman to move moments ago plants a foot into the back of one of the masked men's heads, disorienting him and causing him to lose the pressure atop the woman. The woman whom he yelled at to move hits another masked man over the head with her purse, which does little more than startle him, but that is when the body of the guitar slams into his face and knocks him unconscious.

One of the masked men frantically starts firing off his pistol, which hits three innocent people who are looking on in horror at this entire situation, as the fear of everything he has caused begins to take hold. "Get the fuck back! Everyone get the fuck back!"

Several other people rush to the aid of the people shot, as well as make phone calls to emergency services. The life of one of them is already gone, however, and it is looking slim for another one. The third can't walk as the bullet entered his leg, and the masked man who shot himself has found his way back to the vehicle from which he started, and is applying alcohol to the wound.

Only one of the masked men remain atop of the woman they all began chasing, and as he looks around realizing how outnumbered he is, he grabs his gun and draws it on the crowd of people. The woman on the ground draws the first large gasp of air in what feels like an eternity to her, but she wastes no time in jumping up and disappearing into the crowd.

The crowd may as well be a hundred people overcrowding three.

Tires screech from behind the crowd as the unmarked SUV comes full acceleration towards the crowd, most of which manage to get out of the way, but a couple end up getting him and knocked several feet out of the way. They will find out later that they received broken bones from this ordeal, but they will heal just fine.

The masked men rush to the doors of the SUV, jumping in, and before the doors can even close the vehicle is full speed in reverse.

A few people within the crowd catch it all on video thanks to their phones, and will start posting it to social media soon. The FBI will be at their doors within a couple of days to question them about their loyalty to their country.

The trauma that they all endured will last them the remainder of their lifetimes.

-Dustin S. Stover