[04] Western Shootout!

[Alexander Trafford]

His eyes flashed left, then right, and then back once more as he examined his surroundings. He did not know how it had happened, or why it had happened, but, once again, he had been transported. Sleep deprived and agitated, Alex was somewhat relieved to find that he had landed in a venue that he recognized: a bar. But that did not take away from his displeasure towards his ridiculous attire. He found himself wearing a sky-blue, long-sleeved, button-up collared shirt with wide shoulders, extremely tight denim jeans, narrow leather boots and a high-crowned, wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

The way he figured it, this event could go one of two ways: either that of his favorite actor, Clint Eastwood, or the way of Brokeback Mountain. He shuttered as he imagined having to role play a romantic cowboy scene with one of the other male participants; in his mind he could picture Juno, with his onyx hair whipping around in a cool mountain breeze, making an advance on him in front of a warm campfire.

He shuttered again, and threw back the double shot of whiskey that had conveniently been placed before him. The bartender immediately shuffled over, and refilled it. He could definitely get used to this place.

“Watch out!” someone screamed from outside the saloon. The nearly silent tavern became the epicenter of bustling activity as a single bullet shattered the venue’s front window and the patrons dove for cover in anticipation of more gunfire.

A second shot came immediately after the first. Alex, who had remained seated at the wooden counter atop his creaky stool, could feel the air around him stir as the bullet careened past him – mere inches in front of his face. His glass shattered violently as the cartridge burst through it before embedding itself in the saloon’s rear wall.

“Whoa,” he muttered. Normally he would have reacted more violently, perhaps he would have fallen from his stool, or even screamed, but a firefight seemed far more normal than everything else he had experienced recently. Instead he simply held what was left of the broken, rigid glass – the remains of which had been scattered across the countertop amidst a sea of spilled whiskey.

He closed his eyes and rubbed the sealed lids gently with his index finger and thumb respectively. After a moment he released his therapeutic hold and his hand fell to his chin, which it massaged in turn, while his eyes turned skyward. Why was it that whenever he thought he might have a moment to relax something had to disrupt him?

Slowly sliding from his stool, Trafford rolled his eyes and placed the shattered shooter atop the wooden counter. Looking on the bright side, he thought to himself, at least he was in a firefight and not a gay cowboy romance.

“Let’s get this over with, I guess,” Alex sighed and rolled his eyes once more. What did a guy have to do to earn a nap around here anyway? This shit was getting ridiculous.

He unsnapped the leather binding on his holsters and withdrew his two massive handguns, quickly noting that they were not the six-shooters that he expected, but rather his twin, gold-plated Desert Eagles. His fortunes were turning.

What happened next was even better. Having noticed a continual flickering in the upper-left corner of his vision, he shifted his gaze in that direction and saw a small, almost unnoticeable, text box. Text was streamlining within the black-outlined rectangle, it read: “cheat activated: unlimited ammunition.”

His eyes lit up like those of a fat kid in a candy shop.

Placing one of his handguns on the countertop, Alex removed a cigarette from his back pocket and slid it into his mouth. With a wink the tip became lit, and he inhaled upon the filter of the long, white cancer stick. Then he grabbed his Desert Eagle and made his way towards the half-sized, swinging saloon doors that marked the exit.

~~~*~~~

“Who’s on my team, damnit?” Trafford shouted from behind a building corner. Everyone appeared to be shooting at one another, and it did not seem like there was any logical framework to the firefight. It was not bandits on one side and law enforcement on the other – his precarious situation was nothing more than one giant cluster-fuck.

Alex peered around the corner slowly, but found himself immediately leaping back behind cover as a bullet slammed into the wooden wall perpendicular to the one he was hiding behind. Luckily, he had managed to spot his assailant – the foe was little more than a hundred paces from him, along the building he was using as cover, behind a splintered barrel.

Trafford checked his ammunition, which he later realized was unnecessary due to the programmed cheat, and then burst out from his position. The leather soles of his effeminate boots slapped against the hardened dirt as he sprinted down the small, western town’s central street.

Bullets continued to careen by his head, their paths bending in accordance to his will. He raised his own gun, and, after waiting for the exhaled smoke to clear from his vision, fired off a series of his own shots.

His aim had been terrible, but, luckily, the bullets slowly curved and crashed into the thin, wooden barrel. And wouldn’t you know it, the damned thing just exploded – knocking his foe onto his ass. The cowboy did not move, whether he was dead or unconscious was a mystery to the young psychokinetic.

Trafford slowed and unwisely came to a halt in the middle of the seemingly deserted street. With a flash of his eyes, he evaluated his surroundings and, not having seen any further opponents, took a moment to catch his breath. The sound of gunfire served as a foreboding backdrop to the bullet-riddled town.

“Hey!” a familiar feminine voice shouted.

Alexander whirled around and leveled his guns, having been caught off guard, and pulled back each hammer in preparation for another firefight.

“Whoa, ease up.” The girl threw up her hands, signaling that he should not fire. Which he did not, rather he holstered his firearms. It was one of the girls that had been with him on the Titanic. He knew nothing of her, except that he was also a participant in this strange video game.

Trafford put forward his hand in an effort to reintroduce himself, but his words were cut off by the increasing volume of gunfire – they were getting closer.

“Come on,” the girl grabbed his wrist and jerked him towards a narrow alley, “this way!”

She seemed very in control of this situation, as opposed to Alex, who seemed to have lapses of lackadaisical carelessness. Perhaps she just had not experienced one of these absurd simulations before. After Dante’s Abyss he was fairly sure that he could not actually be killed, and so he did not really care.

Regardless, he obliged and followed her into the narrow alley.

“Alright Alex . . . it is Alex right?”

“Uh, yeah,” he responded after a moment. God damnit, he thought to himself, he was hoping that she had not remembered his name because now it was awkward that he hadn’t remembered hers. He thought it was Victoria, but he couldn’t be sure and did not want to risk using that name in case it was wrong.

“Alright, I’m not going to hide. I’m going to give these guys a helluva fight.” She lifted her hand as if it were a pistol and crept towards the alley’s exit.

“You coming?” she turned back and questioned him after having noticed that he was not following her.

“Sure,” Trafford nodded and responded quickly, not wanting to appear a coward, “I think that I should go first though.”

He pulled his massive weapons from their respective holsters and stepped forward. She shot him a disapproving look, perhaps she thought that he figured her incapable, being a woman and all.

“Oh, right, you don’t know,” Alexander quickly moved to correct his vagueness. “I can, ya know . . . stop bullets.”

“What?” She threw him a curious look, as if he had piqued her interest. Trafford simply nodded in response and took another step forward, preparing to charge out into the central travel way once more.