Alone

"Damnit boot, are you sleeping?" Snapped Thomas, my training officer.

"No sir!" I replied quickly, looking up at him, doing my best to hide the embarrassment on my face.

It was dark, we were the midnight shift, ten 'til six, and I'd not had nearly enough time or sleep to get into the right pattern for the four consecutive weeks we'd have to spend on night shift. I'd hoped that with only the weak glow of the red reading lamp lighting the interior of the patrol car, and with Deputy MacDermott focused on the road, I'd have the opportunity for a quick thirty-minute power nap, but alas, looking at the ancient 7-segment display in our 2001 Ford Crown Victoria's center console, it wasn't even midnight yet. I'd maybe had ten minutes of rest.

I pulled down the visor and had a look at myself in the mirror. I looked terrible. I'm sure the dim visor light wasn't doing me any favors, but I had noticeable dark circles under my eyes. My emerald green eyes were slightly bloodshot already, and my dark red hair, normally back in a tight bun, was pulled back into a loose ponytail instead. I'd heard somewhere that the tight military-style buns were terrible for the hair, and so I'd started experimenting a bit. I figured I ought to just cut my hair though, as I knew the ponytail wasn't regulation. So far Thomas hadn't said anything though.

My thoughts were interrupted as Thomas leaned over and snapped the visor shut.

"That light's distracting." He said simply.

"Sorry." I replied, not specifying what I was apologizing for, instead leaving it up for interpretation.

He sighed. "Jane, you get away with falling asleep once, and only because it's your first night shift." He said firmly, though his tone had softened.

"I know, I'm sorry sir."

He looked back at me for a moment and shook his head slightly, before focusing back on the road.

"I would've thought you'd be able to handle being awake all night. My daughter's just hit 19 and she's out until the crack of dawn." He said after a moment.

I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, I ain't 19 though."

"No, you're more like my boy. He's fifteen, and like you, he's sleeping all the damn time." He replied.

"I'm 22, actually." I replied tersely.

"Gawd, they'll let anyone in now." He lamented.

"I was second in my class, I'll have you know." I told him defensively, and not for the first time.

"God help whoever was third then." He replied dryly.

I didn't reply, but I knew he was only pulling my leg. I wasn't sure where the insinuation came from that I should be used to being up all night though. I wasn't a party girl, even when I was at college. I went to parties with my friends, sure, did my fair share of underage drinking, and stayed awake until the sun came up on more than a few occasions, but I didn't make a habit of it. My criminology studies came first. I'd always intended on being a social worker, but two years into a three year course, something had happened that had changed my trajectory.

We'd been at a party off-campus, at some senior's place out in the suburbs, Megan, Sarah and I, but I wasn't feeling well, and so Megan took me back to the dorms. We wouldn't normally split up, but Sarah was with another friend of ours, a guy we hung around with on occasion, but wasn't really part of our social circle. I knew he liked her, and she liked him, but they never hooked up, though it was because Sarah was properly religious, some kind of Christian, but I can't remember what denomination exactly. She was serious about it though, and that meant no sex before marriage. Evidently that wasn't amenable to this guy, and so after the party, he offered her a lift back to dorms, and he raped her in his car, in the parking lot of the Lowe's, two blocks from campus.

She was a broken wreck when she got back, and though it took Megan and I hours to get it out of her, she told us what happened. By five in the morning we had a campus police officer in our dorm, taking statements from the lot of us. The police officer, I don't remember her name, but I remember everything else about her. She was a kind, compassionate, and understanding thirty-something year old black lady with short, brown hair and a petite figure, a far cry from what I expected the average police officer to be like. Though I suppose I didn't really know much about the average police officer. After all, until that point, I'd never been much of a fan of the police.

You'd struggle to find a single person in our course who wasn't at least partially critical of the police. Hell, most of us were involved in the protests during the summer of 2020, when we were essentially confined to our houses doing college online for the better part of a few months during lockdown. We drew the line at burning buildings down though. Once the college opened up again, we went back, but the protests didn't die down for months. That whole experience had solidified an image of police officers as the knee on the neck of people everywhere, for most of us, but when Sarah told us what had happened, there wasn't any sort of debate as to whether we'd make the call.

The guy was convicted. They had photographs of the bruises all over Sarah's body and face, and despite all of our objections, the campus police officer insisted that she not shower, so they could take her to the hospital and do a rape kit. I hated her for it at first. She was putting procedure and investigation over the wellbeing of Sarah, on the worst night of her life, but when he was confronted with the multitude of evidence against him, he pled guilty, and got five years. All without a trial to torment Sarah with. After he was sentenced, the officer came back several times and talked to us all, offering Sarah counseling, advice, anything she needed, and it was that compassion she demonstrated that made me realize that was what I wanted to do.

That campus police officer reminded me that the spirit of community policing was not dead, and it made me understand that with the power of the badge came a responsibility to protect, and serve. When I told Megan and Sarah I was dropping out, and that I was going to join the police, they didn't understand it. Megan especially, though when I told her privately about why, she softened slightly. Sarah couldn't really get it though, and I didn't want to explain to her why, because I didn't want to reopen her wounds that were only just starting to close.

Like I said to Thomas, second in my class. Despite never handling a weapon before, I found out early on that I had a talent for marksmanship. That, and I had a really good mind for law and policy. For all the pain it had caused Sarah, the event that triggered my shift towards law enforcement meant I'd found my calling. When I passed the academy with the score I did, I had my pick of departments. After some deliberation, I chose my local county sheriff, and became Deputy Jane Murphy. The shifts were better, the pay was better, and the opportunities for further training were endless. First off though, I had to pass probation.

My thoughts were interrupted again as Thomas mumbled something quietly.

"What?" I asked.

"That car had its lights on a second ago." He repeated, gesturing past me, down a dirt track, leading to nowhere.

We were on a country road, a good few miles from the nearest town, and to the best of my knowledge, away from any farm properties. I could just about see the outline of a cell tower against the starry night, off in the direction he pointed, with a small blinking red light just visible above the trees.

"There's a cell tower down there." I supplied, though I wasn't sure how relevant it was.

"Yeah, let's check it out." He replied quietly, doing a lumbering U-turn in the road, before cautiously turning down the dirt track.

"Spotlight?" I suggested.

"Yeah, I wanna see what's going on over there."

I snapped on the spotlight and awkwardly focused it on the car as we approached. It was a small, red sedan. Immediately that piqued my interest, because it wasn't a telecom company car, or the kind of truck that any workman would drive. Thomas seemed equally intrigued. As we pulled up behind, I noticed there was definitely someone in the driver's seat. As we watched, he appeared to be shifting around in the front seat.

"Get the lights on and order him to stay still." He instructed.

I reached down and flicked on the emergency lights, as well as the takedown white lights. We were in an old car, sure, but they'd fitted it with a new lightbar back in 2014, so we had no shortage of visibility on the vehicle. I turned off the spotlight, as it was redundant, and got on the loudspeaker.

"Driver, stay in your vehicle and keep your hands on the steering wheel." I said, in my most commanding voice.

The driver quickly stopped shuffling about. Thomas made to get out of the car, and gestured for me to do the same.

"I'm contact, you're cover." He said simply, and went around the driver's side of the car, hand glued to his holster.

I knew the drill. I followed his lead, and went around the passenger side of the car, shining my flashlight through the back windows, making sure there were no other occupants in the car. There was a kid's car seat in the back, with a small, worn-looking teddy bear lying on the seat next to it. No kid to be seen though. I already had a deep sense of unease from the whole situation, and that only worsened it. The front passenger seat was also clear, and looking over at the occupant, he was keeping both hands on the wheel, as I had instructed him to.

"Fourteen-Tango-Five, stopped with one at the cell tower along-" I heard Thomas saying quietly into his radio as he approached the driver's side window, but couldn't hear all of it.

I wasn't paying much attention to the conversation he began with the driver, as I was too busy focusing on the interior of the vehicle itself. So much about this didn't seem to sit right with me. What the driver was doing out here at this time of night was a big enough red flag as is. Adding on to that a number of things that didn't add up. The driver was male, that much I could hear, and he sounded, well, he sounded like a redneck, whilst the car was a very modern BMW sedan of some kind. It was very modern. The car keys weren't in the ignition, but I could see them in the center console tray. They had a number of silly keychains on them, including a large pink fluffy thing that practically guaranteed those keys would never fit in any reasonably sized pocket. This car was not his, that much was clear.

I caught Thomas's eye over the top of the car, and he gestured for me to come around to the other side. I did so, hand on my holster now. The rough, checkered grip of my nearly-new Glock 19 gave me a little more confidence as I walked around the back of the car and met up with Thomas.

"I'm gonna check your details, my partner will just stay with you for a moment, sit tight." He said to the driver, and gestured for me to watch him.

I got the feeling he'd been put at ease a little by the conversation with the driver, but I wasn't convinced, something was very wrong about this. I glanced around for a second as Thomas got into the passenger seat and started typing on the computer. Looking back at the driver, I got a proper look at him for the first time. He was a balding, heavily bearded white man with brown eyes, maybe about forty or so, with patchy, sun damaged skin, and a stout build, yet oddly gaunt facial features. The harsh lighting of the car's interior lamp made it difficult to tell much else about him, but from what I could see, he appeared calm enough, and had a sort of embarrassed smile on his face. Despite all that though, he unnerved me.

"Good evening ma'am." He said after a moment, smiling hesitantly across at me.

"Good evening." I reciprocated, watching him closely.

"Sorry about all this. This uh, this isn't my car, it's actually my aunt's. I'm just borrowing it." He volunteered awkwardly.

"I see, what's her name?" I asked warily.

"Cassie Winters." He replied.

"Okay, we'll just check that, and uh, what's your name sir?" I asked, still watching him.

I wasn't sure why, but he looked familiar to me. For the life of me I had no idea where I'd seen him before though. Maybe he was some local weatherman, that might explain his patchy skin. He sounded a little like one of the disc jockeys on Thomas's favorite punk station, but that wouldn't explain why I recognized his face.

"Gregory Benson. I uh, I just gave your partner my ID."

He took just a moment too long to reply, and that set my alarm bells ringing. I was still watching him, trying to figure out where I'd seen him before. It was when my mind turned to TV that I realized where I recognized him from. I'd been watching youtube videos on emergency first aid earlier in the day, always keen to expand my skill set, when a Georgia news station had popped into my recommended with a story about a nasty murder out in Savannah a few days ago. It showed some CCTV footage of a man fleeing from the scene, supposedly after shooting a man in a crowded bar. The CCTV showed little, other than that the man was of a large build, and wore a baseball cap. There was an eyewitness sketch though. The sketch was where I recognized the man from.

As I realized this, my eyes widened, and I took a stumbling step back. He noticed, and almost immediately, the awkward smile on his face dropped, and his own eyes went wide. Then his hands dropped down from the steering wheel.

"Stay right fucking there!" I shouted, pulling out my gun in a practiced, fluid motion and aiming it directly at the man's head, the end of the barrel perhaps half a foot from the window. "Keep your hands on the wheel!" I added, as he put his hands up, far too close to me for my liking.

"I'm doing it!" He replied hurriedly, sounding quite a bit different now, less redneck, more east coast.

"Jane! You alright?" Thomas shouted from somewhere over by the car.

I glanced over at him as he was getting out of the car, hand on holster. I shouldn't have looked over. That was when it all went wrong. That was the moment that killed my partner.

It was maybe a second, but it was enough. I was pulled off balance as a strong hand gripped my gun and wrenched it forward, pulling me against the car. Instinctively, I pulled the trigger, and a deafening crack rang out, but the hand did not go limp, or even falter for a second. I could feel the muzzle being pulled upwards and off to the side by my assailant's hand. Looking back at Thomas, he was crossing behind the red car, aiming his own gun at the driver, shouting commands.

"He's got my gun!" I screeched, trying with all my might to retain some control over my weapon.

I tried pulling the trigger again, but it hadn't reset from the previous shot. The gun was jammed. I forced myself to let go, and backed up, intent on running to get the rifle. I drew my taser and ran back towards the patrol car. Now that I was clear of the car, several shots rang out in quick succession as Thomas began lighting the car up, shattering the rear window. I opened the driver's side door of the patrol car, but stopped, horrified, as the red car suddenly reversed backwards, knocking Thomas back, and crushing his pelvis between the car's back bumper and the front push bar of our car, pushing our car backwards about half a foot with the force of the impact, before coming to a stop. Thomas cried out in pain, and during the crash, dropped his gun, where it clattered to the ground, falling somewhere underneath both cars.

A quick glance back and I saw the driver getting out of the car, racking the slide of my pistol. Seeing that man with my gun made me realize just how screwed we were. I knew I had no time to get the rifle, I'd be killed before I got the key in the gun lock. We didn't have bulletproof windows, so I'd be peppered with shots before I got one hand around the grip. Thomas's gun. That was my only chance. I ran around the driver's side door and threw myself over the hood behind Thomas, falling heavily on the other side. A shot rang out right as I cleared it, and I heard another cry from Thomas. What I heard next would stay with me for the rest of my life.

"No-no-no- please!" He cried out, but another shot silenced him.

I was frozen for perhaps half a second or so after that shot. I knew what it meant. I was alone. My partner, my mentor, my friend, was dead. The panic I'd felt before was replaced immediately by dread. I was going to die here. God help me, why didn't I listen to Sarah and Megan? Why was I here?

Then I saw the gun. Thomas carried a stainless steel Smith and Wesson 5906. Had it been black, I wouldn't have seen it. It was lying underneath the car, maybe three feet from me, just underneath the engine block of our cruiser. There was maybe 5 inches of ground clearance at most. Nonetheless, desperate to get that gun, I took my taser in my left hand and rapidly crawled behind the engine block of the patrol car, by the open passenger side door. I laid flat on my stomach, forcing my entire arm underneath the car, right up to the shoulder. I couldn't see anything, but I swear I felt my hand brush the cold steel of the slide at least once.

I didn't know I was crying, not until I felt a strong hand on the back of my duty belt pulling me away, while another one removed the taser from my other hand. With that, the quiet, tear-laden breathing I'd been maintaining from the moment I heard the fatal shot stopped, replaced by the desperate crying of a wounded animal, one that knows it's already dead, but just hasn't accepted it yet.

"NO! NO NO NO, GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME GET OFF ME!" I screeched, flailing and trying like mad to crawl back towards the car.

I was stopped again though, as the hand on my belt wrenched me back, pulling me further and further from the gun, and finally, I felt the cold steel of my own gun pressed against the back of my neck.

It was like he'd pressed an off switch. I'd seen too many bodycam videos in the academy of desperate suspects with guns to their head. Every single time, they kept fighting, before eventually attempting to pull the gun away, and being shot in the head. The clips you find on youtube blurred out all the gore. The originals were out there though, and that was what they showed us in class. Training video after training video showed officers making mistakes. Tiny, simple, fatal mistakes. Knowing that if I so much as moved another inch, I'd be killed, I went limp.