Story code: ST-001131
Part 4: The Phantom
The heavy knock reverberated through the tight space. Julian tightened his grip on the cold neck of the fire extinguisher. He raised it higher to his shoulder, bracing his back foot against the carpet.
The brass knob rattled one last time.
“Police Department! Is anyone in there?”
The voice was muffled by the thick wood, but authoritative and sharp. Julian froze. The adrenaline roaring in his ears refused to subside. He didn’t lower the extinguisher. What if it was a trick? But then came the heavy clatter of a master key sliding into the lock. The deadbolt snapped back with a sharp mechanical thud.
Julian let the extinguisher slip from his fingers. It hit the carpeted floor with a dull, heavy thud.
The door swung wide. Blinding white beams of tactical flashlights cut through the darkness of the closet, pinning Julian against the server rack.
“Hands! Let me see your hands!”
Julian threw his empty hands up, squinting through the brutal glare. Behind the wall of light, he saw the dark, polished steel of the rifle barrel-the exact same weapon that had terrified him minutes ago. It belonged to a tactical officer in heavy body armor, who was already sweeping the muzzle away from Julian to clear the dark corners of the supply room.
“We have civilians,” the officer barked into a shoulder-mounted radio. “One male, unharmed. Moving in.”
The next ten minutes were a chaotic blur of shouted instructions and shivering bodies. The officers ushered them out into the harsh fluorescent glare of the administrative hallway. Councilman Vance stumbled out first, his face smeared with dust and tears, clutching his chest as a paramedic caught him by the elbow.
Then came the drag performer. They moved with slow, deliberate grace, a terrified toddler clinging to each of their hands, the third riding securely on their sequined hip.
Julian followed last, his legs feeling like lead. He walked back into the main rotunda, dreading the carnage. He expected to step over bodies. He braced his stomach for the sight of blood on the polished marble.
But there was none.
The library was a disaster area of a different kind. Folding chairs were tangled in metal knots. The acoustic tiles from the ceiling were powdered over the carpet. Torn flyers and crushed plastic cups littered the floor. But there were no bullet holes in the drywall. No shattered plaster from crossfire. It was just the tragic, messy residue of human panic.
Near the main entrance, the towering front plate-glass windows were completely missing. Shards of thick, tempered glass blanketed the front steps like ice. Resting in the center of the debris, surrounded by a taped-off police perimeter, was a single, soot-stained red brick.
Julian stopped walking. He stared at the brick.
“Keep moving, sir,” an officer nudged him toward the doors.
“Where’s the shooter?” Julian rasped, his throat still raw from Vance’s chokehold.
“There was no shooter,” the officer replied, his tone clipped and weary. “Counter-protesters clashed on the street. Somebody threw a brick through the lobby glass. In the echo chamber of the rotunda, it sounded exactly like a firearm. The crowd panicked. A stampede did the rest.”
No shooter.
Julian looked back over his shoulder, toward the hallway leading to the AV closet. He thought of his phone, pulverized into a bent frame and leaking lithium paste on the carpet. He had smashed his only camera. He had severed his connection to his massive, raging audience. He had braced himself to die-all for a phantom.
Outside, the night air was biting. The street was a chaotic sea of flashing red and blue strobe lights, ambulance bays, and weeping families reuniting on the pavement. Julian found an empty patch of concrete curb near a fire hydrant and sank down. He patted his empty jacket pocket. It was a phantom limb sensation. Right now, his thousands of viewers were probably spinning wildly out of control, formulating conspiracy theories, demanding to know what the council had done to him.
He couldn’t tell them. He realized, with a strange, hollow weight in his chest, that he didn’t even want to.
A heavy sigh broke the ambient noise of the police radios.
Julian looked to his left. The drag performer sank onto the curb a few feet away. The towering blonde wig was gone, discarded somewhere in the library, revealing short, sweat-plastered dark hair. The emerald sequined gown was torn at the shoulder and ruined with gray drywall dust. The toddlers were gone, safely returned to their weeping parents at the triage tent across the street.
The performer pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes from a hidden slit in the gown. Their hands were still trembling violently, the adrenaline crash finally taking its absolute toll. They put a cigarette between their lips, sparked a plastic lighter, and took a long, shuddering drag.
Julian watched the cherry of the cigarette flare. For six months, this person had been a thumbnail on his videos. A target. A degenerate cartoon he had used to whip his followers into a profitable frenzy.
The performer exhaled a plume of gray smoke into the flashing red lights. They turned their head and met Julian’s gaze. The heavy theatrical makeup was streaked with sweat, framing eyes that looked ancient and hollowed out by the exact same terror that still gripped Julian’s chest. They had both waited to die in the dark.
Julian opened his mouth. He thought about apologizing. He thought about explaining the phone, the broadcast, the fire extinguisher. But the words felt utterly useless, small and pathetic against the weight of what they had just lived through.
Instead, Julian just nodded.
The performer stared at him for a long moment, reading the ash-pale exhaustion on his face. Slowly, they extended the hand holding the cigarette.
Julian leaned over. He took the cigarette, raised it to his lips, and inhaled the bitter smoke. He handed it back.
They didn’t speak. They just sat together on the cold concrete, flanked by the deafening spin of the sirens, staring out at the chaotic street in a hollow, exhausted silence.