The Calling by Haneefa Muhammad (ebook audio reader .TXT) 📕

think they will believe me.
“Oh really prove it to us then.” The man who was previously circling me who’s now standing behind me commands.
“OR, you could just believe me and we can go on about our days and we all live…..” I suggest not so strongly as my previous contributions to this conversation. In this instance Ben is the smart one, he’s keeping quiet and slowly reaching for the gun under the counter. There’s only three ways we can be saved; He kills them with the shotgun, someone nearby outside sees the situation and calls the cops, or Ben calls the police. But seeing that neither of us have a cell phone that option is useless.
“Oh we’ll be leaving alive alright, but I don’t know about you two. Cause if this cashier doesn’t give us our money, and you the bag both of you are dead, so you both have 15 seconds to give us what we want!” The man holding the gun to Ben says, he sounds pissed. I and Ben make eye contact, and I know he has ahold of the gun, good job bud good job. I give a slight discreet nod of the head to show I know what’s going on.
“You sure you want the money?” Ben says his chest rising up and down frantically I can tell he’s nervous. I can see the sweat running down his face and wide eyes darting around the shop.
“Yeah! Now give us what we want already!” The man with the gun to Ben’s head yells.
I see him nervously swallow and he makes eye contact with me again, and it could be for the last time.
“Well, be careful what you wish for!” He says and with that he brings out the shotgun from under the desk and wastes no time pulling the trigger. I instantly turn around and accidently bump into the guy behind me, he doubles over in pain and his gun flies off somewhere. I try to run behind one of the small gas station’s isles, but he grabs my ankle and I hear a sharp yelp of pain from Ben.
I turn around to see he’s been shot in the shoulder and the man has the gun pointed to his head.
“You bastard! You think you can stand up to us!? What did you think you were gonna do huh!? Kill me?” The man yells, as Ben stares into the barrel of the black shiny gun. His arms and legs trembling as he lays slouched on the ground and his head propped up by the wall. His brown hair plastered to his face as he stares up into his death. They’re both behind the counter and it seems like the robber is holding his knee, I’m guessing he got shot.
I know if I don’t act fast I’ll never see Ben again. I almost forget that the one guy is still holding my ankle and holding his head at the same time. Good I hurt him that’ll teach him a lesson or two; I kick him off and run for the counter making sure to hurt him again. Since I didn’t get far until the robber grabbed my leg it wasn’t a long run and I jump behind the low counter and onto the criminal’s back. Successfully turning him around, so that when he accidently pulled the trigger, firing a bunch of shots, he nearly shot one of his partners.
“Get off of me!” He screams as he tries to grab for me, but I keep a firm grip around his neck. Maybe I can choke him to death. He tries to shoot again but he’s out of bullets. Talk about being unprepared. He falls to his knees as my arm around his neck grows tighter.
“Ben hurry, go! I got this!” I yell towards him as he starts to get up.
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Damnit Ben I said I got this! I need you to go get help!”
“Nobody’s going anywhere.” I turn to see who it was and I see one of the masked robbers pointing a gun at us. “Now he said let him go, I advise you to do just that.”
“No, you’re just gonna kill me anyways.”
“Ok wanna be difficult that’s cool with me,” He points the gun directly at Ben, “Now as I said let him go or Ben over here takes it to the head your choice.”
“Hey man why can’t we all just get along?” Ben pleads.
“Just shut the hell up and get us what we want!” The man with the gun responds.
“Don’t listen to him Izzy, they’ll kill you anyways.” Ben says, I don’t know what to do. I know what Ben says is true but I don’t want to be the reason he dies.
“Can’t we make a deal?” I plead.
“No!”
“Why don’t I give you a couple of seconds to think about it?” I respond.
“Five,” he starts counting down. “Four!”
What should I do! I look at Ben and I can almost see the light going out of his eyes, and he’s not even dead yet. His shirt soaked with his own thick red blood that’s oozing out of the hole in his shoulder. He doesn’t deserve to die he has family and friends to live for; I have nobody and nothing to live for. My hold on the still robber’s neck loosens a bit.
“Three!”
“Ok look I have a plan!”
“Two!”
“Just listen to me...” He stops counting down, “Ok good I got your attention, if you let Ben leave the store he has to promise he won’t tell anyone about this and I’ll let your friend go as well as I’ll give you the money and you can kill me, deal?”
“No!” Ben says and he’s actually starting to tear up. I’m trying to be strong and all, but if he starts crying I know I’m going to. The guy with the gun laughs you hear that Josh she’s gonna sacrifice her life for this idiot.” The armed robber turns around to see if the other guy with them was laughing to and didn’t find him. His blue eyes behind the Halloween mask become even more enraged as he finds out his partner left. It is a bit odd, I haven’t seen the guy in a minute, but I thought he was still on the floor hurt but I guess he left.
“I knew he was gonna bale on us!” He says, “Oh well more money for us, I’ll take the deal, your little friend can go now.”
But Ben stays right where he is.
“What are you doing? Leave already.” I say to him as I tighten my arm on the robber’s neck I hear him make a choking noise, good, even though he’s been good and still because a gun is pointed our way I still wanna make sure he doesn’t try anything.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“That’s not an option.” I respond like I don’t care.
“If you don’t leave, you both will just end up dead!” The man under me says, I tighten my grip even more on his neck and he starts to paw at my arm, as he tries to breathe in for air. I might be a girl but I’m strong, and that’s what I like, they always underestimate me.
“You can shut up or I’ll kill you.” I say into his ear, and then I loosen my grip ever so slightly so he can breathe a little better.
“Izzy….” Ben starts but I’m not hearing it.
“Go.”
“Bye.” He says, he looks at me one last time and limps away holding his shoulder. I watch him walk out into the fresh air of the early morning and limp away until I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I let go of the guy I was on, the first thing he does when he turns around to look at me is punch me in the face. My vision is distorted and a massive headache comes on, the ringing in my ears gets louder as he punches me again. And this time I can feel bright red blood start to trickle out of my burning nose, as I lay on the floor.
“That’s for choking me.” He says.
“Now where’s the money?” The guy with the gun asks, and despite the pain I laugh slightly, they’re so stupid.
“For one it’s where they keep the money, in the cash register. Two I don’t work here so I don’t have the key. And three you better hurry up and kill me because customers usually start rolling in about this time.” I half mumble, my lip is starting to swell and it’s making it a pain to talk straight.
“Are you kidding me!” The guy with the gun says and kicks me in the stomach, and I fold into myself. I hold my stomach as a new fresh wave of pain hits me; if I get hit in the stomach again I’ll probably throw up.
“We gotta go man, somebody is gonna end up walking in here sooner or later.” The guy with the gun and scratchy voice says.
“Yeah I know that but it will be useless if we come here and leave with nothing.” The deep voice responds, his voice sounds a little out of breath thanks to me. I look around to see if there’s anything I can pick up to use as a weapon, I didn’t guarantee they would get an easy kill. I see my back pack lying about two feet away if I could get to it without them looking that would be a miracle. When I get the bag I’ll pull out a little surprise and see if they’ll be too eager to get close to me then. If I can take at least one of them out I’ll die happy.
“Ok here’s the deal we’ll just grab the register, kill the girl, and take her bag then dip, we’ll find out where Tim went and bust a cap in him for leaving us then we’ll split the money and be on our way to the next gas station.” Scratchy voice says.
“Sounds like a plan to me grab the cash register I’ll take care of the girl.” He says, “I owe it to her.”
I don’t have to see him to know he’s smiling, I can hear it in his voice. His tall dark shadow stands over me blocking the ceiling lights of the store and all I see is him and a gun pointed straight between my eyes.
“Any last words street walker?” He says as he cocks the gun back. I stare wordlessly up at him and try not to let the tears fall.


“Well in that case…” I close my eyes and my body goes tense as I wait for him to pull the trigger. Good bye world. I jump as I hear a gun being fired, and the ringing in my ears amplifies but wait…. Why am I not dead!?
I slowly open my eyes to find the armed robber shot in