Animated Adventurers vs. Goolean the Bad

Fugitives: Final Moments:

The Animated Adventurers vs. Goolean the Bad

She had no idea what the movie was about. Something animated and bright and happy. Not the first place they would look for her. And maybe—an unlikely maybe—they would show a little more mercy in front of children. She took a seat beside a small girl with pigtails who was sitting alone and bouncing in the seat with excitement.

She’d bought a ticket for the last of her money (she wouldn’t need money after this)—for a different movie, actually. Something with explosions and people dying deaths by machine gun. The box office attendants, a crew-haired boy and bleach blonde girl, had recommended it. Once faced with the row of doors, she couldn’t enter that theater. She couldn’t face death more than once.

She could hear their boot treads from out the emergency exit door at the far front end of the theater. So they were surrounding the building. Running would not get her very far. She’d known it. It’s why she’d stopped.

Ten entered the building, the rest stationed at each exit outside. Five stayed in the lobby, watching the theater doors. The other five travelled in a pack and began searching the theaters. The people complained loudly as the lights flicked on in the middle of their movies, then fell silent when they saw the guns. She heard it all, but she doubted the rest of her theater—so un-attuned to the sound of pursuit—did.

They were thorough, and it was maybe twenty minutes, half an hour, before they came into the kids’ theater, and the suspense was taking its toll on her as she waited. She was trying to cry quietly, to not be noticed by the girl beside her. She tucked her knees up, wrapped her trembling arms around her legs, and leaned her wet eyes against her knees, and felt her shoulders shake, her muffled sobs increasing. This wouldn’t, couldn’t happen, it was, she couldn’t handle it, not anymore. Death would be a welcome relief from fear of death. She was frightened, terrified, staring death in the face. The human psyche was not made for such fear; tears seeped through her fingers, drenched her ragged jeans.

The little girl poked her damp hand, and she picked up her head. “It’s okay,” the girl whispered maternally. “They’re not really trapped.”

She looked at the screen. The animated adventurers had been cornered by a comical evil overlord.

“Davy is smarter than Goolean the Bad, ‘cause Davy's the good guy, and they escape, and beat Goolean! I saw it last week. I know.”

“Thanks.” She smiled—grimaced—and tried to wipe away her tears, though they kept flowing. “Can I hold your hand?” she asked timidly. She’d lost all qualms. Let the little girl think it was for Davy and co. that she sobbed. For someone who would escape. Because the good guy always escaped.

She held the girl’s hand, probably harder than was comfortable, but the child was patient, and patted it every few minutes comfortingly, and though she still shook, her shuddering breath had calmed. Every time she sobbed, the girl would whisper comforting, motherly things. It was the only thing that kept her sane in that time, assured by the little girl that the good guys always escaped, and Davy always outwitted Goolean the Bad for that reason, and that he would save Princess Macie, because he was the hero.

The lights flicked on, and her breath caught. A few indignant mothers leaped to their feet, gasped, and sank back down, murmuring protests, and holding their children to them.

“Come out, hun, and it’ll be easier on everyone here.”

She put her finger to her lips at the little girl, not self-assured, as Davy had done a scene back, and sank to the floor, wriggling forward under the seats, bolts and nails scraping across her back, as they made their way down the aisle. Not the confident escape that Davy made. A helpless last dash. Useless. A dead end run that a dying survival instinct commanded. The theater had gone completely silent, watching the guns, and she was terrified that her frightened breathing would give her away. She was almost to the front, with them only a few rows behind, peering across the seats and floor with guns and flashlights, and once she reached the first row, and the empty space between it and the screen, she would be trapped. In the desperation of pent-up terror, she wriggled out from the row and sprinted, wild, toward the emergency exit. She knew it was useless, she knew and still tried, as she had done for so long. Weren’t the last desperate attempts of heroes supposed to succeed? When everyone said it was useless, when they doubted, didn’t help come then, wasn’t it then that they triumphed?

Three men appeared in the doorway, guns ready; she turned and ran back up the aisle, passing two of the five before they could register her presence. She reached her first aisle, where the little pig-tailed girl still sat, when they blocked her escape, shoving her to the floor. The little girl was staring at her, wide-eyed. Confused. This was not how the story ended. More real than anything Goolean had ever done to Davy. More fear than Davy had ever showed. Trembling sobbing, broken. She stretched out one shaking hand toward the girl, whispering—to the girl, to the soldiers surrounding her with guns ready, to the air, to God—“Please. Please. Please. Please.”

The soldier struck her forehead with the back of his gun, and she fell and cried out, still whimpering “Please. Please. Please. Please.” For God’s sake, not in front of the children. At least take her out to the lobby. Give them a sliver of hope that she’s the good guy in all this, the one who survives. The little girl was still sitting, petrified and wide eyed as they dragged her to her feet and pressed the barrel of the gun to her face.

I am not Davy or his friends, who always win by the inherent power of their virtue. I am not Princess Macie, who gets rescued. I’m not Goolean the Bad, either. Just because I don’t escape doesn’t mean I don't deserve to.

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Question: Should I explicitly show what happens to her, just in a couple more sentences? My fiction professor wants to see the bullet, I want to leave it up to people to decide whether or not she dies, because I'm not even 100% sure she does.