He heard the shot before he heard the cry

 

He heard the shot long before he heard the cry. It exploded like a bomb, and the violent thunder of it ricocheted in the wind between the stacked high rises. The whole street fell abruptly silent. Sauchiehall street froze as the momentary shock cast them all in a spell. The shopper’s bags hung suspended from their arms. The many heels and trainers rooted to the pavement. A jogger threw himself to the concrete and covered his face. A child who had been fighting his brother, halted mid-punch, and his arm fell limp to his side. His mother’s jaw was primed to scream a volley of threats, but it suddenly stuck and lingered open, as her eyes joined the others in desperately searching the many windows on both sides of the street.

Jonah looked too, his eyes dancing up and down the five story buildings, his breath trapped in his throat as his hands formed a pathetic shield. And then he heard the cry. Anguished. Wailing. And the woman in front of him collapsed. The panic spread quickly. People dove under benches and cowered under bags and launched themselves into the entrances of the stores. The first scream spread contagiously, in seconds the whole street was at it; a symphony of chaos and panic and terror and confusion. An old lady tripped on the clump of her boot and smashed her elbow against the sharp edge of the kerb, and he wanted to go to her, but his gaze was pulled to the first woman who had fallen- and the blood spurting out from the hole in her head.

“Jesus Christ!” someone screamed. Jonah’s eyes darted up, down, then back at the woman- her open eyes fixed on the grey sky above. I've saw her somewhere before, rushed through his head, but it didn’t matter- she was gone. And he could be next. But where was he? Where was the-

The second shot blasted and another body dropped down- an old man, the blood streaking the pavement behind his rigid body. Jonah tried to move but his feet wouldn’t let him. He tried to shout but the words wouldn’t come. The street had parted like Moses in the sea and all the bodies were huddled in the doorways and cramming into the sides. The noise of it was awful. The third one cracked and whooshed past his ear. He felt a wetness ooze down the inside of his leg. He now stood alone. With the two dead bodies. “RUN!” someone shouted. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Another cried. And he turned his head to mouth something when a young man came racing across, and had almost reached him, when he crashed to the floor as well; his legs keeling over first, his chest following after.

Jonah turned his head in the direction the shot had come from. Jumbled thoughts raced through his frenzied mind; his mother, his brother, school at Lochinsh when he was ten years old. But! What?! As his senses flooded into him, he realised he wasn’t shouting out. For the first time ever, his Tourette’s was gone. It really was gone. A sense of wonder lit up every inch of his being. He was amazed it could be true. And a gentle smirk played on his lips when he looked up, and caught the flash from the window above Primark.

And then his head burst open.