No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

Ed knelt to Jay. “When they come, you’re going to get
behind the counter. You’ll close your eyes. And whatever
happens, you won’t come out. Understand?”
The girl nodded. “Okay.”
Over Jay’s head, Darby mouthed to Ed: How do we treat
her?
“We … we get her to a hospital. That’s all we can do,” he
whispered, leaning close. “I’ve only dealt with it in dogs, and
even then I’ve only seen it a few times. I just know she’s in a
shock period right now. Her body isn’t creating adrenaline —
it’s called an Addisonian crisis — so if things get scary or
intense, her body could trigger a seizure, or coma, or worse.
We need to control her stress level. And keep her environment
as calm and peaceful as possible—”
Sandi gasped from the window. “Ashley’s got a … oh
God, is that a nail gun?”
“Yeah,” Darby said, turning back to Ed. “Not happening.”
* * *
Ashley clicked a battery into his Paslode IMCT cordless
nailer and waited for the little green light to blink.
Back in his father’s days (the golden years of Fox
Contracting), to get any sort of power behind a fired nail, you
needed an air compressor and several yards of rubber hose.
Now it was all batteries and fuel cells — stuff you can carry in
your pocket.
Ashley’s model was bright, Sesame Street-orange. Sixteen
pounds. The Paslode decal worn away. Nails fed from a
cylindrical magazine, which had always reminded Ashley of
the drum on John Dillinger’s tommy gun. The nails’ lengths
are measured in pennies, for some ass-backwards medieval
reason, and these ones were 16-pennies, or roughly three-anda-half
inches. Designed to spear into 2x4 lumber. They can
penetrate human flesh up to ten feet away, and at distances
beyond that, they’re still twirling shards of vicious metal,
screaming through the air at nine hundred feet per second.