The Shooter on the Median

The late afternoon sun beat down against the pavement.  Heat waves curled up from the asphalt, making mirrors in the distance.  A single car coasted down the hill.  There was no one in it but the driver.

She stood by the side of road, waiting for him.  She had picked out a pleasant spot where she could see if there were any other cars coming.  Seeing none, she focused her attention on the driver, raised her arms, and pointed the barrel at the oncoming car.

The driver was near the bottom of the hill now and was moving fast.  She steadied her aim and shot once.  The driver lost control and began to swerve.  She shot again and again, one after the other, laughing with glee.  She could hardly contain her excitement.  Too bad there were no witnesses to see this happen in person.

The car swerved, an over-correction by the driver, and skidded off the side of the hot road.  Upon entering the grassy shoulder, the rear wheels slid out at an angle – shot, shot, shot, another shot.  More laughing as the car fish-tailed into a tree.

The driver lost his grip on the wheel when the car crashed.  It flipped sideways and ejected him into the tall weeds beside the road.  His body rolled to a stop and he lay in the ditch gripping his arm where he had scraped it.  He heard the sound of shoes shuffling through the tall grass beside him.  A shadow fell across his face and he looked up.  She was standing there, aiming at his face – another shot, then another.  It was over.

Satisfied, she laughed again as she put her camera back in its case.  
He looked up at her with smiling eyes.  "I wanna do it again," he said.
She removed his helmet and helped him sit up.  She looked at his arm too.  There were no cuts or bleeding and he would be fine.  "Ok," she said, but this is the last time."

Together, the boy and his sister righted his soap-box racer and pushed it out of the ditch.  He took a stone and hammered the wooden crate back together where the tree had loosened it.  He and his sister then pushed his car back up to the top of the driveway.  

With her brother in position, she took her place again at the bottom of the hill and watched for traffic.  When all was clear, she gave her brother the thumbs up and readied her camera to record his descent.