A Moral Decision

Synopsis

While making a quick trip to the store for some coffee, Andrew Michaels is standing line at the grocery store when someone comes up behind him and pulls out a gun and holds the entire store hostage.  Will Andrew’s quick thinking save him and the rest of the hostages from the crazed gunman?

Chapter 1

“Andrew, we’re out of coffee and creamer.” Andrew’s wife, Jessie tells him.  “Can you go get some real quick?”

“Sure, love.” Andrew said as he flew out the door and got in his Mazda Protégé.  Andrew knew how desperately Jessie needed her morning coffee to start her day as daycare owner of 12 children in their home.

Andrew arrived at the store.  It should have been a quick trip—coffee and creamer—he should have been in and out within minutes, but he was delayed when a crazed gunman came into the front of the store waving his gun.

“Alright!” the gunman yelled.  “Everyone put up your hands!”

Everyone screamed in panic as they waved their hands in the air.  The gunman grabbed a little old lady who was beyond scared.  The manager is new and doesn’t know what to do.

Andrew, standing in the checkout line, is contemplating what he should and how to subdue the gunman so as to protect everyone in the store.

The gunman suddenly lets the little old lady go and grabs Andrew from the checkout lane and pulls him to the front of the store.

“Don’t do anything heroic, or I will shoot you!” the gunman warns.

Andrew isn’t scared, but he is looking for a way to defuse the hostage situation as checkers are putting the money from their tills into the bag that the gunman handed them.

Back at Andrew’s home, Jessie is getting worried that Andrew isn’t home with her coffee.  She texts him but she gets no reply.

After getting baby Jillian out of her crib, Jessie turns on the television to find that there is a hostage situation at the store.  She shrieks in terror when she sees that gunman has a gun pointed at Andrew’s back.

Chapter 2

Jessie, holding baby Jillian in her lap, is watching frantically as the crazed gunman makes his demands to the store managers. 

The store managers frantically get what the gunman wants as fast as they can so there is no casualties. 

15 minutes later, the gunman, still holding a gun to Andrew’s back, gets antsy and slips with his trigger finger as the gun goes off. 

Andrew is shot in the back as the hostages all start to scream.  The gunman, scared he’ll go down, runs from the store as police arrive on scene.

The manager informs the police what went down as a cashier calls from her cell to get dispatch the EMT.

Jessie, having witnessed her husband get shot during the hostage crisis, grabs Jillian, and after putting a “Closed for Emergency” sign on her front door to alert clients bring their children to the day care, gets in her Subaru Brat, after strapping Jillian in her car seat, and heads for the store where Andrew was shot.

After arriving on scene, Jessie watches as police try to bring the crisis under control as EMTs get Andrew inside the ambulance and to the hospital.  Jessie stop one of the EMTs and asks about Andrew’s condition, who is promptly told to head to the hospital to wait for Andrew’s prognosis.

Getting back into her Brat, Jessie heads to the hospital and waits with Jillian for news on Andrew.

…

30 minutes later, a doctor comes out of the ER to alert Jessie that they are taking Andrew in for emergency surgery as the bullet is lodged in his chest.

Jessie’s mother arrives after having been called by Jessie, to the hospital and sits vigil waiting to hear about her son-in-law.

While waiting, a police officer comes over to Jessie and asks about Andrew.  He tells her how much of a hero he was to take the place of the little old lady the gunman first took hostage.