Joe heard Bryon’s voice; he could hear the fear in it. “These are the only ones. These are the only two. I’ll open them.” Joe heard Bryon’s voice rising. “I’m going to open them. I’ll open them.”
“Give me the fucking keys, the store keys. Which one is for the doors?” Bryon fumbled with the store keys, singling out the one to the front door as he held the key ring out to the man glaring back at him, his eyes narrow and drawn. Bryon stared at the shotgun and back up at the eyes of the man holding it. All he could see was anger. The man was thrusting the shotgun into his stomach, pushing him back against the wall, yelling at him, insisting that there was another safe. Byron could hear the pleading sound in his own voice. He stared at the gun and then back up at the man’s eyes. Only blackness in the eyes.
Joe heard the booming sound reverberate off the walls in the small storeroom. There was a crashing sound as something hit the wall. For a moment, the room shook—and then there was silence. Joe smelled the sharp acrid odor of burnt gunpowder in the confined space of the storeroom. The man in the bandanna backed up. Now Joe saw him, the shotgun held loosely in his hands. Wisping smoke curled from the short, black barrel as the man turned and walked back toward them.
The man snapped the shotgun open, pulled the expended cartridge from the breech of the gun, and put it into his pocket. He kept his eyes on the three people on the floor. They kept their eyes on him, watching the thin strand of white vapor oozing from the breech as the man shoved in another cartridge and snapped the shotgun closed. Joe felt himself flinch at the metallic sound as the breech closed. The man’s eyes never left the three people on the floor, and Joe’s eyes never left the shotgun and the man holding it. Joe could tell that Josephine and Doug were staring, frozen with fear, their eyes widening. His own eyes were wide and unblinking. In that moment, Joe knew it. He knew they were all going to die.
Joe felt his eyes suddenly blinking rapidly as he tried to focus on what was happening. The man walked slowly from the back area where the desk was. Joe couldn’t see Bryon, couldn’t hear him. The sound of the shotgun blast was still ringing in his ears.
The man held the weapon out in front of him as his eyes moved across the faces of the three young people kneeling on the floor before him. The smell of fear soured the air, overwhelming the mustiness of the storage area and the tincture of burned gunpowder that now added to the mélange of odors filling the room. The shooter slowly moved the barrel of the sawed-off in front of the faces staring back at him, their eyes wide, tracking his every move. He could feel the control, the rush. He paused and pointed the gun at the face of Doug White, who stood six-foot-six, although he still carried the softness of his eighteen years. “All right, big boy. Where’s the safe at?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Joe watched Doug, whose eyes were locked on the barrel positioned just inches from his face. Joe moved his eyes back up at the man holding the gun. He could smell the pungent odor of fear seeping from the two people kneeling next to him and rising up from his own body. He could feel himself swallowing nothing but dry air, his mouth devoid of any moisture. Joe heard the tremor in Doug’s voice, the pleading tone of his explanations, knowing that each word carried the ebb or flow of his life. “Honest, honest, there’s no other safe. Those are the only two.”
The sharp explosive burst was deafening, as a blast of hot, buffeting air rocked Joe’s head. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t think. But he could see. Doug’s entire body unfolded from the floor, slamming backward as if some unseen force lifted him off the cement and flung him flat against the wall. A red bloom sprayed from Doug’s throat, spreading out from a gaping black hole. Doug made no sound, except for a soft gurgling noise that was lost in the reverberation of the shotgun blast.
Joe’s mind filled with one all consuming thought: My turn is next! He didn’t think anymore; he could feel panic consuming him. He didn’t look anywhere; he jumped up and bolted for the store’s bathroom door, stumbling past Doug’s body lying spread-eagled on the cold cement, while Josephine still kneeled, frozen in fear. The door, lock the door. He fumbled with the simple latch and desperately locked himself inside. The inner door to the toilet was half open—another door, another barrier. Joe pushed it open, scrambling to find a place to hide, trying to make himself small, to make himself safe, pushing the privacy lock, turning in the small space, hoping to find one more place of concealment. But there were only walls.
Josephine’s knees were rooted to the floor. She couldn’t move. She had seen it. She had seen Doug’s body slam against the wall. She was only seventeen years old. She had not seen death before and now Death stood in front of her, his face an emotionless mask. He broke the shotgun open, his eyes never leaving the wide-open, blue-gray eyes staring back at him. He slipped the expended shell from the breech, the hot brass casing plugging the smoke inside the barrel until he pulled it out. He cradled the sawed-off and reached into his pocket for another cartridge, wrapping his hand around the hard cylindrical shape, feeling the end rather than looking at it. He slid the new canister of small pellets into the breech, closed the gun, and pointed it at the chest of Josephine Rocha. The blue-gray eyes stared back, unblinking, glistening with the tears of someone who has just seen the horror of the brutality that was certainly destined to come. Fear and shock immobilized Josephine as her mind tried to wrap itself around the surreal reality of her last moments, grasping at the sole refuge of total denial.
His hand pressed against the trigger and the man could feel the buck of the sawed-off as the shortened butt pushed back against the brace of his stomach. The girl’s slender body jumped back, almost suspended in the air and then slammed into cardboard boxes stacked against the wall. He watched as she slid down the boxes, coming to rest on the cement floor, her wide-open, blue-gray eyes staring up. The man knew he was the last thing the girl would ever see. Simultaneously, he blocked out the screaming of his woman. What she didn’t know before, she did now. He would deal with it later. His eyes moved over to the closed door of the bathroom.
Joe felt the muffled whump of the shotgun blast shake the thin walls of the bathroom. He didn’t need to see. He knew he was the only one left.
The shooter stepped over the body of Doug White. He stared at the white door. It was a door that could only lead in. He knew he blocked the path of the only way out. He reached for the knob and jerked the flimsy door, breaking the lock. The five-by-three room was empty, the sink glinting dully in the white light of the single fixture. His eyes fixed on another door just in front of him. He could hear nothing, but he didn’t need to hear. He knew.
Joe heard the outer door slam open. The footsteps made a scuffling sound on the cement. He could hear the pull on the door to the toilet room, his room, from which there was no escape.
The man pulled hard on the door, breaking the privacy latch, and the hard, white light outlined the dark-skinned young man who was pushing himself into the corner of the small space, trying to make himself small, trying to make himself part of the wall, staring back at the intruder, his eyes wild with terror.
Joe pushed his body into the corner of the closet-sized room. He folded himself against the painted sheetrock wall, feeling the slight give in the wall, wishing he could slip into the paint and disappear. The man was standing in the door. He lifted the shotgun and pushed down the barrel, filling the room with the whispery odor of gun smoke that was no longer trapped in the breech.
The shooter held the shotgun cradled in his arm. He kept his eyes on the boy pressed into the corner of the tiny room. There was no sound now, except his woman wailing in the other room. His fingernails caught the edge of the expended casing, sliding it back out of the breech. He put it into his pocket and took out another unexpended shell, wrapping his hand around the firm plastic sheath holding more pellets and explosive charge, the brass end casing warm from his body heat. He slipped it into the empty breech and snapped the sawed-off closed. The boy was the last one.
Rios tried to focus on the man’s face, the receding dirty-blond hair and the drooping mustache, the dark eyes drawn into slits of concentration, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the black hole at the end of the short-barreled