The shooter stood less than three feet away from the thin, young man staring back at him. He sensed the barrel locking into place as he snapped the breech closed and pulled the butt of the shotgun against his stomach. He tightened his index finger against the trigger and squeezed it.
The explosion filled the small room, shaking the walls and blowing the sound back through the doorway he stood in. The sawed-off bucked against him, his body absorbing the recoil and the sharp jab of the weapon, the explosion of gas pushing the shotgun back as the barrel discharged its deadly bite. The blast hit the boy’s left side, his arm and chest shattering from the spray of pellets. The wall became spattered with a mist of blood and tissue as the boy sank down to the floor, the outline of the white space where his body had once pressed against it now painted in the residue of human fluid and flesh.
The shooter stood for a moment, staring at the body crumpled in the corner of the bathroom floor, his ears ringing from the booming sound that reverberated inside the small space. For the first time, the acrid smell of gunpowder reached his nostrils. A smoky haze in the small room slightly misted the still form on the floor. The man let the shotgun drop to his side. This boy was the last of them; the last of those he had seen in the store. The sound of his woman gasping for air, choking and crying, began to fill the silence and his attention turned to her. “All right, baby, let’s go.” He turned and stepped over the lifeless body of Doug White.
The shooter could feel the adrenaline begin to leave him. He looked around the small storeroom. For the first time, he felt his hand and noticed the warm stickiness of blood and a stinging pain. He looked down at the webbing of skin between his right thumb and forefinger and he realized the flesh was sliced open, welling blood that slicked around the area of the breech where his hand held the still warm weapon. He had caught his skin in the breech when he snapped it shut, slicing his hand open as neatly as with a blade. He looked at the floor and the drops of his blood, blood that made small, perfect circles on the cement, in sharp contrast to the spreading blood pools flowing from the people lying on the floor. He put his hand in his mouth, sucked at the salty, warm fluid, and then causally wiped what was left on his pants. He reached into his pocket for another shell—just in case. He turned to his woman and guided her back through the swinging door that led into the store. He still had to find the safe.
As the shooter walked into the bright, fluorescent light of the store, his eyes were focused on the front door. Nobody had entered the store. His first few steps left a bright track of blood in the stained tread pattern of his shoes, but the marks thinned out as he walked until the only evidence of his passage through the store were the bright, red drops of blood that dripped from his hand onto the beige linoleum pathways between the lines of shelves.
Joe Rios sat on the floor of the bathroom, where he had slid down the blood-smeared wall. There was no clarity to the moment. It was more like he was detached, watching somebody else. Only the throbbing of his left arm and the heavy pressure of his own blood seeping from his shoulder reminded him that he was not watching someone else. Yes, it had happened to him. He sat there, trying to gather his thoughts. The shock of the wound and the adrenaline that had fueled his body began to sweep waves of nausea through him. It was not pain that dominated his consciousness. It was the very real awareness that he was still alive. The man who shot him had left him for dead. He let the relief of life settle before he thought about what to do. The man might come back, might find him alive. There was no doubt in Joe’s mind about what would happen if the man returned. There was no choice; he had to leave the small room. He had to escape to have any hope of living. To stay was to die.
Joe struggled up from the floor, using his right arm to steady himself. The inner door to the toilet was still open. He could see into the small sink room. The outside door was ajar, filtering the light of the storeroom. There were no sounds outside. The killer had left. Using his right hand, Joe grabbed at the jamb of the outer door, nudging the door fully open. Josephine and Doug were lying on the floor. He didn’t kneel down to touch them. Although he had only seen dead people at a few family funerals, he knew they were both dead.
Bryon’s body was stretched out on the floor. Joe could only look for a moment at what was left of Bryon’s face, and he quickly turned away. Slowly, Joe moved away from Bryon’s body, stepping quietly toward the bodies of Josephine and Doug. He could not bring himself to look at them any longer. Joe stepped over Doug’s long, still legs and edged toward the swinging door that led into the main store.
The store seemed empty. Joe moved quickly to the freezer, near the meat department. He heard the sharp jangling of keys. The man and the woman were trying to open the front door, fumbling with the keys, trying to find the right one. Joe stared at the backs of the man and woman, sharply defined by the white, fluorescent light shining down on the stillness of the empty market. He backed up toward the swinging door leading into the storeroom. He turned and looked back at the door leading into the parking lot. Doug’s body was stretched in his path. He tried not to look at Doug’s face, but passing the body was the only way out.
Jack Abbot sat quietly with his wife on the patio of his backyard that looked out onto the parking lot area of Fran’s Market, which was separated from his yard by a low wall. While the heat of the day was beginning to draw down, the air itself still wasn’t cool; but Jack knew that as the shadows lengthened into darkness, the air would finally lose its warmth. The lights of Fran’s Market gave off enough glare that the stars were still obscured. But later, after the store closed, the night sky would not be polluted by the lights, unlike the skies above the city of Fresno, only a few miles to the west. Jack leaned back and spoke quietly to his wife, while he waited for the evening quiet to take control of the countryside.
A slightly muffled booming sound resounded from inside the market. Jack was well aware of the usual sounds of the store and his neighborhood. He also knew the sounds of guns. He could tell the signature bellow of a shotgun when he heard it, as it filled the air with its blast so unlike the sharp crack of a pistol. Jack sat forward. Within moments, he heard a second muffled boom. Something was wrong. He knew it. He looked at the old car in the corner of the parking lot. It was empty. The store should be closed. It was after 8:00. Jack ran back into the house and grabbed his shotgun.
Joe Rios backed away from the swinging door that led from the storeroom into the store. The man and the woman were still standing by the front door. Maybe he could make it. He stepped over the legs of Doug White, glancing sideways at Josephine Rocha, lying on the floor. He couldn’t help them now. Nothing could. He threw up the bar that was placed across the back door for security purposes. The sound of the bar as he moved it filled his ears. Joe pushed the door open, not looking back into the store, and he ran as fast as he could.
Jack Abbot came out from his house and moved quickly toward the small retaining wall that bounded his backyard and the parking lot. The door to the storeroom slammed open. A dark figure began to run across the parking lot. It was too dark to see who it was, just that the figure was running and that he was male. He raised his gun and heard himself yell, “Hey,” and then he fired up and in the direction of the running man. He fired almost from the hip, the blast of pellets streaming up into the night sky.
Joe could barely hear the sound of a man’s voice. Maybe it is the man who shot me. He didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. He heard the roar of the shotgun. To stop was to die. He just ran headlong into the darkness.
Abbot walked quickly to the rear door of the market. The two young people on the floor lay like tumbled statues in a reflecting pool of blood. He stepped back. He didn’t want to touch them. There was no time. If they were to have any chance it would come only with help. He ran back to the fence and yelled for his wife to call an ambulance and the sheriff.
Jack looked back over his shoulder, pulling his shotgun around in the direction of the store. The bright lights of the storeroom silhouetted a man near the door. The figure moved