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 gun. It was like a single black eye rising up from some kind of reptile as its steel body straightened itself with a snapping sound against the blunt wooden tail and uncoiled to its short, deadly length. The boy tried to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. What there was left of his life’s moments were before him. He would see it. He could not close his eyes at the end. He pushed his body further into the wall, trying to find the last, small space where his life could take refuge.
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
