I was fiddling with the radio when I felt the truck slow. I looked up to see that we were pulling into a convenience store parking lot.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“We’re out of milk,” he said with a wink. “I know how you have to have your Frosted Flakes in the morning.”
“Am I really that big of a creature of habit?” I asked.
“You are,” he said, putting the truck into gear. He left the engine running so I’d have air while he ran into the store.
“Need anything else?” he asked.
“Just you,” I said with a smile. “Hurry.”
I watched him get out of the truck and go inside the store. From the corner of my eye, I saw a black car pull in and park a couple of spaces over. I didn’t pay the car much mind.
I heard two doors slam but didn’t look up because my phone was buzzing. It was my sister sending a text: Mom wants to know if you and Brent want to come to Sunday dinner. My mom didn’t know how to text, so we often communicated through my sister. I settled back in the seat and started texting my reply.
A loud bang coming from inside the convenience store jarred me. The phone slipped from my hands and tumbled to the floor. I dug my fingers into the dash and leaned in to stare through the windshield.
I could see two men inside the store. One was in front of the counter, holding a gun, the other was behind the counter with his hand digging into the cash drawer. The man who I’d seen standing behind the counter a minute ago was gone. I assumed he was on the floor, wounded or maybe dead.
“Oh my god, Brent,” I heard myself say. I started to reach for the door handle. Brent appeared at the end of the aisle next to the beer coolers. He was holding a gallon of milk in his left hand and a convenience store red rose in his right. When he saw the two men at the counter, he held up his hands and said something.
He glanced my way.
Our eyes met for just a second.
The man with the gun aimed it at the jug of milk in Brent’s right hand and pulled the trigger. The plastic jug exploded and milk went everywhere. The two men looked at each other and laughed. Brent’s hand was bloody, injured. He clutched it to his chest and backed into the beer cooler. He shook his head and held out the hand clutching the rose.
The man aimed the gun at Brent’s head and pulled the trigger.
The glass cooler behind Brent splattered with blood.
Brent crumbled to the floor.
The two men laughed.
I screamed Brent’s name.
The men came out the door.
They were dressed in all black.
One was tall and thin.
The other one, the one with the gun, was thick and muscular.
They had ski masks over their heads, with cut-outs for their eyes, noses, and mouths.
The one who had shot Brent looked into my eyes.
He pointed the gun at the windshield and pulled the trigger.
I heard the shot and the windshield pop at the same instant. I heard the bullet whiz through the cab as it passed within a few inches of my left ear and exited out the window behind my head.
I screamed and jerked my head down.
I scrunched down and covered my head with my hands.
I was crying uncontrollably.
My cellphone buzzed in the floor.
My fingers reached for it.
I heard a tap on the side window.
I glanced up to see the man who had shot at me pressing his nose against the window. He stuck out his tongue and licked the glass. He grinned at me. He had a silver front tooth.
The other guy was already in the black car, behind the wheel, yelling at the one who was grinning at me through the window.
He pressed his lips to the window and gave me one more smile, then pulled back the hand holding the gun and smashed the butt of the gun into the window, showering me with shards of glass. I screamed again and covered my head.
I heard him laugh; a deep, throaty, phlegmy-cigarette laugh that I still hear in my dreams.
I waited until I heard them sped away, then I pushed open the truck door and ran inside the store.
The man I’d seen behind the counter was slumped back against the cigarette display with a bullet hole at the center of his chest.
Brent was on the floor in front of the beer coolers, lying on his back, eyes open and glazed, a hole the size of a nickel at the center of his forehead.
He was still holding the red rose in his hand.
A large pool of dark red blood formed beneath his head.
I dropped to the floor and cradled his head to my chest, even though in my heart I knew he was dead.
I wailed and rocked him back and forth like a sleeping baby.
I was still doing it when the police came.
I was covered in blood.
Alone.
Devastated.
And mad as hell.
RICK
I slapped Dottie’s plump ass so hard it left my handprint on her dimpled skin. She squealed and told me to slap her again, harder this time. I did as I was told. The sound of my palm hitting her flesh and her resultant squeal echoed off the thin walls.