“Mind if I smoke?” Mike asked, drawing a smashed pack of Reds from his front shirt pocket. Noticing a row of pipes on the end table beside what appeared to be Stanley’s evening recliner, he added, “Actually, why don’t you have a smoke with me?”
“Why not,” Stanley said, reaching for his pipe and a box of stick matches. “Help yourself, Mike.” Stanley’s pipe was still packed with the remains of last night’s smoke. He struck a match and puffed deeply to light the pipe, the embers glowing sharply.
As Mike lit his own cigarette, the flame flickered in his eyes, mirroring the chaos on the television screen. Live footage streamed from behind a police barricade, capturing the shattered remains of a derelict Park Avenue intermixed with the ominous sight of a bank swarmed by police cars. The reality of what he was seeing hit him like a punch to the gut, his eyes widening as the tension in the room coiled around him like an invisible serpent.
Smoke erupted from his lips as he coughed, the acrid taste sharp in his throat. His voice, raw and urgent, cut through the haze. “Dad, get in here right now!” The demand echoed through the house, carrying with it a sense of impending doom that set every nerve on edge.
Both of his accomplices barreled into the room, braced for the urgent need to quash some chaotic uprising. Instead, they found their captives, bound and eerily serene, sitting in a tableau that seemed ripped from a surreal nightmare. The unexpected calmness of the scene rendered both men momentarily speechless, their confusion etched in the furrowed lines of their brows.
“What’s going on in here? Is this guy your buddy now? Why’s he smoking that pipe?” the kid’s father, and apparent leader of the crew, finally barked out.
Mike’s head snapped up, his eyes dark with urgency. “To hell with the pipe, look at the TV,” he shot back, his voice a sharp blade in the thick air. Both men turned towards the flickering screen where the latest news update blared. Channel 8 News, with grim relish, detailed the manhunt for the “blood-thirsty bank robbers.” The words seeped into the room like poison, the tension ratcheting up with each syllable, a grim reminder of the threat closing in on them.
Oblivious to the encroaching danger and basking in his fleeting moment of fame, the brute’s grin stretched wide, revealing teeth like shards of broken glass. “Take a peek out the window. See what’s happening out there. But don’t you dare pull back those curtains…” He chuckled darkly, the sound dripping with a perverse satisfaction as he savored the thrill of the hunt, even as the net of law and chaos tightened around them.
The leader scoffed, his eyes ablaze with a wildfire of barely contained rage. He paced back and forth, fists clenched. “We just hit a bank,” he snapped, pausing to glare, “and you put a bullet in a guy’s head. The FBI’s probably swarming outside right now.” He slammed his fist against the wall, the impact echoing ominously. “Damn it! This is a nightmare. They’ll be pounding on that door any second. And then what the hell are we supposed to do?”
The brute’s lips twisted into a derisive sneer. He slammed his own fist on the table, causing the cups to jostle and rattle. “’And then what?’” he spat, his eyes narrowing with a cold, calculating glint. “If we’re dumb enough to wait that long, then we fight our way out. Right now, that storm is the only cover we’ve got.” He swept a hand toward the window, where rain lashed violently against the glass. “We need to shoot the geezers, grab their car, and get the hell out of here. Sitting around waiting is just plain nuts.”
“You idiot! Storm or not, there are cops swarming every street right now. We’d never even make it to the garage.”
“The hell you calling an idiot?” the brute growled, stepping forward with lethal intent. Ignoring the gun, he pulled a thick hunting knife from a sheath on his belt, the blade glinting menacingly in the dim light. “Watch yourself,” he said, each word dripping with dread.
Without hesitation, the leader squared off, his stance solidifying, muscles tensing, ready for the impending clash. The air between them crackled with violent energy, a storm within a storm.
Mike stepped between them. “Christ, are you two kidding? The heat is a hundred yards away, loaded for bear, and hunting for us. And you two want to measure dicks? Calm the hell down, and let’s figure this out. There’s an attic and a basement. Maybe we can all just hide until they get past this house. We can gag Stan, Mary, and Dorothy so they don’t make any noise.”
“Stan, Mary, and Dorothy? Well, ain’t that cute. What are they, your long-lost grammy and grampy?” The brute sneered, suddenly abandoning the impending fight. He spun around, grabbing the kid by the collar with a quick, vicious yank. “But if you’re wrong, you’re dead. Say they can’t holler, but when the cops are at the door and one of ’em knocks over a lamp or makes a racket, the cops’ll bust down the door, and we’re shooting our way out of a damn basement.”
He released the kid’s collar with a disgusted shove, shaking his head in frustration. “No way. No way. We just whack ’em now and be done with it.” Stanley saw the shudder run through Mary in halting jerks, but it was Dorothy who couldn’t keep her damned mouth shut. The realization hit him too late, the words already spilling from her lips.
“Bunch of animals…” she spat out with a repulsed sneer. Stanley’s jaw clenched as the words tumbled from Dorothy’s mouth. “Cowardly animals,” she continued, rising to face the brute. “How dare you come in here and threaten us.”
“Dorothy…” Stanley spoke her name quietly, deliberately, a desperate attempt to implore her to abort any further contributions to the conversation. “Easy, girl.”
“Easy? Easy nothing,” she snapped back. “These cowards think they can barge in here and make threats.” She turned away from Stanley, facing the brute head-on. “You go to Hell,” she said, and with a sudden, fierce resolve, struck him across the face with as much strength as her bound hands could marshal.
It was a glancing blow, but it managed to light a fuse. The brute’s eyes darkened, a dangerous spark igniting as the room seemed to hold its breath, teetering on the edge of a violent eruption.
The brute stood stone still for a moment, his eyes bulging. Without conscious thought, his arm shot out and grasped the hair at the back of her head. Dorothy gave a piercing shriek as he violently wrenched her head backward.
“Connor!” the leader shouted, trying in vain to derail what had already begun.
It was too late. The brute thrust his other arm forward like the pounding piston of an engine, burying his hunting knife to the hilt in Dorothy’s stomach. Her shriek died in her throat, her eyes straining to see the alien steel now part of her body. The brute growled, ripping the blade upward across her midsection with the ferocity of a savage beast.
Blood and entrails spilled to the floor in a sickening wet slap as Dorothy released one final, pitiful gasp. The brute turned her head so he could watch the light die in her eyes. He dropped her unceremoniously to the floor and glared at the other two men, the fire of rage desperately seeking its next victim.
“Connor,” the leader said again, shock etched across his face. “What did you do?” The words came in a strained whisper. The gunshot to the guard was horrible enough, but this… this was something altogether different. The tentative balance of power shifted dramatically as he came to the grisly realization of the depths of his brother’s depravity.
“We should’ve put them all down the second we walked in,” the brute growled, taking a menacing step toward Mary. But before he could close the gap, the cold, metallic click of a gun’s hammer shattered the heavy silence, freezing him in his tracks. The brute’s eyes flicked to his brother, who stood across the room, a gun leveled at his chest, the barrel unwavering.
“Enough,” the leader said. The brute considered the pistol for a moment but dropped the knife to his side. “That’s enough,” he said again in a gravelly whisper. The gentle sound of Mary sobbing rose above the silence that had fallen across the room. The brute let out a long, desperate sigh and stepped out of the room, leaving behind his crimson-splashed carnage.
About the Author:
Mystery and thriller author K.C. Kissig writes from his home in Northeast Ohio, drawing inspiration from family life with his wife and two children.
