Outgunned

A truck driving couple make a convenience store stop they soon regret.

 

            Raindrops on the windshield, there’s a storm moving in…he’s headin’ back from somewhere he never should have been…    

 

“Somethin’ t’eat’d be good.” Willette said, her legs stretched on the dash of the eighteen-wheeler. She could feel the heat pouring out from the vents against the inside of her calves.

            Abe shuffled his big frame in the seat, stared out at the cold night. …The thunder rolls…

            “Abe, you hear me?”

            “I hate this song.” He said, turning his attention to the cassette player between them.

            “You just hate Garth.”

            “Food?” Abe said with the first sign of recognition.

            Willette spit out the last bit of chewing tobacco in a slushee cup and nodded.

           

            They had just come back from dropping off a load a few miles back, with no particular place to go other than home six hour away. Idling in a Wal-mart parking lot, Abe had contemplated sleep before Willette popped in another wad of chew and Garth Brooks in the cassette player. Soon enough she’d be thumping her slender fingers against the seat and humming along, Abe knew better than to try and sleep.

            He pulled in behind a convenience store up the road and dragged his big frame down the steps and onto the pavement. Willette dumped out her chew and waited for him to go ahead of her.

The door of the opened with a rough jerk and a jingle, releasing the sharp smell of tobacco products and stale beer. A slot machine rang out musical notes in the back. A woman with greasy black hair, a thin gray jacket, and half a Wendy’s cup of quarters yanked the handle again as soon as the line of differing fruits settled against her. The clerk behind the counter nodded as the couple walked in and promptly went back to filing down her nails.  

Half the floor was sticky with coke spills and the rest slick from motor oil. A gooey mess of cigarette butts, ash, and oil clumped to every corner. Willette navigated the aisles gracefully, grabbing honeybuns and cokes�"sustenance�"before heading up to the counter. Abe dawdled at the stack of outdated newspapers before snatching one up and setting it beside the bottles of coke.

“Y’all get many people this late at night?” Willette said to the cashier.

The woman looked at her, handed her the change, and said, “You might say we do.”

“Really? I wouldn’t think so, it being so cold already. Seems like last year it wouldn’t so cold so soon. You’d think business’d go down with a cold spell like this.”

“Ain’t that cold to me.” The woman shrugged.

“Well, I guess there’s some that like the cold. Me, I can’t stand it.”

The woman nodded and glanced toward the door. She sighed looked back down at her fingernails.

Abe was already headed to it, one hand holding the paper sack and the other reaching out to push the door open. He didn’t see the man until he was right up at the door. The man busted through it before he could back away, a look in his eye that said he wasn’t all there. His eyes darted across, surveying the room, before landing on the cash register.

He made a beeline for the cashier, pulled a revolver out of jacket pocket, and shoved the weapon into the cashier’s face. She shrunk away from him, whimpered as he grabbed her shoulder and demanded the contents of the register. The woman at the slot machine pulled the handle again. The chimes of a losing game rang through the store once more.

Willette stared in awe. She glanced toward Abe, who stood as senseless as a statue. She willed him to move. She thought of the gun in the truck, the knife in his back pocket, the phone outside. He did nothing. She turned her gaze to the gunman only a hands-reach away from her. She stood frozen, terrified, invisible. Abe’s eyes were glued to the gun.

The register was empty and the man’s jacket was stuffed with cigarette boxes, the cashier stifled sobs and prayed he’d head for the door. He didn’t. He swung the gun around and pressed the side of the barrel against Willette’s temple.

“Whatyou got?” he said.

“Abe…”

“D****t, I asked you what you had, b***h.”

She emptied out her pocket�"four dollars and some change.

His eyes were hateful. She thought he was going to hit her.

The man spun around to Abe, sizing him up. The chimes of the slot machine rang.

“And you?” he said, pointing the gun toward him.

Abe looked spoke without hesitation. “I’m with her,” he said, “That’s all we got ‘til we get back to the state line.”

The gunman looked him over one good time, grabbed the greasy woman’s cup of quarters, and strolled out into the night.

Abe shuddered. The woman behind the counter openly wept and prayed, dialing the phone. Willette stared at her husband.

She touched the side of her temple with her slender fingers. Abe smiled like a man who’d won a shoot out and pulled out his untouched wallet.

“Some crazy, drugged up a*s-hole stuck a gun in my face, held a gun IN my face!” the cashier yelled into the phone.

Willette still fingered the side of her face.

“Abe.” She said.

 

 

Author's Note

This was an old attempt at flash fiction I wrote a couple of years back but never received feedback on.

Reviews

[Marie]

I guess no one knew what to say. The writing is good, clear and descriptive. But there's no real point to the piece.