Writer's Wednesday #24: Unwelcome Witness

On my blog, I do an 'event' called Writer Wednesdays. I post a prompt and others(including me) write something based on that prompt.

            It started when I heard the shouting.  Through the walls from down the hall.  Pete and Agatha.  Always fighting.  But tonight sounded different.  More… frantic.  I knew I should have kept my nose in my own business, but curiosity got the better of me.  I sneaked down the hall and pressed my eye up to their keyhole, squinting my other one closed.  They were screaming back and forth, but wait - what was Pete doing?  Reaching behind the tattered-looking recliner…

            “Holy s**t,” I said aloud, clapping my hand over my mouth.  For Pete had pulled a small hatchet from behind the chair.  He gripped it in his hands like a baseball player up to bat.  Agatha turned to face him and he swung, catching her in the stomach.  She tried to cry out - but no sound came, the wind knocked out of her - as dark crimson blood began to spurt out from around the hatchet’s blade.

            “You b*****d!” she finally managed to snarl, pulling a small gun from her back pocket.  “I wasn’t going to use this, but now-”

            Pete tried to swing at her again, but she fired.  Once.  Twice.  Several times, emptying the gun into Pete’s torso and neck.  He fell back onto the pale carpet, blood spreading out around him, his body twitching as he went into shock.

            “F**k.”  Agatha put her free hand to her stomach and it away, now coated in blood.  “I love this sweater.”

            She disappeared into the kitchen and I slid down the door, pressing my back against the wall, breathing hard.  I tried to gain control, get up and go back to my own apartment.  The neighbors had heard the gunshots no doubt and I didn’t want to be attached to this in any way.

 

            I found out later that Agatha had fled the scene, she and Pete’s car gone as well.  As I walked by the open door of their apartment, I saw the janitor trying to clean the blood out of the carpet.  I heard him mutter under his breath, “Same old s**t.”  To this day that sentence has chilled me to my very core.