The Neighbors
There was a time for praying and a time for thinking. Right now, for Darlene Bobich, those times had passed.
She stood on her front porch, her hands shaking and the Desert Eagle brushing against her thigh in tandem. The McCrory's house across the street was on fire. Normally that would have scared her, bothered her, and maybe caused her to leap into action.
Mister McCrory, blood running down his chin, dragging his teenage daughter onto the sidewalk and ripping at her clothes while he tried to bite her, caused Darlene to hesitate.
"Has the world gone fucking mad?" she whispered. Darlene had a bad habit of whispering to herself, spilling her thoughts with no filter when she was alone. She glanced back through the open front door and sighed. Her daddy, four bullets in his lifeless body, was still in view. Absently she checked the Desert Eagle to make sure she'd loaded it again, patting her jeans pocket to make sure she had more bullets.
Darlene walked calmly across the street, ignoring all sounds from east or west. Her eyes were focused on the back of Mister McCrory's head. "Tunnel vision," she murmured. There was no way she wanted to think of what he was trying to do to his daughter. Was God really going to let this happen? To his daughter, to all of them?
Darlene put a bullet in the back of his head, the gore splashing on the girl. His daughter was already dead. Darlene didn't even know their names, even though she'd lived across the street from these people for at least ten years.
When the daughter stirred Darlene pushed his body off of her and held out her hand, a part of her brain screaming to stop. How could she, when this child might need medical attention? She was still alive.
The teenager's mouth snapped at Darlene's fingers. Without a second's thought Darlene pulled the trigger and her forehead exploded. She fell back to the grass, now engrossed with blood.
A car alarm down the street echoed, police sirens in the distance, a scream just audible. The smoke was getting thick, billowing from the windows and opened door.
Darlene needed to run, but didn't know where. She had no real family left now. She glanced at her Toyota Tacoma pickup and smiled. "Three more payments on it."
A real laugh escaped her lips and she thought she was losing it. In the last half an hour she'd killed three people - one of them a young girl - and here she was, standing on the neighbor's lawn, with the proverbial smoking gun. Thinking about car payments.
She decided that she would stay, go back inside her house and board up the windows and doors, and get as much news as she could before the power went out or the television stations stopped broadcasting or the radio signal died.
But first, she needed to go inside the McCrory home. She was positive that the wife was home. If her husband hadn't killed her the smoke and fire might.
Or Darlene.
Rechecking her bullets in her pocket, Darlene moved across the lawn.