|
Kirk
Punton was bored. He sat behind the counter of the self serve petrol station,
sighed and glanced at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
Who on earth would want fuel at three o’clock in the morning, he thought
miserably. But a job was a job and money is money - he had to remind himself of
that often in this job. Once he finished his university degree in a little over
six months, he could leave this menial job behind and start his life. In the
meantime, he had to put up with it. He yawned again, he had been yawning since
his shift had started at ten o’clock. He decided to go around the store and
tidy the shelves, just to keep himself awake.
As
he realigned all the packets of potato chips, he heard a car pull up outside. He
glanced out the windows and saw a red sedan sitting beside pump number two. He
knew it would be a couple of minutes before the customer would come in and pay
so continued with his chore. Almost immediately, however, he heard the automatic
door open and, before he had a chance to turn around, felt something hard being
pressed against his back.
“Don’t
turn around,” a low voice said, close to his ear, “just walk slowly to the
register and give me the money.”
Kirk
swallowed hard, trying to get his heart out of his throat. He couldn’t move,
he was so damn scared, but a quick jab from the man behind him soon got him
moving, and he walked as if in slow motion toward the counter. Everything around
him was blurred, and he couldn’t feel his feet moving, but somehow he got to
the cash register. His brain had frozen on him, and he forgot how to open it.
His attacker’s voice sounded as if it was in slow motion.
“Open
… it … now!”
Kirk’s
fingers hovered over the cash register panel then hit a button, but it was the
wrong one and the register made a horrid beep sound. He hit another, but was met
only by the shrill beep of the register’s error message again. Finally he
remembered that if he hit the wrong button one more time, an alarm would be
triggered. Slowly regaining his lucidity at last, he reached for another button,
but his hand was snatched away before he could press it.
“You
idiot, don’t you know what you’re doing?”
“I
… I just …”
“You’re
an idiot! Open it now before I blow you apart!”
Kirk
had no choice, he had to get it together or he was going to die. He reached into
his pocket and pulled out a small set of keys that jangled together loudly as
his hands shook. He fumbled to find the right one, then fumbled again to get it
into the hole on the side of the register, all the while the end of the gun was
being jabbed deeper and harder into his back. His attacker was getting
impatient.
“Now,
you moron, now! Do you want to die or something?!”
“No
… n, no …” Kirk stammered, his hands shaking more with each threat on his
life. As he finally jammed the key into the lock, his thumb accidentally pressed
one more button. The alarm activated, and although no sound announced it, a red
light over the cash register lit up as a bright warning. Kirk’s head jerked up
and stared at it. “Oh, Christ no!”
“Right
mate, that’s it!”
The
gun blasted, Kirk fell to the floor. The pain in his back spread quickly to the
rest of his body, and made his ears ring and his vision blur. He could just make
out the figure above him, ramming the contents of the register into all of his
pockets. The figure turned and walked over Kirk, then came back, stood over him
and kicked him in the side. Kirk moaned. His last. One more shotgun blast made
sure of that.
A
siren wailed in the distance.
© Cynthia M. Piromalli 2003
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
|
