Story code: ST-000627
Part 2: Static Snow
The figure did not rush. There was no desperate sprint from the darkness, no wild flailing of limbs. It was a man wrapped in a dark, featureless windbreaker, his face entirely obscured by a black ski mask and the stiff brim of a pulled-down baseball cap. He moved with a terrifying, liquid precision, his shoulders squared to the door. As he lifted his right arm, the yellow security light caught the dull, matte-black finish of a cylindrical suppressor threaded onto the barrel of a pistol.
Marcus didn’t think. Six years in the Marines and ten years behind a gun counter took over. He twisted the brass deadbolt, grabbed the heavy wool collar of Elaine’s coat, and yanked her violently backward over the threshold. She shrieked, her feet flying out from under her as she crashed hard onto the faded linoleum. Marcus threw his full body weight against the heavy steel door, slamming it shut into the frame, and thrust all three locking levers into place.
A fraction of a second later, a sharp, flat *thwack* vibrated through the reinforced pane. A dense, white spiderweb of fractured glass bloomed dead center in the window, exactly where Elaine’s head had been resting moments before. The ballistic core of the glass held, but the inner laminate bowed inward from the massive kinetic force of the round.
Elaine scrambled backward on her hands and knees, hyperventilating, her boots slipping frantically on the polished floor. The rubber band holding her bribe snapped, and the thick stack of hundred-dollar bills exploded across the hallway, fluttering down like the neon-green flyers Marcus had just swept up.
“Give me the gun!” she screamed, her voice shrill and echoing in the narrow, dim corridor. “Take the money! Any of them! Just give me a gun!”
Marcus ignored the blizzard of cash. He dropped his flashlight, letting the heavy metal cylinder roll against the baseboards, and drew his own Glock 19 from his appendix holster in one smooth, practiced motion. He held it tightly at the low ready, his eyes locked on the spiderwebbed glass.
“Shut up and stay on the floor,” Marcus commanded, his voice a low, hard rumble. He reached up with his left hand and slapped his palm against the red panic button mounted beneath the security monitor. The silent alarm, wired directly to the local precinct, engaged with a muted click.
Elaine saw the red light flash on the wall and let out a horrified gasp. She lunged forward, her trembling fingers grabbing his pant leg. “No! Did you call them? Tell me you didn’t call the police!”
Marcus kicked his leg free, keeping his muzzle pointed safely toward the floor but his eyes fixed on the door. “They just put a bullet into my building, Elaine. The cops are already on the way.”
“He *is* the police!” she sobbed, curling into a tight ball on the floor, her hands pulling at her sweat-matted gray hair. “Or he used to be. Or they work for him. I don’t know, Marcus! They all flash the same badges at the port authority!”
Marcus froze. The adrenaline rushing through his veins turned to ice water. He risked a quick glance down at her trembling form. “What exactly did you do?”
She pressed her hands over her face, her chest heaving violently. “I was trying to prove you were all dirty. I was tracking the serial numbers from the local crime scenes, trying to find the straw purchasers you dealers always pretend you don’t know about. I followed a truck from the shipping yards tonight. They weren’t buying one or two guns from a storefront, Marcus. They were moving crates of them. Military crates. And they caught me taking pictures.”
Marcus looked back at the security monitor mounted on the wall. The camera feed showed the alleyway. The man in the windbreaker had not run away after missing his shot. Instead, he calmly stepped back into the center of the frame, raised his suppressed pistol, and fired exactly once.
The monitor above Marcus dissolved into static snow.
“Sell me a gun right now,” Elaine demanded again, forcing herself up to her knees, her eyes wild and feral. “I have more money in my car. I will pay ten thousand dollars. Just open the safe!”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Marcus snapped, stepping away from the exterior door and motioning for her to move further down the hallway toward the main shop. “I am not handing a loaded firearm to a panicked, untrained civilian who has never pulled a trigger in her life.”
“I know how to use it! I’ve been watching you for six months!”
“Watching me check headspacing isn’t the same as returning fire in a dark room, Elaine. You’re a liability. You’ll shoot me in the back.”
Marcus pulled his cell phone from his pocket, intending to dial 911 directly and bypass the silent alarm’s dispatch queue. The screen lit up, showing a bold ‘No Service’ icon across the top corner. He frowned, toggling the airplane mode on and off. Still nothing.
“He’s running a localized cell jammer,” Marcus muttered, a sinking realization settling into his stomach like a lead weight. He looked back up at the silent alarm panel. The green connection light, usually steady, was blinking rapidly. The hardlines in the alley had been cut before the man even stepped into the light. The cavalry wasn’t coming.
Elaine saw his expression change. The last shred of color drained from her face. “They aren’t coming, are they?”
Before Marcus could answer, a heavy, metallic grinding sound echoed from the front of the shop. The massive steel security grate that Marcus had pulled halfway down over the storefront windows began to rattle violently. The man hadn’t given up; he was simply shifting his angle of attack to the front, where the glass was expansive and the display cases blocked Marcus’s lines of sight.
Marcus grabbed Elaine by the shoulder, hauling her roughly to her feet. “Move to the back office. Now.”
As soon as he shoved her forward, the fluorescent lights overhead hummed loudly, flickered twice, and died. The shop was plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness, leaving Marcus blind with a hysterical woman, while the distinct sound of a heavy pry bar tore into the front steel grate.