A Twist Of Noir 144 - Stephen D. Rogers

SHOTS FIRED - STEPHEN D. ROGERS

The heist went bad so quickly, I didn't even know what happened. Everything was under control, and then it wasn't, and I was staggering out the front doors of the bank with my younger brother's left arm wrapped around my neck, his blood soaking into my shirt.

Over the sound of his ragged breathing, I could hear the alarm, and the sirens, and the pounding as I limped across the parking lot.

I tried to console myself with that old song about my brother not being heavy, rather than think of him in terms of dead weight.

But I never did like that song.

Nor the song the alarm was singing. The song the sirens were singing. The song my brother's lung was singing.

Whistling, rather.

In and out. The bank, not the bullet that hit my brother. We were going to be in and out, spending less time inside the bank that it was taking me to reach the car.

In fact, the car wasn't getting any closer.

I wasn't moving.

I couldn't move. My legs frozen and numb and fuzzy. And then they collapsed.

The song my blood sang in my ears.

My little brother, lying on the ground next to me, had been shot.

But I, the older one, the responsible one, I had been killed.

BIO: Over five hundred of Stephen's stories and poems have appeared in more than two hundred publications. His website, www.stephendrogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.