I like challenging myself so I signed up for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge, a great way to work on your short story skills – in this case, a suspense short story.
For this second round, I was assigned suspense, drive-through, and a boarding pass. It must be under 1,000 words and you have 48 hours to write it. It’s currently at 968 words.
This is the story I submitted. Please let me know any feedback in the comments!
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
Shall Not Pass
The sun was rising and cool humid air wafted through the open car windows. They had a perfect view of the Whataburger drive-through.
The gun felt heavy in Emmy’s lap.
“Are you sure you want to do this Emmy?” Becky asked her.
Emmy could hear the tremble in those words. “Just stick to the plan. When I say, put up the barricade then get in the car and go. I’ll see you soon.”
Becky nodded quickly and then had a sharp intake of breath.
Emmy knew it was because Becky could hear the sound; the telltale putter, rattling, and the inevitable clunk from the brakes of that bastard’s truck coming up the road.
“You’ve worked so hard to get where you are Emmy. Please don’t throw it away on this guy.”
Emmy shook her head. Walking away from her job at the hospital was not a problem. She fingered the boarding pass in her pocket. If this all worked out, she’d be boarding a cruise ship and heading out to sea before anyone knew what had happened.
“My mind’s made up.”
Now it was a whisper. “Okay.” Becky got out of the car as the truck entered the drive-through.
Emmy knew the man’s breakfast order. Every day for the five years she had worked here in the mornings for extra money, he’d ordered the same thing; Whataburger junior, no cheese; small coke, no ice; small fries. The sound of his truck and his brakes had always grated on her nerves while she was trying to work.
The moment her sister had described the truck from the incident a week ago, she’d known it was him. The police had narrowed it down to a name and a license plate, but his address had been bogus. His face was fuzzy in her memory so the bastard’s picture wasn’t an absolute for her. But if the license plate didn’t match what the police were looking for, did she dare go through with it?
She got out of the car; the gun tucked into her canvas bag and approached the back of the truck. Becky would be putting up the barricade “drive-thru closed” behind them.
Her breath caught in her throat. EVT 761. It was him.
She walked past the truck and didn’t look at him as she turned the corner around the restaurant. The scent of greasy burgers and French fries normally made her hungry. This morning it turned her stomach.
Her shoes crunched on the glass where she had broken the building’s camera with a bb gun. The real gun weighed the bag down.
She stood and faced the direction he’d be coming. Here there were no windows from the building and the tall highway wall cut off all views from the other side. She’d do it in relative seclusion.
Perhaps the universe had planned this. But then, that would mean the universe knew that this bastard would rape her sister. She squeezed back tears. The tears that her sister had cried had torn her apart.
At sixteen Emmy had separated from her parents because of their drug habit, and fought for custody of her sister. For five years she had worked hard to make a good life for them. She wasn’t going to let this man get away with it. She would scrap those years of school, and nursing, and career to avenge her sister.
All this time and the police haven’t been able to find him. She had even told them where they could find him. It’s like they didn’t even care that her sister had been raped.
She moved from one foot to another, restless. Of course, it would take a while to cook his burger.
He must have seen Becky here, doing her homework in the window on mornings that she didn’t have school. The bastard had picked her because of where Emmy worked.
She tugged at her black tight curls. Her sister had helped her bleach the ends and put in pink just a few weeks ago. For today, she’d sprayed the ends black again. And she was wearing all of her clothes that she was taking on the cruise, so she looked more like a homeless person than a nurse about to work on a cruise ship to the Bahamas.
The truck started back up again. The pops and tings of its cheap ass engine fueling her anger. She put her hand back on the gun and waited for the truck to come around the corner.
She fired three shots.
* * *
She walked under the highway to the other side at a strip mall, taking off the top layers of her clothes and putting on a hat from her bag. Her Lyft was waiting for her.
When he dropped her off at the bridge near the cruise center, she took a side trip to the beach underneath the bridge. There was no one around and no boats nearby so she threw the bb gun and the other in as if she was skipping giant rocks and watched them disappear under the green scum.
She walked to the cruise ship embarkation station and stopped in the bathroom. Looking in the mirror she didn’t recognize the tired, gaunt face. She washed out the black hair color, washed off her face, and collected her emotions in a bundle inside so she’d stop crying. She packed all of her layers of clothes into plastic bags that she had brought.
Her sister would be waiting for her on board. It had been an expensive ticket, but at least they would be together. She looked at the Florida she had come to know.
“Good riddance.”
She crossed over to the cruise ship for her venture onto the wide blue ocean.
If you’d like to see my first round #1 assignment (Sci-fi, paper shredder, casino) Check out Lagrangian Point Station.