Jack McMorrow Returns

From Robbed Blind by Gerry Boyle

Lights shone over the parking lot, at 4:45 a.m., the brightest thing or a mile in the darkened downtown, probably visible from space. A single car in the lot, an old Nissan covered with a shift’s worth of snow.

I parked, grabbed my notebook and phone off the truck seat. Research questions running through my head, anticipating what Carlisle at the Times would want to see in this story I’d been working on. What’s it like to be a store clerk on the overnight shift with Zombie out there? Every time the door opens, do you think it’s him? Have you thought about what you’d do? Are you afraid? Have you thought of getting a different job? Is your husband/wife/partner worried about you when you’re at work? Do you have a gun?

Across the lot and under the gas pumps, past the display of windshield washer fluid, the propane locker. I opened the door, stepped in, and looked left. Nobody at the counter. Looked around for a moment, two. Nothing. Where were the workers? Then a guy coming from