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All of the spit dried in Margrove’s mouth. He nearly peed his pants.
“Wh-what do you wa—?”
“Shut up!”
He did.
He tried to think over the panic rising like a rocket inside him. Who the hell was this? Why was he—or she?—here? What the fuck was the gun all about?
“I-I don’t have any money.”
“I said shut the fuck up.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!Margrove tried to think, to come up with some idea of what to do. He’d been in tight places before. Tons of them. But he’d never in all of his fifty-nine years had the barrel of a gun pressed to the back of his head.Think, Margrove, think. Talk your way out of this! There has to be a way. Maybe this is just a robbery. Someone, a vagrant who had seen the lights of the trailer through the near-blizzard conditions outside—
Then why the gun? So close.
Stay calm. You can handle this.
Frantic, his heart thundering, he eyed the bat. Too far away. And if he moved? Oh, shit!
He had to get out. And fast. Get away.
Zzzzt!
What the fuck was that? The swishing noise sounded like a belt being pulled quickly from loops or—
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of steel. Sharp metal that reflected and distorted the television screen.
Jesus Christ, the guy had a knife? He’d unsheathed a fucking knife? While he already had a gun pressed hard against Merritt’s skull? Why the hell would—
Oh, fuck!
The blade slashed down.
Fast.
From his ear, one side to the other before he could think, could move.
Thin steel sliced quickly through skin and muscle and cartilage.
Blood spurted, thick and red.
Stunned, Margrove dropped to his knees. Sputtering and gasping, gurgling and coughing, he knew he was drowning in his own blood. He wobbled for a second, then his head landed on the floor. He registered for just a second that he was dying. Murdered. His eyes were wide as he tried to see this cruel son of a bitch who had done this.
But his gaze fixed on the TV.
For the last fleeting seconds of Merritt V. Margrove’s life, as he bled out onto the old shag carpet, feeling little pain and even less regret, he watched the final credits of the black and white movie as they rolled slowly over the screen.