Special Issue #13 ISSN 1547-5957

[short story]
by jason lairamore
He settled into an artificial leather armchair and whistled along to the opening
song of The Andy Griffith Show that was playing on the television.
A scratch came from the front door and he somersaulted from the room. He
jumped through an open bedroom window and landed frog-like in the backyard
then crabbed over the dead grass to peek at the front porch. A little, white dog
stood there shaking, face intent on the door. He pulled out his silencer and shot out
the porch light with a puff. Glass fell. The dog yipped.
He returned inside the way he’d come. The TV provided the only light. He
cracked the front door and grabbed the dog. It bit him and he smiled. He read its
tag.
“If you find this cat, call this number.”
He dropped the dog, found the phone, and dialed the number. Blood dripped
to the floor from where the dog had bit him.
“Hello.” A woman’s voice. Rosy.
He cleared his throat. “Found your dog. How do I find you?”
She gave directions without a second’s pause. He tossed the dog some sliced
ham he found in the fridge and left at a walk. The lady didn’t live but a few houses
down.
The house looked like the one he’d just left. A man answered the doorbell. He
wore a smile and had a paunch sticking out from his lime-green sweater vest. His
happy wrinkles ran deep.
“Help you?”
He stepped in close and snapped the man’s neck, and then used his forward
momentum to lower the still smiling face to the foyer floor. A woman talked nearby
… on the phone, in the kitchen. She didn’t turn at his approach. He grabbed her by
the hair of her head and slammed her face into the marble countertop until she was
a bloody mess, and then let her fall as she would. He hung up the phone.
26 The Literary Hatchet