The Mystery Danger Serials: Dead Man Running

The Bag

The bag...

I was going to get killed over a stupid bag. That was the long and short of it. The brown duffel was going to be the end of me.

Not drowning. Not being blown to bits in a crime boss's warehouse. Not being caught in a different crime boss's hidden vault full of cash.

No.

I was going to meet my maker over a crazy woman's suitcase. What was so important about her personal belongings?

A bullet whizzed by my ear. That was a close one.

I tried to peek out from behind the concrete pillar which had most recently become my saving grace.

Another loud bang. The pillar exploded into bits of chunky gravel. I buried my face into the back of the makeshift barrier. As I opened my eyes, behind a cloud of dust, a new tiny crater had been carved into the stone.

Forget what I had said earlier. That was a close one.

The gunman, whoever he was, was a professional. Not the "one-shot-from-a-hundred-feet-away nice-and-tidy" type of professional. No, he was more of the "certainly-brought-enough-bullets-to-finish-the-job" kind of guy. With each passing moment, the concrete which separated me from his deadly gaze grew thinner and thinner.

Small piles of man-made rock began to form around my ankles. It was like I was slowly sinking. As I watched the splintered pieces of stone stack chaotically around my feet, a grotesque thought crossed my mind. There was more than one way to bury a man.

He had brought the grave to me, like a one-stop funeral shop.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the yellow hat. The bullet holes gave it the look of a piece of cheese in one of those cartoons from the Sunday papers. The man it belonged to was long gone. He had been the first one to go down when all hell broke loose. Had he been the intended target? Judging by the condition of his hat, he had certainly taken a licking from my would-be pallbearer.

...

"Can I help you with that, mister? The bag looks heavy." I asked. The man stood checking his pocket watch. He had a sharp face, thin lips, and round spectacles. His clean-shaven, narrow chin gave him the polished look of a man who knew his barber by name. Salt and pepper hair spat out around the canary yellow hat.

"What's a fella like you want with a bag like this?" he responded. It was the question he was told to ask. Casually, he waited for my specific response.

"Just looking to take a load off your shoulders," I said matter-of-factly.

He nodded, raising a hand to pass me the brown canvas bag. "I'm much obliged, stranger."

A single clap of thunder tore through the silence inside the station. Bewildered passengers looked toward the rails for the approaching train. Others glanced curiously up at the sun-filled skylights overhead.

The man standing in front of me froze. He gazed through me for an instant, as if looking for something very far away. Then, slowly, his eyes dropped down to the penny-sized hole in his freshly starched shirt. A trickle of crimson ink slithered out of the hole and wandered toward the floor.

His watch slipped from his fingers. It fell to the floor for what seemed like an eternity. Then, as if the watch had been a grenade in disguise, this exploded inches above the floor.

Like one landmine triggering another, the watch caused the air around us to erupt. I only saw the man's woeful expression for a moment. before we were engulfed in a cloud of grit and chaotic noise.