Short Stories

Short Story #1

(The story is told from the perspective of a 32-year-old graduate student)  

"You know, when they say pointing at people is rude, that also applies to pointing guns at people," I said calmly.

"Give me your money. No one has to be hurt, right?" the hooded kid replied. "I just want your money." The kid looked to be thirteen or fourteen- too young to be mugging people already. He seemed older and tougher holding a pistol in his hand, but the weak light from the fluorescents inside the 7-11 illuminating the left side of his face betrayed his youth. His black hoodie was obviously quite worn out, and the jeans he wore had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. I guessed he came from either an abusive or poor family. I also noted that even though his eyes glinted with fearlessness, and his mouth was set in a straight and determined line, the hand holding the pistol trembled ever so slightly.

"Come on now," I said. "What do you need it for? You should be in school at this age, not mugging people." I casually checked my watch. It was 12:54 AM. "It's pretty late... why don't w-" "Give me your money," he cut me off. He lifted the pistol so it was pointing at my face. "I really don't want to do this."

"What do you need it for?" I asked. "Can't your parents get it for you?"

This seemed to be worthy of a response. "Well, my mom is dead, my dad is about to die, and my older brother comes home drunk as a skunk every day." He paused for a moment, and some of the fire in his eyes died down a little. "I have no one to hold on to, and my brother spends all of the family's money on liquor, so I can't go to school. As for food, he almost burned the kitchen down the last time he tried to cook, and he gives me twenty dollars a week for food. It was okay at first- not ideal, but okay, but now I can only eat one meal a day ever since the recent recession. Even then, I eat out of Dumpsters for the better half of the week." He calmed himself. "So, I've explained myself. Happy?" He aimed the gun at me.

I felt a tidal wave of sympathy wash over me. I'd only read about such families in books, but I always felt bad for the children in them. And now one of them had been brought to life. "Well...." I wanted to just hand him a few bills, but then I remembered he had a gun. "You win." I passed him my wallet and the bag of Doritos I'd just bought from the 7-11. 

He didn't seem really shocked. "Thank you." He gingerly pocketed the wallet. I sighed. I knew I could have probably bought all the Doritos in the city with the money I just gave him. "Wait- promise me one thing. I know I have no leverage to make you keep it, but promise me." He slowly nodded. "Okay...?" I put my hand on his shoulder. "Promise me you'll never rob anyone again for any reason." He glanced at me before looking down again. "Okay. I promise." I let him go. The shadows folded around him as he walked across the parking lot into the dark gathering of trees. 

When I got back to campus, I realized that I had left all my credit cards in the wallet. This sent me into a panic, which only escalated when I remembered that each credit card had its corresponding password on a Post-It Note with it (I forget things easily). The panic escalated even further when I added up the amount on the accounts and found that the money I gave him was enough to buy a car. I tried to calm down and told myself that he would be living a better life tomorrow, even if he was going to threaten more people anyway.  

The next morning, while I was eating breakfast, the breaking news alert sounded from the TV. These days, it sounded too often, so I kept waiting for the toaster to finish its job. After I got my toast and sat at the table, I looked up from buttering my only slightly burned toast to watch the TV. The local news anchor was speaking, but my attention converged on one thing: the face of the kid on the TV. It was the kid from yesterday! 

I turned the volume up and read the scrolling text at the bottom. However, they had already moved on to the weather forecast, so I grabbed my laptop and started digging around for articles on it. It wasn't hard; it had made national headlines. This is what I gathered from the articles:

The kid's name was Eli Langton, and he was, as I guessed, fourteen years old. But it turns out that he actually had a very stable family. His mother and father were alive and well, and he was an only child. It turns out he apparently snuck out at night and robbed people. Where it went, I didn't know, but when the police showed up he didn't have a single extra cent on him. After some investigation, they found a garbage bag that had been buried in a hole outside. What they found inside was nearly three hundred thousand dollars cash. But the most important part was how he'd gotten it. 

Eli'd been doing the robberies for quite a while; he'd told the police that he'd already robbed twenty or thirty people. He'd wear his oldest clothes, sneak out at night, and wait outside a convenience store and rob people at gunpoint. As for the pistol, it was nothing more than a spray-painted Nerf gun. He'd apparently cached the money in the hole outside his house, but the police were suspicious that he'd spent some. He did a robbery roughly once every three weeks or so. His parents claimed to have not known of him doing this. Eli told the police that he had met someone who taught him how to do the robberies. The police tracked him down, and he pleaded guilty.

He was arrested for twenty-seven counts of armed robbery. His 'friend' was also arrested for solicitation.

I angrily threw my laptop across the room.

A/N: Was it horrible? It was the first short story I wrote, though I'm not sure if it qualifies as a short story- it was 1069 words (without this). Personally, I think I did a lot better than I expected. Still, I'm an amateur, so if anyone has suggestions or comments, tell me!