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  I stepped to the side to let a family pass, the kids all complaining about what they didn’t get, the parents swearing that next time they were all getting left in the car.

  Whoosh.

  Silence.

  Not total silence, of course. I could hear the music inside the store. Chattering at the registers. Somebody being paged.

  Behind me, I could hear someone lay on the horn.

  Maybe it was a warning.

  Bail out the kid and he might grow accustomed to it.

  Let’s be honest. What was he learning from this?

  Next time, he knew to hide his loot better, to keep his mouth shut.

  When I’d taken the stolen DVDs, said I was returning them, he’d called me a hypocrite. A coward. A stooge.

  He didn’t see that I was saving him from the mistakes I’d made when I was his age.

  No, that horn wasn’t a warning. It was a call to action.

  I walked into the store.

  Colors and sounds, lights and movement, a manufactured world of conditioned air and consumers.

  I’d never felt comfortable here, and today’s mission left me even more unnerved than usual, as if this was my first foray outside the law.

  My throat was actually dry.

  Someone set off the store alarm, and I continued walking out of habit. Nope, not me, I’m just going about my business, and this time it was true.

  Only an employee approached and asked to see my receipt.

  I tossed a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m just coming in.”

  “That’s the exit.”

  Turning, I saw he was right. I’d come in the wrong door, and the stolen DVDs must have tripped the scanners. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Good thing it’s no crime to come in the out.”

  “You set off the alarm.”

  “Come to think of it, the person I passed looked kind of guilty.” If he asked how I came to that conclusion, all I’d have to do was describe myself. Could everybody hear my pounding heart?

  A manager joined us. “Please come with me.”

  “I’m sort of in a rush.” I pictured the aisles. “I just stopped in for some batteries.”

  “Please.” He lowered his voice. “We’ve already called the police.”

  And what lesson would my kid take from this?

  Code Adam

  By Steve Weddle

  You just don’t have the kind of day I was having and not kill someone.

  I’d blown a tire around Toledo, pulled off the turnpike to fix it. Then, the other side of Cleveland, the car started running hot, so I turned on the heater and cracked the windows. The early morning air was keeping me awake. I’d taken a car in Chicago and was working to New York for a meeting. I couldn’t show up in grease-wiped pants, so I had to stop somewhere.

  I didn’t know if I’d have time to rush a suit at William Fioravanti’s place once I got to New York, so I found one of those 100,000-square-foot places that sells Made-in-China pants for $14.

  It being early in the morning and soon after a holiday, the place was lousy with women looking for sales, those breastfeeding homeschoolers who put their off-season clothes in plastic boxes under their beds, painting calligraphy on handmade labels. They’d brought the kids in to teach them math skills, I guess. Count back change. Glue guns. How many morons do you see? That sort of crap.

  Didn’t matter to me as I walked in past the greeter, nodded “Hello” to Methuselah’s uncle, and watched one of the boys stray from the herd. I should have said something then.

  I saw the boy walking back through the men’s clothes, which was where I was heading anyway. I raked through the hangers. Two inches too short. Two inches too fat. They had light gray in my size. I walked over to the shelves and was grabbing a pair of dark Dickies work pants in the right size when I heard the screaming. Not words. Just chaos. Then the loudspeaker. “Code Adam.”

  A couple of well-fed women thudded by from behind me, smocks flapping, heading for the front doors that were being closed and locked. People from the front of the store were running to the back. “Code Adam.”

  I walked to the front aisle near the register and saw one of the women talking to the manager. His smock was dangling pens and a box cutter. And a name tag. Tim. Three gold stars. I don’t know why they give out gold stars at the store. He could tie his shoes? Corral three dozen shopping carts at once? I was betting he didn’t get a gold star for finding lost kids. She was telling Tim that the kid had been arguing about wanting a toy, a baseball bat, and the next thing she knew he was gone. Tim was on his walkie-talkie, which he’d turned sideways because he’d seen people on TV do it like that when there was an emergency.

  I turned around, tossed the Dickies over a rack, and headed to the back of the store where the kid had been going.

  I heard whispering from the back corner where the bikes were lined up. The kind of whispers you hear through walls. Low. Wordless. Just hisses and thumps.

  I stopped when I got to the end of the row of action figures. “Sure, son, all the kids have bats. And gloves. All part of the team. Come on. Just a quick game then back home.”

  The kid was quiet. Still.

  “We’ll call your mom and you can tell her to come see you play. Wouldn’t she like to see you play? There’s a phone in the car. Come on. We’ll go call her and tell her so she’ll know you’re safe.”

  I turned the corner and the man stepped back. The kid was crouched on the floor between bicycles. He slid further back when he saw me.

  “I got a phone in my pocket. We can call now.”

  “That’s OK, sir,” the guy said. “Eddie and I were just playing a little game here. Let me just go find your mom. You wait here, son.”

  The guy started walking away. I followed. He turned and dove under my arm before I knew what he was doing. I hadn’t expected him to be so fast.

  He’d pulled the kid out of the bikes and had a blade at the kid’s throat as I turned.

  “Don’t make me slice this boy’s throat.”

  No, I didn’t intend on doing that. “Put the knife down. Then run away.”

  “Screw you. You go away. This isn’t anything to you.”

  “Is now.”

  He was walking back, turning around the corner. He lifted the knife and pointed it at me as I stepped forward. “Stop moving,” he said.

  The kid twisted away and reached under a shelf. I stepped to the guy, who turned to me. I saw a blur as the kid took a cut at a hanging screwball. The guy took a step back, into the endcap with the clearance items. Four or five of last year’s robot dogs fell on his head. The kid took another swing and missed. You gotta like a kid with that much spunk. Kid like that shouldn’t have to live with this, some pervert with a van making his own after-school special. Kid like that needs to know how the world works, how the world will lie down for you if you knock it over. But first you have to set your feet, let the power come from your stance, your foundation, feed up through you into your target. The guy went for the kid, but I was between them, grabbing the bat with my right hand and shouldering the guy back.

  He lost his balance on some shiny cardboard and bobbled. I coulda told him that nonsense about having a good foundation, but instead I popped the knob end of the bat just under his chest.

  I heard a crowd coming to the commotion.

  “Crafts,” I yelled. “They’re in Crafts.”

  The stampede shifted.

  The guy was on his knees, then his chin was on my knee. Then the back of his head was in the shelving again. He didn’t look good, so I helped him up and tried to straighten the bridge of his nose with the palm of my hand. I was going to have to stop by Housewares, find something to get his blood off my shirt.

  He went down again, falling like the store’s everyday low prices.

  I grabbed his hair and pulled him up, handed the kid the bat.

  “Take a swing.”

  The kid shook his head.

  “You know what he was going to do to you?
”

  The kid nodded and handed me the bat.

  The roar of the crowd was close again. “Over here,” they were yelling. “Over here.” Rubber soles were skidding on the tile. Boxes were falling onto the floor as more people pin-balled down the aisles.

  I moved next to the kid. Maybe he wasn’t old enough for this. Maybe this was too much.

  I set my right foot and stepped into the swing, pulling power from my thighs, turning my hips at impact.

  A cracking snap. A wet thud like you’d dropped the Christmas ham off a roof.

  I turned to see the boy, who’d closed his eyes. Yeah, he was too young to learn anything. But he’d grow up soon enough.

  The Toy aisles filled with adults.

  Skyler Hobbs and the Rollback Bandit

  By Evan Lewis

  I should have known better than to drag my friend Skyler Hobbs into Megamart. But I was out of blank CDs, a necessity in my occupation as Jason Wilder, Computer Doctor, and I was hoping for a quick in and out.

  The trouble began at once.

  “I perceive,” Hobbs said to a thick-chested man in the candy aisle, “that you are conducting a clandestine relationship with your secretary, a blonde with a penchant for dark chocolate.”

  The man spun to face him, fists clenched, and I feared there’d be bloodletting, until a waspish brunette with a wedding ring buzzed around the corner.

  “There you are!” she said. “Buying me candy?”

  I hustled Hobbs to the next aisle, nearly colliding with a pinch-faced woman and a small boy in a Trailblazers jersey.

  “Is this lad aware,” Hobbs asked, “that his real mother is a crack addict?”

  The boy began to cry. The woman swung her purse above her head like a mace.

  I pulled Hobbs away. “You can’t talk to people like that.”

  “I am who I am,” Hobbs said, “and I can do nothing else.”

  I sighed. My friend Skyler Hobbs, you see, believes himself to be the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes. Crazy? You bet. But he’s good at this detective stuff, and making a small living at it. And as I said, he’s my friend.

  “Wait! Something is amiss.” Hobbs peered down the cookie aisle at a red-haired employee placing a box on a shelf. “Do you not see what is happening?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re slipping your nut. Come on.”

  “That fellow positioned the box at the rear of the shelf, when it would have been far easier to place it in front.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ever heard of expiration dates? They want the oldest stuff to sell first.”

  The employee marched off toward the rear of the store.

  Since Hobbs insisted on staking out the cookie aisle to await further developments, I strolled back to the Electronics department. The same red-haired employee was behind the counter and rang up my CDs in a perfectly normal manner. I hoped my experience would convince Hobbs the guy was on the level.

  But nearing the cookie aisle, I heard shouts, then sounds of a scuffle, and I ran, dodging carts and shoppers. Two men flopped about on the floor, legs flailing, elbows sailing, as they battled over a box of cookies. One of the men was Hobbs.

  “Watson! Get the box!”

  I grimaced. “It’s Wilder,” I said.

  Two burly security guards barreled into the aisle. With a good deal of grunting, they hauled Hobbs and his opponent to their feet.

  The customer’s nose was bloody. “This maniac assaulted me! I want him arrested!”

  The box of cookies lay on the floor. I bent to fetch it, but the red-haired employee swooped in and handed it to the aggrieved customer.

  “Our apologies, sir. I believe this is yours.”

  Hobbs kicked at the security guards. “Watson! Open that cookie box!”

  Everyone stared at me. I managed a weak smile. “Wilder,” I said.

  The guards lifted Hobbs off his feet. His legs churned the air.

  “Please, Doctor. If you are truly my friend, you will open that box!”

  I winced. I wanted no part of this, but he’d played the friend card. Darting forward, I snatched the box from the customer’s hand.

  The redhead pinned my arms to my sides while the customer clawed at my hands. I hunched over, spinning in a circle while I tore at the box flap. The customer tackled me, and we all went down, but the open box popped from my fingers and skidded across the floor.

  And out of the top slid a shrink-wrapped DVD. The new version of Star Trek.

  * * *

  That evening in Hobbs’ living room, as we prepared to view his complimentary copy of Star Trek, I asked what had tipped him off.

  “Your theory regarding expiration dates did not hold water.” Hobbs thrust his complimentary box of cookies at me. “These consist almost entirely of artificial preservatives. They are no fresher now than they will be at the Crack of Doom.”

  Shaking my head, I bit into one. And gagged. It tasted like sugar-coated sawdust.

  Hobbs’ face screwed up, sharing my pain. Then he steepled his fingers and peered sideways at me. “I deduced,” he said, “that our red-haired friend was treating someone to a personal price rollback.”

  I groaned. He grinned. “In fact,” he said, “when you submit this story to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, I suggest you entitle it ‘Skyler Hobbs and the Rollback Bandit’.”

  I choked on my cookie. “What do you know about Ellery Queen?”

  “I know that you sold them the tale of our first adventure together, and that it has recently seen print.” He paused, looking smug. “And furthermore, I expect to share equally in the proceeds.”

  Though I groused and grumbled, I was forced to agree.

  But just to spite him, I ate another cookie.

  Black Friday

  By Daniel B. O’Shea

  Mike let off the gas, coasting to the four-way at County B. Tanker truck easing up, and Mike wanted it to clear the intersection so he could roll through in second gear. Tranny was making a nasty noise in first, and there was no money for that. No money for anything.

  “Whataya slowin’ down for?” Kayla wheezing through her third Virginia Slims on the half-hour drive to Platteville. Usually they shopped at the Pamida in Lancaster, but Kayla said they had to get to the Super Megamart for Black Friday because Pamida wouldn’t have the Wii shit she wanted.

  Mike didn’t answer. That would mean explaining that he was trying to save the tranny because they couldn’t afford to fix it, and that would spill into explaining that they couldn’t really afford the Wii shit, and then he’d have to point out that they couldn’t afford half a carton of cigarettes a day and they couldn’t afford to pull in at the Kwik Trip for Kayla’s Ding Dong fix—which, since Kayla was pushing 240 these days, tied into not being able to afford to fix the goddamn struts that were starting to bounce for a good five seconds every time she hoisted her fat ass out of the car.

  “And pull into the Kwik Trip—gotta get some Ding Dongs and take a pee.”

  Mike asked her to grab him a coffee and parked at the top of the hill on the east end of the lot. Any luck, he could pop it in neutral, pick up a little speed, and start out in second. He could see Kayla at the register—two packs of Ding Dongs, another carton of Slims, running the card through the reader. He’d paid that all the way down back in June when word of the layoffs started filtering through the plant. By New Year’s, the credit line would be shot, and he’d have one month of unemployment left.

  Through the windshield, he could see the sun was coming up. Or he could surmise. Whatever the sun was doing, it was doing it on the other side of another day’s worth of sludge-colored sky. He could see the hills rolling away in front of him.

  Broken stubble littering a corduroy of plowed-under fields following the side of the hill to a filigree of empty trees against a dead sky pocked with crows.

  Sort of thing that still popped into his head, sort of thing he used to write down, back when he still pretended to work on the next novel.

&nbs
p; Kayla flopped back into the car, the car settling into its passenger-side list. She already had a Ding Dong crammed in her mouth.

  “Didn’t get your coffee,” she sputtered, spitting out a wad of chocolate slobber that stuck to the inside of the windshield like bird shit. “They had to make a new pot, said it was gonna be like another five minutes. We’re gonna miss the door busters.” She set the Ding Dong on the dash while she lit up another Slims and wedged her iPod buds in her ears.

  Mike thought about pointing out they’d be five minutes down the road now if she could have waited until Platteville to buy her fucking Ding Dongs, which cost less at Megamart anyway. Thought about just walking back into the Kwik Trip himself. Instead, he fired up the engine, slipped the car into neutral, and let it roll down the hill, watching the side mirror. Nothing coming. He popped it into second.

  She’d left her seat belt off again—said it was broken, always felt too tight. Yeah, like a couple thousand Ding Dongs too tight. So Mike had to drive with the alarm pinging at him. Kayla didn’t give a shit, she had the iPod cranked—he could hear Brittney Spears leaking out. Worse than the fucking seat belt alarm. At least they were in the car. If they were home, she’d be doing her oozing, gelatinous bump-and-grind and looking back at him over her shoulder like he was supposed to be getting hard or something.

  Fuck. Big-ass county dump truck barreling down the hill on the right, coming to the intersection. Mike had the stop sign, but he was hoping to roll through. Now he’d have to start out in first. Kayla still had the belt off, damn bell still dinging at him—and it was an old car, no airbag on her side.

  It came to him like the words used to, perfect and all at once. He lifted his foot off the brake, watching the truck, timing it. Didn’t want to get T-boned, needed to hit the truck in the side. He’d take a beating for sure, maybe worse. But she’d get a face full of GMC point blank. Mike cinched his belt tight, then hit the down button for the driver’s window, didn’t need to bounce his head off that.

  “Fuck are you doin’?” Kayla hissed. “Fuckin’ freezing out there.”