going to hurt a lot.”
He pulled the trigger. Stanley flinched.
Click.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that the mugger was looking down at his little gun, puzzled.
“Huh . . . there should have been a bang. Give me a sec. I’ll figure this thing out.”
Stanley turned and ran for his life.
“Whoops.” There was a metallic clacking noise as the would-be assassin fiddled with his weapon. “I forgot to put one of the projectiles in the tube thingy first. My bad. I can shoot you now. Hey, come back here!”
This was the first time Stanley had exercised in several years, but it turned out having a lunatic try to murder you was a remarkably powerful motivator. He dashed between the rows of cars, shouting, “Help! Somebody help!” He looked back and saw that the mugger had started after him, and not having the lung capacity to call for help and sprint at the same time—Stanley wasn’t really into cardio—he shut up and kept running.
“It’s only a little bullet, I swear!” His pursuer was having no problem keeping up, talking as he jogged along.
Of course Stanley had to end up with an athletic psycho killer.
Red-faced and gasping, Stanley reached the row he’d left his car in. Even though he’d worked at the same giant data-entry company for six years now, he still didn’t rate a designated parking space. Oh no, he had to park way out in Bumfuck, Egypt, and walk back and forth like one of the temp scrubs. If only he’d gotten that promotion to assistant manager—then he would’ve had a parking space up front and never even would’ve run into this guy, but he had been passed over again. Why did the universe hate him so much?
“Seriously, Stanley, you aren’t looking very good. Don’t have a stroke or something. If you die, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Get away from me!” Stanley managed to gasp. But there was a glimmer of hope. He had almost reached his car.
Except his pursuer had easily caught up and was right next to him. “You’re looking really red in the face there, buddy. I’m concerned about you. I wasn’t supposed to do anything other than shoot you, but I’m going to have to restrain you now for your own good. I’ll try not to break any of your bones in the process, I promise.”
Before the killer could grab hold of Stanley’s collar, there was a screech of tires as someone hit their brakes, but the driver had reacted too late. A red vintage sports car zipped past, narrowly missing Stanley but absolutely nailing his purser. The man went up the hood, cracked the windshield with his skull, and did several flips through the air before landing with a wet thud.
Stanley slowed down, stopped, and had to put his hands on his knees to keep from flopping over, because it turned out running while fat made you dizzy.
The car skidded to a stop, and the senior VP of marketing, Mr. Knudsen, leapt out. “Aw, not another pedestrian!”
The mugger-slash-pedestrian was lying in a crumpled heap, motionless. There was a whole lot of blood and white bits that were probably bones sticking out. Everything had happened so fast that Stanley was having a hard time wrapping his oxygen-deprived brain around it.
Mr. Knudsen was that type of senior management that had really nice hair and a trophy wife. “Did you see that? That wasn’t my fault. You two came out of nowhere. Is he dead?”
“I think so.” Stanley tentatively reached out and bumped one limp arm with his shoe. Nothing happened. He had never seen anybody die before. It was pretty messed up!
“I wasn’t even drinking this time,” Mr. Knudsen muttered. “My insurance is going to go through the roof.”
“You saved my life. He was trying to murder me.” Stanley pointed at the gun lying there.
“Really?” Mr. Knudsen mulled that over. “I can’t possibly get in trouble for running down a criminal. Is vehicular self-defense a thing?”
“How would I know?”
“Aren’t you Coopersmith from legal?”
“I’m Stanley from IT!”