Clark froze, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened around the steering wheel.
‘What the heck?’ he thought, his gaze fixed on the mailbox of the old home, its soiled contents spilled out on to the rotting porch below it.
He turned his attention to the cars in the driveway. Their brilliant red and blue paint jobs shone in the afternoon sun. It appeared as if they both had recently gone through a wash and wax.
‘That’s odd,’ thought Clark.
The old, unkempt house stood next to the gleaming vehicles. The gray paint peeled off the siding in some places, and in others there was no siding at all. All the windows of the house had been coated with the same gray paint.
‘The paint on the windows looks fresh,’ Clark noted, his thoughts now racing.
He began thinking about the many horror movies that he so loved to watch, the television crime dramas he often binged in his nights alone, and the many other occasions that he lived vicariously as the hero of the story.
His focus turned his personal pack. He had gotten a license to carry for a reason; being a postal worker was a dangerous job. He thought about what it would be like to be a real hero, and body trembling, he fished out his gun and stepped out of the truck.
He held the gun before him as he crept towards the house, imitating the heroes he watched on TV. Carefully, he stepped up the stairs leading to the porch. The front door was ajar. Quickly, he skittered towards it and pressed against it with his back, just like a TV hero.
He leaned too hard. The door swung open, exposing his back to the occupants of the house. They screamed in unison. He heard a man’s yell, deep and aggressive, and a woman’s scream, shrill and defenseless.
‘He is going to kill me,’ Clark thought.
Swinging around, Clark hastily pointed the gun towards the sound of the man’s yell and pulled the trigger. A figure fell to the ground.
It took several seconds for Clark’s vision to clear. He looked with horror at the scene before him. A man lay naked on the dusty, hardwood floor. He was covered in blood. Crumpled over him lay a naked woman. She was also covered in blood and sobbing heavily.
The man’s gaze turned to Clark. “Is that your husband?” he asked the woman.
She looked at Clark. “No,” she replied.
“Then why did he shoot me?” the man questioned, his voice fading as he gasped for air.
The woman stared harder at Clark. The terror in her eyes caused his stomach to knot.
