Home > Free Reads > Excerpt from Triage by Richard Laymon

Almost quitting time. The last hour always dragged on and on, especially on Fridays.

Sharon looked at the clock above the office door.

Ten minutes to go. Ten long, long minutes. Then freedom, the weekend.

If Mr. Hammond had been away as he often was, the others would've left by now. But you don't take off early when the boss is in.

Not that Sharon would've left early, anyway. She got paid for a full day of work, so she worked a full day. Unlike Susie and Kim and Leslie, who would've been long gone by now if Mr. Hammond hadn't been here.

Sharon liked the office better when she had it to herself.

Susie, Kim and Leslie weren't exactly horrible. Sharon supposed they were fairly typical office workers: capable but not very ambitious, friendly enough when not being petty, full of complaints about every aspect of the job, mostly interested in their hair and nails.

Shut away in his office with a client, Mr. Hammond couldn't see that Susie was applying lavender nail polish as the final minutes of the workday drifted away. Nor that Leslie was checking her lipstick in a compact mirror. Nor that Kim was speaking on the phone, probably to one of her several boyfriends.

They've been at this job a lot longer than me, Sharon thought. Before you know it, maybe I'll start growing two-inch nails and . . .

No way.

Christ, she thought, I'd kill myself if I had to spend my whole life in a job like this.

No I wouldn't.

Anyway, it's not going to happen.

She looked at the clock again. Eight minutes till five.

As she grimaced about the slow passage of time, the burning returned. Acid indigestion. The result of today's lunch at Simon's Deli. Great Reuben sandwiches: pastrami and sauerkraut piled high, drenched in melted Swiss cheese between two slices of grilled rye bread. The best. Simon's meant a long drive through lunch hour traffic and acid indigestion later in the afternoon, but she had a hard time staying away. At least twice a week, she made the drive.

And paid the price.

She glanced again at the clock. Six till five.

Time sure flies . . .

She opened a side drawer of her desk and took out a roll of Tums. After peeling away a strip of the wrapper, she used her thumb nail to pry a tablet loose.

She popped the pink disk into her mouth and chewed.

Her telephone rang. In the quiet of the late afternoon office, the sudden noise made her flinch. Swallowing the Tums, she reached across her desk and picked up the handset. "Law Offices of J.P. Hammond and Sons, Sharon speaking. May I help you?"

"I'm gonna get you."

The voice of the man on the phone sounded sly and mean. Underneath her blouse, goosebumps scurried up the skin of Sharon's back. Inside the cups of her bra, her breasts went crawly and her nipples hardened.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"I'm gonna get you, Sharon."

"Who is this?"

"I'm gonna get you NOW."

Dead air. He was gone.

Sharon slammed the phone down and jerked her hand away.

Kim, phone still to her ear, swiveled on her desk chair and

frowned at Sharon. "What's your problem?"

"That call . . ."

"I've got a call of my own, honey. You wanta hold it down?"

"Sorry."

The front door of the office swung open and a man stepped in.

Him?

He must've made the call from the hallway, probably with a cell phone.

He wasn't holding a cell phone, though.

Both his hands were busy with a shotgun. A short, black thing with a pistol grip.

Susie, at the desk nearest the door, normally greeted visitors with, "May I help you?" Usually followed by, "Please take a seat." Today, not speaking a

word, she dropped her nail polish. The bottle thunked on her desktop and rolled.

"I'm here to see Sharon," the man said.

The same voice she'd heard on the phone.

Susie nodded, swiveled, pointed a finger toward the rear of the office. Straight at Sharon. "That's her."

"Thanks," the man said and shot Suzy in the side of the head. As the shotgun bucked, the noise of its blast crashed in Sharon's ears. Susie looked as if she'd been swatted by a baseball bat except that some of her head seemed to blow apart, spraying red.

Susie was still falling out of her chair when the man pumped a fresh shell into the chamber of his shotgun and swung the muzzle toward Leslie -- and Sharon threw herself down behind her desk.

Her knees pounded the hardwood floor. Another detonation rocked the office. Then she couldn't hear anything except the ringing in her ears.

Her reactions weren't what she would've expected. She didn't go numb with terror. She didn't ask herself who this man might be or why he had barged into

the office to kill people. He was a fact. A horrible fact like a truck suddenly bearing down on her for a head-on.

She flinched as another blast crashed through the office.

Then came two more very quick shots.

Shit!

Hunkered down behind the leghole of her desk, she realized she was staring at her purse. She grabbed it, pulled it closer,

peered down into it: wallet, lipstick, tampons, Marlboros, hair brush, Kleenex, note pad, Bufferin, more rolls of Tums, ballpoint pens, a matchbook from Simon's Deli.

KRAWBOOM!

She snatched out what she needed.

Hands strangely steady, she flipped open the Simon's Deli matchbook and plucked out a match. It flared to life on the first try. She applied the flame to the note pad and flames curled over the pages.

She dropped the burning pad into her wastebasket.

Half full of paper wads.

As fire bloomed from its top, Sharon grabbed the wastebasket with both hands. Though she had no idea where the man might be, she sprang up.

He stood a few feet away, just to the left of her desk, head down, both hands occupied with feeding bright red shells into his shotgun. He looked up.

Sharon hurled the flaming wastebasket at his face and broke to the right.

Lurching backward, the man flung up both arms.

As Sharon ran around the side of her desk, he bashed the wastebasket out of his way and fiery papers flew out at him.

Sharon dashed for the office door.

Saw bodies on the floor. Susie. Kim. Leslie. Head-shot. Sprawled in puddles of blood.

Far to the right, Mr. Hammond's door remained shut.

Hiding in there with his client?

Sharon leaped over Susie, but her shoe came down on blood as slick as ice. Her leg flew up. Crying out and flapping her arms, she dropped backward and sat down hard, her right buttock pounding the side of Susie's head. Nothing under her left buttock, she tumbled sideways.

Rolled through blood.

Belly down, she raised her head. The killer wasn't after her. Not yet. He stood near the front of her desk, surrounded by small fires, trying to rip his flaming shirt off his body.

Sharon shoved at the slippery floor, stood up, whirled around and staggered to the door. She jerked it open. Glancing back, she saw the killer fling his shirt away.

That's it. Now he'll come.

The last thing she saw before she broke into a run was the killer crouching to pick up his shotgun.

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(from Triage copyright by Richard Laymon)