The Night of Blue Snow

He stroked the handle of the pistol. It felt so smooth, no jagged edges, no coarseness. It was unnatural. The tree behind him jabbed bark into his back through his sweater and jacket. That was an odd juxtaposition, he thought, maybe it meant something. But his thoughts faded, and his discomfort was enough to supply a gust of energy, and he pushed himself onto his own feet and headed toward the gas station.

It was time.

The sky crackled, cutting the night with bursts of blue and red, and yellow. That was strange. Night skies were black and sometimes gray or deep blue. This was... not that. Twisting coils of light flashed overhead, an impromptu Midwestern aurora borealis. Tufts of clouds became briefly luminescent and released a thin wave of snowflakes. He held out his gloved hand and caught one in his hand. It looked normal, he thought, before it became a patch of moisture on the leather.

The ground was already thickly coated, with seven inches of lake effect and a top layer of crunchy ice. The high was seventeen; the low was 3, and with wind chill it felt like negative two. Droplets froze before falling from branches, leaving icy tendrils reaching for the ground. The roadways and curbs were battered by mushy gray slush, a mixture of dirt and snow, and whatever else. A wave of filth crashing over ramparts. The low buzz of fluorescent lights overhead, pale gleaming trapped in the glint of ice. The edges of everything blurred together and apart. It's possible he was drunk.

A bottle of Four Roses and a crushed 40 were encased on the sidewalk. Melty semi-circles where the salt was dropped, frozen over when night came, too cold to be truly effective. Grease-stained fast food pouches caught between the drifts and the wind, partly frozen, partly free, fluttering helplessly. The squeegee brush was probably frozen, too, he thought. The world was sloshy but at least his stomach burned hot.

He could do this, and he knew that. He thought he might need a second to collect himself, but that was OK.

The Speedway felt a million miles away, yet so near. Everything about the station was familiar, the stained trash cans between pumps, the bag-wrapped handles indicating no fuel was available, and the canopy speakers looping adult contemporary jazz. He leaned against one of the pillars and plucked a joint from his jacket. A sticker told him the pump had been certified by the county, and another sticker, probably put there by nerdy teens in a garage band, said, “Maddening Crowd Rocks!”

The bottom sticker, the one touting the rock band, came with an illustration of a crowd at a show (probably headlined by the Maddening Crowd), but the music was so bombastic, so righteous, so goddamn rocking that some people’s heads were exploding. Joe tried to note the band’s name in his head, repeating it over and over again, knowing he would never remember it later. A band that could explode your head sounded promising though.

Smoke filled his lungs. The THC was great but he could feel the air sacs being burnt up and that gave him a rush too.

He blew a cloud of smoke toward the chipped paint of the canopy and saw another streak of light twisting like a helix. He examined the joint and then took another hit before carefully killing the flame and stashing the remaining weed in his jacket.

He could do this.

Another Night at the Station

Abby hated to be the one who closed. She lobbied ceaselessly for those shifts to be done by two people. It was more efficient, she had proven that repeatedly with slideshows and tightly-worded emails. Bathrooms would be cleaner, the stock would be stuffed faster and more fully, deliveries better accounted for, rugs more thoroughly vacuumed, floors better washed, the cigarettes racked quicker. And obviously, it was safer. A one-person gas station could be an easy target.

This was the most crucial argument, in her opinion. Two people are harder to incapacitate or control. If someone stormed into the store, Abby might be behind the counter, but the other clerk, Marco, let's say, could be in the bathroom. If he heard the robber enter but wasn’t seen, he could call 911 from behind a locked door while Abby played dumb. Oh, it’s just me tonight, she’d say. I’m bad at the cash drawer, give me one second, I’m sorry, I’m nervous. While her fingers shook and failed to hit the keys correctly, Gilroy police cruisers would be racing to her rescue (and Marco’s rescue, too obviously).

She mopped between the aisles and saw visions of blue and red lights and handsome police officers. Maybe she’d book a guest spot on her favorite podcast, “How Not To Be A Victim.” She’d sip wine and pet their croaky cat while discussing grace under pressure. The hosts would giggle and ask what she would have done when confronting different, infamous serial killers.

Abby exposed the real Zodiac killer while returning the mop and bucket to the utility closet. She looked briefly around, saw no one in the store, and decided she was lonely and could use a minute to call her son. She went out the back loading door and sat on the curb, only the dumpster and the woods to watch her.

Bobby was with his dad. It was 11:36 p.m., so he’d already be asleep. Well, he should be asleep. He was persuasive in a way unique to 9-year-olds, badgering and persistent yet adorably sweet. He begged, and it reminded Abby of being a kid, pleading with her parents to let her stay up late and watch TV with them. It didn’t matter what the program was or if it was a school day, she just wanted that illicit thrill of being up past bedtime and encroaching on the forbidden world of adults. Anything was possible for adults, or at least you think so when you’re 9.

“He’s asleep,” Dan said the moment he answered the phone.

“I know, I thought he would be.”

“Then why’d you call?”

Abby twirled her hair on her finger and looked at the fluorescent overhead lights. She could hear them buzzing. “Just feeling some kind of way.”

“Oh. Do you want to stop by after work? I just did sheets.”

“Not that kind of way, Dan.”

“Well, shit, I don’t know”

“It has been a while.”

“So come through. I’ve got eggs. You could make us breakfast.”

She thought about it. It wasn’t like it would be the first time. Since the divorce, they’d both slept over and then dealt with the morning-after shame. Abby wasn’t interested in giving into lust anymore, not in her 30s, not when it only gave their son false hope. He couldn’t understand that physical needs could -- briefly -- trump commonsense. Hell, physical need could trump almost a year of courtroom bickering and smarmy lawyers, and endless paperwork. The physical was almost worth it though, she though.

The look on Bobby’s face, though, she wasn’t sure anything was worth that. She felt like the world’s biggest liar and worst mother those mornings. Mixing the eggs about while Bobby smiled and smiled because his parents were back together, and things felt normal again. Dan never noticed, or if he did, he never said anything.

The joy never lasted, though. The waterworks started when Dan got in his car and left, or Abby packed Bobby up and headed home. Wailing, shrieking, punching the car seat with his little balled-up fists.

Still, it had been a while.

“Maybe. I’ll call you after I’m off,” she said and hung up.

Getting Lucky

There was no one inside. Could he be that lucky? Did the clerk leave without locking up? Was there a family emergency? He opened the bathroom door and saw only the porcelain throne (in dire need of cleanup). No one was in the beer room, and the station’s cleaning supplies were visible behind a weirdly open closet door. No, there was no one here. Maybe this was his turning point, the universe owed him a break, and this was better than nothing.

He hopped the counter, knocking over a display of Reese’s cups as he struggled to clear the top. The cash register was a panoply of symbols and gibberish. Someone had taped instructions on the counter, but even that made no sense to him. He began pressing buttons, but nothing happened. In movies, this was the easy part. There was a little release button, and the cash drawer slid open, and the money was all there waiting to be snatched.

Analog was easier, he thought. Digital ruined everything.

He could see the cash drawer. That’s what was so frustrating. It was right there, a rectangular cutout against a black block. He slid his pistol into the waistband of his pants and then dug his fingers into the slots around the drawer. They were too narrow for even his pinky finger. He wasn’t sure he could get even his fingernails into the opening.

Shooting the cash register was an option. Even briefly entertaining that particular notion was fun because he imagined blowing a hole in the screen (which he knew wouldn’t work, it was just a screen) and black smoke pouring out while the drawer ejected with such force it smashed into the wall. That wouldn’t work, though, and he knew that.

If all else failed, it could be a satisfying release. Shooting anything electronic might be fun, he thought.

He stood up and surveyed the station. It looked exactly like every other gas station he’d ever been in. Dusty taquitos and hot dogs rotated on a hot grill, burn marks etched to their sides. Grab-and-go snacks hung from every corner, there were displays selling meat sticks, meat slabs, meat sheets, and meat nuggets. An entire row of cookies and candies all clothed in brightly colored packaging. Sports drinks, pops, beers, and the world’s saddest containers of 2 percent milk stayed cool and distant in the fridges. And in the corner, right next to the bathroom, was an ATM unaffiliated with any bank known to man. It charges everyone an extra $2 per transaction.

There were news stories all the time about people stealing whole ATMs. They’d drive a truck or minivan through the gas station wall, wrap a chain around the ATM, hook it to their vehicle, and then drive until it unloosed. They’d shove it in their trunk and disappear into the night.

Fuck, he thought, maybe I should have driven here.

Instead, he had walked through two miles of ice, snow, and weird Midwestern lights. He reasoned it would make for an easier escape. Police would close down roads and troll highways looking for a man with a satchel of cash (or even a hulking ATM). Meanwhile, he’d be strutting back home through the woods, wholly unmolested.

Now, that plan looked like a bust.

He crouched again and studied the cash register. Teenagers worked here. Special needs adults worked here. He could figure this out, right?

As he re-read the taped-down instruction, the back door to the station opened, and a 30-something-year-old woman walked in and screamed.

Not That Lucky

A nightmare. That’s what this was. The banal gas station suddenly seemed surreal. All the sounds that faded into the background during her shifts -- the humming lights, the grinding grr of the fridges, the whipping wind beyond the walls -- were now deafening. Every noise burrowed through her ears and dug into her skull, bouncing off bone and shaking her brain. The cacophony wasn’t deafening, it was overwhelming and all-encompassing. Nothing could penetrate through this wall of noise. The roar encased her and made thought or movement impossible. Even her vision, her solid, reliable vision, began shutting down. Darkness crept into the edges and advanced until only a pinprick of light remained.

Abby couldn’t breathe. And for some reason, the only image in her mind was the Zodiac Killer.

Plans, Plans, Plans

The clerk fainted almost immediately. Joe didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t part of his plan, not that he had a plan. He had an idea, a vision. So, more accurately, he had not foreseen this. The clerk was supposed to be calm and collected. They were supposed to be old pros, barely fazed by the gun barrel and the mask. They were supposed to be calmer than him.

The clerk was also supposed to be a man. It was fine that it was a woman, he had imagined that possibility, but he hoped it would be a man. Men are easier to steal from, he thought. Maybe it was the competing machismo, the desire to inflict dominance on a competitor from your gender. Maybe it was his attraction to most women, which he thought might also be a weakness for women. Whatever it was, he had hoped the clerk would be a man.

Maybe even a fat man. With a mustache. That’s what he had pictured, honestly.

This was a comely woman in khaki pants and a navy blue polo, with a tight ponytail and high cheekbones. She looked like a lot of women Joe had known throughout his life. He didn’t like that. Familiarity made this harder.

He knelt beside her body and wondered what to do. She was breathing, her chest rising and falling. Joe felt skeevy even glancing at her boobs while she was unconscious. He gingerly pressed his fingers to her wrist and looked for a pulse. He couldn’t find one. He checked her neck next, and the rhythmic pumping of her heart revealed itself.

Her cell phone was on the ground next to her. It must have been in her hand when she came in and fainted. He collected that and put it in his pocket. No secret 911 calls when she roused.

She inhaled suddenly, and her eyes fluttered. Joe sat on his heels and watched, unsure what else to do.