Three Strikes

The first mistake he made was his entry. In the front door swaying with the creaking floor boards, a murderer’s dance, because he thought nobody would expect that. The second mistake was his attitude. Casual, because he’d been here before, so many times it had become like a ritual of violence, the knife wounds, bloody tears and those screams in the darkness that nobody ever heard. The third mistake was what he said after the night silence shattered to reveal the woman, eyes carved down to the bone with heroin spoons and syringe craters. He stared the shaking barrel down with a tiny corner of the mouth smirk and whispered: “We both know you’re not really going to do that.”