Free The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

something way beyond pain.
    That goes on forever as I back up down the hallway. Footsteps coming up the stairs now. I need to make a choice. Jump out a window? Risk breaking both my legs? There must be some other way out, another door through another room, another set of stairs, because you wouldn’t build a house this way, not with one long deathtrap of a hallway, but I don’t have time to find that other door.
    Unless I just take my shot and hope for the best. I open a doorway to a bathroom, then another to a bedroom. I go inside and close the door softly behind me. Another high window, this one overlooking the side of the house. Another thirty-foot drop.
    Okay, think. He doesn’t know how many of us are in this house. That’s one thing that works for me. Although wait . . . did Bigmouth even get downstairs yet? Is that him screaming down there right now?
    I go to the door and listen hard. A minute passes. Two minutes. If he opens this door, I thought, I’ll hide behind it and try to surprise him. It’s my only shot.
    Another minute. Then finally a voice.
    “I give up!” Bigmouth, from somewhere down the hall. “Don’t shoot, okay? I’m unarmed!”
    No response.
    “I’m coming out now! I’ll have my hands up, okay? There’s no reason to shoot me!”
    A door opening. Footsteps in the hallway.
    “You see? No gun, man! I totally give up. You got me.”
    Then heavier footsteps, from the other end, coming closer.
    “Hey, wait a minute.
    Hey. Hold on now. Let’s not do anything crazy, huh? Hey, come on.”
    The footsteps louder, closer. Bigmouth’s voice on the edge of hysteria.
    “No! Hold on! Wait!”
    One second I’m standing behind my door, the next second the door is exploding and knocking me backward. Bigmouth is falling on top of me. He clutches at me like he means to use me as a shield. I knock his hands away, and he’s on his feet now. He’s going back toward the door and then he stops, as the man with the shotgun is right in front of him now. A silver badge on his gray jacket. But he’s not a cop. No, sir. He’s private security, which means he could do just about anything at this point. The double-barreled monstrosity in his hands is aimed right at Bigmouth’s chest.
    I have just enough time to see the man’s face. Ugly and red. The sick littlesmile of a man who finally has the license to use his gun on real flesh and blood.
    The next second . . . Bigmouth reaches for his belt. Then the blast, more than just sound, a hard metal
thing
punching in through my ears. The side of Bigmouth’s head disappearing. Not so much exploding or falling but just . . . not there anymore. A sudden spray of blood and bone and gore on the wall and the window and the curtains and in my eyes. Bigmouth’s body still standing, not even aware of what has happened yet. Until it finally starts to tilt sideways against a chest of drawers like a man leaning against a lamppost, then finally collapsing, his legs folding and the top half of his body falling backward in a way that no living thing would ever fall.
    The man with the shotgun stood there watching this. Then when it was done he finally seemed to notice me. I was crouching against the far wall. He looked at me for a while, not moving.
    “You’re just a goddamned boy,” he said.
    I didn’t know if that meant I was off the hook. Then, as if to answer that very question, he breached the shotgun and rummaged around in his pocket with his left hand. I pushed off the wall and came right at him, with as much force as I could gather.
    He tried to swing the butt of the shotgun, but because it was breached he didn’t have any leverage or any reach with it. At the last moment I ducked down and hit him low, taking out both knees. I tried to keep rolling through him, even as he grabbed at me with his free hand and tried to pin me with his legs.
    I kicked at him until eventually I struggled free. Then I was on my feet and running down the hallway, imagining him