Under the Flickering Light

7094 words

Leon Mercer’s boots scraped against the frostbitten asphalt as he crouched low behind a rusted dumpster, the bitter November wind slicing through his jacket. His breath came out in short, sharp clouds, dissolving into the dark of the vacant lot on Linwood Avenue. Across the patchy, weed-choked ground, two figures stood under the faint sodium glow of a streetlamp that flickered like it was deciding whether to give up entirely. One of them, skinny and twitchy, kept glancing over his shoulder, his hands stuffed deep in a puffy coat. The other, broader, held a duffel bag, its weight pulling his shoulder down like it was packed with bricks. Leon’s eyes narrowed. He knew what was in there—same poison he’d seen flood his neighborhood since he got back from ‘Nam. Same poison he’d sworn to keep away from kids like Tanya. Behind him, Reggie muttered under his breath, his voice a tight hiss barely audible over the distant rumble of a late-night semi rolling down Grand River. “Man, we shoulda stayed in the damn car. This ain’t no game, Leon. You see they strapped?” Reggie’s gloved hand gripped the edge of the dumpster, his knuckles pale even through the leather. He was right—Leon had clocked the bulge under the skinny one’s coat, the way he kept patting his side like he...