Ficlets

Paul stared down at the scene from the catwalk above, trying to walk through the sequence of events in his mind, based on the resulting carnage.

The attacker must have entered to the left, shooting the first stiff in the back of the head as he walked past. This apparently casual act of violence clearly sent the remaining people in the room to seek cover – all of the overturned tables were pointing in that direction.

So the assailant, whoever they were, just kept walking, shooting as they went. The lack of bullet holes in the pieces of ‘cover’ that had corpses behind them suggested a high velocity load in his or her ammo, and a keen eye for shooting blind at a target behind cover. Whoever the assailant was, they had unparalleled confidence and actual ability with a gun.

One, two, three, four, five shots and five dead bodies. It was at this point that the only person left alive in the room apart from the mystery assailant was Smalley. He had only lived long enough to kneel and be stabbed thrice in the face.