Dying Time Read Free Page B

gunshots downstairs. 
     
    She prayed as her door was kicked down.        
     
    When Tom flipped her body over she was smiling.      
     
     
     

Hero
     
    Peter wanted to kick something as he stalked through the Greyhound Bus Station. He just needed to make a phone call and the bloody phones refused to take change. They needed a five dollar phone card. It didn’t matter that when he had asked at the counter to buy a card they were fresh out. What type of cheap ass place ran out of phone cards.  It was  a five mile walk to a convenience store to buy one, that by the time he got there would be closed for the night. Trying to keep some small tatters of his pride he refused to call collect. So he was stuck. 
     
    Stuck in a small, ass end of nowhere town with two hundred dollars to his name, a backpack with his entire life in it, needing a ticket that cost two-hundred and twenty dollars. FUCK!
     
    All he wanted was to get to Calgary, so he could get a job with a buddy painting houses.  Just like his last job here in Hicksville, population 1000, and 99% senior citizens waiting to die. Why was it so hard?  He wanted to yell at God and ask why the Hell did he think Peter McGuire, 23 years old, deserved this shit. 
     
    He’d never done well in school preferring to work with his hands. Give him a paint roller, dry wall, a hammer any type of bloody tool and he was happy. So when he’d been offered a job as a painters apprentice straight out of high school by a friend of his uncle he had jumped at it. He’d done a good job, but his boss decided to screw over the government, his workers, and his clients. So when he’d been shut down, the government had wasted weeks of his time by making him go over every little detail of what Mr. Stewart had done. 
    With no chance of getting a job in town, he’d been forced to hang around town sending out resumes throughout the country. But thanks to being held up as a witness for a month he couldn’t say exactly when he could start. A great way to impress potential bosses. 
     
    And to add a nice cherry to the whole steaming pile of crap, his girlfriend had told him he was useless unemployed ass, as she walked out the door. He’d have expected her to walk out with his best friend except for the fact his best friend had already left town for greener pastures.
     
    He wanted to punch something.
     
    Someone tugged on his old, cracked leather jacket. He looked down and saw a little girl wearing a blue dress, with her hair in pig tails, she was rubbing her eyes and yawned.
     
    “ Excuse me mister, but have you seen my mommy?” she asked.
     
    Peter looked around, the old witch behind the counter was nowhere in sight, and he couldn’t see anyone else in the station. He had seen her mother a few minutes ago, a stern looking woman with her hair in a tight bun. Peter hadn’t realized women still put their hair up like that.
    “I think she went into the ba-” he started.
     
    “ Tabitha! What have I told you about talking to strangers?” she yelled. 
     
    “ She just woke up lady,” Peter said. “She was looking for you and I was the only person in here.”
     
    “ Don’t you call me lady,” the woman snarled at him. “And don’t speak to my daughter.”
     
    Peter looked around wishing someone was there to help him explain anything to the woman. The old woman was back at the counter now, she was smiling like this was the greatest thing she’d ever seen. The little girl was trying to tell her mother what happened, but the woman just shushed her.
     
    “ FINE! You don’t want me talking to your daughter, tell her not to talk to me.  FUCK!”  he stormed into the men’s washroom. He didn’t want to deal with anyone, especially a woman. He was too angry after everything that had happened.  He didn’t want to risk really losing his temper.
     
    He punched a wall. The pain ran through his hand. He didn’t punch it hard enough to really bruise his knuckles,