BISON BUD'S BAR
Two men, Jim Jenkins and Pete Hensley, left the bar as they spoke.
"Okay, okay, now, come on, you tell me - now why kick that field goal?" Jim asked.
"Because it's called football," Pete replied.
"No, it's called fantasy football, and those three points screwed me."
"Seriously, Jim, you need to get a life."
Jim and Pete rounded the corner and were met by a young man.
"Hey, guys, you got any change?" the young man asked.
"Sorry, pal," Jim replied.
The young man pulled a gun and pointed it at Jim and Pete. "How about your wallets?"
A bar employee at the dumpster took notice.
"No problem," Pete said.
"Take it easy, all right?" Jim told him.
"Just give me the wallets!" the young man cried.
"Hold on, man."
The young man fired, hitting Jim in the heart and Jim fell.
"Jim!" Pete yelled.
The young man ran and Pete dropped to his knees next to Jim.
"Jim! Jim!" Pete called, looking up at the employee. "Call 911! Now!" The employee ran.
Pete did chest compressions, then breathed into Jim's mouth. "Come on." He did more chest compressions, then went to repeat the breaths.
Jim began breathing on his own and greeted, "Hey."
"Don't move. Don't move, man." He helped Jim sit up.
"I feel okay." He pulled open his shirt far enough to reveal the bullet hole, with powder marks, but no blood.
"You're not even bleeding."
Jim looked up. "Give me a hand."
Pete helped Jim stand. "How you even alive right now?"
"I don't know."
DINER
Dean tapped a button on the jukebox, then thumped the jukebox while Madelyn hit it from the other side. Sam was at the table, laptop open, talking on the phone next to Reagan.
"No, no, no, you're right, it's definitely weird..." Sam said. "...Okay, Bobby, thanks."
Sam put the phone away and his brother and sister-in-law came over.
"What's up?" Dean asked as he and Madelyn sat down.
Sam started typing. "Bobby found something in Wyoming."
"A job?" Madelyn questioned as she absentmindedly began folding a napkin into a random shape.
"Maybe." Dean bit into a burger and Madelyn ate her sandwich. "Small town, no one's died in the past week-and-a-half."
"That so unusual?" Dean wondered.
"One guy with terminal cancer strolls right out of hospice. Another guy gets capped by a mugger and walks away without a scratch."
"Capped in the ass?"
Sam's browser had two tabs open to the Greybull Gazette. One was about the shooting victim that'd walked away unharmed and the other was about a man who'd miraculously survived a direct shot to the heart.
Reagan glanced between the two. "Police say Mr. Jenkins was shot in the heart at point-blank range by a nine-millimeter."
Dean and Madelyn kept eating and Dean replied with a semi-full mouth, "And he's not a doughnut?"
YOU ARE READING
The Heroes' Paradox
Mystery / ThrillerDaisy Winchester hates the life she grew up in, but she loves it at the same time. She calls it the paradoxical bane of her existence. When her father goes missing, she and her older brother recruit their younger brother. From there, only time will...
