Trench

Trench - Start

"Pop, what's this?" asked the curious child.

In the boy's hand was a brass tube. One end was slightly rimmed and had an indent in the center, the other end had teeth around the ridges that angled inside. The longer he held it, the warmer it felt.

The father peeked over his newspaper at his son. He placed it face-down on the table and beckoned the boy over.

"Give that to me," said the father, his tone soft.

The boy handed over the item to his father.

"Ah," continued the father, "This is a shotgun shell."

"Why do we have a shotgun shell, pop?"

"My father was in the war. Used a shotgun, a winchester. In fact, I have the very same gun up in the attic," The father let his eyes look up for a moment, "along with a few of your grandpa's other things."

"Cool! Can I see it?"

The father chuckled gently, handing the shell back to the kid.

"Not today, son. But when you're older. Hell," he picked his newspaper back up, "I'll even teach you how to fire it."

The boy held the shell in his hand and looked at it, his eyes caressing its simple appearance. He looked up to see his father back to reading and stuffed the shell in his own pocket.

-----

The man took a shell out of his pocket, cased entirely in brass, and slid it into his shotgun.

"Right," he murmured from under his mask, his voice hushed and husky, "room 207 it is."

He treaded carefully across the carpeted floorboards, inching closer to his destination. A wooden door with the numbers "207" set in bronze on its surface. Music could be heard behind it, some bass-heavy garbage that throbbed through the place like a headache. The man double-checked the door's numbers, leaning forward a bit in case the mask got in the way.

"Yep. 207." He sighed. Time to go to work. But first...

Gloved hands rummaged around his long coat's pockets until they recovered two boxes, one of metal and one of card. The card box opened to reveal cigarettes, one of which was plucked then placed through a hole in his mask. The metal box was an old brass zippo, snapped open to spark a flame. He lit up the cigarette tip, took his first suck and slid the boxes back into their homes.

"Right." Wisps of smoke slid out from the mask's holes.

The man took a firm grip of his shotgun, finger resting lightly on the trigger. Time slowed down as focus rung through his skull, numbers counting down in his mind. Then his mind clicked.

His metal-lined boot tore the door off its hinges, and through the wooden shrapnel rang the explosions of the first shell. Finger held tight on the trigger, he pumped again, aiming at another target. And again, and again, until only few were left.

"Th-THE FUCK!?" yelled a man to the left of him.

Only about three seconds had passed, and so had most of the people in the room.

The scared man fumbled inside his jacket for his pistol, but was cut short as a fist found his throat, followed by the hideous crack of his windpipe.

"F-fuck!" another man at the far side of the room, the last in here. He didn't even have time to shove his hand on his holster before a freshly-fired slug flew through his forehead.

About ten seconds had passed now. The masked man surveyed the damage.

"Right, uh," he took a break to count, "about... eight."