Chapter 1: Extra Extra Small
The fluorescent lights buzzed like dying insects, casting a sickly yellow glow over everything. It seeped into the cracked linoleum, pooled around the base of the lone register, and made the ‘Low Battery’ warning on the screen look like a final, flickering plea. The air was a stale cocktail of old coffee, motor oil, and the faint, metallic chill leaking from the freezer behind the counter. Inside it, a single bag of frozen peas lay slumped in the frost, a forgotten relic.
Zack leaned on the counter, the laminate cool against his elbows. His shift had three hours left, and the silence was a physical weight. He watched a moth beat itself stupid against the light casing above the snack aisle. He understood the impulse.
The bell above the door jangled, harsh and invasive.
A figure shuffled in, hood pulled up, oversized sunglasses hiding their face despite the fact it was pushing midnight. They beelined for the family planning aisle, a place of profound optimism in a place that mostly sold lottery tickets and beef jerky.
Zack didn’t move. He just watched. There was a skittishness to the posture, a fumbling hurry as a box was snatched from the shelf. The walk to the register was a study in forced casualness that failed completely.
“Just this,” a muffled voice said, placing the box on the counter without looking up.
It was a box of condoms. Extra-extra-small.
Zack’s sharp eyes didn’t need to see her face. He knew the curve of that jaw, the particular way she held herself, even in a desperate slouch. He’d spent a semester watching the back of that head in Sociology 101, listening to her laugh too loud with her friends, feeling the casual, ice-cold disdain she radiated toward people like him—people who worked.
He tapped the barcode on the scanner. It beeped, a bland, accepting sound.
“That’ll be twelve-forty-nine,” he said, his voice calm, almost friendly.
A hand emerged from the hoodie sleeve, offering a crumpled twenty. The fingers trembled.
Zack took the bill, smoothed it on the counter. He made a show of counting change, the coins clinking in the quiet. He could feel the tension vibrating off her. He slid the change and the box toward her.
Then he paused, his hand resting lightly on the cardboard.
He leaned forward, just a little, and lowered his voice to a conversational volume that somehow echoed in the empty store.
“You know,” he said, “I always admire when someone has the self-awareness to buy the right size. Saves everyone the disappointment later.”
Her head snapped up. The sunglasses hid her eyes, but he saw her mouth—a mouth he’d seen twist into a hundred sneers—fall open. A hot, blotchy red bloomed across her cheeks, visible even in the terrible light.
“Fuck you,” she hissed, the words choked.
She snatched the box, fumbling it so badly it almost flew from her hand, and turned. Her shoulder hit the doorframe on her way out, a solid thump of panic and rage. The bell jangled again, a chaotic shiver of sound.
Zack didn’t smile. He just watched the door swing shut, his expression placid. A slow, deep breath filled his lungs, the stale air tasting like victory. He’d seen Beth Henderson, campus royalty, reduced to a trembling, humiliated ghost. It was better than coffee.
He turned back to wiping the already-clean counter, the steady, circular motion of his cloth the only movement. The moth had given up. It lay on its back on the linoleum, tiny legs twitching.
A moment later, a sound tore through the night.
Not a scream. Not a shout.
A raw, guttural cry of pure, unfiltered fury. It was short, ripped off by the wind or by breathlessness.
Zack’s head tilted. His polishing stopped. That wasn’t the sound of someone driving away. That was the sound of someone breaking.
He considered the door. He could lock up, call it a night. Standard procedure if there was trouble outside. But curiosity, cold and sharp, pulled at him. He moved to the window, fingers brushing aside the faded promotional sticker for a soda that hadn’t been sold in years.
The parking lot was a pool of shadow broken by one faltering overhead lamp. Beth was standing next to a sleek, silver compact car, her hood down now, blonde hair catching the weak light. She wasn’t getting in. She was staring at the passenger-side window with a kind of terrifying focus.
Then she bent down.
When she straightened, she had a rock in her hand. A good one, fist-sized, jagged. She hefted it, testing the weight.
Zack’s eyebrows rose. This was more than he’d expected. This was beautiful.
He watched, utterly still, as she drew her arm back and with all the strength in her athletic frame, hurled the rock at her own car window.
The crash was spectacular. A web of cracks exploded across the glass, a shimmering spiderweb under the lamp. The alarm erupted instantly—a deafening, honking blare that shattered the empty night. Lights flashed on the car, a manic, rhythmic strobing.
Beth stood frozen for a second, looking at what she’d done. The rage seemed to drain from her posture, replaced by something hollow. She dropped the rock. It thudded on the asphalt.
Then she ran. Not to the driver’s door. She just turned and sprinted into the darkness beyond the circle of light, disappearing between two buildings, leaving the honking, flashing car as a monument to her spectacular meltdown.
The alarm screamed into the void.
Zack finally let the smile touch his lips. It was a thin, private thing. He watched the car suffer for a full minute, the sound carving the quiet neighborhood into pieces. He thought about calling the cops. It would be the logical thing. The responsible thing.
He didn’t move.
Instead, he reached under the counter and pulled out the lost-and-found box. It was mostly cheap lighters and single gloves. He rooted until his fingers closed around a cheap pair of knit gloves, the kind you buy in a three-pack. He pulled them on, the polyester scratchy against his skin.
The bell jangled one more time as he pushed out into the night. The alarm was louder here, abrasive. He walked over to the passenger side of Beth’s car. The cracked window sagged inward but held. He looked at the rock on the ground, then past it, to the abandoned box of extra-extra-small condoms. It had fallen from her pocket or her grip. It lay in a patch of oil-stained gravel, the packaging bright and optimistic.
He picked up the rock. It was still warm from her hand.
With a calm, measured swing, he brought it down on the center of the cracked window. The safety glass gave way with a satisfying crunch, collapsing inward in a cascade of dull cubes. The alarm, impossibly, got louder.
He reached through the new hole, unlocked the door, and opened it. The interior light clicked on. It was clean, smelling of vanilla air freshener and shame. He saw a student parking pass on the dash, a psychology textbook on the back seat.
He picked up the box of condoms from the gravel. He placed it carefully on the driver’s seat, right in the center, where it couldn’t be missed.
Then he turned and walked back to the store, peeling off the gloves. He dropped them and the rock into the dumpster around the side as he passed.
Back inside, the silence felt different. Thicker. Charged. The moth was finally still. Zack resumed his place behind the counter, the flickering register his only company. He picked up his phone, scrolled to a number, and paused.
His thumb hovered over the call button. A real predator knew timing was everything. The wound had to fester. The panic had to set in deep.
He put the phone down. He’d wait for the cops to show up on their own, drawn by the alarm. He’d give his statement: a distraught girl, a thrown rock, a reckless escape. All true. He’d hand over the condoms as lost property if they asked.
He looked out the window at the flashing, screaming car. Beth had tried to bury her humiliation with violence. A stupid, impulsive play.
Zack’s game was longer. It required patience. He had nothing but time.
He picked up his cleaning cloth again, a spot of something dark on the white fabric catching his eye. He frowned, bringing it closer. It wasn’t grease or soda. It was a small, perfect maroon circle, still damp.
Blood.
He must have nicked his finger on the broken window glass. He hadn’t even felt it. He examined the tiny cut on his knuckle, a thin, red line. He smiled again, a real one this time, and went back to wiping the counter clean, the stain smearing then disappearing under the steady, practiced swirl of his hand.
He smiled again, a real one this time, and went back to wiping the counter clean, the stain smearing then disappearing under the steady, practiced swirl of his hand.
The car alarm screamed for another seven minutes. He timed it. Then, finally, the distant whine of a siren cut through the night, growing louder until red and blue lights strobed through the window, painting the storefront in urgent, silent colors. Two officers stepped out, their post-midnight movements tired and procedural. One approached the whimpering car; the other, a bulky guy with a resigned sigh, headed for the door.
The bell jangled its familiar, tired note.
Zack already had his hands visible on the counter, a look of concerned neutrality on his face. “Evening, officer.”
“Get a call about a disturbance, possible vandalism,” the cop said, his voice flat. He had a name tag that read “HERNANDEZ.” His eyes scanned the empty store. “You see anything?”
“Yeah, I saw the whole thing,” Zack said, nodding toward the lot. His tone was helpful, a bit shaken. The perfect witness. “A girl. Blonde, tall, athletic build. She came in, bought something, seemed really upset. Then she ran out, picked up a rock from near the curb, and just… launched it at her own car window. Full wind-up. It was kind of insane.”
Officer Hernandez grunted, pulling out a notebook. “You know her?”
“I’ve seen her around campus. Don’t know her name.” The lie was smooth, effortless. He offered a shrug. “She was freaking out before she even got here. Shaking.”
“What did she buy?”
Zack met the cop’s eyes. A lesser man might have glanced away, might have smiled. Zack just looked tired, a minimum-wage worker at the end of a long night. “I don’t remember. Candy, maybe? A drink? I just scanned it. She was in and out real fast.”
Hernandez scribbled. “And after she broke the window?”
“She just took off running that way.” Zack pointed into the darkness between the buildings. “Left the car, the rock, everything. The alarm’s been going since.”
The other cop called from outside, his voice muffled through the glass. “Registration says Bethany Henderson. Address is in the dorms.”
Hernandez nodded, closing his notebook. “We’ll file a report. Campus security can track her down. Probably just some drunk kid having a tantrum.” He sounded bored. “You gonna be okay to close up?”
“Yeah. My shift ends at two.”
“Lock the door behind me. Have a safe night.”
The cops lingered outside for a few more minutes, talking on their radios, taking pictures of the shattered window. Zack busied himself with shutting down the coffee machines, the slow gurgle and hiss a counterpoint to the muttering voices outside. He saw one of them shine a flashlight into the car’s interior. The beam swept over the driver’s seat, paused. Zack kept wiping the same spot on the counter, his breath even.
The flashlight beam moved on.
Eventually, the cops left. The silence that followed was absolute, a vacuum after the noise. It was 1:50 AM. Zack finished his closing duties with robotic efficiency—counting the till, bagging the deposit, dragging the trash to the dumpster. He avoided looking directly at the car, now dark and silent, a hulking shape in the shadows.
He stepped out into the night at 2:07 AM, locking the door with a final, solid click. The air was cold, cutting through his thin jacket. He turned his back on the gas station and started the twenty-minute walk to his apartment, the route a zigzag through side streets and across the empty university commons.
His sneakers scuffed on the pavement. The world was reduced to the cone of light under sporadic streetlamps and the deep pools of black between them. His mind replayed the night—the shake in her hands, the glorious red of her face, the explosive crunch of glass. It was better than TV. He wondered where she was now, curled up in some dorm room, trembling with rage and dread, waiting for the knock. The thought warmed him.
He cut through a small park, a shortcut he always took. The playground equipment stood like skeletal ghosts in the dark. The sound of his footsteps was swallowed by the damp grass.
He was thinking about the condoms, right there on the seat for her to find when she inevitably had to retrieve her car. A little calling card. A reminder. He was planning the next move, the casual way he’d catch her eye in class, the slight, knowing tilt of his head—
The blow came from the side, from the deep black under an oak tree.
There was no warning. No shout. Just a sudden, deafening crack against the side of his skull, above his ear.
Lightning exploded behind his eyes, white and then instantly red. The world tilted, a camera knocked off its tripod. He didn’t even feel himself fall. The ground, cold and hard and smelling of dirt and mulch, rushed up to meet him.
A shadow loomed over him, blotting out the scant sky. He tried to focus, but his vision was swimming, tunneling. He saw a glint of blonde hair, the curve of a familiar sneer, twisted now into something primal and raw.
He tried to speak, to form a taunt, a last clever line. Only a wet, guttural sound came out.
The rock came down again.
This time, there was no pain. Just a profound, silencing pressure, and then the darkness, warm and deep and endless, swallowed him whole.