This week’s Story Starter teaser is:
As the sound of a gunshot echoed in the hallway, a woman pushed open the door to my apartment and jumped inside.
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As the sound of a gunshot echoed in the hallway, a woman pushed open the door to my apartment and jumped inside. I was ready to protest, but the sight of her made me pause. She wore a look of terror on her beautiful face, framed by dark wavy tresses, and a revealing nightgown on her shapely body.
She rushed to me, clutching my pajama lapels in her fists. “Please, help me. He’s coming for me.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked helplessly.
“Can I go down your fire escape?” she asked and I led her to the back window. I tried to open the window, but it was painted shut and wouldn’t budge. We could hear shouting from the hallway.
“There’s no time,” she murmured, and looked around frantically. I took her arm and opened my bedroom closet door, ready to shove her in there. “No,” she gasped, “too obvious.” She ran to the kitchen and squeezed into the cabinet under the sink. I closed the doors on her just as someone burst through the front door of my apartment.
“Where is she?” an angry male voice shouted. I went to the hallway and was confronted by a terrible sight. A man stood there, his face red with fury. Suddenly he leaned against the wall, and it was then I noticed the dark stain spreading across the front of his shirt. He held a gun in one hand, but his arm was down by his side.
I held my hands up. “Look, there’s no one here but me. I don’t want any trouble. I can call an ambulance for you. Let me get my phone.”
“I trusted her,” the man said, sliding down the wall and landing on his butt in my hallway. “That was a mistake,” he chuckled. “You got any whiskey?” he asked.
“Sure, let me get you something,” I stammered and headed for the kitchen. I saw that the cabinet was open and the woman was standing by my refrigerator with a finger pressed to her lips. “He has a gun,” I whispered to her.
As if by magic, the woman produced a gun she had somehow hidden in her scant negligee. “So do I,” she replied, and motioned with the gun for me to go back to the man.
More shots rang out, so much louder this time. I felt a burning in my chest.
My last two thoughts on this earth were not what I had imagined they would be. ‘Where did she have that gun hidden?’ was the first, and ‘Why oh why didn’t that damn window open?’ was my last thought before my world went dark.
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A Little Bit of Everything, With Love 