Since the Layoffs by Iain Levison Read Free Book Online

school of World War II battlefields, with blown-apart tanks and overturned jeeps lying all around, the only difference being that the dead bodies which lay everywhere in the pictures are the still-living zombies populating the town.
    Why don’t I leave? Why don’t I just take my next paycheck and hop a train to Florida and be done with it? Because I was born here. I wanted to live here my whole life. Like most of the people here, I was happy with the place, liked surviving the winters, loved the first coming of spring. I wanted to take my kids down to Lake Michigan in the summertime. I wanted Ernie Enright, the best, most honest mechanic I’ve ever known, to fix my car. I imagined growing old, and still being able to drive to the Packers games from my home near the lake, which I had bought with savings and investments and my 401k which had taken me a lifetime to accumulate. I lived within ten miles of where I was born, within ten miles of where Kelly was born, and I liked it that way.
    I pass the factory. It is surrounded by a ten-foot-high fence, topped with razor wire. Someone is worried that people will steal tractor-building equipment and start making tractors in their basements. A huge sign above the entrance announces that the land is for lease. I hear Ken Gardocki’s words: The factory days here are over. I look at the lease sign and realize how right he is. Who the hell would lease this place? Is a competing tractor-parts firm going to snap at the opportunity to reopen the gates of a rusted factory which other executives already decided, for whatever reason, wasn’t profitable enough? Our stock was going up when they closed the plant, just not fast enough. It could be improved upon. So improve it they did.
    A mile farther on, I come to the bridge over Kruc Creek, where I’m supposed to throw the gun on my way back, after the job is done. I look down into the water, which is a real torrent tonight, what with all the rain and sleet. Good plan. The gun will get washed into the mud and buried forever. I walk quickly across the bridge. I’m getting soaked through, but I don’t really mind that much. The cold feels good. I’ll have some coffee when I get back to the store. Corinne Gardocki, who is alive now, will be dead then, when I have my next cup of coffee. She’s probably getting fucked by an airline pilot right now, with no idea how close death is.
    About a half-mile from the bridge, I cut back through some trees, the final leg of my journey. The shortcut will bring me around the back of the Gardocki place. So as not to leave boot prints, I wrap the towels tightly around my feet. I take out the gun, check it, take off the safety. I pull my hood up and walk up to the edge of the treeline facing the Gardocki’s back yard. There is a light on in the kitchen and through the kitchen door I can see Corinne puttering around in lingerie.
    I can feel my heart pounding as I drop into a crouch and dart quickly up against the side of the house, the snow making an awful crunching noise with every step. I can’t believe everyone in town can’t hear this, because it’s so goddamned quiet except for my heart pounding and my feet making shotgun-blast steps in the snow, and except for the low growls coming out of the huge kennel which, until now, I haven’t even noticed is sitting at the end of the driveway.
    A dog. Christ. Ken Gardocki has a dog. And it’s big and it’s coming right at me, fast. It is a blur of anger and growls and fur, flying across the twenty yards that separate us, too intent on the idea of tearing my throat out to emit any sound but a furious growl as it closes the distance in what must be a half second, which is just one microsecond more than I need to level the gun right at its head and squeeze the trigger.
    BANG.
    The gun kicks. The noise is godawful. My ears are ringing. The dog slides to a stop at the bottom of the steps leading up to the kitchen and lies there, upside down. He twitches once