The rest of my shift crawled by like usual. A few more customers buying energy drinks and scratch-offs, some high school kids trying to buy beer with fake IDs (seriously, do they think I'm stupid?), and the regular homeless guy who comes in to use the bathroom and buy a pack of gum with exact change.
Finally, 9 PM rolled around. Steve showed up to close, looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else.
"Any problems tonight?" he asked, not really caring about the answer.
"Just some weirdo trying to sell crystals or something. I handled it."
"Good. Don't forget to clock out."
I grabbed my jacket and headed out into the drizzle. The walk home was the same as always – past the McDonald's with the broken sign, past the check-cashing place with bars on the windows, past Mrs. Rodriguez's house where she's got about fifty garden gnomes in her yard for some reason.
But halfway home, I remembered Mom's text about milk. Shit. And I needed to hit the bank too – my pathetic paycheck got deposited today and I owed Jake twenty bucks from when he spotted me lunch last week. Not that I wanted his charity, but I was literally broke and starving.
The bank's ATM sat in this sketchy little alcove next to the main building. One of those spots that makes you look over your shoulder, especially at night. The fluorescent light above it flickered worse than the ones at work, casting weird shadows that made everything look like a horror movie set.
I slid my card in and punched in my PIN. The machine made that grinding noise it always makes, like it's powered by hamsters running on rusty wheels.
Balance: $247.83
Great. Rent money, basically. I pulled out forty bucks – twenty for Jake and twenty for whatever Mom needed from the store. The machine spat out my card and receipt with all the enthusiasm of a dying robot.
As I turned to leave, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Someone was standing right behind me.
"Jesus Christ!" I spun around, heart hammering. "What the hell, man?"
It wasn't the crystal weirdo from earlier. This was a different kind of sketchy – young guy, maybe early twenties, wearing a hoodie pulled up despite the fact that it wasn't that cold. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and he had that twitchy energy that screamed trouble.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he said, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Just waiting to use the machine."
Something felt off. Really off. The way he was standing, the way he kept glancing around, the way his right hand stayed buried in that hoodie pocket.
"Yeah, sure," I said, stepping aside. "All yours."
But instead of moving toward the ATM, he stepped closer to me.
"Actually," he said, and now the fake-friendly tone was completely gone, "I think you should hand over whatever you just pulled out of there."
My mouth went dry. Of course. Of fucking course this would happen to me. On a Tuesday night. At a shitty ATM. For forty goddamn dollars.
"Look, man, I don't want any trouble—"
"Then don't make trouble." His hand shifted in his pocket. "Just the cash. Nice and easy."
I looked around desperately. The street was empty except for a stray cat digging through garbage across the road. No cars, no people, no help. Just me and this guy and the world's most pathetic robbery.
"No," I said suddenly. The word just came out. Maybe it was the shitty day, maybe it was years of being pushed around, but something snapped. "Fuck you. It's forty dollars. Get a job."
His face twisted. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said no. I'm not giving you shit." My hands were shaking but I stood my ground. "What are you gonna do, kill me over forty bucks?"
"You little punk—" He lunged forward, and I saw the flash of metal in his hand. Not a gun, thank god, but a knife. A big one.
I tried to run but my foot slipped on the wet concrete. I went down hard, palms scraping against the asphalt. He was on me in a second, grabbing my jacket, yanking me up.
"You should've just given me the money," he snarled, breath hot and stinking of cigarettes.
I threw a wild punch that barely connected with his shoulder. He laughed and shoved me back against the ATM. My head cracked against the metal screen.
"Please—" I started to say, but then I felt the knife slide between my ribs.
It was cold. That was the weird part. I expected it to be hot, burning, but it was just cold. Like ice water spreading through my chest.
I looked down and saw the handle sticking out of my side, my white work shirt already soaked red. The guy was backing away, eyes wide like he couldn't believe what he'd just done.
"Shit," he whispered. "Shit, shit, shit."
He grabbed the money that had fallen from my hand and ran.
I slid down the ATM to sit on the wet ground, one hand pressed against the knife handle. Should I pull it out? Leave it in? I couldn't remember what you were supposed to do. My head felt fuzzy, like I was underwater.
Blood was spreading across the concrete, mixing with the rain. So much blood. How did I have so much blood?
My phone was lying a few feet away where it had fallen, screen cracked but still glowing. I tried to reach for it but my arm felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
This was it. Marcus Bellweather, seventeen years old, bleeding out alone behind a shitty bank over forty dollars. The most pathetic death in the history of pathetic deaths.
At least I didn't slip on a banana peel...
God, what a joke. All those times I complained about being bored, and this is how it ends? Getting shanked by some crackhead for grocery money? I couldn't even die in an interesting way.
Mom was going to be devastated. Not just because I was dead, but because she'd have to go through my computer. Jesus Christ, my browser history... all those late-night "research sessions" on questionable anime sites. She'd find my carefully organized folder of waifus and probably curse my perverted soul straight to hell.
"Why couldn't my son have died doing something noble?" she'd cry at my funeral. "Instead he got murdered over milk money with tentacle porn bookmarks!"
I let out a weak laugh that turned into a cough. Blood spattered on my lips. Even my death was turning into a comedy routine.
The cold was spreading up from my chest now, making my fingers numb. The streetlight above started to fade, or maybe that was my vision going dark.
But just before everything went black, I saw something that made me think I was already hallucinating from blood loss.
The crystal weirdo from the convenience store was standing at the edge of the light, grinning like a maniac. He had that stupid dark rock in his hand, and he was waving it at me like he was saying goodbye.
"What the fuck..." I whispered, but the words barely came out.
He gave me a little salute with his free hand, still smiling that creepy smile.
Then everything went dark, and Marcus Bellweather's incredibly lame life finally came to its incredibly lame end.