They're Going To Die, Preston Randall [100 best novels of all time .txt] 📗

They’re Going To Die

It was dark in their parents’ walk-in closet, the only illumination being a few daggers of light coming through the slatted double doors. Jimmy and his sister were huddled together in the farthest corner. The screams for their parents had gone unanswered—the strange sounds from downstairs growing ever louder. Their terror-filled eyes were riveted on the closet entrance as they waited for the inevitable. This was it, they were finally going to die and there was absolutely nothing they could do to escape. Gaping, their stares were drawn to the the pile of clothing at the other end of the closet...

A few hours earlier at the Grocery Barn...

“C’mon Jimmy!” his sister yells. “Let’s play Star Wars!” Running past the bin of loose vegetables, she suddenly grabs two large carrots and throws one towards her brother. Carrots and onions spill onto the floor.

Laughing hysterically, Jimmy catches the carrot in mid-air and lunges forward thrusting it towards her bare mid-section. “I’m going to kill you, Obiwan!” he shrieks.

“Noooo! Helppp! Help meee!” shouts the girl at the top of her lungs. Parrying his thrust, she swings her carrot wildly in the air barely missing an elderly gentleman trying to negotiate around their flailing arms.


It’s late Saturday afternoon and the store is packed with frazzled shoppers. Some of the older customers shake their heads and mutter to each other. Whispers of “no control” and “we never got away with” and “no discipline” drift about.

Then another bloodcurdling scream, “Jimmy! Payne! STOP THAT NOW!” A woman in her late thirties with stringy shoulder-length blonde hair rushes towards them pushing a shopping cart overflowing with supplies. Grabbing the girl by the shoulders she picks her off the floor and shakes her like a rag-doll. “You’re driving me crazy! I warned you both. No TV. No computer. For a ... a week. And that’s final.”

“That’s not fair!” cries Jimmy. “What’d I do? I didn’t do nothin. She started it.”

“SHUT UP! I don’t care. And if you don’t stop it, your father’s going to really give it to you when we get home. Remember?”

At the mention of their father the children exchange a quick look and meekly hang their heads. 

“That’s better. But you’re still going to get punished.”

As they pull into the driveway, Payne whispers to Jimmy, “Meet me upstairs, okay?” He nods.

After carrying in the groceries, the children quickly slip away. The woman collapses onto the sofa next to an unshaved man in his early forties wearing a stained sweatshirt and dirty faded jeans. Crumpled beer cans circle an overflowing ashtray. 

“I swear I’m gonna kill them kids,” sighs the woman. “Every week it’s gettin worse. Today they practically tore up the Grocery Barn.”

Without a word the man starts to slip the belt out of his pants. Trying to stand up he staggers and barks his shin on the coffee table. “Goddammit!” He gives her a look and pulls his hand back as if to strike. 

“No, honey ... nooo,” she whimpers. “Please baby.” And she pulls him back down onto the couch. As he calms she strokes his arm gently until he drops the belt onto the floor. She leans over and kisses him on the cheek while discreetly kicking the belt under the coffee table.

“C’mon baby. Jus relax, okay?” 

“Wait,” says the man. He lurches back to his feet, goes to the TV and inserts a disk into the attached DVD player. Then he pulls off his sweatshirt revealing a hairy beer-belly with a nasty 6-inch curving scar just below the navel. From a short distance his torso looks like a grotesque smiley-face. 

Cheesy music blares from the TV speakers, and a title appears: “21 Hump Street.” Two women in tight police uniforms bulging at the seams sashay across the screen crudely licking their lips.

Upstairs, two screams pierce the air. “Mommy! Daddy! Helppp!” Then silence. A minute passes.

“MOMMY! DADDY! HELPPP! HELLPPP!” More silence. Another minute. 

Then the sound of a single gunshot cracks the air. A crash as something downstairs breaks. Footsteps pounding up the stairs. Another crash as a picture falls off the wall in the landing outside the master bedroom. “Be careful Jesse! Wait for me!” More footsteps up the stairs. Then a booming voice “WHAT’S GOIN ON!”

Cries from the bedroom closet, “Helppp us!”

Bursting into the bedroom, the man moves quickly to the closet and practically tears the slatted door off of its hinges. Nothing. He blinks and shakes his head trying to clear the cobwebs.

“What the hell?” Pivoting, he sees the woman peering into the room timidly. “What’s goin on? Git over here!” She scampers up behind him and squints into the semi-lit closet. 

“I don’t see nothin Jesse. Just some old... “

She catches a tiny movement out of the corner of her eye. Something in the pile of clothes on the floor. What is that? A little black tube or something, poking out towards them. 

“Look Jesse... what’s that?” They take a step forward.

Six explosions in quick succession, like firecrackers. “CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.” Blood everywhere. Cries. Then silence. 

Two small forms emerge from the clothing. The girl holds a small revolver at her side. The boy, although taller, stands behind her, open-mouthed and shivering.


“It’s like I told you, Jimmy. I can only take so much. Now we can play whatever we want, whenever we want to. Go turn on the computer, okay? We’ll clean up this mess later.”

Text: Preston Randall
Publication Date: 02-09-2013

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