One hit – three men down
She had a career in the big city having left the small Appalachian town of Ackers Gap behind. But when the chips were down for Bell Elkins, lawyer and mother, she discovered how strong the pull of the place where she had grown up was. Now a single mother she had fulfilled her ambition to be Prosecuting Attorney for Raythune County; an ambition that left her teenage daughter growing up pretty much on her own and into the minor sort of trouble that goes with that territory.
Today her daughter is waiting for her in the Salty Dawg diner, right after attending an anger management session with all the other disgruntled youth of Ackers Gap. Carla was ready. She’d put on black nail varnish just to piss off her mom. She’d built a model fort out of the disgusting French fries, more than once. Her mom was late. Carla had yet another refill of Diet Coke while she watched the chuckling and shaking of heads of three withered old men sitting together round a nearby table.
Someone else hadn’t been to any anger management sessions. He took out all three of the old men, leaving behind a trail of scattered bits of bodies and numbing shock and disbelief in those left alive.