No Turning Back

A Fiction Snapshot 

The landlord showed me the place: a basement apartment with no view, no windows, out of sight, invisible to the world. It was perfect. There wasn’t much room either, but that was okay. All I needed was a place to lay my head and drink myself into a stupor until things blew over, assuming they would ever calm down. I think we’d outdone ourselves this time. Some things you just can’t turn back from. Maybe this was one of ‘em.

I looked at the short but muscular man with the lazy eye and broken English. His one good eye widened in surprise when I pulled out the stack of bills from my back pocket. Couldn’t blame him though. Didn’t look like a place people paid rent on time.

“I’ll take it. Here’s enough for the first and second month of rent.”

I paid it all upfront just in case things continued to go south real fast. Louie warned all of us to split up and find a low-key place until he came for each of us and told us our next move. The landlord gave me the key and left. I sat on the edge of the mattress and poured myself the first drink. I took a moment of silence for Louie. None of us expected him to be the one to die last night. And now we had no plan. Just loads of cash and dead bodies.