Music to Do Crime By - Short Story

He considered all songs. Emily rolled her eyes and spat on the floor as the laptop rattled through that playlist. Dolly Parton, Hank Williams with a bit of Dylan thrown in the mix, she hated country but it was the same old shit every time they went on a job. She had been brought up in DC, hip-hop and gangster rap were her idea of music to do crime by. But somehow she had ended up locked down, down-south and had hooked up with this X Biker, X Meth Head, fucking reformed christian mental-case. The strains of wailing warbling grated on her nerves as she peeked from the window checking the yard nervously.

"Why in hell did you Shoot that man?" She eyed him as he pulled a bottle of whisky from the top of the kitchen cabinet and took a hit.

"Why not baby girl, he's had it coming since I was a kid. Barkley brothers and the Mcelroys have been at it since there were still injans in these hills."

Emily raised one eyebrow at him, lips curling back at his slurred Alabama patter. It seemed he went full country when he returned to his hometown.

"That's some real stupid redneck shit you know." She grinned at him as he sidled over to her looking her up and down.

He turned the corner and it felt as if his heart fell to the floor. Dust whipped up from the Sierra Nevada misted the car park in dead curtains of sand and there was that piece of shit Bobby Mcelroy leaning up against that big ole Ford pickup that he'd got from his Pa. The same pickup aunt Luisa was stepping out of with her quarter pounder mound of a belly, sweating like a pregnant sow.

"Hey aunt Lou, I see you're still popping them out like the whore that you are." He grinned at Bobby as he jumped from his lounging. That guy had always been a pussy and as for aunt Lou, well she was only six years older than me. The women in Pa's side of the family were rife for whorin, they'd never been able to keep their legs closed for more than a minute. Lou was something else though, she wasn't afraid to stick up for herself and her new kin and you had to admire her for that just a little.

"Why don't you go back to the hole you crawled out of Clifton, you're better off in jail." She waddled over gripping her belly like something was going to fall out of her at any minute.

"I'm only teasing aunt Lou." He eyed Bobby all the while, grinning at him like a cat that ate the cornflakes. "You got nothing to say to me Bobby, eh?" Bobby started to walk toward him as he licked his lips and rolled up his sleeves.

The cage in the middle of the yard erupted with yelps, high-pitched barks and whines as the sound of gunfire exploded through the silence of the woods.

"Awww shit, here goes" the thundering of automatic weapons enveloped them as he dived over the lunch table. Emily launched herself into a roll just as glass showered her from the windows and the thin walls shuddered with a spattering of bullet holes, each one leaving trails of light across the dusty room. Cliff grabbed her hand as she came up from the roll and pulled her behind an upended table.

"Who's dogs were they Cliff?" She stared at his dull eyes, glimmers of rage sparking in their depths. "They killed the dogs hunny." She stroked behind his ear and then flinched as a bullet thudded right into the sideboard next to those iron eyes.

"We had those hounds ten years baby, they were my Pa's before he passed away and my brother took over the farm." He looked over at the cabinet in the next room through the hall. "Do you think we can make it?"

Emily's heart raced, and she kissed him. "Fuck it, there's nothing to lose."