Yellow Bird by Zakariah Johnson

Once he began sawing the barrel off his pump-action 20 gauge, Cody was committed. With a final stroke, the barrel clattered onto the kitchen floor. He hacked off the wooden stock as well, leaving only a fist-sized nub for a grip.

He considered extracting the sportsman’s plug that limited the number of cartridges he could load to three, but shook his head and reached for his coffee mug. His plan was to scare them with noise, like a roaring silverback gorilla, not to kill anybody. Anyway, the last time he’d fussed with the hunter’s dowel, the spring inside the chamber had shot out like a cheap snake-in-a-can gag and he’d spent an hour hunting for it. He winced at the coffee he’d made from re-using grounds a third time and regretted not stealing the Folger’s from the breakroom at Lowe’s on his way out. 

He hadn’t worked in seven days. He hadn’t requested leave or called in sick. He just came home one night with wobbly ankles screaming from another eight-hour shift walking the concrete floors, took four ibuprofen, and knew he was done. Everybody who worked there walked with a limp, some near the end of their shifts, some all the time. He swept a stack of bills he couldn’t pay off the counter, sending them tumbling to the floor. If laboring forty hours a week couldn’t buy a man food and shelter, it was time to try something new. He hazarded another sip of coffee before dumping it. The mug featured a picture of him and Dana taken at Rye Beach two summers ago. He wasn’t sure why he’d kept it, but he rinsed it out and carefully laid it in the drying rack before leaving.

He wore a surgical mask and black hoodie under a long coat to hide the gun. He left his Civic in the Target parking lot and walked to the adjacent Lowe’s. He used the side entrance through the garden center, scattering sparrows and gold finches trapped inside. The cavernous store was always filled with birds, more so after cold snaps like today.

He penetrated the swinging doors into the main building and headed for the contractor cash register. Nobody was there. Panicked, he adjusted his mask and doubled his pace toward the returns desk.

“That you, Cody?” He turned and saw Jim grinning at him. Jim was a retired contractor who’d lost too many fingers to a bandsaw and come to run Lowes’ lumberyard. “Where you been, man?” Jim slapped him on the back, jostling him enough to expose the shotgun for a moment. Jim stepped back with his palms out. “Whoa, son…”

Cody found himself encircled by rough-looking customers in Carhartts and boots. “Back! Up! Now!” he boomed, racking the shotgun with a menacing schlotch! He spun toward a sudden movement and pumped it again. This time, he caught a flash of yellow and figured he’d spooked a bird. The sound of the shotgun pumping did its job and the ring of men took a collective step back. Beyond them, Cody saw a supervisor glance over his shoulder as he fled, a phone already to his ear. Someone moved to his left, and Cody turned in time to catch a man gingerly lifting a 2x4 from his cart.

“Nope,” Cody scolded and pumped the 20 once more. The man backed away as another bird swooped by in Cody’s peripheral vision.

“Cody, stop this,” Jim said, holding out his three-fingered hand for the gun.

With a sneer, Cody pointed his shotgun at the rafters and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He stared at it for the second it took Jim to strip it from his hands. He snatched for it, but Jim had already wound up and the little nub of a stock spun him around when it slammed into Cody’s temple. Lying prone as men leapt on his back, Cody looked toward the contractor register where Jeanine was hustling back, apparently from a bathroom break as she rubbed wet hands on her apron. Between him and the register lay a line of three yellow shotgun shells. The Man hadn’t had to do anything to take him down; Cody had emptied his gun for them, just like he’d done in every fight before.

​© 2025 Zakariah Johnson

About the author:

Zakariah Johnson plucks banjos and pens horror, thrillers, and crime fiction on the banks of the Piscataqua.