Out Voted

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the line: "That's just what they want us to think."

Out Voted

The room was a cliché dive.

Walls, white at one time were now yellowed with age and inattention. The bathroom probably had a door at one time. The mattress didn’t always sink into springs that no longer cared. Once upon a time, the floor hadn’t been sticky and a picture had probably hung where the wall now sported a relatively clean rectangle.

The bullet holes were fairly new; as was the blood pooling next to the body on the floor just outside of the bathroom.

Frank stepped over the body and bellied up to the sink.

“Do you think it’s safe yet? Maybe he was the only one.”

Frank began lathering up his 3-day old stubble. He put his cigarette down on the sink and said, “That’s just what they want us to think.”

As Frank reached for his razor, a bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the toilet tank caught his eye.

Don’t mind if I do, he thought.

He chugged the last few swallows before returning to his razor.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said as he dragged the well-worn blade down his chin.

“Why do you have to say that? Maybe the military scared them off. Maybe it wasn’t an alien invasion after all. Suppose this whole thing has just been a big mistake.”

“I put the body count at ten since the invasion started. That’d be a pretty fucking big mistake,” Frank said with a chuckle. The Jack was starting to kick in.

“I thinking that maybe we’re the bad guys, Frank. I quit.”

“I’m supposing you don’t have much say in the matter,” Frank replied to the reflection in the mirror.

Outside, the first of several police cars screeched into the motel parking lot.

It’s killin time, he thought as he picked up his rifle.

word count 300