Flash Fiction by Conor O’Brian Barnes
“The misery of life is the greatest consolation for death,” the shooter said. “It would be bad to die if it were good to be alive, but since it’s bad to be alive, it’s good to die.”
“If that’s how you feel about this shit-show of a world,” Detective Maldonado said leaning against the table and peering into the shooter’s dark eyes, “you could’ve done the world a favor, you know.”
“Oh, what favor could I have done the world?”
“You could’ve taken a long walk into the dark woods and blown your brains to kingdom come, but you didn’t do that, did you? Why not? Why didn’t you do that instead of going to the mall and shooting all those people?”
“Who said I wanted to do the world a favor?” the shooter said.
“Killing yourself wasn’t good enough for you, was it? Not grandiose enough for your inflated ego, I’d guess… Why’d you do it? Are you your own man, a lone wolf, or are you one of many, a foot-soldier in a terror army?”
“I’m my own man, a lone wolf, Detective Maldonado,” the shooter replied, “but we lone wolves are legion, and I guess you could say we’re all members of a loosely defined terrorist organization. Everyone is. We’re all human.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means we’re all human, like I said. We all play the same game. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, Detective. Kill or be killed.”
“Were the people you shot today trying to kill you? Is that what you’re saying?” Maldonado asked. “Is that why you did it? Is that gonna be your defense — that you’re a raving lunatic?”
“I did it to punish them.”
“For what?”
“For being indifferent.”
“Indifferent, eh?”
“Indifferent to my suffering. Indifferent to everyone who suffers like me.”
“How were a bunch of randos at the mall indifferent to you? They didn’t even know you.”
“That’s why I punished them — for not knowing who I am, for being indifferent to my pain. When I shot them, they weren’t indifferent anymore. They knew that I existed, and that they were getting what they deserved.”
“Who put you up to this, you sick fuck? What’s your gripe with the world?”
“My gripe with the world is that it exists. I don’t think it should.”
“Who you working with? We’re gonna find out, you know. Your picture’s gonna be beamed all over the world. Someone’s gonna recognize you.”
“Not just someone, everyone,” the shooter said with a smile. “That’s why I did it. For the recognition. Everything’s showbiz, Detective, everything’s publicity. It only matters that you’re known, it doesn’t matter what you’re known for. Herostratus the arsonist understood that. He torched one of the seven wonders of the world thousands of years ago and is still remembered for it to this day! Such is the endurance of infamy! People love their bad boys, Detective. As they say, if you kill one man, you’re a murderer, but if you kill a million, you’re a conqueror!”
“Nuts like you shoot shit up all the time nowadays. No one’s gonna give a greasy fuck about you in the future, buddy… Those who loved your victims will always remember you, of course, and God willing, they’ll have their vengeance on you in the next world.”
“The next world? Ha, ha, ha! I don’t care about that!”
“What do you care about?”
“Just my kill count,” the shooter said. “Have they tallied the totals? Have you heard from the hospitals? How many did I get? If I got eighty or ninety, and I think I got at least that, I’ve set a world record! I’m the world record holder, or I’ll soon be when they count all the bodies. I’m the most lethal mass shooter in history! That has to count for something, doesn’t it? I’m the world record holder, and that no one can deny!”
“What if you burn in hell for it?”
“If God punishes those who do evil,” the shooter said, “who punishes God for allowing evil to exist in the first place?”
“We don’t know God’s ways… Evil’s not a thing — it’s a privation, a hole in a shirt, the absence of being…”
“God’s the absence of being — a phantasm, an invention of the human imagination. God’s nothing.”
“You better hope so, buddy. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if you’re wrong about that.”
“You haven’t told me what I want to know, Detective Maldonado,” the smirking shooter said. “What’s my kill count? How many did I get?”
“Lord, have mercy.”
“A merciful God wouldn’t have created this world of shit,” the shooter sneered.
“Lord, have mercy.”
“The Lord’s not real, Detective, but I am… I made more of a mark on the world today than your God has in all eternity!”
“Lord, have mercy on your soul!”
“Wielding the power of destruction is the closest thing to being God, Detective Maldonado. Everything that’s created is fated to be annihilated; destruction is final, total, absolute, irrevocable. That’s why it’s so beautiful. It’s the only thing in the world that’s real!”
“Evil’s real too, buddy. You prove it.”
The door cracked open, and Detective O’Neal poked his bald, leathery head into the interrogation room. “Pardon me, Maldonado, but I’ve got good news. We’ve ID’d him.”
“Who is he, O’Neal?” Maldonado asked.
“Yes, who am I?” the shooter said with a laugh.
“Noah Pierson, 33, an unemployed electrician.”
“That’s me!” the shooter said. “That’s my name. Noah Pierson, a no person from Nowhereville, USA. I guess the whole world’s gonna know me now, though, huh Detective Maldonado? Noah Pierson’s a no person no more! Ha, ha, ha! I’m the deadliest shooter of them all, a world record holder! I’m gonna be huge! I’m gonna be a star! Call Hollywood, Detective Maldonado, call the studios! Ha, ha, ha! Lights, camera, action! Ha, ha, ha! I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Demille!”
Bio: Conor O’Brian Barnes was born in Berkeley and raised in Colorado and California. His story “The Last Dance at the Bunny Ranch” is featured in the 2025 anthology “Satan Rides Your Daughter Again” from HellBound Books. He has published a number of dark fiction pieces, originally in 2019 with “The Secret Address to the Physicians of the Order of Asclepius” at Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and most recently in the June 2025 issue of Exquisite Death. He currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
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