by Barry Ergang

Thought it would be fun to share a Mother’s Day mystery short story with our readers this week! This story was originally published at Flashshot, May 9, 2005.

“Can you gift-wrap that?” he asked.

The teen-aged clerk gaped at him. “This?” She swallowed. “Not really.
We’re mainly a hardware store. Try the drugstore down the street. They
sell wrapping paper.”

“Good idea. I can buy a card there, too.”

“Kind of an unusual present, isn’t it?”

He smiled. “It’s for Mother’s Day. Mother is an unusual woman. Unique,
really.”

“She must be.” The clerk rang up the sale. “That’ll be four-seventy-seven with the tax.”

She handed him the bag into which she’d put his receipt and the box of rat poison, and Norman Bates headed to the drugstore.

Barry Ergang is a Derringer winner for the best flash fiction story of 2006, and former editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine. Barry’s fiction, poetry and non-fiction has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. Learn more on his website.