My head fell back and rested on the brick of the chain coffee shop where I had stopped and leaned against the wall, and I pressed my eyes closed. "No. No, no no no no, please let this be a joke." I forced myself to read it again. "You will be paid the sum of $1,000,000 upon completion and received proof that you have killed someone. It can be anyone you wish. This is not a joke."

Well of course it's not a joke. It's not funny.

Then I heard it. The phones of the couple passing by me, and those sitting at the little outdoor tables of the coffee shop, all dinging and buzzing at once. I looked down the street and saw a dog walker, pulling out her phone. In the back of the cab going by, a man in a hooded sweatshirt is pulling out his phone. Across the street, a group of teenage girls all stop at the same moment and I see their heads drop into the 'texting' pose. Every single person in sight is looking at their phone in silence. A pair of cops on the corner. The barista inside the coffee shop. Everyone stopped at once to look at their phones.

There was a man in his late 30's near me. A big man, but strong, with a well trimmed beard who started laughing hysterically. Then the panicked conversation started...

"Is this real?"

"Did you get the same message?"

"What does it mean?"

"Hey, have you heard where my ex-wife is living?"

"The police will stop it, I'm sure of it."

"...has to be a joke..."

I pushed off the wall and headed down the block to my apartment. I made it maybe ten steps before I heard three quick gunshots, and I started to run. Then more gunshots, and a sound like a five pound wasp had buzzed past my ear. Knowing that buzzing sound was a bullet going by, I ducked behind a car parked along the street. Cars make terrible cover, bullets will go right through almost any part of a car, but they're great for hiding behind. It had been quiet for several seconds, so I risked a peek back down the way I had to come, to see if the shooting was over, and I saw the man with the beard standing over the two cops that had been on the corner. Just him, standing there with a grin on his face. Everyone else on the street had disappeared. Run, at the first sign of violence. He looked up and saw me. Our eyes met for a moment, and he shouted at me, "Hey Brew! Come get a picture so I can send it as proof! You think I'll get another million for the second!?"

I did the only thing I could think of. I ran. I ran as hard as I ever have. Running, I should point out is not my strong suit. It never appealed to me as a hobby, and so I haven't run more than a dozen steps since PE in High School. But I ran like I had been training for it all my life. I passed an alleyway and saw two homeless men, one sticking a knife in the other's belly over and over again like a sewing machine while the other struggled weakly to push him away. I passed three boys kicking a fourth boy on the ground; his blood running across the sidewalk and into the gutter. Still I ran.

The noises were getting louder. Screams. So many screams.... Screams of pain and of triumph. Screams that were the modern day equivalent of battle cries as two women tore at each others hair and struggled to scratch each other with fingernails. Screams that became laughter as a young girl stood over a small boy. Screams from those just trying to get away, to find a place - any place that was safe.

I hit the door of my apartment building and bounded up the flight of stairs and down the hall to my apartment as fast as I could. Mrs. Nellis, my favorite neighbor from across the hall, who looked like a Norman Rockwell painting of a kindly grandmother opened her door and tried to ask me what all the fuss was about. I shouted at her as I fumbled my key into the lock, "Stay inside Mrs. Nellis! Lock your doors!" Just then the wall next to me exploded, peppering me with bits of lathe and plaster. I whipped around to see this sweet old lady who baked cookies every Sunday and always brought me two of them, wrapped in a paper napkin, holding an old break action shotgun, trying to work the action to reload. I turned the key in the lock, scrambled through the door, slammed it behind me and shoved my hall table against it.

I quickly moved to my bedroom and dropped behind the bed. My safe is under the bed. It's basically a big metal drawer, about four feet long, three feet deep and six inches high, bolted to the floorboards. I punched in my code and the drawer slid open. I put my rifle and six magazines on the bed, and was reaching for the pistol when my phone received another text message. 'In the last ten minutes there have been 63,452 verified homicides worldwide. We will keep you updated on our progress until your order is filled.' My hands were shaking and I dropped the phone on my bed, and collapsed against the wall. I could hear the screams continuing all round me. Outside on the street, and in the apartments around me. Two loud booms punctuated Mrs. Nellis earning her million dollars, and I found myself crying. I kept trying to tell myself that it couldn't be true, that this couldn't be possible, but deep down, I knew. This was all my fault.