Day 17 of my 2023 drabble-a-day challenge! Here is today’s drabble…

An Avalanche of Serial Killers

The bookshop was run on a shoestring. Broken-down shelving units nobody else wanted, and more racks improvised from cardboard boxes. The mugs were chipped, and the coffee was instant, but we all loved working there.

Overnight, something gave way. Something in True Crime.

It slipped, then everything went down like dominoes.

In the morning, we couldn't get the door to the back room open, not with any amount of shoving.

Through the tiny gap, Dahmer's eyes stared up from a faux-torn book-jacket.

"I appreciate this isn't the worst thing you've done," I told him, "but bloody hell. On a Saturday."

This morning, I had a brief conversation on Mastodon with the editor of a magazine. (Inner Worlds… which looks like it’s going to be great. Consider supporting them if you'd like more short speculative fiction in your life! Or submit a story to them if that's your thing, you’ve got until the end of the month!)

Anyway, in the course of the conversation Sarah, Inner Worlds’ editor, used the phrase an avalanche of serial killers.

And now here we are.