"The Relentless Flow of the Amazon," by Jonathan Stone, in Mystery Writers of America Presents: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022.
I have said before that sometimes a story begins so strongly, with fine writing and a clever concept, that by the end of the first page I am rooting for the writer: Don't screw this up. We have an example of that today.
It is the beginning of the great lockdown, "the time of boxes. Everything delivered." Annie and Tom, new to their suburban neighborhood, are getting tons of boxes which they leave in their garage to give the virus time to wander off.
One day they get an Amazon box they are not expecting. It contains two plastic but clearly real guns. How the hell did that get delivered? Why? Should Annie and Tom tell the cops, trying to explain what happened? And who wants cops wandering around their house, breathing their bugs on them?
Maybe they can just put the guns away and forget about them. Besides, as Tom points out, it's not like there's any ammunition.
I bet you can guess what arrives in the next load of packages.
Things get wilder and I won't give anything away. I had a ball.
