Gutshot by Eric Beetner

Posted: 12th May 2012 by Craig in Eric Beetner
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The first bullet went through, but the second one is still in there. I can feel it up under my ribs, like a petulant five year old slamming a door and screaming, “I won’t come out!”
+++++I don’t know if they thought I was already dead or if they knew I would be soon enough, but the Russell brothers took off and those tail lights have faded away. It’s just me now. Help is not on the way.
+++++I could drive somewhere, but that fireball over there? That’s my car painting the two a.m. night sky a burnt orange. Shoot me, fine, but what the hell did my car ever do to you?
+++++I would have thought there would be people on the street, even this late. In the city, it seems like there’s always someone around. This neighborhood, though, those gunshots would have sent everyone ducking for cover and pulling the curtains tight, maybe throwing that extra deadbolt. Somehow I’ve got to make it from flat on my back, twin leaks in my gut and no way to stop the bleeding, and get my ass to a hospital. Closest one is, shit, at least twenty blocks away.
+++++Best get moving.
+++++This might have to be an on-all-fours kind of journey. One hand on my stomach, less to staunch the blood flow than to keep my guts in, and one hand on the dirty sidewalk. Fucking place is a minefield. Chewed gum, bits of green glass, smears of old dog shit. Fuck m– hey, a quarter.
+++++I try to stand, end up walking a half dozen paces like an extra in Dawn Of The Dead. Not a featured extra neither. One of the really messed up background players, like with one leg missing or a length of pipe still sticking out of their spine.+++++
I drop down to all fours again, grateful for the cold stability of the city sidewalk. Both hands down now, one planting deep red handprints in a trail up 34th.
+++++A car drives by. Didn’t hear it until too late. I doubt anyone would have seen me down here with the piss and McDonalds wrappers anyhow.
+++++Cold out. Maybe it’s just the slab of pavement draining my body heat through my knees and palms. Somehow I’ve made it to the end of the block. I can still see the fireball behind me. I think for a second of crawling back there if only for the warmth. Eventually a fire truck would show up, right? Eventually can be a long time.
+++++I pull myself up on a lamp post. My bloody hand slips on a flyer for a lost cat, only one of the phone number tabs torn off. I look up at the street signs, try to get my bearings. I spot a cab a block away moving my way. Score.
+++++I lean out, keeping my blood hand on the lamp post otherwise I’d be face down in the gutter. I lift my hand to wave down the taxi. My palm is nearly black from only a half block of crawling. This city is fucking disgusting.
+++++The cab slows and I think I’ve found Jesus. I lean out from the lamp post, an insane asylum grin plastered my face. The cab driver sees me.
+++++“No drunks,” he says and hits the gas.
+++++“Wait! I’m not fucking dr–” I tip forward into the street. I can still smell his exhaust as my face hits the cement. For a split second, the two holes in my gut take a backseat to the pain in my mouth.
+++++I flip myself over and spit two teeth out. They teeter near a storm drain and I wonder if I should go fetch them and try to plug the holes in my abdomen. Nah, they’re front teeth, not molars. Too small for the caliber of gun Ricky Russell used on me.
+++++If I make it to a hospital they’re gonna want to know why I got shot. That’s a long damn story and I’m not keen to tell it. Let them figure it out. I’ll fake being too out of it to speak, which isn’t really faking at this point.
+++++I manage to get myself back to the sanctuary of the sidewalk before a delivery truck runs my ass over or something. Time to cross the street.
+++++I stand up again, latched onto the lamp post. When the little red hand turns to a green walking man I let go. What I do across the intersection can’t be called walking. More like tripping for twenty yards. Or falling down a flight of stairs, when there’s no stairs there.
+++++I hit the curb on the far side and pitch forward again. A tooth on the top row that felt a little wobbly after I kissed the gutter, pops loose now and I nearly swallow it. I spit the tooth out and a gob of bloody saliva comes with it. Wish I could lose this bullet in my gut as easily as I lose teeth.
+++++I’m flat on my belly. My feet have gone ice cold and a little numb, so have my hands. The only part of me that’s warm is my belly pressed flat on the sidewalk and soaking in a warm bath of my own blood.
+++++I do a pushup with my hands and notice a rubber stamp imprint of my midsection rendered in O positive.
+++++How many more blocks to go? Fuck me.
+++++I hear a door open. Oh, thank Christ.
+++++Off to my right, coming up the steps from a basement apartment, is an older Chinese lady with a toy poodle at the end of leash. She’s wearing a housecoat and holding an as-yet empty plastic bag in her hand. Gotta love dog owners – any time, day or night.
+++++I reach out my bloody hand to her and mutter something like, “Please, help me.” I doubt it came out that clear.
+++++She jumps back and puts a hand up to her collar, tightening up the housecoat as if I might want to jump up to two feet, ignore the two bullets that paid me a visit tonight, and get my rape on. The nerve on that old bitch.
+++++After she says something appropriately shocked in her native tongue, she takes a closer look. I’m obviously a victim here. The details of how I got shot aren’t relevant to her, only that I need help. And fucking soon.
+++++I try to explain through the stone barrier of our uncommon language. I use words I think everyone should know like hospital, ambulance, and don’t let me die in the street. She creeps ever closer to me, the dog tugging at the end of the leash wanting like hell to get to me and see what the fuck is going on. I wish she had half the urgency of that ugly fucking mutt.
+++++She takes a cell phone out of her housecoat pocket. That’s gotta be a good sign. She raises someone and starts speaking rapid-fire and angry sounding Chinese to whoever is on the other end of the line. While she speaks I can do nothing but lay crumpled on the sidewalk and continue to lose blood. She scans her street up and down, I assume looking for my shooter. She’s shit out of luck on that score.
+++++Lucky for her. The Russell brothers wouldn’t blink at putting a bullet between the eyes of a nosy Chinese lady and her scrawny-ass dog.
+++++Speaking of the dog, the little fucker is licking my wound. I’m trying to alert her to the fact that her mutt is tasting me like I’m what’s for dinner, but she is fully engrossed in her conversation. I wish I could understand a goddamn word she was saying so I would know if she was trying to help me or just discussing the latest episode of Housewives of Fuckville or whatever.
+++++The damn dog is lapping it up. I have the strength to push him away a few times, but not the will to compete against a wiry hound with a recently discovered taste for human blood. Every time I push, he keeps coming back at me, his muzzle growing darker red each time I give him a shove and see his face come away from my abdomen.
+++++Finally she hangs up, looks down and sees the dog, gives the leash a tug, and then talks to me in Chinese. She seems like she’s giving instructions of some sort. I hope she gave directions to the ambulance in fucking English, and I tell her as much.
+++++As soon as I swear at her, I regret it. She didn’t do this to me. The Russell brothers did, and really, didn’t I do it to myself?
+++++She bends down and starts to try to drag me off the sidewalk toward her place. Hopefully to wait until the ambulance arrives.
+++++It’s an awkward affair. I’m too weak to be much help at all. She’s got my feet, dragging me along at a snail’s pace, while the dog is bouncing around, covered in my blood, and looking to get another taste.
+++++She keeps chastising the dog in Chinese, but the dog seems to understand her about as well as I do. Or he just doesn’t give a fuck.
+++++I don’t know why, but I start talking. I tell her everything. The fact she can’t understand me helps a bit. It feels good to get it off my chest at least. I tell her about the doomed-from-the-start business venture I entered into with the Russell brothers. How I should have known it would all go south. How I tried to hide the facts when it did. And how I came to be under a bridge with both brothers and me without a gun.
+++++In the distance I hear a siren.
+++++We’ve reached the top of her steps and she’s barking at me in Chinese again. I’m sure she wants my help to get down the steps. “Just leave me here,” I say. “Why make the ambulance guys bring me out of your basement apartment when they can just grab me off the sidewalk?” The words all come out in a slur. Even if she spoke English she might not have gotten any of that.
+++++Then she’s falling. I guess I didn’t do enough to help. The lady has pitched over backward and is heading down the steps head first. Her dog is lifted off the ground by the leash and it goes sailing over me, the bloody muzzle looking down at me with a very confused expression.
+++++I hear a sickening slap and then I’m sliding. I was close enough to the edge, I guess, and I slip down the stone steps like it’s winter time in New England and I’m trying out my trusty sled.
+++++I slide in next to the old lady, my head tapping her door. She’s got a shocked look on her face, but it’s frozen there. The smell of the blood leaking from her is different than mine. Hers is more fresh.
+++++I’m almost nose to nose with her and it takes me a second to notice her shoulders are pointed the other way. Why is it someone like her, who was just trying to help, gets killed in an instant while I have to suffer in agony for god knows how long?
+++++I hear whimpering. The little dog crawls out from behind the lady. It looks dazed, but catches sight of me and is energized.
+++++The sirens are almost on us now and the dog scrambles over his owner and noses into my gut wound again. I try to move my arms to shoo the damn thing away, but I’m either pinned at a funny angle or my arms don’t work any more. Hard to tell.
+++++I try to give it a, “Hey! Go away!” but nothing more than a squeak comes out. A leaky bike tire hiss and nothing you could call actual words.
+++++The siren comes and goes, zipping past and never slowing down. Great.
+++++I hear voices above. Residents poking around. Someone says something about a fire. So it was a fire truck. I have no idea if the old woman even called an ambulance or not.
+++++I try to yell for help, but the air is almost all the way out of this tire.
+++++Goddamn dog won’t let up. There’s no where for me to look. I’ve got this dead woman inches from my face or the view of my guts being eaten out by a crazed poodle. Which is worse?
+++++When I first slid down here, the lady was freshly dead, or maybe not even yet. Now she’s settling into the idea. The skin on her face is starting to slacken, her tongue swells out of her mouth and hangs there.
+++++Ow, fuck! The dog has taken to biting and little nips, not satisfied with only licking anymore. Damn, will he ever be the same? How to you adopt out a dog with a taste for human flesh?
+++++Oh well, not gonna be my problem. I have a feeling all my problems are over really fucking soon.

BIO

 

Eric Beetner is the author of Dig Two Graves, Split Decision, A Mouth Full of Blood and co-author with JB Kohl of One Too Many Blows To The Head and Borrowed Trouble. His award-winning short stories have appeared in the anthologies Pulp Ink, D*cked, Grimm Tales, Discount Noir, Off The Record, Murder In The Wind and The Million Writers Award: Best new online Voices. For more info, free stories and random thoughts visit ericbeetner.blogspot.com

Burn Away by B R Stateham

Posted: 25th April 2012 by Craig in B.R. Stateham
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It was two in the morning.

The streets were empty. Reflecting pools of light from the street lamps after a short summer rain. We–my partner and I–were in the Rousch 427 Mustang, the windows down, the 435 horses rumbling in a barely restrained symphony under the hood. Coming out of the stereo speakers were the strange, hypnotic vibes of a song called Handel on your Face by a two-singer male group called Bodyrockers.

I got a handle on your face./It’s in a stone-cold place./Why don’t you move it over here-ah/and let me burn away your fear.

 

The perfect theme song for murder.

It starts out with the classic notes of Handel’s Sarabanda and then turns into a melodic guilt-trip of lust, desire, and psychotic nightmares. Frank and me were in route to pick up our prime suspect. A crazy sonofabitch with a rap sheet about as long as I-70 from Denver to Kansas City. Assault. Robbery. Extortion. Attempted murder–just about everything a career criminal needed to make himself know to homicide detectives like us.

Now it was murder. Nothing attempted. Murder finalized. The body lay on the concrete pavement of his driveway with two 9 mm holes in his back and blood inching its way down the pavement toward the gutters. Inside the million dollar home the man’s wife was in hysterics. When we left the paramedics were giving her an injection to calm her nerves and make her sleep. She was sixty-eight years old with a heart condition. As we were leaving one of the paramedics looked at us, frowned, and shook his head.

In her condition it would be a miracle if she lived through the night. So our prime suspect wasn’t going to be charged with one murder. Two counts would be slapped on him if the woman died during the night.

Our suspect was named Raymond Russell. He’d just been released from a Federal prison a month earlier and was making himself at home down in the wharf district in a bar called Slim’s. His brother owned the place and Raymond was working there as a bartender/ bouncer. But rumor was he was doing other things on the side. Like fencing stolen goods. Muscling into the local drug business. Stealing cars.

Nice guy.

Turning on Vincent street, I worked the gearshift up through third to fourth and drove. Raymond was our suspect because the dead man’s daughter, a lovely little dark-eyed beauty about twenty-two or twenty-three by the name of Nancy told us her father and Raymond had had a series of bitter confrontations. Confrontations down in the wharf district not too far from where Raymond worked. Apparently Raymond wanted a piece of the old man’s business. Threatened the old man several times if he didn’t give in. Said his daughter might find herself in a terrible accident.

Like I said—Raymond was a nice guy.

I pulled the growling Mustang up to the curb about a half block away from the bar and cut the engine. In the darkness, Vine street is always black since no one in the street department feel’s safe enough to come down here and repair the busted street lights, the two of us sat back in the bucket seats and waited. Waited for the bar to close up and for Raymond to step out. In the darkness the black forms of warehouses and forgotten businesses lined both sides of the street like forgotten sentries. Only the soft colored neon lights of Slim’s broke the darkness.

An hour went by before the lights to the bar went out. As soon as they did Frank and I slid out of the Mustang and started walking silently down the street toward Raymond’s car. Frank–about as wide as a Mountain Gorilla on steroids and, with his stringy carrot top hair, about as ugly–reached inside his sport jacket and pulled out his 9 mm Glock. I pulled out the Kimber .45 caliber I preferred, cocked the hammer back with a thumb, and then reached for my leather case which held the gold detective badge inside.

He didn’t see us until we were about ten feet from him. But when he did, he dropped the money bag he had in one hand as he turned and stepped back.

“Who the hell are you guys?”

“Cops, Russell. Want to ask you some questions,” I said.

“Questions? About what? I haven’t done anything.”

“About a murder, Russell. A guy by the name Charles Connery,” Frank’s growl rumbled in the night.

“Charles Con . . . . why that crazy bitch! Listen, I’m not taking the fall for this. Whatever went down I wasn’t involved. There’s no way I’m going back to prison. No way!”

“Russell . . . Russell! Don’t do anything stupid,” I yelled.

Russell did something stupid. In the darkness we say the con reach with his left hand behind his back and pull out something dark and bulky looking. He lifted the left hand the bulky object up toward us in one swift motion. And that’s when we fired. My .45 and Frank’s 9 mm lit up the night at the same time. The blasts of the two pieces ripping the night apart with bright flames and a thundering roar.

Raymond Russell lay in the middle of the street in a pool of blood. Both of his shoulders were ripped to pieces from the slugs smacking into them. He was alive. He would live. Barely. But as we stood over him, and has Frank kicked the Colt .45 away from Raymond’s left hand, we stared down at the bleeding con and neither one of us were happy.

“Did you see that? See how he reached for his gun?”

“Yes,” I nodded, gripping the Kimber in my hand firmly. “His left hand. Drew with his left hand.”

“He’s right handed,” Frank said, nodding and using the Glock to point to Russell’s right hand. “Look at that.”

Raymond Russell’s right arm, from his elbow down to the tip of his fingers, was encased in a hard plaster cast. A fresh one. Pulling out a small flashlight I waved it around over the cast and noted how white it was.

“What did he mean about a crazy bitch?” I asked, frowning, eyeing the groaning man.

“Yeah,” Frank nodded, flipping open his cell phone and lifting it to his ear and speed dialing dispatch. “Sounds to me like he knows the Connerys. But maybe not the old man.”

“Knows Nancy Connery,” I said. “Sounds to me he knows her quite well.”

Frank spoke rapidly and calmly in the phone. Almost instantly we heard off in the distance sirens heading in our direction. Flipping the phone closed he dropped it back in his coat pocket and looked at me.

“Guess we should see just how crazy a bitch Nancy Connery is. If she is.”

Four hours later we knew exactly how crazy the daughter was. Driving over to the mansion just as the sun was beginning to light up the eastern sky we didn’t say a word. During the night Mrs. Connery died from a massive heart attack. The only Connery living now was the daughter. And she just inherited fifty million dollars. But last month–last month–Nancy Connery was thrown out of the family residence when word got back to her parents she had been seeing a slime ball by the name of Raymond Russell. Partying all night long. Getting drunk. Cavorting down at Slim’s like some cheap harlot. Words Charles Connery used to describe his daughter. He told her he was going to throw her, not only out of his house , but out of his will as well. If she wanted to run around with a lowlife like that, then run around with him without any money and see how long he stays with you.

Nancy Connery had a history of being in and out of mental institutions all her life. Self destructive the lass was. Hurt herself . . . and when she was in the mood, hurt others as well. Mostly her parents.

The night she was thrown out of her house she moved in with Raymond Russell. That lasted all of one week. Suddenly, the night before Charles Connery gets two slugs in the middle of his back, Nancy Connery moves back into the family mansion. The slugs came, interestingly enough, from the gun Raymond drew on us earlier in the night.

We climbed out of the Mustang and walked up to the front door of the house, the two of us noticing a light on in the living room as we stepped up to the double front doors. Reaching up I pressed the button for the doorbell and stepped back. Nancy Connors opened the door almost immediately.

“Detectives is . . . is he dead?”

“Whose dead, Miss Connors?” Frank asked.

“Why . . . .Raymond Russell. He is dead, isn’t he? He said he’d never go back to prison again. Said he’d kill himself first. So . . . so he must be dead. Right?”

“He’s alive, Miss Connors. Very much alive and telling his side of the story,” I said. “We need to take you downtown.”

She looked up us, her face a portrait of childish innocence, but her eyes . . . her large brown eyes . . . burning funeral pyres of insanity.

“I want a lawyer,” she whispered softly.

We nodded, each of us taking an arm and escorting her out of the house. As we walked to the patrol car that had followed us back to the house I could hear the lyrics from the song rattling along in my head.

I got a handle on your face./Its in a stone-cold place./ Why don’t you come over here-ah/and let me burn away your fear.

 

Drinkin’ on the job by Dana C. Kabel

Posted: 19th April 2012 by Craig in Dana C. Kabel
3

Willie handed Carl a wet movie ticket as they walked into the theater lobby.  Both men were drenched from head to foot.
+++++“Fuck!  I can’t believe this weather,” Carl said.
+++++“I know.  We’re gonna freeze our asses off if in the a.c.  You want popcorn?”
+++++“Does it go well with vodka?”  Carl patted the bottle that was tucked in his coat pocket.
+++++“It ain’t even noon yet, you fucking lush,” said Willie.
+++++“You know you’ll have some.”
+++++“Not until after the show.  It ruins my concentration.  I’m getting popcorn.”
+++++Carl followed Willie to the concession stand.
+++++“I don’t think you’ll have to concentrate real hard on a Larry the Cable Guy flick.  Could you get me an orange soda for the mixer?”
+++++“I look like a bank today?”
+++++“Come on Willie…I’ll pay you back.”
+++++“I’m just bustin’ your balls.  You can pay for the next movie.”
+++++Willie bought a giant tub of popcorn and two drinks.  He handed one of the cups to his friend and they walked past the unmanned ticket box to find their movie in the multi-plex.
+++++The lights were already down when they found it.
+++++“Shit, I can’t see a thing,” Carl said.
+++++“We’re sitting in the back,” said Willie.
+++++Carl usually made a b-line to the front row like a little kid, which bugged the hell out of Willie.  He hated having to practically lay flat in the hard, broke down seats and crane his neck back to take in the picture.
+++++“Come on,” Carl whined.  “At least go to the middle.”
+++++“Nah, we’re in the back today.  I paid…my choice.”
+++++Carl conceded.  Their eyes had adjusted enough to find a seat without tripping in the aisle, so the two men sat down.
+++++On the screen a preview was playing for a horror movie featuring an axe wielding lunatic in an Easter bunny costume.
+++++“Cool,” Carl said.  “Hey, I don’t think there’s anyone else in here.”  He took the bottle out of his pocket and was getting ready to twist the lid off when Willie stopped him by covering his hand.
+++++“Wait till you’re sure.  There’s a time and a place, ya know?”
+++++“Aw come on!  Are you still pissed off about that last job?  I told you I’d never get that lit again.  How many times I gotta say I’m sorry?”
+++++A vision flashed in Willie’s head.  He was in the back room of the closed jewelry store, filling a sack with as many trinkets as he could get his hands on.  The back door had pried open without a problem and Carl was sitting watch in the car out front.
+++++They had a tip that the alarm system of the ancient building had stopped functioning long ago and was only there for show.  But if Carl spotted any trouble outside he was supposed to call Willie’s cell.
+++++When the old man with the shotgun stuck his key in the front door, Carl didn’t see because he was passed out drunk behind the wheel.
+++++As soon as Willie heard the lock being worked he went to the back door.  He was surprised when the old man’s son came in swinging a Louisville slugger.
+++++By sheer luck he just missed having his skull split open and ran to the front of the store in time to look down the barrel of the old man’s shotgun.
+++++Willie flung the sack of jewelry as hard as he could and knocked the shotgun out of the old man’s hands.  The gun went off when it hit the floor and the old man and his son both hit the deck.
+++++Willie jumped over the fallen store owner and went out the door.  He saw Carl slumped over the wheel and cursed.  By the time he pushed his partner over and got behind the wheel, Babe Ruth was hitting homers through the windshield.
+++++Carl stirred out of his stupor when glass rained in on them and Willie burned an inch of rubber off the wheels tearing away from the curb…
+++++“Until I forget how much money we lost and how close we came to getting killed because you passed out behind the wheel of the lookout car,” Willie said.
+++++“Jesus!  I thought that shit was in the past.  What did you ask me to go to the show for…you’re still so pissed?”
+++++Carl sighed and dropped his head.
+++++“All right…I’m sorry I brought it up again.  I’m just having a little trouble lining something else up for us right now, and Jimmy is pissed as hell that he didn’t get a piece of that jewelry store.”
+++++The previews were over and a commercial reminded movie patrons to silence their cell phones.
+++++“It’s getting ready to start.  Why don’t you go ahead and find us a seat in the middle?  I gotta go take a piss,” said Willie.
+++++Carl popped up in his seat with a big grin.
+++++“Oh…okay.  You’d better hurry though, it’s gonna start.”
+++++“Sit in the middle.  Not the middle of the front.  It hurts my head.”
+++++“In the middle…I promise,” Carl said.
+++++“Here, take my cup and the popcorn with you.  I’ll be back in a minute.”
+++++The two men got up and Carl quickly moved to the third row from the front like Willie knew he would.  As soon as he sat down he took the bottle out and spun the top off.  His head tipped back and he emptied half of the vodka down his throat, also like Willie knew he would.  His once reliable sidekick was on a steady downward spiral.
+++++Willie shook his head as he quietly pushed open the door and stepped out of the theater.  There was still nobody attending the ticket box in the hallway where they tore your ticket and directed you to the film you paid for.
+++++He passed the ticket box unnoticed and went into the men’s room, which was empty, and left him alone with his own thoughts as he entered a stall.
+++++Willie was called to a sit down after the jewelry store blunder.  Carl wasn’t invited to attend.
+++++Jimmy was there, of course, since he was the head of the crew.  And all of the other low level wiseguys from the neighborhood that worked under Jimmy.  Willie was decidedly in the hot seat, but it was better than not being invited to the meeting at all.  If that were the case, he would have been in the same position as his partner.
+++++“That kid’s a friggin’ nitwit,” Jimmy said.  “He gets worse every day with the booze or drugs or whatever the hell he’s doing.”
+++++“I know that he drinks too much.  I’ve tried to talk to him,” Willie said.
+++++“The time for talk is over.  He’s cost us too much already.  Christ Willie, he almost cost you your life,” Teddy the Shark said.
+++++“Carl’s had a lot of problems.  His wife left him right after his pop died.  Then his brother got pinched for that coke thing.  He just needs some help and…”  Willie was working it up…trying to plead his old friend’s case as if he were his lawyer and the room full of wiseguys were a jury.  But in that room the judge made all of the final decisions, and Jimmy was the judge.
+++++“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said, “but the kid’s got to go.”
+++++“But…”
+++++“I ain’t asking you, Will.  It’s already decided.  I just thought that since you known him so long…I’d give you the opportunity to take care of this yourself.  Otherwise…it’ll be taken care of for you.”
+++++Willie looked around the room.  He was surrounded by the somber stares of killers.  Sure, in one sense they were all friends…even called each other family.  But if any one of them became a problem, or came in the way of the other earning a buck, none of them would hesitate sticking a knife in the other’s back.
+++++“Don’t worry Jimmy.  I’ll take care of it,” Willie said without having any idea how he could kill someone that he loved like a brother.
+++++He waited for what seemed like an eternity before he heard the sound of the bathroom door open.  Footsteps clicked across the tiled floor and a zipper unzipped.
+++++Willie flushed the toilet behind him and opened the stall door.  He walked to the sink and looked in the mirror, not at his own reflection, but of that of the old man who stood in front of the urinal trying to coax his prostate into cooperating with him.
+++++Willie turned the water on and kept his eyes on the old man.  He thought about something that his dad had taught him when he was just a kid.
+++++Men are easy targets in public bathrooms.  They avoid making eye contact with each other because they don’t want the other guy to think that they’re looking at their goods.
+++++The old man at the urinal kept his head down, concentrating on the job at hand.
+++++Willie left the water running and quietly crept up behind him.  When he was close enough, he slammed the palm of his hand into the back of the old man’s head.
+++++There was a loud wet thud as the old man’s skull connected with the hard tile wall.  He crumpled to the floor with blood streaming down his face.  A low moan came out of the victim and his head rolled from side to side.
+++++Willie stooped over his prey and grabbed hold of him by the lapels of his coat.  He jerked him upwards and slammed his head back down on the tile floor again and again until the old man was dead and his prostate finally fulfilled his last wish on earth.
+++++Willie purposely stepped into the pool of blood that was forming under the old man’s head and bent over again to search his pockets.  The reward was a wallet and a nice pocket knife.
+++++He tucked the goods in his own pockets and shut the water off at the sink before exiting the bathroom and trotting back down the empty hall to the theater that Carl was in.
+++++He opened the door just enough to slip in and stood in the back until his eyes re-adjusted.
+++++Carl was still alone in the theater and was passed out in his seat.  The tub of popcorn was tipped over on the floor next to the empty vodka bottle.
+++++Carl didn’t stir when Willie squatted down and removed his shoes.  Willie took off his own blood stained shoes and put them on Carl’s feet.  He carefully maneuvered around his unconscious friend to avoid stepping in the bloody footprints he had left on the floor.  There he sat down and put Carl’s shoes on his own feet.
+++++His friend would go away for a while on a murder charge and Willie would be free of his burden.  He didn’t mind killing really; the old guy in the bathroom was a testament to that.  But Carl was his friend.  They grew up together.
+++++Carl would be safe in the can, and Jimmy couldn’t really blame Willie for not getting the chance to whack the guy before he went into a drunken rage and killed some citizen.  It would work out for everyone all around.
+++++When he finished tying the laces, Willie took the old man’s wallet out of his pocket, took most of the cash out of it, and stuffed the wallet into a pocket in Carl’s coat.
+++++But just as he pulled his hand out, Carl snapped to and grabbed his hand.
+++++“Hey!  Willie…was the hell you doing?”  He slurred.
+++++“Let go, Carl!”
+++++But Carl didn’t let go.  He grabbed Willie’s other arm and jerked him forward.
+++++Willie struggled to break away, but his friend held on tight.
+++++“I’m sorry, Willie…so sorry.  I betrayed everyone in my life…My wife…my brother…even you…I’m…so sorry.”
+++++“Damnit Carl, let go!”  Willie jerked backwards and Carl finally let go.  But he stumbled out of his seat and his shirt came undone.
+++++Willie saw something glisten in the flickering light of the projected movie.  It was something that didn’t look right.
+++++He stepped over Carl and ripped his shirt open more.  The thing that glistened was a wire that had been taped under Carl’s shirt.
+++++“They made me do it, Willie.  That’s why I haven’t been able to stay sober.  They been listening to everything.  Oh God, what’d I do?”  Drunken Carl started weeping like a baby.
+++++Willie ran for the nearest fire exit.  An alarm went off when he pushed the door open.  It didn’t matter though; the cops were already waiting outside for him.

Dana C. Kabel’s stories have appeared in A Twist of Noir, Black Heart Magazine, Darkest Before The Dawn, The Flash Fiction Offensive, Muzzleflash, Mysterical-E, Out of the Gutter, Powder Flash Burn, and Yellow Mama.  He blogs at www.thenonstopbullet.blogspot.com

 

Vigil by Tom Pitts

Posted: 13th April 2012 by Craig in Tom Pitts
9

The room looked sterile, smelled sterile. It had that piney sent of disinfectant. The light strained through the window, stale and yellow as the old man’s skin. John looked at his grandfather and felt nothing; he barely knew the man—what was left of the man.
+++++John’s grandfather lay with his head back and his mouth open, feeding tubes snaked up each nostril. There were wires and more tubes fitted to an obsolete looking piece of medical machinery that beeped softly every few seconds. There was an awful wheeze coming from his mouth, an awful dry oval that housed his stained teeth and a swollen tongue thickly coated with white. It was the sound of, what John knew to be, a dying man.
+++++John hadn’t seen his grandfather face to face in three years. He’d been off biding his time at some boarding school his mother had stuck him in. Out of sight, out of mind. John didn’t even recognize him when he first entered the hospital room. He thought the frail, withered shell in front of him bore no resemblance to the man that he’d known to be the strong patriarch of his family, the hero of his mother’s stories.
+++++John spied an uncomfortable looking chair in the corner near the window and decided that, if he could sit quietly, the hour his mother had designated for him to bond with the old man would tick by painlessly. He sat down. The chair creaked loudly and the old man stirred.
+++++At first there was just a raspy groan and John hoped he was still asleep, lost in some lusty memory from yesteryear.  But then he heard the old man’s voice.
+++++“Who’s there?” the old man said, barely audible.
+++++“It’s me grandpa, Johnny.”
+++++“Giovanni? Is that you?”
+++++“Yeah, it’s me.”
+++++“Come here, boy. Let me see you.”
+++++As Johnny got up the chair squeaked again. He stood between the window and the bed, casting a shadow over the old man like death itself.
+++++“Christ, Giovanni, I can’t see you. Come closer.”
+++++He leaned over the old man and let his grandfather’s eyes adjust to the light.
+++++“Sit down, boy,” he said, patting a brown-spotted hand on the hospital blanket beside him. “Sit down and let me talk with you.”
+++++John sat down and got a closer look at the old man. A Sunday dinner never went by without some kind of talk about Grampa Joe. No matter what his family was doing, how well, how poorly, no subject was ever passed without some comment on what grandpa Joe might think. A new job, a move from the city, a marriage or divorce, the first thought in all their minds was, What was Grampa Joe going to say?
+++++“Gio, you look good. What are you now, twenty-four, twenty-five?”
+++++“Nineteen,” said John.
+++++“Nineteen? What an age. What I wouldn’t give to be nineteen again.”
+++++“It’s overrated,” said John.
+++++“Bullshit. I didn’t know shit when I was nineteen. Thought I knew everything, but I didn’t know shit.”
+++++“Mom would agree with you,” said John.
+++++“Your mother? You kiddin’? She still doesn’t know shit.”
+++++John smiled but the old man just stared straight ahead, his eyes watery and opaque.
+++++“Kid, lemme ask you something.”
+++++John waited a moment; when nothing came he said, “What, Grampa?”
+++++“You got any money?”
+++++John didn’t know how to answer. Money in his pocket? In life, savings? Was the old man asking for a loan?
+++++“No, Grampa, not really.”
+++++“Never use your own money kid.  Investment-wise, doesn’t matter if it’s legit or not, don’t use your own dough.”
+++++John didn’t really know where this was going.
+++++“I made myself a lot of scratch, kid. You know how? Using other people’s dough. I still got buckets, too. Buckets. You know what else? Those vultures in the waiting room out there? They ain’t gonna get it. None of it. You’ll see. Fuck ‘em. That’s a promise.”
+++++This made John smile too.  He’d never heard his grandfather talk this way. He thought of his mother out there with her cousins, two Aunts, and other assorted fringe family members, all hunkered down in a somber vigil. Each and every one of them with dollar signs in their eyes.
+++++“Okay, Grampa.” John smiled, but the old man didn’t. He’d looked angry, mean. John wondered if maybe some of the rumors he’d heard were true.
+++++“And another thing, Gio …” The old man paused to catch his breath, there was a quiet gurgling sound in the feeder tubes. “Don’t ever let nothin’ walk past.”
+++++John was confused. He looked at his grandfather and their eyes met.
+++++“I’m talking about broads, kid. If you can lay it, then lay it down. No point in looking back on lost opportunities with just your dick in your hand. I passed on too many. Forget what kinda trouble it coulda caused, I shoulda tasted them all.”
+++++The door to the room opened and a young Asian nurse walked into the room. She smiled.
+++++“How are we doing, Mr. Carbone? It’s time for your medicine.”
+++++The old man ignored the nurse and reached out and grabbed John’s wrist. “See, Gio, this is what I’m talking about.”
+++++The nurse produced a syringe and stuck it into the I.V. leading to the old man’s right arm. She was smiling, beautiful, and very professional. Her gleaming white grin practiced and well used. It’d probably extended more lives than the chemotherapy she administered.
+++++“This may make you a little drowsy, Mr. Carbone. Is your visitor staying much longer?”
+++++“As long as he goddamn wants, sweetheart. This is my grandson, Giovanni. He’s gonna be a welterweight champ someday. Say hello, Gio.”
+++++John nodded to the young nurse, sure he was blushing. He’d never been inside of a boxing ring in his life.
+++++The nurse ignored John and playfully shook her head at the old man. Instead of checking the data on the machine in the corner, she took Grampa Joe by the wrist to check his heart rate and then pressed her fingers lightly on his forehead. Grampa Joe seemed to like the personal touch.
+++++“Okay, Mr. Carbone, you need to get some rest. You two should wrap it up. Twenty more minutes, then I’ll come back to check on you.” Without another word she left the room, taking all that sexual energy with her.
+++++“What I wouldn’t give to be nineteen again,” said the old man while he stared at the pale green door she’d exited through. A silence filled the void.
+++++“How are you feeling, Grampa?”
+++++“Fuck how I’m feeling. You kiddin’ me? I’m dying, kid. I feel like shit.”
+++++John didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t his fault the old man was sick.
+++++“I’m sorry, kid. I’m just pissed that it’s gonna end.” There was more gurgling through the tubes. The old man’s head fell back onto the pillow. Whatever the nurse had given him was taking effect. “Ooh, that tingles,” he said and shut his eyes for a moment.
+++++“Gio,” he said with his eyes still closed, “promise me. Don’t ever be ashamed. No regrets. That’s the key, no regrets.”
+++++“Okay, Grampa,” said John. He looked at the old man for a minute, then said, “You ever have regrets, Grampa?”
+++++The old man’s eyes opened just a crack. “Like the song says, kid. Regrets, I’ve had a few.”
+++++John played along. “Too few too mention?”
+++++“A few, kid, a few.” He seemed to drift off again. John thought it was a good time to sneak out of the room. Just as he began to get up off the bed the old man reached out and once again grabbed his wrist.
+++++“The Mexicans, I don’t feel too good about that. You know we used to run this town, kid. You couldn’t snort a line of blow without me gettin’ a nickel. Those were the days.”
+++++“Grampa?”
+++++“But the shit fucked up our boys, couldn’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar. Turned them into women.”
+++++John didn’t say anything.
+++++The old man was still talking with his eyes closed.
+++++“So we switched to smack. Nobody was fucking with smack. Easier to keep the guys in line. But then, it too, got so heavy. A lotta heat, believe me. So we let those fucking Mexicans in. Dumb, dumb. Now look where we are. They’re the ones earning.”
+++++John couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Most of his life he was afraid of his family finding out that he smoked a joint, and, now, here was Grampa Joe confessing to being a drug dealer.  His mother never told him any of this shit. No one did. His aunts and cousins had to have known. Restaurateur, my ass.
+++++“Maybe you should get some rest, Grampa.”
+++++The old man ignored the boy.
+++++“Fucking Joey Tang, fuck him. He deserved everything he got. Bobby Ciro, too. Fuck them. I’ll see ‘em in hell.”
+++++John was getting more and more uncomfortable. The beeping from the machine picked up its tempo. The old man opened his eyes.
+++++“Did you know I used to be a mortician? Had a parlor on 7th Ave. Yeah, didn’t know that, did you? Cremated motherfuckers, put their ashes out with the trash. Nobody ever knew. Beautiful. We’d charge friends. Disposal service. Made a lot of dough that way.”
+++++John was starting to flash on all those TV shows he’d watched where knowledge alone could make you an accessory to the crime. Why was Grampa Joe telling him all this?
+++++“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, kid, but it was another time. No DNA, no big brother. There was a lot more room to wiggle, you know what I mean?”
+++++John definitely did not know what he meant.
+++++“After Blakey’s RICO thing, I got wise, started stacking my cash, thinking I could get out. But you gotta keep a hand in, understand, otherwise the sharks keep circling.”
+++++The old man stopped to cough.
+++++“But, you know, it’s a temperament. You can’t hide from what you are. You know what I mean, right, kid?”
+++++John shook his head.
+++++“Fuck the good-times. Those were the good-times, damn it.”
+++++The old man started to laugh. It quickly degenerated into another coughing fit.
+++++John grabbed a glass of water from the stand beside the bed and offered it to the old man. The old man shook his head.
+++++“Sometimes you can’t let go,” he said to the boy. “You are what you are.”
+++++“Why are you telling me this, Grampa?”
+++++The old man started to sing with a voice that sounded like a car that wouldn’t start.
+++++“Regrets, I’ve had a few …”
+++++John felt like he was being teased.
+++++“Grampa, really, why are you telling me this?”
+++++“Your father, Gio. I thought he was no good. I thought he wasn’t good enough for your mom. Honestly, I thought he was a piece of shit from the get-go, but I was wrong. It was your mother that wasn’t worth a damn. I never should have done what I done.”
+++++“What, Grampa? What did you do?”
+++++“I did the poor bastard. I had him taken out at the parking lot outside that furniture joint where he worked. Two friends of mine grabbed him and beat him till he wasn’t never coming back. Then we took him to 7th Ave and sent him on his way.”
+++++“Grampa,” John repeated, his eyes starting to tear up. “Why are you telling me this?”
+++++“I was wrong about him. He was only trying to do right by your mother and you. I just couldn’t let go of my own … my own shit. I thought she deserved better—she didn’t deserve shit.”
+++++John sat silent, stupefied. He was hurt. It felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. Everything he knew about his life had been turned upside down. The old man let go of John’s wrist and the young man stood up to face his grandfather.
+++++“Why? How? How could you do something like that?”
+++++His grandfather had drifted off again, swept away in the arms of Morpheus.
+++++“Grampa? Grampa?” said John.
+++++The old man opened his eyes, looking irritated that the boy was still there.
+++++“Smarten up, boy, don’t ask questions that you don’t wanna hear the answer to.”
+++++Grampa Joe’s head fell backward onto his pillow and he was out like a light.

 

BIO:

Tom received his education firsthand on the streets of San Francisco. His work has appeared in Shotgun Honey, A Twist of Noir, Darkest Before the Dawn, Punk Globe, and others. He’s also a popular contributor at SF’s reading series Lip Service West. Contact him at:

http://tom-pitts.blogspot.com/

California Dying by Candy Green Gustavson

Posted: 5th April 2012 by Craig in Candy Green Gustavson
0
Take a long, deep breath. You’ll be all right. You’re not dying. Aren’t you the one who got his eyesight back at the age of 68 by drinking reconstituted lemon juice? If you were really dying wouldn’t your whole life be passing before your eyes? You know where you are- California.
            Your niece, Jean, the one who took you away from your home in Syracuse and brought you out to this smoggy, crowded, shaky earthquake-of-a-place, is shouting at you from the phone receiver which is dangling, hanging and banging, on the floor boards.
            “Uncle Red. Uncle Red, can you hear me? I can hear you. What’s wrong?” Jean’s voice is usually soft and gentle- probably what got you out here in the first place. Her words call out to you, but you don’t answer. No words come out of your mouth, just the short, gasping, gurgling sounds made by air, sputum, and bits of chewed-up, left-over broiled chicken thigh you inhaled while sneezing a moment ago.
            This niece- you can’t stop thinking about her- your brother’s daughter, Jean. Named after Jean Harlow, the movie star, she was, but, even though she bleaches her hair blonde, she sure didn’t end up looking like her, did she? Hey, who knows what Jean Harlow would have ended up looking like if she hadn’t died so young. They all die young, those blondies.
            But now, this shouting woman, this present Jean, the woman who took you from your home in Syracuse where you’d lived for over 30 years and brought you out to California, this Jean should just leave you alone. Always pestering, always calling on her lunch hour to make sure you’re all right. Trying to save your soul, the whole crazy family. That’s what she’s doing. Thinks she has all the answers. Women’s stuff. Even Ollie, who never uttered a word of faith the whole time you were married, had asked someone to pray with her when she was dying.
            “I’ve forgotten how,” Ollie was wailing. Remember? By golly, when you decide to die you aren’t going to need anybody’s help. The niece should have figured out you don’t want your soul saved. And you don’t want to be around her and her husband and their orderly lives. You told her you were baptized as a baby in Milwaukee in the German Lutheran church, just like her very own father, but that wasn’t enough for her. Oh, no. Oh, no.
            Jean and her husband want you to come along with them to Hawaii when they retire. They’re even urging you to go along with them on their little jaunts every weekend to here and there. You have your own places you want to go. You were doing just fine after Ollie died and then one day Jean ups and comes to Syracuse.
* * *
“We found him in the snowbank, right over there, under that streetlight, by the corner there.” Mrs. Steele, the lady you rented the downstairs to was saying this to Jean. She’s the one who prayed with Ollie. The old bag had her beak stuck up to your dining room window and was pointing her finger through your curtains down to the edge of your property as if she owned it. Jean, who you had not seen since she was five years old, had flown in from Los Angeles the night before and stood right behind the old windbag- you could see them right there, right through the open bedroom door.
            What’s the fuss? What’s the fuss? There was nothing wrong with you. A healthy man of 70, no damage done. All the doctor said was to drink lots of liquids and stay in bed for a few days. Lying there in Ollie’s old room, the closest to the bathroom, listening to their gabfest- did they think you were deaf?- you realized it was the busybody renter, Mrs. Steele, who had called Jean and made her come all that way.
            “After Ollie died,” Mrs. Steele was saying, “he musta decided to go back to his old ways from before he was married.” Her voice came at you out of her tree of a nose like a buzz saw, straight at you. “It started in the summer. Ollie, she died in the spring, right before Easter, but, of course, you know all that.” She didn’t take a breath. “By summer, he was getting all spruced up. After-shave lotion. I could smell it in the hallway long after he was gone. Up the street he’d go, head down, pumpin’ those arms, just as the street lights was comin’ on. You know, he believes in exercise. He’s in good shape for an old man. ‘Get a sweat-on every day,’ he’s always tellin’ people. ‘Work. Work. Work.’ That’s the man’s salvation. He’d head straight to the bar, stay until the middle of the night, come home weavin’ drunk, smashin’ against the walls. It’s just too cold, too much snow here some winters for a man to be actin’ like that.” Finally, she interrupted herself. “How old is he anyway?”
            “Seventy,” you heard Jean say. “He’ll be seventy-one in October. You know, I never met Ollie. We just corresponded.” That was true. Jean and Ollie had exchanged Christmas cards with letters folded in them for years, and, if you remember correctly, Jean had seemed a mite too excited when she first located you.
            “Looky here,” Ollie had said, shaking Jean’s letter in his face, “this niece of yours says she’s never going to lose you again.” Whoopee. Lost and found.
            After her conversation with the biddy from downstairs, Jean had come into the bedroom. She sat down on the chenille bedspread you were lying under with just your skivvies on, for Pete’s sake.
            “You ought to sell this big, old house and everything in it,” Jean said, rubbing her hand over the nubbies. “Come on out to California and live with us.”
            You thought about it for the two days you stayed in bed. California. You were there once, in 1935, during the Great Depression, when Jean was a cunning little five-year old. And there in Syracuse, in the middle of winter, the memory of those sunny skies and warm breezes made her suggestion seem like the right thing to do. Wouldn’t you know, the renter bought the house, furnishings and all, including the big Mr. Peanut cookie jar Ollie loved so much. Hell, with Ollie gone, it was only half a house anyway.
* * *
“Are you having difficulty breathing, Uncle Red?” It’s Jean again on that blasted telephone. Why does she have to talk so loud? “Lift up your arms.” She’s barking. “It will help you breathe.” The sound is coming out of that black circle with all the little holes in it. Again, “Lift up your arms.”
            Boy, oh, boy, you can remember when there weren’t any phones in any houses you lived in. Your father had that job once stringing telephone lines all over the country. He was gone a lot. Wrote home about all the different foods he was eating. “Grease,” your mother said when he died.
            What’s this Jean is telling you to do? Lift up your arms? Ha! You know what she’s really up to. Soon as she gets you to California, you’re barely off the plane and she’s taking you to church with her. Oh, they lift up their arms there, all right. Shouting. Waving their arms around. You can see right through this woman, this old Jean Harlot with her gray roots growing in at the temples every four weeks. She’s transparent all right, clear as a bell. Trying to force you to buy what she’s selling, she is. You were crazy to come out here. Go ahead. Chuckle to yourself. You sound like a balloon caught in a vacuum cleaner.
* * *
You would have sold vacuum cleaners, but you couldn’t find work and got tired of standing on street corners handing out broadsides urging voters to elect Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate for President. Your big brother, Jean’s father, who had given up on the movement, wrote that he found steady work building sets for the movies, even sent you the money to get to California, wanted you to move out there, could get you work, he said.
            You enjoyed the visit, saw things you’d never seen- tall palm trees, trees with real lemons and oranges growing on them. But you came east again. Anyway, your brother died the next year, hit by a flat on a Charlie Chaplin movie set. Twenty-nine years old. Wife. Little Jean. And the one in the oven who got himself killed in the Korean War.
            You finally found work as a ship’s cook on the St. Lawrence River. Years, years, years you spent on the water. Years of steady work. Good, hard labor. Real heart-pumping, pore-opening, sweet, sweat-pouring work.
            You and Ollie met at the German Social Club, the year the Seaway Project started, 1954.  You were forty-five, she was thirty. Told you she’d been married before, said she’d had two little boys, but you never saw them, only in some faded, old bent-up photograph she took out of a box every so often. And cried. Always told people she started working at eight years of age, hired by a wealthy family in Chicago to be a playmate for their children because of her refined looks.
            And she was a good-looking gal- for an old buck like you. She was kind of loony but she made you laugh. She had it good with you, too, never had to work another day in her life after she married you. You’d come home and she’d lift up her apron and skirt for you. Pronto. “You sure can wiggle it around,” she’d say. You were married for twenty-three years, and for twenty-three years she’d pat her belly after you finished and call the tumor growing inside her your baby. Then it finally killed her. Pronto.
* * *
“Uncle Red, you’ve got to do something.” Jean again, Jean again, Jean again. Her voice is so shrill now, isn’t it? Urgent. Demanding. “You’ve got to do something.”
            Do something? Do something? You’ve done and done and done. You’re the one who believes in doing. You’re Mr. Do. Doesn’t she care how hard you worked? It was hard standing up all those years. It’s hard work now. Sitting. Breathing. Can’t do it anymore. Who does she think she is? All that furniture., a whole household full in Syracuse. Just sold it. Gave it away. Patsy, the pastor’s wife, came over from Vermont and took a little rocker, a rabbit’s ears rocker Ollie called it, said it was worth some money. So, they took what they thought would look good in their houses. And you watched. Fool. Damned renter. Have a good time looking after Mr. Peanut now.
* * *
On that train trip in ’35, all the way out to California, your full head of red hair drew comments. When you got off the Santa Fe at the train station in Pasadena your big brother was there to meet you. You hadn’t seen each other in over five years and before you even started slapping each other on the back, you both laughed out loud because your hair, which was the identical flaming color, was cut alike too, short on the sides, kinky locks, long and combed back slick on the top. You could have been twins that day on the platform, only you were taller. Isn’t that the way it always is? The younger brother is the taller one.
            It was springtime when you arrived, the Saturday before Easter. While you and your brother were waiting for the Red Car, you noticed a fat woman and a skinny little boy selling pastel-died baby ducklings from a big wooden box on the street corner. You bought a little turquoise one for your niece. Then, before you knew it, the three of you- you, your brother and little Jean, were standing on the sidewalk in front on your brother’s little stucco house in Sierra Madre. Your brother handed Jean a salt shaker. You bent over the child.
            “Baby girl,” you whispered to her, “go catch that pretty duck I gave you. Sprinkle some salt on his tail and he’ll let you catch him. Then he’ll curl up in your arms and go to sleep.”
            The sun was almost directly overhead. The little girl’s shadow was short and angled. The air, so dry and clean in your nostrils, made you feel hope for the first time in a long time. You watched Jean’s chubby little legs encased in white leggings, feet in polished high tops, her body covered by a starched white smock- cuter than Shirley Temple could ever be- run down the street and chase that duck every which-a-way. How that turquoise duck did run! How you and your brother did laugh. Your mouths were positively filled with laughter that day. Didn’t little Jean look like your baby sister, the one who died in the flu epidemic of 1917? Boy, oh, boy, did you tease her, too.
            But, little Jean, at the corner by then, must have heard your laughter because she stopped and turned around. She looked straight at you. Her eyes, clean and as blue as the California sky overhead, shot you through and through. She knows, you thought, she knows. She knows you lied to her, that it is all a big joke on her. Now she is just like you- she doesn’t believe in anything. A breeze kicked up behind the two of you, you and your big brother. Your matching hair corkscrewed into the air. Flashing halos. The little girl in the distance started running back down the concrete path, right for both of you. She lifted her arm and pointed her finger.
            “Fire, fire…” she called, “Two daddies’ heads on fire.”
* * *
“Uncle Red, can you hear me? Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.” It’s grown-up Jean’s voice again. Still trying to save you from the flames. “If you can hear me, just hang on. I’m calling for help now. Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus.”
            But you are a duck now. A red duck. A platinum-haired woman- no roots growing in- is in a form-fitting white satin gown. How strange- she’s the same shape as Mr. Peanut. She’s chasing you. She has a salt shaker in her hand.
            Come on. Slow down. Let her catch you.
            Curl up in her arms.
            Go to sleep.

Target Practice by Rob Kitchin

Posted: 28th March 2012 by Craig in Rob Kitchin
4


Jimmy Kiley held the blade of the knife between his thumb and index finger. He raised the handle slowly to his forehead lining it up with the target, then dropped the knife down, pulled it back past his ear and launched it forward.  It span several times then clattered into the board and bounced back, falling harmlessly to the floor.
+++++‘For fuck’s sake!’  It looked a hell of a lot easier to do on the television than it was proving in practice.
+++++The side door to the warehouse was pushed open and a man shoved through.  The left knee of his jeans was ripped, his face bloody and bruised.
+++++‘Macca,’ Kiley exclaimed loudly.  ‘Glad you could join us.’
+++++‘What’s this about, Jimmy?’ Macca said, shuffling forward, cautiously eyeing the circular structure off to one side.
+++++A second man entered the cold, dimly lit space.  He placed a gun at Macca’s back and prodded him forward.
+++++‘You know what it’s about, Macca,’ Kiley said, closing the gap between them.  ‘You’ve been a naughty boy.’
+++++‘I swear, Jimmy, I haven’t done anything.’
+++++‘Now you know that’s not true.  What did we agree about showing people my movies?’
+++++‘I haven’t shown anyone your movies.’
+++++‘Reggie!’ Kiley shouted, his voice echoing round the large, empty space.
+++++A man pushed himself off the warehouse wall and staggered forwards.  In his right hand he held a video camera.
+++++‘Oh fuck,’ Macca muttered.
+++++‘Oh fuck, is right.’
+++++Kiley grabbed Macca’s elbow and guided him to the circular board, the rogue knife lying on the floor at its base.  ‘Don’t even think about it, Macca.  Just step up into the stirrups and put your hands through the loops.’
+++++‘What the fuck is this?’
+++++‘A spinning knife board.  I’m going to have a little knife throwing practice.  You’re my assistant for the afternoon.’
+++++‘I don’t think so.’
+++++‘I’m not giving you a choice.  Now step up into the stirrups.’
+++++The second man clattered Macca on the side of the head with the handgun.
+++++‘Fuck!’
+++++‘Step up, Macca,’ Kiley ordered.
+++++Once in place and tied securely, Kiley ordered Reggie over to them and took the video camera from his shaking hand.
+++++‘You never got to see the last movie we shot did you, Macca?  Big Johnny Croft running for his life.  You probably could have charged an entrance fee if you’d decided to share that one around.’
+++++‘It was only Reggie.’ Macca said.  ‘He’s part of the gang for fuck’s sake.’
+++++‘But not the inner circle.  Well, not until now.’
+++++Kiley turned the small in-built screen so that Macca could see it.
+++++A massive, muscular man in a tight-fitting t-shirt and jeans was running across a field towards the camera.  Behind him, at the far end of the field, the doors to a white van opened and four large dogs bounded out.  They quickly spotted the man and set off in pursuit, barking excitedly.
+++++Croft ran for ten more metres, then turned to face the dogs.  A former professional boxer he was going to try fight over flight.  He caught the first dog to arrive with a hard right as it leapt towards him, sending it sprawling off to one side.  The second dog landed before he had time to adjust to its attack.  It was quickly joined by the two others.
+++++Croft fell to his knees under their weight, his arms swinging savage punches to thick skulls, sharp teeth and muscle-packed bodies.
+++++‘The burger fat smeared round his neck was an inspired idea,’ Kiley said.
+++++Macca didn’t reply, his eyes glued to the screen.
+++++‘You have to give him his dues, the fucker fought to the bitter end.  Two of those dogs had to be put down afterwards.’
+++++They watched the screen for a couple more minutes.
+++++‘One of my better ones,’ Kiley said.  ‘I hope you’re going to be as big a star as he was.’
+++++He passed the camera back to Reggie.  ‘You’d better go and get that set up.’
+++++He watched the new cameraman scurry away, then reached down and picked up the knife, turning it in it hands.  ‘Don’t worry, Macca, these are nice and sharp.’
+++++‘Please, Jimmy.  It won’t happen again.’
+++++‘I know it won’t, Macca.  I know.’
+++++‘Jimmy.’
+++++‘I thought you’d like this set-up, my friend; appreciate its creativity.  It has a certain … I don’t know, theatrical quality to it.’
+++++Macca tipped his head back, seemingly gathering his thoughts.  After ten seconds or so he dropped his chin and spat in Kiley’s face.
+++++‘Some friend,’ he said, his eyes blazing defiantly.
+++++Kiley wiped the saliva away calmly, holding Macca’s gaze.
+++++‘We had our moments, Macca, but you betrayed my trust.  You knew what that would mean. And you know me, I always like to mix business and pleasure.’  He tapped the blade of the knife against the hardboard.  ‘Time for the grand finale, don’t you think?’
+++++‘Fuck you!’
+++++Kiley pulled a wry grin, placed the blade in his back pocket, grabbed hold of the board and gave it a hard tug.  As the wheel gently started to spin he gave it another hefty heave, then turned on his heels, walking back to his mark, where a row of nine knives were lined up on a small table.
+++++‘Try and smile for the camera like the assistants on the TV do, will you,’ he ordered.  ‘You look like a right sour bastard.’
+++++‘You’ll feature in one of your own movies someday, Jimmy.’
+++++‘I doubt that Macca.  I’ll always be the director, never the star.’
+++++Kiley reached the white chalk line and turned.  Macca was rotating at a steady pace.
+++++He glanced over at his new cameraman. ‘You breathe a word of this to anyone and this will seem positively humane in comparison to what I’ll do to you, do you understand?’
+++++Reggie nodded his pale face, unable to find his voice. His stomach was writhing, his guts threatening to fill his underpants.  He’d never expected to be part of Kiley’s inner circle and he’d be quite happy to return to minion status.
+++++‘Zoom in on him,’ Kiley directed.  ‘I want to be able to see his face when I watch this back.  And when I manage to hit the bastard, I want you to imagine that it’s you who’s tied to that board.’

Bio
Hiding out in Ireland, Rob Kitchin spends his spare time reading or writing crime fiction.  He blogs at http://theviewfromthebluehouse.blogspot.com/ where he publishes reviews and a weekly drabble (a story of exactly 100 words).  He’s had short stories published on Flash Fiction Offensive, Shotgun Honey, A Twist of Noir, Powder Burn Flash, and Spinetingler.

Saving his Marriage by Jim Harrington

Posted: 22nd March 2012 by Craig in Jim Harrington
7

Tony sat at a corner table, his fingers laced around a glass of water and watched the man traverse the room. He wore a grey suit, blue tie and brown shoes; and except for the limp, the man looked like a basketball player. He sat in the chair to Tony’s right, the one facing the door.
+++++“How long you been sober?” the man asked.
+++++“What makes you think I’m an alcoholic?”
+++++“Who else would sit in a bar with a glass of water?”
+++++Tony spun the glass in his hand. Stared at the water. “Three months, twenty-six days.”
+++++The man saw Molly crossing the room and waved her off.
+++++Tony raised his glass and smiled. “I’ll have another.”
+++++“You like her,” the man said.
+++++“She’s my daughter.” Tony spun the glass some more.
+++++The two men sat in silence while Molly deposited a full glass on the table and took the empty. She smiled at Tony. She didn’t smile at the man.
+++++“I got stuff to do,” the man said. “You want to hire me, or what?”
+++++“My wife is cheating on me.” Tony’s tone was as flat as a club soda that’d sat out all day.
+++++“And you want me to find the guy. I charge one fifty a day, plus expenses.”
+++++Tony lowered his hands into his lap while the man watched Molly slide a quarter in the jukebox. After a few groans from the relic, Hank Williams’ voice filled the dusty air.
+++++“Not exactly,” Tony said. “I know who it is. A friend saw them coming out of the Super 8 in Smythville.”
+++++“How long has she been cheating on you?”
+++++“Four months and thirteen days that I know of.”
+++++“So why am I here?” the man asked.
+++++“You ain’t figured it out yet?” Tony shook his head. “Man, you’re stupider than concrete.”
+++++“She’s your wife.” The man looked toward the door. “I didn’t know.”
+++++“Now you do,” Tony said.
+++++Before the man could make a move, a gun burped under the table and a bullet enter the man’s gut. He raised a bloodied hand as a second bullet joined the first. His hand dropped like it was weighed down. His shoulders slumped, and his torso bent to one side.
+++++Tony walked to the front of the room and placed the gun and a Benjamin on the bar. The bartender put the bill in his shirt pocket and the gun under the counter.
+++++“I’ll see everything gets taken care of, kid.”
+++++“Thanks, Uncle Frank. See you around.”
+++++Tony nodded three times to Molly and left the bar to go home to his wife.

 

BIO:

Jim Harrington discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His recent stories have appeared in Microstory a Week, Flashes in the Dark, UnCut, Powder Burn Flash, Thrillers, Killers N Chillers, and others. Jim’s Six Questions For . . . blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

Victoria’s Even Bigger Secret by Cheryl Anne Gardner

Posted: 14th March 2012 by Old Seth in Cheryl Anne Gardner, Fiction, Victoria's Even Bigger Secret
Tags: ,
2
Sometimes my cleavage gets in the way. I know I know. Sing me a sob story, but it’s true. I can’t always tell if my fly is undone, or if there’s toilet paper stuck to my shoe, and it takes a wish and a prayer to find a suitable seat on the train where you’re not rubbing against someone in an inappropriate manner. My boyfriend said, “The aftershocks rattled his brain” when we made love, and then I’d pass out cold, and he’d light an incense stick and let it burn between them cause he said the room smelled like flap sweat. I have hot ash scars on my chest to prove it. One of these days, I’m going to stick firecrackers in his ass-cheeks and light him up while he’s sleeping in the cheap motel room he always takes me to. No one will notice with all the gunshots ricocheting off the cars in the parking lot. He’s not really mean, my boyfriend, once you get to know him. He has a hearsay history of violence: spring rage chaos and polka dot blotter extremes. He’s a backdoor gangsta now, all cat claws and camp, dealing a marked deck to the strip-club counselors, waiting out their fortunes in the mirrored velvet. He said he was built to bounce heads on concrete. I believed him, even if no one else did.
+++++Once a month, he’d go through the motions: “Convict,” his parole officer would call him, to which “hard knocks,” he’d reply, and then, later, he’d curse my double Ds for knocking over his beer. If I had a ladder, I might climb it and hang myself by the nipples from the electrical wires adjacent to my fourth floor patio, hoping they and all the flabby skin attached to them would just rip right off. He said my tits were to blame for the fights and the bruises. Said I was just a tramp with a park side view and a short commute when all he had was a brick wall and an alley. All I know about views is that the paint’s chipping on the ceiling, and the palm trees behind the couch are fake, like those boxed potatoes he loves so much that would crust up in his beard for a week. It made his face rough, but he’d just yell over my chest and tell me to “shut up, hang on, and ride it out.”
+++++In the evenings, after he was through with me, I’d take a bath, but could never reach my legs to shave them, so I’d lie there, watching my breasts flap and swish around in the steamy water and wonder how much it would hurt if I just sliced them off.
Bio:
Cheryl Anne Gardner is a writer of dark, disturbing art-house novellas and abstract flash fiction. She is an Indie advocate, and prefers to read out-of-the-mainstream Indie published works, foreign translations, and a bit of philosophy. She lives with her husband and ferrets on the east coast USA, and she likes to eat lint and play with sharp objects. You can find more of her work at Twisted Knickers Publications and at various online flash journals.

Cold Beer by Townsend Walker

Posted: 8th March 2012 by Craig in Townsend Walker
Tags: ,
3

Last night Marlene walked into the cantina.  Of course it wasn’t her, couldn’t of been, but looked a lot like her: blonde ponytail, crooked half smile.
+++++Hard for Jack, seeing her at Pedro’s.  A dive on the beach, sitting on stilts, thatched roof, colored bead curtains, a shorted-out neon sign that only managed the P and o’.
+++++Jack sat in a wobbly chair near the front door; hollow cheeked, veined complexion, slack blue eyes, hit-and-run blonde beard.  He and Enrique had been crowding the table with beer bottles and butts.  What they did most nights, if they weren’t out fishing.
+++++When Jack arrived in Cabo, he planned to stay no more than a month.  He hung on and eventually cobbled together a shack  at the edge of the barrio with rusted sheet metal, some tarred planks from the pier and plastic sheeting.  Enrique showed him where to find the stuff and helped lug it up the hill.  The shack kept the rain out. Good.  And the heat in.  Bad. That was two years ago.  He could go back if he wanted.  Hard to get started though.  He got up at noon.  Down to the cantina for a drink and a bite, another drink.  Well, certainly couldn’t leave at three.  Heat.  But then you didn’t want to start after six, especially since the next town was a couple of hundred miles away and only desert in between.
+++++Her image never changed.  Marlene.  It was because of her son they’d met, a bright towhead, short and wiry.  Jack taught fifth grade at Highland Elementary in Visalia.  Thomas didn’t mix much with the other kids, picked on a lot.  He watched over the boy in the school yard.  Didn’t stop every tussle, just the ones where Thomas faced off with more than one kid.  Got to learn how to get tough, but you don’t need to be maimed in the process.
+++++Thomas lived with his mother, but hadn’t met her; no father around.  She didn’t have time for the parent-teacher conferences: classes during the day, work at night.  They’d handled it on the phone.  Few formalities; only: How’s Thomas doing?  What does he need to do to bring up his English grades?  Okay, I’ll see it gets done.
+++++Last day of school Thomas brought in a note from his mother.  She wanted to show appreciation for taking care of her son.  Didn’t want to do it sooner, while her son was his student, but now.  Could he come over for dinner Sunday?  There’d be the three of them.
+++++He put on slacks and a sports coat and drove out to a housing development just north of town.  Sort of raw feel to it, sawn ends of lumber everywhere, newly set concrete and roof nails still shiny.  Lawns coming in.
+++++Thomas and his mother were at the door waiting for him.  He’d met her before, at the Spice 1 Club, the kittenish one called Nikki.  He’d gone there for a bachelor party for one of his ski buddies.  This evening she wore a buttoned-up print blouse, tan chino skirt, ballet slippers, blonde hair pulled back and a shy smile.
+++++“Pleased to meet you Ms Brown.  I’ve enjoyed having Thomas as a student.”
+++++“Call me Marlene.  He says without you he’d probably be three inches shorter.”
+++++“Reckon everybody needs a bit of taking care of some time in their life.”
+++++They went through the house which had been furnished by the same people Jack used, Ikea, but his was raw and jangly, too-bright reds and blues; hers was matched browns and comfortable.  In the back, a small patio, a postage stamp lawn and beds of multi color pansies closed in by a pine pole fence.  Heat waves rising from the grill.  Jack tossed a Frisbee with Thomas while she cooked.  Steaks, baked potatoes and salad, strawberries and ice cream for desert.
+++++She kept the conversation on him.  Where he’d grown up: Santa Rosa, where he went to college: University of Nevada, Reno, how he ended up in Visalia: best job offer he’d gotten.  He’d majored in math in college.  Teaching paid off his student loans until he figured out something else.
+++++“I like the people here, low key, friendly,” he said.  “And there’s Bear Mountain and Tahoe for skiing.”
+++++“Skiing!  I love to ski,” Thomas cut in.
+++++“You’ve been once,” his mother reminded him, “and fell down ten times.”
+++++“Yeah, but I still like it.  Maybe next year I can get lessons.”
+++++Jack thought about offering to take him.  He liked the kid, Marlene was easy to be with and he wished he’d had some chances as a kid.  He was four when his folks broke up, resented the hell out of both of them for leaving him, raised by an aunt, in and out of trouble.  Timing didn’t seem right to say anything to Thomas.
+++++He asked Marlene about herself but all he got was that she’d moved from the L.A. area a couple of years ago.  Visalia was a good place for kids and gave her the chance to study nursing at College of the Sequoias.
+++++Thomas started yawning and his mother sent him off to bed.  She wrapped him in her arms and embarrassed him with a big sloppy kiss.  When he came over to Jack, he didn’t know what to do and they ended up in a hug that was more angles than curves.
+++++Next day he went for a hike in nearby Sequoia Park.  Morning was foggy, no one around.  He passed through the oak stands, trudging uphill along Ladybug Trail, mist hanging in the upper branches, Spanish moss grazing his face, Marlene’s lips on his cheek as they’d said good-by.
+++++He got lost in his thoughts and what he knew about her.  Until a week later.  Ran into her at the hardware store.  In cut-offs, dirty sneakers and grease smudges on her face.
+++++“Damn sink backed up and the landlord is out of town.”
+++++“Can I help?”
+++++Back at her place Jack crawled under the sink to check the drain.
+++++“Hey, move over.  I want to see what you’re doing.  You might not be around the next time something goes.”
+++++A whiff of perfume invaded the small space as she wedged herself in beside him.  He showed her the coupling nuts to loosen, then scooted out.
+++++Two minutes later.  “Okay, new one’s on; come back in for a check.”
+++++Jack squeezed in beside her, closer maybe than necessary, “Hey fellow, you’re in my space.”
+++++He made the pretext of a thorough inspection, tightening up the nuts, testing the pipe.
+++++They squirmed back out, stood up, looked at one another.  He reached for her, but she turned, went to the refrigerator, pulled out a couple of beers and led him out to the patio.
+++++“Thomas is going to be sorry he missed you.  He’s off with the scout troop camping in the Sierras.”
+++++They sat sipping their beer listening to the whirr of lawnmowers and the buzz of hedge clippers from the neighbors’ yards.
+++++“Nice being here.”
+++++Jack stared at the fence, thinking about her. His last relationship had ended a year ago; it took all of two months to go from inferno to ash.
+++++“Good to have the company.”
+++++Marlene lay back on the chaise, legs stretched out, eyes closed, but he noticed every now and again she glanced over and her face wrinkled up.
+++++“Hey, what’s the matter?”
+++++“Nothing.”  She turned away.
+++++“You usually frown while you’re drinking beer?”
+++++She faced him, tears on her cheeks.
+++++“I’d hoped to tell you before you found out.”
+++++“Tell me what?”
+++++“You were in the front row in a yellow Hawaiian shirt about a year ago.”
+++++Jack tried to appear clueless.  Her eyes wouldn’t let him.
+++++“Yeah, I saw you dance.”
+++++“That’s not the kind of person I am.”  She straightened up in the chair.  “But the money lets us live here.  Thomas thinks I work night shift at the hospital.”
+++++He moved over and put his arm around her.
+++++She’d been sixteen.  Classic tale of the cheerleader and captain of the football team who split with his scholarship to Ohio State when she was three months pregnant.
+++++“The easiest thing would have been an abortion.  But I could feel him growing inside me. When his heart beat the first time I knew he was mine, mine to take care of.”
+++++“I wasn’t assuming anything, okay?  The person I know is a good mom with some dirt on her face.”
+++++Her parents threw her out of the house.  Stayed with a friend who’d just had a baby.  Waitresses, lookers, good tips, surviving.  Then her friend found a topless place in Orange, Marlene followed, real money.
+++++“My friend got into drugs, Thomas was about to go into kindergarten, so I moved up here to raise him.”
+++++Jack’s miracle started that afternoon.  That’s how he thought about time with Marlene.  A rough start though.  A couple of weeks after they fixed the sink, a party at one of his buddies’ houses.  People spread all over the small ranch house and into the yard, beer floating in ice tubs, ribs in the Weber, guacamole dip and taco chips on every table.  End of the night, one of the guys who’d been at the Spice 1 Club with Jack recognized Marlene.  Beer-fueled Pete shouted out, “Folks, this here is Nikki, star of the Spice 1 up in Fresno.  Lady knows how to get a party going. Why don’t you do that dance for us and show us those fine titties of yours.”
+++++Marlene blushed and turned away.  Pete’s date clapped her hand over his mouth, only to have it ripped away.
+++++“Shut up Pete,” Jack said.
+++++“Why?  I want some action.”
+++++Jack stepped into his face and cold cocked him.  Pete’s head bounced off the floor.
+++++Jack pulled Marlene outside.  “Sorry, that won’t happen again.  Not as long as you’re with me.”
+++++“Honey, thank you for defending my honor, but this isn’t going to work, you and me, if you beat up on every guy who makes a smart remark.  I can handle it.  Promise.”
+++++Jack sputtered.
+++++“Take me home; I bet Pete calls in the morning.”
+++++They married at the end of August and he moved into her place.  She quit the Club and went to school full time.  Two years later, a degree and ER nurse at Tulare.  Jack decided fifth grade was the sweet spot in education.  “The kids do what you tell them and want to learn something besides.”  Went on to get a masters in curriculum and instruction at UofP.
+++++Ski trips, hiking and horseback riding punctuated the next seven years; the three of them.  The only fights were about Thomas: He needs to be studying more.  Give the kid a break, it’s Lakers/Celtics tonight.
+++++The night Thomas graduated from high school, honors and a scholarship to Claremont,  they picked him up from his graduation party and drove down to Vegas for their own celebration.  Next night Jack won big.  They packed up and headed north.  Talked about what they’d do with the cash: forty-five thou.  Jack and Thomas ran through a list of boats, ski gear and electronics they would buy.  Marlene let them spin.
+++++“Enough of that you guys.  What about a trip to Africa, climb Kilimanjaro.  You claim the Sierras are too tame.  Nineteen thousand feet satisfy you?
+++++“For starters.”
+++++“After Kilimanjaro we’ll chase gazelle across the Serengeti on horseback.”
+++++Jack leaned over and kissed her left cheek.  Thomas popped up from the back seat and kissed her right one.
+++++Highway 99, ten miles south of Visalia, Marlene and Thomas dozed; Jack hummed Over the Rainbow and chewed gum to stay awake.  A broadening glow of light lined the crest of the mountains to the east.  The road was in the dark.  Other side of the road, coming toward him, he saw a truck swerve.  Shards of divider-concrete crashed against his windshield, the wide eyes and toothless gasp of the driver, the chrome grille, the flood lights inside the car and Marlene’s scream.
+++++Jack sputtered awake, toppled on his chair and rubbed his eyes.  Enrique was there next to him.  “You still want this beer?”
+++++Jesus.  From such happiness, deep bone, deep gut happiness to nothing.  God, please let me forget, goddamnit let me forget.  Bring on the OxyContin, bring on every beer Enrique can find.  I can’t go back.  I had a miracle.  I’ve wrung Visalia dry. 

The Gun By His Bed by Chris Rhatigan

Posted: 5th March 2012 by Craig in Chris Rhatigan
Tags: , ,
14

Richard awoke in darkness. He panicked as one does in the middle of the night. Who was he? Where was he?
+++++He pieced together the facts of his existence. First off, he was in bed. That he was sure of. Janet and his son were at her parents’ house for the weekend.
+++++He breathed again. All this was good.
+++++A sound – downstairs or outside.
+++++This was unusual. They lived on a cul-de-sac quieter than a cemetery. But no cause for fear. Probably just a raccoon digging through the trash or a car door slamming.
+++++Still…
+++++More sounds, quieter sounds. Could be any number of things. Maybe mice scratching the walls. Or his overactive imagination.
+++++Still…
+++++Maybe he left the door unlocked. He wanted to remember the satisfying moment when the deadbolt thunked into place and sealed his world off from the one outside. But that moment eluded him.
+++++He wouldn’t have thought twice about it if they had just installed the home alarm system he wanted. But Janet had to interrogate every expense.
+++++Richard removed the warm comforter. Picked up his glasses off the nightstand and opened a drawer. The gun felt cold and strange in his hands. He put on a pair of slippers. Crept across the hardwood floor and down the carpeted hallway. Stopped at the top of the stairs. Listened.
+++++Yes! There it was. The noises of another human. A nocturnal creature moving objects around in the dark. He exhaled for a long time. Filled his lungs with air.
+++++He moved down the stairs slower than anything he had done before, breath trapped in his lungs. He made no sound at all. Just needed to make it to the light switch at the bottom.
+++++Slivers of moonlight illuminated the family room. A shadow bounced back and forth. Maybe the thief was looking for jewelry or credit cards.
+++++Richard couldn’t help but think how proud Janet would be of him. Of course, she would be furious when she found out he bought a gun without her knowledge. But if he stopped a burglar, how could she argue with –
+++++Light filled the room. Richard’s eyes adjusted and he realized the burglar had turned on a lamp.
+++++He didn’t look at all like he was supposed to. This burglar would be as comfortable hopping on the train to Midtown as robbing a house.
+++++“Thought I heard you coming down the stairs,” the intruder said. “Nice pajamas.”
+++++Richard suddenly remembered to lift the gun. “Hold it right there!”
+++++“Now why’d you have to bring that thing?”
+++++“Shut up!”
+++++“Or what?”
+++++Richard’s stupid glasses had slid down his nose. He pushed them back up. “Or – or I’ll shoot!”
+++++The burglar leaned against the back of the sofa. “You want to get blood all over this nice couch and these lovely hardwood floors?” He picked up a framed photo of the family in front of the Grand Canyon. “I don’t think she’d be too happy about that.”
+++++“Well then, I’ll call the police.”
+++++“With what? Do you even know where your phone is?”
+++++“It’s…”
+++++“No, you’re not going to do that either. Here’s what’s going to happen. What’s your name?”
+++++“What?”
+++++“What’s your name?”
+++++“I’m not telling you that!”
+++++“Just your first name. Why does it matter?”
+++++He sighed. “It’s Richard.”
+++++“Ok, Richard. I’m going to approach you, take the gun, and unload it. Then I’m going to give it back to you. All right?”
+++++Richard tried to control his shaking his hands. “No, no! Not all right. Listen –”
+++++The burglar slid over and extracted the gun from Richard’s grip. Racked the slide and a bullet popped out. The magazine clattered to the floor. He handed the weapon back to Richard as he said he would.
+++++“There we go. Much better.” He put a hand on Richard’s shoulder and gestured to a rolling chair in front of a desk. “Now, you take a seat right over here. Would you like some ice water? Maybe a cup of tea to calm your nerves?”
+++++Richard noticed his underarms were damp. His blood pressure kept ticking up. Still, he couldn’t admit anymore weakness than he already had. “No, no.”
+++++“You’re ok then?”
+++++“Yes.”
+++++The burglar crouched and looked him in the eye. “Good. Now I’m trying to avoid some very dangerous people. I need a car. I see that your keys are on this desk, so I’m going to take yours. You have two options. You can call the police right after I leave, and maybe they’ll track me down. If they do, I’ll make sure to trash your car. But if you wait to call the police until noon tomorrow, I’ll leave it at a rest stop, good as new with a full tank of gas. The police will probably find it soon thereafter. So, what’s your choice?”
+++++Richard didn’t want to make this decision. He stared at a moisture stain in the ceiling. Wondered where that came from and how he could solve it.
+++++“Either way, I’m taking it.” He grabbed the keys off the table and smiled. “I hope you make the smart decision.”
+++++The burglar left. Richard took off his glasses, put his head in his hands. He went to the kitchen, picked up the cordless phone.
+++++He listened to the dial tone for a while. Eventually he pressed the off button and made himself a cup of tea. Added cream and sugar and watched cable news for a half hour before going back to bed.
+++++He could still get five hours of sleep before he had to go to work. But how was he going to get there without his car?

Bio :

Chris Rhatigan is the author of Watch You Drown, a collection of noir stories from Pulp Metal Fiction available at Amazon and Amazon UK. He is also the editor of All Due Respect and the co-editor of the crime anthology Pulp Ink. He talks short crime fiction at Death by Killing.

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