A Revolutionary Act - Short story

Here is a brief excerpt from my newest short story, A Revolutionary Act.

He’d never been thrown out of a bar before. Asked to leave more than once, escorted to the sidewalk a time or two, but never physically tossed out the door. He had been punched in the face many times in his life and was once again reminded of what an unpleasant experience it was as he sat on the damp cement and held his coat sleeve to his nose. Feeling sufficiently debased, he struggled to his feet under the icy glare of a bouncer wearing a shirt shrink-wrapped around his bulky, chaotically tattooed body, standing under the bar canopy making sure the little piece of the planet he was hired to protect was not violated again by the most toxic reporter, ex-reporter, in the Chicago area, Joel Happling. Staggering down the street through the cool evening mist and cacophony of car horns, Joel kept a swollen eye out for a cab.
          A bag of frozen peas with an expiration date in Roman numerals lay draped over his battered face. The bleeding had stopped, but his head throbbed and he was waiting impatiently for the five ibuprofen to finally kick in. He lifted the peas long enough to check for new calls, but saw they were all from the strange area codes where only debt collectors lived. He stopped for a moment, his gaze lingering on his background photo of the snow-tipped Elkhorn Mountains in Montana, and he sighed longingly before gently laying the bag back down. He’d been fired that day from the Chicago Tribune for insubordination, and was admittedly grumpy when he entered O’Grady’s Tavern at three in the afternoon. Who should come in a few hours later but Thomas Castle, the Commissioner of Transportation who was under indictment for taking kickbacks as a result of Joel’s three-part series? Words were exchanged, punches flew, and he now lay in his bed unemployed, bruised and bloodied and probably facing a civil suit for assault. Before dozing off, he called his sister and left a message.

Read the entire story at They're Only Shadows.

Dark Soul - A short story

 

“I was paralyzed. It was as if I’d been duct taped to the mattress. All I could do was tilt my head up. I watched the shadow…thing, came out of the closet. It was a black, vapory figure like a man covered in smoke. I’m not religious, but it made me think of a dark spirit or soul, if that makes any sense. It didn’t actually walk, but glided, not like some cartoon ghost, but like…smoke or fog, rolling over the floor. It came close to me, then backed up, as if it was harassing me. And it held something in one hand, silvery, a knife, and then it showed it to me, like I was supposed to understand something.”

            “Tim, relax. You’ve got yourself tied up into a knot.”

            “Sorry.”

            “No. Don’t be sorry. Remember we talked about that? It’s okay to say what you’re feeling. You should never apologize for that.”

            “I have a hard time with that.”

            A soft dusky glow filled Dr. Gwen Sebastian’s office as she and Tim Hathaway discussed his dream. “It sounds very much like sleep paralysis,” she said.

            “Sleep paralysis?”

            “It’s a condition that some people experience while falling asleep or waking up. It’s a dream state, but one that is more intense than your normal nightmare and often mistaken for an actual event. There are some researchers who think alien abduction stories are related to sleep paralysis. But anyway, the condition seems to produce very similar experiences. Incapacitating fear, a threatening shadow figure. Sometimes it’s a person who sits on your chest and restricts your breathing so you feel like you are suffocating. It’s been recorded for centuries.”

            Tim leaned forward. “Really?”

            “Does that make you feel better?”

            “I guess it does. I mean, it seemed so real. You know? To learn that it’s an actual condition…yeah, that does make me feel better.”

            “Let me ask you something. Have you suffered any kind of emotional trauma recently? Sometimes this will trigger sleep paralysis.”

            “I’m in the middle of a very ugly divorce. We were only married three years, but it went downhill fast. Three year’s time and now we hate each other. All we do is argue. I’m having a difficult time handling the anger.” Tan, darkly handsome with a runner’s body, the twenty-five year old architect absently rubbed the back of his neck.

            “Okay. Let’s talk about that at our next session.”

             The traffic was heavy leaving Edina at 4:30. Tim wasn’t happy to see Elizabeth’s number show up on his phone.

            “Yeah,” he exhaled.

            “I’ve been asking you for a week to bring over the Buddha statue and my sister’s painting.”

            “The Buddha statue is a big deal. Did you convert recently?”

            “Why do you have to be such an asshole, Tim? It’s a simple request and we live ten minutes apart.”

“Saturday. I will bring everything over Saturday morning.”

Elizabeth disconnected and Tim dropped his phone onto the passenger’s seat as if it was burning his hand. “Fucking bitch,” he whispered.

As usual, the brief conversation with his soon-to-be ex-wife gurgled up like stomach acid throughout the evening. He’d never met anyone who could make him as mad as Elizabeth. She managed to find something buried deep in his subconscious that no one else had ever found, and push it and push it until he was raging with anger. It drove him to therapy. Even though they had been separated for six months, she was still an unwanted part of his life and the resentment flared like a severe allergic reaction every time they spoke. He poured a scotch around nine and watched part of an old Soprano’s episode before deciding sleep was the best way to forget.

The moment his eyes opened, the dark soul was hovering over him like a demonic surgeon examining a patient. There was a flash of silver and Tim watched a knife rise into the air, somehow attached to a dark appendage. Every muscle in his body clenched in terror as the knife came falling toward his abdomen, but it stopped at the last instant, and the smoke man seemed amused. Tim struggled, but was again unable to move at all. He’d never felt so helpless. The ephemeral being finally drifted away from the bed and dissolved through the door. Seconds, minutes, hours passed, still Tim could not move. His body shuddered when the shadow appeared again, only to return and become one with the darkness. Tim finally regained control of his muscles and ran to the bathroom, flipping on lights as he went, making it just in time to vomit in the toilet. 

            The first call from the office the next morning was to his therapist, begging for pills that would knock him out for the night. Not sleeping wasn’t an option. Tim’s partner in the firm, Grace Andersen, a tall, pale Nordic beauty who was the creative book end to his business skills, set a cup of coffee on his desk.

            “You look like you need this,” she said, sliding into a nearby chair and crossing her long legs. “More nightmares or did you take my advice and ask Xena the Warrior Princess across the hall out?”

            “Unfortunately it was nightmares. My therapist tells me it’s sleep paralysis. They’re dreams, but hyper real dreams where your body is paralyzed. Happened again last night.”

            “Ick. Sorry. Are you up for the presentation this morning or should we reschedule?”

            “No, I’ll be fine. Thanks for the coffee.”

            Grace got up. “I’ll bet Xena could scare off your worst nightmare.”

            “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Tim, smiling for the first time that day.

            The presentation went well although Grace did most of the heavy lifting. Feeling drained by the middle of the afternoon, Tim left early, picked up his sleeping pills from Target and headed home. The only fortunate result of the ongoing disputes with Elizabeth was that she moved in with her boyfriend shortly after the two split up and didn’t want the house. On the down side, the high mortgage payment for a Tudor cottage just a block from Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis was a shock to the pocketbook. Shoes off, coat on the floor, Tim took up residence on the couch in the living room with his laptop and a beer. Redditt, Boing Boing, Salon, American Architect, he clicked through his bookmarks finally stopping on one that caught his interest. The Star Tribune headline read, “Plymouth Couple Goes Missing.” The couple’s last name drew his attention. Lundgaard. It took him a moment of mental searching, but he remembered that Elizabeth’s boyfriend’s last name was Lundgaard. He scrolled down below the fold and there was a photo of Paul Lundgaard being interviewed. He called Elizabeth.

            “Is it Paul’s parents?” he asked.

            “Yes. He went over to see them this morning and they were just gone. Disappeared. The car’s there, their clothes are all there. The coffee pot was still warm.”

            “But—“

            “That’s all I know.”

            “I’m really sorry.”

            The strain was evident in her voice. “Thank you.”

            He stood next to the bed later than night, staring at the small white pill in his palm, silently enjoining it to work. He finally tossed it in his mouth and washed it down with water. Head on his pillow, reality melted away.

            He awoke to see silvery blades of moonlight stabbing into the room between the closed blinds. Panic shivered through him as he realized he couldn’t move. The pill had not worked. There was movement to his right and then the dark soul appeared above him, holding the knife over his face, mocking him, gaining strength from his fear. His throat grew tight. Tim tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t. It’s control clearly established, the smoky image slowly dissipated.

The alarm went off at 6:30. Groggy, sludge running through his veins, Tim pulled himself out of bed, lumbered to the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. On his way to the shower, he glanced at himself in the large mirror over the sink and came to a stop. Looking closer, there were several red blotches and smears on his face. It was blood. He inspected himself, his nose, but found no injury to account for it. The pillow was also smeared with red streaks. Visions of his dream returned and the knife floating over his face, and the realization was terrifying. Was he still dreaming? He was starting to question reality.

            Slipping into the Saturday morning routine was slight relief. Coffee and a bagel for breakfast. After that, he pulled his laptop up onto the bed and began surfing. Almost reluctantly, he clicked on the Star Tribune site. His phone rang. It was Elizabeth and she was hysterical.

            “Oh God, Tim. Please, I need you to come over.”

            “What’s going—?“

            “Paul… he’s gone.”

            Fifteen minutes later Tim turned the corner and saw several police cruisers parked in front of the Spanish style home. He parked as close as he could and approached the house. After getting past a uniformed officer, he finally found Elizabeth in the kitchen, sobbing and frightened. She threw her arms around him and clung like a vine.

            “I can’t believe this is happening,” she cried.

            He offered a comforting touch without being affectionate. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

            Realizing her emotions were clouding her reflexive resentment, she pulled away and sat on a stool, draping her body on the counter, sobbing as she tried to talk. “He went for his morning run, just like every day, but….” She started crying again.

            From Elizabeth and a sympathetic detective, he learned that when Paul didn’t return from his run this morning, Elizabeth walked his usual route and found blood spatters on the trail and his water bottle along a wooded path near Lake Minnetonka. The man, however, had vanished. The police were not optimistic about his fate.

An hour later, a sedated Elizabeth sleeping, Tim walked past the ambulance and police cruisers toward his car, contemplating the impossible, that there was some kind of link between his dream of the dark soul and the disappearance of Paul and his parents. It was a ridiculous notion, and one he tried to brush aside, but like a stubborn gnat, it wouldn’t let him alone. That night he took two pills before bed.

Awake, paralyzed and furious, he struggled harder than he ever had to break the binding paralysis, but it was no use. The dark soul floated at the foot of the bed, bringing the knife blade down in arching, cutting motions as if he was demonstrating something. It had no discernable face, but he knew it was taunting him, and that something very bad was about to happen. When the entity finally left, he focused every electrical impulse, every synapse, every iota of energy in him toward breaking his invisible bondage. It was in his mind, he kept telling himself. There were no real ropes tying him down, no duct tape, no glue. Then, he felt the change happen. Energy started flowing through his body like an electrical current. In a moment he was able to swing an arm, then the other, then he realized his body was free from the frozen state that had held him captive. He sat on the edge of the bed examining his hands and arms, not entirely sure he was awake, yet amazed at how good it felt to be free.

There was a thud downstairs. The dark soul? At that moment, he turned the spigot and let his anger pore out and fill his body in preparation for interacting with the being that had tormented him night after night. He reached under the bed and grabbed his metal burglar bat. The rubber handle felt good, and he rapped the business end into his palm several times. It sounded good, too, that wet slap of solid material meeting flesh he’d heard so many times in fights as a kid. Fist meeting face. He hadn’t enjoyed the acrid taste of blood in his mouth for a very long time. Another vague noise. He turned toward the door with a sense of anticipation. Now that he could move, it was time to fight back and end the nightmare.

Down the stairs he crept, carefully placing his bare feet on the edges of the steps to avoid creaking. He moved cautiously through the dark rooms on the main floor, bat poised in striking position. As he neared the threshold to the kitchen, he caught a dark blur in his peripheral vision, near the door to the basement. Of course, he thought, lure me into your darkness. Before heading down, he went to the kitchen and found the flashlight under the sink. Filled more with anticipation than fear, he opened the basement door and started down. With each step he ran the light beam around the room like a nervous security guard. At the bottom, darkness enveloped him He swung the thin white beam around, cutting through the black until it reached the far end of the basement where it illuminated glimpses of a hellish human diorama.

Four battered and beaten bodies sat slumped in lawn chairs. His flashlight panned from one pale and bloodied face to another. Paul Lundgaard, Jerry and Sharon Lundgaard, and now, Elizabeth Hathaway were positioned in a semi circle together, resembling tired campers around the evening fire. On the floor in the middle of the grisly audience was a small stone Buddha. Oily black blood pooled below their feet. The close air reeked of human waste and decomposition.

Paralyzed once again, Tim inhaled the horror before him with each gasp, unable to speak, let alone scream. The shrill cry of approaching sirens grew louder and swirled around him like a slowly contracting spider’s web. It was then that he felt a stickiness between his fingers and turned the flashlight on himself. His hands, clothes and the end of the bat were covered in a thick red coating of still drying blood. Looking behind him, the light followed a trail of glistening red footprints to the spot where he now stood. The dark soul had returned.

If you liked this story, please check out other stories I've written at They're Only Shadows.

           

           

New story at "They're Only Shadows"

I've posted a new short story titled The Eyes of John Abbott at They're Only Shadows. Here's a brief excerpt:

Jennifer ran through the litany of the odd events of the past few months with Clio nodding knowingly and shaking her head in disbelief in equal measures. When Jennifer finished, Clio took off her glasses and pinched the space between her eyes as if physically trying to contain what she just heard. Leaning to one side on an elbow, she met Jennifer’s expectant glance. “I believe you are under attack from a demonic presence.”

The earth paused in its orbit for a moment, rivers reversed course, and Jennifer tried to maintain decorum, but could not. A messy, blustery laugh escaped despite her best efforts. She covered her mouth to try and contain the damage, but it was too late. Clio’s lips pursed and her body language became defensive.

“I’m sorry. So sorry, but demons?”

“You asked.”

“About the symbols. What they mean.”

“Bloody handprints, the all-seeing eye, the sacrificial animal, a dark man hanging around…they clearly point to the presence of an evil entity.”

“But Aunt Clio, I don’t believe in that stuff. There’s nothing that I’ve told you about that couldn’t be done by a human being. I mean, this hooded person has been seen on the property twice now. I don’t know why, but he’s trying to scare me.”

“Are you absolutely sure that’s all it is?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound dismissive.”

Clio looked down at her lap with a knowing smile. “The wine is nice. Could I get a little more?”

Trust Issues - A Short Story

A police siren screaming from the highway gradually pulled him up from the darkness. As he drifted to the surface, his phone rang and he quickly achieved basic, yet foggy, consciousness. The large, lumpy mass that was Wayne Manning shifted under the bedspread and a pale arm emerged. He knocked over an empty beer can searching the top of the bedside table for his phone. “Yeah?” he asked, rubbing his swollen eyes with the back of a tattooed hand. It was 1:32 a.m.

            “Is this Fall City Towing?” asked a hesitant woman’s voice.

            “Yeah. It is. You need a tow?”

            “I do. Can you come out tonight?”

            “Yes, Ma’am. Were a 24-hour service.”

           “That’s awesome. My car’s stuck in the mud and I—“

            “Sure. Give me your address and I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

            Pulling on yesterday’s oily clothes, Wayne stumbled around the bedroom as rain pelted the trailer’s thin metal roof. It had been pouring steadily for two days and he was getting more and more calls from motorists losing the traction battle to mud-covered roads and driveways. The trailer reeked of pot smoke and dishes left too long in the sink, but owning one of only two tow truck businesses in the Fall City, Washington area meant being available at all hours and sleeping and smoking in between gigs. He was still high and pissed at having to go out in a downpour, but he couldn’t afford not to. As he passed by the photo of his three children mugging like monkeys on top of the dresser, he shook his head. He loved them but they were draining him dry. He slid a joint down his shirt pocket, picked up his coat from another pile of clothes and grabbed his truck keys.

            Windshield wipers slapped at the deluge with little effect. The call came from a rural area northeast of Fall City just up in the Cascades foothills off of 356th Drive. He’d scored some peyote buttons a few years ago from someone up in those hills. Woke up a day later shirtless in a porta potty. A white mist hung in the clammy night air just above the ground and he strained to find the Blakely mailbox through the gloomy torrent. Soon he turned right onto a snake back drive leading to a non-descript ranch bookmarked by sagging outbuildings. It was clear this wasn’t a working farm. The target vehicle was clearly the Chevy Tahoe buried up to its axles in brown muck. As he pulled into position, a woman came trotting from the house pulling a thin jacket around her for warmth. She was petite and pretty with dark brown hair jumbled up on the top of her head. He stepped out of the cab to greet her.

            “Evening. This the car?”

            “Really? What do you think?” she snapped, holding a hand across her brow to keep the rain out of her eyes. “Sorry. Just a little pissed about all of this. Janice. I need it pulled up onto the gravel road.”

            “Wayne. No problem. It’ll just take a minute. You should wait in the house.”
            “Okay,” she replied, although her tone and body language expressed uncertainty. “I’ll be right inside when you’re done.”

            “Sure. Is it unlocked?”

            It took less than five minutes for Wayne to pull the SUV up on solid ground. He glanced toward the house as he unhitched the vehicle and could see Janice standing at the kitchen window watching his progress. She met him at the front door and ushered him in. He was a thick, broad man with a dense brown beard and his appearance alone could be intimidating to some, but he didn’t get any of those vibes from Janice.

            “Here,” she said, ushering him into the kitchen and then a chair at the table. “Sorry I barked at you. Can I get you anything? Coffee? A beer?”

            “Thank you, but I should be getting back. More than a few people around here in your same predicament.”
            “Right. Sure. So how much?”

            “Normally, it would be $90, but it wasn’t anything so let’s say $75. I can take a credit card if you want.”

            “Okay. Yeah. No. I’ll pay in cash, but I left my purse out in the car. Can you just wait here for a minute?”

            “Sure. Not a problem.”

            Janice pulled on her coat again and walked out the front door. Glancing around, Wayne’s attention was drawn to a counter to his left, where a purse was laying on it as plain as day. Before this contradictory data could be processed, a dripping Janice came back through the front door and made her way to the kitchen. She held out a soggy $100 bill. “Thanks so much for your help. The rest is a tip.”

            Wayne shrugged and stood up. “That’s very generous. Thank you.” She smiled the way a hostess smiles waiting for the last party guest to leave. Wayne walked to the door and stopped at the threshold. “Thanks again.”

           “Okay. Good night.”

           As he sloshed back to the truck, he was focused on the woman’s Tahoe. She’d lied about her purse, and when she came back from the car, she had a $100 bill. He pulled his tired, wet body up into the truck cab and sat holding the wheel, staring into the rain. “She has money in her car,” he whispered to himself. “Maybe serious money.”

            The rain continued its incessant drum roll on the metal exterior of Wayne’s trailer as he sat in his recliner after a shower. A Bud in one hand, joint in the other, he alternated chemicals for the next fifteen minutes as he contemplated the attractive young woman who had cash hidden in her car and what, if anything, he should do about it. The broken blinds, stained carpet and general stench of near poverty called out to him with the answer. The three kids in the photograph on his dresser called out to him with the answer. Even the rain called out to him with the answer. It’s dirty money. It has to be. No one keeps $100 bills in a car that isn’t dirty money. And because it’s dirty money, it’s up for grabs, he thought, flicking an ash off of his distended stomach. That’s a law of nature. He drained his beer, tossed the last pot ember into the kitchen sink and picked up his coat and cap.

            After passing the Blakely mailbox, he found a set of old farm tracks heading to nowhere and turned off the road, pulling the tow truck as far as he could into the chest high bramble. Confident it couldn’t be easily seen from the road, he got out clutching his small tool set and began trudging across the muddy fallow field toward the yellow lights of the ranch house.

            Having fallen several times during the journey, Wayne was a mud-caked mess when he finally reached the SUV, and could easily be mistaken for a small Sasquatch. He slowly crept around the vehicle until he was kneeling in shadows at the rear door, keeping one eye on the house, and the other on his packet of lock picking tools lying at his feet. Just as he slid a thin metal hook into the lock, white headlights swept across the front yard of the house and a vehicle clattered along the gravel in his direction. Wayne crouched down trying to become the smallest ball of human he could as the lights grew brighter. The beams bounced up and down and finally a glistening BMW came to a crunchy stop in front of the house. Through the curtain of rain, he could see a man in a dark suit get out of the driver’s side and walk briskly up to the front door, where Janice let him in.

            This was an unwelcome twist. He shivered inside his clinging, cold clothes and finally decided he should keep working the lock and let the little domestic drama go on undisturbed. Despite the cold and dampness, his fingers deftly worked the thin metal rods until finally he felt a satisfying release…then there was a gunshot.

            Muscles tensed instantly. “Holy shit,” he sputtered, dropping a pick into the mud. He knew he had to get out of there in a hurry, so he turned the handle and opened the door just enough to slide his torso in and start feeling around. He slapped his hands over every surface, then lifted up the false bottom and searched the dark cavity around the spare tire, but he found nothing. She’d moved the damn money. He angrily slammed the door shut, which set off the car alarm. Christ. He rested his head on his forearm in defeat. There was no use hiding now, and trying to run across the muddy field to his truck could get him a bullet in the back, so he pushed himself up and walked slowly toward the house. Shortly, the door opened and Janice’s silhouette stood in the threshold.

            “Who’s there?” she shouted.

            Wayne stopped, not even sure how to answer the question. “Uh, It’s Wayne, the tow truck guy from earlier.”

            She held up a hand and the wailing car siren stopped, followed by a few seconds of rain-splattery silence. “I have a gun.”

            “Yeah. I know.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

            He took a deep confessional breath. “I came back to rob you, but then I heard the shot.”

            The edge in her voice ticked up a notch. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

            “I suspected you had money that you didn’t want anyone to know about by the way you paid me for the tow, and it appears from subsequent events I was right. Is he dead?”

            “Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you dead, you fucking thief.”

            “I ain’t stole nothing yet because you were smart enough to move the money, but I’d say the reason you shouldn’t shoot me is that I can help you with this mess.”

            Her voice was now only a decibel or two under a scream. “You came here to rob me. Why would I trust anything you say?”

            “Okay. You’re right, but I didn’t rob you. And you got a gun. But for a small portion of the money that you stole or embezzled or sold drugs for, I can help you by getting rid of the body and the car. I know this country like the back of my hand, and I can make things disappear if I want to. If you shoot me and just leave, you won’t get very far. Now, you can tell me to go fuck myself and deal with all of this yourself or you can let me help.”

            “I should trust a tow truck driver who just tried to rip me off.”

            Wayne wiped rain from his face. “Now there’s no need to denigrate what I do for a living. I’m just saying that if you shoot me it’s only going to make things worse for you. If you let me help you, it might make things better.”

            After several beats, her dark visage shifted slowly away from the door. “Come in here, but don’t think I won’t shoot you.”

            Muddy, dripping and shivering, Wayne stood in the living room looking like something that had just crawled out of a hole. He caught the towel thrown to him by Janice and gratefully wiped his face and head. To his left, he could see the legs of the man she’d shot in the hallway. There were papers with columns of numbers lying on the floor around the body as well, telling him that was probably some kind of embezzlement scheme gone wrong. What was interesting to him was that Janice was not shaking or showing any physical signs of fear. Her hands were steady. Eyes were clear. She was pretty and poised, even with a gun pointed at him.

            “Let’s talk about your offer for a minute,” she said, leaning back against a bookshelf. “What’s going to keep you from going directly to the police or coming back here with a weapon?”

            “I could go to the police, but I have no idea where you put the money, so I get nothing out of that deal. Even if I wanted to take the time to search the place, it’ll be a crime scene and the police would probably find it before I did. As for getting a gun, I’m just not a violent person. I smoke a lot of pot and play the guitar badly and yes, I am a thief, but violent, no. Besides, you killed one guy already, I’m sure you wouldn’t have any qualms about killing another if you had to.”

            “You’re pretty good at thinking on your feet, I’ll give you that. And if I were to throw the money in my car and take off while you’re gone…?

            “You could do that, but the police would get an anonymous tip about a car and body at the bottom of a lake and instead of just being wanted for embezzling you’d eventually be wanted for murder. You’d have to run pretty hard and fast to get out of that one. Oh, and once our deal is consummated, then I become an accessory, so you don’t have to worry about me calling anyone after the fact.”

            Janice smiled and shook her head. “Damn, we would have made a good team. Okay, Wayne the proud tow truck driver. You’ve got a deal.”

            Back out in the rain, Wayne retrieved his truck, hitched up the man’s car and came back into the house with a dark tarp. He wrapped up the body in the tarp and dragged it out the door. Breathing heavily, he reentered a few minutes later and met Janice coming out of the kitchen with a glass of wine.

            “Would you like some chardonnay?” she asked.

            “Tempting, but I’d better get busy. It’ll take me a at least an hour to do this.”

            She raised the glass in a toast. “See you soon, then.”

            Wayne smiled weakly through his matted beard and turned toward the door.

            After cleaning up the man’s blood, bleaching the area and then burying the handgun in the middle of a nearby thicket, Janice showered and put on clean clothes. Wayne had been gone 30 minutes, and she knew she couldn’t waste any more time. With grunts and bumps, she lugged a large military style canvas bag up from the basement and managed to get it into the back of her Tahoe, stowing it in the cavity beneath the flooring. Despite Wayne’s warning, there wouldn’t be any hard evidence that she murdered anybody. Besides, she left $500 on the kitchen table for him. She’d always been a gambler and she bet herself that he’d take the money and keep his mouth shut. Starting the ignition, she gave the now dark house one last look before rolling out to the driveway and up the hill to the highway.

            Familiar chimes reached out for him once again. Wayne groaned and located the phone, which told him it was 5:30 a.m.

            “Yeah?” he said, trying to accelerate cognition by blinking his eyes wildly.

            “Hey Wayne, it’s Bill Lance from the sheriff’s department. Listen, can you come out and take a car to our impound lot?”

            “Sure. Just give me directions.”

            The sun was starting to leak through dark clouds over the horizon as he drove east on Highway 26, highlighting the fact that his windshield wipers should have been replaced months ago. After a small rise, he saw the knot of police, highway patrol cars and an ambulance off on the shoulder and shortly he eased his truck just in front of the Chevy Tahoe that was the center of attention. He slid out of the driver’s seat and shook hands with a serious Sgt. Lance.

            “Staying out of trouble, Wayne?”

            “Oh, you know. Working at it. What the hell’s going on, Bill? Drug bust?”

            “Not this time. Got a murder on our hands.”

            “You’re shitting me.”

            “Found the body of a dead man lying on the floor behind the front seats covered with a tarp. Anonymous tip. Woman did it. She’s in the back of my car.”

            Wayne leaned around Lance and made eye contact with Janice sitting behind the foggy glass of the cruiser. Her wide eyes were filled with cold rage. She appeared to be struggling with something, noticed Wayne, but he quickly turned his attention back to Lance. “Fuck me. I pulled that Tahoe out of the mud last night.”
            “Are you serious?”

            “Totally. A little after one A.M. Pulled it from a mud hole up onto the gravel at the Blakely place.”

            “Blakely. Her name is Janice Blakely. Must be her parent’s farm.”

“Jesus,” he said, stroking his beard with grimy fingers. “That could have been me.”

            “There’s more truth to that than you know. Just got word that she’s wanted in Nevada for assault and California for the attempted murder of two people…with a butcher knife. They’re both in bad shape.”

            Wayne swallowed. “Crazy bitch.”

            “Crazy is right. So just tow the vehicle to the usual spot. We’ve still got to process it.”

            “Sure. Okay. I’ve got to stop off at my place for a minute, but I’ll get it there within a half hour.”

            “No problem.”

            As Sgt. Lance walked away, Wayne couldn’t help but look over at the captive Janice again. She was wearing a disturbing smile now, although her eyes remained wide and locked on him. Then he noticed words written in the condensation on the window. Wayne took a step forward to see more clearly. Crooked letters spelled out, “C U soon.”

           

           

Unlucky in Love: A Short Story

“What’s wrong with you? Stop calling me, Gwen. Just STOP.” The breakup was a week ago, the text was three hours old, and her response was already percolating.

An agitated Gwen Lundgren shuffled through design printouts next to her laptop as she waited for a Skype call scheduled for 9:30 Minneapolis time, 3:30 London time. After several seconds, the ruddy, smiling face of Tykon’s International Marketing Director Erick DeMint flittered up on the screen. He was a personable, handsome thirty-something with vibrant hazel eyes and an unruly shock of straw-colored hair. And although she had never seen the entire man from head to toe, that didn’t stop her from fantasizing. There was something different about the background today.

            “Gwen? How are you?”

            His accent made her shift positions in her chair. “Erick, I’m great. Happy Friday. Where are you?”

            “Took a day off. Can you believe it? So I’m working from home. This is my lovely office. Out that window is my lovely yard where I plan to spend the rest of the afternoon. And later my brother Timothy is coming over for dinner. Oh, and tomorrow morning my wife and I and Samantha are going north to spend the week at a country inn we love near Northampton.”

            The mention of his wife and daughter grated what she hoped was an imperceptible degree of enthusiasm off her voice. “You’re a busy person. Sounds great. How old is Samantha again?”

            “Nine, but of course she thinks she’s nineteen. Had the nerve to ask us if she could get her eyebrow pierced the other day. Nine years old.”

            “My sister is going through the same thing with her two girls. They both want to be Miley Cyrus when they grow up.”

            Genuine laughter. “God, no. Tell her we feel her pain.”

            “I’m sure you’re a great father.”

            “Oh, I have my days, but thanks. What about your weekend? Taking the boyfriend out on the town?”

            “Unfortunately there’s no one special in my life right now. Well, there was, but….I don’t know. Not the luckiest person in the world when it comes to relationships.”

            “An attractive young woman like you? That’s hard to believe. Stay positive. You’ll find someone or someone will find you.”

“Thanks. Well, so, should we go over the concepts I sent? You’re making me feel guilty about talking business on your day off.”

            “Don’t worry about it. This was on my calendar long before I decided to…” Erick turned in his chair and then turned back. “Sorry. Thought I heard something. Anyway, back to the concepts. Okay. I really liked number three. Nice work. I felt it captured what we were trying to….” He turned again. “There. Did you hear it that time?”

            “Sorry. Is anyone home?”

            “No. Kara’s at work and Samantha doesn’t get home… I apologize, but let me go check. I’ll just be a second.”

            “Not a problem.”

            One of life’s great mysteries was solved as Erick stood up and walked to the office door. He was trim with a very cute butt, just as she had imagined. She could hear his footsteps as he walked through rooms in the house and conjured up an image of him coming out of the bathroom wearing only a small white towel and a tender smile, approaching the bed and…Erick popped back into the room shaking his head.

            “It’s an older home,” he said, sitting down. “I know it doesn’t sound very macho, but sometimes I get a little freaked out when I’m here by myself. Okay, where was…I was commenting on design number three and why I was really drawn to this one.”

            Although her attention was focused on Erick’s face as he talked, Gwen caught a glimpse of a quickly moving shadow cross the window over Erick’s right shoulder. Most likely….obviously a bird, she concluded, and chose not to say anything. She really didn’t want to be distracted from the praise he was lavishing on her design, her abilities to capture just the right tone, how clever she was to distill a complex concept into a few beautiful images. She was wading in his warm words.

            There was a distant clang, as if something metal like a pan had fallen to the hardwood floor. 

            “I heard it that time,” she said.

            Erick’s expression became one of concern and he turned around several times. “I…I think someone’s in the house. I can hear footsteps.”

            “You’re sure your wife didn’t come home early?”

            “Duh. That’s probably it. Like I said, I get a bit spooked here sometimes.” He turned and called out. “Kara? Hey, is that you?” There was a muffled but discernable “Yes,” from another room in the house. Erick’s body relaxed and he smiled nervously. “Sorry about all the drama. I’m just going to see what’s going with my wife and then we can finish up here. Hold on.”

            As much as she enjoyed her conversations with Erick, this was taking longer than she had planned and it was bumping into another meeting that was about to start. Gwen leaned back in her chair and toyed with a pen while waiting. A shadow moved across the hallway beyond the office threshold followed by a murmur of voices and then two loud thumps, which sounded like someone pounding a fist on a countertop. She leaned forward, eyes now zeroing in on the hallway. There was another flitter of a shadow and then a door closed somewhere in the house. This was followed by unnerving silence.

“Erick? Hey, what’s going on? Erick. Are you okay?” Gwen took in a breath and held it. Someone sneezed in a nearby cube and her muscles clenched up as if she’d been stuck with a pin. “Erick?”

“No. I’m okay. Everything is fine.” It was Erick’s voice coming from somewhere in the house. “Made a mess I need to clean up.”

She waited a minute, her heart racing, then called Erick’s name several more times, but there was no response, no movement in the house at all. Do I call 911, she wondered? What’s 911 in London? Maybe he just decided to go…no. He didn’t…he wouldn’t just leave me hanging. Would he?

            A passing cube mate made the un-asked for observation that she looked pale and asked if she was okay. Distracted, Gwen nodded and then, part hurt, part still concerned, terminated the call. The screen went dark and there was only her own vague image floating in the blackness of the monitor. An hour passed, then another. Too unnerved to work, she began making inquiries as best she could from another country. She was finally able to track down Erick’s boss at Tykon, who said he’d gone on holiday with his wife, which was actually a plausible explanation after what he’d told her, but still…. 

Three weeks passed. Gwen emailed and called Erick every day, but received only “out-of-office” replies or was dropped into voicemail. Her time at home was spent checking London newspapers online for any crime that might relate to Erick or his family. She knew that something was not right with Erick’s sudden disappearance, that possibly a crime had been committed, but she had no evidence and could not find anything concrete on which to base her feelings. She called his boss again and was told Erick had taken a brief leave of absence for personal reasons. Personal reasons? Like being dead?

            It was a chilly late fall afternoon as Gwen strode along Nicolette Mall in downtown Minneapolis in the direction of the Dakota when she heard a familiar voice rise above the din of traffic and call out her name.

            “Gwen.”

            She spun around and to her astonishment saw Erick walking across the mall in her direction smiling and waving. He was wearing a long black coat with a red scarf around his neck and his hair was shorter, but she knew it was him from the instant their eyes met. Stunned, she stood like a boulder in a river of pedestrians flowing by, her attention fixated on the approaching man.

            “Oh, thank God I found you,” he said, putting his arms around her and squeezing tight.

            For a moment, she was too shocked to react, but then quickly wrapped her arms around him and pulled him even closer. “My God, Erick. What the—“ Before she could finish he put his lips to hers and kissed her passionately. She responded without hesitation. Several moments later they separated, and Gwen tried to formulate a coherent question from the dozens that were swirling around in her head.

            “What’s going on, Erick? Why are you here? What about Kara?”

            “There’s plenty of time to talk about all of that. Right now, however, I would like to take you to my hotel room.”

            Two hours later Gwen sat on the edge of a bed, a sheet draped over her naked body, pleasantly exhausted, but still shell-shocked. The sex had been loud and satisfying, but perhaps lacking a degree of…intimacy. She looked toward the bathroom door where Erick was taking a shower and tried to imagine various scenarios that ended with Erick coming to Minneapolis from England alone to find her after having disappeared for three weeks. None of them made any sense.

            Wearing only a white towel and a wicked grin, Erick set down on the bed next to Gwen and kissed her cheek.

            “That was unbelievable,” he whispered.

            Gwen blushed, but remained guarded. “Can we talk about what’s going on, Erick?”

            “Over dinner. I promise. Let me get dressed and we’ll have a quick drink from the mini bar and then go downstairs. I’ll tell you everything. Promise.” Eyeing him sideways, Gwen got up to dress.

            The bored waiter set their entrees in front of them and walked away without a glance. “Bloody moron isn’t very interested in a tip, is he?” said Erick just a bit too loud. “How’s your martini?”

            “Too good. I might have to order another one. So….”

            “So. Well, it’s not really all that complicated, although it is rather depressing.” His expression darkened. “That day of the call—“

            “The video call?”

            “Right, video call, Kara came home early, as you know, and then confessed to me she’d been seeing another man for several months and that she wanted a divorce. That was, of course, a huge shock. I felt like I’d been run over by a tram, but the part of her story that sent me entirely over the edge was that the other man was my brother. The…bitch had been screwing my brother. Well, I was in complete and utter insanity mode. It’s horrible to say, but I wanted to kill them both. Honestly, I had no idea this was going on. Call me stupid or blind or whatever, it came as a total shock. Anyway, I simply couldn’t deal with it and left the house immediately. I’m so sorry, Gwen. I’ve just been in a state of absolute inner turmoil the past few weeks, I can’t even tell you. But then I thought about you and the feelings I had felt whenever we talked and realized it was the perfect opportunity to get out of London for a while and see if my intuitions about you were correct. And it seems they were.”

            “Wow. So where’s your daughter?”

            “Samantha's with my Mum until I get back.”

            Gwen looked down at her salmon and shook her head not quite sure that all the dots connected, but considering the man of her dreams was sitting across the table from her, she swept her doubts into a dark corner of her mind and looked up, meeting Erick’s piercing eyes. “I’m terribly sorry for everything. It must be a nightmare.”

            “It was,” he said. “Until now.”

            Staggering and laughing arm in arm down the hallway of her apartment complex, Gwen and Erick made up lyrics to “The First Cut is the Deepest,” which had been playing in the elevator on the way up. “The first cup is the cheapest….” A wobbly Gwen apologized for the mess as she led Erick through her apartment to the living room. She dimmed the lights, poured them both a glass of wine and joined him on the couch, curling up next to him and nuzzling his neck.

            “What are you thinking?” she asked.

            “That I’m so glad I found you,” he said.

            They talked for another half hour until Gwen heard a familiar ping coming from her bedroom.

            “Sorry,” she said, gently brushing the back of her hand across his cheek. “Need to use the bathroom. Would you pour us another glass?”

            Erick smiled. “I’d like nothing better.”

            Not sure why she thought she needed a subterfuge to check her computer, she slipped into the bedroom, sat at her desk and tapped the space bar. The screen quickly brightened and up popped a news alert. She opened the email and scanned several recent headlines from The Telegraph. One caught her eye.

Murdered Family Members Identified

London — Scotland Yard was finally able to positively identify the remains of three family members brutally murdered in their Hampstead residence three weeks ago. The victims were 35-year old Erick DeMint, 34-year old Kara DeMint and their daughter, 9-year old Samantha DeMint. The police still have no solid leads….

A shadow enveloped Gwen from behind.

            “Don’t turn around.”

            “Erick? What’s going on?” she asked with a growing sense of alarm.

            “Remember several weeks ago during your little teleconference or video call or whatever you call it when I said I had a mess to clean up?

            “Yes.”

            “Well, I’m taking care of that now.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “Erick told you he had a brother. What I think he failed to mention was that he has…had an identical twin brother.”

            The razor-edged knife slid effortlessly through Gwen’s neck muscles in a long red arch, releasing a burbling cascade of blood that flowed down her chest like warm red honey. Grasping a handful of her hair, Timothy held her head back until the spasms ended.

            “Erick was quite fond of you, Gwen. I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid you had a crush on the wrong man.”