A DOG OF A DAY By Paul Grzegorzek

Enjoy part 2 of Paul's new crime thriller series...

A Dog of a Day.

 I got out of the car carefully, trying not to get Tony’s blood on the wheel, seats or door. I’d taken him straight from the flats to a back street doctor who wouldn’t ask questions about bullet wounds, along with enough money for him not to go making any clever connections between my lung-shot friend and the shootout in South London that was now all over the media.

Big Trouble in Little Streatham, most of the radio news teams had been calling it, although one wit had dubbed it the ‘Tooting Shooting’.

I knew that before long the police would have the DNA of everyone who had bled at the scene, which included myself and Tony, and before that happened I needed to find the man who’d escaped and make his insides outsides.

I’d been paid up front, so I probably should have just walked away, but people shooting my friends makes me an unhappy man, not to mention the fact that I was unlikely to get a reference from my last employer and that really ticked me off.

So I’d come to the one place I knew in London that would give me a chance to find out who and where my new Russian friend was.

Scrubbing the worst of the blood from my hands onto my jeans, my fingers brushed across the butt of my Sig, tucked away under my jacket.  Just knowing it was there gave me the confidence to go into a situation that was at best uncertain, at worst fatal.

Visiting Benny Kolpov was a bad idea at the best of times.  He was, as you might guess from the name, Russian.  He was in his late sixties, and spent most of his life bombed out of his face on vodka.  That wasn’t what made him dangerous though.

What made him dangerous were the half dozen guards that he kept around him at all times, lounging around his large house in West Norwood like fleas on a dying dog.  That, and the fact that last time I’d seen him I’d put three of his guards in hospital and broken his nose.  He had been trying to kill me though.

Benny claimed that he was ex-KGB, abandoned in the UK when the cold war ended.  It might have been true, it might not; either way he knew every serious Russian in the City, or at least knew of them and knew their business well enough that for a price he could tell you how to find them.

Dusk was turning the sky the deep purple of an ugly bruise as I approached the house on Thornlaw Road, checking about to make sure that I wasn’t being observed.  Not that I thought I would be, but old habits die hard and forgetting them makes you die harder.

The house was set back from the road with a yard large enough to park three cars in front of it.  Two of the slots were filled, one with a Jaguar XFS and the other with a BMW X5. Whatever Benny lacked in sobriety, he made up for in money.

I’d no sooner set foot in the yard when the front door opened and two men in casual clothes stepped out, one of them holding a hand inside his hoody.

I raised my hands and slowed. 

“I’m not here for trouble, I’m here to see Benny about business.  Lucrative business”.

The one on the right nodded and held up a hand.  I obediently stopped while he disappeared inside, leaving me facing the other across twenty feet of cold concrete.  His hand was still inside his top, no doubt resting on the butt of something as illegal as my Sig.

After what felt like a month the other man returned, waving me forwards.

“Spread your arms mate”, he said as soon as I’d stepped into the wide hallway.

I spread them obediently.  “That’s a funny Russian accent you’ve got”, I remarked as he searched me thoroughly, removing the Sig and both spare magazines.

The man shrugged as my weapon disappeared into his jacket.

“Benny decided he wanted someone local to do the talking.  Help smooth things over where the language barrier gets difficult”.

Despite his size and the broad London accent, he was clearly no muscle-moron, and I watched him carefully as he led me through the richly decorated hallway and into Benny’s ‘receiving room’.

It had changed little since I’d been there last, several couches strewn around with a coffee table each to rest drinks on.

On the far side of the room sat a drinks table that would have put Olly Reed to shame, dozens of bottles of all shapes and sizes neatly lined up with a stack of glasses and an ice machine nearby.

Benny himself sprawled on a sofa, his cadaverous body hidden by a large smoking jacket as he nodded along to the strains of what I thought might be Wagner coming from the stereo.

“Ah, Mr Blake!”  He said jovially, waving a glass of vodka in my direction.  “It has been long time”.

I nodded, staying silent as I noticed the two men taking up flanking positions either side of the door.

“I suppose you want Benny for something, in spite of our… differences last time we meet, no?”  His accent, always thicker when he was drunk, was now almost undecipherable.

“Shrewd as always Benny.  I assume that as I’m coming to you as a paying customer I don’t need to worry about you trying to settle the score for last time?”

The Russian waved a hand at me magnanimously.  “Of course not!  It was just business, and we were… opposite tradesmen at the time.  Now sit, and tell Benny what you need”.

I’ve never been able to trust people who talk about themselves in the third person.  It’s as if they want to distance themselves from their actions.  Oh no, that wasn’t me, that wasBenny.  I’m sure you get my drift.

I sat on the sofa furthest from the door, wanting to give myself reaction time if it kicked off.  Not that I thought it would, but I hadn’t survived this long by being careless.

“I need to know about a Russian”, I began, setting Benny chuckling.

“Of course you do, or why else you come to Benny?”

“I don’t have a name, just a description and the place he was earlier today”.

Benny straightened a little in an attempt to look halfway sober. 

“Go on”.

“A block of flats in South London, between Streatham and Tooting.  He’s about my height, thin face like a vampire”.  I went on with the description, giving every tiny detail I could remember.

When I’d finished, Benny was nodding sagely.  “Yes, I think I know this man.  Come with me and I will check records”.

He stood a little unsteadily and weaved towards the door which one of the guards obediently opened.  I followed him out into the hallway and over to a door under the stairs.

Pulling it open, he turned on a light and led me down a narrow flight of stairs that I thought would spell his end, but he gripped the railing and shuffled down step by step until he was on the hard concrete floor.

He stood for a moment, looking around uncertainly before wandering off into the gloom. “I will be back in moment.  Make yourself at home”.

The darkness swallowed Benny almost immediately, the only light coming from the bare bulb that hung above the stairs.  How he could see in the darkness was beyond me, but then a small lamp flickered into life about twenty feet away, outlining the stacks of shelves that filled the basement.

A creak from behind me made me turn to see the guard who’d taken my gun lounging against one wall while the rest of him filled the stairs. 

Hearing Benny moving back towards me, I tried to move to keep both of them in view but the basement here was too narrow, so I turned to look at Benny instead, trusting that the guard had no reason to cause me harm.

Only it wasn’t Benny.

Instead, the man from the flats was coming towards me, both hands curled around a pistol that was aimed at my face.

Putting my hands up, I shifted backwards until my heels hit the bottom step.

“Easy lads”, I said nervously, wishing the man behind me didn’t have my gun.  “This looks like a great time to do a bit of talking”.

“I wish it was, Mr Blake”, Benny’s disembodied voice floated out of the darkness, “but the man you seem to have found so easily is my cousin, Yuri”.

My heart sank.  There was only one way out of here, and that was clearly in a body bag.

Yuri approached until he was just out of reach, cold eyes fixed on me over the pistol.

“You killed my good men”, he said in atrocious English, “for that you die”.

Two things happened at once.

The first was the guard on the stairs looping his arm around my throat to hold me still. For a big man he was fast, and his huge, corded muscles began crushing my windpipe before I could react.

The second was that I got angry.

Not the usual burning anger that I’d felt so many times before, but a cold, hard rage that made everything sparkle like crystal and slow down around me.

I saw, with perfect clarity, Yuri’s finger tightening on the trigger, the pad turning white as it pressed against cold metal hard enough to hurl a bullet towards my chest.

I saw, way off in the darkness, Benny shuffling cautiously towards the pool of light in which we stood.

And I felt, with a sudden smug glee, the guard’s footing shift slightly as he tried to pull away from the shot that he knew was coming.

The moment he shifted, I moved.  One hand shot up, sticking a thumb in his eye as I dropped my weight, pulling forwards as my other arm grabbed his shoulder and hurled him over my now bent back.

He flew like a bird, rolling off my hip to crash into Yuri as the Russian’s eyes widened in surprise.

His finger jerked reflexively on the trigger, the sound deafening in the tight space and hiding the guard’s scream in its ringing echoes.

Before the big man could regain his feet I charged forwards, stamping hard on his throat. Blood spurted and a scream cut off abruptly as I launched myself from his throat and into Yuri’s arms before he could bring the pistol to bear a second time.

He stumbled backwards, pistol flying from his grip as I hammered an elbow into his jaw, then followed through with a knee that caught him in the stomach and lifted him off the floor.

From the darkness a shotgun roared, a flash of light blinding me as tiny balls of lead ripped through my jacket and into the flesh of my right arm, stinging like a hundred angry wasps.

Ignoring the pain I roared out my anger and charged, head high and fists up in a guard as if I could ward off the final shot I knew would come.

Except that it didn’t.

Instead, I ran into the small pool of lamplight to find Benny frantically breaking open a single barrel shotgun, trying to stuff a cartridge into the breech before I closed with him.

In his dreams.  I was two hundred pounds of angry muscle and he was an old man with a skin full of vodka inside him.  I hit him like a train, both hands slamming into his chest and lifting him off the floor to slam him into the wall with his feet dangling inches from the concrete.

The old man snapped the weapon shut and tried to bring it up under my chin, his eyes screaming his fear for him.  He didn’t let it stop him though, and I respected him for that as I reached out almost casually and broke his neck, the crunch as his spine snapped nothing but a whisper against the slowly diminishing rage.

Dropping the lifeless body to the ground, I stooped to grab the shotgun and hurried back to the stairs, intent on having a few choice words with Yuri.

Except that he was gone.

The guard was still there, sightless eyes staring up at me in reproach, but Yuri had managed to escape.  Dropping the shotgun, I retrieved my pistol from the corpse and headed up the stairs, determined to find Yuri and get some answers.

I may have lost him for now, but at least I had a name, and in London’s dark underworld someone knowing your name can be a very bad thing.

Especially when it’s me.

BIO:

To get the skinny on Paul and his work, visit his blog here: http://diariesofamodernmadman.blogspot.com/

MURDER, OR REVENGE? by Carol J. Rhodes

TKnC welcomes Carol...

MURDER, OR REVENGE?

Bleeding from the brutal injuries the perpetrators inflicted, the victim dragged himself off the dim lit street and down an alleyway behind some rundown apartments, tipped over a garbage can and crawled inside.

Within minutes, the victim heard shouts and heavy footsteps. "Where are you, you son of a bitch," were the words which rang out, over and over.

Blood trickled out of his hiding place, ran down the pavement and pooled in the bright glow at the base of a light pole. There was nothing he could do but hope they
thought he made it as far as the bayou and gone on to search for him there.

When he was sure the perps weren't coming back, he left his hiding place and began inching his way toward the nearest apartment. He was afraid to call out, afraid they might hear him and return to finish the job. He lay down flat behind the wheel of a parked car when a car pulled into a parking space two rows over.

* * *

That's all he remembered until he woke up five days later in the intensive care unit of a hospital. His head was bandaged, leaving only small holes for his nose and mouth. One arm and both legs were in traction; he was connected by IVs and tubing to multiple life-sustaining machines. Beside his bed, a young doctor studied his chart.

* * *

"So, you've decided to join us, Mr. King. We've been afraid you weren't going to make it. You've got some pretty serious injuries I need to talk to you about because it looks like you're going to be laid up for awhile.

You took quite a beating, must've been with a pipe or a crowbar on your legs and face as best we can tell. Something sharp, probably a blade, penetrated your liver but fortunately we were able to stem the bleeding there. But we weren't so lucky with some of your other organs. We had to remove one of your kidneys and a portion of your left lung. Tried our best to save your eyes, but too much time had passed before they got you here. You're in good hands now, though, and we're going to do all we can to help you get well, so don't you worry. Oh, the police are going to want to talk with you as soon as you feel up to it, but for now, you try and get some rest. By the way, what kind of work do you do? Anybody we should call?"

"I'm... a... a... environment investi... investigator," he managed to say.

"You're an environmental investigator? What's to investigate in Blue Gap? Not much here to cause a problem, unless it's . . . well, I'll be checking on you again later."

* * *

"Did you know the men who did this to you?" asked the man standing beside his bed.

"I... don't... it was dark and they... they... just came out of nowhere."

"Do you know anyone who would have it in for you?"

"I... can't... can't think of... anybody. I just got here... last week... I might... recognize their voices if I heard them again, though."

"Well, that's just too bad," the man said, as he placed the silencer next to the victim's ear and pulled the trigger.


BIO:
Carol's work, including short stories, essays, poetry, non-fiction, and plays, has appeared in such publications as newspapers Houston Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, Stroud (England) News & Journal, The Houston Press; magazines Country Home, Good Old Boat, and Texas; as well as numerous journals and anthologies.
She has also been fortunate to win several literary awards for both poetry and prose. One of her plays, "Comin' Home to Burnstown," was showcased in a summer play festival of an off-Broadway theatre several years ago.
In addition to creative writing, Carol presents business writing seminars for two universities and several corporate clients.

BOUNDARIES by Donnie Cox

Boundaries

It’s like a jungle, except it’s up in the clouds and there’s this fog, like rain, except it’s not raining. Everything is wet and tangled and the angles of vision are slightly warped. Walking point in the woods, alongside the trail, I can hear sounds that come from somewhere in the past.

Ghosts moaning in heartbreaking harmony. Triple-canopy darkness closes around me like a body bag. From the corner of my eye, I catch flashes of shifting shadows that freeze in place whenever I turn my head to stare. The
crouching beast is hungry tonight, and I can feel it, close by...

When Ben Helman opens his eyes, the traffic light is green and the person in the car behind him is sitting on the horn. When Ben glances in the rear-view mirror, he catches his own miserable reflection and quickly slides further down in the seat. But it’s too late. The image has already registered in his brain. He waves an apology to the world and drives slowly through the intersection.

How long was he gone this time? Ben is disconnected--adrift in a netherworld of old times and new drugs. He knows he has to shake this thing--find something tangible to lock his mind on.

What exactly is a nervous breakdown anyway? How do you get over it? Is it possible to stay this way forever? What day is it? Must be Friday. It’s beginning to cloud up. Maybe, it’ll rain later. Something about the rain has always made him feel safe. On patrol in Vietnam, he had been invisible in the rain. That was more than forty years ago, but Ben remembers more about the sixties than he does about things that happened last week.

Everything he knows is falling away.

When Ben gets home, he goes into the kitchen. The shades are drawn. A single lamp is lit on the table. He fills the teakettle with water and puts it on the stove. He has no appetite, but maybe some coffee will lift him out of this hole.

Ben has let things slide. “Squalid” might be the word to describe his living quarters. He’s gone past the point of ordinary caretaking: housekeeping, basic hygiene, regular eating habits, sleeping, all things of the past.

When the phone rings in the bedroom, Ben makes no move to answer it. He doesn’t even look in the direction of the sound. To him, a ringing phone means exactly nothing. He lights a cigarette and moves the whistling kettle off the burner. He takes a topless jar of instant coffee from the cabinet, dumps a little into a cup, and pours in some water. He grabs an overloaded ashtray off the counter and sits down at the table.

Ben is worried, certain that one day soon, he will wander into a realm of incoherence from which he will not return.

Nights are the worst. That’s when the voices come. They hover around the bed whispering in his ear, angry and accusatory. They want to know why he has waited so long to pay a debt that’s long past due. Over and over they chant the same names, a mournful roll call of souls.

He hates the night because there is no rest, hates the day because it moves toward night.

Icy fingers are starting to pull at Ben’s shirt-tail. He must get away from this place.

Ben stands at the end of his driveway and looks in both directions. He decides to head for the woods. The road is empty. Dead leaves blow in swirls across the asphalt. He sets out along the highway under a cloud-filtered sun.

A quarter mile down, he leaves the blacktop, crosses over a drainage ditch, and onto a narrow trail that leads into the woods.

He walks for a half-hour until he comes to a dry creek bed. This is the spot where he usually turns for home, but today, Ben cannot will himself to start back toward that “house of waiting.”

He pushes on, losing track of time. Eventually, he comes upon a clearing divided by a barbed-wire fence. The fence runs the length of the clearing and disappears into the tree line. There’s a sign tacked to a rotting post that reads: “Cross at Your Own Risk.”

In the distance, Ben can see a narrow river he’s never seen before. Something about this newly discovered river fills him with an excitement he hasn’t experienced for many years--a glimpse of something from the past.

Ignoring the warning sign, he pushes down the top strand of wire and steps over to the other side.

Ben walks along the edge of the river until he comes to a place where he can
see the rocky bottom. He steps in and wades across.

As soon as he reaches the other side, the wind picks up and it begins to rain. With every step, he notices another dramatic change in the terrain. The trail begins to lead uphill. The short grass gives way to tangled masses of elephant grass. The foliage becomes lush, a deeper shade of green. The trees start to take on an exotic, tropical look. They grow closer together so that they overlap and form a canopy that blocks most of the light.

What is it about this place that seems so familiar? Everything. The look. The smell. The heavy air that’s almost impossible to take into his lungs.

Ben feels more alive than he has in years, adrenaline rushing through his body--every muscle taut--every nerve on edge.

And then he knows, Dong Ap Bia, "the mountain of the crouching beast," a mythical spot in the jungle-covered highlands along the Laotian border of Vietnam. In the summer of 1969, a whole platoon had walked in--Ben was the only one to come out.

A shiver tracks his spine. It’s right here, the unbroken line that cuts between nightmare and reality. Everything the same as it was…

I am walking point, about a hundred meters in front of the rest of the platoon, when behind me, all hell breaks loose, trip flares, machine guns, AK-47s, RPGs. The jungle is lit up like midday. I can see the men trying desperately to find cover, disoriented, crazy and running directly into sheets of machine gun fire. I watch them drop like unstrung puppets...dead before they hit the ground. I should go back and join the fight, but I know it would be suicide. I turn and start to run. I run and I don’t look back. I run as fast and as far as I can. I run until I drop, out of breath, exhausted. Then I push myself to my feet and run some more…

Now, Ben Helman is back in the land of ancient legends and lethal apparitions. The ultimate truth seen only in dreams. And there in front of him, covered in coral vine, an ominous stone Buddha encircled by skulls that have been polished to a shine by monsoon rains. He feels a horror tempered by a curious joy, and knows the hour he has waited for has finally arrived redemption that is at once poetic and cruel.

Knowing that death is near, Ben thinks only of his sweet revenge against life. The arrogant doctors, “experts of the self,” trying to find the perfect box for his broken parts. The weekly “encounter groups”, monumental exercises in futility. The loneliness, unable to love anything or anyone, including himself. The emptiness that has surrounded him for the last forty years.

He is triumphant at last, here in this remote country where his soul has lingered, a place that exists apart from mundane, everyday life. He has returned to a world that exists outside normal boundaries and he is ready to
pay the price.

Ben does not see the shooter. He does not hear the rifle that fires the bullet that bores into his chest. Sergeant Ben Helman is driven backwards into a sitting position against the base of a tree. Enshrouded by the wind-driven rain, he drops his head to his chest, and does not lift it again.

BIO

 

DB Cox is a blues musician/writer from South Carolina. He can often be found
in the early-morning hours bent over a Fender Stratocaster guitar in
roadhouses, honky tonks, and juke joints throughout the south. His poems and
short stories have been published extensively in the small press in the US
and abroad. He has published five books of poetry. A new collection of short
stories called “Unaccustomed Mercy” will be published in 2011.

ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE by Mark Robinson

The average response time was thirty minutes. Charlotte watched Roger wipe the rain from his face and hit redial, fogging up the interior with his breath as a sheet metal storm continued overhead. After a few moments he threw the phone down, the speaker phone bleating out a no signal tone.

Her insides plummeted to the passenger-side foot-well; it wasn’t how she had planned her husband’s death, lying in the back seat of this very car sweaty and satisfied with James.

‘Try them again.’ If he didn’t get through how would they explain James’ sudden arrival? What were the chances that a recovery vehicle just happened to be in the area on a night like this?

‘I’ve tried them twice already,’ picking the phone up and wiping water from the screen.

And it was exactly this kind of response that had forced her to find infidelity in the decisive arms of another. ‘Let me try,’ snatching the phone from her husband’s hand, hitting redial and getting another earful of beeps; no signal.

Roger turned his attention to the evening rain pelting off the earth. ‘Any luck?’

If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a glimmer in his eyes. Charlotte threw the phone back at him. ‘Now what?’ She had to get to James somehow; she took out her own phone, raising it up toward the noisy ceiling. Moving around in her seat in vain and finding no signal with which to call or text. Where they had pulled over, a little way off the main road, no other traffic was likely to pass them – it was the perfect place for a murder.

Condensation fogged at the edges of the windscreen, misting up the side windows as she felt her time running out. There was no plan B. Since meeting James, an hour late for a meeting and staring down at a flat tyre, the three months of planning had failed to reveal a kink such as this.

‘Charlotte, I’m…’

Her husband had moved his thighs toward her in an attempt at cramped intimacy. Did Roger know what was going on? Was he on to her affair? ‘What!’ As flippant as she could make it sound, why change the habit of a lifetime?

He had his hand up to his mouth, rubbing at his day’s worth of growth. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something for a while, now.’

Oh, God; it was coming. Whatever it was, she had to find a way of changing the subject. ‘Is that a van?’ There was nothing there when she pointed her finger, but when Roger wiped away a trail of mist they could see a glint of headlights in the distance.

James.

‘Get out and flag him down,’ nudging her husband out of his little heart to heart and out the door.

Perfect.

She cleared the screen and text out a message to warn her new man not to say anything stupid. Outside, she caught a wisp of Roger crossing a verge and scrabbling over toward the main road as the pale headlights drew nearer. Phone in the air, she hit send and watched the message float in limbo; ‘Come on, come on.’

Roger was at the roadside, arms in the air waving down a van rounding the bend.
With a bleep, the message had failed. She hit send again as a tiny bar appeared in the upper corner of the screen.

Up ahead, the van began to slow at Roger’s frantic gesture to stop. Another mobile beep and the message had sent. But the van that had stopped alongside her husband was not a recovery vehicle.

It was not James.

Charlotte’s chest hiccupped. As her husband reached the cab, there was a flash followed by a dull clap. Roger dropped to the tarmac, smoke rising from the gun levelled at him.

Her scream caught her by surprise – hadn’t the plan been to kill him? Grappling with her phone, she dialled the emergency services only for the call to fail.

Up by the roadside, the gunman had exited the cab aiming for the sprawled man she had married. Would they notice the car and kill her too? She hunkered down low, so only her forehead was visible above the dashboard, watching as another round was fired into Roger.

A horn blared behind her, drawing the attention of the shooter. Charlotte turned in her seat at the illuminated roadside rescue truck.

It was James.

Back around to the main road, another man was standing next to the shooter now; both their heads turned facing her. Before she could do anything else, James was at her window in his reflective jacket squinting beneath the barrage of rain; with the weather outside, he was oblivious of the other two men.

A crack of gunfire changed all that.

Her passenger door was wrenched open and she was ripped out, in an instant being pulled up from the soggy grass verge and back around to the recovery vehicle. James threw her inside before she could tell him about Roger.

Another crack of gunfire and a chink of metal bounding off metal; from her vantage point inside the truck, she could see the two men heading toward them leaving Roger on the rain swept roadside.

Two more shots sounded before James was scrambling in next to her, shifting the truck into reverse and tearing away.

‘Roger!’ She could say his name but could not bring herself to put into words what they had done to her husband.

James handed her the radio and told her what to do. It fumbled out of her grip as they hit a dip in the narrow path.

A bullet zinged the grill. James rammed the truck into gear and aimed for them.
Charlotte wanted to cry out, edging down into cover. One of the men fired off a shot, both of them separating out as the truck roared on passed her broken down car and the body of her husband.

‘Where were you?!’ Rearing on her rescuer.

James twisted the wheel to ramp the verge and take the main road out of harms way.
Charlotte’s wrist blared. She checked it and found the stopwatch flashing on zero.

‘You told me to wait it out.’ He was watching the rear view for the red tail lights to swing around and follow them.

She did. She told him to wait for thirty minutes so the whole thing didn’t seem too orchestrated.

‘What about Roger?’

James laughed, ‘Thought you wanted him dead?’

Had he done this? Had James come up with a plan B?

‘Stop the car; I’m going back for Roger,’ inching the passenger door wider.

He had her arm and yanked her back inside. ‘This wasn’t me, Babe; I swear.’

She looked into his eyes and forced herself to believe him. Coincidences happened and wishes came true; Charlotte wanted her husband dead, and now he was, lying in the middle of the road riddled with bullets.

‘What now?’ She liked plans but hated surprises.

Eyes still in the mirror, he told her they were heading back to the depot to call
the police.

After a silence, he told her to buckle up. His head was twisted behind them at a set of headlights in the distance.

Charlotte did as she was told.

Facing front, in amongst the torrent of rain, a businessman stepped out into the recovery trucks main beam frantically waving his arms overhead. James reacted with a swerve across the carriageway and down an embankment, stopping just inches from a line of trees.

‘You okay?’

A breathless businessman in a rain-ruined suit asked Charlotte the same question. ‘Our car’s just died.’

Even though she didn’t want him to, James got out to help the man. ‘Stay put,’ leaving her behind to watch them climb the incline back up to the road.

What about Roger’s killers? They were both witnesses to a murder, what was stopping the killers continuing their shooting spree?

Wrenching open the passenger door and tottering down in her heels, Charlotte went after her man, climbing up over the sludge and tyre-carved embankment and skittering on to the carriageway. Through the shower, stationed on a make-shift hard shoulder opposite, the businessman led James over to a saloon that was not too dissimilar to her own broken down car.

Arms folded in the passenger seat beneath a stark interior bulb sat a woman with a mean look in her eyes. Slipping across the wet concourse toward the group Charlotte halted as the businessman looked up toward the approaching headlights.

‘James!’

Head in the engine block, her call to him went unheard.

And, in the narrow distance, that same van neared carrying her husband’s killers.
Heels clipping on the slick tarmac, she doggedly moved to warn her man, ‘It’s them!’

When James saw her, so did the killers; reaching out to grab hold of Charlotte’s hand James pulled her after him toward the maze of waiting trees.

‘Run!’ screaming back over his shoulder at the businessman and his passenger, urging the couple to follow them to safety.

Charlotte glanced back as they headed into the thicket, at the businessman and his passenger standing together on the roadside bathed in the main beam of the white van screeching to a stop; the killers guns raised but with too many targets to hit at once.

‘You’re late!’ The woman said to the gunman from the van. ‘I told you eight pm!’

As they ran for their lives, Charlotte thought again about coincidences and other people’s wishes that, too, came true. Listening out for that fatal shot to ring out and claim its intended target before they came again to finish what they should never have started.


BIO:
Mark's previous writing has appeared on Thrillers, Killers n Chillers, Sunk Island Review, Microhorror.com, Hackwriters.com, Manchester’s Transmission Magazine, Birmingham’s Raw Edge Magazine, Short Story Library (US), Txtlit.co.uk, Post Card Shorts, Enigma and the Lulu Anthology, Never Hit by Lightning, Edited by Tucker Lieberman & Andrew Tivey.
Forthcoming publications include Powder Burn Flash, A Thousand-faces & Delivered.

POOCH SCREWED By Paul Grzegorzek

Pooch Screwed

Bullets smacked into the wall beside my head and I ducked back as stone splinters flew in all directions.

“I don’t think we’re going that way”.

Tony laughed, the sound turning into a wracking cough as blood from his punctured lung spilled over his lips and stained his chin.

“Just leave me.  Get yourself out”, he gasped when the coughing subsided.  Shaking my head, I pointed my pistol around the corner and let off a few rounds, just to let them know I was still in the game.

I’d known that this job was a mistake from the start.  Nothing had felt right from the first meeting with the client, and now we were stuck in the middle of a fire fight with half a dozen men and I had absolutely no clue where our principal was.

On the face of it, it had sounded like an easy job, particularly for two ex paras with years of combat experience.  Escort the principal in, wait while he has a meeting, walk him out and drive away.  It should have been half an hour’s work for a clear two grand each, but instead we were fighting for our lives.

The Client, one Mr Steven Brady, was a mid-thirties suit-hanger with thick glasses and bad breath, but with the kind of money he was offering I could breathe through my mouth for a few hours. 

We’d turned up to his central London office in my car, a battered but serviceable Ford Focus.  I’d offered to hire a car for the day but Brady wanted discreet, so he got it.  He was paying, after all.

He sat in the back with his hands nervously clutching his briefcase on his lap while Tony sat next to him and I drove.  I’d tried making conversation but he wasn’t playing ball, so I kept my mouth shut the rest of the way and tried not to think about why a City businessman wanted armed protection for a meeting at a just-built block of flats in South London.  It didn’t make sense, but as long as we all walked away breathing at the end of the day I’d be happy.  To be honest I couldn’t afford to say no to the job.

We pulled into the car park just before midday, parking a few spaces away from the only other vehicle, a 09 plate transit with a hard hat on the dashboard.  Brady had insisted that we check the place out first, so I left Tony with him and jogged through the rain to the five storey building and peered in through the half open door.

The place still smelled of paint and fresh wood, and as I stepped into the lobby two men in thigh length leather coats appeared from around a corner, making my hand slide inside my coat and rest on the butt of my Sig.

The men, both in their forties with short hair and designer stubble, copied my movement and for a moment we all just stared at each other.  My neck began to prickle as I recognised the relaxed stance and blank faces of professional killers, and I nearly turned around and walked away right there.  God, I should have listened to my gut.

Instead I cracked a smile and called out, “I’m here with Brady for the meeting”.

Hand still inside his coat, the larger of the two nodded.  “Bring him”, he said in a thick Russian accent.

I headed back to the car and leaned in the window.

“Two blokes in ex-Spetsnaz finest”, I said to Tony, referring to the leather coats.  Looking over at Brady, I saw sweat pouring down his face.

“You sure you want to do this?”

He looked up at me and nodded once.

“Good, because they’re ready for you, come on”.

He got out and began to walk woodenly towards the building like a condemned man on his way to the gallows.  Sharing a look with Tony, I moved to walk in front while Tony took the rear, both of us with hands on our weapons.

I’m no great psychologist, but even I could see that Brady was scared, and scared people have a habit of doing stupid things, so I dropped back for a moment to walk beside him.

“I don’t know why you’re meeting these people”, I began, glancing at his pale face, “but I do know that people like them feed on fear.  If they see you like this then whatever deal you’re hoping to make will go very badly wrong”.

He shot me a startled glance.  “I’m sorry; I’m not used to this.  Does it show that badly?”

I nodded.  “Yeah.  Take a few deep breaths and try to relax.  I don’t fancy getting killed because you can’t control yourself”.

He stared up at me myopically, sweat trickling down his face.

“I don’t think there’ll be any killing; they need me far too much”.

“Good epitaph.  Just keep your shit together”.

He took a breath, probably intending to take me to task for my language, but then we reached the doors and the two men in coats held the doors open, gesturing us inside.

“Weapons”.  The larger one was now holding a Scorpion machine pistol at his side, no doubt wanting to intimidate us into handing our guns over without argument.

I shook my head.  “I don’t think so.  Unless you’re planning on shooting, there’s no problem with us having our guns, is there?”

He glowered at me for a moment as his brain chewed the idea over, then he finally shrugged.

“No bother.  Follow”.

I glanced at Tony who threw a questioning eyebrow my way.  I had no idea what was going on either, but the butterflies in my stomach felt like they were on PCP.

The man with the Scorpion led us up several flights of stairs to an unremarkable door that was guarded by yet another man with a black leather coat.  This one had hair down to his shoulders and a pair of shades that made him look like a holidaying Albanian.  Except for the pistol he was carrying loose in his right hand.

He stared at us from behind his shades as he opened the door with his free hand and our guide led us into the hallway of a small flat. 

It was totally bare, with three doors leading off the narrow corridor, all of them as new as everything else in this block.  The big man went straight to the furthest door and opened it, heading in first and then taking up position to one side of the door.

I followed him in, taking in the bare room, still with plastic sheeting on the floor from being painted.  On the far side of a room stood a man in a suit that was clearly hand tailored.  He was in his late thirties, with gelled black hair and a face like a vampire, all pale skin and cheekbones.

“Ah, Mr Brady”, he said in accent-less English, ignoring me and Tony, “I assume you have the item?”

Brady nodded and held up the briefcase, and then everything went wrong.

A single shot rang out from the hallway as Brady stumbled, a look of shock on his face as he looked down at the red stain on his chest.

He fell to his knees, spilling bright blood onto the plastic sheeting that I only now realised wasn’t left behind by the painters.

I pulled my pistol clear, putting a round into the chest of the big man even as he brought up his machine pistol.  He slammed back into the wall as the round hit, but didn’t go down.  I fired again, this time hitting him in the face.  His head slammed back into the wall as he slid down, leaving a bloody smear on the fresh white paint.

Tony had unholstered as well, firing two shots down the corridor towards the door guard and the second man from downstairs.

“One down!”  I called over the noise of the gunfire, then turned my weapon on the man in the suit, only he wasn’t there anymore. 

In the time it had taken me to fire twice, he’d moved in fast and wide on my right, smashing a fist into my face even as I looked for him.

The blow knocked me sideways into Tony and we both went down in a heap.  The suit grabbed the briefcase, leapt over us and was gone down the hallway, shouting “Kill them!”  Over his shoulder as he fled.

“Over my dead body”, Tony growled, shaking me off and standing to fire down the hallway.

As I crawled out of the line of fire and into a sitting position, a volley of shots came back down the hallway, most of them smacking into the far wall.

The noise was deafening, and the room stank of blood, cordite and shit.  I was amazed that I couldn’t hear sirens in the background already, but then there was no one nearby to call it in.

Tony fired again, then coughed and threw himself backwards.

“What are you doing?”  I asked, pointing my pistol around the doorframe and firing off two shots.

It was only as I looked over at him that I finally saw blood staining his t-shirt as he frantically gasped for breath.

“Shit”, I muttered, grabbing his foot and hauling him into cover.  “Tony?”

He looked up at me out of a face white with pain. 

“Fuck”, he muttered.

“Don’t move, I’ll...”  The truth was, there wasn’t much I could do.  We were in a room with only one exit and that was guarded by two men who had a superior firing position and lines of escape.  In short, we were fucked.

Looking around frantically, I saw something that gave me an idea.  Leaving Tony where he lay, I scurried over and grabbed the machine pistol lying next to its former owner.

Closing my eyes for a second, I tried to work out our position relative to the rest of the building, then turned and fired the entire magazine into one of the walls in a rough man-shape.

That done I discarded the empty weapon and moved back to Tony.

“Can you move?”

“Do I have a choice?”  His voice bubbled as he spoke, and I knew then that one of his lungs was punctured.  If I didn’t get him to a hospital fast he’d end up drowning in his own blood.

“No, you don’t”.  I picked up his pistol and placed it back in his hand.  “Keep me covered”.

He raised the pistol and pointed it at the doorway.  Trusting him to keep them off me, I turned and ran full tilt at the wall before I could change my mind, praying that it wasn’t a supporting wall.

I hit with my shoulder, hurling myself into the plaster with a strength born of desperation, and sailed through with barely a bump, landing in a heap in the flat next door.

Thanking the gods of shoddy building, I picked myself up and clambered back through, grabbing Tony and dragging him through the hole.  He was gasping badly now, but I didn’t have time to stop so I hauled him to his feet and pulled him along the hallway to the front door.  I opened it and peered around the corner, hoping that they hadn’t noticed our unexpected escape.

Bullets smacked into the wall beside my head and I ducked back as stone splinters flew in all directions.

“I don’t think we’re going that way”.

Tony laughed, the sound turning into a wracking cough as blood from his punctured lung spilled over his lips and stained his chin.

“Just leave me.  Get yourself out”, he gasped when the coughing subsided.  Shaking my head, I pointed my pistol around the corner and let off a few rounds, just to let them know I was still in the game.

 “We’re both in this for keeps mate, either way.  If you stay, I stay”.

His answer was drowned out by the sound of gunfire from in front of and behind us.  They’d decided to come at us from both directions at once, and suddenly rounds were smashing into the stone and plaster all around me.

Knowing that I had to act or I’d be dead, I threw myself flat and skidded out into the hallway, sliding along the tiled floor with my pistol raised.

A round hit the floor close enough to my face that the ricochet cut my ear as I pulled the trigger, three rounds hitting my target in the chest and one in the neck as he fell.

Blood spurted as he dropped, spraying up the wall as his severed jugular unleashed a torrent that painted the corridor red.

Turning back, I saw Tony firing frantically into the hallway behind him, then heard a cry and a thud as his target hit the floor.

I picked myself up and ran over to him, one hand going to my ear and coming away sticky with blood.

“Are you okay?”  Tony asked when he saw me.

I nodded.  “You?”

He coughed and blood washed over his chin again.

“Not really.  Can we go?”

Picking him up carefully, I slung one of his arms around my shoulders and eased him step by step towards the stairs, pistol raised in case there were more goons, but the place was eerily silent even as the gunfire still rang in my ears from the battle.

“What do you think was in that case?”  Tony asked, blood dribbling onto my shoulder with each word.

“I’ve got no idea, but I promise you this.  As soon as I get you to a doctor, I’m going to find the piece of shit that did this and find out”.

Tony nodded, sagging against me as he fought to stay conscious.  As I eased him carefully down the stairs, I promised myself that if my friend died, nothing on earth would stop be from finding the man with the briefcase, and taking the price of Tony’s life out of his hide.

BIO:

To get the skinny on Paul and his work, visit his blog here: http://diariesofamodernmadman.blogspot.com/

OLD DEAD MARTIN, IN MY COAT by Pete Risley

Old Dead Martin, In My Coat

Here's something I never told anybody. You remember Cheryl's brother Martin, the one who died way back when, before we lived out here? I saw him two winters ago, going through our garbage cans in the backyard. I'm sure as hell glad it was me who saw him, rather than Cheryl or one of the kids. Though come to think of it, they wouldn't any of them remember Martin. The kids, I mean. What? No, it was definitely him. Wait, I'll tell you.

It was real early on a Saturday. I was sitting at the kitchen table, having my coffee. The rest of the family like to sleep in, sleep all day if you'd let them, but I always get up at five even on weekends. I just happened to glance out the window and there was Martin, rooting way down into one of our cans, like he thought he might find a nice steak dinner in there.

He had a long grey beard that was all scraggly, and his hair was sticking out all over the place. He looked a whole lot older, and he'd never had the beard before, but I knew it was Martin right away. First, because he'd always had these big bushy eyebrows, and he did this funny thing with them. It was like, he'd get distracted easy, and he'd raise and lower his eyebrows like he was thinking real hard about something. You'd catch him doing it all the time. That was just one of the weird things he did. So here he was still with the eyebrow business going.

Plus, he was wearing this old army overcoat of mine, which he'd borrowed off me a long time ago and never gave back. It wasn't at his apartment when we cleaned it out, so I figured he might have been wearing it when he jumped in the river. It had big pockets you could put a lot of rocks into.

Anyway, at first I thought I must be still asleep and dreaming or something, but then I let go of my damn coffee cup and dropped it right in my lap. Hot black coffee, too. I was awake, all right. I guess I yelled pretty loud, because Martin looked up all of the sudden, and saw me back through the window. He just stood there staring at me for a minute with his mouth hanging open, and then he took off like a rabbit around the garage. I went to the back door and yelled "Hey Martin!" but he was gone.

I still wasn't sure I wasn't off my nut, but I went out after him. Looked like I'd pissed my pants with the coffee all over me.

I looked in the alleyway but he wasn't anywhere around. I was really spooked for a minute, but then I thought to check the garage door. Sure enough, it was unlocked. I gave Cheryl hell about that later, but as usual she blamed it on the kids.

I went into the garage and there he was, trying to hide behind my utility bench. He was peering around the side of it. I said, "OK, Martin, the jig is up now. I see you back there." He just ducked and didn't come out, so I said, "Now look Martin. You're trespassing on my property here. I know it's you and I order you to come out from behind that utility bench. Now, Martin!" He started crawling out before I even got done saying that.

He got up to his feet, staring at me wide-eyed like it was me who was the dead guy. He backed away and bumped against the wall of the garage. He looks me up and down and says, "What's that all over your pants?"

I said, "You freakin' startled me and I spilled some coffee! Now what the hell is this, Martin? It's been, what, fifteen, seventeen years? You're supposed to be dead."

"Leave me be, Roger," he says. "I didn't mean anything. I'm just a poor lost denizen of the spirit world. I didn't know that was your garbage.. Honest."

"A what? A denizen? You mean, like, a ghost?" I said. This bit didn't throw me for a second. "How come if you're a ghost you got to go through people's garbage cans, Martin?"

He says, "Us forsaken shades must wander the earthly plain as penance for our wrongdoings in life." Then he started going like "woooooo" and moving along the wall toward the door waving his hands around in the air, trying to look spooky and distract me so's he could get to the door and run, but he tripped over a concrete block and fell on his ass. Some denizen.

So I talked to him. I said, "That's very feasible in your case, Martin. But why haunt around here? You lived your whole life over on the other side of town. You come here to haunt us? Did we do something to you? Why spook us up, huh? Especially after the big mess you left us with."

"I didn't know you guys lived in this neighborhood."

I wasn't going to let him off. "You ever see your mom in the spirit world, Martin?" His face twisted up for a second, but then just went slack. "She only lasted about six months after you took the big jump. We all knew about the troubles you were having with Denise, and your job, and the credit cards and bad checks and all that. Plus, your little Johnny Walker Red hobby. No, I wouldn't necessarily blame you for taking the easy way out if it was just you, but I believe that a man's got to take responsibility for his damn family."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I can't change it now, Roger." He looked straight at me, not challenging, but not fazed at all, it seemed like.

"But you can always say 'I'm sorry,' huh? By the way, did you know that sweet little Denise married your so-called buddy Rick? They only waited about six weeks. They live out in California now. They breed puppies, I heard, Dobermans or some damn thing."

"I don't care," he said. "I don't want to hear about it."

"Well, I'm not one to dredge up the sordid past, Martin. But I must say, I did think you'd at least gone through with it. I mean, they never found the body, but, the car on the bridge, the note, everything."

"What did you guys do with my car?" he says.

"Who, us? We didn't do anything with it, Martin. It got took. You didn't even have any damn insurance. Do you know how much the whole shebang cost us? If we'd known back then that you didn't really commit suicide--"

"I did so!" he said, glaring at me now, angry. "I did commit suicide!"

"You jumped in the river?" I said.

"Yes!"

"And you stayed in until you drowned?"

He flapped his arms, sighed, and the anger seemed to go right out of him. "Roger, you don't understand. You don't know how it works. I'm still in there."

"You're still in -- where?" I said. "Where?"

"The river," he said, almost in a whisper.

"In the river? You're still drowning in the river?"

"Yes," he says.

"All these years later," I said. "As we're standing talking here right now, you're still drowning in the river."

He nodded, closed his eyes and spoke in a real flat, resigned voice. "I'm there and I'm here. But mostly I'm there. People on this side of the mortal divide don't know. You never get off the hook, even when you're dead. That's all. I found out." He blinked like he was waking up and kept working his eyebrows up and down for a minute or so, staring at me, or more like, through me. Then he stopped with the eyebrows and just stood there, staring.

What he'd just said was really giving me the creeps. So finally I said, "OK, Martin, look. Let's not dwell on it." Then I had a thought and said, "You know, let's not stand out here in the cold. Come on inside a minute, for a cup of coffee, and we'll talk just a little more. You still drink coffee?" He nodded yes, eagerly.

Now, I knew I was taking kind of a big risk doing this, but I figured the kids wouldn't be up for awhile, and Cheryl you need a pair of cymbals to wake up. After all, the guy used to be my brother-in-law, so I guess I figured I owed him that much. Not that I really owed him anything.

I hurried him through the yard and we came into the kitchen. Martin livened up some as soon as we got inside. He was looking around in there like he was in the Sistene Chapel. The place is pretty nice, we've put a lot of money and sweat into it.

"Wow," he says, "what are all those little pots and pans on the wall? You cook with those?"

"They're just decorations, Martin," I said. "Sit down." I poured the coffee and handed it to him. This was going to be a short visit.

"Hey, this is a nice place, Roger! You've done well, huh?"

I sat down at the table with him. "I've got no complaints, Martin. I've worked hard and held my own. But that's beside the point right here. The reason I invited you in here is because I want to make sure you do the right thing."

"What do you mean, Roger?" He was sitting back in his chair and sipping his coffee, getting pretty cozy, it looked like to me.

"What I mean is, I can't have my family haunted by the ghost of a dead relative, who's a skeleton in the closet to boot. It's just going to get everyone upset. You know that Cheryl's always been an emotional person. And then there's the kids. They're young and impressionable. We've having a hard enough time getting them to concentrate on their schoolwork."

"So you got kids now too?" He smiled, and you could see he had a bunch of teeth missing. He didn't smell too good either. "How many?"

I sighed and shook my head. "Three."

"No kidding! Got any pictures?"

"Now, don't get started, Martin. You're a ghost now, and you don't want to start getting nostalgic about your mortal existence. We really just can't have you around here. If you have any shame, if you care anything about your family's well-being, you'll haunt some other neighborhood, or preferably some other city."

"Does Cheryl ever talk about me?" he asks.

"No Martin, what with your mother and all, no. You're not a popular subject around here. Not a popular subject with anybody in the family."

For a second there I thought he was going to cry, but he just got annoyed. "It's not fair," he says. "Nobody feels any compassion over what happened to me at all!"

"What happened to you, you did to yourself, Martin. Now, when I invited you in here, I expected that you would have your coffee, listen to some good advice, and leave. I don't owe you anything. Matter of fact, that's my overcoat you're wearing, which I only loaned you and you committed suicide in."

I was surprised at how he reacted to that. He looked me in the eye again, all serious, and said, "I need it, Roger. It's all I have to keep warm with. Even we woeful revenants get cold on these chilly nights." He was clutching the coat together at the front like he was scared I'd take it.

"Keep the coat, Martin. Just go ahead and keep it. It's  yours, OK? But just, go somewhere else, and do whatever it is you're doing.. Penance, whatever. But, somewhere else."

He grinned. God, he had maybe four teeth. "Thanks a lot, Roger. I really need it. And don't worry about me, I'm gone with the wind."

So that was it. He finished up his coffee and went out the door and through the yard to the alleyway, real light on his feet just like a real ghost. He didn't turn around to wave goodbye or anything. I didn't see which way he went, he just disappeared. It was like he'd never been there at all, almost.

No, he's never come back, and I hope to God he never does. May he rest in peace, wherever the hell he is.

Bio:

Pete Risley is the author of the crime novel RABID CHILD, published by New Pulp Press in July 2010. http://www.newpulppress.com/titles/rabid_child/

BLACKWATER by Anna Harris

BlackWater

Mama watched me walking, kicking up stones along the rutted track.  I seed she waiting for me but I not look her way, knowing I done a bad thing.  Mama sit. She not raise up from she big cane chair on the porch and I knowed then for sure the state of things and what I had to say.  I waved at old man crow with me stick some ‘til he flied off into the low sunball.  Weren’t no call for Mama to see that black bird this day so I slowed me feet and telled the lie inside me own head first, to practice the sound of it before I beed forced to tell it loud.

Me ambled through the open rusted gate that hanged off its broked hinges, past butterflies playing catch across the tall green willow grass, and all the way up onto the front porch where Mama sat rocking with she arms folded over real tight like she trying to hug sheself. 

She speaked quiet and slow. Past angry. “What hour you call this, Asafa Linstead? Why you coming home late from lessons with that stick in you hand? You been waving it at that raggedy evil bird; I seed you. You look me good in this face and you tell me true.”

The words comed out quieter than I practiced. “I not walk down near the blackwater on me way home, Mama.  I not go near that place.”

 

She eyes was wild, red, and she skin shake bad. Mama clutched at me shoulders and sayed, “You swear it with good on you tongue, Asafa?”

I nod but I don’t say the lie again. Then Mama grab me, crush me, squeeze me good and hard, wrap me into she warm skinny bones, breathing deep and long and hard into me hair. She smelled good - of lye soap, our little tin house and the stewing pot on the griddle.

“There’s evil dark voices in the blackwater that beckons good souls.  That the Juju Bokor’s bad place so you stay away.  No good man nor woman nor child got no business straying down by there, you hear me?”

I nodded.

“You hear me, Asafa Linstead? You go the long way round about and not never cut though.”

I heared no evil or dark voices. I heared no voices there at all and I seed no Juju Bokor when I walked on by.  It’s just a place where the water can’t run from but I sayed nothing of it to Mama.  “I know, Mama. You always tell me.”

“And I’ll tell you still. I done already lost you brother Dalvey to the blackwater and my chest would break in pieces to lose you, too.”  Mama took a deep breath, ruffled me hair and kissed me head.  Misty tears washed fear from she eyes and she smiled. Right at me. “Come, precious child, we go inside to eat and give our graces and we’ll say no more on it.”

I beed good and never goed there again for three whole weeks but one day old man crow waited for me in the big tree when I walked by. He cawed out, “As-afa-fa-fa” and he fly close to me head.

“Shoo away, crazy old black bird,” I sayed and I shaked me stick at he but still he fly round about.

“As-afa-fa-fa,” he done caw again. So me run far, shouting, waving and shooing he away. When he stopped quick right there I seed the still, dark place near he.  Stinking black as the bird heself. Old man crow look me good in the face and suddenly I knowed he the Juju Bokor and me chest get tight and small.  I much afraid and I whimper and scream and old man crow dispeer into the blackwater; not a plip, not a ripple.

I know I done a bad thing to go there but then I heared a sweet voice singing me name out soft.  A soothing little sing song voice like a tinkle bell.  Not evil at all. I knowed right away it was Dalvey.

 

“Is that you call me name, Dalvey Linstead?” I sayed.

“Sure enough it is, Asafa.”  Me brother sayed the Juju Bokor trick he into the blackwater and Dalvey asked me to reach in and fetch him up, to bring him home to Mama so she don’t cry at night no more.  Dalvey sayed he lonely and lost and cold and hungry in the blackwater down there and he want to be wrapped up again in Mama’s smell and in she warm skinny bones. Home safe with us again.

Then me not hear Dalvey no more.  He sing song tinkle voice gone. Silence.  Silence.

Me come cold and hungry and me want to be wrapped up in Mama’s sweet smells, too. Want to be crushed into she warm skinny bones with she smiling.  Right at me.

 

“Maaa-maaa,” I call. “Come find me Mama. Bring me home.” But she won’t come.  Much years now there’s silence. I know she not never come down here to the blackwater.  She go the long way round about and not never cut through.

“Maaa-maaa......”

___________________________

BIO: Anna juggles her days between work, sketching portraits, writing, reading and chasing her own tail. But mostly chasing her own tail. Her fantasies include living on an unchartered tropical island – but one that has all the luxuries included.