Pulp Ink Promo - SURF RIDER by Ian Ayris

When the TKnC editors were asked to lend a hand in promoting PULP INK, the ass-whipping new crime fiction collection edited by Chris Rhatigan and Nigel Bird, our answer was simple. Hell yes!

PULP INK features 24 manic and blisteringly bizarre tales from some of the best crime writers around, many of whom have featured on Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers over the years. 

The content of this pulp fiction e-book is being compared to "the gleeful insanity of a Tarantino flick" and the collection has already stacked up a pile of 5* reviews. Everyone should own a copy - and you can! Download it from Amazon UK or US. If you don't have a Kindle or e-reader then download the free Apps for PC, iPad, iPhone and Android from Amazon. 

In the meantime, here's Ian Ayris with a taster of what to expect from this outstanding gathering of talent:

Surf Rider

by Ian Ayris

The Surf Rider’s mind blew in April ’73. The Surf Rider, he didn’t feel a thing – five Strawberry Fields and a staple diet of Mandrax and Lebanese Gold does that to a man.

The doctors called it a “drug-induced psychosis.”

Nearly forty years on, the Surf Rider stands at a bar in Huntington Beach, what remains of his dignity covered by an Afghan coat and knee-length Bermuda shorts. His voluminous gut pushes out a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt, his sun-brown hands clutch a bright yellow Lightning Bolt surfboard closer to him than the dreams of a shattered childhood. His silver-grey hair hangs past his shoulders, and his eyes stare wide, wide to a world beyond words. 

Two men stagger into the bar. Strangers in this town. Foreigners. London boys on the holiday of a lifetime.

“Look at that cunt,” one of them says, pointing at the man in the Afghan coat and the Bermuda shorts. “Thinks he’s on Hawaii fuckin’ Five-O.”

The other man, the man with him, laughs. Laughs too loud. And the vibrations cut through the smoke and the chatter and land at the edge of the Surf Rider’s perception. Two shadows, that’s all they are. Two shadows. Melting.

“What you havin’, Steve? Some of that Yankee piss lager?”

“Look at his eyes,” Steve says, “it’s like they’re gonna fuckin’ explode. Geezer’s gotta be fuckin’ on a fuckin’ world of shit.”

The other one nods, one shattered soul to another.

“But look at that fuckin’ surfboard,” Steve says. “That’s a fuckin’ original Lightnin’ Bolt, that is.”

“What the fuck’s a Lightnin’ Bolt?”

“It’s an old surfboard. Collector’s item, you know. Me dad had one when we used to live down the coast. Probably worth a fuckin’ fortune nowadays.”

“Best we take a closer look then.”

And the two Londoners move along the bar, punters at a Victorian Freak Show. Businessmen of the New Millenium.

The colors change, the beat slows. The edges become sharp and the shadows become fiery demons, eyes aflame.

The bartender steps in, slows time. He asks the boys if he can get them something to drink.

“What? Yeah. Couple of lagers, mate.”

“Are you boys from England?” the bartender says.

“That’s right, fella. London.”

Two bottles of Yankee piss lager land on the bar.

The bartender says his wife is from England, and says the beers are on the house.

“That geezer with the surfboard, what’s his story?”

The bartender’s jaw tightens. The friendly smile sets in concrete, eyes fixed on the two strangers. He leans on the bar. Lowers his voice. Confidential. And tells them he’s always been here, the Surf Rider. Stands in the corner, holding his board, he says. That’s all he does. Just stares off into nowhere with them big round eyes. He never buys more than a couple of drinks. The Boss says he’s good for business. A local attraction. 

Steve fumbles in the front of his jeans for his camera, wanting to get a closer look at the surfboard. He scythes through the crowd till he’s within a couple of feet of the Surf Rider.

Blood and brains and walls too thin. The flowers are shouting and the blue devil eats the elephant’s ears.

“Gi’s a smile, mate.”  

Flash.

The Surf Rider, he don’t even blink.

Steve returns to the bar and his Yankee piss lager. The bartender glares at him, grave and disapproving, and casts a wary eye along the bar to where the Surf Rider stands.

“What’s up with this cunt?” Steve says. “I only took a fuckin’ picture.”

The two lads take their bottles of Yankee piss lager and find a place to hide in the crowd.

“So, what do you reckon? The real deal?”

“Yeah, mate. It’s the real fuckin’ deal all right. A one hundred fuckin’ percent original Lightnin’ Bolt. Gonna be like takin’ candy off a fuckin’ baby.”

Edges sharp as razors now. Sharp as razors.


***

Closing time. The bartender is waiting for the Surf Rider to exit the building so he can lock up for the night. The Surf Rider. One heavy step after the other. Like he’s walking on the moon. He nears the exit as the doorway gets smaller and smaller, narrowing, shrinking. He squeezes through the rabbit hole and into the Wonderland night, and he paints the darkness with gold and silver and blue broken diamonds.

Just because he can. 

And waiting in the darkness, hiding in shadows, the two strangers watch with dollar-sign eyes, just like in the cartoons.

The Surf Rider rounds the corner. The two strangers emerge from the dark, and waste no time. One jumps the Surf Rider from behind whilst the other tries to wrest the board from his grip. But the board, it is a part of him. Don’t they know that? Can’t they see?

With a twist of might, one assailant is hurled against the wall, and slides down like vomit. The other, the other is having his face caved in with the top edge of the surfboard. 

And deep in the darkness to a Beach Boy rhythm, the Surf Rider rides… the waves of oblivion… pounding… pounding… pounding…


Bio:

Ian Ayris has had nearly forty stories published online and in print over the last couple of years. His debut novel, Abide With Me, is due to be published by Caffeine Nights Publishing in late 2011, and one of his short stories, “Small Print,” has been accepted for next year's edition of Maxim Jakubowski's Mammoth Book of Best British Crime. Ian lives in London, England, with his wife and three children.

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For more PULP INK teasers nip over to The Flash Fiction Offensive where Editor David Barber showcases Padre by AJ Hayes. You can also download a sample of the book from Amazon which provides a full table of contents and a couple of stories.

UNFORGIVEN by Ian Ayris

EDITOR NOTE: The comment settings have been tweaked to make it easier for readers to let the authors know what they thought of their stories. So, if you've read a story, please provide some feedback! It spurs the writer on...

Unforgiven



My dad was a docker. And me granddad. Lived and died on the docks, they did. Both of em. Me, I never got the chance.


Most of the actual docks are still there, you know, the water bits. But they turned em into places for posh boats and stuff. Rich boys paddlin pools, that sort of shit. The warehouses and the market and the clubs, and all the other stuff, all that stuff what made this place so special in the old days, it’s all gone. Flattened. Levelled. Fucked. And where all that life was, they went and built an airport on it.


Who’d have thought it, eh. Round here. A fuckin airport. My dad would have laughed himself silly at the thought. Me granddad, he would’ve spit his stout all down his front.

But there it is. Right there. All big and shiny and new.

I only been there once, the airport. There was this job in the paper, see. Baggage handler. The docks was gone, but I’m thinkin, least I could carry on the family tradition, you know, workin where the docks was. Close as I was gonna get to followin in me old man’s footsteps, I reckoned.


So I phone em up and they send me a form. I send it back to em all filled in with me best handwritin. And I get this call they wanna see me. Cushty, I thought. I’m in. So I mosey on over in me Top Man suit and me twenty quid shoes, and a fair bit of hope in me heart.


Was bigger than what I thought, the airport. Huge. Me dad used to tell me the docks was massive in the old days, like its own little world. And walkin into this aiport, it’s sort of like that. People everywhere. Millin about. Thousands of em. And there’s shops and places to eat, and everything. A proper world of its own.


I take meself a deep breath, put me best foot forward and ask one of the security where to go. I show him the letter. ‘Good luck,’ he says, sort of like he meant it but takin the piss at the same time. Couldn’t work out which, if I’m honest. Too nervous, see.


But I let it go.


When I find the office, I knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ someone says. There’s two people when I got inside. All suited up, sittin behind a desk. A geezer and a bird.


They was all pucker, to begin with. Askin if I got there all right, where I see the advert, stuff like that. But then it gets a bit . . . well, you know, they start askin me about me ‘previous experience‘. ‘Other jobs‘. Now I’m a bit touchy on that subject. I’ve turned over a new leaf since I come out the nick. All I’m askin for’s a fuckin chance.


‘Previous?’ I says. ‘Other jobs?‘


That’s right, they say.


‘Mr Livingstone,’ the geezer says, ‘we only want to ascertain your suitability for the post.’ Says it all posh. Like he could shit on me any time he wants.


So I’m straight with em. Tell em about me time inside and how I’m turnin over a new leaf. I tell em about me dad. How he was on the docks from leavin school, shiftin this and shiftin that. How he’d come home for his supper, knackered and filthy, but you know, settled for havin done a day’s work. And I tell em about me granddad and how he worked the docks forty years, till a box of bananas fell on his head. Squashed him flat. Tell em I come here to follow the family tradition. Not the bananas bit. Wouldn’t wanna go that way. But, you know, workin where they worked.


‘You do know this is an airport, Mr Livingstone, I presume?’ the geezer says. He’s sayin the ‘I presume’ bit every time he says me name, thinkin he’s funny or something.


I don’t get it, meself, but the bird, she’s smirkin every time he says it. I ain’t in there much longer than another ten minutes.


‘Thank you, for your time,’ the geezer says. ‘We’ll be in touch soon.’


Two weeks later I get this letter sayin I ain‘t got the job. They wished me luck findin something else, and that. But it was too late for fuckin niceties. If they’d have just listened. If they’d just understood, you know, about me turnin a new leaf, wantin the job cos of me old man and me granddad, and the docks, and not took the fuckin piss, I’d have forgot the whole business. But they didn’t.


So, I couldn’t.


I give me old mate Danny a bell. You don’t wanna know what shit he’s into. Trust me.


You don’t. But if you wanna make a difference, up the anti, he’s your man.


And Danny boy’s come up fuckin trumps.


So, I’m on me way back there, to the airport, gettin out the station, me sports bag slung over me shoulder.

There’s the same security guard. I give him a nod. He nods back.


‘All right?’ he says.

I nod. I don‘t smile. Puts the shit up him. I walk on.


Queues of people, whinin and moanin and grumblin and thinkin they’re the most important fuckin people in the whole fuckin world. But they ain’t worth fuck all, these sort. Standin their with their business suits and their mobile fuckin phones and their laptops. None of em would’ve lasted ten minutes in my old man’s day. Ten fuckin minutes.

All the pretend’s gone now. I went for that shitty job in good fuckin faith. I was tryin to go straight. I really was. But they laughed in me face.

I head for the karzi.

*** 

There’s a geezer with his back to me, havin a shave at one of the sinks, and one of the shit-houses is locked. No-one at the pissers, so I‘m as good as on me own. But I don’t care if no cunt sees me anyway. I put the bag on the floor. Open it up. And I think of me dad and me granddad livin and dyin on the docks.


I take out Danny’s piece of kit and feel the weight of it in me hands.


The geezer at the sink turns round as he hears me load up. I pop him with a quick blast, and watch him explode into the mirror.


Then I’m out the karzi and into the airport proper. Stridin. Fuckin stridin. And I’m blastin away and there’s people screamin and runnin and bleedin and dyin and I’m cutting em down like Clint Eastwood in that cowboy film where he goes mental at the end.


You know, that one where you see it’s comin all the way through and when it does, when it does come, it is just so fuckin beautiful.


BIO:
Ian Ayris lives in London with his wife and three children. He's had over twenty-five short stories accepted for publication both online and in print. His stuff can be found in the Byker Books' 'Radgepacket' collections, A Twist of Noir, Curbside Splendor, Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers, Pulp Metal Magazine, The Flash Fiction Offensive, Waterhouse Review, Powder Burn Flash, Yellow Mama, and in print in Out of the Gutter Issue 7.
Ian's novel, Abide With Me will soon be published by Caffeine Nights. He can be found hanging around at http://ianayris.blogspot.com/

LADIES' DAY by Ian Ayris

Ladies' Day


Virginia Westlake. Poor Virginia Westlake. Thirty years a golfing widow.

Her husband, Derek, was a big man at the club. Spent his life there. Meetings for this. Meetings for that. Ladies' days and Open days. Captain's days and Charity days. And he told her all about it. Every last detail.

She smiled. Virginia Westlake, smiled. She nodded. Every inch the devoted wife.

'That's nice, dear,' she'd say. 'Lovely, dear,' she'd say.

And the more he talked, the more he looked straight through her.

Derek finished his cup of tea.

'I'm off now, dear,' he said. 'To the club. Committee meeting then a round with Bob and Charles. Don't wait up.'

She followed him out to the hallway. Watched him check his clubs, one by one, and lump the bag onto his shoulder. He moved towards her.

'Goodbye, dear,' he said.

And he pecked her on the cheek. An empty gesture if ever there was one, she thought.

'Have a good game,' she called out after him as he ambled down the front path. Have a good game.

He raised a hand in silent salutation, packed the clubs into the boot of the car, and was gone.

***

'Ladies' Day tomorrow, dear,' Derek said, the following lunchtime, mopping crumbs of tuna sandwich from his mouth with a paper towel. 'You're paired with Irene Timms. Perry's wife. She works at the charity shop.'

Virginia Westlake couldn't care less about Irene Timms and her fucking charity shop. Or fucking 'Ladies' Day.

Derek rose to leave.

'Don't wait up, dear,' he said. 'I'll have dinner at the club.'

Virgina Westlake followed him out to the hallway. Watched him check his clubs, one by one.

A pause.

'Dear? Have you seen my -'

Half turning, he caught a final, horrified glimpse of his dear wife swinging the nine iron into his face. Virginia Westlake put the next ten minutes to good use, battering him to death.

Time well spent, she thought, and she laughed and she laughed and she laughed.

Then she sat on the bottom of the stairs, put her hands to her face, and sobbed her heart out.


BIO:
Ian Ayris lives in London with his wife and three children. He has had over twenty-five short stories accepted for publication both online and in print. His stuff can be found in the Byker Books' 'Radgepacket' collections, A Twist of Noir, Curbside Splendor, Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers, Pulp Metal Magazine, The Flash Fiction Offensive, and Waterhouse Review. He will shortly have stories up at Powder Burn Flash, Yellow Mama, and in print in Out of the Gutter Issue 7.
Ian can be found hanging around at http://ianayris.blogspot.com

STARS by Ian Ayris

Time for more crime...

Stars

'Lift up my head,' he says, quiet, blood slidin out the side of his mouth. 'Let me gaze at the stars one last time.'

Gaze at the stars? Who does he think he fuckin is? But I'm a bit of a softy, me. All heart, you know. And this one is a bit different. So I bend down to him, slip me left hand under his head and lift it up a bit. No good for me back, the bendin down, but I do it anyway. Sort of bloke I am. He tries to talk but there's just a load of blood comes out, and he starts coughin. I back away a bit, still holdin up his head.

He puts his eyes skywards.

There's a car goes by, but no-one can see us here. I mean, who comes to a place like this, this time of night? No fucker, that's who. Less they got a job to do.

Me dad used to bring me up here as a kid. At night. He'd sit me down in the grass and tell me not to move a muscle. He'd know if I did, he said. Then he'd fuck off to the pub for a couple of hours. I'd sit there shakin, listenin to the owls and the wind and the voices what sounded like they was everywhere. But there weren't never no-one here, not that I never saw, anyways. He'd come back for me, all stumblin and pissed . Drag me into the car, and if he saw so much as a tear on me face, he'd beat the shit out of me with his belt when we got back home.

Said it was like the Spartans. Said they had the right idea. Told me they'd leave their littl'uns on the side of a mountain day they was born. Come back the next night. Any still left, you know, still breathin, they'd bring em down and make warriors of em. My dad loved all that shit. Warriors, and that. Said you gotta look after yourself in this life, your loved ones, and that. Know how to handle yourself, you know.

He'd be tellin me all this while he was hittin me with his belt, so I never got it word for word what he was sayin, but I got the gist, you know. Done me the world of fuckin good, mind. Wouldn't be here today if it weren't for my old man and all the lessons I learned off him. Was a tough little fucker growin up. Hard as nails. Still am. I got respect on the manor cos of it, and respect is the most important thing there fuckin is.

His head's gettin heavy. He ain't got long, this geezer. I don't usually get this close. Usually just do the job and fuck off out of there. But this ain't no usual job. Fuck me, it ain't. Didn't really wanna do it, to be honest, but I got me reputation to think of.
I'm tryin not to look in his eyes, but he's sort of draggin me to em just by lookin at me. Sort of forcin me. He's tryin to say something, but there ain't nothing comin out his mouth other than a load more blood. But everything he's sayin, he's sayin with his eyes, like he's lookin right inside me.
There's a wind whipping round us. And it's got cold as fuck.

Me mum, she never knew the half of it. Reckoned she never, anyway. Said me dad was old school, didn't know no other way. She reckoned he loved me to bits, and in his own way he probably did. Never felt like it at the time, mind. And I never saw nothing in his eyes other than hate and black and blood.

When he popped his clogs, me mum never talked about him again. Like he never lived.

He's coughin up again, this geezer. And I'm cradlin him in me arms and he's shiverin and the blood's splatterin all over me face, and the moon's showin blood all over the dog collar thing round his neck and me breath's catchin in me throat.

I tear me eyes away from his face for a sec cos I can't bear it no more.

The gravestones are watchin us. Watchin me. Watchin what I done. What I am.

Fuckin hell.

I'm thinking of them babies on that mountain not havin a fuckin clue why they're cold and why they're scared and hungry and wonderin if this is it, you know, if this is what it's all about.

I pull him close. Lean right in. And there's a tear comes out me eye. Drops on his face. I twist the knife in harder and push it upward, and I let his head go gently onto the grass. Then I lay down next to him.

And look up at the stars.


BIO:
Ian Ayris' stories appear in several online and print publications, including the Byker Books 'Radgepacket' series, 'Caught by Darkness' - a Static Movement anthology, A Twist of Noir, Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers, Pulp Metal Magazine, and The Flash Fiction Offensive. Other stories will shortly be appearing in Out of the Gutter, Powder Burn Flash, Yellow Mama, and Beat to a Pulp. Ian lives in London with his wife and three children, and has just completed his first novel.
http://ianayris.blogspot.com/

FREE by Ian Ayris

TKnC welcomes Ian...


Free


To wake up without fear, that's one hell of a thing. I mean, no fear at all. Nothing.

And that after one fucker of a year.

Started last April when me dog got run over by some prick in a white van. Loved that dog, I did. Trixie. Border collie. Had her since I was twelve.

Tracked the bastard down, though. The geezer in the white van.

I know where he lives.

And then there was Lucy, our little girl. Gorgeous, she was. My little angel. Five years old. Leukaemia.

Doctor said she'd be okay. Pull through, you know. Watery blue eyes, she had. Like she knew.

Doctor Gareth Williams. 46 Tennyson Close. That was him.

Wife left me two days after the funeral. Said she couldn't cope. Moved in with her mum. Her bitch of a mum. Never liked me, she never. And the old man, what a cunt he is. Thinks he knows everything, he does. But he knows fuck all. About me. About my life. About what it's like livin without the only things what was ever able to get right inside you and make you feel something.

Thompson and Sons. Doormakers. Was there since I left school. They reckoned I should see a psychiatrist, get counselling, or something. After everything, you know. I said I'd be all right, just take a bit of time.

That's when the burnin started, sittin in that office, listenin to all that shit. Got worse at night, the burnin. Got so when I closed me eyes I had to grit me teeth so hard I thought they were gonna break. All that just to hold it in. That burnin. I'd wake up with me eyes all wet and tears all over me pillow.

But that stopped. After a while. The tears, I mean.

They got rid of me anyway. There since I was a nipper, and they got rid of me. Just like that.

The bank threw me out the house. The bank on the high street, next to the post office. Couldn't pay the mortgage, see. Ended up in this little bedsit where I am now. It's a shithole. But it does.

And the burnin, that burnin what I was talkin about, one night, it just went cold. Stopped. And I woke up in the mornin light as a fuckin feather. I've started smilin again. But it ain't like a happy smilin or nothing, it's more like I'm smilin cos I know what I gotta do. I got a purpose. Something to live for.

It's been two days since. It's took me that long to get all me bits together.

The paraffin. The ropes. The knives. Me list of names and addresses.

My name is Terry Jenkins. I am twenty-four years old. And for the first time in my life, I am free.


BIO:
Ian has had a dozen short stories published online and in print, in such publications as Byker Books 'Radgepacket' series, The Flash Fiction Offensive and Pulp Metal Magazine. He lives in London with his wife and three children, and has just completed his first novel.