AT THE NORMAL CAFE - part 2 - VICTIMS By Chris Allinotte

At the Normal Café – Part 2 – Victims


Dwayne looked up to see if Bev was looking at him. She didn’t have a problem with the fact he poured a large helping of whiskey into each cup of coffee she poured for him, not really, but it would provoke another of her “just sayin’” lectures about how much he was drinking these days. He didn’t have time for that today. Being a thirteen-year regular had its benefits and free pie was the least of them. The downside was it gave Bev a free pass into his business. Right now though, he just wanted to sit here and get quietly loaded. Looking around the place, he wouldn’t get much in the way of argument. There was just the dirty looking guy at the counter, Lenny Andrini by the window, who was another regular, and a handful of others. He wished for something better on TV though; anything to take his mind off Mavis’ basement.

***

Ironic, that’s what it was. Dwayne, the one person Mavis Godridge had hated in the world. Trucker Dwayne, who wasn’t good enough for her Ellen, was the one stuck in her sweltering little house making piles marked “keep”, “toss” and “Goodwill”. There’d be no complaints from Mavis, as she was a month in the ground now, almost to the day.

Ironic too, that a woman who’d taken up death as a hobby should be so ill organized when her own time came.

In recent years, Mavis had started attending a funeral every weekend. She went without fail, whether she knew the person or not. “Some of them don’t have anyone Ellen,” she’d said. “It isn’t fitting to be buried without someone there to mark it.” Little gestures like that made Dwayne admit the old harpy wasn’t all bad – she just hated HIM.

Not ironic, but pure batshit crazy, was the fact his mother-in-law had been stealing from the dead.

***

The morning had been sent tossing out a horde of rubber bands, aluminum foil, and newspapers. Had Mavis died but two months earlier, he wouldn’t have had to separate this crap for the garbage. Instead, he dutifully sorted, and imagined Mavis laughing at him.

After lunch, also spent here at “the Normal”, he’d returned to tackle the basement.

The smell was different down there. All the pot-pourri in the world couldn’t hide the musty, earthy smell of cellar. Built sometime before the 1890’s, Mavis’ house still had the original hard- packed dirt floor. Shallow shelves the colour of driftwood ran beside the staircase, full of preserved peaches and those god-awful pickles Mavis made, the memory of which made Dwayne pucker.

He sensed something deeply awry as soon as he saw the shoeboxes. By that point in the day, Dwayne had a very good, albeit unwilling, sense of Mavis’ clothing inventory, which included no less than three black “funeral” dresses. He knew how many pairs of shoes he’d thrown into the giveaway pile, and this was way too many boxes. They were neatly stacked along the cinderblock wall, away from the furnace in a row about five feet long. Piled three high in places, there were easily over seventy boxes here. From the stairs, Dwayne could see the single unifying feature of all the boxes was the perfectly rectangular piece of paper scotch-taped to the top of each box.

He moved a dirty shovel that had fallen across the stairs, and picked up the closest box. It was matte gray and advertised a size seven black leather pump. Something small and metallic-sounding shifted as he lifted it closer. The square of newsprint on top confirmed the feeling of dread he’d had since entering the cellar. The obituary read, “Sheldon, Mitchell, 1936-2008, beloved of …” He took a deep breath, and opened the box. Inside was a large gold ring, with a heavy oval ruby set on top. The engraving confirmed, it was a school ring, from the University of Illinois, class of sixty-two.

Holy shit. Dwayne played this thought on a continuous loop for the next fifteen minutes, as he opened box after box. Each contained a memento that could only have come from the person who was mourned in newsprint on the outside of the box. Some had pictures, some had none; which was preferrable. There was something so wrong about handling these items already, but it was infinitely worse when they seemed to be watching you. When he got to the box marked, “Jacobs, Lori May, 2005-2008, and he heard the tinkling from inside that could only have been a toy doll, he decided then and there that he’d had enough.

Stopping only long enough to pick up his now-nearly-empty fifth of whiskey, he’d come to the diner and started drinking.

Three hours later, he was pleasantly buzzed, the memories of the day were taking on a soft focus, and he was starting to feel okay again, except the five cups of coffee he’d drunk to smuggle booze into his stomach were making their presence known.

He got up and made his way to the men’s room, past one of the only other occupied tables, where a sad looking woman with short blonde hair was staring into her coffee.

His next thought was cut off as he was thrown back into one of the booths along the wall. He felt as if he’d been punched in the shoulder, hard.

The pain was enormous. Even through the alchohol soaked haze, he felt as if he’d been slammed in the shoulder with a pipe-wrench. He collapsed into the nearest booth. Presumably the shooter thought he’d killed Dwayne, as no second shot came.

It was the stranger from the front counter. The dirty-looking guy in the long coat was screaming now. “Shut up! Shut up all of you! Quit LAUGHING!”

Dwayne kept his head low. It was next to impossible to think of anything but his shoulder. Blood was starting to spread like a red oil-slick on his shirt, and he could smell the seared-skin smell of the wound. Suddenly, he was fighting with his stomach not to dump all the carefully ministered alcohol into the cracked vinyl booth next to him. He forced himself to exhale through mostly closed lips. A long rattling sigh would likely get him killed. Two more deep breaths and he was almost back to calm. Worse, he felt sobriety threatening to creep back in. He wanted desperately to stay numb right now.

There had to be a way out of this. He though briefly of the large-bladed lockknife he kept handy, both as a tool, and a deterrent for punks who wanted to get cute after closing time. He dismissed the idea immediately; as to literally bring a knife to a gunfight would be tantamount to doing jumping jacks while yelling, “Shoot me!”

So, no knife. His cellphone then. The heavy yellow and black handset was in his left hip pocket. There was no way he was getting it out with his injured arm. He took a few quiet panting breaths, and rolled over on the seat, gritting his teeth against the flash of pain. The nutcase fired again. The report was deafening, and made the crash of breaking glass that came after barely significant.

That was the mirror behind the counter. Dwayne knew it was true as soon as the thought came. He had his right thumb and forefinger tucked into the left pocket now, and was prospecting past keys and a roll of antacid to the heavy plastic brick that was his phone. He eased it out slowly.

It was fortunate, he thought, that the guy was so keyed up, so tweaked, he wasn’t really aiming at anything, just firing wildly.

Got close enough to get me though, he thought, grimacing again at the pain. Okay, phone’s out. Now what? He couldn’t very well start yelling at the cops to for-god’s-sake-come now. In fact, come to think on it, there was no way 911 could trace his location on a cell.

The world swam out of focus as his shoulder throbbed again. He slammed his head back against the booth, willing himself to stay awake, stay with it. There was another crash of the gun, and the picture window in front exploded. No more people hit … yet.

While the explosion was still echoing, he hit send.

He mumbled “Police” when he heard the voice pick up.

The psycho was still screaming. He pulled the phone as close to his lips as possible.

“Normal Café. Shooting everyone. Hurry.” It was all he could manage, all he dared.

There was a brief calm. He thought he could hear the shooter panting from his exertions. He fumbled with the phone to close it, and his shoulder sent another bolt of pain lancing through his skull. His muscles twitched, and the phone went skittering out of his grasp to land on the floor, where the fiddly back plate popped off and the battery fell out. It lay like a dead thing on the tile under the flickering fluorescent tubes.

Dwayne gasped, and the sudden deep breath made his head swim. Combined with the pain, the world went gray, and he knew this time he was going out.

He thought, “I hope the cops heard me.” And then, as grey became black he wondered what Mavis would have taken from him.

Copyright 2009 Chris Allinotte

BIO:


Chris Allinotte is a Toronto based writer. His work has been published on the web at such great sites as MicroHorror, Flashes in the Dark, the Oddville Press, and more. For more details about Chris' writing, check out his blog at http://chrisallinotte.blogspot.com/

RIPPED OFF By Stephen Hill

Steve brings us another in his take on the Zombie genre.
WARNING: If easily offended do not read.

RIPPED OFF

“Huh,” Phil muttered. Considering he’d just ripped his cock off, he was surprised by how calm he felt.

It’s not that detaching his dick during his daily wake up round of tug-the-pretzel didn’t concern Phil on some level, but a pleasant, boozy numbness had just smothered him from head to toe. Any feelings of pain or anxiety had been flushed faster than the gruel spilling from his ragged wound onto the bed sheets.

Phil remembered the pillow talk of a blonde pharmacist he’d banged last year. Before she’d finally swallowed his hammer, she’d talked about shock triggering the body’s production of “reasonably effective” pain-killing hormones. Reasonably effective? If he had them to thank for his current state of relaxation, thought Phil, his hormones had to give heroin a run for its money.

Through numbed indifference, he stared at the meat in his hand, wondering how something so familiar had become unrecognizable. As his johnson drained, its shape warped and flattened, turning his rigid bone into a bloodied sandwich bag. From its severed base, blue veins sluiced between his fingers like pasta through a colander.

The alarm clock wailed from the nightstand, and Phil slapped it off with his clean hand, almost knocking off an unopened box of Trojans he didn’t recognize. Should have picked up some band-aids instead, thought Phil, and surprised himself with a chuckle.

There was a watery belching sound from the hole in his lap, and the smell of copper wafted up his nose. Still no pain though, and any memory of last night was obscured by a thick belt of fog. Besides the Trojans, the only clue was an obnoxious trail of crumpled clothes. Stabbed by darts of morning light, it wove a drunken path from the door to the bed.

Must have been a bender with Greg and Derek, Phil figured, and - right on cue - his iPhone brayed from the floor. He flung his hand over the side of the bed and snagged it off the carpet.

“Talk to me.”

“Dude,” Derek began. His vocal cords sounded like they’d been attacked by a belt sander. “Are you calling in sick or what?”

“Considering it,” said Phil.

“And what about last night? Have you considered that?”

Phil could tell Derek was smiling. “No fucking clue what happened,” he sighed.

“Oh, so now you’re going to try and tell me you don’t even remember the zombie?”

Phil paused. “Zomb-?”

“Hey, no shame,” said Derek, cutting him off. “If I was into them, that zombie would be the first one I’d fuck the shit out of.” He hawked up what sounded like a fistful of phlegm. “That is, as long as I double-bagged my unit with a pair of those raincoats you picked up.”

Phil’s eyes swung back to the box of Trojans, sealed tight and forgotten, then down to the floor. The sun now exposed not only the heaving wrinkles of his clothes, but an ugly dress, worn and faded. Splashed with a flower pattern the color of puke, it twisted around the corner of the bedroom door in a mangled snarl. One sleeve was rust-stained and shredded. Black scars scorched the other.

“Uh, you still alive there, buddy?” asked Derek, and Phil hung up. The trail didn’t end at the bed, he realized. At the bed was where it started. Where it ended was his apartment’s living room. He’d just come back to get some sleep.

After all, there was only room on the couch for one.

The fog soon returned, wolfing back every memory in his infected brain. Engulfed in numbness for good, Phil found he didn’t care at all.

Short intermission and request

It's time for voting for the Editors and Predators E-zine Awards. If you think that Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers is worthy of a vote then you can do so here: http://www.critters.org/predpoll/fictionzine.shtml

Please follow the instructions to log your vote on-line. The voting runs to mid-January so not much time left.

Thanks to TKnC regular Lee Hughes for bringing this to my attention.

Matt

EDDIE DODGES A BULLET by Robert Crisman

TKnC welcomes Robert...

EDDIE DODGES A BULLET


Some things you can’t plan for.

The rip-off out at the dope-house went south. They got away with the money and dope, but an old lady bystander got waxed right outside and the world was after their ass.

Eddie would not be able to hang with the killing. Ramon and Dennis decided that he had to go.

Eddie and Dennis had stashed the loot in a storehouse. They’d planned to meet Ramon there next night, divvy up, and vamoose. The plan now was, Ramon wouldn’t show and Dennis would leave Eddie there…

They got to the storehouse at 8:45. Eddie pulled in and parked. They sat in the lot for a minute, Eddie thinking Ramon would show up.

Dennis said, “This is stupid. We’re out in the fuckin’ light here. Somebody comes along, I don’t want ‘em checkin’ us out. Let’s go inside.”

“What for, man?” Eddie said. “It’s cold out here, it’s cold in there, too. I don’t want to just hang around waiting for the guy anyway. Let’s go and come back.”

“We’re already here. Look, see that place across the road where the cars are? We go in, get it, an’ then go over there, by that tree, cut the lights, an’ then wait. Ramon comes, we can flag him.”

“Why not just go somewhere and come back?”

“Man, I—let’s just do this, alright? I don’t wanna drive around. An’, if we get back, somethin’ happened, he’s late, I don’t wanna wait, either. Means somethin’ happened, an’ then I’m gonna just wanna go. Plus, if he comes an’ we ain’t made it back yet, he’s gonna wonder how come. So—okay?”

Edgy Dennis, a flash from last night. He looked like Bluto there in the shadow: black sandpaper beard and muscles he ripped off some bear. Not a guy you wanted pissed off.

They got out of the car and went into the place.

Inside, the darkness pressed down. Dennis hulked down the hall. Eddie trailed, a thin, sharp-featured shadow, chewing his lips as his deep set black eyes flicked this way and that.

Eddie felt something…bad feeling… But, he was tired, way past his limits. He brushed it, the feeling, whatever it was. He just wanted to go get the money and boogie.

They got to the room. Dennis brought out the key. He scratched his belly, adjusting the gun in his belt. He opened the door and turned on the light, hanging back by the switch as Eddie came past him into the room.

Dennis brought the gun out. This would be quick. A shot to the head, he’d lay him up under the shelf, grab the stuff, and be gone…

He started to bring the gun up, but—what was the deal? Eddie’d stopped dead. He was—

Why is he—?

The shelf—the—where is the shoebox?

The money! It’s gone!

Eddie turned, saw Dennis, the gun—

Time exploded—

Eddie jumped at that gun! Something inside him—a blind, flailing will to survive—

Dennis, agape, off-guard and off-balance, tripped up and went down. Eddie blew out of that room like a rocket.

Dennis untangled, got up, and tore after his ass.

Out to the lot—where the fuck did he go? Over at the edge, bushes, trees, an old chainlink fence—and something that snicked off the metal.

Into the bushes, a hole in the fence. Dennis crawled through and got up, looked around. The place was all shadows and barely lit shapes.

Up ahead stood a shack. A broken-down school bus behind it. Crap all around. Spooky scene, man. No sound whatever.

Dennis hopped to the shack and tipped toward the bus, gun up and ready. He got to the bus and peeked past it. Nothing but bushes and weeds and dark, rusted shapes, with a fence all around. Maybe 60 feet deep. Eddie had to be hiding here someplace.

Dennis listened for sound. Rats pissing on cotton. The wind picked up just a bit.
Where is the rabbit?

Then, some kind of noise. The other side of the bus, in the bushes. Rustling, maybe a cat. The place was a snarled-up mess. Clusters of bushes, waist-high. Plus, all the rusted-out crap. A rabbit could hide here a long time…

Get him and kill him and leave his ass here.

Dennis went into the dingles, slowly, mouth-breathing, crouched low. He got his pants snagged on a wire. He stopped and eased free, looked around. Shapes dancing, but, nothing… No sound but the wind. Time oozed on by.

Another rustle, off to the right, near the fence. Dark, patchy ground. A rat, a raccoon, bushes thicker than shit… C’mon, motherfucker!

Bing, an idea. Flush this cocksucker. Dennis picked up a rock, looked this way and that, and… If he knew where the cocksucker was, he’d know where to toss the damn rock. And, then, why would he need to…?

Fuck, toss it wherever…

He flung the rock off to the left. Clank, rattle, rustle, and nothing. Fucking stupid idea…

What else?

The place was too wet from the rain to set it on fire. And, besides…

Jesus Christ…

A thump to his left up ahead, like something got dropped, like a rock, or, who knows? He took a step toward it—and, rustling behind him, and—Blam! Dennis’s whole world lit up, then went red, and then, black. He fell like a sackful of rocks.

Eddie stood over him, gasping for breath, a thick chunk of wood in his hand. He almost fell over himself, then steadied and gripped the wood tighter.

He took a quick look around. Off to his right was the fence, and beyond that the storage, and past that, his car… What to do? He looked down at Dennis. Should he finish him off or just leave him? Eddie hoped he was already dead. He wasn’t going to hit him again.

The dope was still in the bag in the storage. The money, who knew? Ramon might have snatched it…

Some partners he, Eddie, had picked…

The storage keys and gun. He bent down and snatched them off Dennis.

He went back through the fence and into the lot and into the storage and down to the room. Quick in and out.

Out to the car, to the trunk. He threw in the satchel, chock-full of dope. The keys and the gun? Leave them. Wipe the gun first. He tossed them up on the roof.

Into the car. Hit the ignition, bang into reverse, crank the wheel and then into first, hit the road, exit Eddie…

Not the way Dennis had figured the whole thing would go.

BIO:
Robert Crisman knew Eddies and learned early on that they'd die for nothing. He wanted to live so he cut them loose. He tries to bring them alive in his stories, however, through acid-noir looks at the way they did business. He loves Dashiell Hammett, who also knew Eddies, and thinks Raymond Chandler is bullshit.

YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE? By Sue Harding

TKnC welcomes another newcomer with...

Your Worst Nightmare?


Your worst nightmare? The one where you’re running, right? You’re running away from something. Or someone. You have to keep running because whatever, or whoever, is chasing you is so terrifying you’ll do anything you have to in order to get away. Hell, it’s so scary, you can’t even picture what it is, your brain just won’t let you even begin to build that image in your mind.

Or maybe it’s the one where you can’t run. You can’t even move. You try to will your arms and legs to shift but they won’t budge. And sometimes you even have to tell yourself to breathe, to take another lungful of air. But you don’t want to. Because maybe if you don’t breathe you’ll pass out and then when you come round, whatever it was that frightened you won’t be there anymore; it was just a nightmare.

I’ve had nightmares like those before. Both kinds. But this one right now is something altogether different. Because I don’t remember even being asleep.

What I do remember is knocking on the door. I’d been here lots of times before, but this was different. I hadn’t changed and the people who lived here hadn’t either, but the situation was altered, different. Awkward.

I was knocking on the front door of my ex-wife’s parents, Ted and Alice Heathcliffe. It had been years since I’d last seen them. Their daughter, Cheryl, and I had been together about eighteen months before we’d decided to get married. As in-laws went, they were OK, I suppose. Polite, a bit reserved, friendly enough I guess. But I never felt like I really belonged, you know what I mean?

Anyway, we had a kid. A girl. Called her Melanie. She was beautiful. All fathers say that, but she was really special. And she was mine. Well, ours. But to me she was the only flesh and blood I’ve ever known. I was abandoned as a baby, raised in foster homes.

You soon learn two things in that scenario. One - you learn to be grateful; no matter how bad things are, they could always be worse. Two - you learn that nothing lasts forever. Just when you start getting used to things you get moved on. Well, that’s how it worked out in my case, anyway.

I kept my nose clean, obeyed the rules, left school and learned a trade. I was doing alright as an electrician. You don’t get the big money straightaway, but I was doing OK. And when I called to do a job at the shop where Cheryl worked she made me a cuppa. Best way to get a tradesman on-side - make him a brew. Anyway, she had a nice smile, corny I know, but we seemed to get along. A few dates and she could have led me around with a ring in my nose.

So getting married was like having this whole family move into my life. When Melanie arrived, all new and wrinkly but perfectly formed, I guess I think life was just about perfect. I should have remembered the rules. Rule two, anyway.

I don’t know where it started to go wrong but things fell apart fairly quickly. When Melanie was about three months old, Cheryl started spending a lot more time with her folks. True, I was working all hours trying to keep the business ticking over. When you’re self-employed you have to take whatever comes your way, whenever. I did a couple of out-of-town contracts so Cheryl took Melanie and stayed with her folks while I was away. Then it was an extra night here, a weekend there and before I knew it Cheryl had stopped coming home.

We divorced and I battled to see Melanie, to be a part of her life. The visits were sporadic at best, but I’d jump through hoops just to have the chance of some precious time with my daughter. My daughter. Mine.

Anyway, I was surprised to get a call from Alice. It seemed churlish not to at least turn up, even if it was a case of checking out some wiring. I suppose they figured I might do the job on the cheap. It got me through the door, at least, and maybe it might lead to me getting to see Melanie again.

Alice answered the door. A welcome smile, not too gushy. I made sure I wiped my shoes meticulously. There was no sign of Cheryl, or Melanie. But then, I should have realised there wouldn’t be. My heart thumped to my boots, but I was here to do a job so I got on with it. I’d noticed the ‘For Sale’ board in the front garden, guessed they wanted to be sure the house was in good order.

The fuse box was in the cellar. Dank, dark and not very pleasant, but I’ve worked in worse places. I had a quick look, noted down details, checked cabling. It wouldn’t take too long. I had enough stuff on the van, but maybe if I said I needed to come back another day, I might have another chance to see Melanie. I wasn’t too worried about Cheryl. For whatever reason she clearly didn’t want anything more to do with me. Damned if I know what I did, but there you are. The curious thing was there was no sign of Melanie at all. It was as if she never visited her grandparents, no toys left here for when she visited.

I decided to play fair. It wasn’t a big job, couple of hours maybe. I nipped out to the van and got some gear. Ted met me at the door and ushered me into the kitchen for a cuppa. This is going well, I thought. And Alice always did make nice cakes. A new recipe, she’d said. Needed a guinea-pig. I was glad to oblige.

Funny thing was, about half an hour into the job I started to get blurred vision. I couldn’t seem to get my eyes to focus. And then I kept dropping the screw driver. I was lying on the floor when Ted came downstairs. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me, then pulled an old chair over. I’m not a big chap, but I was surprised Ted could manage to drag me onto the seat, dead weight and all that. I could hear the grunts he made with the exertion. I suppose you can always find the strength to do what you have to.

I remember Alice appeared with an old clothes line. I hadn’t seen her come down the stairs. Now I was upright, my head was slumped on my chest and I couldn’t move it. But I saw her slippers and forced my eyes to move up in their sockets, seeing her legs and the bottom hem of her apron. And the rope in her hand. And that’s about the time I began to get scared.

Ted looped the rope around the chair and then around me, tying me to it. Not that I was in any position to get up and leave. No, it was to stop me from falling off. Curiously, I almost felt grateful, until I remembered that I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. I was screaming inside my head. Why were they doing this? Couldn’t they see I needed help? Why didn’t they call for an ambulance?

Alice was talking now. Along with the blurred vision, my hearing wasn’t doing so good, either. It sounded like she was talking into a bucket. Echoing, know what I mean? But I realised she wasn’t talking to me. She was telling Ted to get a move-on, something about getting everything sorted out before the van came. Ted finished tying the rope round, fiddling with the knots behind me. My bodyweight was dragging me slightly to one side. I was uncomfortable, but there was nothing I could do. Even as they both turned and walked back up the stairs all I could do was look at a damp patch on the floor. It started near my foot, and I noticed my jeans were wet, all round the seat. Then everything went dark.

For a second I thought I’d gone blind, until I realised that the light had been turned off. Pretty soon my eyes got used to the dimness. There was a small airbrick up on the wall, little pinpoints of light growing sharper. My vision started to improve, but I still couldn’t move. I could hear them moving about, upstairs. A door slammed and then a banging noise, like someone hammering nails. I caught a faint sound of Ted whistling. He seemed relaxed, happy even.

That was a couple of days ago. They haven’t been back downstairs to see me. My lips are cracked and dry, and although I’ve gone past being hungry, I’d kill for a drink.

At first I thought it was some kind of bad joke but as the hours have passed I think I know they aren’t going to come back. I heard more banging earlier, like furniture being carried about. I think that’s to do with what Alice said about getting ready before the van comes. I heard the hiss of airbrakes, like on a large lorry. A removal van, perhaps? I heard the crunch on the gravel outside, people walking in and out of the house.

I’m still wondering about Melanie. She’d be about four now. I’m surprised neither Alice nor Ted mentioned her when we were chatting in the kitchen, having a cup of tea. And there were no photographs. I seemed to remember them being doting Grandparents, but there were no pictures of a fair-haired girl with a cheeky grin. That’s how I imagine Melanie, getting up to mischief.

Memories and imagination. That’s all I have left now. Oh, and the car seat. I’d bought a new one for the van, so I could carry her safely, if I was ever allowed to take her out again. The old one was wrecked in the crash. That was the last time I was allowed to see Melanie. She looked so peaceful and sleepy.

That was about the time Cheryl and I split up. I haven’t seen either of them since. That’s why it was a surprise that Ted and Alice invited me round. I’ve been away for a while, not been able to get back here. Unavoidably detained, so to speak.

So, it was a nice gesture that they got in touch. I don’t think they really needed anything done with their wiring; it was just an excuse to see me again. But I wonder why they wouldn’t answer my questions about Cheryl or Melanie? It’s like they don’t exist any more.

It’s been quiet for hours now. I think they’ve gone. I’m starting to panic a bit. It’s cold and dark down here in the cellar. Like being buried. Like Cheryl and Melanie, now I come to think of it. My heart is thumping in my chest. They’re not coming back. None of them are. They’ve left me here.

Alone.

I wonder how long it’ll take before I wake up.

Because this is a nightmare, right?

Bio:
Sue Harding works in a library in Warks. Having spent years 'shelving' books, she's starting to 'write' them instead! Sue blogs here: http://irefusetogoquietly.blogspot.com/

THE WATCHER by A.J. Humpage

AJ's back with a cracker...

The Watcher

The darkness around me made it easier to see her.

The soft glare from her window first drew me in; a hint of flesh, innocent tease, a fleeting glimpse had I not looked twice. Pale skin, as supple and striking as summer colours, reflected against the brightness of her lights, and the curiosity of that brief moment held me captive. She was not aware of my attention.

The following night I stood at my window, out of curiosity, and she did it again, disrobing like a flower shedding petals in a breeze, sanguine expression brightened by the lights in her apartment. She stood there a while, taking in the silent appreciation of an invisible audience, before catching herself in the mirror. I watched as she ran her hands through her hair, bright blonde strands reflecting the light, but she gave me only a few minutes before disappearing from view. I felt cheated.

The next night she was bold, moving naked about the kitchen, unaware of my jaded gaze pouring through the darkness. She seemed to enjoy her own parade, and once again, she stopped to admire herself in the mirror, skirting her hands over her breasts and through her hair with intimate appreciation.

Her tease lasted an hour.

On the fourth night she stood in the centre of the room, waiting.

I knew then she had seen me somehow; seen my shadow in the darkness. It troubled me, because I was always careful not to flick on any of my lights when I watched her. But somehow, she knew. Perhaps she saw the curtains twitch, saw my reflection cast from the nearby streetlight.

Perhaps she knew all along.

I pulled aside the curtain, despite the shadows that veiled my face from her. But she didn’t move. She played with her hair, ran her hands down her stomach, a subtle tease, but I knew she was playing with me instead, easily melting the darkness between us. Comfortable now within each other’s presence, I watched her parade for an hour until she disappeared once again.

On the last night, I ventured out and stood on the corner of the street. I looked up at her window. She eventually came to the window, pressed her naked flesh against the glass, looked down at me, and then vanished.

I made my way across the street.

A soft wind rolled across the front of the apartment block, tormented the ivy covering the walls. Stagnant darkness crept through the street and sucked up the fading light of a cold December evening.

I edged towards the entrance, placed my gloved hand upon the door handle and gently pushed down. The door clicked open. I stepped inside the dimly lit hallway, made my way across the tiled floor towards the stairs.

I listened, but there was little sound.

I ascended the stairs to the top floor, wound my way to the bright red door at the end of the hall. The corridors were so silent that it appeared no one lived there, yet my footsteps seemed overtly loud along the corridor, the noise echoing around my head like vile cracks of thunder.

I pushed on the door. It swung open; her invite accepted.

A crowding silence rushed to greet me. I love the silence, the pressing nature of it. I’m a solitary creature; I live a private existence. Silence is my companion. See, my sort is not too welcome in this neighbourhood, so I keep to the shadows.

I drifted forward, surveyed the room. It was sparsely feminine, yet expensive in taste, full with glass and chrome furnishings and polished wooden floors.

I noticed the headline in the newspaper opened out on the coffee table.

Victim No 4 found dead. Police suspect local man...

Poor victim number four, a drug-addled teenager no one would miss.

‘I’ve been watching you for a while now,’ a voice said, breaking the silence.

I looked up. She appeared from a doorway wearing a white bathrobe, hair slicked back.

‘I noticed your reflection in your window,’ she said.

My insides juddered. ‘I didn’t think you could see me.’

Her blue eyes were derisive. ‘Of course I could. Only a slight reflection, I couldn’t see your face completely, but I knew you were watching me. You obviously like what you see.’

I eased forward until I was barely feet from her. The scent of fruits tickled my senses. Now she could see my face, the ghostly reflection that had watched her so many times. ‘Do you entice all your potential lovers like that?’

‘Only the ones who want to be enticed. It gets their attention.’ She loosened the belt on her bathrobe, gazed at my tall shadow. ‘You’re not what I expected.’

That’s what they all say. I shook my head. ‘No, I guess I’m not.’

‘Not that it matters. I don’t mind who I fuck.’ She slowly let the robe open out to reveal soft pink flesh. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me. I’ve seen the way you mist up your windows. I know you want me.’

I blinked slowly, felt my hands grow clammy inside my gloves.

She unzipped my jacket, and slowly picked apart my shirt buttons. She touched me tentatively, raised a curious eyebrow.

Beneath the calm surface, I fought the urge to grab her, all the while trying to close the black hole opening out in my stomach.

She inched the robe from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. She turned and slinked towards the bathroom. ‘Why don’t you get out of those clothes and come and join me? The water is hot.’

I followed her to the bathroom door, quiet steps across the floor, watched as she stepped into the porcelain bathtub. I wondered then, absurdly, whether the phone might ring, or a noise from outside would disturb us.

But nothing happened.

She smiled as she eased back into the foamy water. Ripples rolled against her voluminous breasts. She blew bath bubbles into the air and they glittered like slivers of frost beneath the stark bathroom light.

I took off my gloves, knelt down. I leaned in and placed my hand against her neck, touched softly.

She pointed to the door with an exquisitely manicured finger. ‘Patience. It’s £200 for full sex, so leave the money on the side table.’

I stared at her, felt adrenaline from my stomach drain into my bloodstream, but it felt like someone pulling on my innards, tearing me from the inside. The black hole shuddered inside me.

Her voice was cold. ‘No money, no sex, sweetie.’ She swept bath gel along her glistening, wet arms.

I smiled thinly, but remained silent as I straightened and moved through the doorway, mind clamouring. I had no money. That wasn’t the reason I came. I gazed out of the window; saw my apartment across the street, my darkened window. I wondered then, just how long she had been watching me. Gauging me. Tempting me.

A hint of sexual fascination had lured me, but she had been fishing, too, like a silver-eyed anglerfish, dangling an alluring bright light through the blackness to entice me into her pencil like jaws.

I wanted to have sex with her – it was an added bonus – but I wasn’t expecting to pay.

I turned from the window and switched off the light, lest someone should see, and I inched towards the darkened kitchen. My ribcage fizzed as I gazed at the assortment of knives.

Her voice drifted into the gloom, broke through my reverie. ‘Hey? You still there?’

I returned to the bathroom and the sweet smell of fruits, and I smiled as I walked towards the bathtub, listening to devious whispers forging ideas in the back of my mind.

‘The money is on the table,’ I lied.

She nodded, and beckoned me with a finger. ‘I trust you.’

I walked around the bathtub and stood at her shoulders. She rested back and looked up at me; her turquoise blue eyes fiercely bright. I stared down at her, my vision filling with satanic colour, belly filling with bile. I placed both hands on her shoulders, kneaded softly.

Her painted lips smiled.

I sucked in a breath, and in one violent jolt, I pushed her beneath the water, all my weight bearing down into my forearms.

She thrashed; legs and water heaving over the bath, heels cracking against the taps.

I held her down for a while, listening to her struggling against me, listening as though it was a lullaby of fear, then I let go. I walked around the side of the bath, and she surfaced, spluttering.

She wiped suds from her eyes, her voice heavy. ‘Christ!’

I grabbed her ankles, pulled them up, plunging her back into the water. She flailed and gurgled, but she was no match for my superior strength. Then I eased off after a few seconds, let her come up for air.

‘Christ, dammit, what the hell are you-’

I tugged again and she slipped below the water, her distorted mouth open beneath the soapy surface, her scream muffled. I eased off again, enjoying this game.

She slammed her fist against the porcelain bath. ‘You fucking crazy shit!’

‘How long have you been watching me?’ My hands were still tight around her ankles.

She caught her breath. Mascara melted down her cheeks in thick black streams. She gripped onto the side of the bath.

My eyes narrowed. ‘How long?’

‘Weeks...’ she gasped. Saliva and water dribbled from her mouth. ‘I’ve been watching you for weeks.’

I pulled her legs again, higher, dragging her beneath the water, but this time I did not ease. Instead, I listened as she thumped her fists against the tub, the sounds echoing from the tiles in bilious waves and making me feel high. Adrenaline soaked into my body, flooding every cell with ecstasy until the sounds of her drowning slowly dissipated and silence once again settled like fine dust. I lowered her legs, left them dangling over the bath, and moved to the side of the tub.

I gazed at the shimmering shadow beneath the water, watched as air bubbles escaped from her nose. Then she blinked. Fingers slowly uncurled. Her body suddenly convulsed, thrusting water from the tub, and she shot up. A strange rattling noise spilled from her lips as she sucked in air

I quickly grabbed her neck, reached to the back of my jeans for the knife I had taken from the kitchen. I leaned over, saw my reflection in her eyes; saw the demon crouched in my expression, devious and dusted with malevolence.

I thrust the knife into her neck, slitting neatly into her windpipe, then I neatly tore sideways, opening out the cherry red innards of her throat. The gash bubbled and frothed, spewed out a dark red torrent over my hands. Her eyes rolled white, then I pushed her back beneath the water again, held her down until she was still.

Scarlet clouds misted her face and soiled the water, turning it to the colour of rust.

I picked up my gloves, wiped the blade and calmly left the bathroom.

I walked past the mirror, the one she had spent so much time gazing into, and I caught my darkened reflection. The figure staring back at me was gaunt; brown eyes turned black, and in my mind, imaginary doors were slamming shut against the voices.

They would find victim No.5 soon enough.

My shirt was open. Thin beads of blood dribbled down my neck, soaked my bra and stained my breasts.

Her voice wouldn’t leave my mind. You’re not what I expected...

I never am.


BIO:
AJ Humpage works full-time for a local authority, but in her spare time she writes articles for local business magazines, short stories and poetry, and she has just completed her first novel.

FRANTIC by Col Bury

This piece of flash won December's One Word Challenge comp' over at Writers News Talkback Forum...

FRANTIC

The superstore was abuzz with shoppers. Clocking the newspaper headlines, “Local Paedophile Escapes,” Ged whisked Beth and Josh to the next aisle.

‘Right, stay close. No wandering.’

Ged became engrossed in reading the back of the supermarket’s own brand of Choco-pops. Instinctively looking down, his heart flickered.

‘Where’s Beth?’

Blasé, Josh clutched a box of Shreddies. ‘Daddy, can I…?’

‘Where’s your sister?’

‘Dunno.’

Ged scanned left and right. He sprinted, stopped at each aisle.

Nothing.

Glancing behind, Josh wasn’t there. Panic swamped him. Torn, he back-tracked. His head pivoted back and forth like an owl on speed.

That headline! Shit. Make a decision.

Frenetic now, he ran for the exit, dodging shoppers. He bumped into a shelf-stacker. ‘Pleeease...lost my kids...Beth n Josh!’

He patrolled the exit foyer, head spinning, eyes manic. Children’s voices amplified, teasing him. Every man was a paedo’, every woman an accomplice. Lips pinched, fists clenched, teeth gritted.

The Tannoy boomed their names. Tears welled, palpitations intensified.

A security guard emerged from the crowd, Beth in one hand, Josh in the other.

‘Dadddeeeee!’

Sobbing, Ged hugged his kids like never before.

A wide-eyed man in a trench-coat strolled past them, sighed then exited the store.


© Col Bury December 2009

BIO:
TKnC co-editor, Col Bury is currently writing a crime novel and his ever-growing selection of short stories can be found here on TKnC, A Twist Of Noir, Six Sentences, Blink Ink and Flash Fiction Offensive. Col's story MOPPING UP won a comp' to feature in the anthology EVEN MORE TONTO STORIES (to be published May 2010). He blogs and interviews crime authors at Col Bury's New Crime Fiction.

THE RAVE By James Hilton

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THE SLEEPOVER By Stephen Hill

The Sleepover


David stared at Ryan’s back, following his friend cautiously as the two 11-year-old boys tiptoed across the living room. Whatever he was about to see, he thought to himself, it had to be good.

Moonlight filtered through the drapes over the living room window, deforming their shadows across the walls and ceiling. Ryan’s Dad hadn’t made a peep in over an hour, but Ryan was still moving as if the slightest noise might set off a bomb. Even the swish of his pajama clad legs coming together had prompted him to walk in a wide awkward gait that almost made David laugh out loud.

Of course, that wasn’t about to happen.

Over the several minutes it had taken the two boys to walk down from Ryan’s room, Ryan had looked back at David a dozen times, one skinny finger jammed down over his mouth and his eyes narrowed. David had shrugged each time, accepting the demand with mounting frustration. After all, Ryan’s house may have not been that large - it was a lot smaller than where he lived - but David figured it would still take a lot more than the creak of a floorboard to wake anybody at one in the morning.

Then again, the last thing David wanted was for Ryan’s dad to catch them. Even when he didn’t say a word, Mr. Mergel always seemed so furiously PISSED - not surprising considering he was a high school teacher. Worse than that, he was huge. Way taller than David’s dad, and stockier too, with muscles that stretched his shirts to the breaking point. The more he thought about him, the more David figured it wasn’t any surprise that Ryan’s mom had just left him. A short pretty lady with strawberry blonde hair and freckles, she shared Ryan’s strange green eyes and skinny build, and usually spoke so quickly she would stumble on her own words. Even when she didn’t, her soft voice meant David had to strain to hear her. Once, when David and Ryan had been trudging home from school, David had said he couldn’t picture Ryan’s mom yelling. “You should come over late at night sometime,” Ryan had replied quietly, his eyes sweeping the sidewalk grit. He hadn’t said another word all the way home, and - a month later - his mom had moved in with Ryan’s aunt on the other side of town.

In the living room, the boys stood at the base of a massive piece of furniture crowded with numerous drawers and cabinet doors. A bureau, entertainment unit and filing cabinet all in one, it was an excess of hard oak angles fastidiously sanded and polished. Looking at it, David could almost smell the varnish.

Even in the dim light, David could tell Ryan’s eyes were bulging with excitement. “Keep an eye on the stairs,” Ryan whispered.

“Nobody’s coming,” David argued. “And your dad’s been asleep for-“

“Just keep an eye on them!” Ryan fired back. David blushed and wheeled around, fixing his eyes on the staircase. Ryan was almost half a foot shorter than David, yet right now, with his fiery stare and commanding stance, there was no question about who was in charge.

Then again, there usually wasn’t.

In school, David was always one of the first picked for any sport in gym or on the playground, and his good looks already had girls stealing glances for reasons they couldn’t quite pinpoint. Ryan meanwhile, was a frail, nervously twitching body carried by spindly legs and topped by a mop of black, bristly hair corkscrewing everywhere at once. David always stuck up for his friend at every turn though, because after school, Ryan was the man.

Most kids didn’t know it, but Ryan had courage nobody else had, and when he had something to show you, it was always worth your time. Just this year he’d shown David how to scramble onto Ms. Tobias’s roof in less than ten seconds, had cobbled together num-chucks using the ends of broom handles and a bicycle chain, and found a shortcut through Ted Morris’s backyard that gave you a perfect view of Stacey Miller’s bedroom window. And since Ryan’s mom had left, he’d gotten even more daring. It was all -as Ryan so frequently muttered - “too wicked.”

So when Ryan pulled David aside on Thursday afternoon at recess, promising something “unbelievable” if he slept over Friday night, David knew it had to be cool. It was how he said it as much as what he said - with one hand jittering nervously through the mop of his unruly hair.

As David stared at the staircase, he heard a drawer slide smoothly on its rollers behind him, and the rustle of papers. A moment later, he turned to see Ryan gingerly opening a box that didn’t even look big enough to hold a pencil.

Ryan flipped it open, and his eyes lit up. “Too wicked,” he said softly, and David saw the slender outline of a key.

“So what’s it for?”

Ryan ignored the question, craning his neck to stare up at twin cabinet doors on the top tier of the bureau.

 “Up there?” whispered David skeptically, following Ryan’s glance. “We’re going to need a chair or something if...”

Before he could finish his sentence, Ryan was shoving an ottoman over from the foot of the living room Lazy Boy. “You’re the tall one,” he whispered,” and pressed the cold metal into his hand. “It’s in the top left cabinet - the only thing in there.”

David stared down at a tiny slice of silver gleaming under a shaft of moonlight, and climbed onto the ottoman. The cabinet door opened easily enough, but when he pulled the sleek metal box out of the cabinet, it wobbled in David’s grasp, teetering off his palm.

“Careful,” Ryan hissed.

David slapped his second hand over it, clutching the container in both hands as he stepped onto the carpet.

“Just put it on the floor,” Ryan whispered, stealing a glance over his shoulder.

David did as he was told, leaving several smudged prints on the steel surface. His eyes settled on a small lock sealing the split between the box’s lid and body. “Do you have another key?”

“Relax,” Ryan whispered, and popped a paper clip from between his fingers like a magician. Stabbing the tiny keyhole, he jiggled it back and forth, and the lock popped open.

They were in.

Ryan’s hands caressed the box’s surface, as if savoring the moment. Licking his lips, he peered at David with a wolfish smile that boosted David’s nervous excitement to the point of pain. “All right,” David said. “Let’s see it already!”

When the cover slid back, and it seemed to glide on its hinges. For a moment, all David could make out was a swath of red velvet cushioning nothing but shadow. Then Ryan pulled the box forward, bathing it in the glow from the window. Polished curves of sleek metal gleamed out at the children - the oily skin of a .357 Magnum revolver.

“Holy shit,” David muttered.

“My dad’s,” said Ryan, scooping the gun from its crimson nest. “We’ve had it for two weeks, but I only found out where he was keeping it Wednesday.” He hefted the gun awkwardly by the handle. “Heavier than it looks.”

David’s eyes devoured the slick metal nozzle, and the handle’s grooved rubber grips. This was not soft plastic or something chipped from wood, this was the real deal. His hands reached out automatically, and Ryan yanked the gun away.

“Come on, I just wanted to look,” David whined.

A tiny smile pulled up the corners of Ryan’s mouth, and he thrust the gun into David’s face.

David’s hands shot up. “What are you doing?”

Ryan’s smile became a sneer, and his thumb arched over the hammer, cocking it back with a hollow click.

“Hey Ryan, don’t.”

Ryan snickered. “Relax, it isn’t loaded or anything.”

“Well in that case...”

David tore the gun from Ryan’s hand, and jammed the nozzle against his friend’s forehead. “Now who’s scared?”

“Stop that!”

David loved the weight in his hands. It made him feel stronger. Powerful. It was as if the gun had given him six inches of height and 50 pounds of muscle, and the guts that came with them. He swung the gun away from Ryan’s head with a finger curled around the trigger, and squinted down the barrel as his aim swept across living room targets. Past Ryan and the mammoth bureau. Past the couch. Past the chairs. Past the family photos on the walls. Past almost everything, until he was staring down the barrel at Ryan’s father.

Huge and furious, Mr. Mergel’s face was a grey sphere in the darkness, his mouth a black hole. “What the hell are you doing?” he screamed.

The lights snapped on, and Ryan snatched the gun from David, holding it behind his back as his father came for them.

“Dad,” Ryan managed. In spite of the sudden blaze of electric light, his eyes were wider than ever.

So like his son’s, Mr. Mergel’s thick black hair stood out in alarmed spirals, uncoiling like broken springs off his skull. The red lips of his bathrobe hung open over a muscled white slab of torso. “Give me the gun now,” he snapped.

The pistol remained clutched behind Ryan’s back. “Dad, we were just looking at-“

“I said give me the gun!” The tone was firm and steady, but when Ryan’s father held his hand out, it shook.

But why? David thought. Why would Ryan’s father be so scared if the gun wasn’t even loa-?

OH NO. A frigid fist flexed around David’s heart, pumping ice through his body.

Mr. Mergel clamped down on Ryan’s arm, twisting until the pistol was between them, still gripped in Ryan’s hand. Blue veins heaved as the muscles rippled across the back of Mr. Mergel’s forearms. Still, somehow, Ryan wouldn’t let go.

“One more second,” Ryan muttered. His voice was so mild, he could have been arguing for more TV time. “I just need it for a second.”

As they struggled, the gun’s barrel leapt back and forth. One moment it was leveled at David’s chest, the next it was jammed against Ryan’s ribcage hard enough to crack it.

It’s gonna go off, David thought. And when it does…

“Let go,” David finally managed, and the gun responded.

BLAM!

The blast tore through the living room. David’s hands slapped his ears, and his legs scissored backwards, tripping him up and dropping him to the carpet. SO LOUD! his mind screamed in a panic, over and over. SO LOUD SO LOUD SO LOUD!

He stared up at them, and their shapes seemed lit as if by a camera flash: Ryan with the thin limbs of an insect, and his father with the blocky, powerful arms of a lumberjack. A thin haze of smoke settled over them like gauze. The smell of fireworks clogged the room.

Mr. Mergel’s chin sagged forward, and his eyes swam in their sockets until they found David. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and slumped to the floor. Sprawled on his back, his bathrobe yawned over a red ragged red hole, punched through his gut and drooling gore.

Ryan’s face fell under the shadow of his hair, the gun still cemented to his hand. One of his bare feet trembled, and his heel shuddered out a disjointed rhythm on the carpet.

“Ryan,” David said. “Are you okay?”

“Too wicked,” Ryan whispered. His narrow shoulders pulled back, driving his posture ramrod straight, and he stared up at David with a grin that split his head open. Thin tendrils of grey crawled across his face as he pointed the gun at the front door. “Now let’s go find my mom.”

KILLING TIME by C. K. ANDREW

CK brings in the new year here at TKnC with this mind-stretching tale...

Killing Time

'Professor York?' The slim, dark-haired woman hailed the Head of Psychiatry at the entrance to his office complex. Beyond, under the ugly orange glare of the lights and behind electrified security fencing, squatted the Military Penitentiary Secure Unit.

'That's right.' The Professor was in a hurry to be out of there and into the bracing night air. He needed to breathe freely, feel the ice of the winter against his face to prove that the real world still existed. Sometimes he thought he was going mad, like so many of the prisoners in the Unit. Get a grip! He closed his eyes momentarily.

'My name is Cariolin,’ the woman said.

The Professor jolted. For God’s sake, man, get a grip! That name… It’s a coincidence…'What an unusual name - excuse me.' He tried to move around her, but the slim woman spun like a dancer and fell into step with him.

She smiled up at him for the CCTV camera’s sake, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. 'We’ve never met, but of course you know all about me,’ she went on conversationally, taking his arm. ‘So you’ll understand when I tell you that I've just come from a village called Emoravan, in The Evrain.'

The Professor felt his skin prickle so tautly his scalp moved. He swallowed. His mouth opened. He stared down at her. 'That’s not possible!' His voice was a shocked whisper.

'Of course it is. I’m here, aren’t I? Flesh and blood. Feel.' She tucked her forearm through the crook of his elbow and squeezed. Her grip was steel. ‘I’m whole. You haven’t hurt me, yet.’

They walked out of the lobby and into the freezing December night.

'My people sent me with an ultimatum for you, Professor: change what you’ve written about us and nothing bad will happen to you. Refuse, and we’ll be forced to defend ourselves.’

'Nobody knows about Emoravan, or what I make happen there.' Professor York whispered as the woman led him to his car. 'How could anyone know? The Evrain is my invented country, a setting in my novel.'

'Which makes us real to you. And we don’t like what you’re doing to us. We want you to unwrite what you've already done.'

'You can't be real. You can't exist. Emorovan is part of my dreams, a fantasy, my escape from ...' He glanced back towards the Penitentiary.

The woman smiled and sideswiped a killer heel down the outside of the his calf. ‘Does that feel real enough, Professor?’

He cried out and bent to touch the raked leg. His fingers came away bloody. ‘You're not real!’ His teeth clenched with the pain. ‘You’re an hallucination. I've been working too hard.'

'We know about that work, too. We know what you’ve done to their minds, you and the Militia of this country,’ she all but spat at him. ‘How do you live with yourself? No wonder your wife no longer does. But you can undo the damage you’ve done The Evrainians at least. Stop writing your horrors that have become our story. We of Emorovan demand it. And edit out the parts about the burnings and the rapes and the murders. It may please you to do these things to us, but believe me, it does not please us.'

The Professor's hands were trembling so badly that although he shook himself free of her clasp, he was clumsy in opening his car door and settling behind the steering wheel...

The woman bent down at his window, that rigor of a smile still showing her beautiful even teeth. As he shovelled around with the key, eventually piercing the ignition and kicking the engine into life, she whispered through the glass. 'I mean it. Rewrite and then stop - so that I can return to the Evrain tonight, to a community that deserves better than you've given us. Or ...'

'I'm going mad. I've finally gone. Holy mother of God. You can't exist. You can't, you're part of my fantasy.'

'Thank you,' said Cariolin, wryly. 'Last chance, Professor. Do I have your promise?'
The Professor, sick, trembling, muttered, almost to himself. ‘You can do your worst. I make no deal with blackmailers in the real world and you are not reality.’

'You will be stopped. You just watch what 'your fantasy' can do to you.'

The Professor released the handbrake and stamped on the accelerator and the BMW’s spinning tyres screamed against the tarmac and rocketed him out of the complex, away from the manifestation of his madness. He was sweating, colder than he'd ever felt.
'Not real. Can't be happening, need to get home ...' His knuckles were white and he leaned forward into the traffic, cursing other drivers as he weaved through the rush hour. Cariolin… I was about to have her burned to death… I was going to finish that chapter tonight… How can she be here, at the Centre? I’m going mad…

Out on the motorway, his panic worsening, he realised that the stab to his leg could have introduced some kind of drug into his system. He could feel his grip on reality blurring and loosening. His car seemed to be full of passengers, their faces were those of the victims of his mind-bending experiments, men who were already dead. And the dead men stared at him, hating, waiting…

One laughed at him from the mirror, another cursed from the footwell, a third, obscenely, kissed his right ear and he swerved to avoid the speeding car that blared its horn at him. He overcompensated, struck into the articulation of a huge juggernaut on his left at just over a hundred miles an hour.

He died screaming as his vehicle rebounded, rolled and then exploded against a bridge pier in a vast orange fireball, its light eerily echoing and bathing the Psychiatric Secure Unit.

Cariolin was walking, unhurried, around the Penitentiary perimeter fencing, killing time while she waited for the pick up, for her journey back to where she’d come from. She stared at the complex of the Psychiatric Unit under its sinister orange lighting, impregnable behind its high-voltage fence and spiked wires. Nobody will ever know for sure who I am or where I came from. They’ll call his death a tragic accident, a waste of a brilliant mind. We can’t undo what he’s done, to any of us. But there will be no more of it. And I will not burn to death tonight, as he had planned for me…

She raised a clenched fist high in a victorious, pseudo-military salute: revenge for the prisoners tortured and murdered beyond the wire, revenge for the people of Emorovan, a small village in The Evrain...

BIO:
C K Andrew lives on Exmoor and has published many short stories in various womens' magazines.