ANNOUNCEMENT... Please give a warm TKnC welcome to our new 'GUEST EDITOR'...

... LILY CHILDS!

Matt, Lee 'n' I (Col) have been particularly busy recently, with writing and life.  So, to improve the site's efficiency, who better to assist than the inimitable writer of dark fiction, Lily Childs?  We're truly thrilled she accepted our offer. 

In case you've been locked in a cupboard under the stairs (hey, there's a good plotline!), allow me to tell you a little about 'Our Lil'...

I first 'met' Lily on a writers' forum - where I also met Lee - a few years ago, and have found her to be a genuine and loyal friend, as well as a damn fine writer. Lily's been very supportive of TKnC, and we had the pleasure of publishing her first short story here. Now, if you missed it, be warned... take a very deep breath and pour a stiff drink... it's an absolute cracker... FASHION VICTIM. 

Lily brings excellent credentials, having written broadly and judged many writing comps', including her popular Lily's Friday Prediction.  Her short story Carpaccio (also published here) was nominated for a Spinetingler Award this year!

For more info, check out Lily Childs Feardom, or Lily's editor page (coming soon on the tabs above).

So, a warm welcome on board, Lil, from your fellow editors. 

I'm sure our readers and friends will do the same.

Regards,
Crime Dude, Col 

Ps. Oh, 'n' we'll need a nickname for you... was thinking along the lines of 'Dark Dudette'... or 'Dark Dudess'...? Suggestions welcome...

THUMBS by Ron Dionne

Welcome Ron on his debut...

Thumbs


It was exactly the same when he got back. No change. He paused, his hand on the doorknob. Had she found more?

 "What's so funny?"

The question, not his entrance, interrupted her open-mouthed giggle, but she flashed him only the merest of glances before her thumbs resumed the dance of the touch screen.

"Who ya texting?"

She sighed. Her rump in the white running shorts with the red trim shifted on the sofa cushion. She did not look away from the screen.

"You on Facebook?"

When she didn't answer, he opened the apartment door and poked his head into the hallway. He saw with satisfaction that it was empty, and closed the door again. He locked all three locks. The trip home had been shockingly easy: a seat on an earlier connecting flight available, the cabdriver expert, the traffic light. It was as if the moment were being urged upon them by a Fate anxious not to miss some other, more important appointment.

He put down his carry-on bag and un-knotted his tie. He leaned over the back of the sofa to peek at the screen, but she pressed it to her breast so he couldn't see.

He took his bag into the other room and changed. She was still at it when he emerged with the gift and the phone bill. He put the phone bill on the pile of mail atop the kitchen island. Her cheeks were flushed now and her tank top showed nipple. The glass of their wedding portrait on the wall behind the sofa reflected an image of bodies on the phone's screen. She folded her legs under and he basked in another brief glance, a moment of near eye contact, which coincided with the image in the reflection changing to text. The thumbs danced.

"Got ya something," he said. He put the box on the glass coffee table.

She bit her lower lip, giggling again, shaking her head.

"Open it," he said.

She fixed him with a full-on look. The pretty face, the nice figure in tank top and those legs in their shorts tucked under. All still working. He nudged the smallish rectangle of bronze cardboard toward her. "For you," he said.

Her expression was that of a child being encouraged to eat an exotic food. The box received a glance, and again she tap-tap-tapped her screen.

In the kitchen he filled a Pilsner glass with water and according to plan gathered the accumulated mail with the phone bill on top. He returned to the living room, put the glass on a Niagara Falls coaster, and was about to sit in the arm chair facing her when he heard the sound of a door opening and closing in the hallway. He found in the closet the draft stopper they used winters, and placed it at the foot of the door, flush. He took his seat in the arm chair. She tapped.

He put the phone bill aside and ripped open mail. For drama, he announced each piece and rendered verdicts. Pay now, pay later, junk mail, trash. A postcard from her sister in Tarzana. A few pieces in, a flurry of furtive glances like a Geiger counter sniffing ore hurtled his way, the telltale peaks in the tank top sharpening. There were some catalogs and other pieces yet to go, but he put them aside and took up the phone bill.

She stretched her legs. Her painted toenails gripped the edge of the table, near the unopened box. She tapped.
 He watched her for a moment thinking it was too bad, but not really. He took a swallow of water. He smoothed the phone bill in his lap. It had come in a nine by twelve envelope, too many pages to fold in the usual number ten. He turned to the first page listing text messages.

"Phone bill," he said. "A whopper."

Tappety-tap tap.

He recited the numbers of her outgoing and incoming texts. He let rip the Chicago in his accent, which once upon a time she had found charming. Listen sammiches, that time he clinched it with her. Only when she was done enjoying it did he reveal the meat was pig's ear. It's often better to experience something without anticipation, and know truth later.

The numbers that repeated he announced loudest. He recited calmly and steadily and the alternation of loud and soft was like a speaker with a faulty wire that cut out. There were three numbers in particular that an online reverse directory, for a reasonable fee, had helped him isolate. These he gave special prominence. He did not need the bill for those, not really. He knew them by heart.

The sixth time he said the second number, she put the phone down. Her face was red, but not as red as he had expected. She sucked on the inside of one cheek. He stopped reciting.

"Am I boring you?"

 She reached under her top and scratched.

"May I?" he said. He held out his hand. She looked at the precious window to her world, and at his face, and at the window again, and tap-tapped it off. She handed it over.

"Thanks," he said. He plopped it in the Pilsner glass.
 She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head as little as it was possible to shake it.

"Open your gift," he said.
 She stared for a moment at the dead phone magnified in the water and reached for the box.

He moved to the sofa and sat next to her. He put his arm around the back of the sofa behind her, not quite touching her pretty shoulders. Her hair smelled good. She smelled good. He could, right now, if she wanted to. But he knew that that wasn't going to happen. What he liked most about travel was that even though it was expensive and often fraught with inconvenience a trip, once taken, could never be taken away from you. It lived on in your heart and your memory, forever and always.

She lifted the lid of the box, unfolded the tissue and lifted the cotton cushion.

There were three opposable pairs, bound together with rubber bands. He'd written phone numbers on the left of each, those numbers he knew by heart.

She made a noise and fled into the bedroom. He followed, stopping first to get the kitchen shears.


Bio: Ron Dionne has a novel, SAD JINGO, forthcoming as an ebook original from Delabarre Publishing later this year. He has published genre fiction of various sorts in Blue Murder Magazine, Hardboiled, After Hours, and Palace Corbie, but admits it's been a while. For more info: http://writingdark.com/

BLOW THE CANDLES OUT by Stephen D. Rogers

Blow the Candles Out



I didn't die today. That's something to celebrate.

I passed at least four buys that didn't go bad. I walked a road that bordered disputed territory. I rode a subway shared by a crackhead raging about microwaves and a guy so uptight I wasn't sure who made me more nervous.

Tomorrow I turn twenty-six. I never thought I'd ever say that. Never thought I'd see that day while still drawing breath.

And probably I will. Unless someone comes through the front door looking for something to sell. I still have to make it through the night.

Twenty-six.

Maybe.
 
BIO:
Stephen D. Rogers is the author of SHOT TO DEATH (Mainly Murder Press) and more than 600 shorter pieces. His website, http://www.stephendrogers.com/, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.

A FELICITOUS END BY Margaret D. Whittle

Welcome to new contributor Margaret D. Whittle with...


A Felicitous End


So I'm semi-floating at the bottom of the pool looking up through the green tinged water thinking to my self, "I would really rather be anywhere but here" yet realizing that it was my own doing that put me in this predicament. I should have cleaned the house better and made his favorite dinner more often or even done that whole, greet 'um at the door wrapped in Saran Wrap thing he kept bugging me about, but noooooo...it just wasn't my nature.

He warned me often enough there could be consequences, but of course, my nature wasn't to listen to a damn word that he said. The knack of smiling and nodding like I was paying attention, well that little trick I had perfected back in my teen years when my Mother would be on one of her rampages, but that is a whole 'nother story.

Anyway, here I am at the bottom of the pool waiting for the end to finally arrive. They say that your life passes right before your eyes at the moment of death, and I kept looking around, but all I could see was sand on the tiled bottom (I guess I should have really cleaned the pool more often too) and floating pool toys and inner tubes on the surface above my head. This was really getting old and I wondered how much longer it was going to take.

I mentally  started and completed a list of things that I could possibly miss about being married to him once the end came, and seeing that there were none, this unseemly conclusion to the last five years of my life, became all the more apparent as being a felicitous decision.

With one final salutatory smile, I double checked the ever tightening knots on the concrete block weight, pushed off from the top of his head, and made my way to the surface and my new life alone.

Bio:

Learn more about Margaret's writing here:
http://mcwhittle.wordpress.com/

BLESS HER HEART by Thomas Pluck

TKnC welcomes Thomas...

 
Bless Her Heart 




"You see what those Yankees did to Mrs. Dufresne's live oak?"


"Oedipus and Helen Keller were staring at it all week," I said.


"Tore that lovely old tree down. Isn't that a shame? If Mrs. Dufresne were alive to see it, she'd be spinning in her grave," Miss Patty said, giggling and jiggling in her housecoat, like one of her own prize pigs.


She can hold a conversation all by her lonesome, bless her heart. We were in my kitchen with sweet tea and biscuits, like every afternoon now that our husbands are in the ground.


"Mrs. Dee's lucky she cut herself while chopping up trinity. Way she was driving, she was likely to plow down somebody's children, wasn't she?" Patty chuckled. "Poor old thing bled to death before she could dial 911. Isn't that just awful?"


The Yankees' dog burst through through the hedge like a little bug-eyed demon, spied us, and took a leak on my magnolia in front of God and everybody.


"Well look at that, Myra."


"As long as he stays out of the roses," I said, and bit into a biscuit.


The little rat dog must've heard me, because he took off for them like a shot.


"Oh, my."


I can move fast when I have to. I was a school teacher in Baton Rouge, and before I retired the kids were carrying straight razors. I tore one right out of a young man's saggy pants pocket and dragged him by the ear to the Principal's office. The paper called me a hero, but the Principal didn't see it that way.


By the time I got to my roses, the Yankee's critter was burying his business right in the middle of my Ruby Red Dreams. I gave him a stare that would freeze the devil's privates, and he took off like I was a mailman with a shotgun.


I put his present in a baggie, and marched up the block to give the Meltzers a visit.


I rang the bell, but the music thumping inside told me it was a waste of time. Through the blinds I saw Mrs. Meltzer twisted up like a pretzel in front of the big screen.


I'd spoken to her about that little rat dog before.


"Darcy is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel," she'd said.


"That's well and nice, but I still prefer he not drop his royal nuggets in my rose garden."


She sported a pony tail, skinny square glasses, and a jogging outfit suitable for pole dancing on Bourbon Street. "Oh, I've heard about your roses, Myra."


Sure she had. County fair champion, six years and counting. Ever since my Henry's accident. When a woman's got time to herself, without a randy old fool and his little blue pills keeping her on her back, she can accomplish a lot.


"Best in the state. And it isn't easy growing them in Louisiana."


"Oh? With the hot weather I thought they'd be easy."


"The humidity is bad for disease."


"So what's your trick? I might try my hand at it."


"You need the proper fertilizer."


"Darcy's doing his part then, isn't he?"


She picked her rat dog up and kissed it like a baby.


"Just keep a leash on him, if you please."


"You don't like the leash, do you Mr. Darcy? It makes you nervous, doesn't it?'


I listened until I was fixing to retch. Memaw always said to kill 'em with kindness.


Today, I rang the bell three times. I should've just put the bag of dog mess in her mail slot, but that my memaw wouldn't approve of that now, would she?


Now Miss Patty's got me doing it.


I tuck the bag of royal refuse into my trash can, and head back inside.


"Did you give her a piece of your mind?"


"She's doing her yoga with the music loud."


"You know what I think?"


"That we should have her over for tea and biscuits tomorrow?"


"I think we should have her over for tea and biscuits tomorrow."


* * *


"So you haven't seen Darcy all morning?"


"Not since I let him out this morning. He always comes back for his nap."


"There's such meanness in this world," Patty said. "He'll turn up, won't he?"


"His nibs will turn up," I said. "Have another biscuit."


"Oh, they're so fattening. At least they don't have meat in them.


Even the vegetables have meat down here!"


Miss Patty gives me a look. She's never ate a green thing that hadn't cozied up to a ham hock first.


"Myra's trick is to use lard instead of shortening, isn't it now?"


"Is lard vegetarian?"


"It's just like butter, only richer, isn't it?"


"They are delicious."


"You haven't had but a bite," I said.


"Is that how you stay so skinny?"


"Jogging. In fact, I'm gonna go for a run by the lake to burn this off, and look for Darcy."


She got up without even a goodbye, imagine that. She had her hand on the door knob.


"Is that your little dog in Myra's garden?" Miss Patty's quick on her feet, too.


When her pony tail whipped around, I grabbed it and yanked her down to the floor. She didn't even have half her biscuit, so she fought like a cornered possum while my trusty razor cut her scrawny neck to the bone. Patty had to waddle like a fat old raccoon getting chased by hounds to get the mixing bowl under her neck in time.


Her kingly dog was in my rose bed, and she would join him. Champion seven years in a row, I reckon.


Bless her heart.

BIO:
Thomas Pluck is a writer from New Jersey whose work has appeared in Blue Murder and The Morning News. He has stories upcoming in Beat to a Pulp, Flash Fiction Offensive, Crimefactory, Shotgun Honey, Utne Reader, and Pure Slush.
Thomas blogs here.

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/

HEIR TO THE THRONE by K.R. Helms

K.R. debuts...


Heir to the Throne


David Allen Mullens paced his cell, anxiously cracking his knuckles in anticipation, knuckles on the same hands that had murdered twelve people in a four week killing spree. He wasn’t scared or sweating he was just excited.


He had been in prison for three years and had only managed to kill two in that time. It is tough to kill when they keep you sequestered from the general population or locked in solitary most of the time. He was beginning to feel robbed of the title. But with the air conditioning, cable TV and three hots and a cot, he thought he hadn’t done too badly for himself considering that he only had a seventh grade education.


He had killed people as far back as he could remember. For one; it was fun, and for two; it was easy money, but that reasoning was one he had grown in to. There was a time that he had taken no pleasure in killing. That was when he had killed his mother. He had killed her when he was 15 years old.


After years of killing small animals and insects he audibly heard something in his head snap, and the next thing he knew his mother was laying on the kitchen floor, the refrigerator door still ajar. He could still remember that her caved-in skull looked like it had spilled strawberry swirled oatmeal, it was his favorite breakfast but she would never make it for him again. His mother had been the catalyst but she was only one cause of his motivation. He wasn’t the type to sit around crying to a shrink about it though; all those pussies that pissed and moaned that mommy didn’t love them made him sick to his stomach.


Mullens had grown to believe that he was a god in his own right. He had not yet created, but he had mastered destroying. Soon though, that would change. Soon he would be a mentor to one, maybe more. Who knew? That was the great thing about being a god. That whole vengeful Old Testament god thing was pretty sweet gig.


Killing was easy…killing people was even easier. Human beings were like scared cattle when confronted with violence. He was the top of the food chain. He was essential to keep the balance of nature. He was simply thinning the herd, if you will. Those he killed were expendable, and it seemed that there was always more bred to replace the fallen. He wasn’t entirely sure the number of people that he had killed over the years, but he did like to boast that it was well over two hundred.


He considered himself a renaissance man of sorts. Sure he would bust a nut, that was a given; but the manner in which he killed them would be no two the same. Shoot them, stab them, skin them, torture them, burn some, strangle some, cannibalize some. Whatever, he was open to suggestions. He watched a lot of horror movies and if he saw an on-screen murder that looked like it would be fun to try, then why not.


As a renaissance man he was something of a philosopher and recognized the fact that those fat cats in government were worse than him. In times of war they had phrases like collateral damage, it seemed about the same to him. There were generals in the joint chiefs of staff that were responsible for more death than he, but they received medals for their actions, they received praise for their resolve and prestige for their carnage. They didn’t even have to wash the blood from their hands. They were the Charles Manson of the military world. And any serial killer worth his salt knew that Manson was a fake and a pussy. Mullens had watched those televised interviews with Manson, he would rant like a lunatic, he made no sense but Mullens thought that that was the whole point of the charade. Manson didn’t want to be released. He knew that someone would kill him about five minutes after he had been released. Man, with five minutes alone in the same cell as that dude, Mullens would show just what a joke Manson was.


It was this hypocrisy that made it so easy to kill. That; and it really got him off.


What was the difference between a murderer and a conqueror? Besides public opinion, he thought it was a very fine line. Everyone wants to be evil. Everyone wants to feel the power then trip on it. It was exhilarating. Why do you think that fantasy revolves around Vampires and werewolves, and creatures that morph into killers? It is because our base nature wants that power.


He believed all humans are evil creatures by nature, most however, lack the courage to act upon those desires. He was not one of those. I am what all human sheep yearn to be. He thought smugly.


He had decided to write his memoirs this past year. Consider it a treat to the world of psychology. Five hundred pages of his heroic deeds written in minute detail. Mostly it was a way for him to show ultimate dominance over the victims. He was proud to have finished his book, but he doubted it would be well received by the masses: the spelling and grammar left much to be desired but the insight into his mind… that was what should sell. But then, he thought, the truth was never well received. Fantasy always topped the best sellers list. People were engrossed with fantasizing. This was another reason they were so easy (and fun) to kill. When confronted with a reality less cordial than a tea party, they simply froze in their tracks, like deer in the headlights.


Soon though, he would be gone and he needed an heir to his throne. Someone who would take the scepter and see it for what it really was… a weapon.


He would become a tutor to one, maybe even more, who read his memoirs. It was the least he could do for the next generation. If only he had had a mentor to learn from, maybe then he wouldn’t be pacing in this cage like some kind of animal.


***

A priest had come to take his confession an hour ago.


Priests... he had to smile. That priest in particular wouldn’t have lasted more than five minutes listening to his confession. The priest had been a young visionary wanting to change the world by speaking of the works of Jesus. He was naive and ignorant of the way of the world. Maybe Jesus had walked the world 2000 years ago, maybe not, it really didn‘t matter to him, but if Jesus had, then the world had shown that deity what it most desired…his blood.


He had thought of killing the priest. That thought brought him comfort to his jangled nerves. But he was retired now. He had retired on top. He still held the title. He refused to worship a god that would create a race of barely sentient cattle in his own image. Mullens believed that must be a distinctly feeble god. But he wasn’t about to worship Satan either. That would have been even worse, in his opinion. Hell, Satan had been defeated and cast from heaven by that distinctly feeble god.


He knew who the true god was. It was himself. That was why he wasn’t scared to be fried in the electric chaise lounge. Sure he was anxious, but only to get the show on the road.


He had a kingdom to rule. He could hardly wait to be that ‘still small voice’ whispering his wisdom into his successors’ ear. They would become his saints and his disciples. And in time they would rule heaven, hell and earth.


He heard the guards walking toward his cell. He could hear everything. The creaking of their patent leather belts, the jingling of keys, the squeak of their shoes on the concrete causeway, the quick breathing of fear and somewhere…very faintly he could hear a guitar playing a death dirge so sweetly and so sadly that he felt tears well up in his eyes. He wasn’t ashamed of his tears, but he had a reputation to uphold, so he blinked them back and smiled because he felt so damn alive; it was the same feeling he had when he killed someone.


He felt the familiar ache in his groin and patted his growing erection affectionately and sighed.


Soon, Vlad, soon, he thought.


The guards stopped before his cell. He knew the routine and allowed them to clamp the manacles around his wrists through the food tray slot. Then and only then did they enter his cell and shackle on the leg irons.


The young priest was there, enthusiastically reading him his last rights. He knew the kid envied him, he could see the jealousy in his young green eyes. They ushered him from his cell and began their walk down a long hallway. He turned his head to the side and winked at the priest praying beside him as they walked.


Tough luck kid, there is only one deity here.


He could smell the fear emanating from the guards, they knew his record. He felt their hatred for him, but he could understand that, their hatred was rooted in jealousy and fear.


The pressure of his sex against the crotch of his jumpsuit was a bizarre mix of pleasure and pain. It suited his tastes well. The guards noticed it and sneered at him with disgust. He blew them a kiss. Cattle would never understand that kings always had a scepter. Some were just larger than others.


They ushered him, hurriedly towards the execution chamber to the cadence of the Lord’s Prayer. He thought that the Lord had every reason to be praying now. He’d need all the help He could get, here in a few minutes.


They led him to the wooden chair and strapped his wrists and ankles into place. They covered his eyes with gauze and tape and covered his head with a cloth hood and a wet sponge atop his shaved head.


He moaned in anticipation as he felt them affix his crown to his covered head. It was his coronation after all.


He laughed with a spasm as he felt the surge of electric rip through him and the warmth of his release beneath his coveralls.


It was good to be the king.


BIO:
K.R. Helms is a former Marine and freelance writer. His work has been featured in 69 Flavors of Paranoia, Dark Gothic Resurrected, Death Head Grin, Down in the Dirt, Dark Highlands Anthology Vol.2, A Means to an End from Postmortem Press and Sex and Murder Magazine. He is slated to appear in anthologies from Static Movement and The HorrorZine later this year. He resides in rural Ohio with his wife and daughter.

THE PERFECT GIRL by John Hardy Bell

Give a warm welcome to yet another debutant, John, and...


The Perfect Girl



Paul Fargas noticed the woman the moment he walked through the bank door. She was standing two places ahead of him in line, sandwiched in between a bike messenger whose tattered clothes and scraped up knees indicated he had taken one too many spills onto the hot asphalt, and a blue-haired little old lady holding a plastic grocery bag full of pennies. Ahead of the old lady were six other miscreants of one stripe or another, all waiting impatiently to be serviced by one of the two tellers who actually bothered to show up for work.


Paul would have cursed his bad timing, perhaps even walked out of the bank altogether, were it not for the woman. She was quite simply the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her smooth, tight skin shimmered with the light brown edges of a fresh tan. Her pink cotton halter top and Capri-length blue jeans were tailored perfectly to her lean, gym-hardened body. And, as he noticed the first time she turned to look at him, her emerald green eyes were positively arresting in their bright intensity. What Paul saw standing just a few feet away from him wasn’t merely a woman; it was the absolute embodiment of perfection.


In an instant, he knew that he had finally found the person he was destined to spend the rest of his natural born life with.


Paul had a simple checklist of qualities that he looked for in the women he worshiped. They had to be slim, they had to be blond, and they had to notice him, not just with a polite smile or dismissive glare, but really truly notice him. The vast majority of women he came across fell depressingly short in the latter category.


But with her second glance, this time accompanied by a soft smile, this woman was an astonishing three for three.

At first he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He instinctively looked around for the better looking man who surely must have walked in behind him. But there was no one else. That smile, as difficult as it was to fathom, was meant for him. It was a smile that melted him like warm butter; a smile that touched a place in his heart he never knew existed; a smile that said ‘I see you. I like you. I could really go for a guy like you.

But why? he thought to himself, instantly killing his own buzz. Why in God’s name would a woman like this even give me a first glance let alone a second?


By his own admission, Paul Fargas was no prize in the looks department. He was thirty-nine going on fifty-two, balding and had a midsection the color and consistency of a marshmallow. And at a whopping five feet three inches tall, most women he came into contact with, most of the perfect ones anyway, towered over him. It was easy to look past a man when all you could see was the top of his head. Paul had been looked past quite a bit in his life.

But not today. Not by this woman. As unlikely as it seemed, her attention was not accidental. She actually seemed to like him. Her third glance back all but confirmed it.


This time Paul summoned the courage to smile back. His lips quivered, portraying a nervousness he could only hope she would find endearing, even cute. A woman like that was probably used to making men like him nervous. His hopes were realized when he saw the corner of her pink mouth curl into a tight smile as she tucked a lock of curly blond hair behind her ear and shyly cast her glance away. Paul felt a surge of excitement rising in him that he could barely contain.

As the teller motioned her to the counter, Paul plotted his next move. Would he somehow try to get her attention as she walked out? Maybe he would step out of line and wait for her by the front door. Maybe he would walk up to the counter right now, tap her on the shoulder and… wait, wait, wait! That would be coming on way too strong! Damn it man, think straight for a minute would you?


The painful truth was that Paul didn’t have the first clue of what he was going to do. He didn’t exactly have a wealth of experience to draw from. Actually, he didn’t have any experience to draw from. Everything in his life up until now had told him that women hated him; women pitied him; women laughed at him. He was a five foot three inch version of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. Why wouldn’t they laugh?

But this woman was different. That smile, that glance given to him too many times to be coincidental. She was the real thing. And she was absolutely perfect.


He longingly watched as she approached the teller with the fluid, purposeful stride of a ballet dancer. He allowed his mind to briefly indulge in the image of her wearing knee-high leg warmers, pink ballet shoes, and nothing else. The thought alone made him gasp.


Before she reached the counter she glanced back one more time and smiled. His heart jumped to the other side of his chest. If there was even the slightest bit of doubt in his mind before, it all but vanished in that moment.


But there was still the matter of actually talking to her. He had never closed a deal this big before. Hell, he had never even been invited to sit down at the negotiating table.


It doesn't matter what you say, you idiot! Just say SOMETHING!

As Paul inched closer to the front of the line he could see her reach into her purse and pull out a small envelope, which she promptly handed to the teller. He couldn’t see her face, but he was positive the smile was still there.

Then something made him look at the teller. Maybe it was the sudden expression of shock in his eyes as he opened the envelope, or the fact that all of the color instantaneously drained from his brown face as he read the note inside.


Paul’s eyes quickly shifted back to the woman. He barely recognized her.


Her face was no longer soft and inviting. It had suddenly become something that frightened him; something he wanted to run away from as fast as he possibly could. But he was frozen where he stood, horrified by what he was seeing, yet unable to turn his eyes away from it.


A second before the gun appeared she spoke the first and last words that he would he would ever hear come out of her mouth.

“Reach for the alarm again and I will fucking shoot you!”

Her voice sounded nothing like Paul imagined it would. The voice he imagined had a quiet, almost sheepish tone. In the fantasy reel that had been running continuously in his mind, he would finally summon the nerve to ask her out for coffee, and she in turn would graciously accept his invitation with the demure uncertainty, yet unmistakable excitement of a teenager being asked out on a date for the first time.


“I would love to have coffee with you,” she would say. “I wanted to ask you myself, but I’m usually not brave enough to approach guys like you.”


Paul let the reel play in his mind over and over again, allowing it to drown out the real and terrifying scene playing out in front of him.


He could see the woman mouthing something, her full pink lips curling up not with a smile, but with blood-chilling rage, as she held the gun up to the teller’s face. Though the increasing volume of the fantasy reel had prevented him from hearing what she was actually saying, he knew there was nothing at all gracious or demure about it.


Paul could feel the growing chaos and panic around him; could see the horror burned on people’s faces as they held their purses and wallets high in the air. Still, it didn’t seem real. He thought for a moment that it had to be some kind of sick joke; a twisted, sadistic version of Candid Camera. He began scanning the bank for hidden cameramen, waiting impatiently for everyone to stop screaming and break out into spontaneous laughter after realizing the prank had finally gone far enough.


But no such laughter would come.


Instead he saw the love of his life, the woman he was convinced was perfect in every way imaginable, approaching him – gun extended, pointing directly at his pasty, perspiring forehead. This time when their eyes met, she was not smiling. In the brief seconds before the end finally came, Paul had time for one last thought:


Why are the perfect one always such fucking bitches?



BIO:
John Hardy Bell is a mystery / thriller writer from Denver, CO. When he's not writing his arse off (which is most of the time) John loves spending time with his wife and son, reading Elmore Leonard novels, and sucking at golf. He is currently at work on his first novel - 'The Second Circle'.

CLIMATE OF FEAR by John H. Dromey

TKnC welcomes John...


 Climate of Fear


The barometric pressure was dropping faster than watermelon seeds at an Independence Day picnic. Hurricane warnings were out for the Gulf coast, but I was in my office as usual. I felt safe there. If in fact a category-five storm was headed my way, the boarding house I call home had about as much chance of remaining intact as a toothpick at a termite convention.

 I expected it would be a slow day with no new clients. Maybe I could catch up on my paperwork.

 Then she walked in.


When you’re an experienced private investigator like me, you can tell a lot about a person by the way she walks. My prospective client moved with an air of quiet dignity. I motioned for her to be seated. She sat on the front edge of the chair with her knees together and her back straight.


“How can I help you?” I asked.

“I refuse to evacuate. I’ve filled my kitchen cabinets with bottled water and non-perishable food items. I’ve also filled my bathtub with water.”

“Sensible precautions, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

 “I want to show you something,” she said. She stood up and turned her back to me. I could see her elbows were raised and surmised she was unbuttoning her blouse. When she turned back around, she was blushing. I couldn’t help but stare.


“They’re real,” she said.

I was momentarily speechless.


“They’re neither paste, nor glass,” she continued. “Every stone in this necklace is genuine.”

I was convinced she was telling me the truth. What I couldn’t figure out was what a well-to-do, refined woman like her needed from a plodding private eye like me.

“Shouldn’t jewelry that valuable be kept in a bank vault?”

“That’s where it’s been for years,” she said. “I took it out just today to use as bait to catch a thief. To do that, I’ll need your help.”

“Why not go to the police?”

“I know who’s guilty, but I have no proof.”

“Who do you suspect?” I asked.

“Jeffrey Lytton. He does routine maintenance at the Mayflower Condominium where I live. Two of my elderly neighbors died recently after taking the wrong dosage of their prescription medicines. Jeffrey could easily have gotten into their living quarters. He has a master key.”

“You think he switched your neighbors’ meds so he could steal from them?”


“I’m sure of it. That’s why I take precautions.” She opened her purse to show me nearly a dozen pill bottles. She was a walking pharmacy.

“Do those have any serious side effects?”


“Like what? Hallucinations? Chemically-induced paranoia? Being afraid of my own shadow?”

I held up my hand. “Sorry. I had to ask.”


“I may be crazy,” she said, “but if I am, it has nothing to do with my prescriptions.”

“I believe you,” I told her. And I did. “What you’re planning could be exceedingly dangerous. If your suspicions are correct, the man is already responsible for two deaths.”

“I’m willing to take the risk. My medical problem is inoperable.”


“Do you want a bodyguard?”

“No,” she said. “If I don’t survive the storm, I want you to convince the police my death was a homicide. I won’t surrender my necklace without a fight.”

She paid me in advance.

It was a dark and stormy night. I don’t know how else to describe it.


***

The next morning I went to see my client. Her lifeless body, clad only in a nightgown, was lying face down in the sand outside her condo. Her necklace was missing.

I recognized one of the policemen at the scene. “Has the medical examiner determined a cause of death?” I asked him.


“Accidental drowning,” he said. “She was caught in the storm surge.”

I needed to know just one more detail. “Were there any contusions that could have knocked her unconscious?”

“No. Just bruises. Why?”

“She was murdered,” I said. “You already know when. I can tell you the why, the how and the where, and probably even whodunit.”


The detective was a good listener. I told him all I knew about the case and also what I suspected, based on what my client had told me.

“The missing necklace points to a robbery gone bad—the why. Since my client’s modesty would have prevented her from leaving the condo in her nightclothes, that means she was carried out either unconscious or dead. With no indication of blunt force trauma, I suspect she was drowned in her own bathtub—the how and the where—and then her body was moved in an effort to conceal the crime. She accused the maintenance man of being a thief, and in my judgment he’s very likely the ‘who.’”

A subsequent investigation proved I was right. An autopsy revealed no salt water in my client’s lungs and Jeffrey Litton’s DNA was found under her fingernails.

Case closed.


My late client hadn’t needed someone with the deductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes, or the dogged determination of a Marlowe or a Sam Spade. She just wanted a workaday PI who was willing to follow instructions. Sometimes you get what you pay for. Sometimes that’s enough. That’s what I tell myself anyway on nights when I have trouble sleeping.


BIO:

John H. Dromey was born in northeast Missouri. He’s had a byline in over one-hundred different publications with short stories published in several anthologies, including The Four Horsemen: An Anthology of Conquest, War, Famine & Death (Pill Hill Press, 2010).

SPINDLER'S LIST by Keith Gingell

  

Spindler’s List

 

Having a terminal illness has changed my life. Fucking obvious, you might say, and to some extent it is, but what's not so obvious is how it has changed.

The doctors told me I had about three years, but for the most part I would feel no ill effects, but when the symptoms began I would deteriorate very quickly, a matter of months or even weeks. They assured me they would make my final days as comfortable as possible. Naturally, I wasn’t quite sure how to react to this news and I told them as much. They recommended I had a meeting with a councillor. I agreed it might help and they fixed up a meeting for me.

This councillor turned out to be a bit of a knobhead, but it was his advice that ultimately effected the way my life changed. ‘Mr. Spindler,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t go home and brood.’ He told me I had to find an aim to fill my final days. He said, most people in my position concentrate on looking after their family’s future. Sorting out the estate, deciding how much it was worth, how to split it up. In short, making sure everybody I knew, family and friends, got what I thought they deserved. He said it was surprisingly complex and would take up a great deal of my time, maybe all of it.


I thanked for him for his advice, cancelled the rest of my appointments with him and went home and brooded. But then I got to thinking about what he’d said. I don’t have much of a family and I live alone these days, so it didn’t take much time to decide who got what from my estate. Then I thought about making sure the people I’d come across in life got what they deserved. This wasn’t so simple, but eventually I came up with a list of people I’d known who most needed to get what they deserved.


It wasn’t going to be easy, for a start I had to find them and time was not on my side. This wasn’t just my illness, it was also because of what I had in mind. I decided to make a list in order of importance and trace each one in that order, to make sure the most deserving were the first.


This was my list:


1) Craig Dorset ---- Ran off with my first wife and daughter – who I lost contact with.
2) Fred Hill ---- Ex-colleague who came to me begging for a job after falling on bad times and when I got him in, subsequently stabbed me in the back by arse-licking the boss and got promoted over me.


3) Peter Jones ---- The boss, who eventually squeezed me out of the company and forced me to retire early.


4) John McKinley in Toronto ---- With whom I spent nine months over there training him, and then he blocked my request for a lucrative transfer to Vancouver two years later.


5) My second wife ---- Who had an affair with Paulo Sanchez while I was in Canada


6) Paulo Sanchez ---- Who (I found out after seven years) fathered my son.

Just six: not a long list, but plenty to be going on with given the time restraints. Actually I’ve done pretty well. I’ve managed to track down and visit the first three. It was surprisingly easy to do. I quite enjoyed it really and it’s only taken me six months. That means I have at least another eighteen months to finish the rest. However, I think it might be time to take a few months break. Go away for a while; Canada perhaps – y’know – let things calm down at home for a bit.

BIO:

I have been writing fiction for about five years, firstly as a hobby, but now I am getting serious about it. I have stories published in Volumes 3 and 4 of Radgepacket and one in the, newly released, Volume 5. I also have a couple of stories on the Radgepacket website.