May Guest Writer - Matthew C. Funk.

This months Guest Writer needs very little introduction.  His work has appeared in almost every crime/pulp e-zine on the net.  If you've never come across his stories before then you really must be surfing the e-zine circuit with your eyes closed.

He's a fine writer with great stories to tell.  Without further ado.....

Not Like Other People by Matthew C. Funk.

It didn’t take her corpse to prove it. They always knew they weren’t like other people.

Ken knew it from the moment he spotted Sherry. He spotted her, hair a blond fire atop her head, giggling with her glancing girlfriends at Carraba’s. He sidled over in his off-the-rack suit and set eyes on her that shone with want.

She looked back like she had been waiting to be looked at like that her whole life. That told him all he needed to know.

It was the other things too, shared over round upon round of appletinis. The way her eyes kept diving down as if seeking a table to hide under. The upturn of her head, inviting his hand to her neck. The dare in her smile and the white piping of scars on her arms.

Sherry wasn’t like anyone Ken had met.

#

Sherry spent the following work week playing Ken over in her mind like she had memorized her multiplication tables: The majestic set of his shoulders. Those butterfly-jar eyes. The lips that would bend just a little, enough to promise a joke that could laugh away the world’s troubles.

Ken made it easy to remember him. Sherry kept the tulips he sent to her ash-gray cubicle until they had browned to the stems. She snuck off to take his calls somewhere she could whisper back the naughty things he told her to say.

When he called on her for a date, it was in person and with symphony tickets in hand.

Sherry went to the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame in a poodle skirt and rhinestone-tipped sunglasses Ken bought her special. When the director of IT passed Sherry over for a promotion, Ken took her clubbing and they washed away the day in a three-day binge of mimosas, Ecstasy and rave dancing.

Every day, he made his love for her loud enough for all to hear. The real special occasions, he snuck up on her with.

Their first anniversary, her crème brulee was served with his house key on the side.

Of course she moved in right away. Ken wasn’t like other people

#

Ken used loose knots the first time he tied Sherry to their cherry-wood bed. He was only rough enough to leave welcome bruises. He slapped her places that tingled nicely after.

Sherry started taking a long time cleaning the house, getting everything gleaming just right. She lingered, wiping off Windex, looking at the people passing on the other side of the glass—the mothers and kids, the gangs of boys, the old men. It was like looking onto another planet, a bleak and clumsy place, far away from her world with Ken where she woke to mornings with rose petals on the bed, spent days keeping surfaces immaculate, ended her nights marked with his fingertips and flesh.

When Ken sat her on his lap with his hand dug into hers, scanning through pictures of naked women, Sherry’s eyes looked just like his.

She looked on the porn models like they were a different species.

Day after day, they’d look as he touched her and whispered things. Ken watched her stare sometimes stray to the sanctuary of their shag carpet. The blush never left her cheek and her hand only held his neck tighter.

#

Sherry got so tired of answering the phone after her holidays with Ken that she would smile every time after watching it ring to voicemail. It was always the same call no matter who was on the line.

Her parents, shuffling through boring details of their lives until getting to the bottom line—that maybe she was spending too much time with Ken. Her friends or co-workers, asking her out to half-price potato skins or concerts where people yelled loud to convince themselves they were excited.

It was just like Ken said: Those people didn’t know what time well spent was. They’d never been truly excited in their lives. They were just other people.

Late nights driving Kingsbury Run in Ken’s leased Lexus—their Glamour Runs—now that was exciting. He would point out the shivering teens in their layer-cake makeup. Hand inside her thigh, he’d tear those girls up with whispers about too-skinny tits, bony asses, bulldog faces.

It made Sherry feel superior and sick, sad and special, set-apart by wickedness and by the diamond sparkle of the Lexus’ glass.

Sherry started whispering back on the Glamour Runs. It made Ken’s grin wider. It made his eyes stick to her, all bright gravity. It made him do things to her that had never been done before, even there on the leather of the passenger seat.

Sometimes, she’d feel bad. Not for the girls on Kingsbury. Never for them. They stole seconds of Ken’s attention; they deserved any misery they got.

Sherry would feel bad that she was delighting in their misery just to be closer to his delight. Ken could always tell, though. He would answer with a hand around her neck, a fresh-cut rose on her bathroom counter, and words whispered in her ear after a climax left her melted.

They weren’t like other people, Ken would tell her.

They were rock stars. They were gods. They got what life was about.

Who was she to argue?

#

Ken knew Sherry wouldn’t argue when he brought the redhead home from Kingsbury. She didn’t smile at the sniffling girl in her fur-trimmed plastic jacket. Her eyes were only on him.

Sure, Sherry grimaced when Ken cuffed the girl to their bed with the same metal that belonged on her wrists. She hugged herself when he took out the knife and cut the girl’s underwear away. She was glaring every time he looked back at her with his hands on the hooker’s skin.

After the girl’s screams were gagged and Ken’s hands were back on his fiancée, Sherry softened. She watched him with eyes that wanted to be looked at. As ever, he knew just what to whisper:

He wanted to watch her do things to the girl.

He did. Sherry put on a show for him, as precise about displaying her cruelty and her glee and her lust as she was about keeping the countertops shining. She made herself a mirror for his desire, and he knew it, and he showed his delight.

Ken wasn’t so delighted when he came back from his shower to find Sherry had strangled the girl with her silk scarf.

When he was done with Sherry, she set her bruised cheek to his thigh and her knees tucked tighter about his feet. His anger exhausted, Ken put his hand about her head. Sherry smiled up with blood between her teeth and told him just what he needed to hear.

They wouldn’t get caught. They could do a dozen more girls and it wouldn’t change anything. They had each other forever now.

They weren’t like other people.

Bio:  Matthew C. Funk is a social media consultant, professional marketing copywriter and writing mentor. He is the editor of the Genre section of the critically acclaimed zine, FictionDaily, and a writer for FangirlTastic and Spinetingler Magazine. M. C. Funk's work features at numerous sites online and in print with Needle Magazine, Howl, 6S and Crimefactory. He is represented by Stacia J. N. Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

Just Say No by Charlie Wade.

We’d do anything for a hit. Gotta take you low though. None of this happy up shit. Why d’ya want that? Why go up so you have to come back down?

Tried everything. Brown was too messy. Sure it was deep and low, but it fucked us up for weeks. Jellies, not hard enough, not intense. We needed more. We were always looking for something different. Always needed to go one more.

Then, last night, looks like we found it.


Lynn’s on the other sofa finishing off the scotch I nicked from that house. She looks rough this morning, bleary eyes with big bags.

Me?

I woke a minute ago when Lynn was screaming and crying. My head hurts, feels like there’s spanners rattling around inside. Every move I make they clang together louder and louder. She finishes the scotch. Don’t ask if I want some. Can’t blame her, I’d have done the same. Should’ve nicked two bottles, but there weren’t enough room for them and the Xbox. Daz’s beside me on the sofa. Looks like he’s waking up. Fucking shock he’s got coming. Biggest shock of my life waking up, and realising what had...

“The Runt’s got a lot to answer for,” said Lynn.

I nod my head. The spanners clang.


After doing over the house, I went down the Crown. Saw Billy the Runt straight away, didn’t bother getting a drink. No point, I weren’t there to drink. The runt was stood by a table, eyes shifting, peeking into corners, seeing things and people that weren’t there. Seeing danger where there weren’t none.

“What you got?” I said.

“I only got pills.” He looked round, sure he was being watched.

“Don’t want fuckin e’s. Wanna go down not up.”

“They ain’t fuckin e’s. Brand new they are. Straight from America. Blast off’s they called. Take you lower than a ...” He paused, tried to think of a phrase he ain’t overused.

“Any good?”

“Damn right. Designed by the military. Chemical warfare and that. Gen-ate-ick-aley designed they are.” He sounded like he’d been practising but was never gonna get it right. “They slip them to the enemy. Mongs them out for hours. Can’t remember nothing afterwards.”

I weren’t convinced. “You sure they’re good?” The runt sold me laxatives one, claimed you get a buzz from the dehydration it causes. He weren’t the only one full of shit that day.

“Fuckin A man, fuckin A. Best fucking hit this side of...” He stopped again, I swear I saw his brain whirring as he tried to finish the line.

“Not sure.” I tried to look uninterested. “I got an Xbox, how many?”

“Do you eight for it.”

“Go on then,” I said.

Back at the house, Lynn was fucking fuming. “An Xbox for eight pills? You get any fucking magic beans as well?”

I explained where they’d come from. “Military mongers,” I’d said. She shrugged her shoulders for a bit, but I won her and the rest round.

We settled down, all four of us and took one each, washed down in the finest stolen whisky.

Then I woke up. Just now.


Daz is awake now. He looks rough as shite. His eyes are pin heads and his mouth’s hanging open. He’s seen her. Seen Susie. Seen her lying on the floor.

“What the fuck happened?” The words croak from his mouth.

Lynn shakes her head. She’s still got tears dribbling down her cheeks. “What we gonna do?” She looks at me, like I can help. I’ve always had a soft spot for Lynn. She’s looking at me now, hoping I can make this go away. Looks like I’m gonna let her down again.

I force myself to look away, down at the floor. My eyes move past the beer cans, then turn left at the hub-cap ashtray till I see Susie, just lying there.

I see her eyes first. They’re like old milky coloured marbles. Her face’s grey, the wrong colour. Like all the blood’s drained out. I look past her shoulder and down her arm. There’s blood on her t-shirt. It’s dried out giving it some hippy tie-dye look.

I take another breath then look further down her arm. Down to the elbow. The stub. The stubby mess of bone and blood where her forearm's missing.

That ain’t the worst part.

Around the stub there’s teeth marks, bite marks, like the arm’s been bitten off at the elbow. I gag as I look further. The rest of her arm, with the hand still attached, it’s lying loose on the carpet. It’s covered in teeth marks. Strips of flesh have been ripped away to the bone. The teeth marks are human, no doubt about it. I look back at Lynn, her t-shirt’s covered in dried blood. So is Daz’s and his hands are red. Stained with it. Stained with her blood.

Me? Yeah I’m covered too, and my mouth tastes of metal. I know what that means. Means I can taste blood. Reckon Lynn could too, that’s why she downed the whisky.

“What do we do?” Lynn says, her voice breaking up.

I look at the table. The little baggy with four pills left. I look round at Daz, he’s eyeing them too. Lynn reaches first and grabs them. She takes one, forces it down before chucking the bag at me. I ram one down, retching on it before giving the bag to Daz.

“See you later,” said Lynn.

“Hope so,” I replied.

Charlie Wade lives in Derbyshire, England and has written three books, a comedy spy thriller, a post credit crunch dystopia and a crime thriller. He's had six short stories published online and his story, Pleading and Bleeding, was in Out Of The Gutter Magazine issue 7. He blogs at http://spiesliesandpies.blogspot.com/

Pothole by Bruce Harris.

The mechanic wiped his hands on an oily red rag. With a greased stained shortened finger, long ago severed at the second joint, he pointed to the underbelly of Ed's classic blue Chevy Corvair.

“Front end’s totally shot to shit and the rim’s fucked up. It needs to be replaced.” The lit stub of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth didn’t move as he spoke. He needed a shave.

“How much, Salty?”

“Jeez, you’re looking at about $500, give or take.”

Ed Davenport turned away from the mechanic and his pride and joy Chevy. It hurt him to see it up on the lift. For Ed, it was almost as if he was staring at his child in a raised hospital bed.

Salty took one last drag. He pinched what remained of the cigarette between his thumb and middle finger, turned his head and spit, then flicked the butt to the ground and stomped on it with a heavy boot. Smoke spurted from his nostrils. “It’s fucked up. How the hell did you do this?”

Ed was worried about the $500. After five years, his Davenport’s Demolition business was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. This was going to hurt. He stared down at the still smoldering cigarette. “I hit that pothole on Route 11. You know, the one right outside of town. My teeth shook! The really sad part about it is I am more than familiar with that hole. It’s been there for weeks. I’ve seen it a hundred times. I’ve called into that worthless pothole hotline, and every time someone else told me it was going to be repaired. I can’t believe I hit it. I was daydreaming and went smack into it.”

“That sucks.”

“What’s the use of having a pothole hotline if they’re going to ignore the calls they get? This is really bad. Fix it, Salts. You’ve taken good care of her for like 20 years now. It’s only money. I’ve got to have my baby blue back.”

***

A week later, the pothole was still there, still beckoning unsuspected drivers. Ed poured himself a glass of rye while being parked on hold.

2 MINUTES – Ed had punched the numbers “2” and “3” on his phone indicating he wanted to report a pothole - again.

He was stoic despite the fact that every 45 seconds or so, the insipid music bombarding his eardrum was interrupted by an automated message imploring Ed to continue holding, because his call was important. He’d wait to speak to a live person.

6 MINUTES – Ed finally had the option to push “0” to speak to a city road improvement specialist.
Ed held the phone to his ear. The constant pounding of the music continued. Outwardly, it appeared as if Ed were relaxing in his den listening to his favorite jazz CD. He poured himself a second glass of rye.

8 MINUTES – Ed heard a new message, informing him he was caller number eleven in the queue and his approximate wait time was eleven minutes. Ed was also given the option to go online to the city’s official website to report a pothole in need of repair. He had previously employed that method on a few occasions without success.

22 MINUTES – Ed was informed that his call was outside of the pothole hotline’s business hours and told to call back between the hours of 9:00am and 9:00pm. He was abruptly disconnected. He checked his watch. It was 8:40pm.

Ed calmly finished the rye and headed into the garage and into his pickup. He slowly pulled out of the driveway and nonchalantly headed toward town. On Route 11, he pulled the vehicle over a few feet from the pothole. When he saw empty road to the north and south, he extracted a stick of dynamite from the bed of the truck and carefully placed into the pothole. He was a good half mile away when he felt the ground shake and heard the explosion.

In the morning, Ed made himself a cup of coffee, toast, bacon and eggs. He listened to the radio traffic reporter, “…vestigation continues as we’ve been saying all morning. Stay clear of Route 11 about a mile north of town. Traffic is backed up for miles. Police are urging motorists to avoid the area as road crews work feverishly to repair a 450-foot section of road…” Ed didn’t wait for the rest of the story. He shut the radio, gulped down the last of the Joe, and decided to take the day off and go for a drive. He got into his baby blue Corvair, shoved it in gear, and headed away from town.

Bruce Harris is the author of SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DOCTOR WATSON: ABOUT TYPE (www.batteredbox.com) and a chapbook, THE MAN AND THE MARK (www.deadlychaps.com). He enjoys relaxing with a Marxman.

Poison by Dana C. Kabel.

Tyler woke up and puked off the side of the bed.  He tried to pull coherent thoughts out of the black sludge that his brain had turned into.  Did he drink more than usual the night before?  He was pretty sure not.  Food poisoning?  The flu?

Another wave of nausea hit and produced a series of retching dry heaves.  He tried to get up to run to the bathroom, but found his limbs were filled with lead instead of blood and everything hurt.

The effort started him sweating, but he felt cold.  Definitely flu…or food poisoning, though he couldn’t remember what or when he had eaten last.

He needed help and fast, as his temperature felt dangerously high.  He reached to probe his nightstand where he usually set his cell phone, and a strange tingling went up his spine and he blacked out.  Then he spilled over the side of the bed and landed on the floor in a pool of his own vomit.

An indiscernible while later, Tyler woke with his own up-chuck dried and caked to his clothes and skin.  He pulled himself up by the bed sheets and managed to climb back on the bed.

His fever must have broken while he was passed out; he was no longer sweating or chilled.  And in spite of having smelly dried vomit all over him, he did not feel nauseous.

Then something gurgled in his stomach and he flew to the bathroom, making it just in time to void his bowels into the toilet instead of his pants.  It was at that moment that he remembered how badly his body had hurt before he lost consciousness and that the pain was now gone.

When he was finished shitting, he stripped down and threw his clothes in the trash and stepped into the shower.  The steaming water brought him out of the fog.  It felt like it was the first shower he had ever had in his life.

It washed away not only the filth from his body, but the webs from his mind; and when he stepped out of the tub and into a dry towel, he knew exactly where to look.

Tyler went back into the bedroom with the towel around his waist and picked his pillow up and found the handwritten note.  Before he read it, he went around the apartment checking the doors and windows to make sure the double keyed bolts and heavy locks were all in place and that the security bars on the windows were all intact.

The note had to have been placed there while he was out of the apartment.  There was no way anyone could get in once he was safely locked inside.  He was pretty sure of that.

Tyler went to the liquor cabinet and with shaking hands, poured himself a tall glass of bourbon before he sat down with the note.

It read:

Good morning.  Obviously the attempt to poison you again has failed or you wouldn’t be reading this.  Today I shall increase the dose.  You won’t know how, and you won’t know where, but sometime today I will make every effort to kill you.  By this time tomorrow, you will most likely be dead.

Tyler brought the drink that he so desperately wanted up to his lips.  He suddenly realized that the seal on the bottle had been broken.  It could be poisoned already.

“Damnit!”  He went to the sink and poured the amber liquid down the drain.  This meant that he would have to take very careful measures to leave the apartment again and go to the liquor store.

He couldn’t chance calling out for a messenger; the phones were probably bugged and the killer could pretend to be an errand boy.  If he wanted the booze and food and cigarettes that he lived on, he had to go out and get them himself and risk being out in the open.  And he had to risk leaving the apartment unguarded.

Tyler started hyperventilating.  He covered his mouth and slowed his breathing.  Then he wrinkled the note up and threw it in the special basket.  The basket with the three hundred and sixty-four other notes just like it.

Dana C. Kabel’s stories have appeared in A Twist of Noir, Black Heart Magazine, Darkest Before The Dawn, The Flash Fiction Offensive, Muzzleflash, Mysterical-E, Out of the Gutter, Powder Flash Burn, and Yellow Mama.  He blogs at www.thenonstopbullet.blogspot.com

They'll Call Me Whistlin Pete By Chuck Caruso.

My Ma weren't even goin to take me to see it when they hanged my Pa.  But I put up one hell of a fit about that and set her straight.  Somebody hangs your kin, I told her, you go and watch them doin it.  My sister Charlotte didn't want to go, but she's only eight so Ma left sis with old widow Atwell while her and me went down there to see the hangin.  I reckon I'm growed up enough to see a man swing when it happens.  I turned eleven last October.

Early in the morning that day I hitched our horses to the wagon and me and Ma rode near twenty miles down to Perseverance where they held the trial and were doin the execution.  Ma said we'd just go down for the noon hangin and travel home by nightfall, but I stashed a bundle with some things under the seat anyways.

Perseverance is a pretty big town with a newspaper and a sheriff's office and all.  Pa had been sittin in the one-room jail there for a week since they got the verdict passed on him.  Guilty of murder as charged.  Pa claimed he'd been dead drunk in the back room of some whorehouse when the deed was done, but he never could explain how an ax from our barn and his hat with his name in it got out to the Reed Ranch all by themselves the same night somebody kilt both Mr. and Mrs. Reed.

At his trial, they said Pa done them murders to rob the Reeds.  Besides their everlasting souls, a few other things went missing from their house, like some coins and banknotes, a gold watch and a gun belt with an old Colt pistol in it.  Mr. Reed's ivory dentures went missin too, but that got shrugged off as what they called a "minor peculiarity."  Dead men don't need to chew much anyways.

They were a nice old couple, the Reeds, and folks said neither of them would hurt a fly.  Course they never seen the whuppin old Mr. Reed give me and my friend Butch when he caught us stealin an apple pie off the window sill of his wife's kitchen.

Everybody was real broke up about the Reeds getting done for by my no-good drunk of a Pa.  It was true enough that Pa got ornery and mean when he'd been hittin the whiskey bottle.  Ma and I both had scars enough to show for that.  Last time he laid into me, he even busted out some of my teeth, including one of the new big ones in front.  I'd only had the damn thing for three years.  After that I whistled when I talked and kids made fun of me.  I told Butch that someday when I'm a famous outlaw they'll call me Whistlin Pete on the wanted posters.  We had a good laugh about that, him and me, but I was mostly serious.  I am going to be an outlaw some day.  You just wait and see if I ain't.

When Ma and I got to Perseverance on hangin day, we found lots of folks crowded in the town square where they'd put up the gallows.  You'd a thought it was the Fourth of July the way most of them were drinkin and hollerin.  It was almost catchin how they was carryin on like it was some sort of holiday.  I pert near found myself smilin along with them as we pushed through so's we could stand near the front.

Me and Ma held hands at the foot of the gallows while the deputies made Pa walk up them pine steps and stand there facin the crowd.  Pa said sorry to me and Ma when he saw us.  It was a familiar enough word on his lips so I recognized it right off even though we couldn't hear the sound of the actual word above the hootin of the crowd.  Ma wiped her eyes with a hanky from her sleeve, but I didn't spill no tears myself.  I'd heard that lie comin from him too many times before to believe it now and I was done with cryin anyways.

Pa's eyes searched ours in the last moments before they pulled the burlap sack down over his face and looped the noose over his head.  I don't know what he mighta been lookin for, but he sure as hell didn't see it in my eyes.  Ma turned away weepin but I watched to the finish.  When the trap fell, he dropped down and his neck snapped.  He didn't kick or nothin just became dead weight swayin on a line.  The crowd hushed then and I could hear the sound of the hemp rope whispering against the crossbeam.

Back at the wagon, I grabbed my bundle of things and told Ma I had to go check on somethin.  Most days she would have peppered me with questions but she just nodded and climbed up on the wagon, seemin real sad on account of Pa.  I kissed her on the cheek and run off.  I don't know how long she waited there before she figured out I wasn't never coming back.

I didn't really have nothin to check on except the time of the next coach out of there.  Down at the depot, I paid for a ticket as far as Ft. Boise and waited around for the stagecoach to come through at one-thirty.  A pretty lady showed me how to tell time on my gold watch.  I told her it was an inheritance from my dearly departed grandfather.  I felt good leavin.  I had some cash and an old Colt pistol in my bag, and I was hopeful that if I did good for myself I'd find a dentist who could fix these dentures I was carryin so they'd fit me proper.  Otherwise, well, I guess they'd still just have to call me Whistlin Pete.

Bio:  Chuck Caruso lives in a drafty old farmhouse in the Pacific Northwest with his long-suffering wife and their two hirsute daughters. His dark fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Dark Discoveries, SWANK and other national magazines as well as numerous crime and horror anthologies. Visit his blog at http://jcdarkly.wordpress.com/.

Mother’s Ruin by Allan Watson.

It was a slow night in the Eight Till Late. There had been a few guys buying cigarettes earlier on, and I’d also had the fun diversion of chasing off a group of spotty fifteen year olds with fake ID’s trying to buy bottles of cider. Since then, my attention had been taken up with deconstructing Henry James’s ‘Turn of the Screw’ for an essay I needed to finish. To make the task more bearable, I’d filched a couple of Mars Bars from the confectionery tray.

At ten o’clock the shop door opened. I looked up, half expecting to see the spotty teenagers wearing false beards, back for another futile cider raid. Instead, it was a middle-aged woman wearing a green tweed coat. As she busied herself at the vegetable rack, I got back to my essay. The next time I looked up, she was standing at the counter right in front of me. It seemed that after filling her basket with cucumber, carrots, potatoes and a leek, she had taken the time to tie a large white handkerchief around her lower face. Then I noticed the gun pointing directly at my chest.

‘Empty the till,’ she said in a very calm voice.

‘Erm…… are you really sure you want to be doing this? It’s been quiet in here tonight and the takings are pretty sparse.’

She was silent for a moment, giving me time to take in her appearance. Her tweed coat was buttoned up to the neck, hiding what she was wearing underneath, but it couldn’t disguise the distinct swell of a matronly bosom. Her hair was dark and swept back in an old fashioned style. I expected to see panic in her eyes, but they remained locked firmly on mine, showing not a hint of fear or uncertainty. This was a woman who’d made up her mind to do something and was seeing the job through.

Eventually she said, ‘Empty the till or I’ll blow your head off.’

I opened the till drawer and removed twenty six pounds. I held them out feeling almost embarrassed.

‘Put it in a bag. And don’t forget the loose change.’

I bundled the money into a carrier bag which she slipped into the pocket of her coat.

‘Now empty your pockets.’

I did as she asked. I had two pounds and thirty six pence. ‘Sorry, I’m a student. Wouldn’t be working here otherwise. But you’re welcome to it anyway.’

She hesitated, then her shoulders slumped beneath the fabric of the coat. ‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘What University are you attending?’

‘Strathclyde. Doing a degree in English Literature.’

‘Working hard, I hope?’

I thought it was a bizarre turn for the conversation to take, but held up my copy of Henry James. ‘Got my head stuck in the books even when I’m working here.’

‘That’s highly commendable. Nothing makes me more angry than children not appreciating the sacrifices their parents make to give them the opportunity of a decent education.’

‘Have you got kids at University yourself?’

She nodded her head. ‘Two daughters at St Andrews. It’s costing me a fortune paying for accommodation. That’s a lot of money for a single parent like me to find. I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise. Robbing you, I mean. I hope you won’t lose your job because of me.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Hardly think they’re going to fire me over twenty six quid.’ I nodded at the basket full of vegetables. ‘You want me to bag those for you?’

‘Thank you. I’m making soup. It’s all I can afford to eat most days.’

‘Me too, if I wasn’t working here.’ I showed her my Mars Bar and took a bite.

‘That’s not very nutritional. If you’re going to steal food you should at least eat more fruit and vegetables.’

I laughed. ‘You sound just like my mum.’

That seemed to please her. Her eyes crinkled in that certain way that told me she was smiling beneath the handkerchief. She got even more mumsy when she tutted and pointed to my mouth. ‘You’ve got chocolate smeared, just there.’ She suddenly pulled the handkerchief away from her face, licked a corner of it and leaned across to clean the chocolate from the side of my mouth. When she stood back I got a good look at her face. Although she looked to be in her early fifties, she was extremely attractive. Her lips were red and full and extremely kiss-able.

She took a step back from the counter. The gun which she had lowered when cleaning my face was now pointed firmly at my heart. ‘Sorry, that was stupid of me. Now you’ve seen my face.’

She swiftly cocked the hammer and pulled on the trigger. Instead of flame and gun smoke and instant death, there was only a dry click. Before she could chamber another bullet, I grabbed the cucumber from her carrier bag and smacked her hard across the temple. She dropped silently to the ground.

I raced to the front door and locked it, before pulling down the shutter. I checked the woman’s breathing and found her to be alive. That was good. Then I dragged her into the back room and unbuttoned her coat. The promise of that matronly bosom beneath the tweed was fulfilled in every way I could have dreamed of. The money she’d stolen would be returned to the till. The gun I could sell in one of the rougher pubs in the area. No-one would ever know she’d been here.

After stuffing the handkerchief into her mouth, I began undressing her. I’d always had a thing about older women and this one was a real prize. Much tastier than the last few I’d raped and strangled. When I’d had my fun, her body would be dumped in a nearby skip.

I stroked the unconscious woman’s cheek and said, ‘Fruit and veg you say? Let’s check out those melons.’

Bio:  I'm a writer of sorts. If I'm not writing, I'm playing music. Can't manage do both at the same time for some reason. I'm the author of four Kindle novels. Dreaming in the Snakepark, Carapace, The Garden of Remembrance, and 1-2-3-4. Also got a collection of weirdy short stories going up in a few weeks time. Play in a few bands - one of which is Hazey Jane II where I'm joined by crime and horror writer Phil Rickman. What else? I'm from Glasgow and currently in deep despair over the demise of my football team. Well, the despair isn't that deep. It's the most exciting thing to have happened to us this season.

Voodoo Love by Matthew C. Funk.

Papa Legba lived in Valiant's pocket, on a three-link chain to his Glock 17. Valiant kept all his saints - his voodoo loa charms - close. A kingpin of Desire's corners had to.

Papa Legba ruled the crossroads: Opened the gates between the world of nature and the world of spirit. Mama taught Valiant that Legba also went by "Saint Peter," before she vanished.

Ogun, the warrior Saint Michael, drove the swelter and cracks of Desire's streets with Valiant every day, dangling in silver from his Tacoma's rear-view. Baron Samedi was carved into his money clip, his dominion over death and wealth strengthening Valiant on his shakedowns and snitch killings. Erzuli, the Blessed Virgin of love, stood in pink soapstone by his stained bathroom mirror.

Valiant had all the Saints he needed. Until he found Violetta.

Erzuli had been moved to his bedside that morning. Valiant needed her warmth nearby after Katrina's nails had ripped gaps in his home's walls.

Violetta was picking through Christmas ornaments outside the Winn-Dixie when Valiant went there for blankets. Her brown skin gleamed like a statue God polished every day. Her smile made the mist in the air seem the gloss on a greeting card.

They traded sugared words. He bought her baubles and a Big Shot cream soda. She found his hand like she'd been looking for it her whole life.

"How about being mine for awhile?" Valiant said.

"Awhile sounds like a good start," Violetta said.

After a month of cruising Krunk shows together and steaming the Tacoma's windows in empty lots on Pontchartrain's shores, Violetta took to staring at Ogun's swing above the dash. Her perfect skin creased. Her fingers on Valiant's neck gripped to hold the blood in place.

"You got to be done with gang-banging if you're going to be with me," Violetta would whisper, tongue near enough to gilt Valiant's ear. "I don't want to lose you."

"I don't want to be lost."

"Lose the gang for both of us, then."

Ogun came down from the rear view and Valiant kept out of Grub turf. Calls from fellow soldiers in the Dirty-30, even his best friends Owen and C-Murder, went to voice mail.

Valiant patched his walls. He locked his doors at 11. He shrugged off his friends' punches and pleas for help.

Violetta strung Christmas lights over his iron-barred porch. She made their bed early to preserve their heat of the night before. She decked his rooms with aromas of cayenne, flour and andouille.

When C-Murder banged Valiant's door with their friend's blood on his fists, Valiant answered. He listened to how the Grubs had hung their shoes over a Dirty-30 corner seconds after they put seven bullets through Owen. He nodded and touched Baron Samedi's symbol on his money clip as C-Murder said they had to do something.

"You want to go rolling with them," Violetta said when she heard, "don't expect me to be waiting if you come back."

"When I come back, you got to be waiting."

"When or if, I won't be here."

Valiant spent the next week behind his new locks and Christmas lights, listening for gun shots. Two weeks after, he read poems to Violetta curled in his lap, one ear turned to the second-line funeral jazz playing for boys from both gangs. When he drove alone to buy their groceries later that month, Valiant listened to the voicemails:

He heard his friends sobbing and snarling that he'd abandoned them. He listened to the echoing names of Dirty-30 soldiers lost because he didn't stand by them. He heard the silence after the voicemails stopped, their emptiness like an opening grave.

She started asking Valiant what was wrong every time he came home silent. She quit laughter, quit eating as much, quit touching him first, when he told her. She would be found staring at the stains in the ceiling when he startled awake amid the night.

"I'm afraid they'll come for you," Violetta said, holding her hands locked over her lap. "I'm afraid they'll never go away."

"It ain't just our world, it's theirs too."

"I just want them gone."

Valiant kept Baron Samedi balled in one fist when he shot C-Murder with the Glock 17 in the other. He watched his friend choke on blood for five minutes outside the Mini-Mart before getting in his truck. Two hours after, he pulled into house-high weeds by one of his former Dirty-30 corner, got out of the Tacoma and hid behind a tree. It took thirty minutes before C-Murder's cousins cruised up with Rav-4's sub-woofers thumping and bandanas raised.

He stepped from the tree and crossed the street with Papa Legba dancing on the chain. He saw his pal Gary's eyes, familiar as they'd been at all of his birthday parties, catch sight of him in the side mirror. He unloaded the clip before any could turn, popped a fresh one in, emptied that into what still twitched in the Rav-4.

She smiled twice as much the next week. She left the bed unmade and made calls to friends in Baton Rouge. She touched Valiant with wooden hands and avoided his eyes.

"I just couldn't take it anymore," Violetta told Valiant over the phone, three days after she vanished without even a note. "I can't be with a man like you."

"I did everything you wanted," Valiant pleaded into the phone, staring at Erzuli's statue by his bedside.

"After the way you turned on your friends, I just can't trust you."

She hung up when Valiant ran out of words. He held the phone and stared at the bed, stripped of blankets, where the impression of Violetta's body cradled Papa Legba bound to the gun.

Bio:  Matthew C. Funk is a social media consultant, professional marketing copywriter and writing mentor. He is the editor of the Genre section of the critically acclaimed zine, FictionDaily, and a writer for FangirlTastic and Spinetingler Magazine. M. C. Funk's work features at numerous sites online and in print with Needle Magazine, Howl, 6S and Crimefactory. He is represented by Stacia J. N. Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

Dealer Sets Price by Tom Pitts.

“I’m telling you, when he’s out, he’s out cold. All we gotta do is get someone to buzz us inside the building.”

“It’ll never work.”

“It’ll work, I’m telling you. He keeps his shit in that little plastic box with his scale.” Jeff envisioned it, a fat sticky lump of Mexican heroin. Enough to keep him, Ricky, and Crystal high for days.

“What if the door is locked?”

 “I have the goddamn key to the front door. I made a copy last week when he sent me out to the store for cigarettes. Fucking asshole, making me fetch him shit like some kind of gopher. Serves him right.”

“I mean, what if there’s a deadbolt or chain or something on the door?”

“So what? Then we walk away. He’s not gonna wake up, that’s for sure. That prick sleeps like he’s dead.”

“What if he’s not alone?”

“He’s alone. Who the fuck in their right mind would sleep with that arrogant piece of shit?”

“I dunno, man. Sounds risky.”

“Risky? Ricky, are you kidding me? Fuck this asshole, he takes our goddamn money everyday, makes us wait forever, treats us like children. Do you wanna get well or not? I got Crystal waiting for me at home and she’s gonna wake up sick and I’m not coming back to my baby empty-handed.”

“Yeah.” Ricky’s tone was sheepish.

“All right then.”

The two junkies walked up the marble steps and studied the intercom bank for a button to push.

“Pick one on the third floor.”

“What if they walk down to check?”

“Just fuckin’ pick one and stop being such a chicken-shit.”

Ricky hit a random button on the third floor. No response. He hit another. Same. Jeff reached past him and, using all four fingers, hit four at once. The front door buzzed. They were in.

They walked down the first-floor hallway, light on their feet. They could hear sounds of life from the other apartments. TV, dishes clamoring, a small dog yelping. The apartment they wanted was toward the back of the building.

They came to the door. Jeff turned toward Ricky and whispered, “I work too hard hustling all day to keep giving this prick my money for those tiny slivers of dope. He might as well just factor my goddamn dignity into the price.” From his pocket he pulled out a single bronze key. He slid the key into the lock and turned the knob. They were met with stale cigarette smoke, body odor, and darkness.

With a plastic disposable lighter for a torch, they entered the dealer’s apartment. Jeff knew right where the dope was stashed, beside the computer monitor in a pale green plastic box. He put away the lighter and picked up the box. He opened it up, felt inside for the lump of dope, and found it. Ecstatic, his heart skipped a beat. The lid to the box fell loudly onto the keyboard in front of the monitor. The blank screen flashed on brightly, illuminating their horrified faces.

“Shit,” mouthed Ricky.

“Hello?” They heard a voice say. A female voice. “Hello, is there anyone there?”

The two junkies froze.

The bare lightbulb above their heads flared and they stood looking at a woman with a small silver handgun pointed toward them. She was in one of the dealer’s ugly paisley dress shirts, unbuttoned, no bra, no panties.

“Jeff?”

“Crystal?” said Jeff. It was his girlfriend, fiancé in fact, the love of his miserable life. It wasn’t registering, his mind raced to find a reason for her to be there. Maybe she was doing what he was doing—working hard to bring home some dope so the both of them could have wake-ups tomorrow. Working hard—with no panties.

“What the fuck?”

She said nothing.

The two junkies knew at once they weren’t going to be shot. But it didn’t matter. Jeff looked like he’d already been shot.

“C’mon!” said Ricky. The two fiends ran out the front door of the apartment, down the hallway, and out into the cool night air. It was blocks before they slowed down to a walk.

Ricky finally said it.

“You’re right, Jeff, dignity is factored into the price.”

~End~

Bio:


Tom received his education firsthand on the streets of San Francisco. His work has  appeared in Shotgun Honey, A Twist of Noir, Punk Globe, Darkest Before the Dawn and others.

He’s also a popular contributor at SF’s reading series Lip Service West. Contact him at:  http://tom-pitts.blogspot.com/

Interlude.

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED (TEMPORARILY)

Submissions are going to be closed for the next couple of weeks.  I'm going to be out of the country for just over a week (A much needed family break to the Canary Islands) and I don't want to come back all refreshed to an even busier in-box than there is now.

I will still be publishing stories - and there are some fine ones coming up.

I hope you all understand and I appreciate your continued support.

Thanks!!

The Lollipop Gang by Andrew Hilbert.

Carl Winslow was waiting for his order at Sonic’s, the fast food joint where high school girls come and serve you on roller skates like the good ol’ days. He blasted the Beatles as he waited and lit a cigarette. He watched for the server in his rear view mirror. It’d been ten minutes and still no chili cheese tots.

He noticed a Girl Scout quietly pep talking herself and working up the courage to ask him to buy their cookies. He would, too.

               

“Excuse me, sir?” the freckled little red head asked him.

               

“Yes, sweetie?” Carl answered.

               

“Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”

               

“I sure wo--,” he felt a cold piece of metal up to his cheek.

               

“Don’t move! Drive away and be cool!” a child’s voice yelled at him.

               

He felt another cold piece of metal in the back of his head.

               

“Try any funny stuff, old man, and I’ll blow yer freakin’ head off!” another child’s voice said.

               

The Girl Scout who had first tried to solicit the sale got in to his driver’s side back seat and yelled, “Brittany! Where are the handcuffs?!”

               

“Gum drops, Alice!” Brittany, the girl in the passenger seat yelled, “I left them in my mom’s van!”

               

“Snookers!” the third girl, Lisa, yelled.

               

“GET DRIVING!” Brittany screamed.

               

“Girls, sweethearts, let’s take it easy. Where do you want to go?” Carl was sweating bullets in fear of them.

               

“Just start driving, geezer! We’ll give you directions,” Alice said.

               

Carl reversed and turned right onto Katella Ave. He knew there was a police department just a little ways up the street. He’d pull in there and send these sweethearts straight to prison.

               

“Make a U-turn first chance you get, silly!” Brittany smiled from ear to ear, food clinging to her fuchsia colored braces.

               

“Yeah!” Alice agreed.

               

“We’re not falling for that driving by the police station trick!” Lisa said in the back.

               

“Listen, old man! We’re saving up for a pony!” Brittany said.

               

“So empty out your wallet!”

               

“I don’t have any cash on me! All I have is a debit card!”

               

Alice in the back pulled out a shot gun of her own.

               

“STOP THE CAR!” she screamed.

               

Carl slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road.

               

“Not like that you goober!” Brittany yelled, “pull into the park!”

               

“You’re going to have to tell us what the fudge a debit card is!” Lisa was picking her nose.

               

“You can’t buy a pony with a debit card, girls,” Carl said, “you’ll probably need a cosigner and a down payment in cash.”

               

All three girls started screaming at the top of their lungs, Carl’s eardrums felt like they were about to burst and he felt like he was on the verge of an aneurysm and at that moment Carl wished one of them would just shoot him.

               

“Take us to the bank or we’ll keep screaming!”

               

“OK! OK! Jesus Christ!”

               

One of the girls cocked their guns.

               

“Don’t say the freakin’ Lord’s name in vain!” she said as she jammed the barrel as hard as she could into the back of Carl’s sweating head.

               

Carl drove to his bank. He looked at every car he passed by to see if he could get anyone’s attention. Everyone had their windows rolled up and their music blasting. They were all looking straight ahead or straight down at their cell phones.

               

When they got to the bank, Carl drove through the drive-up ATM. Brittany smiled sweetly at him and fluttered her eyes, “Empty out your bank account, pretty please!” she smiled and flashed her braces right at him and his heart broke.

               

He wasn’t dumb enough to empty out his entire bank account so he just pulled out $200. “Here!” he yelled, “Take it and get the fuck out of my car!”

               

“Cool it, mister,” Brittany said and pointed her gun right at his dick.

               

Alice leaned in between them from the back.

               

“You’re telling us that a man who drives around a Mercedes only has $200? Shoot his wiener off!” she yelled.

               

Lisa took off her seat belt and climbed into the front. The whole time her gun was pointed at his dick.

               

“NO! NO! NO! Wait!” Carl yelled, “Let me get some more.”

               

He withdrew $300 because his daily ATM limit was only $500.

               

“Hey, mister!” Brittany the braced one said, “You don’t only have $500, you think we’re stupid!?”

               

“It’s a daily withdrawal limit, I can’t take any more out! It won’t let me! When you’re old enough, you’ll understand! I swear!”

               

“I smell a fibber,” Lisa squeaked. She whacked him in the back of the head with her gun.

               

He fell forward onto his horn and lay unconscious. His horn blaring, the three little girls jumped out of his car. Red-headed Alice pulled out her pink cell phone.

               

“Daddy!” she said, “Can you pick us up at the Chase bank on South Street? We sold a lot of cookies today!”

Bio: Andrew Hilbert lives and works in Austin, TX. He maintains this blog: The Cheesepaper.

Some Kind Of Monster by Nick Boldock.

-    Tell me the truth. Why did you do it? What’s wrong with you?

The barrel of the gun points right between his eyes. He looks close to tears. We’ve been at this for a while now – me asking questions, but getting no meaningful answers.

-     I’m sorry, he says, I never meant it. It just happened.

-     No… that’s not good enough. No excuses. I’m going to kill you, I really am.

And I mean it. God, do I mean it. The gun’s loaded and cocked. My finger’s twitching against the trigger and I know it won’t take much pressure before the pistol erupts and a bullet smashes into that hateful face that stares back at me, cold and unblinking. I refuse to look away from those dark eyes.

-     Why did you do it? Why? That’s all I want to know. Tell me.

-     I don’t know. None of it was meant to happen. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m not well.

That face. There’s nothing there – just a vacant look, no emotion, no feelings. Nothing. He doesn’t care what happens. He’s saying all the right things, as if he doesn’t want to die, but I know he doesn’t care either way really. He knows it’s going to happen no matter what he says. But before I kill him I want to know why it happened. I need to understand, or at least try to.

-     I loved her, I say.

-     I know. I’m sorry. I did too.

-     YOU don’t know what love is! You’re an animal!

Tears roll down my cheeks, images flashing into my mind that I can’t bear to see again.

-     She… she was going to tell. I couldn’t allow that. You know that. I tried to stop her but she was going to tell… what could I do? I tried to talk to her, to explain… but she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t understand!

He’s crying too now, like me. Crocodile tears. I’ve no sympathy. He’s a monster, and he deserves to die. It’s the only way out of this thing.

I roar in anger, banging the gun against the side of my head until my skull starts to throb in pain. A trickle of blood runs from my temple, down my cheek. Its warmth is almost comforting. I taste it at the corner of my mouth – salt, bitterness. Reality.

I close my eyes, squeezing them tight shut. When I open them that face is still there, staring at me, like I knew it would be. I straighten my arm, the gun once more pointing straight at his forehead.

The man in front of me – my captive, facing me, finally under my control; he abused my daughter. Time and time again, for months. Nobody knew. The things she went through… she never told anyone, because this monster told her he would do terrible things if she ever said anything. So she never did. But my wife… she figured it out. She saw the signs, and eventually when she could deny it no more she confronted him, all alone.

He denied everything, but a day later, he came back. He followed her into our house, then into our bedroom, where he pinned her to our bed, put his hands round her throat and squeezed his thumbs tight until her body stopped convulsing beneath him. When he was sure she was dead he took a blanket from the cupboard and laid it over her face, before leaving her there for me to find.

What could I do now other than kill him? What choice did I have?

-     Please, he said, I didn’t know what I was doing…

-     SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!

I can’t bear to look at him any longer. I squeeze my eyes shut, my finger as tight on the trigger as it can be without setting off the gun. My head is pounding now. I know I should have taken my medication earlier. Much, much earlier.

I open my eyes and pull the trigger at the same time. The mirror shatters into tiny pieces, showering the floor with broken glass, and the face in front of me is gone, replaced by a single bullet hole in the bathroom wall. Now there’s only the other me – the beast, the murderer, the sick one. The monster.

I turn the gun around and put the barrel deep into my mouth. It’s over. I pull the trigger again.

Bio:  Nick Boldock is a Yorkshire-based 36-year-old writer of dark and unsettling fiction.  He has been published in print by Byker Books, Fathom Press, Pill Hill Press and others, and his stories appear online at various sites including Pulp Metal Magazine and TKnC. He is currently working on a novella. More information at www.nickboldock.co.uk

Guest Writer Spot - Benoit Lelievre.

This months Guest Writer is friend of mine who I've known for 12 months or so.  In that time I've watched his writing improve and appear in various e-zines, e-books and print mags.  He writes it tight and to the point.  He's also got a lot of patience.....thanks, dude!!

Without further ado.....

Undead.

The lost souls are always the quieter ones. The wolves are howling so loud within, they can’t hear what’s going on around them. Reality fades out and all you’re left with is a pack of hungry wolves that want you dead. You can spot them after three A.M, when the bouncers flick the switch open and the pub is drowned in that hideous neon light. They are the ones who don’t leave. They barely seem to notice what’s going on. They stay hunched over their drink like shipwreck survivors holding a floating plank.

There was also Raymond. Raymond Kuntar.

He materialized out of thin air one night and challenged everyone in the bar to play Russian roulette with him.
He had kept this old snubnose .38 with a wooden grip tucked in his jeans and walked up to people and raised his shirt. “You up for it? You game? I got nothing to lose, man. I’m a fuckin’ psycho. I don’t give a shit.”

No one would give him the time of day. The only reason anybody knew his name is that he was carded on his first night because he looked like a sixteen years old brat. Turned out he was twenty-two. The staff tolerated him, as long as he didn’t get physical with the actual paying customers. Poor Raymond, he kept playing and playing and he drew the wrong number.

“All right, I’ll play with you.”

Nobody had ever seen that guy in the bar before. Tall, strong and rather good looking if not for the dirty hair and the beard, a strange middle grounds in between a five o’clock shadow and a neglected mess. The guy looked like he spent the last week in the bars, doing blow, fucking sluts and not going to bed.

They sat at an empty table and Raymond placed the gun in between them. “You start, tough guy,” he said.
The remaining customers started to close down on them and Raymond smiled. He loved being the center of attention. Dying in the middle of a captivated crowd was better for him than living secluded in a small apartment, working at a dead end job and being too tired to go out and party at night. Ballers lived fast and died hard.

The stranger offered his hand. “I’m Lowell, by the way. May the best man win.”

“You scared?” said Raymond. “Don’t flake out on me, man. You said you’d do this, we do this”.

Lowell took the gun from the table and opened up the barrel to check inside. He smiled and swung it for a spin. He slammed it shut and put is against his temple. “You’re ready?” he said. Raymond nodded.

Click.

“Your turn.”

Raymond looked at the gun in front of him like he had never seen it before. He put a hand on it. His arm was heavy, filled with lead. He looked in Lowell’s eyes, didn’t blink. Not once. His eyes were like tea saucers, his breath hard and loud.

Click.

Gradually, emotion and bravado flowed back to his face, along with the appropriate color. His face twisted in a grimace of pride and relief as he put the gun back on the table. “Hah. Your turn, man. Try not dying on me. I’m just gettin’ warmed up.”

“You forgot to spin the barrel again,” said Lowell.

Silence for a second. The crowed moved in even closer. Many anonymous clients thought of stepping in, but truth was this was a very quiet neighbourhood bar. Nobody had had to deal with firearms before. Nobody knew what to do or what to say, so they just watched.

“Fuck that spinning shit. We play the real thing here. Russian roulette for men, ya dig?”

“All right.”

Lowell picked up the gun again. He slid back on his chair and spread out his legs to get comfortable.

“I want you to look at this, understand?” he said. He looked at Raymond, raising his eyebrows and waiting for a nod. “I want you to watch me die.”

He put the .38 in his mouth and looked at Raymond. The kid hadn’t blinked in about two minutes.

Click.

“Seems like the stakes just got higher. Your turn.”

Lowell slid the gun across the table. Raymond looked at it, but both of his arms were pinned to his side. “You now have fifty percent chances to die tonight. C’mon,”

Raymond’s shoulder moved, but his hand never made it to the table. “I…I can’t, man.”

“I thought you were a tough guy. What happened to the Russian Roulette for men, thing?”

“Please man, you have to let me spin the barrel again. I’ll let you spin it too. Please, please, please.”

Lowell chuckled and shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s not possible. I didn’t spin the fucking barrel, you don’t spin it either. That’s how it works. I started, so I call the shots. You need to finish this turn.”

Raymond’s arms were paralysed. He could still feel them, but they wouldn’t answer to his call. Lowell picked up the gun and aimed: “I’ll help you if you need, but we’re gonna finish this game.”

Raymond’s mouth turned into an O shape and the crowd pulled back in anticipation. “Don’t soil your pants, man. Just don’t. If this is your last moment, face it proudly. You wanted this, remember? You wanted to play Russian Roulette like a fucking man?”

“Uh…Uh…yeah. Yeah I mean, no. I mean-”

Click. Raymond moaned and covered his head with his arms. He was hyperventilating.

“Well. I really liked math in high school,” said Lowell. “But math never liked me. Fractions and percentages. They’ve been my downfall since eighth grade.”

Lowell had removed his trench coat and was now walking back and forth. He never looked so alive the whole night. Raymond risked a look at him. He still had the gun in his hand.

“Are you ready to see me die?” Is that what you wanted all along? A corpse?”

“No. NoNoNoNo. It’s not that, man. Lowell. It’s not that. You can call off the game if you want. This went long enough, I don’t care.”

“Why did you do it, then? Why did you start something if you didn’t have the balls to finish?”

You could have heard a fly. Even worse, you could have heard a fly have an heart attack and drop dead. The air was thick and echoed everything.

“Answer me.”

“I don’t know. I wanted somebody to stop me, I guess. This guy in China threatened to throw himself off a bridge once and this girl came up to him. She showed her the cutting scars on her wrists. She kissed him and gave him her phone number-”

“Wait, you did all that to get poon?

“No, it’s not that, but it was always in the back of my mind-”

“Do I look like a social worker to you? Am I your fucking go-to guy for a hug?”.

Lowell laughed. He would have been that guy, six months ago. Life changes fast and the older you get, the faster it goes. “Goodbye, kid” He placed the gun under his chin and pressed the trigger.

Click.

Lowell chuckled again and it grew into a loud and boisterous laughter. He hadn’t laugh like that since college.

“Who would have thought? Did the guy who put that bullet in the ammo box somewhere in Kansas ever dreamed of your ugly mug? Have you ever thought when you put that bullet in your gun, that it would end your own life? Have you?”

“You were supposed to fucking die, motherfucker,” barked Raymond. His pasty white face was now red as a beet. “I put the bullet in the first chamber, so whoever would play with me would have his face blow-off. I wanted to see you die, you fucking piece of shit.”

“Do you think you’re the first guy to ever play Russian Roulette? Cemeteries are full of stupid kids like you. The Grim Reaper’s not only after old people. Motherfucker’s in shape.”

“FUCK YOU.”

Lowell laughed again. Raymond made a move for the gun, but Lowell slapped him back in place .

“All that time. That bullet was meant, for you. Are you gonna be man enough to accept it?”
Raymond shook his head, frantically. “Can I, can I have one last line, before the trip?”

“No. Fuck this. Will I really have to do this myself?”

“No. I will. I will do it, don’t worry, man.”

Lowell handed the gun to Raymond, who took it and immediately aimed it back at Lowell’s chest. “You predictable little shit. SHOOT. Don’t you get that it’s what I want? I’m laughing because I can’t seem to die. Not because you don’t want to. You’re pitiful. You’re a waste of my time.”

“Shut up. Shut up or I bust a-”

“Do it!” He opened the lapels of his trench coat, making a big, inviting target for Raymond. There was another heavy silence. An eternal one, before Raymond decided to turn heel and run in the other direction. He disappeared into dawn without any trace. The reek of urine invaded the senses of everybody present in the bar. The most sensible noses were covered by hands in seconds.

Lowell turned around and said: “He didn’t even have the courtesy to leave his piece here.” He laughed again. All alone, still. His humor had never been a big hit. The thought of an avoided train wreck was in everybody’s mind, but in Lowell’s the train was still at the horizons and his feet were stuck, welded to the tracks.

In two hours he would have to go to work again. He walked out of the bar and looked around for Raymond Kuntar. Nothing. Nobody ever saw him again after that night. He walked up the street without a destination in mind. He soaked in his thoughts, like he had been doing for the past week or so. What had just happened there? He stopped in front of a women boutique’s display window. As he turned, his trench coat flopped and, for an instant, it looked like a tentacle to him. He laughed to himself and thought those excesses might just do the job afterwards. Under the lamppost’s orange glow, he looked like absolute shit. Dressed in black like an undertaker and yet, pasty-white. His eyes were so bagged, you could see veins under them.

“I look like the grim reaper” he whispered.

The world stopped around him. He held his breath as a long buried memory crawled back. He was thirteen years old and sitting on a church bench with mom, dad and the girls. They had just moved to Atlanta and they didn’t have a church, so they stumbled upon that weird, gospel place that cured people. This old cripple got wheeled in to the front of the church where believers were dancing and spasming altogether. The old gizzard must’ve been eighty, maybe ninety years old? He got up from his chair, started running around the church like a sprinter and yelling in a booming voice: “I AM CURED, PRAISE THE LORD. HALLELUJAH JESUS.”

No proverbial lightning from above, no magical glitter or clouds of dust, like in the movies. It just happened. Like a reminder from God to humanity that he was still there, that they were right to be hopeful. A few weeks later, the old man’s photo was in the local newspaper. He had died while saving his great-granddaughter from house fire.

Lowell nodded at his reflection in the window.

“Grim reaper. Maybe that’s it.”

Benoît Lelièvre is a twenty-nine years old pulp writer from Montreal, Canada. He loves everything dark, from psychological horror to black humor, so his stories reflects that a lot. He's been published in anthologies such as Beat To A Pulp: Hardboiled, Off The Record and The Lost Children and also in magazines such as Needle, Shotgun Honey and The Nautilus Engine. He's working on longer projects now, but he always has time for a short story here and there. Aside from fiction, he has a growing readership on his blog Dead End Follies, where he reviews books, movies and discusses writing and pop culture. He's also on Twitter, so feel free to drop by and say hi.

The Golden Shot by Graham Smith.

A smiling James Mercier walks down the stairs of the studio set, talking a patronising drawl into his microphone as he goes.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to The Golden Shot. The brand new votathon gameshow of 2032.”

The camera pans away from Mercier and shows a wildly cheering audience. Each member of the crowd is stood, clapping hands above coiffured heads and cheering for the immensely popular presenter.

“Now have we got a treat for all you good folks out there. Tonight is the very first program in a series which will change viewing habits forever. Never before has a show like this been broadcast. We will push the boundaries of taste, pull back the curtains of complacency and deliver the evil unto hell.”

A wave of hysterical whooping interrupts Mercier’s spiel exactly where he’d planned it to.  At the first hint of a lull, he picks up and starts delivering what he knows will be the defining pronouncement of his career.

“That’s right my good people, you heard me correctly. We WILL deliver unto hell the evil which stalks our wonderful society. Because the righteous people of the British Broadcasting Corporation and our esteemed Justice Minister have combined to give YOU the viewer, power of life and death over some of the country’s most heinous criminals. Murderers, rapists, paedophiles and terrorists will all be brought forward to compete for your votes.”

A hushed incomprehension fills the studio and every one of the fifteen million homes that have tuned in to watch what had, until now, been a top secret game-show.

Mercier turns his back on the audience, as he had again chosen to pause at this point so he could manipulate the crowd and he timed his silence with a digital accuracy.  Just when incomprehension threatened to morph into discomfort he quickly wheels round and seals the deal with his right arm punching the air with every full stop.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re not gonna vote for a murderer. A paedo or a terrorist. Well let me tell you something folks." At this point Mercier gives his best “you can trust me” smile and looks to camera. “These most despicable, most depraved, most reviled dregs of society have all been sentenced to death. And tonight YOU get to choose which one of the will die.”

A woman’s voice rings out clearly from the back row of the studio, reciting the lines Mercier had earlier furnished her with. "Death to killers. Justice for the people."

As predicted, the clamour and outpouring of bile and hatred towards criminals of all ilks nearly blows the microphones apart. If it hadn’t been for Mercier’s insistence that they be turned down at this point, then several would have caused speakers around the studio to fuse.

As a producer of the show Mercier had pulled strings like a crazed puppeteer, until he had the audience filled with ordinary people who had been victims of violent crimes.

Holding his hand above his head he signals for silence and when the decibel level drops sufficiently he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a single golden bullet with a neat red ribbon around it, arranged into a bow.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is what our contemptible contestants are playing for. One bullet. Delivered from the barrel of a gun directly to the front temporal lobe.”

Mercier sensed his audience was uneasy so he dumbed it down a little. “The winner gets shot between the eyes.”

Another pause for effect.

“The losers are tortured to death. Right here in this very studio. Viewers at home can tune in to channel 187 where they can subscribe to our special ‘Justice Cam’ which will chart every last minute of the chosen miscreant’s life.”

He walks across the stage as the audience around the studio goes wild and every home viewer contacted friends to tell them of the new show with its special Justice Cam.  Across the land, pubs emptied, cinemas and shops became deserted as every last citizen made their way to a TV showing The Golden Shot.

Reaching the right hand side of the stage Mercier clicks his fingers and watches as a screen rises from the stage to reveal a large tank full of ferocious looking fish.

“That’s right. They are Piranha and tonight’s loser will be stripped naked, horsewhipped and then lowered into this tank at the rate of one inch a minute until his twisted and valueless life has ended.”

Quickly he stalks to the other side of the stage and when the latest din settles, he roars to the crowd. “Do you want to meet the contestants?  Men so despicable our benevolent justice system has decreed they must die.”

Mercier puts his back to the studio audience and shouts into his microphone, “Bring out the bastards.”

Another panel rises from the stage and five men in handcuffs and leg irons are led forward, accompanied by two burly guards apiece.

Mercier, ever the show man, gives each contestant an introduction as they came out.

“First up we have Peter “Mad Dog” Mitchell, rapist and murderer of seventeen known victims. Next we have the Peckham Poisoner, Chris Cleveley.”

As the boos and jeers ring from the crowd, Mercier milks the atmosphere as he introduces contestants three and four until the studio is totally enraptured by his every word.  He’d planned this to a tee and the fifth and last competitor is by far the most reviled as he was Lenny “The Lech” Ferguson: a paedophile with over one hundred known victims.

“We’ll be right back after the break with the next installment of The Golden Shot where we’ll find out which of our competitors can stand on a hot surface the longest. Get your phones ready to cast your votes. Remember folks, you decide who dies tonight and who comes back next week.”

The camera fades and some advertorials are shown to the studio audience as stagehands ready the first challenge.

Have you stayed tuned?

Have you voted?

“Yeah, me too.”

Graham Smith is married with a young son.  A time served joiner, he has built bridges, houses, dug drains and slated roofs to make ends meet.  For the past 11 years he has been manager of a busy hotel and wedding venue near Gretna Green, Scotland.
 An avid fan of crime writing since being given one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books at the age of 8, he has been a regular reviewer for the well respected review site Crimesquad.com for over 2 years.
 As well as reviewing, Graham has also interviewed such stellar names as David Baldacci, Jeffrey Deaver, Dennis Lehane, Lee Child, Matt Hilton, current CWA Chair Peter James, Mark Billingham and many others.
 When not working, his time is spent reading, writing and playing gameswith his son.  He enjoys socialising and spending time with family and friends.
 Check his blog at http://grahamsmithwriter.blogspot.com