I pull up at ten a.m. I’ve stopped at this store a hundred times. It’s the corner business of an old strip mall on a street used more as a pass-through than a destination. The locals come here. Off-brand cigarettes, malt liquor by the can in plastic buckets filled with ice, extra-long T-shirts in black or white, toilet paper by the roll, canned food, junk food, processed cheese food, and a permeating odor of industrial-strength cleaner poured on something gone bad that probably wasn’t so good to begin with. It’s called, simply, “the Market.”
On this morning I walk in, nod at the Indian counterman as usual, and do a quick scan. Nobody else in the place. Just the way I like it. The ATM is in a direct line to the glass front doors, so I can see anyone arriving while I’m down on one knee, the open safe door shielding my hand full of money while I load. It won’t take two minutes. But what do they tell you about how long two minutes is when the shit hits the fan?
The stickup guy walks through the door, and when I look up I notice two things—one perplexes me and one scares me.
First, he’s wearing his baseball cap the way they were meant to be worn—the bill of the cap is forward, shading the eyes. In this neighborhood, hell, in every neighborhood these days, guys from six to sixty wear their caps turned backward like what, avoiding a sunburn on their neck? Secondly, he has his right hand tucked up under his shirt at his waistband. We don’t make eye contact because I can’t see his eyes; the cap brim and the sun coming in through the doors behind him leave his face dark. He’s a shadow figure, no details but for that damn hand concealing something he doesn’t want to show, not yet anyway.
He takes two more steps in, glances once at the counterman, dismisses him, and takes another toward me.
“Stand up! Gimme what you got!”
The line comes with a jerk of whatever’s bundled in the shirtfront.
My employers have gone over this. Give up the money. It’s insured. It isn’t worth it. Back off and let ’em have it. And that was my philosophy before they ever said it.
So why am I a fool this morning? Why don’t I stand up with my hands in the air, step away from the machine—even turn my back so I don’t see the face—and tell this asshole to go for it, take the money and go?
But I don’t. I stay right where I am, crouched behind a three-foot-tall iron door, nothing but the upper half of my face showing. Instead I lie.
“Hey man. I got nothing behind this steel door but a racked nine millimeter. And I ain’t standin’ up.”
I’m as surprised by the words coming out of my mouth as the robber, who seems silently befuddled, or the clerk who takes advantage of the stunned air to instantly duck into some hidey-hole behind the counter.
“You fuckin’ hear me?” the shadowed guy manages to say, but now the anger in his voice wouldn’t convince a schoolgirl. He’s five yards away, but doesn’t move.
“Just turn around and leave, man,” I hear myself say again, with a remarkably steady voice that I do not recognize. “If you’re going to shoot me with whatever’s in that shaky hand, you better be able to hit my forehead ’cause I ain’t standing up from behind this steel.
“And if you take another step at me, you got a lot bigger target right on your chest, and believe me, I can use this nine, man.”
Silence rules. Maybe two seconds, maybe five, maybe that eternity they like to talk about. He doesn’t show the gun he might have, and I don’t have anything to show.
“Fuck you, papi,” the guy finally spits out, but he delivers the curse while his left foot moves back toward the door. His hand never comes out from the folds of the shirtfront. He repeats the epithet, maybe all he has left of his bravado, and in the parlance of the cop who shows up twenty minutes later to take a report, flees the scene.
Edgar Allan Poe Award–winning author Jonathon King is the creator of the Max Freeman crime series set in the Everglades and urban South Florida. He has also self-published a historical mystery, The Styx, which won a Florida Book Award and his latest series book, Midnight Guardians, was published as an e-original by Open Road Media.
TESTIMONY
* * *
* * *
Andrew Klavan
My friends, I tell you, only a miracle could have saved this sinner’s soul—and a miracle is what it was. I had come to Brother Jeremiah’s healing service as a mere mocker—a scoffer—a seeker of curiosities. I thought that, after the many attacks against this man of God—the exposés on television and the Internet—no one of any sense could take his promises seriously. And so imagine my surprise when none other than Amanda Gallagher rolled her wheelchair down the aisle of the auditorium toward the stage.
I confess to you in all shame that I had harbored lust in my heart for my neighbor Amanda for many years—yes, lust in my heart despite the fact that she was tied in bonds of holy matrimony to Orrin Gallagher, the sheriff of our county. I had wrestled vainly with the devil of my desire, hunkering in my darkened house night after night, looking in secret through Amanda’s windows across the way. I had railed in my soul against her rightful husband, cursing his cruelty to her, horrified by the brutal beatings and obscene enforcements he visited upon her with crushing regularity.
All these I had witnessed from my house. And yes, of course, I had called the police. But they would do nothing to curtail their colleague’s violence. I had even confronted Sheriff Gallagher in person, only to find myself looking down the barrel of his service revolver, threatened with death. In the end, I was forced to look on helplessly as he tortured and tormented that sweet and beautiful creature—to look on helplessly even on that awful night he hurled her down the stairs. She never again rose from her wheelchair after that. As I myself testified at the inquest, she became a virtual prisoner in her second-story bedroom. I could see her up there, I told them, sitting helplessly by her window during the incident in question.
I would like to call that incident a tragedy, but I simply can’t. I know that any man who harbors anger against his brother shall be subject to judgment, but I harbored anger against Brother Orrin, I admit it. And when, in a fit of drunkenness, he sat himself down at the kitchen table and lifted his revolver to his head and blew his brains out, I was not sorry for it. I was glad—yes, glad—though I witnessed the whole gory spectacle. I could see the sheriff’s crippled wife in her bedroom prison upstairs; I could see the man himself in the kitchen right below her, struggling in the coils of his guilt and shame. When I saw him begin to toy with his gun, I called the police from my phone at home. I was in my house, on that phone with them, even as the final shot was fired.
It was in the aftermath of Orrin’s suicide, my friends, that I recognized the emptiness of my life. It was then that I began a search for…I didn’t know what—didn’t know at all until I walked into Brother Jeremiah’s service at the old Belmont Theater on State Street. It was there I saw Amanda roll her wheelchair down the aisle; there I saw Brother Jeremiah lay his hands upon her and command her in the name of the Almighty to rise and walk. And I tell you now, my friends, Amanda struggled from the confines of her chair to stand on her own two feet. Yes. Full of the spirit, she walked with faltering steps back up the aisle, past the awestruck faces of the gasping and applauding believers. With tremulous tears of joy and faith and gratitude, she stumbled to where I stood at the back of the auditorium—where I stood marveling in very wonder at this mighty miracle. And as she fell exhausted into my arms, she cried in a loud voice to the multitude, “I can walk! Hallelujah! I can walk again!”
And I tell you in that moment—in that very moment—I believed and I was saved.
Can I get an amen?
Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally best-selling crime novels as True Crime, the basis for the film of the same name directed by Clint Eastwood, Don’t Say A Word, made into a film, starring Michael Douglas, and Empire of Lies. He has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award five times and has won twice. He has published best-selling thriller
novels for young adults and wrote the screenplay for A Shock to the System, starring Michael Caine.
LOSING MY RELIGION
* * *
* * *
K.A. Laity
“I could do it,” Tony said as I started the engine. “Believe me. Easy.”
I backed the Subaru up, then eased away from the curb. An old lady in a Ford pulled into the spot almost before I got out. Life in the congestion zone. “Might better open up a car park. You’d get rich a lot quicker. Especially around here.”
Tony shook his head. “A car park is a finite investment. There’s no end of growth potential for religion.”
“Growth potential? You’ve been watching those YouTube videos again.”
“Sidney, the knowledge of the ages is free for the taking if you know where to look.”
I checked the map and made a right at the corner. “What, Wikipedia?”
Tony sighed. He thought I lacked ambition. “You really need to develop your online presence.”
“I’m not getting on Friendface.” I shot him a look as we idled at the light.
“Facebook! Criminy, you don’t even know what it is. You might as well live among the Neanderthals.”
I shrugged. “I got plenty of friends. They drink at my local. Why would I need friends I can’t drink with?” A muffled shout from the boot made us both turn around. Some impatient stockbroker behind me tooted the horn of his Mercedes, and I stepped on the accelerator.
“Think we need to pull over?”
“Nah, it’ll be all right.”
Tony turned around to face front again. “You might be content with your lot in life—”
“I am.”
“I’ve got ambition, Sidney. I want something better.”
“Your own religion?”
“Small investment, low overhead at the start, then huge results.”
I laughed. “What about those vows of poverty?” The evening sky had that pink glow that never lasted for long but made the old city look new again.
Tony laughed. “That’s for the low-level minions. You ever been to the Vatican? Untold wealth. Same thing for all major religions. Mecca. Taj Mahal. Crystal Cathedral. Scientologists.”
“They got a church?”
Tony shot me a look of withering scorn. “They’ve got the whole of Hollywood! Hands in everything. All those rich actors and directors—they’re all dues-paying Scientologists.”
“Not Jason Statham.”
“Well, no,” Tony admitted, “but then he’s not really Hollywood, is he?”
Another muffled scream from the boot, more of a sob really. “So what’s your religion going to be about?”
When he thinks he’s got a world-beater, Tony gets this smug look that begs for a punch to the kisser. “Happiness. What everyone wants and nobody’s got.”
“I got it.”
“You don’t count, Sidney. Most people are miserable. Hold out the possibility of happiness and riches, and you’ll have people eating out of your hand.”
“You don’t say.” I looked at the map again as I found myself facing the wrong end of a one-way street. “You’re going to offer them riches? Won’t that deplete your own quickly?”
Tony sighed. He could sigh for England. “You don’t give people riches. You hold out the possibility of riches. Like car commercials that hold out the possibility of sex with supermodels. You ain’t getting it, but you think you might.”
“So you’ll be advertising?” I slowed the car, squinting into the thickening dusk.
“All modern religions advertise. I’ll have my own website, Facebook page, and YouTube channel. I’ll be an Internet sensation.” Tony looked properly smug.
“We’re here,” I said, turning into the building site. I pulled around behind a large skip filled with rubble. Old Bill said they would be pouring concrete in the morning. All seemed quiet.
“Looks wet.” Tony sighed.
“Well, let’s dig first, then see about the baggage after,” I suggested, opening the rear door to grab the shovels. I handed one to Tony, who frowned at it. “They don’t come with golden handles, mate.”
He scowled and pointed. “Here?”
“Looks good to me.” The dirt was wet, but the shovels cut through it with ease. Nonetheless, we soon sweated profusely. “Not so young anymore, are we?”
“Speak for yourself,” Tony retorted. “Prime of my life.”
“Think it’s deep enough.” I scanned the horizon. All remained quiet. People having their tea about now, surely. “Let’s get the baggage.”
“So what was he?” Tony stared at the face without recognition.
“Someone who made a serious error in judgment. You want feet or hands?” We dragged him over and dropped the baggage in the hole.
“Face down so he can see where he’s going,” Tony snickered.
“Will there be a hell in your religion?”
Tony considered the thought, which meant he leaned on his shovel and let me do the work. “Carrot and stick really, eh? You need to have both.”
“Dig.”
“If there were no fear of punishment, more people would end up like this baggage. But you can’t have it too grim or people won’t be attracted. Gruesome punishments but easily avoided.”
“Like fairy tales.” I heard a sound and whipped round. The biggest dog I ever saw stood by the skip, hackles up, a low growl rippling from its throat. I lifted the shovel, figuring I could bash it with the blade. Tony stared.
The dog crept closer. I wondered if he were diseased or something. Tony joined me, keeping the corpse between us and the mutt. The dog lunged forward and grabbed the baggage’s hand in its mouth and started pulling at it, growling even louder.
“S’pose it’s his? Trying to rescue him?”
“Bit late.” At least the dog didn’t seem to want to attack us. Inspired, I leaned forward, brought down the shovel, and sliced through the wrist. The dog, who’d shied away at first, made a lunge and sank his teeth into the hand. Then he turned and ran off with his prize.
I laughed until I cried. Tony scowled. “What are we going to tell Old Bill?”
“Nothing. He won’t mind him being a hand short. Or is that against your religion?”
“Maybe my faith needs a dog.”
“Well, dog spelled backward—”
“Stop that.”
“Hand of glory—”
“Shut up and shovel.”
THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN SPINETINGLER.
K.A. Laity is author of Chastity Flame, The Claddagh Icon, Unquiet Dreams, and more, as well as editor of the Fox Spirit Books’ anthology Weird Noir. Her stories have appeared in Drunk on the Moon, ACTION! Pulse Pounding Tales, Off the Record 2: At the Movies, Spinetingler Magazine, Pulp Metal Magazine, Shotgun Honey, and more. She divides her time between New York and Dundee, Scotland. Visit her website at KALaity.com.
THE TENTH NOTCH
* * *
* * *
Jon Land
Kerr had nine notches on his M4A1 Special Operations–model assault rifle, one for each of the kills he’d recorded behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. There were other kills for sure, plenty of them, but he deemed only nine of them to be worthy of notches—those being the targets he’d hunted himself. Through the blistering heat of summer in the ’Stan and bone-chilling cold of the winter. Tracking Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents who’d made the mistake of targeting his fellow troops. But Kerr wasn’t into counterinsurgency or mending hearts and minds.
His job was to rupture them.
Kerr was known as an HK—hunter/killer. Plain and simple, no further elaboration necessary. So far those lurking behind the curtain like some murderous Wizards of Oz had sent him out nine times, and he’d come back with a notch on his rifle for each of them.
He’d been plucked from the SEALs and dropped into the HKs because, well, killing came so easy to him. He took to it with the ease of a game hunter. It was sport, a human video game pla
yed out in mud, ice, snow, sand, and stone.
And he was nine for nine. Batting a thousand. A one-man death squad, which was just the way he liked it.
But this latest assignment was different, something special. A whole bunch of kills had been committed on base or encampment premises; someone finding his way in to kill the first soldier he saw, and then off he went before anyone was the wiser. Security was doubled, then tripled, but the kills continued.
Very bad for morale.
So the Wizard poked out from behind his curtain and called for an HK, and in came Kerr to pick up the trail that reeked of the remnants of Al Qaeda.
Kerr had been on the trail for three days, tracking the animal to his lair in the rugged mountain terrain. Gadgets were fine—he had a whole assortment stuffed into his pack. But this was a retro war, and HKs like Kerr had learned to adapt fast. Fuck range finders and motion detectors—what Kerr needed now were the lessons he’d learned in SEAL camp from a Native American who taught him how to track, really track. And the prints of his latest quarry were easy to follow.
The AQ limped, likely on something akin to a clubfoot; Kerr could tell that from the distance between steps. He also realized that his quarry was wearing khuf, tough socks with a sole thick enough for walking.
Walking very quietly.
It figured, didn’t it? Kerr thought, beginning to form a mental picture of how this particular AQ had managed to sneak past security and leave bodies behind before disappearing—
POOF!
…into thin air.
But he’d left a trail. And HK Kerr was on it, his tenth notch soon to be added. He made them small to leave room, lots of room, for the kills to come.
The khuf prints broke sharply to the left, and Kerr followed the trail, banking upward toward a nest of caves that made the mountain face he was approaching look like rocky swiss cheese.
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