Here, you will find news about my writing, as well as a few samples.

My stories:

238 - A Twist of Noir

Demon, Him – Pulp Metal Magazine

Countdown - Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers

Not So Calm, Not So Bright – Do Some Damage Xmas Noir flash challenge

A Wild and Crazy Night – Beat to a Pulp (Spinetingler “best short story on the web” nominee)

Cut – Thuglit (published in the Thuglit anthology Blood, Guts and Whiskey)

Clean-up – Crimefactory 3.5 (special all-fiction issue)

Gutshot – Powder Burn Flash

The Appointment – Muzzle Flash (unavailable)

In the Dark – Demolition (unavailable)

Endure

Last modified on 2011-02-18 20:57:26 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

Chuck Wendig has a flash fiction challenge up at his blog around the discovery of some Scotch left behind by famed sea captain Ernest Shackleton. Here’s my stab at it.

Endure

Rape and pillage. How else to describe what this waste of skin does when his Caddy rolls out of the garage every morning? Sure, he’d call it “building shareholder equity,” or “diversifying the portfolio across a range of market sectors,” but what he was really doing was a reverse Robin Hood.

Which is why I was sinking into a Corinthian leather chair in Don Skiffelt’s den with a bottle of 100-year-old Scotch in one hand, an old revolver in the other.

It had been two days since Skiffelt pink-slipped 250 of us. There must be a reason, you’ll say. Stealing? Under-performance? Missing goals? Nope. Want to know what it was? An analyst in New York had suddenly decided the company wasn’t as valuable today as it was yesterday, and the shareholders balked. Skiffelt, as president, chairman and CEO, had to act fast to assure them the analyst was wrong, so he canned five percent of his workforce. Just like that — gone. Wall Street greeted the move by bumping up the share price a few cents, and all was right with the world, for that day at least.

Except for me and 249 of my brothers in arms, forced to look for a job in the worst economy in decades. In no hurry to start that process, I spent the first two days on the couch.

So, I’m watching documentary after documentary when one starts about Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance. I’d heard the name, but didn’t know the story. Here’s the broad outline: Sea captain takes a ship toward the South Pole, ship gets stuck in ice, crew camps out for two months. He risks a trip in a small boat to get help, leaves most of the crew behind. A lot of drama in between, but the upshot is that he comes back and rescues them. All of them. Now that’s a leader, damn it.

Not like Skiffelt, who jettisons staff like so much dead weight at the first sign of trouble. Then, an update: Someone just discovered five crates of Shackleton’s whisky. Century old and smooth. I looked at my bottle of Busch Light and cursed Skiffelt anew.

I had started to drift off with thoughts of Skiffelt, Shackleton and spirits in my head, when I woke with a start and realized what I needed to do.

Sitting in his den, I saw the shine of headlights scroll along the living room windows across the hall, and knew it was time. A couple of minutes later, I heard the click of a key in the back door and the sound of someone shuffling in. A light came on in the hallway and then Skiffelt passed by on his way through the house. I cleared my throat, the sound cutting through the quiet house. Skiffelt stopped.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

“In here, Don. Why don’t you come in, slowly, if you please.”

His head poked around the door jamb. “Who’s there?”

“Just call me Pink Slip, Don,” I said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “And what are you doing with that bottle? Do you have any idea what that’s worth?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “A real good idea. Laphroaig 1887, correct? Only known bottle in existence. You paid $3,500. Probably worth more today. You plan to open it the day you retire.”

“How do you know all that?” he said, a whine creeping into his voice. He was talking about the Scotch, but his eyes were on the gun.

“Because I used to be somebody, Don. You’ve had me over, albeit with 500 of our closest friends. You were so proud to show off your latest purchase. Of course, that was before you shitcanned me.”

“Look, I know that’s an emotional experience. Perhaps we can –”

“We can what, Don? Work something out? I don’t think so. You see, I know your kind rules everything. If I kill you, which is what I really want to do, I’ll go to prison and some other dickface will rise up and take your place. If I steal from you, I go to prison and you just replace what I took. No, I need to take something irreplaceable.”

“You want the Scotch? Take it. No harm, no foul.”

“Nope. Again, too easy. And while it’s irreplaceable, you could just buy something just as rare with the money you made by laying us off. Hell, you could buy it with the money you’ve made in the time it took to have this conversation. And I could see why you’d want to,” I said, holding the bottle under my nose for a sniff. “Opened it when I got here. Gotta let it breathe, right?”

I got up from the chair, and took a healthy swig from the bottle. “Damn, Don. That is smooth. What was that, probably a fifty dollar pull? Hundred? Mighty nice.”

“What are you going to do?”

I stepped up next to him and stuck the barrel of the gun to his temple.

“It’s what you’re going to do, Don. I want you to piss in this bottle, top it off. Don’t miss, as I’d expect the help won’t be back until Monday. Then we’re going to cork it and put it back on the shelf. That leaves you with a decision: ‘Do I taste it or do I pour it out.’ You’re good at decisions, Don. Let’s see how you do when there’s no self-interest at play. Either way, you lose.”

I took one more swig as he pulled himself out. I pulled back the hammer on the gun. The sound, echoing off the walls, was enough to literally scare the piss out of him. He sobbed quietly as the bottle filled.

Mansion on the Hill

Last modified on 2010-10-28 03:04:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.