Category Archives: Suspense

Blind Faith

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Image: Greg Glazebrook @ GMGCreative.

Blind Faith

It had been weeks (or so it seemed) since his holiness led our congregation on a hike into the wilderness. An expedition to seek our salvation. Mostly it was a mix of exhaustion, meditation, hallucinogenic tea, and the promise of something better. The promise seemed emptier with every step along this journey.

“Stop with this doubt, you’ve come such a along way.” I screamed to myself in a whisper, the palm of my hand smacking against my forehead.

It was difficult to hold a train of thought with my gut screaming at me like a muthafu…
We’d been subsisting on the tea and some lukewarm liquid prepared by the congregation’s women weeks ago. It couldn’t have been real food because it didn’t seem to spoil. I was told it was designed to ensure we were pure in mind and body for the coming cleanse.

I joined a hunting party a couple of nights ago after Carl had retired. We’d fashioned makeshift bows and arrows and set out to catch anything we could find. A couple of rabbits made the untimate sacrifice, but the skinny rodents could only coughed up scraps. We built a small fire to cook our kill, but some were so hungry they picked the meat raw from the bone.

As the sun rose across the mountains and crept into our camp, His holiness Carl emerged from his tent. He was a slight man, unassuming in almost every way. His gifts were not physical but he could hold conversation, draw you into whatever narrative he was preaching. If just one of us had opened our eyes for even a moment it would have become evident that while we starved Carl thrived. I sure his concubines were in the know but the rest of us were too blind to see.

Morning always started with pray and a sermon from Carl but today was different. The usual routines were replaced with a sense of forboding. Today was the day we would ascend into the heavens. Everything we had brought with us, everything we’d made was gathered into the center of camp. A colossal column of smoke rising into the morning air casting a dark shadow over the clearing, blotting out the morning sun. Some now realizing this was a one way trip.

The hike seems lighter and somehow heavier today as we moved through the trees. “Are you coming or not?” Carl demanded as he took a few steps further onto the small ledge. He raised his arms and began to chant something in tongues. The line behind him had stopped moving, gripped with a new fear. Many believing flying was only a metaphor.

“It is our time to soar on the wings of God. Who will offer themselves up first.” he said as the the ringing of gunfire at the back ripped through the thin mountain air.

The echo jolting me back to reality as I tried to run from the trail. At the front, the crush pushing the congregation over the edge. Some, true believer spreading their wings as they fell over the precipice, other pushing agaisnt the tide to get back from the cusp. Fifteen, maybe 20 paces from the trail searing pain rip through my abdomen. Falling next to my wife and onto my two young children. Imploring them to remain calm and quiet. The life draining from my eyes praying, like it was the first time, that the plume of smoke had drawn someones attention.

It was their only hope…

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Murder In the First

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Murder In the First

The prosecutor began his summation with vigorous enthusiasm, “In a display of utter cowardice, Mr. Kutinitov plunged the blade he carried with him right down to the marrow. Splaying the victim, his estranged wife wide open.”

“Ask yourself why?” he continued. “Sure, she had set fire to everything, exposing his philandering ways and singeing his reputation almost beyond repair. Certainly a motive in and of itself but his reason was even more basic, greed. You see, he wanted the engagement ring back, her ring, the one he’d given her along with his promise 13 years earlier. He’d spent a small fortune to buy it and he knew it had only appreciated in value. You heard his jeweller confirm that he had been to the shop to inquire about it and shortly thereafter broke into the marital home.”

He paused for effect before driving home his final point, “When he came for the ring, she refused and swallowed it to keep him from taking it. She could not have known that she had become an unwitting accessory to compromising her own survival. Her death was not a crime of passion as portrayed by the defence, it may not have been premeditated but his reasons for being there were cold, calculated and planned. As such you must find the defendant guilty. You know what’s right, return a verdict of murder in the first degree.”

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Lost

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Polina Kuzovkova via Unsplash

Lost

For years the S.O.B. told me I had no sense of direction, the worst navigator he’d ever seen. How was it my fault he’d go left when I said right?

“Where is my breakfast, what did you get lost?” The prick used to tell me he was amazed I could find the kitchen in the mornings.

Being berated for my navigation skills was the easy stuff. He’d get absolutely incensed and take every opportunity to make me feel like I was six inches tall, worthless. I can assure you I had no trouble finding the rat poison he kept in the cellar. Extra Warfarin in his scramble to go with his prescription.

That was then, but as I attempt to jump a train to freedom I’m left wondering if I will ever be able to decipher this bloody map.

“Come on, come on!” It’s only a matter of time before they find the body. As panic grips me and everything comes flooding back, I begin to wonder, “Was he right?”

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Just Another Day

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Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.

Viktor Talashuk via Unsplash

Just Another Day

I was the reasonable one, Dave thought sitting in the lot. The one who ensured contracts were in order and deadlines were met. I quit the tennis club, cycling, stopped seeing friends, giving everything to the job and this company. Peter, my old boss knew I was the glue that held it together before he retired but the new punk was blind. Always with the chide remarks about my gray hair and bathroom breaks. Always nitpicking my work, complaining about how formal I wrote or whining to colleagues about me returning from lunch a couple minutes late. Of course, never to my face or ever once acknowledging that I arrived early and stayed late, other than to suggest that if I wasn’t such a dinosaur I wouldn’t need to be here.

Then there is Bob. How many times do I have to complain about his hygiene? The guy hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in months and the stains on the same pair of pants he’d worn for weeks could have passed as a god-damned biohazard. To compound the matter, Sally was compensating by wearing a bottle of perfume every fucking day and twat-boss was on her case, not the real problem! We all have to work in this shithole, but it was hard when the haze of rose-scented Bobshit was permeating your brain! Something had to change!

Unknown

Sally observed Dave as he exits his car. It wasn’t like him to be late. He was talking to himself as he fretted, appearing agitated as he paced back and forth several times before opening the trunk. She continued to watch as he donned a heavy-looking vest she’d never seen before. He fumbled about in the trunk and with his belt for several minutes, but she couldn’t make out what he was doing.

His intention becoming clearer as he pulled the mask from atop his grey-fringed dome and headed towards the side door. Gasping, her hand instinctually shot to her mouth when she could make out what he was carrying. Realizing a reckoning of sorts was upon them she ducked into the washroom and locked the door. She was careful not to move or even breathe too loudly as she waited for the commotion outside the door to stop.

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In Between

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Viktor Forgacs via Unsplash

In Between

Serena could feel her heart pounding and muscles tightening in the moments before the sedative took effect. Terrified to find herself in the one situation she had dreaded her entire life, where the lines begin to blur in between actuality and perception.

She struggled to push the harrowing shadow that hovered in the haze above her away but her lifeless limbs lay like dead weights at her sides. Not wholly unconscious but just beyond reality’s grasp, and left retreating into the darkest horrors churning in the recesses of her mind.

As consciousness crept back in and blinding light filtered through her eyelids signalling that she was somewhere else – was this the end?

She flung away warm blankets and struggled to lift herself against the push of the nurse’s thrust, “Everything is ok Serena, you are in recovery and the Doctor will be around to see you later but for the time being you need to rest.”

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The Retreat

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The Retreat

It couldn’t have been more perfect. He had managed to hit every note for our 13th anniversary. It was odd, he wasn’t very good at dates, gifts, or surprises. In fact, he’d forgotten the last three anniversaries and remembered only one of my last five birthdays. I swear he’d forget Christmas if I didn’t remind him.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. This place had everything, massage, nature, food and drink, recreation, and relaxation. Then there was the zen Kamasutra love thing he orchestrated. It had lasted so long that we had to order room service just to replenish our spend shells. I know I said it already, but it was perfect.

He eyed me with that smug masculine air. You know the one where he knows he’s nailed it. The kind that would buy him enough romantic capital to blur indiscretions of the past and leave plenty of extra to spend on the fuck ups yet to come. He wasn’t wrong I’d bitten down hard – hook, line and sinker.

Our last night here, sitting at the best table on the lakeside deck, candles lit as we sip our second spectacular bottle of red. The sun was setting over the lake, painting the sky in a mix of orange and gold, and the air was filled with the sound of crickets singing, when suddenly the lake began to ripple, and then like a raging fire something broke through the surface tension.

Rising from the water, maw gaping as it crawled onto the beach. It may have been the light, but its silhouette seems larger than life. Doug sunk down in his chair, that smug look morphed to fear. Sweat had begun beading on his forehead and his hands were visibly shaking. I was trapped like a deer in the headlights.

It was coming right for us, or should I say Doug, its fangs bared in the throes of a terrifying guttural roar. A barrage of indiscernible sounds growing louder and more aggressive with each step closer.

It produced a weapon that had been concealed in the dark as it entered our sphere. With a final lunge, it drove the pointed rod through Doug’s neck. The impact was so violent that his chair stuttered sideways until it caught on the deck boards, spilling his frame onto the floor. His face contorted in pain and terror as he lay on his side, paralyzed and gasping for air.

Its eyes bulged and as if it were spitting venom growled, “Really, the fucking week I’d planned, you brought her? In one motion she pulled the harpoon from his neck and as his limp body rolled onto its back she drove it through his heart. He drew one last breath and fell still except for the blood seeping from his wounds.

Then like Jekyll into Hyde she transformed into almost ordinary. She surveyed the mood of shocked onlookers seated around us as she picked up the fallen chair. Sitting across from me, our eyes meet for the first time as she swallows the last of the wine left behind in his glass. She was his mistress and his killer, but at that moment I wanted her more than anything I’d ever wanted.

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