Old Hate - Chapter One

Old Hate

Chapter One

by David Pidgeon

Sarah watched as the stranger entered the saloon. He came to the bar, bought his usual bottle of whiskey and took it and a glass over to his usual seat in the corner. He was a tall man, and lean but he tried to hide that under the thick coat that he wore despite the sweltering heat. He sat in the corner and, as the day wasted itself away, slowly but steadily depleted his supply of liquor. He watched everything, she saw from behind the bar, with a fierce intensity. He studied the face of each person that entered. He was looking for someone. It wasn't for the ambience or the watered down whiskey that he'd been coming here for over two weeks. He was hunting someone and he wouldn't leave until he had found them.

She busied herself with cleaning up, hoping to avoid the ire of Emmett again. Her face was still sore from the last time he'd been unhappy with her work. She tried to make herself busy enough to forget the man in the corner.

She almost had, when he spoke.

“Are you Harmon Merriweather?” he asked, in a low and quiet voice.

She looked up and saw that there was a man standing at the bar, looking at her. He wore an extremely faded grey coat, the kind Sarah knew from the war, and a military style cap. His eyes glittered as he heard the man speak and a grimace came across his face. He turned, slowly and spent a good long moment studying the man in the corner.

“I reckon I am” he said, a drawl to his voice.

“I'm Jonah Walsh and you killed my father”

Sarah sensed, not saw, the man's surprise and saw the movement as his hand reached for the gun at his belt. He had barely touched it when a gunshot rang out, deafening Sarah and leaving a loud ringing in her ears for quite some time after. Harmon Merriweather staggered backwards one step and fell heavily against the bar before falling to the ground with a thud. Her eyes flitted to the man in the corner who remained seated but now his right hand held a smoking pistol. He kept it trained on the downed figure until he was certain there was no remaining threat and then neatly holstered it again in one simple but elegant movement.

He reached across, picked up his bottle of whiskey and stood with a slight stagger to his step. He tipped his hat to Sarah, spared a glare at the body on the floor and walked out.

The decision was instantaneous and unplanned, even to her. She threw her cleaning rag down and rushed around the bar to the body of Harmon Merriweather. She pried the pistol from his rapidly cooling hand and rushed outside, hot on the heels of Jonah Walsh.

She spotted him sauntering down the side-walk as if nothing had happened. She called his name and he turned, as she closed the distance between the two.

"My name is Sarah and I want you to take me with you, please"

His eyes gazed deeply into hers and there was only a moment's hesitation. He nodded and gestured for her to follow him. She followed closely.

They rode out of town, the two of them on his roan stallion and they made camp in the ruins of an old house as the sun began to sink beyond the horizon and night crept in.

They sat in silence for a long time before he spoke.

"The man you work for, he hit you?"

"Yes. Often and hard. He wasn't happy with me working there, but he couldn't find anyone else and I had nowhere else to go so I dealt with it"

He nodded.

"How long since... your father?" she asked

He stared into the fire.

"Before I was born. He was trying to flee with my mother and they came for him and killed him. He gave up his life in order that she and I, although he did not know of me at the time, would live."

"What of your mother, where is she?"

"She passed"

"I'm sorry"

"You needn't be, it was some time ago. A few years now. Now it's just me and the horse"

She nodded and they both sat in silence again for a while.

"Who are they, the men who killed your father?"

"They were soldiers. Well, they called themselves soldiers but they were just murderers. Border ruffians outta Kansas, trouble-makers who didn't really care for following orders. My father was an officer in the Union who made trouble for them and they didn't take too kindly to it. They hunted him across a few states and eventually pinned him down when he was with ma"

"What are you going to do now?"

"There's still a slew of 'em out there for me to kill. Jameson and his whole bunch of bastards. Still at least five, by my count. Merriweather wasn't the worst of them by any account, but he was the easiest to find. I've got a trail on Kent, one of them, and I intend to follow it west come sun-up tomorrow"

She nodded

"You don't have to stay with me, if'n you don't want to. I can drop you somewhere safe, I can give you some money"

She nodded again, but he knew then that she wouldn't allow herself to be dropped off anywhere at all.

They settled down to sleep and the stars wheeled overhead, mute and ever-present witnesses to their dreams, their rotation through the heavens heralding the coming of the sun for one more day and a day that would see the continuation of Jonah Walsh's campaign of revenge.

Art of Theft - Chapter Three

Art of Theft

Chapter Three

by Murray K.

Step.

I love open plan living. It's makes it easy to navigate in the dark
when your only source of light is a red glow-stick bracelet. The
floors are wonderfully bereft of tripping hazards and there are nice
wide spaces between all the furniture. At the speed I'm moving,
detouring around a couch would add another ten minutes to this
business.

And step.

After sitting at the bottom of the pool for 6 hours, getting into the
apartment was a relative breeze. Getting down from the roof was
pretty easily achieved, even in the wetsuit. The only reason I
bothered with a rope was to make getting back up easier.

And step.

As for why I went down to the balcony, one word: Deadlocks. The
front door and the door down from the roof both had them, but the
balcony door didn't. I've played around with picking locks a bit but
I'm no expert. A good deadlock with some trap pins could take me a
lot of time. But a few seconds with a pick gun on the balcony lock
and I was in. That was the easy part.

And step.

When I was a kid I was into birdwatching for a while. I always liked
animals, but one of the challenges with birds was how close I could
get to them. Now, you can't really sneak up on a squirrel, the moment
he notices you move towards him, he's onto you. But birds don't seem
to differentiate much between people and trees. As long as they don't
see you moving when they’re looking at you, they don't care that
you're suddenly a foot closer than you were. So the key was to move
at a snails pace, slowly lift a foot, inch it forward and put it back
down again. Shift weight onto the forward foot...

And step.

And that is pretty much what I'm doing right now. In the corners of
all the rooms and the hallways, the Welshes have security sensors
which I discreetly checked out at the party. The sensors are
infra-red motion detectors, so they detect anything that's a different
temperature to ambient and moving. Basically, I'm treating them like
a flock of birds. I figure if I don't move too quickly, they won't
get startled.

And step.

I’m hoping the wetsuit helps as well, the sensors should really only
see my face and hands, but it’s best not to take any chances. One of
the hardest things is not knocking the plastic bag I’ve got hanging
from my left hand. The plastic shouldn’t set off the sensors, but as
I say, no chances. Each of the sensors has a small red light at the
top of it, and if just one of those goes off, I’m toast.

And step.

It’s slow progress, and it’s taken twenty minutes to get through the
living room, down the hall to the bedroom. Thankfully the Welshes
leave their doors open when they go on holidays. The moment I get
inside the bedroom I shuffle to the right so I’m no longer visible
from the hallway, and then I raise my right arm very slowly and turn
on my laser pointer. It takes a few moments to adjust my wrist but
then I have it pointed directly at the IR sensor.

And relax.

While ever the laser pointer hits the sensor, it’s basically snow
blind. The transition doesn’t set off the sensor, and then it can’t
see a thing. There’s only one sensor in the room so as long as I stay
out of the view of the hallway sensors I can actually move for a bit.
Vigorous stretching is still a bit difficult to do while keeping the
laser pointer focused, but I feel a lot less tense as I walk over to
the Matisse. I have to lower the bag I’m holding to the floor first,
but then I gently ease the Matisse up off the hook and...

I’ve got it!

The laser pointer trembles a little as I struggle to keep it focused
on the motion sensor. Very, very gently I lower it down to the carpet
and reach into the plastic bag. Out comes a square the same size and
shape as the Matisse. The faint light of the glow stick makes it hard
to tell but the frame looks like a perfect replica. Lord knows I
studied the real one for long enough at the party. Inside that frame
is a canvas printed copy of the Matisse, carefully touched up with
varnish to match the brushstrokes. Talk to anyone at Sotherby’s or
Christie’s and they’ll have a dozen stories that all come down to the
same thing, a tale of someone bringing in a painting that they thought
was a minor masterpiece, only to find that it’s a print covered in
varnish. A couple of coats and a hairdryer to crack the surface and
it looks just like oil paint. It’s an old trick, but it works. I
figure, as I carefully place the replica on the wall, the easiest way
to get away with a crime is if no-one knows it’s been committed.

It is tortuous creeping back to the balcony when all I want to do is
jump and run and whoop. As soon as I’m out I relock the door and
climb back onto the roof. Then it’s time for a quick change, back
into jeans and a fresh designer shirt from the toolbox. Also from the
toolbox, a Louis Vuitton roll bag. Now before you roll your eyes,
there’s a reason I’ve chosen LV. That pattern on the side is
unmistakable. After all, what’s the point of a status symbol if
no-one knows it’s a status symbol? But that means that when someone
sees a well dressed young man with an LV bag, the last things they’re
going to expect to be in that bag are diving gear, rope and a stolen
painting.

It’s a struggle to get everything in there, especially since I have to
take care of the painting. The large salt tub is staying but I figure
no-one is going to notice a tub of pool salt in a pool shed. The dive
weights also end up underneath a planter box, I’m afraid they’re a few
pounds of weight I just don’t want to carry down. But after a bit of
fighting everything else is put away and I’m ready to go.

The fire escape locks aren’t any harder than the balcony door, but
that’s expected. They make them easy just in case emergency crews
need to get past but aren’t in enough of a hurry to bust the door
down. I pick one to get in and then another a few floors down to get
out, then it’s express lift all the way to the ground. I stare at
myself in the lift mirror and thank god the wet look is in. I look
rumpled, but the kind of rumpled one might expect from someone leaving
an apartment block at 2am.

The doorman, presumably Charlie, gets up from his desk when he sees me.

“Cab, sir?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

I hoist the bag on my shoulder and follow him to the curb. I’m trying
to think of small talk but before I get the chance the cab’s there, I
had the guy a $5 bill and I’m away. Almost too easy. I keep looking
to see if anyone’s following, and when I get dropped off a block from
my apartment I spend the whole walk home with half an eye over my
shoulder. But there’s no-one. It seems I may have gotten away with
it.

So now the painting is hanging in my bedroom, directly opposite the
bed, sitting comfortably between the Monet and the Boudin. The first
touches of sun are hitting the buildings nearby and the slight glow is
giving the painting a morning feel as well. The adrenaline has worn
off but for the last 4 hours I haven’t been able to stop looking at
it. It’s beautiful, wonderful, I love it. It leaves me with only one
question.

What next?

Footsteps in the Dark - Chapter One

Footsteps in the Dark

Chapter One

by Hayden Tunnicliffe

She looked up as the guard's footsteps rang out once more. Through the iron bars of her cell she could see the glow of a lantern drawing near, the tang of burnt oil in the air making her tiny prison that much more claustrophobic. The guard held his light up to the window in the door, confirming his charge still lay in the room, the light seared her eyes as it shone through the small window.

He said something, not knowing any German, she could only assume he was tormenting her from the tone in his voice and the laugh that came from his companion. She spat at the window, a small measure of the hatred she felt for her captors. Soon enough the guards moved on, the sounds of their boots echoing off the stone walls, as if a hundred men marched through the small prison. Again she was left in the dark, not knowing if the next time they came would be the last.

She was awoken from her daze as the door creaked open. As she got to her feet, moving instinctively to the back of the room, she noticed that there was no light.

'Shh! Keep quiet' came a voice out of the darkness. 'I am here to help' Suddenly the floor in front of her leapt into vision as the stranger opened the cover on his lantern, shining but a sliver of light into the room.

'Who - who are you?' she whispered as the man beckoned for her to follow him out of the cell.

'We haven't the time for that now. We must leave before the guards return' The man said, moving along the wall and peering around the corner. 'Quickly now. I will explain everything when there is time'

Anything was better than being locked in that damned cell any longer she thought as she followed the man, being as quiet as she could possibly be. It seemed like an eternity that they stalked through that dark maze, occasionally ducking behind whatever cover they could find as the guards passed.

'We must hurry. It is only a matter of time before they begin their route again and find you gone. And if we aren't out of here by the time that happens then we are done for'

She only nodded as she struggled to keep up with him, afraid she might alert someone. A soft breeze and the shine of light told her that their flight in the dark was nearly over. They paused closer to the exit as her rescuer leaned over to extinguish their light. 'Here. Do you know how to use one of these?' the man asked as he pushed a pistol into her hand. 'Yes, but wouldn't the gunfire attract attention?' she asked as she checked the chamber.

'Only use it if there is no other choice' the man said as he readied his own weapon before moving out of the tunnel. She followed him, the light blinding her as she hastily ran from the tunnel. It took a minute for her vision to adjust to the shock, the sun beared down from above them, as she looked out across the fields that lay below them.

'It will be suicide to cross the open fields' the man said as he drew her attention to a hedge on the far left of them. 'We must use that to get across the fields and into that copse of trees, where we will wait for the extraction, keep low and follow me' he said, dashing off before she could reply.

She followed him, glancing back to make sure they weren't followed. The cool country air burned in her lungs at the same time as it invigorated her body, every nerve was set on end as she pushed forward through the brush. Finally they reached the bottom of the hillside and before them lay acres upon acres of open fields, the only cover to be found were the hedges between them and the odd hay bale. The man dashed across the small open space towards the closest hedge before pausing to survey the situation. He motioned for her to follow and she raced towards him as fast as her weakened body would allow.

'Here. Drink some, you will need your strength' he pushed a canteen into her hands. The water was almost gone before she realised they might not have any more and quickly screwed the top back on.

'I'm ready.'

They started towards the trees, she made it to be a good mile from where they were, she only hoped that they would make it before exhaustion took her.

Halfway across the field she heard an alarm sound from behind them, evidently the guards had discovered that she was missing. She cautioned a glance behind her but could not see any pursuers, all the same they doubled their pace. She hoped they would not be seen at this distance, but kept her head as low as their speed would allow just the same.

She could hear the bark of dogs and the shouts of men behind them as they came ever nearer the tree line, and safety. Another look back told her that they still hadn't found their trail. She hoped they never would, death was preferable to the rest of her life in that prison.

At last they reached the tree line, giving up stealth completely they sprinted into it, stumbling across roots and fallen branches she followed her surefooted saviour, falling twice before they reached their destination. She fell to the ground in exhaustion, her legs burning and chest heaving as she drained the last of the water in the canteen.

'I hope you have more' she almost pleaded as the man sat next to her.

'You think I would come unprepared to a rescue mission' he laughed as he put another canteen into her lap. 'Here, but don't drink it too fast, there is only one more where that came from and our transport won't be here for another 3 hours'

'Who are you?' she asked between sips of the canteen, 'And why would anybody rescue me? I'm just a civilian'

'They call me Alcott, but you can call me Robert. I was sent to extract you because HQ think you could be useful to the war effort. But mostly I am here because I couldn't leave a gorgeous lady like yourself to rot in a damned jerry jail cell'

'I don't know how much help I can be, but thanks all the same Robert. I am Carol, but I am sure you already knew that'