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    Quiet Fury: An Anthology of Suspense
    Quiet Fury: An Anthology of Suspense
    Quiet Fury: An Anthology of Suspense
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Quiet Fury: An Anthology of Suspense

    By Darcia Helle

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    About this ebook

    Quiet Fury is a state of being that we’ve all experienced; calm on the surface, rage bubbling underneath. For most of us, that is a brief moment. Restraint takes over. We grumble and walk away. Some allow the rage to marinate until they are consumed. They cross the line, seek revenge, retribution. Or is it satisfaction?

    These stories explore each individual’s breaking point. Which will win, the Quiet or the Fury?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDarcia Helle
    Release dateOct 28, 2011
    ISBN9781466043046
    Quiet Fury: An Anthology of Suspense
    Author

    Darcia Helle

    I write because the characters trespassing through my mind leave me no alternative. My books are available in trade paperback on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as my website - www.QuietFuryBooks.com. I hope you'll join me in my fictional world. The characters await you.

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      Book preview

      Quiet Fury - Darcia Helle

      Quiet Fury

      An Anthology of Suspense

      by

      Darcia Helle

      Copyright 2011 Darcia Helle

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords Edition

      License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this ebook may be re-sold, copied, or reproduced for any purpose, without written permission from the author.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Cover design by Heather Paye

      Edited by Bob Helle

      My heartfelt appreciation to Bob Helle and Maria Savva, whose advice and support makes me a better writer. And to Heather Paye, who took my mediocre cover design and made it awesome.

      Contents:

      Shades of Gray

      You Can Call Me Ari (Previously published in the multi-author BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology Vol. 1)

      Out For A Good Time

      Tiny Dancer

      Wilted Brown Eyes (Previously published in the multi-author anthology you’re dead and i killed you)

      Mad Scientist

      The First Kill (Previously released as a free download.)

      Marietta’s Cats

      The Sound of Silence

      I Didn’t Know His Name (Previously published in the multi-author BestsellerBound Short Story Anthology Vol. 2)

      Falling

      Quiet Fury

      Would you kill for money? Power? Maybe not. But I know you’d kill to save your own life. I’m coming at you with a knife, ready to shred you into tiny pieces. Put a gun in your hand and you’d pull the trigger. Your life trumps mine every time.

      What about your wife, your husband? Would you kill to save them? If I turned the blade on your spouse, would you put a bullet in my head or would you run for help while the screams echoed behind you?

      How many holes would you blast through my body if I turned the knife on your child? One? Two? Or would you empty the clip?

      The knife is in my hand. You’d better get that gun. I'm headed your way.

      Can you see me yet?

      Shades of Gray

      Purple dripped from his lower lip. The remainder of the grape Popsicle melted into a puddle beside his face, forming a rivulet straight to his left eye. I wondered what would happen to the blue of his iris. Would the liquid purple Popsicle be like adding food coloring to your Visine or wearing colored contacts?

      Did you see him fall? the young cop asked me.

      No. And I hadn't. Not really. I’d seen the tall redheaded woman, eyes crazy with rage, charge at him with the frying pan. Not the old-fashioned cast iron kind that would have cracked his skull like an eggshell. This was the lighter, Teflon type. She’d screamed about him messing with her sister as she’d swung the pan at his forehead. The blow hadn’t been enough to kill him, though it did nearly knock him unconscious. He’d stumbled backward, caught the back edge of his sandal in a rut in the pavement. I’d watched him lose his footing but I’d stopped watching after that. She’d interested me more. Her expression in that instant he’d gone down - part horror and part pleasure. I could relate.

      Did you see her hit him with the pan? the cop asked.

      I glanced at the redhead. She sat on the dirty stoop, hugging herself. She’d been clutching the frying pan until a different cop took it away. Her eyes were glazed and swollen with tears. Too late to take it back.

      The cop shifted his weight and impatience rolled off him. I could smell his arrogance, bottled and sprayed on each morning for effect. No, I said.

      He stared at me, wanting to test the lie. I looked straight into his rusty brown eyes. Tiny yellow spots circled his pupils.

      Why had I lied? I didn’t know the woman, with her silky red hair and spattering of freckles on her nose. I didn’t know the man either, now sprawled on the ground with Popsicle juice leaking from his mouth.

      He’d been too dazed to react in time. He’d gone down hard, nothing to break his fall but the unrelenting pavement. I’d heard the crack of his head splitting open. Blood seeped and spread, forming its own rivulet. The two colors - red and purple - didn’t mix. The sidewalk tilted toward the street, a slight downward slope. He rested on his left cheek, looking away from the quiet street, and the purple pooled in his left eye. Closer to the street, the blood became a red stream carrying what used to be a life into the gutter.

      A neighbor came out to grab her mail and saw him land. She’d called the cops. I don’t know why I’d stayed. Something about the red and purple and the redhead with pale skin crumbling on the dark pavement beside it all. My world had a gray overcast. Different levels of darkness. Shadows. Never light. Never color. The red and purple glistened in the sunlight. I remembered coloring books and a big box of Crayola crayons, back when I took color for granted.

      The EMTs couldn’t help the man whose life rolled down the street toward the stop sign. A gutter stained red and no rain in sight.

      Did you see anything at all? the cop asked.

      I dragged my eyes back to his face. The tops of his ears stuck out from his head but the earlobes didn’t. Like they’d been stuck there with safety pins or his ears had been partially stapled to his head.

      I wanted to tell him all the things I’d seen. Not today, here, with this redheaded woman and the Popsicle man. All the things that led up to this moment when red and purple leaked into the shadows and brought color back to my world.

      I shook my head, said, No.

      What had I seen, really? Anger and sadness, boldness and fear. A slice of two lives colliding in honesty and lies. The truth of it was that maybe I’d seen none of that. Maybe I’d only seen the charade those two lives had become.

      The cop told me to stay put and I caught his eyes rolling as he turned away. I shuffled my feet on the sidewalk. The scorched pavement bled through the worn soles of my battered sneakers. I’d done nothing wrong. Not in this space, at this time. Yet I allowed the sun to draw moisture from my skin as I stood waiting.

      Four cops huddled together by one of their cars. Blue lights jabbed the air. No sirens. The urgency was gone. A female cop showed up, joined the huddle. Her eyes landed on me, then the chubby woman fanning herself with her mail. My throat was dry. I shifted my weight again, wished for a grape Popsicle of my own.

      The female cop broke from the huddle. The redhead moaned as the cop

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