The First Hit

The First Hit

Stephen Kirkaldy

Copyright 2014 Stephen Kirkaldy

Published by Stephen Kirkaldy

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Dialogue (I)

A Terrible Thing To Waste:Anacrusis

She Died

Mescaline (292.89)

The Chemicals Between Us

Hazchem Inchoate: Practically Perfect

Somewhere In The Atlantic

Poison Swamp Creek

Asgard on A Stick

Stockholm

The Last Train To Clarksville

Another Man’s Quarrel

About

Acknowledgements

Dialogue (I)

He had the predatory look of a hunter: intelligent eyes, a hawk nose, a thin mouth. A long leather coat over a stocky, well built frame…

Wait. He spoke. Blue jeans, dark shirt, solid, high cut leather boots. I don’t want to be in this story.

Excuse me?

I don’t want to be in this story. Assertive, no demanding. I don’t want to be one of your characters. You are too fatalistic, too dark, too brooding. I may possess some very nice skills, but whatever skills or good things I have, I will have sacrificed too much for them. Whatever I am, has come at a cost.

Everything has a cost.

Maybe, but I’d like at least some choice.

The path before you is made from previous choices, which you have made.

He pondered the argument, was not happy with it.

Fine; but you always kill your characters, it never ends well, and you never, ever write ‘happily ever after’ He managed a petulant look.

Not always. Once they rode off into the sunset…

Yes, but you killed an entire town!

Well, yeah…

And you know very well that within the information contained within the bounds of the story that there isn’t enough to assume that they live happily ever after, in fact it favours the concept that they don’t. He paused in thought. You’re going to write a sequel anyway. He shook his head.

I haven’t decided yet.

Whatever. Here, now, not interested. Not without sweeteners.

What? Like?

He stroked the thin stubble on his chin, the beginnings of a beard.

Two women.

Two women?

Yeah.

I’m not going to start writing letters to Penthouse.

Maybe you should. Maybe then you’d get published.

Excuse me?

Look: He paced up and down over about a four metre stretch of asphalt. "Its too real. Too Big Bad World. Lighten up. You’ve seen Hi Fidelity: I want the lingerie, not the cotton undies that have been washed a thousand times. He sighed. After the Trojan War, I don’t want to spend ten years travelling as my crew die around me before getting home to slaughter a bunch of people before I get to my sweet Penelope."

But that’s the story. That’s the Odyssey.

Well, maybe a side trip or two, a couple of years, but not all of it.

That’s why it’s an epic, without it, its less of a story and you’re a less of a hero.

Maybe I don’t want to be a hero. Maybe I just want happily ever after.

Life’s not like that.

Then write the fantasy. He stopped pacing. It’s where I want to exist.

Don’t know if I can.

The write me out.

It’s not that easy.

Don’t give me that. He stepped over a lane marker. Write me the life I want, or write me out. He put both hands on his hips. There was a long pause.

Very well.

Two bright headlights, like eyes, lit the darkness. He was caught between the arcs, frozen, like the clichéd, panicked deer, unable to move, unable to escape its impending, inevitable doom. Soon, he would be roadkill.

How… You can’t.

I can. You wanted out, I’m writing you out.

Not like this. He pleaded. No. I can be brought back, I can be remembered, I can be a prequel.

No. You’re too poor a character. You’re a low level executive in a stock broking firm with no one under you, destined to be middle management until you make a monumental screw up which will push you too drink, and your wife will leave you. Although that’s academic now.

He started at the word ‘wife’.

You wanted two women? Well, as you know, you have a wife, who after two years of marriage discovers that you have been cheating on her, since before the marriage, with her best friend.

And do you know how she found out? The suicide note of said best friend. Yesterday, which is why you went out on a binge drink.

No.

Yes. The only person who will bring you back is your wife; and only to watch you die, over and over again. I am sure she will take great pleasure in your look of shock and fear and pain.

Please. Not like this. The truck began moving in slowed time.

It leapt into real time, and he cast a long shadow down the road, lengthening, a pale figure, eyes wide.

At least give me a name.

This conversation is over.

A Terrible Thing To Waste

Time slowed. It seems to do that in this sort of moment, the heartbeats just after a trigger has been pulled, when smoke is wafting from the barrel, before the blood comes, when the eyes are still shocked.

I wonder if that is to facilitate the life flashing before the eyes thing.

It always seems to be silent. Often wondered about that, the silence as the eyes changed to pained, the hands move to the wound in the vain hope of assistance. The body taking an involuntary step backwards from impact.

And then comes the realization. The eyes, an unreadable melange of hate, despair, sadness, knowledge. Did time stop at that point?

We hear the spent cartridge rolling under the desk, but not its impact on the ground. It stops against wood: perhaps the desk leg, perhaps the skirting boards.

From here, it’s all been done before.

It had been a slow morning. I did most of my office work in the morning. In the morning the sun on the Venetian blinds casts just the right striped shadows that all Private Eyes should work in. Or be seen in at least.

The intercom buzzed.

Sam, your eleven O’clock is here. Came the voice of my secretary.

Give me a moment. She knew how long I wanted.

I angled the blinds so that only narrow shafts of light came through, adjusted my hat to a rakish angle on the old wooden hatstand, rolled my sleeves up past my elbows. Sat down at the old desk.

What was missing? I looked around.

Ah. Lit a cigarette, the ashtray placed so the smoke would curl through the light, put the paper aeroplane I had been carefully constructing into the second drawer and reached under the desk and clicked the safety off the shotgun. You can never be sure.

I didn’t need to check the piece in the top drawer. Already had.

Affected a disaffected look, picked up a file and I was ready.

The door opened, and I watched it through a carefully placed mirror. It would seem like I wasn’t paying attention…

It was a dame. Being eleven O’clock, I guess it had to be. I wondered if it was too early in the day for a whiskey. It wasn’t. Dames are always trouble.

She was taking it all in; the questionable certificates on the wall with the rising damp, across from that piece where the dogs are playing cards, the filing cabinets of different heights, the decanter of dark honey liquid, and the accompanying glasses, and finally me.

Me. The carefully cultivated stubble, the weathered eyes, the rough hands, the shirt that always looked like it had seen better days. It hadn’t. I had. I put down the file, turned hard eyes on her. Stood slowly, gestured at her to take the patched leather seat.

Ma’am.

It was a fashionable dress, at least as far as I could tell, matching handbag, wide brimmed hat. I could smell her perfume. French. She took a seat, fidgeted as she took off her gloves.

Mr S-

Direct, straight to it. I liked that in a dame, no messing around, but here, we played by my rules. I noticed that the cigarette had gone out. I lit another.

Those things will kill you.

So they say. I kept any tone from my voice, and then opened the top drawer of my desk. So will this, I put a service issue revolver on the desk, and so will this, a cutthroat razor, and apparently, I placed a girlie magazine on the desk between us, these will send you blind. It was a shock tactic, a cheap one at that, I know, and it didn’t work; she just looked bored.

You should probably use that once in a while. She nodded at the blade.

I do. It came out testosterone laden macho.

To shave. I ran a hand over the stubble, pretended to be a little annoyed.

How can I help you, miss?

Miss Adams, Eliza Adams.

How can I help you Miss Adams.

I’m a mime. She said it like it meant something.

A mime?

Yes.

And?