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    One Last 5
    One Last 5
    One Last 5
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    One Last 5

    By Ripley King

    ()

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    About this ebook

    An old PI discovers God works in mysterious ways.
    What is the nature of a vindictive soul?
    Is the human race ready?
    What it means to get a fresh start.
    Are you willing to risk everything for immortality?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRipley King
    Release dateDec 21, 2015
    ISBN9781310442384
    One Last 5
    Author

    Ripley King

    I'm a storyteller, with many published credits. Now I do my own thing. Have fun.

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      Book preview

      One Last 5 - Ripley King

      One Last 5 by Ripley King

      Dark Fiction

      An old PI discovers God works in mysterious ways.

      What is the nature of a vindictive soul?

      Is the human race ready?

      What it means to get a fresh start.

      Are you willing to risk everything for immortality?

      Stories and Cover Illustration Copyright © 2015 Ripley King. All rights reserved.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locals, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over, and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party Web sites or their content.

      The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the author is illegal. Please purchase only authorized editions. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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      Authors get tips to survive the marketing apocalypse, and everybody gets a free copy of Lonely Hero Thing   The Chronicles of Ian Duncan   Book One.

      For those of us left behind.

      Fire with Fire

      17th Precinct. Fifth Street. Monday, the twenty-third of February. Too goddamn early in the morning, if you ask me.

      It was cold outside. Wet, windy. I ran a shaky hand through my thinning hair as I entered the time-worn stone building. I knew the way. Up the far stairs, to the right, third desk. I sat and took the cup of coffee Vandiver offered, but let the desk hold it. I don’t drink station-house coffee.

      Seventy of the city’s worst thugs, Vandiver began, dead in the space of eight weeks. It’s beginning to look like a war zone in some areas, plus we got us another one.

      Another one? I said. Like that fat piece of gutter trash I found over in the Underbelly?

      What I found was the Baron of Bay Street. Judas Matthew Baron. He ruled the Underbelly with a bullet-riddled ascendancy to the throne. The blood on his hands could grease his hair every morning.

      He had my brother killed, I was sure of it, but couldn’t prove it. He probably did it to teach me a lesson. He considered me a thorn. Might have done it personally, but I’m not sure.

      The third pile this month, Vandiver said. This numb-nut cycles every twelve hours, and then the gibberish begins again. Nonsense and monsters. When I listen to it my skin crawls.

      Who? I asked.

      Does it matter?

      Not really.

      Vandiver doused his cigarette in his coffee then took a drink. I don’t think he noticed.

      What he had on his mind was why I was here. Vandiver called on me when he needed to circumvent the law. This case was strange, no doubt about that. I’d heard loads of crap coming from too many worthless fucks in the past few weeks about indestructible monsters of some sort. Scared the shit out of them. Some went insane, others went straight. No more crime, no more drugs, nothing but the urge to hide under the biggest rock they could find.

      And for some strange reason all the survivors found God.

      I’ll tell you who it started with, Vandiver said. Leo Cox. ‘Tin man.’ We found him howling like a dumb dog in the uptown warehouse he used as a base of operations. All his home boys were present, dead.

      And? I prodded.

      M.E. Collier puked.

      Mac tossed?

      Mac was tough. From the old school. He usually saw the worst life had to offer two or three times a year, for the last thirty odd years. We had shared more than one bottle of quality booze over an autopsy.

      Vandiver nodded and said, He said he never saw anything like those bodies before. And I thought he’d seen every way you could frag a corpse. I guess he has, now.

      Vandiver swilled more of his tainted coffee, and squelched a second butt into it, before he threw cup and all into the wastebasket.

      He continued with, One guy, his head was flat. The autopsy said his skull and brain melted right out of his ears without heat. You tell me.

      I said, I take it you want me to look into the problem? Any civilians involved? Or is this isolated . . . just the scum?

      No civilians. The talk around here is to let it continue. Somebody is taking out the garbage, my friend, and nobody here wants it to stop.

      Might be I need to listen to the ravings of the recently demented. They’re keeping the Baron neatly tucked away where?

      You going to cap him?

      Don’t give me any good ideas.

      He’s at Compton. Let me know what you find out. Didn’t I have a cup of coffee around here?

      Take mine, I said. It might taste better.

      Compton Asylum was the last place you wanted to be if your wad was blown. A modern concrete structure where the inmates enjoyed their fresh air piped in. Single padded cells and straitjackets were standard issue.

      Nobody at Compton worked to cure the ill. The front gate was the only way in, a pine box the only way out. Residents died advancing medicine. The dirty little secret a choice few shared with our wonderful government in general. Vandiver had me cleared to enter with a phone call.

      Mr. Pollock? I’m Dr. Stand. Detective Vandiver wants you to observe Judas Baron as a special consultant?

      I want to listen to him for a while, I said, if you don’t mind.

      "I don’t mind. You do know the man’s brain is baked, though I am interested in what you think you might learn."

      "At this point, I have

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