The Cold Inside

Foreword

Hi. Me again.

I try to put out a short collection every couple of years. This is the fourth I've done, and like the others, I made it myself. At the time of writing I've finished over sixty of these bite-sized fiction nuggets and while I tend to write longer fiction now (it pays more...because it takes longer) I still write short stories and always will.

Unless I kick the bucket, but that's a fate I've managed to avoid thus far.

This collection contains previously published stories and all new tales. I've tried to include information as to where they were originally published, but honestly, my memory's quite a slippery thing and I've got great big sausage fingers.

Oh, dear. I was hoping to sound ominously horror-writer-ish.

Hope you like the collection, and as always, thank you for reading.

Craig

The Shed

2016

This is a sidebar in the life of Frank Liebowicz, one of my favourite characters from 'Left to Darkness', the first book in the Oblivion Series. That novel, and this short story, were both published by DarkFuse.

Purple Buddha

Frank Liebowicz was a big man with few vices. Just the two, really. Vodka, and killing people.

He liked plenty of things in life. A good book, like he had on his lap right now, was foremost among them. He didn’t like to listen to anything but his own breathing when he read. He didn’t read in coffee shops or bars, or in the park, like he saw some people do. Seemed like it was kind of a private thing, for Frank. Like showing off your sexuality in public, or like those young men who wore sleeveless shirts, proud of their gym-bought muscles. Frank wasn’t particularly prudish, or uptight. He just liked things in their place. Like, muscles, beneath a shirt. Music through headphones, or in a concert hall, rather than in a car with the windows wound down.

Like that.

Things he didn’t like?

The telephone ringing while he was deep in a book.

Fuck’s sake, he said. He was a little drunk, but he didn’t slur or stumble when he stood to answer the call. Frank was a well-put together man.

Hello? he said. He didn’t speak with an accent, or much of one, despite growing to manhood in Poland’s underworld.

Frank? Muller, Frank’s handler, on the other end. Frank wasn’t overly keen on the man, but he provided steady work, and Frank liked to work.

What is it?

You doing anything?

Was reading, said Frank.

What you reading? Like Muller gave a shit. Frank thought about telling him. Murakami, he’d say. What, that shit where you make shit out of paper? Muller would reply.

A book, said Frank.

Oh.

Oh. Right.

Anyway...got a job for you. Got to be tonight. You want it?

What’s the job?

Wet.

I’ll take it, said Frank.

Usual deal, okay?

Fine with me, said Frank. He hung up, then walked to his kitchen counter and switched on his laptop. While he waited for the thing to boot, he tidied away his shot glass, greasy with the dregs of clear alcohol and still cold. He took his book from the couch, closed it and put that on the counter next to the laptop.

He checked the file he’d been sent. Downloaded it to a flash drive and took it into his study to decrypt the file on his PC. Read the file. Pursed his lips, nodded.

Interesting.

Just a job, like any other. Maybe a little quirky. But a job was a job. Beat the shit out of sleeping off a drunk.

*

Frank didn’t like guns. He wasn’t allergic. Nothing like that. Just didn’t like them. Little guns were kind of embarrassing in his big old hands that were a few years shy of fifty years old.

Big guns were kind of noisy. A big gun felt like showing off your cock in a public toilet. A little gun felt stupidly ineffectual. He’d just never found a gun that worked for him, on a personal level. He’d used them, sure. Maybe the best, most comfortable thing he’d used was a machine gun from an armored scout vehicle from WWII. Someone had taken the gun, once mounted on the back of a car, and reconditioned it. Fucking thing had probably weighed in at around forty kilos with ammunition. Big fat shells, bigger than cigars. Damn near deafened him. He’d taken down most of a building with it and still missed his mark. He’d had to go into the rubble after and kill the man with a knife, like he should have in the first place.

But that was the old country. Poland was a long time ago.

Frank, tooled up, wasn’t a showy thing. He carried a wire with wooden handles at each end—a garrotte—homemade. A penknife—nothing flashy, just a Swiss Army knife. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was pretty useful. At the small of his back he wore a knife; a real one, for business.

The rest was just him. 250 lbs. or so of Frank.

Frank closed the door to his flat and took the elevator to the ground floor, then set to walking out in the early morning, across London town. It was a Saturday night, but oddly, nobody really bothered Frank. If anyone ever had a ‘do not disturb’ sign right there on their aura, it was Frank, and it was fucking neon.

*

The thing is, when you’re going to kill a man, you never exactly know what you’re going to find.

Might be a little more complicated than you expect, or a little less. Don’t figure on finding the poor fuckers gone and killed himself first, though. Don’t plan on much, sure. But don’t plan on that, first and foremost.

So, Frank hadn’t really planned on finding the fat bastard sitting in the full lotus position, asphyxiated, when he stepped into the man’s bedroom.

Dead, fat, purple Buddha, right there on the bed.

He didn’t expect to find a young lad, maybe eleven or twelve, holding his knees tight up against his chest in the corner either.

Frank hadn’t expected any of these things because he didn’t plan, he didn’t have rules, and above all, he was never, ever surprised.

Maybe he had two rules. Maybe. Not so much hard and fast, but just things he kind of did without thinking. One was that he didn’t run. The other? Never hold back. Never go half, or three quarters. Hit hard, hit often, and follow it through to the end.

So, it turned out Frank was a little surprised, after all, because the little kid was still ticking, quietly, in the corner, and Frank hadn’t killed him. He didn’t quite know why.

Purple Buddha, naked, belt round his neck.

Young kid, naked, kind of trying to be a turtle in the corner.

Frank’s mind filled in the blanks. He didn’t like his mind, so much, right then. But he figured the guy was dead and the kid would get over it.

Kid, he said. He wasn’t harsh or brusque, but he didn’t fuck about. Dead guy was dead, the kid wasn’t. Could go either way, though. Depended on the kid.

Kid, he said again. The kid looked up. Frank shook his head and reassessed. The boy was no more than nine, for sure. Maybe even seven or eight, but a little lanky looking, for his age. Faces didn’t lie, though.

He didn’t look like he’d been crying. It looked like shit was deeper down than tears.

Frank swore, softly, but the kid still heard and flinched.

It’s alright kid. I’m here...

Here to what? To kill the dead guy?

I’m here to help. Okay? So, you listen. I’ll talk. We’ll see how things pan out. Deal?

The kid didn’t look at Frank, but he did nod, with his head tight back where he’d started, right against his knees.

Frank knew full well what he should do. He should slit the kid’s throat and get gone. No mess, no questions, no witnesses...but then, he hadn’t killed the guy, had he?

So, he routed around in the bedroom and found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Didn’t find an ashtray, but he thought the dead guy wouldn’t mind, and if he did, fuck him.

Smoke? The boy probably didn’t, but then, he might. Might set him at ease, if only a little.

Turned out he did. The kid nodded and Frank held out the smokes, full arm’s length, not getting close or crowding in. Just passing something like the time of day.

The boy lit up, took a drag. His hands shook, but not so much.

Frank wondered what the boy had seen, done, in his life. Wondered if he was a pro, a white slave, or just some kid off the street.

Frank thought the last the least likely. The kid wasn’t crying. He’d been around the block.

You know what I do?

The kid looked up through his eyebrows. Assessed Frank. Not like a kid off the street.

He nodded.

Good, said Frank. You know why I’m here?

Gonna clean up, said the boy. Not a single trace of emotion.