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    Killers
    Killers
    Killers
    Ebook75 pages59 minutes

    Killers

    By Antony Mann

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    About this ebook

    What are the motivations for murder? Revenge, self-preservation, greed, desire, psychopathy, religious belief? Here are seven taut and frightening stories about killers and the inner workings of their minds, including the unique SHOPPING, a short story told as a series of shopping lists.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAntony Mann
    Release dateOct 16, 2018
    ISBN9781386194125
    Killers
    Author

    Antony Mann

    Antony Mann's short crime fiction has appeared many times in Crimewave and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He is a winner of the Crime Writer's Association UK Short Story Dagger and has been nominated for the same award.  

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      Book preview

      Killers - Antony Mann

      Lighting Up

      I DON’T KNOW WHY I come to these parties. They’re always the same. The regulation mix of dull students auditioning the latest haircut and talking the latest crap. The same throbbing, monotonous music blaring from the speakers, the same drugs being consumed in the dark corners. I know why I used to come to places like this, but those days are gone now. Maybe I do it to test myself, to see if my resolve is still strong. Every night I can endure without succumbing to temptation is another step forward away from addiction.

      And that’s the problem. It was the addiction that made it interesting. The addiction to everything. I need to learn again how to live a normal, boring life. I assume it can be done. After all, that’s what most people do anyway, isn’t it? One party at a time, as they say. And frankly, I’m quite proud of myself this evening. I’ve learnt that I can cope with three whole hours of mindless chit-chat and numbing inanity before the desire to leave becomes overpowering.

      And then, she appears, and ruins everything.

      Maybe it’s because I look the way I feel, but just before I make for the door, this girl comes up to me and shoves her face in mine. There are people everywhere, dancing and falling, laughing and shouting, but she has to choose me. Swaying in front of me, dropping her hand on my shoulder to steady herself, she fixes me with that sincere and unfocused gaze of the very drunk and says,

      You’re sad, aren’t you?

      Sometimes, I respond.

      What are you so sad about?

      Just the usual.

      Well you ought to be happy! she says, and I figure she’s so drunk that she’s projecting, talking more to herself than to me.

      Easier said than done, I murmur, glancing towards the door. She’s pretty though, I’ll give her that much.

      So how do you know Jake? she asks.

      Jake? I say.

      She laughs.

      You’re a gate crasher, aren’t you?

      Maybe, I say. Or maybe Jake and I do Maths together. I can’t remember.

      I’m Jenny, she says. And I hate Maths. I don’t know why. I think it’s all the numbers.

      Common problem, I say. I hear that they’re trying to come up with numberless Maths for people like you.

      She laughs, and I smile despite myself. The door is suddenly looking further away than ever.

      You’re cute, she says. But you’re not drinking.

      I don’t drink, I say.

      You what? She almost chokes on her bourbon. "What, not at all?

      Drinking was probably the easiest to quit. Some people find it hard, I know. But for me it was no problem. The coke and the heroin were harder, but still not as hard as the cigarettes. I don’t know what it was about the cigarettes. Maybe it was the way they connected so strongly to everything. So many tendrils, snaking out into all the facets of my life.

      I watch as Jenny takes a packet from her purse and lights up.

      You don’t even smoke I bet, she says.

      You’re right, I say. I don’t.

      She looks at me with mischief in her eye and blows a thin tendril of smoke into my face.

      But you used to, right?

      Despite myself, I breathe it in. For a moment it sticks in my throat and I feel like coughing, but just for a moment.

      Yeah, I used to.

      I used to as well, Jenny confides. And then I gave up and then I started again and then I gave up and now I started again. Who knows? One day I might quit for real.

      Who knows? I echo.

      Jenny takes a long pull on the cigarette, blows more smoke my way. I stare at the tip as it glows red. She offers me the pack.

      Sure you won’t have one?

      And there it is, the old familiar enemy, sparking in the corners of my brain, waking it all up again, bringing it back to life. For reasons I doubt I’ll ever understand, it’s the link between the smoking and the killing which has been the hardest to break. The two seem to be inexorably intertwined in my psyche. You’d have to talk to a shrink to find out why. Not my shrink, of course. My shrink doesn’t know the half of it. I’m not stupid.

      All right, I say. What can it hurt?

      And I’d been doing so well.

      The Guy I Told Stuff To

      EVEN THE PEOPLE THAT you trust the most, that you think you know the most deeply – you would be surprised at how many differences there are between you, in what you think and believe. Because nobody sees the world in the same way that you do. Not exactly.

      For that reason, whatever I have done over the years, I have been careful to live by my golden rule: don’t speak of

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