Cheating death, cheating time, looking for the easy way out. These things have consequences. Consequences that can be violent and painful. What Tangled Webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive. "What Tangled Webs" is short story collection that tells it like it might be.. when the balance is off and the monsters come out.
Cheating death, cheating time, looking for the easy way out. These things have consequences. Consequences that can be violent and painful. What Tangled Webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive. "What Tangled Webs" is short story collection that tells it like it might be.. when the balance is off and the monsters come out.
Excerpt
From Epi3Demic:
Beams of light danced and flickered inside the suburban house. Three uniformed men from the sheriff’s office had entered the structure in response to a call that shots were fired. One deputy stood on the porch to ward off on-looking neighbors and watch for escaping bad guys. It was a small town.
Inside a voice shouted, “I’ve got one! Holy shit.”
“One what?” another replied.
“A body,” the first answered.
The sheriff fumbled with the button on his handheld radio.
“Use your damn squawk, son. We don’t need the neighbors listening in.”
“Sorry sheriff,” he yelled.
Sheriff Don Rogers shook his head and then heard the walkie-talkie chirp.
“I’ve got two more,” a different voice said over the squawk.
“No shit?” said both the sheriff and the first deputy, Deacon James or ‘Deke’ for short.
“None intended,” said Randy James, Deke’s brother. “Christ, they’re just kids.”
“That’d be the twins,” Sheriff thought and counted on his fingers.
“Jerry, Linda and three kids is five bodies. Please don’t let there be five bodies,” he said out loud. He entered the kitchen where Deke was and took a look at Jerry Mason’s corpse. Deke wiped clammy sweat from his forehead and left to head upstairs. He stopped in the doorway as the walkie-talkies bleeped letting them know a transmission was coming in.
“One more, sheriff,” Randy said.
“No shit?”
“None intended,” Randy replied with a shudder.
“That’s four,” the Sheriff said.
“Where’s Ricky? How old is he now?” asked Deke looking at the bloody mess on the floor.
“Dunno, fifteen maybe? You thinkin’ he did this, Sheriff?” Deke asked.
“Don’t know. We’ll check with his friends if he ain’t upstairs.”
Randy entered the room and even in the flashlight beam, he looked pale.
“Linda fired the shots,” he said.
“How you know that?” his brother asked.
“There’s bullet holes in the window and she’s holdin’ a .38. Someone got to her first, though. Ricky’s layin’ in the back yard. Everyone’s dead sheriff,” Randy said.
Then he paused and choked back a tear, “I couldn’t look at her anymore.”
