Mystery Tribune / Issue Nº8 (eBook)

Winter 2019

Jonathan Ferrini (Autor)

Ehsan Ehsani (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019 | 1. Auflage
240 Seiten
Mystery Tribune (Verlag)
978-0-00-015397-5 (ISBN)

Infos

The second anniversary issue of a mystery magazine which Bestselling author Reed Farrel Coleman has called 'a cut above' and mystery grand masters Lawrence Block and Max Allan Collins have praised for its 'solid fiction' and 'the most elegant design'.

Our Issue Nº8: Winter 2019 features

A curated collection of short fiction including stories by Hester Young, Edgar Award Winner SJ Rozan, Hilary Davidson, Ryan David Jahn, Edgar Award Winner Gary Earl Ross, Jonathan Ferrini, Kevin R. Roller, and William R. Soldan.

Interviews and Reviews by Charlaine Harris, Charles Perry and Nick Kolakowski.

Art and Photography by Brittany Markert, Anka Zhuravleva and more.

This issue also features a preview of the new The Wrath Of Fantomas graphic novel by Olivier Bocquet and Julie Rocheleau.

An elegantly crafted quarterly issue, printed on uncoated paper and with a beautiful layout designed for optimal reading experience, our Winter 2019 issue will make a perfect companion or gift for avid mystery readers and fans of literary crime fiction.

Textauszug

Fictions

Fiction

What Burns
Beneath

by Hester Young

The neighborhood was empty except for a few noisy roosters. Shell trudged through the subdivision, unnerved by the total absence of people as she scanned for Connor’s street. Puhi Circle. It was around here somewhere.

She had expected more stragglers, residents holding out until lava appeared on their actual doorstep. Usually in Puna, evacuation orders were like a warning from your mother you just rolled your eyes at and ignored. This was different. Shell passed empty driveway after driveway. Those fissures out on 132 must have spooked everybody off.

It was a shit show out there, even by Shell’s standards. Earthquakes. Roads blocked. Plumes of steam seeping up from cracks in the concrete. She could smell the distant smoke as the slow-moving flow claimed vegetation and whatever else lay in its path. If she’d had anything to lose, she wouldn’t be here now, hunting down a past she’d spent years evading.

But she had nothing.

Literally nothing, after that meth-head stole her car last week. All her worldly possessions had been laid out in the back seat. A pile of old muumuus from Walmart. Some plastic dishes and cutlery. Her pills.

Shell could live without dishes and a change of clothes. Hell, she could even live without the car. But not the pills. Life without pills was no life at all. Life with pills was no life, either, but at least with benzos, you didn’t have to think so much about what a garbage human being you were.

Hands sweaty and heart racing, she paused by a pretty blue house lined with guava trees. Connor’s place was close, all right, but she had needs she could no longer ignore. The blue house was as good a spot as any.

She grabbed a chunk of black cinder from the yard. Funny. Landscapers traveled miles across the island to deliver this ugly volcanic rock. Homeowners paid good money for it—but they sure didn’t like it when nature showed up on their land with fresh product.

Shell glanced around the neighborhood. Still no one. She threw the cinder through a window and kicked away the glass. Once inside, she searched the bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen for prescription bottles. Nothing. No Xanax or Valium, just a partially used bottle of Nyquil and some extra strength Tylenol. They would have to do. She downed the Nyquil and pocketed the Tylenol. Sat on the kitchen floor until her hands stopped sweating and her heart began to calm.

Now. Time to find Connor.

“... the eruption had begun, just a few miles from Connor’s neighborhood. A sign, she’d thought.”

She had thought about it for years, showing up at the house, asking the question that had haunted her for so long. Where is he? Where is Jace? But she’d been too chicken shit, too afraid to face him. Instead, she’d drifted around, scoring pills when she could, and hiding from anyone who’d ever loved her. Her mother. Tutu and Papa. All the friends she’d left on O'ahu.

Then the eruption had begun, just a few miles from Connor’s neighborhood. A sign, she’d thought. That nothing could stay hidden forever. That eventually, whatever burned beneath the surface would come bubbling up.

She had nothing to lose. And so here she was.

Shell left the blue house unlocked. Shards of glass glittered in the cinder behind her. She felt a pang of guilt. The bugs would get in, and the rain. She considered going back, trying to clean up, but the Nyquil had spread through her blood and it all seemed like too much work.

“Find Connor,” she told herself, trying to keep it all straight. “Ask him.”

She slogged back to the road. Kept her eyes trained for Puhi Circle. She might not find Connor right away. He probably wasn’t home now, what with the volcano. But she could wait. Eruptions didn’t last forever, and she had all the time in the world. Sooner or later, he’d have to return, and she would be there with her questions.

Where is he? Where is our son?

◆

Shell was nineteen, in her first semester at UH, when she met Connor. Back then, she was smart, effortlessly smart, but that was never what people noticed about her. She’d been born too pretty, with the kind of smile that made people want to give her things. Good grades, popularity, boyfriends—she’d never had to work for much.

Enter Connor.

Shell and her friend Pru had been window-shopping at Ala Moana when a pair of guys with military cuts approached them. The shorter, cuter one did all the talking.

“I’m Danny,” he said. “And that tall guy’s my friend Connor. I hope you won’t think I’m a creep for asking, but is there any chance we could take you ladies to lunch?”

Shell was a sucker for testosterone, and Danny was jacked, so after a quick conference with Pru, she said yes.

At first, she was too taken with Danny’s blue eyes and dimples to really notice his friend. Yet as Danny’s jokes wore thin over lunch and his immaturity began to grate, Connor aroused her curiosity.

What set Connor apart was his indifference. Though he politely fulfilled his duties as wingman, he took no obvious pleasure in Shell’s company, no matter how she flirted or teased. Shell was not used to being dismissed by males, and Connor’s nonchalance proved irresistible. Suddenly she detected passion in his dark gaze, integrity in his good posture, strength in his slightly off-center nose.

She studied his left arm, which was inked with the name Katie, and ran a finger casually over the tattoo.

“Who’s Katie?” she asked. “Your girlfriend?”

Connor tensed at her touch. “Sister,” he said. “Died of leukemia when I was twelve.”

Shell gasped and made a sad, apologetic noise, but in point of fact, she was hooked. Connor had suffered. Connor was deep.

She peppered him with questions for the rest of lunch and gradually, a picture emerged. At twenty-eight, he was older than she’d thought. Originally from Montana, he’d enlisted straight out of high school and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. When she asked what happened on his tours of duty, he said, “Not the kind of shit anyone wants to talk about” and changed the subject.

“That guy is fucked up,” she told Pru admiringly when they went to compare notes in the bathroom.

She gave Connor her number. He never called.

Unwilling to take no for an answer, she tracked down Danny on Instagram, and got Connor’s digits.

“Who?” Connor asked, the first time she called. “Michelle?” Yet he agreed to go out with her.

They dated for five months, and though Connor never really became any more talkative, he had other qualities that drew her to him. His toughness, his stoicism, his mysterious traumatic past—these all seemed the pinnacle of masculinity. In bed, he held her so tightly, his fingers left bruises on her back and shoulders. He was embarrassed, remorseful when he saw what he’d done, but Shell didn’t mind. She liked it. It was the only time she ever saw him lose control.

That spring, she missed a period. She’d been on the pill, but Shell was prone to miss a dose here and there, and she wasn’t entirely surprised to discover herself pregnant. This would be it, she figured. The thing that drove Connor to rage or joy.

Instead, his response was subdued.

“What do you want to do?” he asked. “I can give you money, if you don’t want to keep it.”

Shell crossed her arms. “And what if I do?”

“Then... I don’t know.” He paused. “I could marry you, I guess.” He rubbed his forehead. “You should know, though, I’m really not good with kids.”

Shell had no interest in marriage, but she liked babies, how small and sweet and helpless they were. She wrapped her arms around Connor’s neck and snuggled against him.

“I wanna have a baby with you,” she said.

It was that easy. Shell dropped out of school and got work at a hotel. Connor left the army a few months later and took a private security job. If he was sad or nervous about leaving an institution he’d devoted his entire adult life to, he didn’t say.

They rented a tiny house in Pearl City. Then Jace was born, and the plan was officially complete. They had a baby together.

Until the day they didn’t.

◆

Shell plodded along, her feet dragging. Something noisy was flying overhead. A helicopter. Two helicopters. Tracking the lava flow, probably.

She passed a long, grassy stretch without houses. Unlike O'ahu, which left no lot undeveloped, plots on the Big Island were often empty and overgrown. Mainlanders, Shell thought, glancing at the mess of weeds and invasive trees. Over-zealous haoles enticed by the idea of cheap Hawaiian land. They rushed in, wallets open, but weeks of rain and warnings of rat lungworm chilled their enthusiasm before they got around to any actual construction.

Across the street, Shell spotted a pink house with a vehicle in the carport. An old man in a beach chair sat peering up at the helicopters. He had tan skin and a belly that oozed through the bottom of his t-shirt.

“The man squinted at her, and she could guess what he was thinking. That she didn’t belong on Puhi Circle...”

She shaded her eyes with one hand and approached him. “Couldn’t get away?”

The old man shrugged. “Where I gone go? Shelter?” He made a face.

Shell knew from experience there were plenty of places to sleep...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.2.2019
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-015397-4 / 0000153974
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-015397-5 / 9780000153975