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  And what a face it was, as any bystander gathered on the broken sidewalk could see. Cold storage was the place for Orville Davis now, a man left in peace to fight no more.

  By the wooded lot behind the houses, a boy of about twelve jumped around slaying the ghosts of men, making cartoon noises with his mouth. Abruptly he would stop and flap his hands as if he’d grabbed hold of a burning bush, then go back to fighting again.

  “That’s Cal Wilton’s son,” Mrs. Miller said. “Milton. Orville said don’t call him that, might make him grow up stranger than he already is. Milton Wilton. Orville called him Sarge, said he was artistic, helped him make things. Orville was a stinker, all right, but never to that kid. The boy doesn’t talk. What’s he doing now?” she asked, as though the officers would somehow know.

  A figure lay on a slant in a wheelbarrow that young Sarge pushed to a spot in Orville’s backyard. Officer Newton told the boy to stay back, but Sarge lifted the figure out, which was near his own height, and set it by a boulder, two rocks on either side to steady the feet. There it stood, a plaster butler figure with a monocle, and arms extended. Mrs. Miller said it formerly held a chalkboard menu at a restaurant’s front door in town. “I guess that’s something Orville didn’t want to sell.”

  Out of the wagon the child hoisted an army shovel, short but wicked. He posed before the butler to whack the little servant good, though not hard enough to break him. Ponged and pummeled the little man, then slung a final blow with his fist that knocked the good man forward, face down in the squishy mud. Sarge turned full frontal to the audience then, and uttered the first words anyone ever heard from his spit-shiny lips: “My papa done it.”

  Then he turned and ran with the army shovel into the woods, pinging this skinny tree and that hearty one with the tool until he quickly reversed his path to return and shoot the shovel like a javelin back into the yard. It lodged point first, standing almost at attention in the receptive earth where Officers Newton and Nettle stood by to collect its silent testimony. Sarge marched briskly into the woods, flapping his tender hands.

  N.J. Ayres is the author of three suspense novels featuring a former Las Vegas stripper now working in a crime lab (the TV program CSI was developed later with a similar character). Ayres is also the author of a poetry book and numerous short stories and was an editor for environmental-engineering documents and a technical publications manager for military-missile and aircraft manuals for twenty years.

  BREAK-IN

  * * *

  * * *

  Eric Beetner

  The gun was still warm from the stranger’s hand.

  Michael stared at the figure face down in the entryway of his house. His eyes moved from the body to the broken lamp he’d used to coldcock the guy.

  He tried to remember the last thirty seconds, but it was a black hole.

  He could still recall the brief conversation through the door, the stranger knocking after midnight and pretending to have car trouble. Even before he opened the door, Michael thought it strange that someone would wander so far off the highway to make it to his front porch. The pleasure and peril of living far away from town: seclusion.

  Michael remembered seeing the gun, the man commanding him to step back, stay quiet. The memory ran out a second before the moment he smashed the man over the head with a marble-based lamp.

  Michael set the gun down on the small table by the door where he normally tossed his keys. The man on the floor continued to breathe, and the pool of blood around his head continued to grow.

  It was no life-threatening blow. Michael knew the stranger would come around soon.

  “Michael?” Amy called from upstairs.

  “Stay there.” He could hear the whining nighttime cries of Dylan, his two-year-old, and that was sure to wake Kaitie, his four-year-old. “Amy, listen,” he said. “Call the police. Tell them someone tried to break in.”

  “Oh my God.” Michael heard her footsteps reach the top of the stairs. She gasped. “Michael!”

  “It’s okay. Just call them. See how fast they can make it out here.”

  “Is he…?”

  “No, he’s not dead. Now, go.”

  Amy padded away to make the call.

  Michael thought about how it might be better if the stranger was dead. The intruder would wake up any second, angry. He was obviously capable of violence whereas Michael had just drawn his first blood on another human. Applied physics professors don’t have a reputation for bloodletting.

  His eyes drifted to the gun. If the man stood up and attacked, could Michael use deadly force? The lamp had been beyond what he thought himself capable of already, so he didn’t know the answer himself.

  Dylan’s cries intensified. The man on the floor stirred. Michael heard Amy’s feet move quickly down the hall to Dylan’s room, and the crying soon stopped.

  The old farmhouse was easily twenty minutes from town. If the police were anywhere but sitting right by the phone, it could be as much as a half hour before help arrived.

  A decision would have to be made before then.

  Michael stepped around the body to close the front door. The invader had dropped a small bag, now blocking the threshold. Michael kicked it aside to make room for the door to swing shut. Inside the pack, metal clanked together. Curious, Michael opened the worn black gym satchel.

  Duct tape, wire, a hammer, a hunting knife. These were not the supplies of a stick-up, a simple “give me all your money and jewelry” home invasion. This man was prepared to stay.

  Michael thought of the children. He felt sick to his stomach. Bikes, a sandbox, a rope swing all decorated the front yard. Advertising that young kids lived here. The house was far enough away from everything, a man could stay for weeks without anyone noticing. Fall semester at the university didn’t start for another month.

  A chill ran through Michael. The stranger on the floor groaned.

  “Amy? Did you talk to the police?”

  Her feet padded urgently down the hall. He turned to her. She cradled Dylan in her arms, his head lolling slack, asleep. She whispered. “They said they’d send someone.”

  He whispered back. “How long?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  There was movement from the carpet in the entryway. “Go back to the room. Get Kaitie. Lock the door.”

  There was panic in Amy’s whisper now. “Michael—”

  “Just go.”

  Michael turned back to the stranger, Amy’s feet shuffled away above him.

  The man rolled, brought a hand to his head and felt the blood, opened his eyes.

  Michael reached out. This time, the gun was cold.

  THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN A TWIST OF NOIR.

  Recipient of the Stalker Award for Most Criminally Underrated Author, Eric Beetner is author of The Devil Doesn’t Want Me, Dig Two Graves, and the story collection A Bouquet of Bullets. He co-authored (with J.B. Kohl) One Too Many Blows to the Head and Borrowed Trouble. He wrote two in the acclaimed Fightcard series, Split Decision and A Mouth Full of Blood. His award-winning short stories appear in more than a dozen anthologies. He blogs at EricBeetner.blogspot.com.

  ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WOODS

  * * *

  * * *

  Raymond Benson

  The detective was assigned to the case three days into it.

  The department had already allocated 80 percent of the force to the investigation of the missing twins. It had begun when the parents, who were suspiciously hostile, reported that their children had gone into the woods to play as they did most every day. When they didn’t return that evening, the father called the police.

  On the second day, the team searched the woodlands; the dogs picked up a promising scent and led them deeper into the forest. The officer in charge called off the search at sunset, and the men resumed the next morning with the detective in the lead. The dogs once again found the trail. At midday the animals directed the party to an isolated, lone cabin to which no path led.
While the detective was amazed that there would be a dwelling so deep in the wilderness, he was even more confounded by its appearance and construction. Its red, yellow, blue, and brown colors were very bright, almost syrupy, and the exterior material felt soft to the touch and smelled nice. His first thought was that he wanted to take a bite out of it.

  The dogs became frenzied and had to be tied to trees at the area’s perimeter. At first the detective thought their noses may have led them to the place because of its pungent, sweet smell rather than by the elusive trail of the missing children.

  An elderly blind woman stormed out of the front door and demanded an explanation for the men’s presence. When asked for her identity, she said her name was Barbara Yaeger. She was not cooperative. She told them to go away and refused to let the officers inside. Without a warrant, the detective couldn’t insist, but they did have a look around the exterior. At the side of the strange house was a large six foot by six foot cage. The detective knew that the horror of its contents would forever haunt him. Inside were the remains of what looked like several human bodies. From the size of the bones, the officer was certain they were mostly of children. The Yaeger woman was immediately placed under arrest and taken to the precinct. The judge quickly gave them the warrant to search the house. The interior was more of the same sickly sweet decorations.

  An experienced detective knew when he was in the residence of a mad person.

  A fine crystal dust clung to one man’s index finger when he touched a sparkling blue lampshade. Before the detective could stop him, the officer had already put his finger to his tongue.

  “It’s sweet,” the rookie said. “Like sugar.”

  They found more bones in various rooms, but the biggest pile was in the kitchen area. There were a total of thirty-three human bones at the crime scene, although there were no complete skeletons. The Yaeger woman was charged with murder, and the detective believed the DA could and would charge her with cannibalism.

  Because the difficult crime scene was immense, the commissioner approved calling in a more sophisticated forensics outfit to process it. The FBI intervened and met the investigative party at the command center set up at the edge of the woodlands. Using a GPS, the detective directed the much larger group to the same area of the woods where the house was, or so he thought.

  They couldn’t find it. The men searched until nightfall, and there was no indication that the peculiar house ever existed. The detective ordered another search for the following day.

  When they got back to the station, the detective and the Feds went to interrogate the suspect and found her cell empty. The flabbergasted sergeant on duty insisted that once Yaeger was locked inside, no one came in or out of the jail all day.

  The FBI put out an all-points alert for the woman.

  The mystery confounded everyone.

  The next day they searched for the house again. The men spent all day in the woods, and the dogs were no help at all. The detective began to question his sanity.

  The case grew ice cold after a few weeks. The FBI went back to DC, or wherever it was they came from.

  One afternoon on his day off, however, the detective took an excursion into the forest on his own. He followed the usual routes to where he remembered the ghastly dwelling to be.

  The man didn’t find the sweet abattoir, but he did discover a different abode erected where he thought the previous lodging had stood. This one was made of logs and appeared to be completely normal. The smokestack issued dark puffs. Someone was inside. The detective approached the front door and knocked.

  He knocked again.

  A woman called, “Who’s there?” It wasn’t Yaeger, for this lady’s voice had a younger, much more pleasant timbre.

  “Police, ma’am. May I have a word?”

  “Oh, lovely, I’ve been expecting you. Come in, please! The door’s unlocked.”

  He turned the knob. Sure enough, it opened easily.

  The place was a nice, femininely decorated home. The modest kitchen was spic and span, and the detective could swear he smelled soup cooking.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I’m back here, darling,” she called from what the detective assumed was the bedroom.

  He cleared his throat. “May I speak to you please?”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t be shy. I’m…I’m in bed, and I’m wearing something I think you’ll like. Come inside so that I can see you with my baby-blue eyes.”

  What?

  The detective gulped.

  What did she say?

  “Are you coming or not, big boy? I’m waiting!” The giggle that followed was playful and teasing.

  This sort of thing never happened to him.

  What kind of vixen awaited him beyond the threshold?

  The detective couldn’t help himself. The lure was too tempting. He entered.

  The last thing the man’s brain registered was a violent onslaught of brown fur and glowing red eyes.

  And very sharp teeth.

  Raymond Benson is the author of twenty-seven published books. His latest series of thrillers are The Black Stiletto and The Black Stiletto: Black & White, with a third installment coming in April 2013. Aside from original works, Raymond is a prolific tie-in writer and was the fourth official—and first American—author to pen authorized James Bond novels. Visit his website at RaymondBenson.com.

  JOB OPENING

  * * *

  * * *

  John Billheimer

  Baker hadn’t looked at his 401(k) statement for a year. He’d been afraid to. Then his broker called to tell him his ruined retirement account wouldn’t last three years at the rate he was spending.

  The easiest solution was to go back to work. But after fifteen years, there was no way to resurrect his old day job as a statistician. His old night job, though, was a different story. He retrieved the shoebox from his bedroom closet and unwrapped the oiled rag that protected the sleek .45 caliber automatic. There’d always be a demand for his old night job.

  It would be a lot easier to find night work if Big Bill Ellison were still alive. Big Bill had run the gambling concessions in East Wheeling and had given Baker his start as a contract killer. Big Bill’s older son, Jeff, had been engaged to Baker’s daughter, Sally. She was on the back of Jeff’s motorcycle when a hit-and-run driver turned left in front of them. It took two blocks for their mangled bodies to bounce free.

  The police eventually gave up, but Baker haunted the accident intersection for months, making lists of left-turning sedans that fit the scanty witness descriptions. He finally found a Lincoln sedan with a wine-red smear on its muffler that matched the color of Sally’s helmet.

  Instead of going to the authorities, who had let the sedan’s owner back on the roads after two DUI convictions, Baker went to Big Bill Ellison. The two men coaxed a confession from the owner, then force-fed him alcohol until he passed out and drove him and his Lincoln into the Ohio River. And Baker’s moonlighting career was born.

  Big Bill’s son, Little Bill, had inherited his father’s gambling operations, but not his intelligence, and had always resented Baker’s close relationship with Big Bill. Baker took a deep breath, dialed the phone, and heard the throaty rasp of surprise in Little Bill’s voice when he said he was looking for work.

  “We didn’t part on very good terms. Got a kid doing your old job. Might be he could use some backup this weekend.”

  “I work alone. You know that.”

  “I need to be sure your head’s still into the work. You want the job or not?”

  “I want the job.”

  “Good. I’ll courier the details. Be in our parking lot Friday night at eight. The kid’ll find you.”

  “The kid have a name?”

  “No. And neither do you.”

  The kid was a half hour late pulling his red Mustang into Ellison’s parking lot. He was wearing a Pirates baseball cap atop a face pocked with acne scars.

  Baker slid into the passenge
r seat and asked, “How old are you, anyhow?”

  “Twenty-four. How old are you?”

  “Seventy-five.” Baker shaved a few years off his age out of habit.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Neither do you. How long have you been doing this kind of work?”

  “Long enough. You don’t need to worry about me, old man. I’ve turned in two of these jobs already. Goddamned if I know why they’re sending you along.”

  After ten minutes, the kid drove into a narrow alley, parked, and pointed up at a lighted warehouse window. “That’s our man. He’ll come out around nine.”

  “How do you know he’ll be alone?”

  “He was alone last night.”

  “You only watched him one night?”

  “My time is valuable.”

  “So’s mine.” Baker didn’t tell the kid he’d watched for the last three nights. “If he’s not alone, we abort.”

  “No need. We’ll just take out his buddies, too.” The kid reached inside his Steelers jacket and pulled out a revolver.

  Baker held out his hand. “Let me see that.”

  The kid smiled and handed over the revolver.

  Baker spun the cylinder, extracted a bullet, and squinted at it in the dim light. “Hollow points.”

  “Stops vics dead in their tracks. I carve ’em out myself.”

  Baker handed the gun back. “No point in both of us sitting here. I’ll go across the alley. Hide in that doorway behind the Dumpster. Anything goes wrong, we’ll have our man in a crossfire.”

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

  Baker left the car and vanished in the shadow of the Dumpster.

  At ten till nine, a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of rags and bulging garbage bags came up the alley. He stopped in front of the Mustang and raised a small bottle of Windex spray.