Suicide Bomb

by Bobby Nash

  First BEN Books Edition 2019

  SUICIDE BOMB

  © 2019 Bobby Nash

  All Rights Reserved.

  First BEN Books Printing.

  Snow Falls edited by Ben Ash Jr.

  Snow Cover Design by Bobby Nash

  Book Production and design by Bobby Nash.

  ISBN: 9781675661130

  Printed in the USA

  Without limiting the rights of the copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, blog, or journal.

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or used with permission.

  Published by BEN Books, PO Box 626, Bethlehem, GA 30620

  www.ben-books.com

  And so it begins…

  This one is dedicated to all the fictional heroes I grew up idolizing. And to the real-life heroes I discovered along the way who continue to inspire me.

  #####

  Malcolm James Washington had never been so happy to be home in his entire life.

  His day started off on the wrong foot and things went progressively downhill ever since. For starters, the baby had kept him awake all night with her screaming and crying. There seemed no end in sight for her chronic case of the Colic. A fact that terrified Malcolm and his wife, Janine, no end.

  Allison, the newborn, was their second child. Their oldest, Angela, was twelve... going on twenty-five, mad at the world, and smarter than she thought her parents would ever be.

  Between baseball practice, dance class, the baby crying, Janine nagging over some odd thing or another that needed doing around the house, lack of money for things they needed, and that little thing he did every day called work, Malcolm was exhausted. He knew things were rough for Janine too. After all, she was the one at home with the crying baby all day long. Plus, she was the one who made sure Angela made it to school on time and that he made it in to the office on time, both of them with breakfast in their tummies and a sack lunch in hand. She also helped with the homework assignments, cooked dinner, washed the clothes, did the dishes, etc, etc, etc.

  And he loved her for it.

  That didn’t mean he had to like how tired he was.

  Still, for all of that, he was so happy to be home at last.

  His day had started out with a minor argument with the wife about some stupid thing or another. He couldn’t actually remember the topic at the moment. That’s how stupid it was, he decided. Something important he would have remembered… or at least fumed about it all day. All he remembered was leaving home in a huff, mad at the world and ready to take it out on the first person who looked at him sideways.

  That’s probably what led to the accident.

  At the very least, his mood was a contributing factor. Washington DC’s horrendous traffic was largely to blame.

  Fortunately, it was only a minor fender bender and things worked out well. In spite of his angry demeanor, he somehow managed to keep it in check, especially when dealing with the arrogant cop who kept ignoring him to flirt with the pretty blonde woman he had rear-ended. He wasn’t sure he wanted to pay the resultant ticket, or how he was going to afford it, but them was the breaks, he decided. Two hundred and thirty dollars was a lot of money, but he would find some way to make it work.

  He always did.

  Because of the accident, Malcolm was late for work. That meant he missed the morning staff meeting and was also late for a second meeting, this one with the section heads, a meeting in which he played a major role. The ass-chewing he received from his boss afterward was less than pleasant to say the least.

  Suffice it to say things snowballed from there.

  Every little thing seemed to set him off. If he’d had any personal time left, he would have taken the rest of the day off, but between the kid’s events, doctor visits, etc., there was no time for a mental health afternoon so he did what he always did, sucked it and did his job and hoped everyone would leave him the hell alone.

  They didn’t.

  But now he was off the clock and heading back home. He preferred to leave work at the office so he worked on putting it all out of his mind on the drive home. During of his professional career he managed never to take any of the workday stress home with him at the end of the day. Today was no exception.

  Thank God it’s Friday, he thought for the fiftieth or so time. All Malcolm wanted was a nice, quiet weekend to rest and relax. He understood there was fat chance of that actually happening, but allowed himself to hold on to the dream for five more minutes. By the time he turned onto his street, he wondered if he should have gotten flowers to use as an apology, but by then it was too late. Nothing was going to send him back into the city tonight.

  Malcolm got out of the car and flipped up the collar on his long black coat. It had been a Christmas present from Janine and the kids. Frankly, he wasn’t sure how she managed to afford it, but it was a nice, thoughtful gift.

  The winter chill that hung in the air was fading fast and spring was nipping at its heels. Pretty soon winter would turn to spring and daylight would linger later into the evening. He could get back into doing those little odds and ends outside. Maybe play some baseball with Angela and teach little Allison how to ride a bicycle. Okay, he knew he was getting a little ahead of himself, because she hadn’t yet learned to walk, but he liked to plan ahead and he remembered how quickly Angela had grown up.

  He opened the door and stepped inside a warm living room. Their townhouse was by no means fancy. Nor was it lavish, elegant, or any other fabulously expensive descriptive term you might find on one of those home makeover shows his wife liked to watch. Regardless of how lived in it was, this house had been their home for a number of years. The Washington’s liked it there.

  That’s when Malcolm noticed that not only was it warm inside the house, but it was also quiet, a rather unusual occurrence of late where the Washington family was concerned.

  “Hello? Janine?”

  Malcolm hung up his coat and stripped off the much-hated red and yellow striped tie his in-laws had given him over their dreaded holiday visit. The tie was ugly and the only reason he wore it because his wife had laid a guilt trip on him about it that morning.

  Was that what we were arguing about? That doesn’t seem right.

  Malcolm went into the kitchen. He was starving and Janine was an excellent cook and whatever it was she had whipped up made his stomach growl.

  “Honey? You in here?”

  And there she stood.

  Although Janine Washington was not what most would call a ravishing beauty and would never grace the cover of one of the overpriced fashion magazines she loved to read, she was the most beautiful woman in the world to Malcolm. She was still trying to shed a few of the extra pounds she had put on during the pregnancy and was not having an easy time of it. Malcolm tried to give her a couple of hours every night away from the kids because he knew she needed it. “Me time,” she called it, which translated to time on the treadmill, reading, or simply going to bed early.

  She was washing dishes in the sink with a set of ear-buds shoved into her ears. She was wiggling around in a half dance while singing off and on with the music, mumbling most of the words or just making up her own as she went along. A jazz man himself, Malcolm didn’t q
uite share his wife’s appreciation for all things hip-hop, but it made her happy so he learned to tolerate it. Thankfully, she wore the ear-buds so he wouldn’t have to listen to it too. He snuggled up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, startling her. She hadn’t heard him come in.

  Without turning away from the sink, beneath her patented goofy grin he could see reflected in the window, she said, “You know my husband will be home soon.”

  Malcolm snuggled her neck, kissing her gently. “Lucky devil,” he said.

  “Isn’t he though?”

  She turned around to face him and she kissed him lightly in the lips, almost playful. A full one eighty from how she looked at him that morning. It reminded him of how she was when they had started dating. Boy, that felt like an eternity ago. It had been so long since they had done anything together, no kids, just the two of them. He couldn’t recall the last time they had hired a sitter and gone out for date night. He decided right then and there to rectify that situation as soon as possible.

  “How was your day?” she asked, her arms draped over his shoulders, water dripping onto his shirt.

  “It’s great now,” he said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Where are the kids?”

  Janine smiled at his flirtation. “I finally got Ally to go down for a nap and the surly teenager is upstairs doing her homework.”

  “Really? Angela’s doing her homework?”

  “That’s the rumor.”

  “Well, I’ll believe that when I see it,” he said playfully.

  If there were only one constant in the universe, Malcolm knew it was that his daughter would rather do almost anything instead of her homework. He was tempted to tell her she could paint the house as an alternative just to see if she would take him up on it.

  Janine returned to her dish washing. That’s when Malcolm noticed some pasta boiling on the stove. Janine made the best Pasta Primavera he had ever tasted and just the sight of it made his mouth water and his stomach growl, a fresh reminder that he had worked through lunch trying to get things back on track.

  “Mail’s on the counter,” Janine told him.

  “Thanks, sweetie. I’ll read it in the den after I say hey to the Munchkins.”

  The den was Malcolm’s little slice of heaven. Furnished with a desk and a computer, it was his escape from reality. They had all taken to calling it “Daddy’s Office.” For some reason, they all got a kick out of it. He didn’t understand why, but didn’t want to appear any more un-hip than he already did so he let it slide.

  After a quick visit with Angela, who, miraculously was actually doing her homework, and poking his head in to look at the sleeping Aly, Malcolm retreated to his parlor. He flipped on the antique desktop computer and waited while the machine booted up. As it was an older model, it took a few extra seconds to get going. Kind of like Malcolm himself in the mornings. He laughed at the joke, remembering Janine’s comparison of him and the computer a couple of weeks back when he was complaining about its speed. Or lack thereof. It hadn’t seemed as funny at the time.

  He flipped through the stack of mail while he waited.

  “Bill, bill, bill, approved credit card, junk, junk, ooooh... Now what’s this?”

  Malcolm ripped open the thick cream-colored envelope with his name scrawled across it. He often sent off for free stuff and samples of new products off the internet. His office had become a junk room filled with all sorts of knick-knacks that he’d mailed away for at one time or another. He was addicted to the freebie junk.

  He supposed it was better than cigarettes.

  Not to mention cheaper.

  There were several stacks of coupons in the envelope for 10% off his purchase at several on-line retail stores. There were coupons for all kinds of things like flower arrangements at a 50% discount, how to get free airline tickets, ten novels for ten cents, ten CDs for ten cents, ten DVDs for ten cents, 10 of pretty much anything for ten cents, well, you get the idea. The coupons were not a big deal for him. His funds hardly allowed for frivolous spending before the baby’s arrival. Now that she was here he was lucky to have two nickels to rub together. Of course, those double nickels could get him ten Blu Rays, if the ads were to be believed. Erring on the side of caution, Malcolm stayed as far away from those on-line stores as he could.

  “What have we here?” he asked in his best Inspector Clouseau voice.

  Inside the envelope were several hidden treasures. Advertisements for new websites that some PR firm thought Malcolm would find interesting based on the form he filled out a few weeks earlier on-line. There were URLs for several graphics related sites, which were of great interest to him. Malcolm was working on a few freelance CGI artwork projects in his dwindling spare time to bring in some extra cash for the family and any tips he picked up along the way were always helpful. There were a few sites devoted to musical instruments and courses. Those didn’t interest him as much since his musical ability peaked with playing the radio. He appreciated music, but left the performing of it to the professionals. His tastes tended to run more toward classic rock and his beloved jazz. There were also a few sporadic sites dealing with religion, one about comic books that looked interesting, plus the standard allotment of pornographic sites you got no matter what you signed up for. There was no escaping porn on the internet.

  Now that the computer was ready, Malcolm ran through his e-mails. Only three today. A slow day compared to the dozen or so he normally received when one of the four on-line groups he participated in got a good conversation going. The last of these had been a discussion entitled “What is pulp?” in a group of readers of the classic pulp novels. The discussion turned to argument before all was said and done. He couldn’t remember if they ever actually answered the question or not.

  Of the three messages in his inbox, one was from his brother in Miami. Like most brothers, they enjoyed giving one another a hard time, jibing one another back and forth every few days. Today’s email was a reply to his last message that simply read: “Bite me, Art boy!” Ah, brotherly love.

  The second email contained a slightly off-color joke from a guy he worked with. He forwarded it to his brother and a few friends he thought might get a laugh out of it before deleting it.

  The last one was spam from a credit card company, which he deleted immediately, relieved that at least it wasn’t one of those ridiculous male enhancement drug ads. Those things creeped him out.

  “Slim pickings today,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve really got to get some friends.”

  With time left before dinner, Malcolm typed in the first of the graphic arts sites listed. It was interesting, but featured no relative information useful to his projects. It seemed like pretty standard stuff, but the little animated gifs on the page were nice looking. The artist who designed them really knew his or her stuff.

  The second site wasn’t much better. As with the first, this site was more for beginners, which he wasn’t, so Malcolm scrolled through this one more quickly than he had the first.

  The third site showed more promise. It even featured a demo of the latest software that he had been drooling over for the last three weeks. If only he could afford it. Malcolm spent a good ten minutes on the site, then book marked it for future visits.

  Knowing that Janine was still busy, he nervously clicked on one of the porn links he had received. It was pretty much what he expected. There were a lot of pictures of young women with little dots and black bars over the interesting parts. It would take his credit card number to see what lay beneath those little bars and blurs. He shook his head, wondering why he had even bothered checking out this site to begin with.

  “Honey?” Janine’s voice broke through his reverie.

  “What?” He jerked, nervous and feeling unsure of himself at that moment, but it passed quickly. Probably just worried because the wife had nearly caught him looking at girlie pictures, especially since it was a teeny site that promised to have only eighteen-year old girls, each
one decked out in pigtails and plaid skirts. Now that his older daughter was a teenager, the thought of sites like this disturbed him. He didn’t want to think about guys his age staring at his daughter in a few years. It was a little embarrassing and he was happy she couldn’t see the computer screen from where she stood in the doorframe.

  “Food’s ready,” she said.

  “Oh. Thanks. Be right there.”

  Janine’s eyes crinkled. She looked at him from around the doorframe. “Are you okay?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. I’m fine.” He took a deep breath and patted his chest. “Long day. You just startled me is all.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. Dinner ready?”

  “Yes it is. Come and eat.”

  “Okay.”

  Malcolm pushed away from the computer and walked into the kitchen. He still wasn’t feeling quite like himself, but didn’t know why. He was an adult, after all. What harm was there in looking at photos on the internet? It’s not like he was going to go out looking for something new. Why did he feel anxiety creeping in on him?

  Angela was already seated at the table, scooping a heaping spoonful of pasta onto her plate. Any excuse to escape doing her homework. A strange fog seemed to have taken permanent root over Malcolm’s brain. It was an intriguing feeling to say the least. Almost like a headache, but not quite. Must be a case of the nerves, he decided. Between the accident, his bad day at work, and the embarrassed shock of getting caught looking at dirty pictures, surely his nerves were shot. Now that he had gotten comfortable and rested for a few minutes, the events of the day had finally settled on him.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Malcolm?” his wife asked, worry etched on her lovely face.

  “I said I’m fine!” he snapped, surprising himself with the intensity in his voice. The stunned look on his wife and daughter’s faces was more than enough to make his heart ache.