Blown Circuit

by Lars Guignard

  “We’ll be safe here.”

  “With Happy Tom?”

  “You need to trust me.”

  Kate opened the metal door with a grating squeak and Michael was served his second look at the international backpacking scene. Happy Tom’s was a guest house, a hostel where travelers of all sorts put up for the night, and even at this late hour they were everywhere. A blonde Swede brushed her teeth while studying the notices tacked to a decaying corkboard; a black backpacker with bright red braids kicked back reading a Lonely Planet guidebook; and a waif of a girl who looked like she couldn’t have been more than sixteen pecked out an e-mail at an aging computer terminal.

  Kate nudged Michael forward into the narrow hall leading out of the tiny common room. He passed a communal bathroom, followed by an open doorway. Inside Michael saw backpackers snoring on racks of floor to ceiling metal bunks. Kate continued forward another two steps and inserted a key into a door at the far end of the hall. Ensuring that no one was watching, she opened the door. It wasn’t a regular room at the hostel, that much was clear. Brooms and cleaning supplies lined the walls. But there was also a single metal cot complete with trundle bed. She shut the door and flipped on a light.

  “We need to talk,” Kate said.

  “Here?”

  “You have a better idea?”

  Michael drummed his fingers on a jug of bleach. “Yeah. We could go to the police. Tell them what happened.”

  Kate almost laughed before lowering her voice to a whisper. “This isn’t America. There’s no innocent until proven guilty. There’s only guilty and more guilty and as far as I could tell, you had blood all over you.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “You fled the scene.”

  “It was your idea to leave.”

  “To save your ass.”

  “And why would you do that?” Michael asked. “You don’t even know me.”

  Kate took a seat on the drooping cot. “Call it a character flaw,” she said. “You were in trouble, I helped out. All I want in return is an explanation.”

  Michael averted his eyes, glancing around the closet-sized space. “Look, it’s not you personally. I just don’t want to pull anybody else into this.”

  “You don’t think it’s kind of late for that?”

  It was true. She was involved now. Almost as involved as he was. “What do you want to know?”

  “You accused Larry of murdering your father.”

  Michael felt a lump grow in his throat. “Are you sure we’re good here?”

  “For now.”

  “Then here goes.” He dropped his pack, taking a seat on the far end of the drooping mattress. “My dad worked for a big athletic shoe company. The kind with lots of Madison Avenue marketing and product manufactured wherever it was cheapest to do it.”

  “Nike? Adidas?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The point is, he traveled a lot. Growing up, my dad spent a lot of time out of town. He was always there when we needed him, but work kept him away a lot of the time.”

  “Somehow I don’t think two dead guys are about a lack of quality time with dear old dad.”

  Michael rolled his tongue inside his mouth and said, “About six months ago, he didn’t come home at all. The official explanation was an automobile accident west of here in Guanxi province. They say his car plummeted to the bottom of a river gorge. His body was never recovered.” Michael unzipped the top compartment of his backpack. “Larry was the last to see him alive.” Michael removed a letter-sized envelope. “Five days ago I got this in the mail.”

  Opening the envelope, Michael pulled out a paper airline ticket for travel between Seattle and Hong Kong. Across the back of it was a simple message scrawled in a violent hand.

  It read: “LARRY DID IT.”

  Kate examined the envelope. “It’s postmarked Kowloon Central. No return address. You took this to mean that Larry murdered your father?”

  “How would you take it?”

  “Probably like that.” Kate considered the implications. “What do you think now?”

  “Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “So the backpacking bit, the route you were going to take?”

  “In the event that Larry was a dead end,” Michael winced at his choice of words, “I knew my dad was last seen out here. I came to find what happened to him.”

  “So what are you waiting for?”

  Kate reached into her daypack and without another word tossed him Larry’s bloody cell phone. It was an Android smartphone, probably less than a year old, and if you looked past the blood, barely used. After a moment’s hesitation, Michael woke the device from sleep mode. Then he hit play.

  The first thing about the video clip Michael noticed was the room. It had stark concrete walls, almost like a cell. A battered metal door was visible in one corner. An incandescent bulb hung from the ceiling above a gray metal table. To the side of the table was a gray tubular metal chair. Michael’s father stood between the table and chair. He had several days’ growth of gray beard and his wispy hair was greasy, falling haphazardly over his forehead. From the video, he looked to be in his mid-sixties, though Michael knew him to be younger than that. His father’s eyes burnt like hot embers, despite his obvious fatigue. He wore a simple oxford shirt, the collar open. Michael paid special attention to his neck, because even in this medium shot, he recognized the pendant—three small stars offset in a silver ring—that his father wore.

  “What’s he saying?”

  Michael realized that the volume was still turned off on the phone. He turned it up.

  “One, two, four, six, one, three, eight —”

  “Start it from the beginning.”

  Michael replayed the message, this time with the volume on.

  “Eight, five, six —”

  “It’s like he’s reading off the weekly lotto draw.”

  His father finished uttering the digits, sixteen of them, all a number between zero and nine, and the screen went blank. That was it. Michael checked the phone, but there was little else. No outgoing calls, nothing in the address book, no cached web pages, no apps, no games, nothing except a record of a single incoming call.

  “Either Larry’s really unpopular —”

  “Or he purged the phone.”

  Michael shared a glance with Kate and did the most expedient thing in the book. He tapped the redial button. There were the telltale tones of digits being dialed, followed by the sound of a connection being made, followed by nothing at all. Dead air.

  “Who are you?” Michael asked.

  The connection was cut. Michael immediately dialed again, but this time the call wouldn’t go through. He tried for a third time, but it was the same story. Frustrated, he tossed the phone to the bed. Even at this late hour, horns and traffic were audible outside the old building. To say Hong Kong never slept was a cliché. Hong Kong didn’t even slow down to catch its breath.

  Michael watched as Kate picked up the phone. Maybe she thought she could find something else. Something he hadn’t seen. She hit the play icon again, watching his father’s video message one more time. Then, about halfway through, she paused it and hit another key. Then she just stared. As if she had seen something unexpected. Something impossible.

  “What is it?”

  Kate turned the screen toward Michael. There was an information window opened over the still video frame of his father’s gaunt face.

  “The message is dated April 25.”

  “That makes no sense. He didn’t go missing until October.”

  “April 25th of this year.”

  Michael took hold of the phone and looked himself. It was true, the time stamp read 1:36PM HKT, April 25th of the current year.

  “You know what that means?” Kate said.

  Michael just looked at her. He wasn’t a fool. He knew what it meant.

  “As of five days ago, your father was alive.”

  * * *

  End of this sample.
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  BROOD

  (A STERLING STRANGE INVESTIGATION)

  A Novella by

  Lars Guignard

  A scientist is missing...

  Alaskan fishermen are getting their fingers bitten off...

  And the fish we eat is at the root of a conspiracy that will change us all.

  Paranormal detective Sterling Strange faces his most horrifying case yet. Alaskan fishermen are getting their fingers bitten off. Soon after, they disappear. Sterling's quest to determine the fate of missing men takes him to a wilderness fish farm. But the investigation takes a back seat to survival when Sterling finds himself next on the fish farmer's list.

  BROOD is a 20,000 word novella that takes the reader on a wild and frightening ride deep into the wilderness where fish are being bred for more than their meat.

  Readers praise BROOD:

  "This is a novella for all seasons. Stephen King watch out!"

  "This was quite possibly the coolest novella I've ever read. Interesting characters, gripping plot -- can't wait to read more from this writer!"

  Read an excerpt from BROOD.

  BROOD

  (A STRANGE INVESTIGATION)

  A Novella

  By Lars Guignard

  Chapter 1

  IT WAS A grey day on the Pacific, the sun hidden behind progressive banks of low purple cloud. Rocking gently among the forested islands, a wooden fishing boat plied its trade. The forty-foot boat rose and fell on the swells, its big rear drum humming as it hauled in the day’s catch. On deck, a young fisherman in full foul weather gear and thick rubber gloves removed the catch as it was drawn in. He went by the name of Jay and he had seen something in the net that bothered him a great deal. One of the silver salmon he had been tossing into the hold had been ripped entirely in half.

  “Some kind of thing's been at it again,” Jay said.

  Up front in the wheelhouse, the wizened captain sighed. His name was Max and he had been through this before with his deckhand. The kid was constantly complaining. “Ain’t nothing but the new net,” Max said.

  Jay did his best to accept Max’s words as he removed the mutilated salmon from the black nylon mesh. Then, the electric drum wound to a standstill. They used the large aluminum drum to wind in the fishing net and it looked like the mechanism was jammed up again. Jay made his way up to the drum and fiddled with the lever. As he worked on it, there was a ripple in the inky black water below. It looked like a small black-tipped fin gliding toward the stern of the boat. But Jay was preoccupied. All he saw was the drum and the gears driving it as he struggled to free up the mechanism.

  “Got it,” Jay said.

  The drum started with a grind and Jay returned to his work at the stern of the boat. The drum wound up a few more feet of the huge gill net, then ground to a halt for a second time. It was starting to look like the problem was with the net. It was hung up on something. To add insult to injury, there was another half-eaten salmon caught just below the waterline. It was hard enough to make a living out here without something eating your catch, Jay thought. He reached into the inky black water to release the dead fish. Jay grasped the mutilated salmon by the gills to remove it. Too bad, it was a really nice catch. Maybe forty pounds. Worth good money if it hadn’t been bitten in half. Jay held the half-fish in the black water about to let it go. Instead he screamed.

  “Damn it all to hell!”

  Jay’s features contorted with pain. Something had clamped on to him. He wrenched his hand from the water. But whatever had bitten him, it was too late. Jay stared down in horror to see that his two middle fingers were missing, blood streaming down his bright yellow glove.

  • • •

  SEVERAL MILES AWAY, up a wilderness fjord, a ramshackle ocean fish farm sat anchored two hundred feet from the shore. The fish farm was comprised of two and a half acres of galvanized docks with a two-story feed barge anchored at one end. The docks supported the deep nets which held the fish farm’s stock. On these same docks, the fish farmer, a rough looking woman named Bergit, plied her trade. Bergit was no more than a few inches over five feet tall and almost as broad, but despite her years, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her. She was a woman accustomed to hard work and long days, a woman who possessed the kind of strength that couldn’t be bought in a gym.

  Bergit focused straight ahead as she stalked the length of the metal dock in her patched rain gear and giant rubber boots. She walked as though she was expecting someone, or something. A twelve-inch gutting knife hung from her meaty hand, and as she strode, she saw what she had been waiting for. The black-tipped fin. Without breaking her stride, Bergit reached into the dark ocean, and in one smooth move, scooped a three-foot dogfish out by the tail. The dogfish, really a vicious cold water shark, bucked violently, but Bergit was more violent still. In a strong, fluid motion, she smacked the dogfish's head against the metal dock and slit its white belly wide open with her knife. Without hesitation she reached into the shark’s stomach and pulled out two bloody fingers. Bergit calmly inspected the fingers as if she'd been expecting the delivery. Then she kicked the eviscerated, still quivering dogfish into the ocean and walked back down the dock.

  Chapter 2

  ACROSS THE COUNTRY, and a world away, Private Investigator Sterling Strange sat quietly behind his thick oak door, staring at his iPad. Outside the double-hung window, the traffic of lower Manhattan crawled beneath his tiny Chinatown office. Sterling wore a white t-shirt and jeans. Casual day at the office. Of course every day was casual day when you were the boss. Sterling was in his mid-thirties and in decent shape. He was six feet two inches tall and about a hundred and eighty-five pounds. His eyes, the last time he checked, were blue, and his dark hair, which he still proudly possessed, showed only a hint of grey. Sterling considered himself young enough to still care about what the world threw at him, but old enough not to get too worked up about it. He used to get worked up about it, really worked up, but that was a lifetime ago, back in law school, back when a single, simple event had altered the course of his life. Now that it was behind him, investigations, specifically investigations on the unusual end of the spectrum, were his business. And today he’d landed a case that more than fit the bill.

  The client had stepped out of his office more than two hours ago, but Sterling still reviewed the details of the case. On his brightly lit iPad screen sat an image of an abandoned fishing boat washed up on shore with two State Troopers investigating. Sterling flipped the image to another shot of a similarly abandoned vessel. He paused on the photo, taking a moment to reflect. It was the old debate he had with himself before every case. He knew he’d make better money if he took on more of the standard P.I. fare: cheating wives and insurance scams and the like. Those cases generally paid more, but the truth was they just weren’t as interesting to him. Besides, if he were to do that he might as well get out of the P.I. game entirely. Put his law degree to work at a Midtown firm. His very proper mother had been hounding him for years to do just that. No, Sterling thought. He’d keep investigating the cases he did, the weird ones that nobody else wanted, until such a time came that doing so just didn’t make sense anymore. Or he got abducted by little green men. Until then, he’d plod along. One case at a time.

  There was a half-knock at the door and his partner, Nicky Lang, entered. Nicky was a little younger than him and a lot better looking. Or so he felt. She possessed the slight features and straight dark hair of her Chinese mother combined with the cool rationality of her German father. She was breathing heavily as if she had just jogged up all six flights of steps. Probably had, Sterling thought. Nicky wasn’t the kind of woman that liked to back down from a challenge. Even something as simple as a set of stairs. She was, he thought, a little more idealistic than him, but a lot more practical. Sterling reasoned that her years working as an attending physician at a psychiatric hospital had probably toughened her up to the point that nothing c
ould shock her. What he still didn’t know was why she had thrown it all away to work with him.

  Sure they had been involved in a case two years back revolving around the tragic murder of her best friend. And sure, the circumstances had been unusual and the case had been traumatic, but to leave her job permanently behind like she had, Sterling just wasn’t sure it was the best career move on her part. When he had offered her the job, Sterling had done so as a means for Nicky to work through the death of her friend. But now, more than two years later, he was convinced that it was in Nicky's best interest to move on. To take up psychiatry again full time, or to at least start seeing a few patients on the side. The irony, he thought, was that he didn’t say as much because he needed her. He had come to rely on Nicky's keen analysis and calm investigative skills. So, for better or worse, Sterling found himself with a partner whom he believed deserved to move on to other things, yet whom he kept close beside him because he relied on her. Sterling put down his tablet and focused on the here and now. They had a case.