The Hunting of Malin
Page 21
Breaking the silence with a sneeze, Jacob wiped his nose with the hat again and softened his tone. “Sorry. Can’t seem to shake this cold.” Malin handed him a box of tissues and he nearly smiled. “Thank you.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Holden shifted in his stance. “How did Cassandra kill your son?”
Glassy eyes dragged to Holden and turned distant. “She climbed up on the tractor and popped the brake while Michael was digging a rock out in front of it. I had just looked up and saw the whole thing with my own eyes from across the field. It was like I knew something bad was about to happen.”
“Oh, my God,” Malin murmured, twisting her bracelets. “That is terrible.”
“Odd things started happening the week before.”
Holden frowned. “Like what?”
“Like we all got sick as dogs for starters.” Jacob blew his nose, producing a loud honk. “Started waking up in the dead of the night to find Cassie standing by my side of the bead, watching me sleep. The cats growl and hiss whenever she walks into a room, and I found a dead rabbit under her bed.” He pocketed the balled-up Kleenex and a fly landed in his hair. “Partially eaten.”
“Okay,” Malin said, clearing her throat and buttoning her coat. “I’m sorry about your son, but this isn’t the kind of thing we take on.”
“Look, we’re just some hardworking dairy farmers making an honest living but I have money.”
“Mr. Winston, it’s not about the money, it’s about…”
“And I can get more money,” he interrupted, clear liquid running from his nose into his mouth. “I also just inherited my parents’ farm.”
“We’ll take the case!”
Slack jawed, Malin slowly turned to Holden with anger swimming in her eyes. “Excuse me?”
He pulled her closer and spoke out the corner of his mouth. “We can help them and you know it.”
“Or get us all killed.”
Exhaling, he traded a look with Jacob. “His daughter deserves the chance to grow up.”
She opened her mouth to protest but only a tired sigh came out.
Winking at her, Holden swept a hand out over the desk and sat down in the wingback. “Have a seat and start from the beginning, Mr. Winston,” he said, tapping a pen against a blank notepad.
Malin stood and glared at Holden for a few seconds before turning to Roxanna, who enthusiastically nodded her endorsement. Unbuttoning her coat and setting it on a nearby table, Malin sat down next to Holden and tried not to tremble as Jacob Winston finally took a seat and brought them up to speed on a ghastly tale of sorrow and doom, stopping only to blow his red nose.
Breath still floating out in white wisps.
The End
About the Author:
Upon graduating from The University of Iowa, Sean Thomas Fisher spent the next several years writing and performing radio shows on Lazer 103.3 in Des Moines, Lazer 103 in Milwaukee, and Lazer 99.3 in Springfield, Mass.
After several less than impressive forays into horror, Sean sold his soul to the dark side and began writing romantic thrillers under a female pen name. His first two novels hit The New York Times & USA Today bestsellers list right out of the gate. Like his Facebook page to find out who! Currently, he is back for the attack in the genre he grew up loving, bringing a darker twist resulting in the Amazon chart-topping series, A Little More Dead.
When Sean is not writing, he is biking, grilling, and cleaning up apple juice his daughter spilt before the ants come and eat them alive.
Books by Sean Thomas Fisher:
The Amazon bestselling series in Supernatural Thrillers, Horror and Ghosts:
A Little More Dead (Dead Series Book 1)
A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (Dead Series Book 2)
A Little More Alive (Dead Series Book 3 - The Final Chapter)
And for fans of Jaws and The Fog:
Floodwater (A zombie novel unlike any before it)
Coming soon:
Scary House
It’s almost Halloween and Gavin and his friends are tired of playing soccer. Scotty hates soccer. Fearlessly, they set out on their BMX bikes to investigate an abandoned house on the outskirts of town that will change their lives forever. For unbeknownst to them, something horrific happened within those walls in 1964 and what Gavin and his friends uncover will leave one of them dead. The others will have to fight through their grief-stricken fear to avoid becoming the next fatality of the Campbell House.
Like Sean’s Facebook page for future release dates, end of the world forecasts, and safe-house locations.
A message from the author:
Thank you for reading The Hunting of Malin! Before you go, I hope you’ll turn the page, enjoy the hidden chapter and leave a quick review when finished. I appreciate every honest one I can get and thank you again!
If you are reading this, you are the resistance...
Chapter33
Luna stared at the beige wall phone on the other side of the dirty glass. It looked just like the one on her side: old, battered and worn. Like her. That night in Mortimer Woods aged her ten years and she was always tired now. Always without appetite. Always seeing things that weren’t there. Looking through the glass, she watched a guard usher a man inside the narrow room. He stared at her, swimming in an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed in front of him and his brown mop overdue for a good cut. He sat down across from Luna and interlocked his fingers on the silver table between them, studying the band of white hair running through her dark locks for an agonizing moment or two. Then, upon coming to some sort of conclusion, raised his hands to the phone on his side of the glass.
Filling her lungs, Luna grabbed the beige one on her side and cleared her throat. “Hello, Roscoe.”
“Luna,” he said softly, glancing over his shoulder when the guard shut the metal door and leaned against it. “Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?”
“Shall I call you Roscoe?”
Hoisting an indifferent shoulder to an ear, blackness swam in his oily eyes. “As you wish.”
“I hope they’re treating you well.”
“Do you now?”
“Roscoe, I am truly sorry for…” Her eyes jerked to the beefy guard staring off into space. The one thinking about what he was going to order for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays when his shift ended in forty-five minutes. “For everything.”
Roscoe leaned closer to the filthy partition, handcuffs jingling with the movement. “I can’t tell you how much it means to have you visit. When I’m released from this terrible misunderstanding, you will be the first I come see.”
Tipping her chin down, Luna tried hiding how fast her heart was beating inside her chest but when a fly landed on his side of the glass it was a futile task. “And I shall be there waiting, ready to assist you in any way I can.” The guard glanced her direction and cleared his throat.
Roscoe shed an impish grin, revealing a missing tooth on the left side. “But you’ve done so much already.” His eyes fell to Luna’s wrist and brightened. “I hope you’re well.”
Luna glanced at the fingermarks branded into her skin and pulled her hand into her lap to hide it. Sometimes it still hurt and would never look the same and she was damn lucky to get off that easy. “I am just fine,” she said, freshening up her smile. “Little hungry though; think I will stop off somewhere nice for dinner on the way home.” Her face hardened. “Wish you could join me; you look famished.”
“Give my regards to Malin,” he replied, white-knuckling the phone. “She was such a…fun girl to be with.”
“She would love to see you again.” Her gaze slid to the handcuffs around Roscoe’s wrists. “Too bad you’re indisposed.”
Sighing, his breath fogged the glass, leaving a handprint behind when it dissolved. “I’m sure it won’t be long before we see each other again.” His ensuing grin made Luna stiffen in the hard, plastic chair.
Adjusting the phone in her sweaty hand, she spoke in a cold whisper. “I claim the bl
ood of the lamb.”
Jade pulled Roscoe’s eyebrows down and grew quiet, heat rising from its orange collar in a shimmery wave.
Smiling, Luna got up and took a look around the room that smelled of urine and body odor, exhaling a somber breath into the phone that deflated her shoulders. “Glad to see you’re doing so well,” she said, hanging up and turning for the door.
Something hammered against the partition behind her, freezing her in place. Heart pounding, she turned to see Roscoe’s hand splayed against the glass. His eyes were different now, brown and afraid.
Human.
“Luna! You have to get me out of here,” he shouted, his muffled plea making the guard tense. “Please, don’t leave me here. I didn’t do this and you know it!”
Grief turned the words forming on her tongue to mush, sending them sliding back down her throat on a sickening trail of bile. She rubbed at the scars beginning to burn into her wrist.
“Luna!” Roscoe’s eyes softened along with his voice. “Please.”
Heart spilling onto the concrete floor, Luna smiled weakly at him and left the room before breaking down in tears. The heavy door clanged shut behind her, unable to stop Roscoe’s screams from following her home, where she locked the doors and cried into her pillows.