Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels (Volume 1)

by Dan O'Shea

  Sheriff says nothing. Fear in his eyes now. Gone the anger, gone the feigned indifference. Full of fear, full of death. Full of exactly what filled his victims’ eyes.

  Someone had told Mama. A friend of a friend who knew an acquaintance who had a relative…. Published it on her hidden blog. In hidden bits and pieces. Some people figured it out, most didn’t.

  The sheriff did.

  And threatened her with the worst accusation he could think of: being what he himself was…a child molester. Threatened to go to the newspaper, to publish the letter – with just enough clues that everyone would know who the woman was – unless she cleaned him off the blog.

  Reading the letter, knowing she was going to be accused, knowing how hard that stain was to clean from a life, she’d panicked, had a heart attack. But she’d fought back first. And maybe that was enough. Maybe it was what Benske should have done thirty-five years ago.

  No one – except the boys in the club – had ever known. Benske had told no one, no teachers, no parents, no lovers.

  Which is exactly what he will say about this night.

  Nothing.

  But he’ll relive the death shot over and over.

  Maybe that instead of cutting.

  LOVELY MEN

  Matthew C. Funk

  I only notice him when he’s so close that he could break my neck. Or cuff my wrists. Or jab a stun-gun into my back.

  Scariest of all, he could kiss me, and I want him to.

  At one glance, his hair really sends me.

  “Storm hit like a bat out of Hell,” he says. Sure enough, I feel those words on my neck. My blood starts a sweet simmer.

  The downpour that forced us to share this walk-up alcove raises its roar.

  His hair’s dripping like mine. But with short, auburn hair like that, it just takes on a frosted look. It’s something from a fantasy novel. His smile’s just as fine.

  “Really came out of nowhere,” I say. Talking over the rush of the flooding street takes more than a whisper. More than a whisper takes courage.

  And looking away from that hair, that smile, those eyes, would take an act of God.

  He’s got eyes like Navajo jewelry. He’s taller than me. He’s about my age.

  “Since we’ll be stuck here for a while,” he says, raising a hand into the narrow distance between us, “I’m Carter.”

  “Wherever I’m stuck, I’m Jari.”

  And I am stuck: Pulse locked in fifth gear. Nerves at high frequency. Thoughts riding a rail between kisses and handcuffs, pliers and penetration, sex and security.

  “Looks like it’ll be a wet night for us, Jari,” Carter says, looking at me like we were on the cover of a Harlequin romance.

  Yes, it will, you lovely man.

  Yes, it will, you son of a bitch.

  • • • •

  I’d think of Vicious’ hair a lot during the week he spent raping me.

  I tried not to think at all. A week locked in a basement is a long time not to think. And screaming nerves must have their say.

  I’d concentrate on staying numb. I’d worry about infection. I’d plan out escapes, negotiations for my release, ways to fight back.

  And I’d think about his hair—how it looked, felt, almost smelled, like suede.

  And even with the aches and scratches and vomit and screams and despair, those thoughts would make my breath tighten. My pulse hummed. I moistened.

  And after he let me go, and blackmail kept me doing his dirt until I struck back, I’d think about that hair under my fingers as he forced inside me.

  I’d think about it because I wanted to.

  “So you’re a police officer.” The mint of Carter’s mouth brushes my eyebrows.

  “Detective.” My smile comes too easy for my liking. “Just like you.”

  “Huh?” Then he gets it, chuckles. “Oh, no, I just noticed your gun.”

  “Maybe I’m a hoodlum.”

  “Hoodlums don’t look so good.”

  I curse myself for blushing. And for not minding. And I try to scowl, but it doesn’t work.

  Instead, I’m thinking about mint breath, Chanel for Men skin, eyes I could never get tired of. Eyes that look at me and like what they see.

  “Some do.”

  “You’d know. I just own a bookstore.”

  Something in me softens: He seems so safe. Safe and interested. Interested and interesting.

  “Oh?” I say. “Where?”

  What I really want to know, is would my stomach sour to turpentine when he touches my breasts? Would having him atop me make me want to bite a piece out of that perfect jaw line?

  “7523 Maple.”

  Would it be different with him, on the backroom desk at 7523 Maple, than on a bare mattress in a tenement basement?

  Does a man’s body really taste like battery acid and blood like it does in my nightmares?

  And why do I want that taste so badly either way?

  “You should drop by,” he says. His hand encases my shoulder. My flesh cringes. It cringes and loves it.

  “Oh yeah?” I say, not smiling anymore.

  He’s smiling enough now to convince us both.

  • • • •

  It took a lot of convincing after the week in the basement to hate Vicious more than I hated myself.

  I’d avoid other cops. All friends. Mirrors.

  My reflection yelled at me, “You brought it on yourself.”

  I’d pissed him off. I’d fallen into his ambush. I didn’t fight back enough.

  I’m a woman.

  I started spitting in the mirrors. It made me feel ugly, and ugly felt better than sad.

  I came out of the shower once, lifted my chest to the mirror and told myself, “He wouldn’t have done it to you if you didn’t have these.”

  If I was a man, Vicious would have just shot me. He’d have been merciful.

  I started avoiding showers. Meals. Sleep.

  But I couldn’t be other than human. And humans have appetites.

  “Fuck,” I used liberally, to offend people. To be horrible. To hate the word.

  It didn’t make my hunger for the act go away.

  The thoughts of suede hair still made me tingle. The flavors and aches in my dreams left me damp with more than tears and sweat.

  No matter how many men I bruised and broke, I can’t stop thinking of their flesh.

  • • • •

  “Yeah,” Carter says, “I bet you have stories to tell.”

  My whole body locks tight.

  “Yes,” I say. My heart’s crying to tell him. I want to show him all the broken pieces, the places in me shattered and intact, and have him hold them all, keep them in that hand on my shoulder, touch them like they need, without shame.

  “Let’s trade some over dinner,” Carter says.

  Thought of eating is impossible. I’m aching.

  I take his hand to lift it away.

  It would have left on its own anyway. A week after hearing those stories he wanted. Or after a month of sleep broken by me waking up shrieking beside him.

  Or a year noticing that I watch him like he wasn’t a lover but a loaded gun.

  His hand squeezes mine. Mine squeezes back.

  That ache in me goes sweet as he leans in.

  I bend to meet him.

  And the kiss happens just like I want. Like I crave. Like I fear.

  And in the space of tongues about to touch, fear turns to anger.

  I put my teeth into his lip.

  Carter pulls back, hand covering his mouth. He’s not smiling anymore and neither am I. I linger until the horror in his eyes hits me, then I walk for the rain.

  “I work nights.” I keep my eyes on him.

  Vicious had 24-karat eyes. Kind sometimes. Even sometimes when I was two inches below them screaming for him to stop.

  Carter’s eyes aren’t kind any longer. There’s enough poison in them to kill what’s left of my hope. The storm does the rest as I walk head
down through ankle deep runoff. Downpour soaks me through like I was paper, washing everything away, leaving me cold and blank and numb.

  I’m numb but still stuck: Fearing hands that aren’t cuffed, not wanting them when they are.

  ESCAPE

  Jen Conley

  The sound of the motor was faint, like a distant gentle buzz. Leah was sleeping, but as the engine’s drone grew louder, it began to wake her, slowly, then quickly, then urgently.

  Her eyes flicked open and she sat up. She’d been knocked out on over-the-counter cold medication, but now, with that awful sound of the engine, her heart thrashed inside her body and her stomach clenched. She tried to block out the muffled voices and music from downstairs, and strained to hear the whining of a vehicle coming through the woods, traveling down the dirt road. The clock on the night table said 3:54 a.m. The room was dark.

  Leah leapt out of bed and darted across the floor, halting at the closed window. She peered through the curtains and watched as headlights cut through the darkness, flickering between brush and trees. The moon was a slim crescent, barely illuminating the night, and she couldn’t see the vehicle but Leah knew it was a truck. The headlights were high.

  Oh my God, she concluded with absolute horror. Brian. How did he find me?

  • • • •

  The house where she was sleeping was set at the end of a dirt and gravel road, off a quiet two-lane county highway. Tom Cotter, the owner, tended bar at the restaurant where Leah waited tables. Tom had come across Leah in the parking lot, her tire flat, Leah with that relentless cold, so nervous to go back to her apartment alone—her college roommates were out of town. Tom took pity on the girl and invited her to stay for the night. His brother, Richie, would be home and the house would be warm and safe, so why not stay? One of them would change the tire in the morning.

  The evening had not been very quiet. Richie was a big weed smoker, and he and Tom spent the night partying, listening to Phish and the Grateful Dead. After swallowing cold medicine, Leah had said goodnight to the guys, and went upstairs to a guestroom, took off her sneakers and jeans, dropped into the bed. Soon she’d drifted into a medicated slumber, occasionally being woken by a drunken roar.

  “Jesus, that’s hilarious!” Tom howled from below.

  Leah stared through the window, her head still a little spacey, her eyes following the headlights. Perhaps it was a friend of Tom’s and her panic was nothing but a puff of smoke.

  The truck rolled into view under the slim moonlight and stopped in front of the house. It was white. Brian owned a white truck.

  Leah closed her eyes, her throat tight with dread, and quickly recalled the scene from two weeks earlier: “Baby, I can’t live without you. You ripped my heart out!” They’d been standing behind the restaurant, near the dumpsters. Leah told him they were finished—as she had days before—but he said no, they weren’t and leaned in to kiss her, and she let him because she was scared, unsure of what to do, because she’d once loved him, or thought she had.

  Then she found courage and pushed away.

  In response, Brian kneed her between the legs. The blow knocked her to the ground. Horrendous pain stung her vagina and fired through her pelvis.

  Immediately, he had dropped down and threw his arms around her. “Oh, God, oh God, what have I done?” he moaned. “I’m so sorry. I love you.”

  Later, she called the police, got a restraining order, told her boss and co-workers at the restaurant the situation.

  Now, the truck’s door opened and shut and Leah saw a hulking shadow move across the yard before disappearing under the eaves. Call the police, she thought and jumped away from the window, searching for the little bag with her cell phone. Within a minute, she realized she’d left it downstairs, maybe on the kitchen counter. Leah grabbed her jeans and shirt, quickly got dressed, shoved her feet into her sneakers, eyed the window again. There was an overhang she could climb out onto, jump off of, disappear into the woods—if it became necessary.

  A loud knocking permeated the house, but no movement from below was made.

  She thought of going down to Brian, talking gently to him, maybe promising she’d return, then getting her cell phone from the kitchen counter, ducking into the bathroom to call the police, maybe call her mom, too. But the fear she harbored wouldn’t let her. Instead, she stared at the window, pushed the sheer curtains aside, feeling her heart ramming against her rib cage. Another knock echoed, and someone finally answered.

  The voices from downstairs were muted and barely audible, overlapped with the gentle beat of music. Leah hoped Tom would say, No man, she isn’t here, and Brian would go away, but she knew that wouldn’t happen. He knew she was there.

  Yet, it did happen. The front door shut and through the window, Leah watched her ex make his way to the truck. She let out a deep breath, her shoulders slumped with relief. She even smiled.

  But it wasn’t over. In a minute, he was crossing the yard again, his gait deliberate with extensive, heavy strides. He held something long. A shotgun.

  Leah’s mind slid to the edge of absolute panic, her gut sick as hell. Still, she got control, placed her hand on the window and forced herself to wait.

  A thunderous burst came from downstairs, followed by a terrible crack—he’d kicked the front door open. “Where’s Leah?” Brian howled.

  She froze.

  An eruption of noise followed: Brian called for Leah again, something crashed, and Richie yelled, “Yo, dude, take it easy! This ain’t cool!”Another crash—glass breaking. He was knocking things down, probably swinging at objects with his gun.

  Get out! her mind ordered.

  Leah opened the window wide, ready to escape, but a screen stopped her.There wasn’t enough light to see how to unlatch it, so she pushed and shoved and beat at the thin metal, her fists burning from the hits. The frame finally buckled and loosened, and she jerked it free from the casing. But it slid from her trembling hands and tumbled down, knocking against the overhanging roof which covered the wrap-around porch, and fell to the ground.

  “Put your fucking phone down!” Leah heard Brian shout.

  In a minute, he’d be in the bedroom.

  She climbed out onto the slanted overhang, then pushed the window closed—when Brian got upstairs, she didn’t want him noticing her escape route. She stood against the house, then slid along the siding towards the corner. She went carefully, concentrating on each movement so as to not fall, hoping to get around to the side, where it would be safer. There she would jump, run into the woods, go for help.

  “Leah!” Brian’s muffled bellow came from inside.

  Quietly, she rounded the corner, then slipped into a sitting position and inched her way to the roof’s edge, preparing for the jump. A white glow from a downstairs window shone on the grass just below and this is what made Leah hesitate. Brian might see her if she jumped. Could she be fast enough to outrun him if he did? She was in good shape, but she was not a runner, not a sprinter.

  When she heard another muffled shout from Brian, she decided it was time, window light or no light. She leapt off the overhang, landing on the ground hard, her ankle turning—pain shooting through her leg. Sucking in her breath, she quickly pulled herself up, scurried across the grass and into the woods, but made no headway because her body became trapped in a tangle of sticker bushes. They stabbed her face and arms fiercely, but she did not cry out. She plucked herself from the trap and turned towards the house again, moving a few paces before stepping behind a slim tree, finding herself on the side of the house, thinking she needed to run towards the highway.

  A gunshot went off.

  Horror fired through her blood and it took everything in her body to hold it together. Leah searched the dark, seeking in desperate panic where to go, praying that Brian was aiming those shots at the ceiling.

  Then there was a noise. An upstairs window slid open. Tom was trying to get out.

  “Tom,” Leah whispered, waving her hand. “Here.”
>
  But Tom didn’t see her and seconds later, Leah heard him sob. “Please. Don’t!”

  Abruptly, the gun discharged—a monstrous blast echoed through the barren night.

  Leah’s body stiffened, foul bile coming up her throat. She bit her hand to keep from crying. Her throat was tight and she did everything not to whimper, or make any type of sound.

  She was just about to run for it, but then she heard Brian outside and quickly ducked down. Leah was still in the woods, huddled in the brush when he marched across the yard, over to the side, right in front of her. He was so close, trudging through the grass, walking into the glow of house light, the shotgun resting on his shoulder like some mad hunter on the prowl. She saw a flash of his face—a crooked nose, big head, longish hair.

  In the slim moonlight, Leah saw him pick up the screen.

  “Fuck!” he shouted, hurling it into the woods and stomping away. She heard the crunching of rock as he crossed the dirt and gravel driveway, and she heard him climb into his truck, the metal door opening and closing in a loud, shrill whine. The vehicle’s headlights blazed and the truck backed up, turned and disappeared down the road, the motor groaning as it went away.

  Leah let out a breath—Brian must have assumed she’d run to the highway. She did not budge, remaining in the crouching position, trying to decide what to do: run, or go inside and get her cell phone, call the police.

  And Tom and Richie could be alive.

  The latter won. She stood and crept along the house, moving deftly, her entire body shaking. She entered through the front door.

  The house was silent. The light shone in the kitchen. Leah searched the counters but couldn’t find her bag with her cell. She saw the phone on the wall and desperately went for it, but the dial tone was dead—she doubted Brian had cut the lines. Most likely Tom had gotten rid of their landline like everyone else these days.

  She walked into the living room, and the misery of it made her cry out: Richie lay beyond the couch, slumped against the wall, shot in the chest. Blood was splashed over his Grateful Dead t-shirt, dripping across the silkscreen picture of the skeleton and rose.