Murder Mystery in That Golden Summer
Another of my short stories has been accepted for publication. It will be coming out in December in an anthology of very short Canadian short stories titled 'That Golden Summer' published by Polar Expressions Publishing. My story is a 740 word murder mystery entitled 'Murder Mystery'.
The anthology is an annual compilation and I had a story published in last years edition. I think it is a good venue for amateur writers like me; entering a story costs nothing, they offer cash prizes for the best entries, and publish about a third of the entries.
The only drawback is that the anthology is not widely distributed so stories don't get read by many people. So, here for anyone who wants to read it, is the story I had published a year ago in 'The Sun Shall Rise'.
A Fateful Encounter
Alan Kemister
Amy
waited in her wheelchair while the grossly overweight young man in front of her
navigated the debit card reader. The
dishevelled-looking fellow needed a haircut and simultaneously disgusted and
fascinated Amy. She’d placed her items on
the conveyer belt, and was searching for her Air Miles card when her grocery
list slipped from her hand. It settled
at the fat man’s feet.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, pointing. “Would you please retrieve that paper for
me?”
He
bent down, leaning heavily on the checkout counter to retrieve it.
He
smiled as he passed it to her, and she realized he had an intelligent-looking
face hiding behind the fat, and eyes that pierced right into her. “Here you are,” he said.
Amy
started daydreaming as Penny, the checkout clerk, and her overweight customer struggled
with his transaction. She imagined
herself standing naked on the white sand beach at some tropical resort. A tall, handsome, and equally naked stranger
stood in front of her, holding her list saying ‘here you are,’ and smiling. His voice and the features of his face were just
like those of the man in the checkout queue, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat
on him. The list morphed into a cocktail
glass, and he announced, “To us,” as they clinked their glasses together.
“Do
you have your Air Miles card?” Penny asked, bringing Amy back to reality just
in time to see the real-life version of her stranger on the beach pick up his
four plastic bags of groceries, nod in her direction, smiling once again, and
walk away. Her few groceries had been
checked through while she daydreamed and she only had to pay before Penny loaded
them into the basket at the back of her chair.
She hurried, trying to catch up to the man, but the store was crowded
and she couldn’t make haste.
Outside,
she wheeled across the parking lot and onto the upward sloping sidewalk only to
see him heading across the next intersection onto a much steeper section of
road. She stopped to catch her breath
and watched him disappear. He walked
quickly with a jaunty sort of bouncing gait; the heat of the mid-summer day, and
the bags of groceries, not slowing him at all.
He was obviously much fitter than he looked, and Amy proceeded home
wondering about her enigmatic stranger.
That
night, Amy dreamt about him. Once again,
she chased him up the street, but this time he was naked, and his jaunty gait
caused all the fat to bounce and jiggle as he walked. She called out, and he turned back toward her. He now looked emasculated with his longish
hair, breast-like protuberances from the fat on his chest, and genitals hidden
behind the rolls of fat sagging from his stomach. As he approached her, the grocery bags
transformed into coils of rope. She was terrified and unable to turn
her wheelchair as he came up to her, his eyes like laser beams burning holes in
her skull.
She
woke in a panic and collapsed on the pillow gasping for air.
When
her heart stopped pounding, she was hot and sweating. It was a few minutes after six and the sun
had just risen above the horizon. Seven
hours earlier, it was even hotter and she’d gone to bed wearing only an
oversized T-shirt. She’d stripped all
the covers off the bed and left the windows wide open. When she woke from the dream, the temperature
had only dropped a few degrees and she no longer wore the T-shirt. It was across the room, neatly folded over
the arm of a chair.
Her
reaction to the stranger generated many questions. Why did she dream about that hippopotamus of
a man? Why was one or other of them always
naked? What did he intend to do with the
rope? And how did her T-shirt become folded
over the arm of a chair ten feet from her bed?
Someone
had sent a message and it didn’t take her long to decipher it. It was time to shake off the lethargy caused
by the freak infection that had taken her ability to walk, and stolen her
interest in almost anything. The man on
the beach represented the challenge and the potential reward; and the one with
the rope…the consequences of failure. But
what did the T-shirt signify?
