Excerpt from "Charlatan" - 12.01.12

11/27/2012

In anticipation of Somewhere in the Shadows, which is tentatively scheduled to release on December 01, 2012, I wanted to share a short snippet from my story "Charlatan".

For more information on this short story anthology, please visit here.

Otherwise, enjoy!

"Charlatan"
Somewhere in the Shadows Excerpt

Inside, louder than the threatening thunder and whipping wind, Bradford Price raised a bank statement above his head and shouted his throat dry at Jacki, his wife. For a moment, he quieted down and flipped through the pages, shaking his head at the longest list of payments he’d ever seen under his account. Jacki sat as far back as she could on the couch and tried to restrain the gelatinous tears burning at the corners of her eyes.

            “Look at these,” Brad said, his voice low and torn. It was his quiet voice he knew Jacki feared most. “I’ve never – I thought we discussed this already. Unless you plan on picking up a job, you need to watch how much money you blow. I mean, look at this!” He ran his finger down the middle of the second page and stopped at the largest number. “A withdraw for over a thousand dollars? What did you buy?”

            Jacki remained quiet, sunk into the cushions of the leather couch. Rather than speak, she raised her hands to her lips and began to chew at her cuticles, for her nails were like citrus gnawed down to the bloody rhine. “I just . . . did some shopping.”

            “Shopping?” Brad roared, his voice at full volume again. “Are you shitting me? How the hell could you spend nearly two thousand dollars shopping in one day?”

            “It’s not like we don’t have the money, Brad,” she cried out. She hopped up from her seat and snagged the statement from his hands. As he yanked the paper, Jacki threw herself back to the couch and flinched. She flipped through the pages and returned to the first one. She pointed at the first number. “How about this one, Brad? Huh? Almost six thousand dollars gone before you took off for a weekend with your friends last month. Huh? What about this?”

            Brad stomped his foot and yelled, “That was for Matt’s Las Vegas trip. It was his goddamn bachelor’s party. I told you that!”

            “Yeah, sure, but what did you spend it on? Some stripper? Huh, what did you spend it on, Brad?”

            The lights in the house flickered, and soon thunder shook the house again. Brad leaned in, and again Jacki flinched. He snagged the bank statement and pointed out another number on the last sheet. “Don’t deflect. Look at these numbers, Jacki. Fucking two hundred dollars on our last cell phone bill? Damn it –”

            “– That’s you too with all that stupid CEO shit you do on your phone.”

            “That’s SEO,” Brad retorted. “And I don’t work from my phone. God, if you could work as much as you text . . .” He grabbed both of their cell phones from the coffee table and hurled them against the far wall of their beige living room. The glass casings shattered, leaving the phones in two pieces on the tan carpet. “There, are you happy? I solved that goddamn problem.”

            “Is that how you plan on solving things?” Jacki asked. “By just getting rid of them? Isn’t that how I tried to solve our problem?”

            “Drop it,” Brad said through clenched teeth. “We don’t want to relive that.”

            “Who doesn’t, Brad? Who?” Jacki asked. She started up again, but was cut short by a tap on the front door.

            Brad raised his index finger to his lips and urged his wife to remain quiet. The tapping continued.

            “Just answer the door,” Jacki said.

            “I don’t feel like having any guests right now,” Brad whispered while trying to regain control of the conversation. “Do you? You look like shit right now with eyeliner all over your face.”

            Someone started to pound on the front door, followed by the shaking of the handle. Nonetheless, Brad refused to let his wife get up and answer the door.

            Lightning struck outside, illuminating a set of dark eyes peering in the living room window. Jacki jerked her head away from the sight and screamed.

            “Shut the fuck up,” Brad told her.

            Bolts of yellow and purple lit up the outside world again, but left the house darkened. At that moment, Brad and Jacki heard the creak of the backdoor as it slipped open down the hall.

            “You didn’t lock the door?” Brad asked his wife.

            She took a breath and said, “Are you serious? We’ve been home all day.”

            Brad disregarded the forthcoming argument and stepped down the hallway, one careful foot after another. As he drew nearer to the back door, his breaths brought weight. He feared his breathing alone would alert whoever had broken into his home.

            Footsteps doubled near the backdoor, and Brad stopped in his tracks to listen. One wet click after another, the footsteps increased number and volume. Was it just one person who’d broken into their home? He held his breath and tried to isolate the noise. He turned the corner, and that’s when he met the dark eyes up close.

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