𝙳𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎 – 𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐 | Book Review

‘𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎’𝚜 𝚗𝚘 𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚗 𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚑 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚔𝚒𝚍𝚜.’

𝙳𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎 – 𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚙𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐

𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆:

Dolores Claiborne has a story to tell. But not quite what the police had expected. Dolores Claiborne has a confession to make… (taken from the blurb).

𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: 4/5 ⭐️

A good read if you’re looking to dip into Stephen King’s mind without delving into the abyss that is The Green Mile (I’ve never been brave enough!)

The main character, Dolores Claiborne, spends a long time telling a long story – and every word is necessary.

The book is written primarily in a one-person stream of consciousness, in the voice of a 66-year-old housekeeper and carer from Little Tall Island, Maine.

Stephen King has always been a truthful, visceral author, and he has no problem capturing the voice of an old, troubled woman.

My only qualm was that I struggled to get into it due to the way it’s written, but once you get over the colloquial style – it sucks you in.

Would highly recommend!

Immoral Immortal | PART SEVEN | Flash Fiction

Click here to read Parts 1 – 6. 

PART SEVEN:

Irving tried to blink several times before his eyes would fully open. They felt as though they had been glued shut for weeks. As he would later discover – it had been six days. Six days since he had been gunned down in his own home; his sanctuary. It wasn’t his first flirtation with a fatality, but he didn’t care for it all the same.

Reality came shuddering back around him; the sound of nurses busying about their day in the corridor, the distant screams of a woman in labour. A building in which life and death both fought a daily battle; contending for the populace. Irving had always felt safe in hospitals; the familiarity of a medical environment, but waking up alone in a dimmed and empty ward, hidden behind the blue screens took the comfort away. He was very much on the back foot. He pushed his palms into the hard mattress, raising himself up in the bed until he found a vaguely comfortable sitting position. His legs seemed heavy and led-like and utterly no use at all, and Irving presumed it was the fatigue.

The curtains around his bed were drawn shut, but he could make out the human-shaped shadow approaching his bedside. The woman who emerged was altogether alarmingly unexpected. She greeted him with her usual sweet smile, tinged with a deep sadness that could not be ignored.

‘Kathy? What on earth are you doing here?’ Irving didn’t know what else to say.

‘You never allocated a new next of kin, so they contacted your old one instead.’ Kathy bent slightly and kissed Irving’s forehead. She wore a soft, grey roll neck jumper that forgivingly clung to her gracefully aged curves and bootcut trousers that exposed a pair of black kitten heels. Irving could smell her perfume lingering in the air; sweetening every breath he took as if in a field of daisies.

‘I’m sorry they bothered you. It’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Nothing to worry about?’ Kathy looked confused and outraged all at once, but that sad smile never vacated her lips. ‘You were shot at.’

‘Yes, well it was a tad unexpected. But I’m right as rain, just a bit tired is all. You really don’t need to be here. I’m sure the doctor will be round to discharge me soon.’

‘Irving.’ The confusion on his ex-wife’s face melted away and left something else in its place. Pity. ‘They told me the doctor would have already spoken to you before I got here.’ Irving had Kathy had lived very separate lives for over ten years, but he still knew every inch of her face.

‘Not good?’ His voiced piqued.

‘No, not good.’ Kathy hastily wipes away a year and sniffed; attempting to curtail the oncoming cry at bay.

‘Tell it to me straight, love.’ An old familiar affection slipping from his lips as naturally as air escaped his lungs. They were both older and wiser now, but as she sat perched on the edge of his bed, stroking his hand with her thumb – it was if the pain and heartache of their divorce had never happened. Instead, of a world-worn middle-aged woman, she was the matter-of-fact young solicitor with a closed heart and an open mind who he had been charmed by all those years ago.

‘It shattered a rib, punctured your right lung, and there is shrapnel embedded in your spinal cord.’ She took a deep breath and tried to keep it together for a moment longer. ‘Operations would probably paralyse you from the neck down, and leaving it will eventually kill you if it decides to move. There’s nothing to be done, my love. Stalemate.’

‘Bugger.’ Irving knew that if Kathy said it was hopeless, then that was that. She would have called in favours from the best doctors in the city. Everyone who was anyone owed Kathy Stiles a favour.

‘I am truly sorry.’ She squeezed his hand, unsure what else to say.

‘I’ve got a question for you.’

‘Anything? What do you need? What is it?’

‘Is my apartment in better or worse shape than I am?’

‘Your apartment can be repaired and replaced. You cannot.’

‘Know any good workmen? I might need a bit of help fitting the wheelchair ramps.’ Irving smirked, swerving to dodge a swat from Kathy. He became worryingly aware for the first time since opening his eyes just how little of his body he could feel. He stretched his arms out to test them; bending, twisting and wiggling everything possible. All seemed to be in working order. Then he moved onto his toes, commanding them to dance under the thin blanket. Nothing. Irving asked his knees to bend, but there was no response. Nothing Irving asked of his lower body was permitted. He was communicating, screaming internally at anything below his hips to move – even a little – but nothing happened, and nothing kept happening. His jokes about a wheelchair ramp now seemed naïve.

‘I’m never going to walk again, am I?’ It was a question but he didn’t want to hear the answer, and she didn’t give him one. Kathy had told him plain and simple that he was paralysed, but his mind had chosen – much like his legs – not to listen.  She sat silently holding his hand, and finally, let her own tears flow. Irving’s tears soon followed suit.

They were eventually interrupted by his doctor, an hour too late to break the news to Irving himself. Irving was deaf to his commiseration and feeble strategies for recovery. Nothing in his medical toolkit could make walk Irving walk again. He just wanted to go home and fix his apartment, to have a large glass of whisky and to keep helping young Ric with the mystery of the long dead. Perhaps even return to work with witty quips about his new wheels and recant brave and elaborate tales to his eager students. Instead, Irving politely let the doctor say his piece, nodding every twenty words or so. Once the doctor had left him, and Kathy had said her goodbyes – promising to return later on – Irving closed his eyes to the world and wished he had never opened them.

Immoral Immortal| PART SIX|

Catch up with Parts 1 – 5 here. 

Chapter Six

Ric felt the artificial lighting before he could see it. It burned his eyelids, penetrating towards his retinas; forcing his to scrunch his eyes tighter shut. It took him less than five seconds to remember being whacked and to realise he was strapped to a chair. The aged wood rough against his skin, as if it had been weathered by years of damp and rain. The fabric restraints were softer, a torn cloth of some kind.

The room was cold but had the warm and familiar scent of old books. He suspected they were probably in the library that had been broken into earlier that day. He kept his eyes shut. Ric knew the longer he kept his eyes closed, the longer he could feign unconsciousness. A metallic thud finally forced his eyes open.

And there she was. Looking at her was like staring out at a shimmering mirage. His brain knew she couldn’t exist – the shadow of a long-dead murderer – but his senses were screaming out to touch her white skin to prove she was real. Even as she paced the room – her stilettos clicking on the damaged oak floorboards – he couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘Ric, Ric, Ric. Oh – you have been a naughty boy.’ She tutted his name as she spoke. Her eyes glinting in the shadows. The bright lamp was not designed for the room they were in. The corners of the room were shrouded in shadows – which she did her best to keep to. The woman was waving an i-dent scanner in her right hand. Taunting him with it. He glanced down to his left arm and saw his bullet-torn shirt pulled up to reveal his i-dent patch.

Whenever someone moved to a new city, they were required to update their i-dent. The older i-dents were cards – evolved from the original donor cards. Professor Irving had lived in their city for ten years, so he never bothered updating his card. But Ric was new in town, so a new city meant an upgrade. To stop human traffickers from stealing legal i-dent cards – the city switched to chips, embedded into the skin of the wrist. It took the pulse, had in-built GPS to assist medics, his entire medical, professional and environmental history. In Ric’s case, it also had explicit details of the events leading up to and time spent in the GenSix Correctional Facility. The chips had almost every detail about a person’s life – why is why the i-dent scanner that she was flippantly tossing in the air was Government Issue Only.

Ric was wondering how she had managed to get hold of one when she cut through his thoughts with a question.

‘Did you get to see them?’

‘Who?’

‘Did you get to see them when you broke into the hospital?’ she asked again.

‘No.’ Ric’s whole body deflated. She had gone through his i-dent alright, every gory and miserable detail of his life.

‘Did she ever find out you were there?’

‘No. she… they… were both dead before I got there. I was too late.’

Ric could see the walls of the hospital in his mind. It was like he was back in that ward all over again. The military grey walls splattered with blood; corpses lined every corridor. By the time he had reached their room, it was too late. The whole hospital had been quarantined – and those who had been healthy when the doors sealed were now scattered throughout the hospital; joining the sick loved ones they had come to visit.

The only sounds were his footsteps, and those of the police tracking him through the hospital. He had thought through an escape – he knew of a rooftop exit – if only he could get there in time. As he found their room, he knew it had all been in vain. Ric stared at his once vivacious, charismatic wife – now awash with deathly pallor, her last act was devastatingly obvious. The crisp white hospital-issue pillow was still covering the newborn’s face. Their brand-new baby girl, stiller than the ground itself. Less than a week old, and already gone. A mother’s final act to protect her child – even if it meant killing her.

Ric had known it would be too late for his wife, but he had hoped the baby had escaped it somehow. He had heard rumours of babies being immune if the mother was infected during pregnancy. But even from across the room – for he dared not go any closer – he could see the buboes purple welts on the baby’s upper arm, matching her mother. The smell of rotting flesh hung in the air. Ric stepped forward into the room, just to see his daughter’s face. The first time he had seen her, she had just been pulled from her mother – a rosy, screaming bundle of life. Now, the second time Ric laid eyes on his baby, she was blue with death and forever silenced. Just five days old. And his beautiful, strong wife – Genevieve – slumped over in her death bed, black blood oozed from her mouth.

Ric had known it was a bad idea bringing her to the hospital – had the doctors known she had the sickness; they would never have admitted her to the labour ward. She would have been segregated, observed, tested on, and eventually executed before the disease could spread. Now, because of Ric, over two hundred people had been infected and died. All for nothing. His last hope of rescuing his baby girl had been extinguished as painfully as her life.

‘Such a shame.’ The Red Woman interrupted his painful memories once more; bringing him back to his fresh new hell. Three years had passed since their deaths, but he could never shake the nightmares.

Breaking into a quarantined hospital was a federal crime – and one that ultimately ended in solitude. They could not risk him serving his sentence with the general population prisoners – he could have caught the infection in the hospital. Instead, he spent one year’s quarantine time alone in a glass box, being watched and tested every day. After the year was up, he was deemed physically healthy, but mentally unprepared to socialise with the other prisoners. His isolation had given him time to replay those horrific moments over and over again in his mind. It was enough to drive a grown man insane. He was allowed to serve the remainder of his eighteen-month sentence in solitary confinement; his only company was the once-a-day food tray delivery and a photo of Genevieve.

‘How did she get sick?’ The woman asked, a disgustingly sympathetic look on her face. ‘It wasn’t in your file.’ She explained.

‘Her sister got it first. My wife used to be a nurse, so she tried to help her get better – before we realised it was the infection. By the time we did, it was too late. Gen’s sister died in her arms. She was covered in her blood. Gen started to panic about the baby and the stress triggered her labour. I didn’t think she was sick – she wasn’t showing any of the symptoms. But when we got to the hospital, I could see the welts starting to show. Gen had just given birth when one of the midwives noticed the welts and pulled the quarantine alarm. I just managed to see my daughter be born before I was dragged from the room and sent through decontamination and evacuated with everyone else. I never saw them alive again.’

‘I’m sorry, I truly am.’ The Red Woman sounded sincere. It had surprised Ric, but not enough to let his guard down.

‘Why am I here?’

‘I thought it would be obvious. Especially considering you have just told the very story that brought you here.’ She placed the scanner on a nearby table and folded her arms, propping herself up against the wall.

‘It’s not obvious to me.’

‘You’ve been snooping around in my business. Do you know who I am yet?’

‘A weirdo pretending to be a centuries-old serial killer who looked like an old cartoon?’

‘I’m not pretending to be anyone. But I’ll give you a clue – I’m not a ghost either. And funnily enough, that’s nothing to do with why you are here.’

‘Where did you get the i-dent scanner? Who did you steal it from?’ Ric tried to change the subject and learn as much as he could about his captor.

‘Who says I stole it?’

‘You’re not a government agent. They are the only ones with scanners – so you must have stolen it.’

‘That’s one theory.’ The woman looked offended for a moment, then she smiled it away. ‘For your information, I didn’t steal it. I invented it.’ A smirk danced across her painted mouth.

The more Ric looked at her, the more it was obvious that she was not and had never been a Ward – despite the daring outfit. She had no grace, and she certainly wasn’t demure or comely. She didn’t glide across the floor, rather prowl. She was a woman on a mission, and right now – he seemed to be in her way. Ric could tell that was a bad place to be.

‘He’s okay, by the way. The medics got there just in time. Irving is lucky you were there to help. Although, it’s your fault he was shot at in the first place… so maybe not so lucky.’

Ric’s depressional melancholy dissipated at the mention of Irving, returning him to his usual stubborn state. They had been shot at in Irving’s apartment. Ric hadn’t told anyone that he was going there; he had no one to tell.

‘You were following me.’ He didn’t have to ask her; it was obvious now. ‘Since I first saw you on the train?’

‘No, Before. I’ve been watching you for a while now. We had to keep an eye on you.’ The woman finally approached him and undid his restraints. Ric rubbed his wrists gratefully but remained seated. He pleaded with himself to stay calm long enough to come up with an exit strategy. He couldn’t be sure she was alone – a woman like this would probably have back up within earshot.

‘Why are you so interested in me?’ Ric seethed.

‘Oh Ric. I thought you were smarter than that.’ Her eyes glinted in the shadows. ‘Your sister-in-law, wife and new-born child died from the sickness. You spent days stuck in the house with your wife and her sister as she died. And yet you still breathe? Oh yes, Ric. I’m very interested in you.’

Immoral Immortal – PART FIVE (Jessica Rabbit Flash Fiction)

Read Parts 1-4 here

Summary: The last time we saw Ric and Irving, they had just been shot at by unknown gunman after learning more about the Jessica Rabbit Killer. Now, they are fighting for their lives.

Chapter Five

‘Down!’ Ric barked, but he wasn’t quick enough. A rhythmic succession of bullets was screeching through the windows and obliterating every surface. The decanter turned to glittering specs across the table. Wooden walls now splintered and gaping. Papers and books shot to bits and flying around the room like a possessed madman was waving a wand.

Ric could just make out Irving through the whirl of papers. Downed, but moving.

‘At least he’s still alive.’ He thought as he tried to figure out a path to Irving without getting holes blown through his own flesh. Ric took his chance when they paused to reload or switch gunmen – he couldn’t see the shooters to confirm either way – and army-crawled across the floor. He swept books and exploded chairs alike out of his way until he reached the professor. Even in the mere seconds since he had been downed, Irving looked like he was closer to the doors of hell than the land of the living.

Ric prayed to any rotten deity that would listen, and then grabbed Irving’s good arm and dragged him back towards the lift. ‘If I could just summon the lift’, he thought, ‘I’ve got a chance of getting us out alive’. He shuffled backwards, dragging the moaning professor inch after agonising inch. A quick glance up told him there was no apartment left as the bullets still soared through the air. Once he finally reached the doors, Ric blindly shoved his hand in the air and groped for the call button, a rogue shot narrowly missing his elbow. He threw himself back down to the hardwood floors and waited for death. And then hope came in the sound of the lift arriving.

The professor was waning fast, so Ric had to keep dragging himself and Irving inch by bloody inch until all limbs were clear of the lift doors. He pushed himself as far into the corner as his broad shoulders would allow and shuffled up the wall, pushing up from his knees. He scrambled for any floor numbers he could reach and hit the ‘Close Doors’ button. The lift seamlessly drew itself closed and started to smoothly glide down dozens of floors. Ric didn’t have a plan, but as a stray bullet dinged the very top of the door, he knew he needed one – and fast.

Irving’s blood was drenching them both. The lift looked like a murder scene, and at any moment the lift doors might expose them to an unsuspecting room of strangers. Most lift entrances opened directly into the apartments, with very few hitting service floors or exits. Ric had no idea what floor he was sending them to. His prayers were answered when they came out at the Fifth Floor – Janitorial. He dragged the almost unconscious professor out onto the concrete floor and let the lift soar back down to the lobby. By now, the shooters were probably searching every inch of Irving’s apartment. Ric slumped against the wall, bleeding professor in his lap. He looked down to see the whites of Irving’s eyes, glistening in the dank light of Fifth Floor.

‘They think you know.’ Irving creaked, closing his eyes again.

‘Hey old man, come on. Stay with me’ he said, shaking Irving by the shoulders. ‘We need to get you help. Where’s your i-dent card?’ Ric searched through the professor’s pockets until he found his wallet. He didn’t want to involve anyone else, but Irving wouldn’t survive a patch up from some quickie street doctor. He needed real help. Ric pulled the i-dent card out of the front slit and pressed Irving’s bloody index finger onto the bottom right-hand corner of the card. The fingerprint glowed a neon green and started to flash.

‘Irv – help is on the way, okay? You just need to stay with it a little longer and then the medics will be here.’

‘You can’t be here. Upstairs. They’ve got everything-.’ the professor coughed, his skin growing paler.

‘I’ll take care of it, professor. I’ll burn whatever’s left.’

‘No, not the girl. They’ve got your papers.’ Irving kept trying to sit up, but the sound of approaching sirens gave him the OK to lay back down. ‘We need to talk.’

‘OK, I’ll come with you to the hospi-.’ Irving cut him off by gripping his arm.

‘No – it’s too dangerous. Wait for me to contact you.’

Ric looked at the old man, lifeline slipping slowly from view, and wondered if the professor knew he was dying. He wasn’t making any sense. Why would Irving have papers on him?

‘Kid, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve seen more bullets than movies, and one day I’ll tell you all about it. But for now, get out of here.’

The sirens screeched closer and louder, and Ric was out of time. His only hope of evading questions was to hide. He examined the floor for the first time since they arrived, and swore gracefully at the sight of a supply cupboard. He squeezed Irving’s hand, told him not to die, and ran to the cupboard door. He had yanked it open and gently pulled it closed just in time. The medics came rushing out of the lift, stretcher in tow. Ric watched through a crack in the door as his closest friend – who was really only a stranger – was carted off to the Capita Hospital in an ambulance. He prayed once more to his unloving gods that Irving would make it out alive, and once the coast was clear, headed out of his cupboard and down a fire escape staircase.

As daylight hit his face – so did someone’s fist. The last thing he saw was a flash of scarlet before his face met with the ground.

Tea | poetry

I could probably write a whole book about tea, and maybe one day I will. It features in every single book I’ve ever written and despite the thousands of cups that have gone cold in my time – the next cuppa is never far from my mind.

Immoral Immortal – PART FOUR (Jessica Rabbit Flash Fiction)

Read Part One here.

Read Part Two here. 

Read Part Three here.

It didn’t take long for the mysterious woman to make the local newsbytes.

Newsbytes streamed twenty-four hours a day, every day. Every little thing that happened in your section made it on the news. But a strange woman dressed like a Ward in weird clothing grabbed the headlines. Pushing aside the otherwise breaking news that someone had broken into a boarded-up library and stolen several books, Jessica Rabbit was all over the newsbytes.

 

The newsflash gleamed across Ric and Professor Irving’s lenses and they accepted the update. ‘WOMAN IN RED – READ NOW?’ They both blinked twice and the story was available.

‘EYEWITNESSES SAY THE GHOST OF AN OLD-EARTH SERIAL KILLER IS ROAMING THE STREETS.’ ‘WIFE OF JOURNALIST SAYS ‘MY HUSBAND WENT TO MEET HER AND NEVER CAME HOME.’ ‘MORE DISAPPEARANCES HAPPENING DAILY.’  ‘WOMAN IN RED KIDNAPPING MEN IN THE NIGHT.’ ‘HEAD-WARD, MISTRESS LUNA, CLAIMS THE SUSPECT IS NOT A ROGUE WARD.’ ‘MORE TO FOLLOW.’

They both blinked twice once more and the story slid away from their vision and the professor’s apartment came back into view.

‘We need to find her.’

‘As always Ric, you stated the obvious.’

‘Alright, old man.’ Ric jeered, a smirk on his face. Despite the professor’s aged features, he was only twelve years older than him. Irving always said that decrepitness was the price to pay for knowledge.

‘What’s your plan, then?’

‘I will be the bait, you be the hook?’

‘You’re going to meet her, is that your grand idea?’

‘Pretty much?’

‘And to whom should I invoice your funeral costs?’

‘You.’ Ric laughed but the professor didn’t seem to be joking. ‘I’ll be fine, Irving. As long as you’ve got my back.’ He glanced up at an old-fashioned clock on Irving’s mantlepiece. ‘I’ve got to go to work – they’re going to sack me if I’m late again.’

‘You are too smart to be working in that factory.’

‘Not according to my aptitude tests.’ Ric walked over to the elevator and pressed the call button. It dinged a pleasant ding and he waited for it to arrive.

‘I wouldn’t trust those if I were you. You aren’t from this area originally – they probably allocated labour work because there was a space, not because you’re unintelligent. You would be much more at home in the education sector.’ Irving had a stern, fatherly look on his face which made Ric feel like a teenager again. Which both hurt and healed him.

‘Teaching a bunch of screen-grabbing kids? No thanks, professor. I’ll be back soon, don’t you worry, old man.’ The lift doors opened and he stepped inside, his back to the professor.

It was only as he turned back to faced Irving that he heard the first shot pierce through the living room window and his Irving in the left shoulder.

Tea. (Poetry)

There is a deep

ache

a lostness, a verge

upon the sea

of confusion

that solved,

has but one answer –

Tea.