I rolled on the tables from this post for this week’s tale.

Table 1: Detective
Table 2: Casino
Table 3: Left for dead, out for revenge!

Now, let’s get it on!

You lose track of time to a scary degree when some Neanderthal knocks you out. I was under the impression they only got physical with you at casinos if they caught you counting cards or feeling up the cocktail waitress without her consent. Apparently, they beat the shit out of idiot gumshoes who are getting too close to the truth, too.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been thrown a beating by what colloquially folks would call a ‘goon’, but this time, it wasn’t my fault. I was playing it cool, understand, and specifically not winning too much at the hold ’em table. When your job is precipitated on reading people, poker becomes practice more than anything else. And the reason I charge so much for my services is, without hyperbole, I’m very fucking good at what I do.

The problem is, my reputation preceded me. I got fingered (not as sexy as it sounds) by one of the pit bosses, who told their boss, and one thing lead to another and this shambling prick in an off-the-sale-rack suit was slamming my head into the wire racks in a pantry. He wasn’t pulling punches. He meant to kill me. He seemed to be know what he was doing, too. Without breaking my bones or leaving major bruises, it would look like I stumbled into the wrong room and cracked my skull. Bam, case closed, everybody go about your business, nothing to see here.

Thankfully for yours truly, the fucking ape was too dumb to make sure I was done before he left me.

Son of a bitch took my gun, though. Old-fashioned pearl-handled .45 – a gift from an old partner. Engraved, and everything.

I push myself up off of the grimy closet floor, and I remind myself that the tux is a rental and I’m probably not getting my deposit back because the thing’s covered in grease and God knows what else now. I get out of the closet, get myself down the hall – my head is pounding and I want to vomit – and find a locker room for employees. They have spare jackets for the waiters and croupiers. I swap my smeared slightly mothball-smelling coat for one of those, and find my way back to the floor. I pick up a tray of drinks on the way for good measure.

I weave through the slots, people taking drinks and leaving cash. I stay on the move until the tray is empty. I make my way back towards the poker pits. It takes me a few minutes of circling and trying to look innocuous, but then my beefy friend comes through a back door. Have I mentioned he isn’t too bright? He doesn’t see or hear me coming up behind him. I wait for him to turn a corner, knowing there’s a tiny blind spot in the bazillion-camera coverage of the floor, and then I introduce my lovely tray to the big fat target that is his big fat head.

You’ve heard of glass jaws, right? This guy apparently has a glass skull. He drops like a bag of hammers. Not surprising, considering he’s about half as smart.

Service with a smile, asshole.

I get my gun and my phone back, give the prick a kick in the ribs for good measure, and make my way to an exit. In the parking lot I check my phone, and sure enough, our Cro-Magnon friend didn’t bother flashing its memory or even deleting the recordings I’d been making.

It’s quiet in the lot. Which is good, because the slab of stupid I’d left laid out on the carpeted floor had friends, and they were coming out after me. I hear the door slamming open, footsteps, and the hammer of at least one gun’s hammer getting pulled back the way a guy unzips his fly. They’re not even trying to be subtle.

So, why should I?

I break into a run as I draw my piece. You’d think it missed me, the way it just flows into my hand and my arm extends with it to start taking shots. I’m not trying to kill or even wound anybody, just trying to keep their heads down. Well, maybe wound someone. A little. Out of spite.

I’ve got ten years of experience between firing ranges, ‘official discharges’ as a detective, a couple undercover jobs, and this freelance business after I got drummed off the force. These morons seem to have gotten all of their experience from playing video games.

“Way to shoot wide, Call of Duty!”

I’m already getting in my car by this point, and I can’t help but get the last word in. Now, I know it’s unsafe, and you assholes at home better not do this, but it’s an emergency, so I dial my contact. Or rather I dial my contact’s office. I say some words to his lovely and polite secretary I’m not going to repeat here. I make a mental note to send her flowers because nobody deserves to have their mother referred to in that fashion, especially not someone just doing their job for an honest wage. Seriously, I’m a prick sometimes. I called you all assholes like three sentences ago. Anyway, I’m on hold and I’m swerving through traffic. Both things I hate. When he finally picks up the phone I’m fucking livid.

“You did not tell me there would be hitmen and legbreakers at this meet!”

“I thought it was a given.”

“No, it was not a given, you sawed-off prick. Put down the fucking doughnut and listen. I have him on tape.”

“You cut out there. Say that again?”

“Of course I cut out, jerkfuck, I’m on the goddamned freeway! I said, I – got – him – on – tape.”

“Saying what, exactly?”

I change lanes to pass a Yugo. A goddamn Yugo, in this day and age. And I thought my life was hard. “He’s saying that he’s in over his head and wants a way out. He says it’s for tens of millions. The words ‘cocaine’, ‘heroin’, ‘ecstasy’, and ‘hit squads’ are mentioned. And not by me.”

“Jesus.”

“I told you I could do this! Now it’s time for you to hold up your end.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause. I’d glare at the phone if I wasn’t trying to drive as safely and quickly as possible. Those two things are not easy to do at the same time. And this is with one hand on the wheel. I’m dead serious, kids, do not try this shit at home. (Oh, and if you are a kid, sorry for all the swears.)

“Look…”

“Don’t. Do not tell me there’s a problem or a ‘snag’ or some other bullshit. The next fucking words out of your fat face better be ‘where are you and where do I send the chopper’ or I swear to fucking Christ I will leak this shit to the Internet and take my ass to goddamn Lichtenstein.”

“… Where are you, and where do I send the chopper.”

“Was that so hard?”

“It would have been easier if you hadn’t interrupted me, jerkoff.”

“I’m on the Interstate heading west. There’s two – no, check that, three – black Cadillac SUVs full of angry men with guns probably under orders to shoot my ass and drag what’s left back to the casino to get worked over by this fucking dumbass lump of lard who…”

“Wittaker, I need you to focus.”

I pass a bus. I think someone takes my photo through the window. Tourists. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. And sorry about the fat comment. But seriously, man, you gotta hit a gym.”

“Wittaker…”

“Jesus, fine. Two exits ahead, there’s a parking garage, 8th and Spillane, top level’s exposed and probably mostly empty.”

“Got it.”

“Hey, can you cover me with a couple of establishments?”

“What do you-”

He’s cut off when bullets start hitting my windshield. Dammit, I thought I’d lost them behind the bus! Or at least, gotten out of line of sight. Whatever. I drop the phone and start to serpentine. Which is a fancy way of saying I drive like a goddamn maniac and piss off plenty of decent people.

I take the exit I told my contact about and I don’t bother to slow down any more than I have to in order to avoid flying over the guardrail. It’s two turns onto 8th avenue, and then I pass Spillane. I cut the wheel and pull the handbrake, and practically slam into the wall next to where I want to go, which is through the little arm they drop on you so you take a ticket. It cracks like a toothpick against the grill of my Pontiac and I’m heading up the ramp before the night watchman can run out after me yelling obscenities.

I’m still a bit nauseous from earlier, so taking so many fast turns in such a confined space almost knocks me out again. My head is swimming and I can’t read any of the signage for shit. It’s a miracle I don’t get lost. I make it to the roof, grab my phone and stumble out of the car, and throw up. I manage to get to my feet as the three Caddies pull up onto the roof and line up one next to the other. The hitmen get out of the cars with guns drawn, at least seven of them, and all of them looking really pissed off.

The cherry on it is when my fat friend rolls out of the back of one, holding an ice pack to his head.

“Oh, hey! Look who’s vertical!”

“That was a cheap shot, you fucking prick!”

“Ha!” I’d literally laugh in his face if I could cross the killing field. Well, killing parking tarmac. “I’m not the stupid son of a bitch who left me alive!”

“Well, let’s correct that,” says one of the hitters. They all take aim.

“Sure, you go ahead and you fucking shoot me.”

I think between the ride up through the parking garage and their raging hard-ons, they hadn’t heard what I’d heard. It became obvious when the spotlight came on.

“Right in front of federal officers!”

Three (Three? Christ.) black helicopters with FBI emblems slapped on their sides come out of the inky night, bathing the roof of the parking complex in bright white light. The hitmen stagger back from the glare as I spread my arms wide and invite them all to kiss my ass. I don’t think they hear me over the loudspeakers above my head.

“THIS IS THE FBI. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.”

The helicopters land, and agents in tac armor with submachine guns spill out, yelling orders and putting zip-ties on the hitmen. Agent LeToux, suit rumpled and hair a mess as usual, gets out of one and walks towards me. I give him a hard time, but he’s a man of his word. Even if he could stand to eat a few less Big Macs. He’s not unhealthily fat, but someone’s got to ride his ass so he stays in shape, and Mrs. LeToux sure as hell isn’t.

“You are a pain in my ass, Wittaker!”

“I didn’t tell you to send a whole SWAT team out here, LeToux!”

He snatches my phone out of my hand. “No, but you DID say there’s enough evidence on here to shut down the whole operation!”

“Hey, you called me, asshole, because these pricks can smell a fed a mile away.”

“Yes, and we thank you for your service, now can you kindly fuck off so we can do our jobs without you breaking anything else?”

He turns to walk away.

“Hey! Tell your guys to get my tux jacket back! It’s a rental!”

He flips me off. Doesn’t even look back.

LeToux loves me. If he denies it, he’s lying.

Not really my type, though. Don’t tell him that. I wouldn’t want to break his heart.

Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction challenges return! This week: Roll For Title.

Shelby couldn’t stop hearing her doctor give the diagnosis. Six months. Six months of surgery and chemo and radiation and living in hospitals and shitting into bags. Her first appointment was in two days, and she was taking today to find something, anything else, that would fix this.

Wandering the streets wasn’t helping, but it was better than sitting at home. She kept her coat closed against the strong winter wind, glancing only occasionally at the bright neon around her. She’d told her husband that she needed a walk, time to clear her head. Jack seemed to understand, kissing her forehead and telling her to call if she needed anything. How her feet had carried her downtown, she didn’t know. Yet here she was, avoiding eye contact with others and trying to ignore the people around her, the joy and the despair alike, lost in her own desperation.

When she did look up, her eye caught the neon sign that flickered like a dying candle and read, simply, “Magic & Fortunes.” She wasn’t particularly superstitious or religious, but something pulled her through the door, staring at the candlelit interior as the chimes on the handle rattled and sang. A stooped old woman emerged from the shadows.

“What can I do for you, dear?”

She said the first thing that came to mind. “I want to live.”

The old woman nodded. “Sit down, and tell me everything.”

She did, as the old woman poured her some tea. When she was utterly spent, tears rolling down her cheeks, gnarled yet soft hands patted her wrist.

“Don’t you worry, dear. I have just the thing.”

A few minutes later, the old woman was bustling about, setting up a small black cauldron on the table over a tea light, taking things from various unlabeled jars and muttering softly to herself as she mixed the ingredients together. When she was done, a small glass vial, slightly steaming and filled with a liquid the color of mucus, was set on the table.

“Drink every drop, dear. It will add ten years to your life.”

Skeptical yet somehow unable to resist the urge, Shelby took the vial in both hands and poured it down her throat. A violent tremor went through her entire body and she collapsed out of the chair. She came to her senses a few moments later, slowly getting to her feet, finding the old woman smiling at her.

“There, now. Let’s talk about payment, shall we? All things for a price.”

It was more than Shelby thought she’d spend, but as she walked back out into the street, she felt less desperate and alone. The wind that had felt so cruel and cold instead seemed to be whisking her back home. Jack was waiting for her with a hot meal and a roaring fire, and the sex they had that night was the best either of them had experienced in a long time.

Shelby made an appointment with her doctor the next morning, and went in to have everything double-checked before the procedures began. She sat in the exam room, not daring to hope for what something told her was the inevitable answer.

No cancer. Not a trace.

She rushed home after that, eager to tell Jack. It was her turn to make dinner, and she was planning the meal in her head. Something sweet and succulent, and maybe after she’d try on that negligee Jack had bought her that she’d always been too timid to wear. The thought had her smiling as she started making the turns towards home.

She had to pull over briefly to let a fire engine speed past. And then another.

Her heart crawled up into her throat when the ambulance passed her.

She sped around the corner towards her house. Firefighters were already hosing down the walls as flames crawled through the windows into the night sky. She stumbled out of her car, screaming Jack’s name, barely able to see through the tears of panic as she tried to scramble to the house. A police officer grabbed her and puller her back, telling her firefighters were already inside.

What they pulled out of the fire didn’t live long.

Through the sleepless night and blurred days that followed, Shelby tried to focus on the arrangements, the family visits, the friends who let her sleep at their place until the insurance company sorted things out. But her thoughts kept drifting back to the old woman with the knotted hands, and the way her doctor had said the word ‘miracle’.

Finally, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she went back downtown. She tried to retrace her steps. Nobody seemed to know the shop she was talking about, and the more she asked, the more desperate she became.

She came around a corner, and recognized the neon signs. Breathing heavily, she ran down the street, skidding to a halt in front of the store she’d visited, remembering that cold night when she’d wished for something, anything, to give her hope.

The building was boarded up and dark. It looked like it hadn’t been occupied in years.

Shelby stared at the store. Her shaking hands closed into fists. Screaming, she flew at the door, clawing at the boards, pulling off one, and then the other. She kicked the door in, uncaring of the eyes and pointing fingers around her. She bolted inside, hunched and angry, ready to fight.

“Come out, you old hag! You’ll pay for what you did to Jack!”

There was no response. Wind and silence. Shelby went from room to room, upstairs and down, looking for anything, anything at all. When she returned to the foyer, a clean, unblemished paper was resting in the dust that hadn’t been there before.

Shelby bent towards the note, her fingers on the paper, ensuring its reality.

All things for a price.

“Freeze!”

Shelby looked up to see a policeman holding a taser in her direction. Slowly, she stood, her hands in the air.

This began weeks ago with this story, prompted by Terribleminds. Many heartfelt thanks to Jon, Courtney, and Josée for keeping this going. It’s time to wrap it up!

Part 1

“This is never going to work.”

The witch looked over her shoulder as she drew the pentagram on the wall with red chalk. “If you have a better idea, Father, I’m all ears.”

“Believe me, I wish I had a better idea than drawing these things on the walls of my church.”

“Do I need to remind you that you’re the one that called me?”

“And if my Bishop knew, he’d probably excommunicate me faster than you can say ‘Martin Luther.'”

“He might react that way if he knew about all of the guns on the premises, too.”

Father Benjamin looked up from the shotgun he was loading. “This is America, Miss Crenshaw. Everybody has guns. Even the clergy.”

“Those are the shells we discussed?”

“Silver buckshot soaked in holy water? Yes.”

“Good.”

Crenshaw looked up as the pounding began on the doors. “I knew I should have started there…”

“At least they’re only coming from one direction.” Benjamin worked the shotgun’s pump action as he moved towards the door. “Finish what you’ve started. I’ll hold them off.”

“What, and let you fight it alone?” Abigail Crenshaw dropped the chalk, drawing the silver sword from her dark scabbard. “Not a chance.”

Part 2

by Jon Jefferson

“This is as good a time as any,” Father Benjamin said. He grabbed the handle of the door and gave it a turn. He rammed his shoulder into it and slammed the door into the hall against the creatures in the hall.

They shambled as their bones clacked together. Skeletons, creatures of dark magic mobbed the hall. They weren’t just science experiments gone wrong. The bones assembled at the point of convenience.

Some had three and four arms, others had leg bones growing out of their skulls. A hodge podge of dark evil waited for Father Benjamin and Abigail to join them in the hall.

He burst into the hall blasting rounds from the shotgun into several of the skeletons near the doorway. Their bones exploded in a spray of powdery bone shards. Abigail followed his lead. Her silver sword swung in a wide arc severing bones as it swept through the group.

“Back to back,” Benjamin yelled. “Don’t let them through.” Another blast of the shotgun brought them closer to clearing out his side of the hall.

“Having fun yet deary?” she asked. The silver of her sword flashed through the skeletons that charged her en masse.

Part 3

by Courtney Cantrell

Father Benjamin grinned. “Just like my seminary days.”

Two skeletons darted beneath sword and shotgun, circling to attack from the sanctuary end of the hallway. Abigail lunged at them.

“Crenshaw! Wait!” yelled Benjamin.

Too late. A third skeleton slid between the witch and the priest. Then a fourth. Abigail shrieked as the first two surrounded her. Benjamin took aim, but his gun gave no more than a click. Empty.

With a roar, he reversed the gun and slammed the stock into one skeleton’s head. The skull shattered, but the bones dragged at him as he thrust the barrel against the still-standing skeleton. Abigail took the head of one hellspawn pinning her to the wall. But the last one kept coming, and more poured into the hall behind Benjamin.

“I warned you not to get in my way,” said a voice.

All around them, the skeletons froze. Abigail’s cry echoed in the sudden quiet as she thrust her swordpoint through her final attacker’s skull. Together, she and Benjamin turned toward the end of the hall.

Beyond the motionless horde stood a figure in purple robes. A hood hid the face, but the skeletons’ puppetmaster was unmistakable.

“Hello, Gillian,” said Abigail.

“Hey, Abby,” came the answer.

Part 4

by Josée De Angelis

“Long time no see” Abigail said, still holding her sword ready for attack.

“Yeah, sorry about that. You know, I’ve been busy, or I would’ve called… How’s Mom?”

“Mom?!” This from Father Benjamin. He turned sharply to Crenshaw, his prayers forgotten, his fingers loose around his cross.

“You didn’t know this, Father? Abby and I go way back. To the womb, actually.”

Gillian took a step forward. “But don’t worry. Just move away, let me get the stone and I’ll go on my merry way.”

“You were never a good loser, Gill. My spells are stronger now.” Abigail advanced, her sword held high, her other arm at her back for balance.

“This changes everything!” Benjamin cried out.

Abigail, not changing her stance, directed her words to Father Benjamin behind her but kept her eyes on Gillian: “What do you mean? Why?” Gillian chuckled. Yes, she chuckled, a frosty, chilling chuckle. Her skeletons waited for her orders.

“There’s a reason why I asked you here, Ms. Crenshaw. It had to be a Crenshaw witch for this to work. Now I know why.” Gillian’s cold, loud laugh shook the hall and the skeleton bones rattled.

And now, the conclusion:

“Chalk.”

Abigail blinked, sword still at the ready, processing what she’d heard. “What?”

“Chalk!” Benjamin repeated. “Toss it back to me.”

Abigail’s free hand fished around to find it. Skeletons shambled towards the pair as she threw the chalk back towards the priest, without looking. Benjamin had to step towards it to catch it. The skeletons reached out, and Abigail’s sword flashed. Gillian laughed as her sister moved to defend the priest.

“This would be a great deal easier if you just gave me the stone, sister. Are you really going to defend this… this man?”

Abigail shook her head. “And you gave me shit for staying in school.”

“Abby!”

It was the first time he had used her given name. She turned, and saw him holding up a black slate. On it in chalk was a complex circle, ringed in runes, that Abby recognized instantly. Without hesitation, she sliced the palm of her left hand on her blade, and slapped the slate Benjamin held. Instantly, there was a loud pop, and the skeletons collapsed.

Abigail turned, and Gillian was gone.

“Here.” He began wrapping a cloth around her hand.

“How…?”

“Later. Right now, we have a church to clean up.”