Shell Out Page 5
Jeremy Bursey has been writing fiction and creative essays since the summer of 1989, at the age of 13. His first major story, City Walker, which he had written entirely in pencil and on notebook paper, and which had taken him two years to finish, came out to 208 handwritten pages and was virtually incomprehensible in both its plot and characterization, and it ended not because it had reached a logical resolution, but because the author had decided he had had enough of the story. He has since become more disciplined, more in-tune with what makes a story worth reading, and more practiced as a writer. He now has a Bachelor’s degree in English and a job helping college students become better writers themselves. However, his bad habit of juggling too many writing projects at once remains. As a result, his series of superhero novels is still in progress, but he hopes to start releasing each part soon.
Other Books
Did you enjoy reading Shell Out? Then check out these other titles by Jeremy Bursey, available as an e-book at your favorite retailer.
Short Stories and Novelettes
Shell Out
Eleven Miles from Home
Amusement
When Cellphones Go Crazy
The Celebration of Johnny’s Yellow Rubber Ducky
The Fallen Footwear
Novellas
Lightstorm
Cards in the Cloak
Gutter Child
Novels
The Computer Nerd
Teenage American Dream (Coming June 2016)*
Sweat of the Nomad (Coming September 2016)*
Zipwood Studios (Coming December 2016)*
Collections
The Fountain of Truth
Zippywings 2015: A Short Story Collection
Waterfall Junction and The Narrow Bridge
A Modern-day Fantasy Annual Edition
Cannonball City: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year One
Superheroes Anonymous: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year Two (Coming May 2016)
*Dates subject to change. Consult Jeremy’s blog at Drinking Café Latte at 1pm for details and updates.
Contact and Questions
Want news about my upcoming books or check if you’ve got them all? Visit any of these links for more information.
Blog: https://zippywings.wordpress.com/
If you just want general news on upcoming releases, then click on my “Future Books” direct link: https://zippywings.wordpress.com/future-stories/
If you want additional info on my e-books past, present, and future, then check the category marked “Published Ebooks” and it will find every post related to them. Or, check the right sidebar for icons of book covers to link you directly to that title’s description and retailers’ location page. You can also click on the main category “Fiction” for other blogs and sneak previews that focus on my fiction.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.bursey.3
If you want to ask me a question or offer me some feedback, then feel free to message me on Facebook, and I will respond as soon as possible.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremyBursey
E-mail: zippywings[at]hotmail[dot]com
If you would rather contact me through e-mail, please head your message with the name of the book(s) you are inquiring about so that I know to click on it. This is the best way to inform me of errors or issues you may find in this book.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14054852.Jeremy_Bursey
Here you can find out what books I like (or rate and review this one).
Bonus: Sneak Previews
Still here? Well, now here’s a treat for you. If you liked “Shell Out,” then you may want to know about some of my other upcoming releases. The following section provides a sample from other short books and novels that I hope to release sometime in 2015 and 2016.
Preview: A Modern-day Fantasy Series
On Christmas 2007, I began a major undertaking: I started my epic series about a professional tennis star who, as a target for murder, escapes his relentless stalker to an off-radar island in the Caribbean and becomes one of the “volunteering” residents who are transformed into extraordinary heroes and commissioned by a hero outsourcing group called the Peacemakers to keep criminals at bay.
Here are samples from the first three books:
From Fuzzy Green Balls (A Modern-day Fantasy, Book 1)
Thousands of miles from the turbulent Caribbean, in a mysterious land called Southern California, destiny was about to unfold.
***
The scene was grim behind the wall of California poppies. A Harbor City parking lot long since abandoned had been cordoned off with yellow tape. For such a normally desolate place, it seemed like a pointless move. Procedure called for it, but no one worried about fending off the onlookers.
The district attorney, a rigid man with slick brown hair, chiseled cheeks, and a liquid tan, moseyed across the fire lane and ducked under the tape to greet his two FBI visitors. His distancing demeanor couldn’t have been more off-putting. Dark eyes were cold as they gazed from one special agent to the other, and his neck was stiff from supporting a head filled with bad news. Cracking a smile would’ve broken protocol.
“Agents,” he said, extending his hand but stopping a few inches short of making contact. He retracted before he could commit to a shake. “Fine evening for a murder investigation. I see you had no trouble finding the place.”
“Mister District Attorney,” said Special Agent Thomas Sturgeon. He wiped his hands together and returned them to his pockets. “Can you bring us to speed?”
The police had been finalizing its security measures to control the crime scene when Sturgeon, a rigid man with fit muscle tone and more than six feet of body, and his partner, Special Agent Joyce McKinley, demure and occasionally striking, arrived. Investigators and the district attorney had already begun sifting through the mess for evidence. The absent breeze had left everything feeling stale. The district attorney shrugged. He was usually unhappy to see them. Liked it when he could keep a good crime local.
“Not much for warming up with fireside chats, are you?” he asked. “Good. You won’t find any warmth around here.”
McKinley maintained her forced smile. Every time she and Sturgeon had crossed paths with this guy, they had to suffer through the scenic route of him getting to the morbid point. She was certain it had to do with his lack of family waiting for him at home.
“We’re just here to help,” she said. She hated the need to remind him every time they met. “So, let’s not waste time. Show us what we came to see.”
“As you wish.”
The district attorney beckoned them to follow toward the shopping center. He lifted the tape and ushered them under. Once past the line, he directed them to the sterilization area where they could don powdered latex gloves, footwear protectors, half masks, and plastic gowns.
The district attorney gave them the bullet points. Single body, massive gunfire, broken cameras, unknown motive. They listened closely as they slipped their hands and feet into their individual pairs of protective gear. Special Agent McKinley watched her partner react to the district attorney’s breakdown. Sturgeon was nonplussed by the description.
“Who discovered the murder?” he asked.
“Skateboarder out for light recreation,” said the district attorney. “Noticed the body through the window. Didn’t seem to notice the signs on the walk that said No Skateboarding.”
“And you started his questioning?”
By now they had finished gearing up for the crime scene, and the attorney was leading them toward the building.
“We’ve got the basics under control, yes. Barney, the lead investigator here, suggested we call you, but I’m skeptical. So far the situation seems routine. We’ll probably need you to compare ballistics reports to the national record. Otherwise, my feeling is you can sit this one out. But I’m experienced enough to know that sometimes I’m wrong. Would you two like some lemonade while we figure that out?”
; Sturgeon exchanged glances with McKinley. McKinley noticed a glint in his eye. It was the sparkle that had often followed the mental assurance that he was right about whatever he was thinking.
“I don’t imagine we’ll be on the sidelines here,” Sturgeon said to the attorney. “Barney is a smart man.”
The district attorney stopped short of the glass door that opened into a converted single-screen movie theater. Through the glass McKinley noticed the room was connected to the office space by way of hole in the wall.
“Based on the carnage, Barney thinks your special violent boy made this his latest project, and rumor has it you believe him. Is that my understanding?”
Sturgeon smiled and nodded once. Breaking out of professional mode, he removed one hand, tipped his forefinger at the attorney, and winked. Then he reclaimed his serious expression.
“Look,” said the district attorney, “it’s much too soon to assume that, and you know it. We have no witnesses. Just a body, a star field of bullet holes, and the property damage the attack caused. We can’t rule out simple isolated revenge or, heaven forbid, copycats at this time, and until we know this is more than routine homicide, I’m not comfortable with you clogging up our kitchen.”
“You think a copycat is going to have the firepower to mimic this kind of destruction?”
“I don’t know. We’re still waiting for the ATF’s assessment. If he had multiple magazines, we can assume anything at this point. Unfortunately, the shooter or shooters swept up the shells before leaving. I guess in a place like this he or they would have enough time. We haven’t examined the slugs yet. Maybe they’re the same, maybe not. But we can’t rule out the possibility this is a single event caused by another shooter. Perhaps a disgruntled employee.”
“True,” said Sturgeon. He glanced through the window, then toward the hole leading to the next office space. “Let me ask you this, Mister District Attorney. How many of these spaces are connected to each other?”
“In the whole shopping center or just this network of shops?”
“Just this network.”
“Four.”
“And of those four, how many had all the lights turned on when you got here?”
“All of them.”
Sturgeon glanced at McKinley and smiled. McKinley, who liked to be involved in the investigation, was happy to let Sturgeon do all the talking, and the assuming. This was his area of expertise. He understood the white whale he had been chasing, and if this notch could be added to his bedpost of discoveries, then this was his case to crack, district attorney be damned.
In this case, the white whale had a habit of leaving the lights on. Perhaps it was his smug way of telling the authorities he was smart enough to get away with murder.
“Mind if you show us around the area?” he asked.
“I suppose if you’re invading my case, I should roll out the red carpet while I’m at it.”
“I’d appreciate that, thanks.”
As the attorney led them through the network of shops, Sturgeon took special notice of the security cameras mounted on every wall. Each had been obliterated, reduced to wires and fixtures with shards of glass on the floor.
“Were these cameras linked to a surveillance station?” he asked.
“Yes. We found a closet containing some monitors.”
“Could you show us?”
The attorney led them to the back of one of the offices and opened a closet door. Inside, a series of monitors had been shattered by gunfire. The dried remains of spilled coffee covered the dashboard.
“I don’t suppose any of the recordings survived, did they?”
“None that we’ve found so far.”
Sturgeon leaned in for a closer look at the destroyed monitoring equipment. Again, he appeared nonplussed.
“Any thoughts, McKinley?” he said, after a pause.
Special Agent Joyce McKinley had been thinking about the crime scene before they arrived and had put together a staple list of expectations in her mind. Much of what she was looking at she had expected to find: slugs but no bullet casings, the victim’s blood smeared on the furniture and the floor but no footprints, a half-assed cleanup job that covered some evidence but not nearly enough. Pretty simple things to trace. Yet, the killer they had spent months tracking, that had demonstrated patterns similar to what they found here, had consistently managed to avoid confrontation. That was their core frustration. It had come down to the details he employed to stay ahead, small changes to the obvious that would always throw them off his scent, and forensically, make it near impossible to convict upon capture. Solvable details, yes, but unexpected, and time-consuming enough to give him room to vanish and to plan for a new way to remain hidden. She considered the usual solutions like fingerprinting, DNA testing, and so forth, but she and Sturgeon knew their prey was too smart to leave his real identification behind. To this day he was nothing more than a ghost that had left his trademark on the southwest, but no confirmed identity. Swabbing the scene for the usual evidence was nothing more than basic protocol and a gross waste of resources. They weren’t going to find anything leading to a specific person. She knew what Sturgeon really wanted was a face. That was something the killer had never left behind. Assuming, of course, they were chasing their white whale and not some copycat or a disgruntled employee who had left buckets of confirmed DNA lying around the place.
“The analysts will have to salvage the recordings; no other way around it,” she said. Then she paused in thought. Scenes like this thrilled her while filling her with dread. “I wish I knew exactly what happened here. The violence suggests a crime of passion, but the destroyed surveillance hints this was planned. And the dramatic spray of bullets for a single target–this shooter certainly came prepared to make a mess. That’s not our guy’s usual style. Which complicates things significantly. Just enough evidence to suggest it’s him, but not enough to prove it. Have I ever mentioned I hate this guy?”
Sturgeon nodded.
“I agree. Let’s recreate the scene as best as we can.” He glanced at the district attorney. “Any speculation on how long the victim’s been deceased?”
“The examiner took the body an hour before you got here. Thing was rotting to the core. I wanted to vomit.”
Sturgeon looked at McKinley and wrinkled his nose.
“Should we assume more than twenty-four hours?”
“I’d say closer to forty-eight,” said the attorney. “Smelled like a forty-eight-hour dead body to me at any rate.”
“Long enough to give us the slip for now.” Sturgeon rubbed his hands together. “Okay, let’s call in the crime scene reinforcements and build a task force. In the meantime, check the database in case we can’t get video working. Maybe we can at least figure out where he’s going next.”
~~~~~
From Cannonball City (A Modern-day Fantasy, Book 2)
On an island somewhere in the vast Caribbean, in a rolling field outside a town known for its everlasting rainy season, the man who might’ve been the smelliest rascal in the western hemisphere was doing his best to kill flowers with his armpits. He was a big man with big dreams, and he certainly knew the ladders he wanted to climb and the metaphorical thrones he wanted to sit on, but his skills were under par, and his trainer knew it. The thing is, the man could’ve easily crushed those flowers between his pectorals and biceps, as any sane person would do given the circumstance. But that wasn’t his job. His job was to blast them with his treacherous body odor. That meant focus.
“You’re doing it wrong,” said the trainer, a shadowy genius who had wild blue hair and stalked around in road cone orange attire. “Picture the flowers in your mind’s eye. Then blast them. Stop doing all of this chanting and bull-hock you’re doing. What we’re asking of you isn’t complicated.”
The man had been imagining dead flowers and trying to picture himself their executioner. The chanting had been a repeated mantra of “I can do it.” He knew there was a more appropriate technique
to making this work; he had discovered it some time ago. But he had forgotten how to access the starting point. He tried dancing, tickling himself, spitting on his armpits–anything to get the acids in his sweat glands to churn and explode. He had forgotten his own secret to a focused stench.
“And don’t start imagining you’re a skunk,” said the trainer. “You’re not an animal.”
The man clenched his eyes closed. Lifted his arm. Cocked his elbow to flex his biceps. He didn’t understand how concentrating on his muscles helped to squeeze out the pungent stench, but he didn’t have to. He just knew that it worked. Maybe it called on for more sweat. Maybe the nerves he felt from performance anxiety soured its scent. He didn’t care. All he cared about was watching those flowers die. They were the only things stopping him from joining ranks with the Order.
“Concentrate,” said the trainer. “Ignore your fear of losing. But remember that we have the right to kill you if you fail.”
The man’s neck seized from tension. His jaw locked shut. His teeth were bared wide, ripe for straining the cloud of gnats buzzing about him. His sweat glands swelled with activity. The stink of a foul armpit was coming.
“Make those Grungies lieutenants sorry they never accepted you. Become one of us.”
The man sensed a hot wind escape from under his arm. Maybe it was focused, but it felt wild. Suddenly his trainer fell into a coughing fit. He opened his eyes, made sure he didn’t suffocate the creepy little dude. The trainer was burying his face into his cloak sleeve. With his other hand he instructed the man to stay away.
“Lesson adjourned for now,” he said. “If the flowers don’t die from that, then nothing will kill them. I’ll give the Order my recommendation, and see if we can position you with a raid. Now put that arm away, you sick, disgusting brute, before you make me vomit.”
***
Of all the decisions he could’ve made tonight, hiding out in Miami Beach on a Friday night was probably not the smartest. But in a week full of bad decisions, he really didn’t think this one was particularly awful. Sure, locking himself in a hotel or camping out on a mattress of trash bags behind a Dumpster might’ve been easier, but where was the adventure in that? The important thing was that he was still alive. He pinched his arm as hard as he could and winced. Yep, still alive.