Snow Job

DESCRIPTION:

In bandit territory, writers can think the unthinkable and then put those thoughts into words on paper—words to chill their readers’ souls…Bandit Territory is a place you don’t go unless you are alert, armed, and have plenty of backup…

There is plenty of bandit territory in corporation boardrooms, political campaigns, or high stakes poker rooms—a place where the rules don’t apply, where the knives come out, and fortunes and lives can be destroyed in a heartbeat. The most dangerous bandit territory, however, is in the mind…This deviant and deadly psychological bandit territory is also where crime and mystery writers thrive. It is here they hatch plots, dare to think the thoughts others would find abhorrent, and ask ugly questions of themselves and their characters.

Includes Stories by Paul Bishop, Nikki Nelson Hicks, Nicholas Cain, Richard Prosch, Wayne D. Dundee, Mel Odom, Ben Boulden, Jeremy Brown, Hock Hochheim, Scott Dennis Parker, and Jason Chirevas.

Available in: Ebook, Print

Available in:

Ebook: $0.99

My story is “Snow Job,” a story with a new character doing an old job. 

Excerpt:

The snow swirled in a torrent of silence. Back in Texas, this amount of precipitation would equate to a rainstorm, and a loud one at that. A bark of laughter broke out of Nick Hazzard’s frozen lungs when he realized the only sounds he heard were the trudging of his shoes along the dirt road. He looked down in the dim twilight at his shoes. The nice brown Doc Marten boots were wet with melted snow. The slow pinch of freezing cold was already piercing his toes. 

He stopped. Purposefully, he waggled his toes. He didn’t feel them. For the tenth time that day since he had received the call with the address, he wished there was some other way. He inhaled deeply, the cold scalding his nostrils. Damned if it didn’t feel like the bitter wind was freezing his nose hairs. 

With a shivering arm, he reached into an interior pocket and pulled out the small metal flask, the one he earned in Iraq. He unscrewed the cap, his hands, inside black leather driving gloves that had no business in winter, shaking with the effort to still his body. The warmth of the Jack Daniels soothed him, the oaky taste momentarily putting his mind somewhere else. Seconds later, he was colder than before. Cursing to himself, he screwed on the cap, replaced the flask, and shoved his hands back into the coat’s pockets.

He started moving again. The scowl on his face felt like it was being frozen in place.

The weather app on his phone told him it was 20°F, about forty degrees colder than when he got on the plane in Houston and flew up here that morning. Hell, it was thirty degrees colder than the locals predicted. Freak cold front. The coat he had brought from Texas wasn’t nearly thick enough. The soft landings of each little snowflake quickly melted. After only a minute, Nick’s upper shoulders were also feeling the distinct knife of the cold.

He trudged onward.

The Cleveland Browns stocking cap he bought at the airport was pulled low over his ears. The matching orange scarf was wrapped around his neck, but the cold found new fissures in the fabric and chilled his skin. With each passing breath, great plumes of condensation wafted behind him. He imagined himself like a steam locomotive in the old western movies. The thought made him long for home and the searing heat of a Texas summer.

Back in his army days, a lot of his fellow soldiers bitched and complained about the weather in Iraq, the unremitting heat and scald of the air on skin, eyes, and anything wet. Nick never complained. He loved the heat. Loved the feel of sweat on his skin, how it made his shirts stick to his pecs and arms, showcasing his army muscles now softened by time away from his unit.

What he wouldn’t give now to have just a taste of that heat.

His rubber-soled shoes hit upon a piece of ice sticking up from the ground, but covered with snow. Nick slipped and fell. With his hands shoved deep into his pockets, there was nothing to break his fall. He landed hard on his left side. The stocking cap dislodged and landed in the dirty ice. His left arm was smashed with his body’s weight. 

And the large revolver, sheathed in a leather holster attached to his belt, jammed into his hip.

Surprisingly, the pain was warm. The first feeling of heat since he left the rental car a mile back. 

Nick grunted, swallowing the cry he wanted to utter. Soldiers didn’t cry out because of a simple fall. Soldiers gritted it out, snarled their lips, and continued the mission. Just like Ted and Danny had back in Iraq. Before the time when their snarls and grit died from flying shrapnel exploded from an IED. Funny. Their faces had taken on a calmness in death. The snarl was all gone. They were at peace.

Nick wasn’t at peace then. He wasn’t at peace now. He had one thing driving him. Find the cabin. Kill the man inside. Earn the money promised him. 

Simple.

Except he was on the ground, sprawled in the snow, more and more of his fabric soaking up the frozen water. The air was so cold, Nick could almost feel the fabric of his shirt cuffs freezing stiff. His breath gouged in and out of his lungs in an effort to stifle the pain. The cold air seemed to freeze the back of his mouth and throat. His gritted teeth were ineffective filters for the unremitting chill. 

Roughly, Nick pulled his hands out of his pockets and pushed himself up to his knees. More wetness coated him there. Cursing under his breath, he got his feet under him and stood. A pinch in his side where he landed on his gun reminded him he wasn’t a young man any more. Well, he was only thirty-seven, but being a soldier in war tended to age a man faster than normal. 

He stretched his arms above his head, trying to even out the pinch. His body resisted, but mind over matter, Nick won. Nick always won when it came down to it. No matter what. He had won by doing his time and getting honorably discharged. He had also won when, as a civilian contractor, he had tracked down the men who planted the IED that took out Danny and Ted. He brought them to justice and discovered a new way to use the skills the army taught him.

Nick just wished it paid better. And more frequently. Being a hired killer isn’t exactly a job description one puts on a resume. Hell, it’s a job without a written resume. Which meant word-of-mouth was his currency. When that didn’t pan out or was believed, Nick needed something a little more concrete.

Proof. 

Proof he could do a job in a manner like he claimed he could. 

Which brought him to northern Ohio in a freak cold front, without an adequate coat, with soaking clothes, and more land to cover before he even found the cabin. 

“Son of a fucking bitch,” Nick whispered under his breath. 

He glanced at his watch, a civilian version of a Timex field watch. The luminous hands indicated he had walked ten minutes since he parked the rental. If the map he had memorized on the flight up was any indication, the cabin would be over a couple of rises. It would be difficult to see at night, even in the dimness of twilight. The sun would be below the horizon in five minutes, plunging the countryside in darkness. It was a new moon, which was fine by Nick. No moonlight meant no one could see him coming. Just like those bastards in Iraq. Or the guy in Denver. Or those kidnappers in Midland. Of all the jobs he had done, the Midland job was the most rewarding. Not only did he save the young lady who appeared way older that she was, but her parents paid handsomely. 

Well, after a bit of persuasion when they didn’t want to pay up, they eventually paid handsomely. It wasn’t Nick’s fault. He had done the job. The father didn’t want to be associated with a killer, even though he had his daughter safe and sound. 

The thought of the daughter warmed a certain part of Nick.

The snow had melted into his leather gloves. Already the tentacles of cold were worming their way into his fingers. He flexed his hands. Didn’t help, but the movement made him feel good. 

At that moment, the snow that had accumulated on his hair melted and slipped down the back of his shirt. One of the only places still warmed by his body, the snowmelt flowed all the way down his back and wedged itself along the seam of his underwear. 

Nick clenched his fists. He would not freeze to death out here. Instead, he was going to find the cabin, take out whomever was inside, and find the damned heater or fireplace. He was going to turn it up as high as possible and just warm up. Hell, he might stay there all night. At least until the snow let up and his shoes dried out. 

All he knew was whomever had asked for this little proof of concept case of a kill better be prepared to pay Nick well. There were limits a man could endure. And Nick was about to reach his.

Getting his bearings, Nick trudged off in the snow. He didn’t care about the sound of his footfalls at this point. He needed to get to the cabin soon. The last vestiges of sunlight slowly slipped into nothingness and the small depression in which he found himself was plunged into darkness.

Nick slowed his pace, allowing his eyes to catch up and adjust. He didn’t need a frozen branch to take out an eye. How effective would he be with only one eye? He could wear an eye patch and start talking like Kurt Russell in Escape from New York. The thought brought a mirthless grin to Nick’s face. He’d have to grow out his hair and start wearing sleeveless black shirts. Thing was, Snake Plissken never had a job in the frigid north. If this job worked out, Nick considered only taking jobs where the cold never reached. 

In his mind, Nick played scenes from the movie as he kept walking. The only sounds were his shoes crunching in the soft snow. He looked overhead. The evening stars peeked through the leafless tree branches. The tufts of snow cascaded to the ground. Some caught the occasional starlight, reflecting eternity back at him. 

His phone vibrated against his leg. He had debated whether or not to power it off, but chose not too. It was always good to have contact. Besides this was likely a simple job. Something easily accomplished. No need to go incommunicado. 

Nick slipped his phone out of his pocket. Programmed for night mode, the phone barely emitted any light when he toggled it on. He read the white-on-black text: “Any problems?”

He would be damned if he was gonna complain about slipping in the snow, falling down, getting his clothes wetter and colder than when he left his car, and feeling the cold start to slow his muscles and movements. It would be a good story to tell in a sweaty bar over cold beers. But not now. 

With his thumbs, he tried to type a reply, but the leather of the gloves was too cold. They didn’t make good contact with the screen, especially considering the phone was encased in one of those heavy-duty cases. Muttering under his breath, Nick worked the glove off one hand and texted back.

“Fucking cold.”

He waited while the three little dots indicated the person on the other end typed a response.

“Of course it’s fucking cold,” came one text. “It’s called preparation. You should try it sometime.”

More whispered oaths were sworn. Nick screwed up his face and turned. There, through the black trees, shadowed by the night, was a light. It was yellow and damned if it didn’t look like fire.

Nick’s heartbeat quickened. It was the cabin. He had made up some time while lost in thought. His old sergeant would have torn him a new asshole if he had caught wind of Nick’s mind not being on the mission at hand. Granted, the sergeant would have also been unimpressed at Nick’s new profession, but the dead don’t hold many grudges. 

“Cabin in sight,” he texted. “Signing off until it’s over.”

He waited a beat to see if the little three dots appeared. They didn’t.

Time to go to work.