Red Star

By Ray Jaxome

TEN YEARS AGO

Tim’s parents were murdered by a psychopath. He was taken into care.

FIVE DAYS AGO

Tim found where the psychopath is living.

FIVE HOURS AGO

The psychopath caught Tim.

NOW

He has taken Tim’s foster family hostage and threatened to kill them unless he straps a bomb to himself. Now the psychopath will find out what lengths he will go to, to save his new family.

Red star is a thrilling ride into a world where hero’s are given their own dark choice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ray Jaxome
• Release date: Sep 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465892034

Ray Jaxome

Ray Jaxome is a computer programmer and Author who lives in the UK. He loves gardening and looking after a flock of Hebridean sheep in his spare time.

Book preview

Red Star

By Ray Jaxome

Copyright 2011 Thomas Ecclestone

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Disclaimer:

This story is a work of fiction.  All names, characters, places and incidents are invented by the author or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.  Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. 

Chapter One

In the east there was an explosion. People talked about it, talked about it in hushed voices, talked about it with fear and loathing, and hurried about their life. I didn’t pay it no attention. The town I live in is nothing unusual, white washed walls, petunias up the drives, mail box and lawns cut so neat you could bowl on them.

But people were scared, that spring.

I was more worried about the dogs, getting papers delivered every morning. And making my bankroll.

Hurry up, Tim, said my boss, his breath stinking of beer even though it was six o’clock in the morning. Sometimes he had a new bruise. I never asked where he got them.

Thanks, mister I said as I heaved the thick bag on my shoulders.

The town is always quiet in the morning. There are sometimes dog walkers out, but apart from that, silence rules. You never saw the hints of war far away, the deprivation, not here.

It was only the one house that scared me on this street.

Strange to say, scared me. It was nothing unusual. Painted white, single story, and never a hint that anything bad had happened there. But all the other kids avoided it. They knew, something was not right. Sometimes it smelled of chemicals, acids that made you cough, stripped the skin off the inside of your mouth as you rode past.

The next door neighbour, Ms Dexter, fat and red faced, sometimes welcomed me in for a drink.

Here’s your boss’s money, she said, then handed me a twenty, and some for yourself.

She  kept her house cleaner than a whistle, so clean it could have been a detergent advert. Sometimes she just wanted to chat. That was why I was late. But she tipped me so well, so I put up with the bosses complaints.

How’re you keeping? I used to ask her.

She’d make some outrageous story up, about how her arthritis made her feet curl behind her back. To be honest, I think she just wanted to hear the sound of her own voice. It is hard, being old.

But she always finished with the same warning.

Be careful about next door, she said, they’re up to something.

And I nodded, and smiled, and didn’t pay no attention to it. No attention at all. I must have ridden past that house a dozen times. But one time sticks out in my memory.

It was the time I saw him.

Just before fall, as the trees were starting to change from green to mottle, I was still riding my bike. I had got within $500 of my target. But it was getting colder, and getting up early was a pain.

Well, that day I was ten minutes latter than normal. I rode past the house, and saw someone digging there. He was a short man, balding head, and he had dug a huge heap of dirt up in the garden.

Hi! I shouted.

He jumped half out of his skin, then glared at me, and dug another inch.

What are you doing there? I asked, stopping in front of the house.

None of your beeswax.

I peddled away, wondering what the man was smoking.

That week, the town was on a heightened state of alert. I don’t know what that is meant to mean, but the reality is, there was soldiers on the street.

Stop there, son, he ordered me.

He had a real gun. A semi-automatic, I think. It was larger than a handgun, anyway. He had pimples covering his face like a rash.

I stopped, and he came over to me, slowly, deliberately.

Where are you going? he asked.

Paper deliveries, I said, smiling at him. He put his hand