Five Roaring Reads

By Ray Jaxome

This is a collection of short fiction that is available for $0.99 containing the following short stories:

The Naked Mind
Beware The Swamp
So Long the Sheep
Thesis
The Kamikaze Kid

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ray Jaxome
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466008229

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.

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Five Roaring Reads

Ray Jaxome

Published by Ray Jaxome at Smashwords

Copyright Ray Jaxome 2012

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Chapter One – The Naked Mind

The path was closed; the building was sitting there lonely and forgotten above a cliff face that was slowly eroding towards it. It was an exceptional find. Just what I needed. I looked up at it and smiled, then turned towards my executive producer. She was tall, blonde, thin, a perfect beauty who was aware of it and capitalised on it throughout her life. Most of the people she extracted favours from wouldn’t have believed she had a brain.

She was my secret weapon.

It would look good, in the right lighting. Scary. What was the bloke who built it thinking?

His name had been Carl LeBore. One of the world’s most famous architects, which means that no one who really matters has ever heard of him. He had a sad story, something about going insane and killing his cat. I shrugged, not wanting to explain that he had been mad. After all, who else would put a perfect replica of the temple of Solomon up a fifty foot cliff?

Doesn’t matter. The site fees are within budget, I said, smiling to myself. The old owner had seemed so grateful that his property would be in a movie. Even if it were a third rate horror.

Zombies at the Temple on the Cliff. I think Carl would have been proud. My assistant nodded. She wrote down some notes, then looked up at me, Do you think there’s anywhere we can drink? she asked.

I think I saw a pub on the route in. A red hunt, I said, pointing towards the road Maybe we could stop there Leanne, she smiled back, and walked to the car. You see, that is one of the main reasons I hired her. I need someone to do the driving for me, ever since the incident.

The film script is in the back of the car. I glance through it again. It’s no great deal, just some steady money and another credit. I had to take what I could get. Even if that meant, well, selling myself to the highest bidder as Leanne said. At least it was more money than I could make working at a real job. As we turned into the pub car park Leanne looked away from the road for a second. What was it like?

What was what like?

The stroke.

I paused for a moment. It had started on a nice sunny day. For once I wasn’t depressed, upset, heck I’d even taken a holiday because I had been under the weather. Suddenly, I felt odd. The left side of my body became heavy. I’d turned around and tried to call someone for help. But somehow the numbers hadn’t meant anything.

Scary, I said.

But you’re OK now?

If OK is wondering every ten minutes whether you will still be alive the next day, waking up in a cold sweat after nightmares, being worried every time they took your blood pressure because if it was too high –

I’m fine, I said, What about the movie? Do you think it’ll be a hit? I said with a little wry smile. We both knew this one had DVD release written all over it. Maybe it might make a little money in the theatres. But it wouldn’t attract the best actors, or the best press, and that was why they went for a has-been like me. I might not be working correctly, but I was probably the only thing the newspapers would talk about when the film was released. No, I’m not bitter. Just realistic.

it's money, Leanne said, with a little smile in return, If we can get a decent actor on it, she added. I nodded, I’d been phoning people up I used to know. Some actors still owed me favours, and some felt sorry, and I’d damn well use every single bit of sympathy to make the movie.

I wanted my life back.

This was my best shot of that, so I plotted with Leanne, and schemed, and cajoled script writers who were only doing this to buy their new home, and actors who’d rather be doing cocaine, and cameramen whose wife wanted them to go to Barbados for a holiday, well, I got them to the set at 9 AM on Monday morning ready to shoot.

I looked up at the temple with a smug smile. The set designers had done a spectacular job redecorating the inside. It was covered with cobwebs, with dribbly candles, even with a coffin.

Will we be ready for shooting soon? I asked the cameraman, and he nodded. There was even a little catering van set up where the crew could eat unhealthy breakfasts for cheap.

Half an hour later, we started filing.

The first shots went like clockwork. People managed to remember their lines, went in the correct position, sometimes even managed to act convincingly. I stopped the camera rolling to give a few occasional directions but most of the film was shot in one. That would help the budget a little, I thought.

We film out of order. We don’t film from the first moments of