Nine Thrillers

By C. C. Blake

Nine Thrillers presents several exciting adventures from the storytelling master of disaster, C. C. Blake. This collection contains over 34000 words of material at a low price. It's the perfect opportunity to join the excitement!

These cinematic, emotionally intense and action-packed adventure stories feature ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, which test the limits of their courage and endurance.

In 2012, Twice Told Tales proudly presented several short story releases. This book contains material that appeared in "Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen," "Fatal Femmes," "In the Clutches of El Diablo," and "Trapped Like Rats."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Jan 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301665839

C. C. Blake

C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

Book preview

Nine Thrillers

Pulse-Pounding Tales of Action and Suspense

By: C. C. Blake

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Some of this material appeared previously, and in different forms:

Murdock Cave and the Captive Cutie Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen, In the Clutches of El Diablo, Pain Slaves of the Lust Pimps, and Follow That Redhead! first appeared in slightly different format in Man's Story 2 magazine

Copyright 2012 by C. C. Blake

Cover Artwork Copyright 2006 by Bradley K McDevitt

Smashwords Edition

Published by Twice Told Tales

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Table of Contents

Chained Girl Trouble

I Can't Remember

Trapped Like Rats

Operation: Brunette

Murdock Cave and the Captive Cutie

Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen

In the Clutches of El Diablo!

Pain Slaves of the Lust Pimps

Follow That Redhead!

Further Reading

About the Author

Chained Girl Trouble

Damn it white girl, Foxy Sister's lips curled into a feral snarl, "keep your head down!" The two women crawled side by side through a three foot deep trench while rifles sang tuneless songs of murder through the air overhead. Foxy wished there was no two-foot length of chain connecting her and the simpering white girl by the ankles. If wishes were fishes, though, then Foxy Sister could swim the hell out of this mess.

As rifles cracked, white girl started screaming. Calling for everyone to Stop it, stop it, stop it!

Foxy swore to herself if this prissy bitch did not shut herself up, then Foxy would do it by choking the life from her. It was hard enough getting away from this Central American Slave Posse, without worrying about a little girl born with Daddy's millions instead of a spine.

Oh, she was pretty enough, this white girl with the bimbo's name—Bambi or Bunny or Bonnie, what-the-hell-ever—and Foxy had known plenty of pleasure through her touch and tongue ... However the sorts of skills that white girl excelled at amounted to two things in a situation like the one they now found themselves crawling between—the Mexican Army trying to take over a Gang's business, and two sides of equally bloodthirsty men hungering for a little love muffin to screw and/or murder in all the excitement. Those two things were Jack and Shit and Jack had left the motherfucking villa.

A man appeared above them, diving into the trench, escaping enemy fire. When he saw them, his eyes bugged with surprise. This scarred, ugly-pussed Cabañero was called Miguel, a rapist and murderer known to both of the chained women. A smoking rifle filled his hands. The weapon's bayonet gleamed in the late afternoon sun, with the same dull shine as his decaying teeth. His eyes were alive with the lurid possibilities with two chained frails. As he considered these, he barked for them to "Estop where you are, chicas!"

In response, Foxy pawed the shirt from white girl's ample breasts. Miguel stared at the milky flesh and rosy nipples, transfixed. Soon enough, his interest bulged in his khakis.

Foxy asked, You like this here girlie, Miguel? Of course, white girl started crying even louder when Miguel bobbed his head, a lusty leer spread across his face.

So, take her! Foxy shoved white girl at him. Whitey let out a helpless shriek, and the man quickly lowered his bayonet so as not to skewer his new prize toy. As he caught the thrown woman, Foxy snapped into action, dragging her chained ankle back to tug white girl low. Of course, with such a prize in his hand, Miguel dropped with her. When he was low enough, Foxy slammed a rock against his chin, drawing his head back up. The rifle clattered to the trench's bottom. Blood and the chomped off tongue tip spilled from his mouth.

A crack of a rifle shot opened his head, spilling a fresh fountain of gore down on white girl, who was too shocked to scream. In the ensuing silence, one of the Posse men shouted Miguel, like calling the man by name would somehow bring him back to life.

That, Foxy whispered to the corpse, as it dropped back into the trench, is what you get for thinking with your little head, sucka.

Foxy plucked the rifle from where it fell. She bashed the butt against the manacle at her ankle until the metal finally snapped. White girl trembled, now, untethered but unable to look away from the corpse. Foxy considered bashing the girl's manacle, too, and then decided: To Hell with it. Let white girl keep the chain as a memento of her time here in Camp Nasty. "Adios, amiga," Foxy said.

Now white girl managed to tear her attention away from the corpse. Wait, Foxy!

No way, girlfriend. No. Damned. Way. And yet, wait was exactly what she did. Yeah? she asked, trying to sound a hellofalot haughtier than she actually felt.

Don't leave me, Sister.

If you hadn't noticed, this is a full out war.

White girl bobbed her head, on the verge of tears. I'm not stupid, she said.

Maybe not. But you're useless.

White girl shook her head firmly. We took Miguel together, didn't we?

Maybe so. Foxy said, I think it was me who took him.

But I can help you.

Maybe so.

Get me out of here, white girl said, and I will do anything to help you out.

Foxy considered this as men started screaming bloody invectives and orders all around the camp. A full on charge was about to commence, and here they were just sitting in the dead man's land. Soon, one side or the other would find them, if they did not start crawling. There was no time for deliberation, only time to act. Fine, Foxy said, But the second you become a burden, I leave you for dead.

White girl smiled through her tears. I won't let you down.

#

White girl proved to be a lot prettier than she was helpful, but in the end her looks proved most useful indeed. When they finally got out of the killing fields and back to Cabron City, Foxy traded white girl for a ticket back to the good old US of A.

As though she cared, the weasely little man assured Foxy that white girl would have a nice enough home, tending the whims and love muscle of some masked wrestler. A famous guy, if his manager and love-date procurement boss was to be believed.

You can't do this, Foxy! white girl said. I love you!

Foxy tilted her head and clucked her tongue. Sorry, baby. But Foxy Sister is much too precious to waste on this Godforsaken country. Now that my ticket is set, I gots to go. You visit me, when you can. This sounded better than: Really, honey, what does love got to do with anything?

Foxy offered her a winning smile; white girl, of course, cried; the manager held her chain and smiled. Foxy never saw either of them again.

I Can't Remember

Consciousness swam back with the stink of cordite.

I found myself laid out on a cold, concrete floor. Overhead a light swung to and fro, its brilliant white glow piercing my shadow stricken surroundings. Around me, a veritable maze of crates—blue chalk marks identified them as international shipments; I was in a warehouse, then—and between them . . . Other shapes.

Corpses. Maybe half a dozen men kitted in olive fatigues. All showed gaping gunshot wounds.

Across my lap lay a shotgun, still warm.

Anyone could put these facts together, that was no mystery. Yet, a mystery was present. My head was filled with fuzz.

My memory was blank.

Sure, I knew my name. Ty Harringa. I remembered the address for my duplex in Yonkers. I even recalled details from my childhood . . . It was the recent past about which I had no clue.

There is a sense of indescribable awfulness, of deepest violation in coming to at such a grim scene, knowing that you had taken some part in its creation, while remaining ignorant of any and all specifics.

Outside stimulus broke through my terror. A woman's wail from beyond one of the crates. I hurried toward her. The blood on my loafers perfect tracks across the gray floor.

Around the bend, I saw a woman in tattered skirt suit and stockings bound to a chair. A potato sack was pulled down over her head. What I could see of her coconut complexion played home to savage cuts and welts.

The woman was not alone. Beside her, shaking like a tree in a tornado, stood a young faced, slim, Arabic man wearing the same drab fatigues as the corpses. He held a Bowie knife to the prisoner's throat.

Move, the man said, obviously shaken, and she goes to Allah's brothel.

The shotgun suddenly felt heavy in my hands. Who are you?

The man's jaw set firm. Your tricks won't work. Lose that gun or I will—

Lack of memory or no, I knew enough about the situation to act: I threw the shotgun like a javelin. It nailed him in the shoulder, knocking him sideways and drawing the deadly edge away from the woman. I charged before he could make good on his death threat.

Still, he swung that awful edge toward her. I caught his wrist. Twisted. Bones snapped. Knife clattered to the floor.

He grunted. Brought his free, unbroken hand up into the nerve cluster under my arm. Water filled my eyes, and I twisted his broken wrist, moving him puppet like away from the sobbing woman.

He aimed a boot for my knee. I turned the wrist some more, sending his blow astray. I dragged