Tales From The Dark Side

By James Apps

Tales From The Dark Side is a collection of stories that ask the question ‘What if?' when we deal with what should be normal situations. These are tales of individuals and families and their personal experiences and some disturbing insights into the realms of the underworld. Ranging from an insight into the mind of an assassin through the dreadful atrocities perpetuated by the former corrupt regime of Chile in the 1980's and what and what happens if something goes dreadfully wrong with a massive colonisation project, this collection explores human nature and its dark side. Sometimes it is the ordinary that carries with it a disturbing shudder; the ordinary modern home, a baby's pram, the prophets of doom on the commute to work or the night of a themed party. All this and more is explored in this collection of short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Apps
• Release date: Nov 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310831348

Book preview

Foreword

The stories in this collection if they have a theme or common thread it is that it is related to ordinary life; the common things we see and hear around us. These tales reflect the darker side of life touching on the myths of our society, or explore briefly disturbing states of mind and bringing them close to the way we live. There is a desire within us to experience a haunted house but when such hauntings happen in an ordinary suburban home instead of the traditional ghost of an old building the haunting is disturbing and frightening to the modern mind. Sometimes the news stories grip the imagination, or we wonder what it is that drives people to do what they do. Our imagination sometimes takes us on strange journeys but when strange things happen in our own world how do we cope?

From the cold, practical mind of an assassin, the brutal stupidity of a moronic robber to the gentle, but spooky story of a village churchyard there is something for all tastes.

It is not easy to understand what motivates others to do the things they do but hopefully in this collection of macabre tales the reader will have an insight into the reasons why.

Contents

The Director

The Philosopher's Cat

The Last Amen

Thirty Pieces of Silver

Footprints in the Dust

For You My Garden Grows

The Hanging Man

Hotel Paradiso

The Pram

Jason

She doesn't like cats...

On the Edge

A Dish of Mince for Polly

Bush Camp

Twelfth Night

The Man in the Red Mask

The Circle

A Fleeting Glimpse...

The end of the world is nigh

The Lobby

Last Word

The Director

It doesn’t take much to kill a man. A single knife thrust in the right place, a bullet in the head or heart, a sharp snap of the neck, a few drops of curare or the violent cutting of a sharp sword. Not much at all really. One sharp, unexpected blow and, snuff, like a candle, out. Shakespeare had it right. A brief candle, snuffed out in an instant; no need for torture, or some dread illness, a simple act, deliberate and calculated.

The mathematics of death is merely a matter of finding the right balance between force and effect.

The Romans used short swords that thrust forward, and spears that penetrated like needles. The Japanese liked the sharp blade, swift and deadly. The English used the long bow, the broad sword and eventually the rifle. The good old Lee Enfield 303.

I use a Remington sniper rifle. A specialist weapon from world war two, a light, adaptable, and easily broken down rifle used by the Green Beret’s. Adaptable because it will take modern and quite lethal ancillaries, used in, say Vietnam, or Afghanistan, and still remain accurate and easy to use. I have a box that looks like a large briefcase with my initials on it. I wear a suit and tie, an Oxford tie, and I look like you, or your colleagues.

A businessman. Prissy, bright, worried, active and ordinary.

But there is nothing ordinary about the way I conduct my business. I have the lease on a flat for three months. A well stocked larder. A clear view of the square below, and a task to do.

I have a good view from the apartment window and I have my gun set up ready to use. The sight below is familiar and to view it I have a telescopic sight, a laser guidance system and I use soft nosed bullets. I am efficient. I am also paid very well. I do a good job, understand? When I kill somebody, a target, they stay dead. Not like that stupid bastard who killed Kennedy – head shots – no good – too exacting – with a soft-nosed bullet Kennedy would have been wasted with one shot. Blood, brains and bone splinters splattered across the Dallas streets so fine they could not be found by the best forensic team.

I don’t mess around.

Right now the target is unaware that he is a target.

Giggle, giggle.

If I do it right the target’s cerebral matter and a good part of his chest will splatter in a wide cone directly opposite where my bullet enters his body. He has no idea that I am sitting here high above the street in a comfortable chair. I like a canvas chair with arms like a director of a movie. You see, I direct what happens, don’t I?

I’m not particularly interested in why the target has to be wasted, taken out, I am only concerned that I do it right, get away and collect my pay. Half the fee for the engagement. The other half on completion.

My contact knows that if I don’t get paid I will waste him.

It’s called insurance.

I like to refer to it as life insurance.

A very useful part of my contract. So far I have always been paid. The wonderful thing is that the fee is always large. You, the ordinary punter would love to earn what I earn. Maybe you would do one job and retire. But I like what I do. The money is a bonus, a wage for a highly skilled operator. I am the tops. That is why I get all the best jobs.

Today, at approximately 11:05 your Prime Minister is going to die. Pity. I liked him. But somebody, somewhere, doesn’t.

So, I sit here, comfy in my director’s chair and wait. My rifle is clean, dull with oil so that it doesn’t reflect any sunlight. The lens is shrouded for the same reason and the chamber is loaded with a soft-nosed. There are five more in the magazine. I expect to use only one.

I sit for a long time, but I am used to that, waiting is no problem. You use a Zen mantra and empty your mind so you can hear everything. Things like spoons on cups, farts, flushing toilets, the sounds in the street, and to be aware of when the small cavalcade is due to arrive.

Schedule. Eleven nought three into the square. Eleven nought four, car stops outside building. Eleven nought five, target walks across the sidewalk to the door. Eleven nought five plus one I fire the shot that changes your world.

Giggle, giggle.

It is now eleven nought three.

Car enters square.

I adjust my aim.

Eleven nought four.

Car stops.

I am ready.

Eleven nought four and thirty seconds.

I squeeze the trigger.

Eleven nought five.

Target strides toward door.

I press until the trigger settles neatly into its small slot. It and I have completed our evolution. I look through the lens and watch as the target flops forward and down onto the paving.

Eleven nought five and ten seconds.

Target beyond repair.

Dead.

Eleven nought five and twenty seconds.

I begin packing my equipment away. Clean everything; spray all surfaces with acid, clear the cupboards but leave the chair facing the street from where I fired the shot.

You know, it really doesn’t take much to kill a man.

The Philosopher’s Cat

It is certain that whatever you touch, whatever you see or hear is real, tangible and therefore must exist; I think, therefore I am, so I believe I exist because I am capable of rationalising the experience. You can prove this phenomenon by placing your hands on the table, or feeling the seat of your bottom on a chair. In effect the world around you is a solid, tactile place and you are a part of it. Walking, feeling the paving under your feet, touching solid objects with your hands, holding a glass of red wine and drinking the contents, listening to vehicles as they pass by, hearing the latch click on your front door and although you cannot see it, the music on your radio seems real, and the smell of a neighbours’ barbecue in the summer are all real experiences. As real as you feel when you pinch your thigh and feel the sharp pain.

And then some bugger comes out with the idea that a tree falling in a forest with nobody around to see or hear it may not actually exist. Or that smart arse Schrödinger with his black cat in a box suggests that it too may be a figment of our imagination.

Of course, no matter how much you argue that whether you see the bloody tree or not is immaterial, or the damn cat should not be put in a box in the first place, the Philosophers insist that the problem is worthy of discussion. To show how serious they take themselves they generally shake their heads in despair and manage to look superior, adding a knowing smile or two as they try to explain. Whatever they say the problem is really not about theoretical intangibles but who is willing to believe in them, and that brings me to my story about Olly Walpole and why, these days I always keep a sharp knife close at hand.

Olly Walpole was different.

Although we all called him by his shorter name he insisted that he should be called Oliver and not Olly, or any other shortened version of his given name. He was an odd boy who although he made very few friends, and those did not last long, there was a fascination, a mystique about him his aloofness generated. Being with him was an experience that could disturb or stimulate according to how you approached his company. Olly Walpole was a Geek, but his geekiness was unusual. He really did know things, and although he was for much of the time absorbed with whatever it was that took his interest he was also one of the top sportsmen of the school, and later when he wandered out into the world he was in demand for most local sports teams.

As a sportsman he diligently learned the rules, applied them, and added his natural coordinated skill to the chosen sport. He was good enough to play for his county at cricket, excellent at Rugby preferring that to football because, as he said, you have to think tactically and strategically. Rugger is like chess with violence. he stated. He had a violent temper that although he managed to keep under control most of the time sometimes rose to the surface and the results were usually nasty for the person who had annoyed him.

Judging by the comments at the opening of this tale you would jump to the conclusion that Oliver Walpole would major in Philosophy at whatever university he liked to apply for, but instead he chose to study mathematics at Brunel completing, so I heard, a postgraduate degree. This was in the days of ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels and politicians calling on students to fill the places in science and mathematics, and for many years I lost contact with him. In fact I never really expected to see him again. He was a technical geek; you know the sort, somebody who could devise a gadget to solve problems, or make mechanical contraptions that looked somewhat Heath Robinson but worked. He used his mathematics to work out what was needed and then made the parts. One of his most annoying traits, and the one that frustrated most people was his reaction when asked to share anything, especially the gadgets he had made.

I make them, you buy them, he said, and that was when he was at school. Out in the workplace he was even more precious with his devices. I suppose he was an Engineer although I didn’t think he was the sort who would be interested in a career in a drawing office, especially when he gained a solid degree as a mathematician.

Oliver applied what he knew.

It was the geek thing.

The last I heard of him he was working for a company that made small units designed to manipulate items. He was involved with early robotics and after that I lost track of him but I remembered what being his companion was like; it was uncomfortable, a sort of on-off relationship that he controlled and sometimes although I admired him and his skills I was frightened of his violent nature. I could never be a friend because Olly didn’t make friends - I don’t think he understood what friendship meant. It was as if he believed, or perhaps accepted that he was alone in the world and needed nobody else but himself. I believe he liked the idea of Zen Buddhism. You know, the sort of thing where you have to contemplate an impossible question - it is supposed to focus your mind on the simplicity of existence. To him it was not a religion but simply a way of living; it seemed he liked the idea of living for the moment. I think it helped control his anger. I preferred to bumble along pretending I was an Anglican like many other English people.

It was many years before I met up with him again.

At first I did not recognise him but when he stood up to give an address I recognised the name and realised it was indeed Oliver. The event was a conference to which I was invited as an observer and although I had glanced at the list of key speakers his name had not registered until I looked at it again when he was announced. It was that sort of conference. We were supposed to be inspired by new ideas but this was the third day and quite frankly I was fed up with the hypo-jargon, the endless polished faces, the plethora of leaflets that seemed to shower on to us and the workshops run by people who looked as if they had just graduated. I caught up with Oliver