A Frightful Encounter: Murkwood Tales, #1

By Neil Bursnoll

Giles Grant has been a Police Officer for five years. He was recently promoted to an armed response unit, and today is the end of his first day. He is a staunch believer in the afterlife, and that not everybody gets to move on when they die. Whilst he has only ever experienced the mildest of unexplainable events, tonight will change everything.

This short story is set in the same world as Augustus Baltazar and features characters that appear in the second novel in the series: The Scar That Bleeds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil Bursnoll
• Release date: Oct 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781492974154

Book preview

Constant waves of nameless faces scurry past, all too fast for his brain to process whether he should recognise them or not. Police Constable Giles Grant is sat on the bench opposite his new locker, listening to the snatches of sentences that drift from left to right, right to left. A meal for a girlfriend. A new car. Underpayment of a council tax bill. He isn’t sure who each voice belongs to, but today has been a complete whirlwind. His eyes drop to the concrete floor, ears working overtime as his most prominent sense.

He is in fresh Kevlar armour, firm muscles stretching out from the arms of the vest. His buzzed brown hair glistens with sweat, beads trickling down his frowning forehead. His blue eyes are fixed on the same spot, drying out ever so slowly from a hesitance in shuttering. A prominent horizontal scar upon his top lip is a reminder of when he bit through the flesh as a three year old.

A body lumps down beside him, residual force jolting him awake. He looks across to see the one person he has remembered a name for: Constable Adam Martins.

Too much to process? he asks, steely gaze cupped by a circular pair of silicon sleeves. His scraggy blonde hair is wet from the arduous work they’ve only just completed. I remember my first day with the team being quite similar. So much going on at once.

You could say that. Grant tells him, looking back up at the sparse contents of his daily home.

Stick a picture of the missus up there. Kids too, if you have them. Martins points. It helps.

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