Passerby

By Terry R Barca

PASSERBY is an anthology of short stories and is Book 2 in the series. This collection concentrates on stories that demanded a sequel and in some cases, a third part. Sometimes the demand for a 'follow up' came from my readers but on occasion the demand came from the story itself. If you are a writer, you will know that stories sometimes take on a life of their own, and even though the story appears to have an ending it cries out to be allowed to continue. I have grouped the stories so that they flow in the order in which they were written, with one notable exception. Towards the end of this anthology there is a three-parter, of which 'Keep Left' is the middle story. It was written as a stand alone story and 'Explain it to Me' and 'And In The End You'll Hear Me Calling' were written latter. "Do you have a favourite?" I hear you ask. A parent loves their children equally, but I must say that I have a particular fondness for the first two stories, one of which, gives the anthology its name, 'PASSERBY'. The stories in this anthology do not fall into any particular genre because I like to 'go with the flow' when I write. I hope you enjoy your journey through my imagination, and I hope you will come back for more. I'll keep writing them, if you keep reading them.
Terry R Barca

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry R Barca
• Release date: Dec 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311972095

Terry R Barca

I’m an author who lives and works in the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern edge of Melbourne Australia.I take one day at a time but occasionally I’m attacked by several days at once.My amazing wife and I have lived in The Hills for forty-three years.My favourite colour is green and so is my favourite car.I started my working life as a Primary School Teacher in the early 1970s.Since then I have been a stained glass craftsman, furniture restorer, restorer of Player Pianos and music rolls, author (twenty one books so far, seventeen audiobooks, another on the way), photographer, basketball trading card manufacturer, basketball coach, basketball player, basketball referee, part-time shop assistant, newspaper columnist, homeschool dad, husband, father, grandfather, and a few other bits and pieces, and not in this order.I’m fascinated by people, but I prefer the company of dogs.I’m not frightened of dying, but sometimes life scares the hell out of me.I think that birds are cool but I don’t believe that they spend any time thinking about me, even though I give them lots of stale bread, and the occasional pizza crust........ ungrateful bastards!

Book preview

PASSERBY

an anthology.

Book 2

Terry R Barca

Copyright © by Terry R. Barca 2014

This is the second in a series of Short Story Anthologies.

Table of Contents

Also by Terry R Barca.

Acknowledgements.

Foreword

PASSERBY

Blue Sky

Boss Lady

Boof

She Didn't Turn Up

Green Coat, Black Gloves, Red Handbag

I Shot Him

Don't Shoot Billy

The Blue Dress

Sisters

I Cannot Take Your Call At The Moment

Right From The Start

Explain It To Me

Turn Left

And In The End, You'll Hear Me Calling

Out There Waiting For You

Waiting

Not Alone

Author's Notes

Also by Terry R Barca.

The Long Weekend.

SCHOOME:

Acknowledgements.

Thank you to everyone who allowed me to try out these stories on them; your feedback has been most helpful. This applies to all those loyal souls who follow me on Wo rdpress [araneus1.wordpress.com].

Thank you also to my wife for her constant encouragement, and my two dogs who waited patiently for me to stop writing and take them for a walk.

Foreword.

For this anthology I have chosen stories that took on a life of their own; often demanding a second and sometimes a third episode.

For that reason they are grouped so that you will be able to read each collection in the order that they were written.

I know it will be obvious where one collection of stories ends and a new collection begins.

I've chosen to lead off this anthology with the two stories, 'Passerby,' and 'Blue Sky'. I enjoyed writing them very much and they are as they were written.

I enjoy looking at a story from the different perspectives of the characters involved, and I hope that my enjoyment of this style meets with your approval.

18 Stories cluster this way.......

'Passerby' and 'Blue Sky'

'Boss Lady' and 'Boof'

'Green Coat, Black Gloves, Red Handbag' with 'I Shot Him' and 'Don't Shoot Billy'

'The Blue Dress' and 'Sisters'

'Explain It To Me', 'Turn Left', 'And In The End, You'll Hear Me Calling'

'Out There Waiting For You', 'Waiting' and 'Not Alone'

The following stories stand alone...........

'She Didn't Turn Up'

'I Cannot Take Your Call At The Moment'

'Right From The Start'.

PASSERBY

I should have stayed down; stayed where I was.

Anyone with half a brain would have stayed out of sight until it was definitely all over.

But no; I had to stick my head up to see what was going on.

I only had vision for a split second, but I could see the young policeman lying on the ground, his gun just out of reach.

I was guessing that the masked bloke standing over him was probably the one who shot him. With all the gun-fire over the past few seconds it was difficult to tell how many people had been involved.

The shooting had stopped and the other masked blokes had legged it up the street and into the car park; leaving this lone-gunman standing over the fallen officer aiming his gun at the young man's head.

I got that sick feeling you get when you know that if you don't do something really quickly you are going to spend the rest of your life wishing you had.

Let's get this straight; given enough time I'm always going to fall on the side of the line that says, 'coward'.

My dad was a war hero, but that's not me.

Gold plated, self-interested coward.

So, knowing all that, I was as surprised as anyone when the words, Don't do it mate, came rather loudly out of my mouth.

Thinking about it later, and I do that a lot, it occurs to me that my training as a referee got me into this sticky situation. Sometimes during a game some bloke will 'loose it' and look like he is going to kill someone and if you shout at him, from a considerable distance, the shock of your words can snap him back into real-time.

It worked about half the time and the other half of the time he came after you, which was bad. But as I mentioned, you did this from a distance and if things went 'pear-shaped' you had a running start and hopefully his team mates would grab him before he got to you.

This bloke didn't have team mates and no matter how fast I thought I was, there's no outrunning a bullet.

The gunman stopped looking at the injured policeman; and turned his gaze toward me.

All my life I have been able to talk my way out of tight corners; they didn't come any tighter than this.

He looked at me but didn't level his gun in my direction, which I took as a good sign.

I think I said something like, No one has died [how the hell did I know that?] and all you have to do is walk away. But if you kill a cop they will never stop looking for you.

He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity and it occurred to me that I had a big mouth and it was finally going to catch up with me.

The gunman smiled at me and walked in the direction of his fellow armed robbers.

He walked slowly and I could hear the sound of his boots as they hit the footpath.

All other sound had ceased.

It was as quiet as you can imagine, except for the sound of his boots.

At that moment it occurred to me that this bloke was likely to come out of the spell of my brilliantly chosen words and realise that the cops were going to get him no matter what, and that he might as well make it as hard as possible for them by killing the two closest witnesses: the young policeman and myself.

I guessed that I had about four-seconds before this all unfolded so I bent down and picked up the policeman's handgun.

I looked at him and I could see that he was in a very bad way and I think he read my mind because he started to shake his head.

I was running out of time and we both knew it, so I said, Do I have to cock this thing or do I just point and shoot?

I could barely hear him but I'm pretty sure he said, Point and squeeze.

I'm now half kneeling on the footpath and when I turn and look, the gunman,