Black Light of Day

By Jason McIntyre

In the tradition of Hitchcock, Rod Serling, Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson, "Black Light of Day" is an anthology of six horror, science fiction, drama and suspense stories.

Dangerous Intersection // At the same intersection over the course of the next year and a half, Janey Dietrich goes through the motions of her ever-changing life and might finally discover what’s truly important to her.

Remembering Train Car Six // 58-year old Mort can’t shake the feeling that he’s been doing things in the past to help himself in the present. He just can’t remember doing them.

Two in the Park // The man in the fedora is good with his video camera but recently-divorced Albert is too busy watching his own daughter boss her way through the playground to give him the notice he deserves.

One Hour’s Reprieve // Allie gets one hour for lunch with her mom, to laugh, to catch up, and to deliver some heart-breaking news.

Dark That Day, After All // As they peer into the heavens together, elderly Jarvis Schloss unburdens his soul to another park dweller as they sit on his favorite park bench. The two each reflect on the primes of their lives and uncover something even darker than the sky overhead.

Act of Contrition // Mark Foley has climbed his way to a prime V-P position with Gabriel-Garvin and Subsidiaries but today he’s getting more than a simple hand-slap over a deal that went south.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason McIntyre
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465759696

Jason McIntyre

Born on the prairies, Jason McIntyre eventually lived and worked on Vancouver Island where the vibrant characters and vivid surroundings stayed with him and coalesced into what would become his novel, On The Gathering Storm. Before his time as an editor, writer and communications professional, he spent several years as a graphic designer and commercial artist. Jason is the author of more than two dozen short stories, several novellas and full-length fiction.Currently, Jason is at work on new novels and stories in the Dovetail Cove world -- companion books to BLED and SHED.His latest full-length novel, THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND, is out now!Synopsis:The saga began with The Night Walk Men, the #1 Kindle Suspense novella by Jason McIntyre. Now it continues with The Devil's Right Hand. And a war is brewing.Meet Benton Garamond. He's lost. He careens through the wet streets of downtown Vancouver on a collision course with a dirty lawyer named Levy Gillis. He wants something from Gillis and he aims to get it.Meet Donovan Lo, former drug kingpin and not bad with the ladies if you ask him. He's in hiding and has a plan to leave his empire for good. But something -- and someone -- aims to put a bullet through his last big score.Now meet Sperro. He has a lot to say about his job, about Benton Garamond and about Donovan Lo. Sperro will be your tour guide."We are Night Walk Men, imbued with the lives of at least ten men, and we walk among you like a blur, unseen but often sensed or smelled like pollen in the air when you can't see flowers--or the tingle you get when the hairs on your neck stand up."If you hear footsteps on the parched earth behind you, or if dry autumn leaves scrape concrete with a breeze, that's most likely one of us, walking just a little ahead or just a little behind. If it's dark and you climb into your car and for once--for no reason at all--wonder why you didn't check the back seat for strangers, one of my brothers is mostly likely back there as you drive off."We are everywhere at once and nothing can stop us. We are Death incarnate, walking under long robes of black and chasing down the winds to read from a discourse that may be the last words you'll hear..."Be prepared to shake The Devil's Right Hand.

Book preview

Black Light of Day

A Short Story Anthology by

Jason McIntyre

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Published by &

Copyright © 2012 Jason McIntyre

Smashwords Edition

Fiction titles by Jason McIntyre:

On The Gathering Storm

Shed

Thalo Blue

Bled

Black Light of Day

Walkout

Nights Gone By

Learn more about the author and his work at:

www.theFarthestReaches.com

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

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Contents

Dangerous Intersection

Remembering Train Car Six

Two in the Park

One Hour’s Reprieve

Dark That Day, After All

Act of Contrition

Dangerous Intersection

A Tuesday in November.

Jane Deitrich rounded the slick corner in her rusting Toyota Tercel as the green, flashing arrow ended, turned amber and then fell to black. Making her way left through the wide intersection, she put the pedal down to the floor to get out of the way of the oncoming vehicles, three wide lanes of them, all roaring their engines to get going. Those drivers all wanted to be home at the end of their day too. Her back wheels slipped on the glassy blacktop which was covered in a thin layer of ice but the front ones still had some grip and they led her onto First Avenue, the cross road that would take her east through the edge of downtown and then wind her and the Tercel north towards the house she shared with Harlan, her common-law partner.

As she gripped the steering wheel and took note that she had at least a car’s length of clearance between her right side and the noses of the oncoming cars with their newly minted green, Jane caught a flashing peek of two light standards. They were wrapped in clear packing tape that choked dead bunches of flowers and home-made signs for the loved ones who’d died here. Above them was official signage posted by the city’s traffic department: two shiny planks that showed black blobs, the exaggerated shape of upright coffins, narrowed at the top. These indicated two fatalities at this intersection and were supposed to be a warning to drivers: slow down, stay alive. Not like those poor shleps, the ones who wouldn’t get to see the flowers pinned up in their memory.

A pang of sadness hit Janey when she realized these were the new dangerous intersection signs that she’d heard about on the dinner-hour news. Two people had died right here—two real people—right on this bit of road where she was tilting on the Tercel’s struts to make the turn before getting clipped. But as the Tercel sputtered and she eased her foot off the accelerator, the sadness left her. It was quickly replaced by thoughts of what she’d tell Harlan when she got home. He was laid up on the couch with a busted foot this last stretch of weeks, and neither of them were making money these days. Her news might not put a spring in his step—not yet anyway—but he’d be happy for her just the same. Maybe they’d decide to uncork that bottle of Malbec they’d been saving. He’d probably say, "Janey, that’s not the deal. We open that bottle when we both get back to work."

Having left the main artery of Duscan Drive, a half block down the narrower but still generous boulevard of First Avenue, there was a house on the right-hand side, set back from the street and the sidewalk. It caught Jane’s attention for two reasons.

A giant cedar tree was being removed and two trucks had pulled up onto the skiff of snow in the front yard. One tree was already downed, laying out across the yard like a two-storey-tall dead soldier, finally at peace. A couple of heavily-clad men in helmets and orange vests were using chainsaws to notch the base of the second trunk about four feet off the ground while three other men held ropes tethered higher up on the cedar’s main shaft. They watched warily from a distance not far enough to escape the tree when it fell—unless, they paid close attention and moved with it when it started to fall.

The side street was blocked off with yellow sawhorses and orange traffic cones and Janey saw cars doing u-turns on the other side so the drivers could figure a way out through alleyways or back down other side streets to get around the falling cedars.

The second thing she noticed was the giant three and four foot icicles that hung from the eaves at the front of the house, some of them so big they obscured the view of the house itself, blocking windows. The house was a raised bungalow with deep basement window wells. It was old, probably built in the early sixties or even late fifties. This was what Harlan would call a touchy part of town. Not sketchy, because crime wasn’t a big issue yet, but still you could find a place to buy weed or ‘second-hand prescriptions’ if that was your thing and you’d see shopping carts tipped over in the nearby storm channel or shoes thrown over the telephone wires. Houses and yards were unkempt and this one, the Twin Cedar House, was no exception. Paint peeled and there was one broken panel of glass that faced First Avenue with a piece of cardboard duct-taped over it. Though too far away on the road and moving too fast to know for certain, Janey knew the long shining icicles would be dripping by now, this late in the day as the sun winked in and out of cloud cover. They hung down in intricate crossover shafts, catching the light. They were haphazardly suspended over a long wooden wheelchair ramp that ran almost the entire