Top Writers Block Storm

By Top Writers Block

Some storms rage, but not all storms are wind and rain, and natural pyrotechnics. Many are personal, emotional, and mental revelations that blow in like a fierce summer squall. They rush in and back out again, leaving us looking at our reflections in the puddles left behind and wondering what the hell just happened...

This collection of five short fiction stories range from drama, horror, poetry, amusements, and a vast collection of styles by Top Writers Block members Suzy Stewart-Dubot, Melissa A. Szydlek, Barnaby Wilde, Elizabeth Rowan Keith, and Tracey Howard. Ride out the storms in your life with this collection.

Your purchase of this ebook not only supports the creative outlets of independent authors, but also supports charity. Top Writers Block is an international group of writers who continue to donate all of their author proceeds to Sea Shepherd in France, an organization that devotes itself to preserving our seas and oceans and the life within.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Top Writers Block
• Release date: Jul 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370538980

Top Writers Block

Top Writers Block is a diverse and eclectic group of talented writers who decided to write stories together - just for the fun of it! Our collections are usually written with one theme or genre in mind. Each author contributes when they have the time, so some of the collections have as many as twelve authors participating. Every collection has something new, with stories and poems ranging from romance, drama, and adventure to mystery, fantasy, and horror.

Book preview

A Collection of Short Stories

by

TOP WRITERS BLOCK

Written on the theme:

STORM

Copyright ©2016 by each individual author as noted

Published on Smashwords

Cover Graphic from Adobe Stock

ISBN: 9781370538980

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.

Smashwords License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SHELTER FROM THE STORM by Suzy Stewart Dubot

HELL HOUND ON MY TRAIL by Melissa A. Szydlek

STORMBOTTLE by Barnaby Wilde

I’M SORRY by Elizabeth Rowan Keith

STILL WATERS NOT SO DEEP by Tracey Howard

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

by

Suzy Stewart Dubot

Copyright ©2016 by Suzy Stewart Dubot

An Anglo/American who has been living in France for over 30 years, she began writing as soon as she retired. She recently spent seventeen months in London, UK caring for an aged relative. She is now back in France. Writing follows her as easily as her laptop.

With her daughters, she is a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights and an admirer of William Wilberforce.

http://suzystewartdubotbooks.weebly.com

Leave in the night, she’d told Abby. Your best bet is to head west where new towns are sprouting up, and you’ll have a better chance of surviving.

Abigail would never be sure which of her comments had turned the scales in her favor, but the end result was that the woman had given her sufficient money to buy a buckboard wagon, a mule to pull it, enough to buy staples for several weeks’ travel, and pocket money.

It was the closest the woman had ever come to showing kindness.

Mrs. Emily Grant, the bitter, unsmiling woman that she was, could afford to pay Abigail to leave. She was wife of the town’s well-to-do banker, who was also a philanderer.

****

Abigail Flynn was now twenty-two-years old.

She had been seventeen when she and her father, Connor Flynn, had searched desperately for any means to leave Ireland and its misery.

The only opportunity presented to them had been as indentured servants for five years to an American businessman. He had paid their fare to New York, and then on to the town where he lived, which was, thankfully, free from the pollution and crime that stigmatized New York. There they had worked for him without wages, and in exchange for the long attendance hours, they had been dressed, lodged and fed, which was more than Ireland had been able to do for them.

Knowing the day would come when the contract would end, they had been able to keep an ember of optimism glowing. Besides, hadn’t they had the good fortune of staying together?

Just over a year before the end of their indenture, a flu epidemic had been the death of Connor, but his death had been compounded by that of their patron.

Abby had been sucked into a whirlwind of torment with the loss of her father, little realizing how her patron’s death would affect her. For financial reasons, the mistress of the house had not wanted to keep her. She had negotiated a price for the remaining year of her indenture to the town’s prosperous, middle-aged banker, Mr. Grant.

Abby had had no say in the matter. She was considered chattel and was sold after four years with no more sentiment involved than if she’d been a piece of furniture.

There were those in the town, however, who whispered that Abby’s fair looks had been what had interested Mr. Grant and not her industrious work ethic. Pale skin, blue eyes and a determined nose (which was subject to freckles when exposed to the sun) composed her oval-shaped face. When she smiled, a pleasantly wide mouth could charm the sourest person. Dark, almost black hair was the frame for the pretty picture she made.

Behind their hands, others wondered if Mrs. Grant would tolerate her for very long. Age had not done her any favors, and Abby’s presence would only accentuate that fact.

****

The wind threw grit at her as she huddled under the wagon. Thrashing rain fell on the wagon’s boards, ran their length and then poured off the jagged ends. Drops filtered through the gaps between the planks and dripped on Abby, but she was grateful for the shelter, nonetheless.

The poor mule was tied so he could stand with his tail to the onslaught, because Abby had no other solution. Freeing him so he could find his own shelter had never been an option as she couldn’t risk losing him. There was nowhere within miles, anyway.

Abby had tried to break the