Helping Hands, a Dark Comedy

By RC Monson

Tammy is an adventurous young woman who wants some of the finer things in life. Jaxon, a struggling artist, has to hustle to make ends meet. While casing an upscale neighborhood for potential burglary sites, they happen upon a crime in progress. The events that follow their first encounter with Dr. Death turn out to be chilling, thrilling, and life altering in ways they never would have expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RC Monson
• Release date: Jan 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370339488

RC Monson

RC Monson spent his youth on a high ridge between the Sandia Mountains and the Rio Grande during the 50s and 60s. In the early 70s he moved to California and studied art and creative writing at San Francisco State. After ten years of big city life, he stepped off the treadmill and returned to a more laid back lifestyle in New Mexico. He had at least twenty-five different jobs over the years, ranging from bike mechanic to sales clerk to garageman, from typographer to proofreader to editor, from sales work and public relations to high school English teacher.Having begun his quiet venture into the literary world by writing a series of angst riddled, adolescent poems, he later penned a dark, explosive little yarn that caught the attention of the editors at the college literary review. After graduation he published only on a rare occasion and spent most of his free time blundering around, trying to figure out how to put a novel together. For a number of years he read his poems at the open mic shows at coffee shops and bars around town. Then he went back to school at the Albuquerque branch of the College of Santa Fe and acquired a teaching credential, and for nearly a decade his creative energies were completely devoted to that craft.Next thing you know he took an early retirement and jetted off to Costa Rica for a few months, then off to Colorado and Florida and California by car. He piddled around for a while on a couple of useless websites, and settled eventually into a writing routine for the first time in about ten years. Starting with short pieces about his time in the apartment rental business, he gradually built up the confidence to tackle another full length manuscript.She Didn’t Say is his first and only published novel to date. In recent months he has been toying with the notion of attempting another one, but right now he has a website to build and maintain as well as a slew of other marketing chores to attend to. And, lord knows, he certainly wouldn’t want to get in a big hurry about it—not anymore!

Book preview

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Helping Hands

A Dark Comedy

RC Monson

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Copyright 2020 RC Monson

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781370339488

Cover Design: Livewire Productions

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Jax and I were seeking out a good place to burglarize, when we stumbled upon a crime in progress. Outside of a big ritzy house in High Point Estates, we stomped through a dark flowerbed with our motorcycle boots and peered in the window of a shadowy bedroom through the eyeholes in our black ski masks. I was so scared I nearly peed my pants. Jaxon was so engrossed by the horror show inside he barely noticed me squeezing his hand.

What we saw in the bedroom was a swanky gentleman, say sixty-five or so, bent over an old woman lying supine on the bed. The woman must have been at least ninety and looked pale and sickly, except for her perfect silver-blue hairdo. She was all decked out in a vintage fifties silk brocade ballroom gown. At first I thought she was sleeping. But then I spotted the IV in her arm. A long tube attached the IV to a weird contraption with upside-down bottles feeding a deadly chemical mixture into the tube—like an execution scene in the movies.

Creepy, I muttered, and a shiver ran down my spine. For a moment I kinda wished Jax hadn’t asked me to come along and help him tonight. I wished I had just stayed home.

That’s Dr. Death, Jax whispered without taking his eyes off the disturbing scene inside. I’ve seen him in the news.

Is he doing what I think he’s doing? I whispered back.