Killing Malmon

By Dan Malmon and Kate Malmon

Never before has killing someone benefitted such a good cause...

In 2014, Crimespree Magazine held an internet-based flash fiction contest. The rules were simple: somewhere in the story you had to “Kill Dan Malmon.” That was it. The story had to be brief, inventive, and somewhere, Malmon had to die. Now, thanks to Down & Out Books, those original stories, plus a few more, are being collected into one volume with all proceeds going to the MS Society. If you hate MS as much as we do, and if your feelings towards Dan Malmon are rather ambivalent anyway, then this is the volume for you.

Featuring stories by Hector Acosta, Eric Beetner, Dana Cameron, Sarah M. Chen, Matthew Clemens, Angel Luis Colón, Hilary Davidson, Cory Funk, Danny Gardner, Paul J. Garth, Rob Hart, Ed Kurtz, S.W. Lauden, Russel D. McLean, Jeff Macfee, Erin Mitchell, Erica Ruth Neubauer, Brad Parks, Thomas Pluck, Bryon Quertermous, Todd Robinson, Alex Segura, Jeff Shelby, Nathan Singer, Josh Stallings, Jay Stringer, R.D. Sullivan, Bryan VanMeter, Holly West and Dave White.

Praise for KILLING MALMON:

“I’ve never quite understood why people keep killing off Malmon. But they make a good case. Several cases. Many, many cases—for a good cause! Killing Malmon for fun and non-profit!” —Lori Rader-Day, Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Day I Died

“You can’t spell marvelously grisly and a funky good time without K-I-L-L-I-N-G M-A-L-M-O-N. Do yourself a favor and dive in.” —Shaun Harris, author of The Hemingway Thief

“Look, I like Dan Malmon, so I feel kinda guilty enjoying the hell out of his many untimely demises. But this collection, which features some of the best crime writers on the planet, is a gonzo pulp confection that hits your system like a sugar high and leaves you smiling the whole way through.” —Chris Holm, Anthony Award-winning author of The Killing Kind and Red Right Hand

“Your mom is going to hate this.” —Kristi Belcamino, author of the Gabriella Giovanni thriller series

“Killing Malmon is an incredibly satisfying crime fiction sampler. Read it. I guarantee you’ll leave with at least three new writers to check out (plus an inexplicable desire to protect and nurture Dan Malmon).” —Jess Lourey, TEDx presenter and Anthony- and Lefty-nominated author of the Witch Hunt thrillers and the Murder by Month mysteries

“Come for the death of Dan Malmon, stay for the super-group of authors letting it all hang out, dropping tasty cut after tasty cut of pure noir.” —Matthew FitzSimmons, author of the Gibson Vaughn series

“Killing Malmon is like Murder on the Orient Express except (spoilers!) it’s not by Agatha Christie, or on a train, or on its way to the Orient. Still, there’s something wonderful and sweet watching thirty talented mystery writers line up to shoot, strangle, poison, dismember, and otherwise spell the demise of the one of the genuinely nicest guys in the business. If you’re into that kind of thing like I am, read Killing Malmon.” —Matthew Iden, author of the Marty Singer mystery series and The Winter Over

“Life sure is hard for you.” —Judy Malmon, Dan’s mom

“I love these stories!” —Diane Hackbarth, Kate’s mom

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Oct 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370071081

Book preview

Foreword

Dan and Kate Malmon

Fade in to an old English library. Dan is sitting in an overstuffed club chair and has a pipe stuck in his mouth. Kate is standing behind the chair, giving Dan the side-eye. As always, she looks like a redheaded Jane Mansfield.

Dan speaks, "Hi, folks. Welcome to the Killing Malmon anthology. We are glad that you’re here. You may be asking ‘What’s this all about, and how did it come to be?’ Well, here it is. The Killing Malmon Secret Origin.

"In 2014, Crimespree Magazine held an internet-based flash fiction contest. The rules were simple: somewhere in the story you had to ‘Kill Dan Malmon.’ That was it. The story had to brief, inventive, and somewhere, Malmon (that’s me) had to die. Why was the crux of the contest to kill a character with my name? I don’t know. It’s just the effect I have on people, I guess.

"Now, thanks to Down & Out Books, those original stories, as well as a slew of new works, are being collected into one volume with all proceeds going to the MS Society. If I have to meet my end in a multitude of grisly ways, it may as well benefit a cause we both feel strongly about.

"We hope you all enjoy these stories! Some are funny, some are heartwarming. Some are suspenseful, some are scary. But they all have one thing in common: they are all Killing Malmon."

Kate smiles and walks over to a complicated rope-and-pulley system that is holding a giant anvil suspended over Dan’s chair. She slides a dagger from the garter belt on her shapely thigh and begins to saw through the rope. With a smile, she turns to you, the reader, and says, "This book is called Killing Malmon.

I’ll start.

Back to TOC

Malmon’s Last Moments

Brad Parks

She only said it once.

It was toward the end of that crazy night in Brussels. We had been drinking. A lot.

She was flirting with me, like usual. Brushing against my arm with those perhaps-incidental touches. Flipping her red hair. Flashing that jump-me-now smile.

Every guy at the club was shooting me disbelieving sidelong glances, and I could practically see their thoughts floating above their heads in closed captions. Who the hell is that guy? And what has he done to win the affections of Kate Hackbarth, the darling of American figure skating, the two-time gold medalist, the all-around goddess who inspired an entire generation of boys to discover masturbation? Isn’t she married to that baseball player?

To answer the last question: Yes, she is.

As for the first, my name is Gunther Neubauer, and I’m her agent. I reap ten percent of whatever marketing, promotional, or personal appearance deals I sign for her.

The middle question was a little more complicated. I used to think she flirted with me because I was safe. Being her agent made me the equivalent of the palace eunuch. It would be dangerous to complicate such a lucrative business relationship with a personal one. You don’t slaughter the golden calf, and you don’t try to have sex with it either.

So, yeah, I get ten percent of the royalty from the Kate Hackbarth Signature skates being sold exclusively at Dick’s Sporting Goods. And I got ten percent when she appeared on that Wheaties Box after her second gold. The Movado sponsorship? Cha ching. Ten percent.

But I don’t get ten percent of her pillowy lips, or her mesmerizing sea-blue eyes, or the alabaster skin I’ve fantasized about for years.

Her husband, Twins first baseman Dan Malmon, gets all of that.

The bastard.

But Malmon wasn’t in Brussels that night. He was at the Twins’ spring training complex in Fort Myers while Kate was broadcasting the World Figure Skating Championships for ABC. The network had signed her not so much for her ability to find flaws in triple axels, but because they noticed that when they put her in front of the camera at least ten times an hour during telecasts, their ratings in the coveted male eighteen-to-forty-five demographic more than doubled.

Apparently, American men love redheads. Especially ones that had just been voted Best Legs Since Steffi Graf by Maxim Magazine.

After the long skate program and the crowning of a new champion, a Romanian girl who wasn’t going to make the world forget Kate Hackbarth anytime soon, we went out with the crew for drinks. Then dinner. Then more drinks. Then a club. Then another club.

All the while, we were laughing, telling stories, having a great time. Kate isn’t merely all-world gorgeous. She’s also down-to-earth, funny, well-read. The whole package.

And she was going on about one of her favorite subjects: Why was I still single?

You’re just the best guy…You’re so funny and handsome…I can’t believe some lucky girl hasn’t snapped you up yet…What about when I set you up with Lou Berney’s sister? Why didn’t that work out?

And on. And on. She didn’t realize that even as she spoke to me, I was looking at the entire reason I was still single. I was that good at hiding my feelings.

Then she said it.

In a life defined by the precision and perfection of a back-to-back Olympic champion, it was probably the only slipup she had ever allowed herself, on or off the ice.

Do you think if it wasn’t for Dan, she began, you and I would have ever…

I didn’t respond, pretending her words had been lost in the drunken din.

But the fact was, I couldn’t have heard her any better than if she had been amplified by the thousand-watt speakers that were filling the club with that booming bass. I not only heard those words, I felt them in a place that I had tried to keep frozen as solid as any ice rink Kate had ever skated on.

It was then that I knew: I had to get rid of Dan Malmon.

To baseball fans, and Minnesotans in particular, Dan Malmon was a kind of folk hero.

He came from a small town an hour outside Minneapolis, tossing hay bales around his parents’ dairy farm. In Little League, he once hit three grand slams and pitched a perfect game—albeit one that was shortened due to his one-man assault on the ten-run rule.

By the time he was a sophomore in high school, he was six-foot-four and could dunk a basketball from the foul line. As a junior, he won a state championship football game in the final seconds when, with a three-hundred-pound lineman draped on his lower half, he threw a seventy-yard pass, flat-footed, over the heads of several astonished defensive backs.

But baseball was his love. According to the lore, he hit runs so prodigious, the balls are said to still be rolling through the back woods of Minnesota.

Drafted in the first-round by his beloved Twins, he made a mockery of Rookie Ball pitching, then proceeded to rampage through AA and AAA until the franchise could no longer justify leaving him in the minor leagues. He got his call up a week before his twentieth birthday and slammed the first pitch he saw—a one-hundred-two-mile-per-hour Aroldis Chapman fastball—into the monuments at Yankee Stadium.

It was a portent of things to come. Now twenty-seven and nearing the peak of his powers, Dan Malmon had led the American League in home runs two out of the last three seasons. There were some who said that by the time he was done, he’d be side-by-side with Harmon Killebrew and Kirby Puckett on Twins fans’ Mount Rushmore.

But it wasn’t merely because of the steady procession of four hundred and twenty-foot moonshots that launched off his bat or the multiple Gold Gloves he had won.

Off the field, he was noted for a compassionate streak that went well beyond the perfunctory P.R. efforts of most pro jocks. The Dan Malmon Foundation built more houses in the Twin Cities than Habitat for Humanity. And damn if the man himself didn’t show up at the job site for every single one of them, often inspiring the volunteers by grabbing a hammer or pouring a few cubic yards of concrete.

He also had this quiet penchant for doing good deeds that no one ever heard about, whether it was buying Twins tickets for groups of disadvantaged kids or parking as far from the entrance to the grocery store as possible, simply so he wouldn’t take away a spot from someone less able-bodied.

On top of all that, he was a heartthrob, with his dark hair and brooding eyes. He and Kate, who was from St. Paul, met at the ESPY Awards one year. When they started dating—the two most famous, most beloved athletes in the state—it was like all of Minnesota swooned.

They fell for each other fast. I mostly heard about it from Kate’s perspective. In addition to all his other talents, Dan Malmon was apparently an indefatigable lover and hung like Mister Ed.

The Hackbarth-Malmon wedding was the social event of the century in Minnesota, the highlight coming when the celebrated couple uncorked a first dance that was worthy of Dancing with the Stars. Everyone knew Kate had it in her. No one had a clue about Malmon.

So, yeah, Malmon was amazing. At everything.

I still had to get rid of him. After what Kate said in Brussels, there was no doubt about that.

What I didn’t know was how.

Because I’m a humanitarian, I first attempted non-lethal means of extermination.

The Twins were on the road, playing a four-game weekend series against the Boston Red Sox. I paid a hooker named Katrina Niidas to lure him back to her hotel room, which I had wired for sight and sound.

I stole this little ploy from Jared Kushner’s dad, Charles, who once did this very thing to his own brother-in-law. Put that in your spring clothing collection, Ivanka.

Going in, I felt good about my plan. I told Malmon I was in town for business, and to meet me at the hotel bar so we could go to dinner after a day game. That would put him in range for Katrina to intercept him. After she made contact, I would text him and say my flight had been cancelled and that I wasn’t going to make it to Boston that night.

Katrina would take it from there. Her cover story was that her novelist boyfriend, this cad named Chris Holm, had stood her up, failing to show for the weekend getaway they had planned. She was going to dump him. But, first, she was going to get in a parting shot by sleeping with a famous ballplayer.

I had no doubt Katrina could pull it off. She was this statuesque, five-foot-eleven package of smoldering liquid magma. The danger practically oozed off her.

She was dressed to stun, with the heels and the hair and the slit up the dress and everything, and when she approached Malmon there was no doubt in my mind she’d have him slobbering over her in less time than it took him to round the bases after one of his towering home runs.

Katrina played her part brilliantly, luring Malmon in with her tale of woe, then suggesting she would be terribly lonely by herself in the big hotel suite she had booked for the night.

And then you know what that unconscionable prick started doing? Couples counseling. Right there in the bar. He asked her if she was really sure her boyfriend meant to stand her up, or if there hadn’t perhaps been some misunderstanding. He said he was sure Chris Holm would never act dishonorably.

It turned out Malmon had actually read Chris Holm. It was a name I had picked at random off Amazon, for Chrissakes. There couldn’t have been more than twelve people in the charted universe who had actually read Chris Holm, but Malmon was one of them. He was going on and on about how Holm had blown up the Golden Gate Bridge in his latest novel, which was so briskly placed and brilliantly plotted, it was impossible to put down.

Unbelievable.

Malmon ended up paying for Katrina’s drinks and walking her up to the room, whereupon he gave her a firm handshake and his sincerest wishes for a speedy reconciliation. The only reason he asked for her number was so he could make arrangements to get his latest Chris Holm novel signed by the author.

I had clearly underestimated Malmon, trying to destroy him by conventional means.

It was time to go nuclear.

The man’s name was Jon Jordan. And, Lord, was he an oddity.

He lived in an apartment he insisted on calling The Castle. He told people he was a wealthy magazine publisher. He was a grown man who still played with Legos, read comic books, and obsessed over super heroes. He was as deranged as could be.

And he was entirely my invention. Surely, no one that bizarre actually existed in nature.

Once I created the Jon Jordan profile on social media, I went about establishing him as the ultimate Dan Malmon fan. He would tweet to @DanMalmon several times an hour, serially post on Dan Malmon’s Facebook fan page, comment on Dan Malmon’s Instagram. Whatever Malmon did—whether it was go oh-for-four or hit three home runs—Jon Jordan had something to say about it.

And Malmon, because he was a natural dupe who couldn’t help but be nice to people—even whackadoodles like Jon Jordan—slowly began engaging with this character I created, tweeting back at him, liking his posts, that sort of thing.

With my ultimate deranged Dan Malmon fan thus legitimized, I went after one of Malmon’s greatest weaknesses: His love of Kit Kats.

Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge? I had Jon Jordan propose the Kit Kat Challenge. You had to film yourself eating a dozen king-sized Kit Kats in under a minute. If you failed—or, let’s face it, even if you succeeded—you had to give one hundred dollars to the Dan Malmon Foundation. When you were through, you got to challenge three other people.

Malmon, the stooge, seized on the idea immediately. He believed the thing had viral potential, which just goes to show how little Dan Malmon knows about public relations.

He and Jordan were direct messaging on Twitter at this point, so Jordan convinced him they had to go big with it. Jordan said he could get the spectacle sponsored by Owen Laukkenen’s® Fresh Farmed Fish Sticks, which was an advertiser with Jordan’s magazine. Malmon knew how desperate the Laukkenen people were for some positive publicity after the food poisoning incident and never thought to question the details.

So it was that Laukkenen’s fictional representatives arranged for a dozen special edition KitKats, with Laukkenen’s logo printed on the wrapper, be sent to Malmon at Target Stadium.

Laukkenen, or its fictional representatives, may have neglected to mention the Kit Kats were slathered in Polonium-210.

I got it from a Russian figure skating agent I knew. For that matter, I stole the whole Polonium-210 idea from the Russians, who used it to kill that guy in London a few years back. Whatever. But when you think about it, it’s probably not that different from stealing an idea from Jared Kushner’s dad.

Anyhow, it was all set. The Twins were coming back from a road trip. The Laukkenen-branded Kit Kat wrappers—which I made with a laser printer, carefully resealing them with a hot glue gun—were sent in a cooler, because otherwise the Polonium-210 tended to melt the chocolate.

Malmon would unwrap them, wolf them down in front of a camera…

…And then proceed to get very, very sick.

His hair would fall out. His skin would grow sallow. His organs would fail, one by one. He’d be in total agony.

Kate would be by his side the whole time, of course.

And who would be by her side? Her faithful, devoted, endlessly caring agent.

We’d probably bury him and have our first real date within the week.

It was a brilliant plan.

And then?

Unforeseen obstacles.

Really, how was I supposed to know Target Field Security had a Geiger counter?

After that excessively complicated attempt, I knew it was time to simplify things.

Malmon was a big slab of meat and he could bench press three hundred fifty pounds, sure. But he wasn’t invincible. One bullet to the head would do the trick.

It couldn’t come from me, obviously; or from anyone who could be connected to me. But that’s what hired help was for.

It also couldn’t happen when Malmon was at home. Minneapolis was known for a lot of things, but a ready population of hitmen wasn’t one of them. I looked at the Twins’ upcoming schedule, scanning for a city that would better serve my needs.

Their next road series was in Milwaukee. No way. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Milwaukee. It was filled with big-hearted girls who had built-in proclivities for guys named Gunther. It just wasn’t much for the underworld element.

Then came a homestand. And then?

Oh, perfect.

Detroit. Doesn’t everything bad happen in Detroit?

I had about two weeks to arrange things, but that turned out to be plenty of time. You’d be amazed what you can find on the dark web these days.

There were three of them. They were Armenian, I think. But, really, who cared? The deal was that I’d lure Malmon into an alley just off Beaubein Street, near Greektown. My Armenians would take care of the rest, making the whole thing look like a robbery gone wrong. I instructed them to pistol whip me—not so hard as to leave any marks, but hard enough so that I could claim to have blacked out through the whole thing.

It would also make me look like I had been trying to defend Malmon. Kate would love that.

Next, I called Malmon. I asked him if I could tell him something on the down low, and of course he said yes. I told him I had a huge endorsement deal on the hook, potentially eight figures, but it was very sensitive; so sensitive, at this point, he couldn’t tell anyone. Not his own agents, because I didn’t want too many cooks in the kitchen. Not even Kate.

Why not Kate? he asked.

I don’t want to get her hopes up. Not yet, I said. These guys, they’ve already met with Kate. She didn’t know what the meeting was really about. She thought it was just social. But they loved her. Now they want to meet you when you come to Detroit. That’s the last step before the deal gets done.

Who’s the sponsor? he asked.

Ford, I said. "You’ll be the new face of the company. I’m talking Super Bowl spots, full-page ads in Sports Illustrated, outdoor stuff, you name it. I’ve seen the story boards and they’re brilliant: funny, warm, very human. The idea is that you and Kate are just this down-to-earth, lovely couple that all of America is going to fall in love with."

And you think…you think this is something Kate wants?

"Kate? Are you kidding me? Half the reason I haven’t told her is because she would want it too much, I said, then darkened my tone. You know, I don’t like to talk about this with her around. But Kate, her athletic career is already over. You know how Olympians tend to fade away. I mean, really, who talks about Michelle Kwan anymore? Or Sarah Hughes? They might as well be museum pieces. Kate needs something else to keep her in the spotlight. You know how much she likes to be in the spotlight."

Well, if it’s for Kate, then I’ll do it, he said.

Yeah, that was Dan Malmon. Gullible to the end.

We met outside the player’s entrance to Comerica Park. Malmon had demolished the Tigers that night, hitting two home runs then turning a sweet, three-six-three double play that ended a home team rally one run short in the bottom of the ninth.

There was a smattering of loser autograph hounds hanging around, the kind most players blow off without thinking. These weren’t kids with stars in their eyes who would forever cherish Dan Malmon’s name on a scrap of paper. These were grown men who would take whatever ball or bat they could get a player to put a pen to and have it on eBay an hour later.

Naturally, Malmon stopped and signed anyway.

Nice game, Malmon, one of them said.

Thanks, he replied.

Take it easy on us tomorrow night, huh? another said.

Sorry, can’t do that, he said, smiling.

Come on, Dan, I said, edgily. We have to go.

He signed two more baseball cards and a uniform before excusing himself with a polite apology.

You know those guys aren’t fans, right? I grumbled. They’re just making money off you.

Then they probably need it, he said, good-naturedly. They’re working hard, standing out there like that.

I grunted, then started leading him south on Beaubein Street, away from Comerica, toward Greektown and Malmon’s last moments on this Earth.

They’re meeting us in a private room at a restaurant, I said. It’s going to be easier if we go in the back way. If we go in front, everyone is going to want an autograph and a picture. I don’t want to keep these guys waiting.

Okay, he said, guileless as ever.

We crossed Gratiot Avenue, then Clinton, then Macomb. We were last than half a block from the alley. I was a few steps ahead of Malmon.

It’s this way, I said. We just turn—

Dan Malmon! someone barked in a hoarse voice.

I turned to see a rheumy eyed old man in a wheelchair, motoring toward us.

Dan Malmon, just the man I wanted to see! It’s Dan Malmon! he hooted.

Malmon had stopped. The man appeared to be wearing every piece of clothing he owned, including a stained Detroit Lions jacket, even though it was a warm evening. His beard was rank and contained the remnants of his last three meals. He smelled of malt. His left pants leg was empty.

A homeless diabetic amputee if ever I had seen one. I didn’t have time for this.

But, naturally, Malmon did.

Nice to meet you, sir, Malmon said, actually sticking out his hand for the man to shake. What’s your name, sir?

Johnny Shaw, he said, briefly removing his right hand from his Lions jacket and grasping Malmon’s hand. I needed a shower just watching it.

You had yourself a helluva game tonight! Johnny Shaw boomed. Practically beat the Tigers all by yourself!

Oh, were you there? Malmon said, as if this pleased him tremendously.

Naw, naw. Used to go to games at Tiger Stadium. Not no more.

Why not? Malmon asked.

Can’t afford it. They jacked up the prices at the new place.

So, you’ve never been to a game at Comerica?

Nope. Watch every game on TV, though.

Well, tomorrow night, you’re watching it in person, Malmon said. And the next thing I knew, he was pulling out his wallet and extracting two tickets. I got these for a high school buddy and his girlfriend who were coming down for a game tomorrow night. But, here, take them. I can get more.

Dan, I moaned. Stop it. He’ll probably just sell them to a scalper and buy booze. For the love of—

But it was too late. Malmon had already handed over the tickets. Johnny Shaw—nice name for a bum—was noisily celebrating this newfound treasure, probably already tasting the cheap tequila he’d buy after he cashed it in.

Malmon just smiled beatifically, pleased to have perpetrated yet another random act of kindness.

Then a strange thing happened.

I was all set to lead Malmon into the ambush, but there was something about that smile that hit my gut in a funny place. It made me think about what Malmon was getting out of this exchange with this homeless guy—which is to say, nothing. Then it made me think back on every interaction I had ever seen Malmon have. There was nothing but generosity, motivated by little more than altruism and love for his fellow man.

And, suddenly, I knew I couldn’t go through with having him killed. Dan Malmon was as good a human being as I had ever been around. He could have treated Johnny Shaw like the no-good sewer scum he was, and the world wouldn’t have been the wiser. Yet here was Malmon, extending the man every courtesy, treating him like a prince.

A guy like that deserved all the blessings that had been bestowed on him, including landing with the incredible Kate Hackbarth.

He certainly didn’t deserve to die.

Anyhow, it’s been very nice meeting you, Malmon said. But now we have to—

Actually, I said, waving my phone in the air. I just got a text from Ford. They had to…they had to reschedule. Their VP of Marketing got sick, I guess. Why don’t we just get you in a car back to the hotel?

I was already shunting him away from the alley, away from the Armenians. These would not be Malmon’s last moments, after all.

Oh, okay, he said, shrugging. Well, Mr. Shaw, is there anything else I can do for you before I go? Would you like an autograph, perhaps?

"Actually, there is one more thing," Shaw said.

Absolutely, Malmon said.

I had fifty bucks on the Tigers tonight, you sumbitch, Shaw said, pulling a pistol out of the pocket of his Lions jacket. You can die like a goddamn worm.

The pistol spat fire—once, twice, three times. Dan Malmon’s head exploded.

But I didn’t have time to mourn the loss of the purest, simplest, most benevolent man I had ever met.

Johnny Shaw had already turned the pistol on me.

Back to TOC

How You Do It

Eric Beetner

Before the phrase, He’s a cop, left Rudy’s mouth, a bullet left his gun. Dan heard the start of the sentence, then the bang drowned everything else and the pain blotted out the rest of his senses.

Gut shot. Shit. Detective Dan Malmon had never seen one of these end well.

Another of the uptown crew, a large man in a tight black T-shirt, ran into the room, gun drawn. He looked at Rudy, smoking 9mm in his hand, then down at the floor and Dan clutching at his stomach, hissing short breaths between clenched teeth.

Rudy? the man asked, looking for an explanation.

He’s a cop, Rudy said again.

How do you know?

Saw his badge.

The burly man stepped forward to where Dan was trying to sit up. Some part of his diaphragm muscle was torn and he couldn’t bend in the middle any more. Probably the least of his worries.

Check his pockets, G.

The big man, G, moved his gun to his left hand and frisked Dan’s pockets with his right. He came out with a wallet, flipped it open and saw the badge.

Told you so, Rudy said. So, what now?

G said, We kill him.

Rudy seemed offended at the statement. I already did.

He ain’t dead. He’s moving.

Dan tried again for a sit-up, but collapsed to the cement floor with a stifled cry of pain.

He’ll be dead soon, Rudy said.

Says you.

Says the fuckin’ bullet in his liver.

That ain’t no way to kill a guy.

Dan feared a demonstration on proper technique was imminent. He rolled to his right. From his vantage point on the floor he could see the pistol taped to the underside of the small table. Only ten feet away. Ten agonizing feet to crawl.

Don’t tell me how to kill a guy, Rudy said, his chest puffing out with bravado.

Apparently, I need to, G said. He lifted his gun arm and fired a shot into Dan’s back. The detective smacked the floor face first, blood seeping from his mouth.

G turned to Rudy with a satisfied look on his face. That’s how you do it, motherfu—

Dan groaned from the pain of his missing teeth, not the bullet in his back. There was a knife-edge sharpness in his ribs and he was finding it hard to breathe, but the impact of his front teeth on the concrete created a more immediate pain.

Rudy laughed out loud. Some expert you are.

He’s wearing a vest.

He’s not wearing no vest, G.

Rudy stepped over to Dan, hooked a finger through the bullet hole in the back of his shirt and pulled, tearing a wide rip and exposing bare flesh, not Kevlar.

Dan inched closer to the table, his broken teeth crunching under his palm as he reached for a firm enough grip to drag his body forward.

Rudy, standing over the wounded man, said, You gotta put one in his head, dude.

He lowered his gun, fired a shot that entered Dan’s skull just behind his right ear. G wiggled a finger in his own ear, the sound of the repeated gunshots making everything temporarily muted.

Rudy did a wild-west finger spin of his gun and slid it, barrel first, into his back pocket, closest he had to a holster. Now that’s a dead cop.

Dan’s hand slapped the floor as he reached for more inches in his drive toward the underside of the table and the gun waiting there. Both Rudy and G turned and looked at the bloody man on the floor with a mixture of awe and fear.

Blood poured from Dan’s skull. The bullet had run a clean path behind his ear and come out near his cheek bone. He was totally deaf in that ear and his face hurt like hell where the bullet had blasted its way out, but he was still alive and only five feet from his prize.

Breathing became harder, his progress slower, but the two men intent on killing him were stunned into curious onlooking for a long moment. They watched as Detective Malmon pulled himself along the blood-slick floor, unaware of the pistol at the end of his journey.

I shot him in the fucking head, man. Rudy said just above a whisper.

You put it too low.

The fuck I did.

G pointed to the crawling man before them. You gonna fuckin’ argue with me?

Dan reached the table leg. He grasped at it, unable to get a grip. His hands were painted in blood. He pushed up with his left arm, a half-hearted one-hand pushup. Years of academy training and daily workouts paying off in what could be his last moments.

We gotta finish this punk, G said.

I got it, Rudy said.

No. You already fucked it up twice. I got this one.

Dan put a hand on the pistol handle, tried to grasp it, but his fingers weren’t strong enough to pull it free.

I said I got it. Rudy marched toward Dan, grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him over on his back to see the face of the unkillable man. In turning Dan, the torque ripped the tape from the bottom of the table, putting the pistol in firing position in the cop’s hand. Rudy’s eyes widened as Dan fired.

One shot. No question about it. Blood and brain told the tale.

Too weak to sit up, Dan tilted his head forward. G stared into the gaping hole below his eye.

That, Dan said, spilling blood from his mouth, is how you do it.

He fired again, dropping G with a single shot to the heart. Dan slumped to the floor, spent. He coughed twice, blood spraying, then relaxed, wondering if he’d pass out before he drowned on the blood in his own lungs.

Back to TOC

Guardian of Galaxy Street

Josh Stallings

Life is as crooked as a midway toss-a-ring hustler. It will take your last dime and if you win, it will leave you with a stuffed pink dinosaur that ain’t worth a nickel. Dan sat on the curb, sweat rivering down his back. The folding chair’s nylon web straps would leave waffle marks if he didn’t stand soon. But really, so what?

In his hand, a sun baked sign sizzled like a Denny’s skillet. But instead of the alluring smell of browning breakfast meats, his olfactory senses were jammed by the slippery chemical odor of Coppertone SPF 150. Not that I’m complaining, whiners are never winners.

In twenty minutes, the bell would ring and the herd of wild human spawn would descend on his corner of the universe. His day would shift from dull to still dull, but now filled with the chittering and gambling of tomorrow’s little sociopaths.

Armed with a whistle and a Stop/Slow sign he was expected to hold chaos at bay.

He was Dan Malmon, Crossing Guard.

As secret identities went this totally and completely sucked ass.

When Batman, wasn’t being Batman he got to be Bruce Wayne, Playboy Millionaire. His disguise forced him to eat caviar and bang supermodels.

Superman? Clark Kent, reporter with his sexy sidekick and sometime love interest Lois Lane.

Daredevil? Matt Murdock, defense attorney. Cool suits. Sexy lady friend Karen Page. Sure, he has to share her with Foggy Nelson, but come on, long as they’re quiet he’d never know, cause he’s blind and all.

Even that gill-faced fish-boy Aquaman got to be King of Atlantis and marry the undersea vixen Mera.

Dan? What did he get? Diddly squat. He went home every night to an empty apartment. Even his cat Fester abandoned him for cooler digs. Did he drive a Batmobile? Or a Malmon-mobile? Nope. He would have settled for a souped-up Segway. He drove a rusted Pinto with four bald tires and a fuel leak that left him dizzy if he drove for more than ten minutes.

Dan’s super friends were a dwarf, a night elf, a troll and a gnome, and not in a cool Thorish Asgardian way. Nope, they were digital avatars piloted by three tweens and a middle-aged guy named Jeff Albertson. One night after a few too many wine coolers Dan confided in Jeff, I’m actually, in fact, for real, a superhero.

Really. What are you super powers, pray tell? Calling Jeff skeptical would be like calling President Trump slightly offensive to women.

You know, the regular super powers stuff; saving people, running fast, a little flying, fighting skills that kinda stuff, you know.

Really…So what is your secret identity?

Dan Malmon, Crossing Guard.

Worst secret identity ever!

Dan couldn’t argue that. Maybe when they were handing out secret identities he was in the john. He wasn’t really sure how that part worked. Was secret identity part of the origin story? What was his origin story? There was a ton he didn’t understand, like why had his superhero status only been disclosed after his cousin Jo-Jo sold him the Pinto?

Tick-Tock, Dan’s trusty Timex warned he had two minutes before the hordes attacked his corner. Iron Man/Tony Stark may wear a Rolex, but ten Gs was a lot of cabbage just to tell a guy when it was time to go back to the grind.

At two-fifty the bell rang.

The doors opened.

The flood of kids parted revealing first-grade teacher Kate Hackbarth.

Time stood still.

Sunlight sparkled and danced like…well, sparkly dancing stuff in her red hair.

Kate is my alpha and omega, he wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sure it was true. She is cooler than Jessica Jones, sweeter that Jean Grey and more stunning than She-Hulk, only, um, minus the green skin. Not that I have a thing against green skin. No, I’m not a racist. Point was Kate Hackbarth was his love interest. Or would be. The only thing that kept her from running in slow-motion into his arms was the vast courage he needed to speak to her.

Two streets away Ms. Faust dove into her Firebird. For expedience she forwent the door, using the window instead. Only her paranoia driven instincts and fleet feet saved her from a random street hugging inflicted by a Hare Krishna high on orange dye and brotherly love. Had he known hugging was her kryptonite, or that she carried a straight razor for carving personal space through invading assholes, he might have kept his hands to himself. Launching the Firebird from the curb she left him choking on burnt rubber.

Ms. Faust was as close to a supervillain as a small town in Minnesota could afford. She had many qualities that recommended her for the job. She hated children, gasp. Hated lame prose, human contact and pretty much everything else. There were only two exceptions to her general ire—rodeo clowns and squished-faced dogs. (Science may one day understand the link between loving flat faced dog breeds and hugaphobia, but for now we must just except it is so and move on.)

Dan leaped to his feet. Stepping into the street he held his sign, stop-side facing a line of minivans. Squaring his shoulders, he motioned for the kids to cross. He tried to exhibit a manly command of the situation. Blowing his whistle, he pointed fiercely at a Chrysler Town & Country that started to creep forward. No one jumps the line on my watch. No one. He felt more than saw Kate noticing him, with, was that admiration? A quick glance was all he could afford. Kate wasn’t looking at him. Kneeling down she was tying a towhead girl’s shoelace. What’s the point of expending my A-game testosterone driven moves if she isn’t looking?

Three blocks to the west, Ms. Faust’s face went hard, her eyes turned to cold slits. In her rearview mirror, a VW bug was closing on her. Its faded paint was a combination of orange and oxidization. It was piloted by a blissed out bald huggy bastard in an orange dress.

Namaste this, mother fucker. Ms. Faust growled. With the flip of a toggle she flooded the monster rat engine with pure nitrous oxide. Three hundred horse power expanded to a thunderous four hundred and fifty. The tires didn’t chirp, they screamed.

Dan’s head snapped to the left. His hearing wasn’t super hearing, but it didn’t need to be to hear the Detroit built apocalypse heading his way. With one decisive sweep of an arm motion he hurried the kids across the street. Following them like a real manly sheepdog, he drove the little snot-eaters up onto the safety of the sidewalk.

The Firebird yowled like a million large cats whose