A Price to Pay: A Short Story from the Dark Realm

By P.B. Cannon

Jack Warslow is a small-time thief. What happens the night he breaks into a big house in an affluent neighborhood has him desperately wishing he’d never seen the house or picked up the small cat that belongs to the homeowner. He thought he was ready for anything but he learns just how wrong he is and that there is no such thing as something for nothing. There is always a price to pay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: P.B. Cannon
• Release date: Jan 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370003860

P.B. Cannon

P.B. Cannon was born and raised in Charlotte, NC, and though she has visited other cities and states, she has a preference for Charlotte and expects to live there for the rest of her life.She is a teller of tales who enjoys concocting yarns of science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, and other stuff. She relishes reading, drawing and painting, walking, working crossword puzzles, and she likes to dance.She is a retired electronics technician and admits to having worked at a variety of other jobs during her life, including being a dishwasher, a busgirl, a housemaid, a motel/hotel maid, working in a fast-food joint, a telephone operator, and a store clerk. There have been other, even-less-glamorous jobs.She also daydreams a lot.

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A Price to Pay

By P.B. Cannon

A Price to Pay Copyright© 2018 by P.B. Cannon

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License Notes:

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It 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 recipient.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are imaginary, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

Image used in the composition of this cover courtesy of Pixabay contributors Rudy and PeterSkitterians and used under Creative Commons CCO.

Title layout and design by P.B. Cannon.

Warning: Contains some instances of profanity.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Other Works by the Author

About the Author

Chapter One

Jack Warslow found himself crouching in a dimly lit space. His longish, dirty-blond hair flopped over his damp forehead as he jerked his head up and strained his blood-shot eyes to peer at the dark structures that surrounded him.

Despite it being January, he was sweating heavily. He was also breathing hard from the shock of suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar place. As he’d hoped, the little animal had gotten him out of the house before the cops could move in, and his relief at having escaped was immense, but the means by which he’d done so was something that if he hadn’t already experienced it once that night, he would’ve been in an even worse state. It was something he wouldn’t ever have believed possible.

He let out a shaky breath and studied the buildings to try and establish his whereabouts. There was a building behind him against which the ones on either side abutted, though, in the low lighting he couldn’t tell if they were a part of it or just somehow connected. From what he could make out, they appeared to be constructed of some type of brownish stones that were cut wider and longer than the bricks he was used to seeing.

He looked up but couldn’t tell how tall the structures were as he couldn’t see the tops. They all presented windowless blank faces toward him, and the one on his left had a wall that jutted out at an odd angle forming about a four-foot space between it and the one at the back. He didn’t see any doors, which he thought was strange, but in a night of strangeness, that was the least of his worries. It wasn’t something he was going to take the time to get bothered about. Looking down, there was no dirt under his feet. The ground seemed to be composed of the same