Attrition: a collection of short stories

By Jonas David

This collection of eleven short stories by Jonas David focuses on lost loved ones, lost connections, lost memories, lost humanity, and more. From hoarders in overflowing houses, to future humans on distant worlds, each of these tales highlights some form of loss or grief, and each one will take a piece of you when it's done. Will you fall to attrition by the end?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonas David
• Release date: May 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463602409

Jonas David

Jonas David is a writer and editor at Lucent Dreaming magazine, and lives in the Seattle area. His stories have appeared in Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, IGMS and others. Additional writing and info can be found at jonas-david.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @thejonasdavid.

Book preview

Attrition

A story collection by Jonas David

Repossession

not there

Light of Other Days

Deathday

The Moon  

Aeternum Vale

Residue

Moving out

Jupiter

Preservative

Presence

Repossession

First published 2014 in issue 13 of Fireside Fiction Magazine

The echo of Marco’s footsteps mixed with the pattering of the rain as he stepped off the main road and into the alleyway. It seemed like it hadn’t stopped raining since she left.

He glanced at his watch again. Thirty minutes. He clutched the thick envelope in his pocket and climbed down a dimly lit stairwell halfway up the alley.

He knocked on the thick door at the bottom. Grey paint flaked away to reveal the wood grain beneath.

A slat in the door slid open. Blue eyes under a heavy brow stared out at him. Whosit?

Marco squeezed the envelope. With thirty minutes left he might be able to make it back to his house and find something else. Something easier. Something less valuable? said a voice in his head — a scratchy voice with a mocking tone.

It’s Marco, he said. Marco Scattolini? I’ve… I’ve come to pay.

The slat slammed shut and he heard the heavy clunk of a lock shifting. The door creaked open.

You lost me twenty bucks. The man had a bulging neck and a tattoo of a hatchet on his forearm. He spat. Thought you were a flaker for sure. Let’s see it. He made a beckoning motion with a meaty hand.

I…

The money! Let me see it.

I don’t— I— Marco steeled himself. I have something for the third option.

The thug’s eyes narrowed, then widened, and his face cracked into a toothy grin. Never stops surprising me, he said with a chuckle. He’s in the back, you know where. He gave Marco a hard slap on the shoulder. Good luck buddy! he said, then burst out laughing.

Marco walked through a short hall lined with crumbling bricks and entered a smoky bar. A handful of bulky men and tattooed women stood up from their drinks and pool games.

Hey, Jax. You owe me twenty, called a woman in a grey tank top.

Double or nothing he’s not leaving alive, answered Jax, still laughing.

Deal.

Marco tried to ignore them, but he felt their eyes on his back as he passed by.

His first time here had been much the same. They’d snickered as he hurried out holding an envelope stuffed with cash, leaving behind only a promise. Six months later the debt was owed: the cash plus twenty percent, his life, or… something else. A third option.

Across the bar down a second hall was another door, clean and white with a silver knob and a bulb glowing above it.

He remembered the last time he’d been in that room, sitting at that tiny desk, only two feet separating his face from the boss’s. Nowhere to turn his gaze but down at the splintered table; that, or to lock his eyes with those cold black ones. The man’s persistent, knowing grin would have been friendly but for those eyes.

The sweat from Marco’s hand threatened to disintegrate the paper of the envelope in his pocket. Each step twisted his stomach, but he had no direction to go but forward. The chance for running was long past.

He’d considered it, on those painful nights in the weeks after Lauren left, when the weight of his debt started to sink in. But memories of that night when he’d borrowed the money kept him searching for another option.

He remembered the cold certitude, the nonchalance with which the boss promised Marco would die if he didn’t pay, and the list of names the boss had read off for him. Names of those who’d tried and failed. It was sickeningly long.

Weeks later, after the desperate rush to deal with Lauren, he looked up some of the names he’d remembered.

Dead, found stabbed in a back alley. Dead, sunk at the bottom of the river. Dead, suicide by hanging.

There was no question he had to pay, but the money was all gone.

Marco swallowed, his saliva like a lump of cement. He raised a fist up to the white door. He wanted to turn and flee back through the bar, out the exit, and back home to his desk, where he could tear open the envelope and read the contents. But survival made him knock.

Come, said a scratchy voice.

Marco opened the door.

The boss looked up at him, grinning as ever, his forehead wrinkled, his brown hair sparse. He sat in his cushioned chair behind the same small desk, empty but for the revolver resting in the center of it.

Marco’s seat was not close to the desk this time. It was positioned six feet back and sat on a blue tarp spread out across the floor.

Sit. The boss gestured to the chair, then folded his hands in front of him.

The tarp crinkled beneath his feet as he made his way to the simple folding chair. He sat, an island in a sea of blue plastic.

The boss glanced at his watch. Judging by the hour and your nervous state, I presume you have not brought me my money.

Marco shrunk under his cold eyes. All he could do was shake his head.

How did the treatment go?

She… didn’t make it. It was raining when she died. Fat drops smacking on the windows as the orderlies rushed in and the heart monitor screeched.

The barest smile. How unfortunate. It would have been poetic if you’d traded life for life. He picked up the gun. Very kind of you to save me the trouble of hunting you down, though.

No! I… brought something. Marco pulled the bulging envelope from his pocket and held it up in a shaking hand. I’ve got something for the… the third option.

Ah, the third option. The boss grinned and returned the gun to the table. Bring me something that you value more than the money you owe, and I’ll take it instead. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Convenient. It could be anything, as long as it means more to you than my money did. Do you know why I make such an offer to my debtors?

Marco swallowed.