Sizzler

By Wolf Schimanski and B. J. Tiernan

When Lexi-Jo Lyman, a Freelance writer, and Herbert Duvane,a mysterious computer technician, find themselves caught up in a bizarre takeover of the tranquil city of Margate, Florida, the heat is on. Personalities and behaviors are changing in the locals against their will, and no one can figure out why. Crime, murder and promiscuity are on the rise, and the gentle city is in utter chaos. Looking through some curious journals, Lexi-Jo and Herbert discover that the only hope to extinguish the gripping phenomenon is to recover a lost amulet in the Everglades - the key to the hostile invasion.

Staggered by the dark web that is closing in all around them, Lexi-Jo and Herbert realize they are in way over their heads and reach out to Kellie Sierra, a Margate detective for help. Will it be too late, or will they crack the dark puzzle that is threatening their lives and tearing the city apart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wolf Schimanski
• Release date: Sep 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463813591

Wolf Schimanski

Wolf Schimanski epitomizes everything thriller. His 'Meter' trilogy is now complete and available at all major online retailers. 'Sizzler' is his first collaboration with south Florida author B.J. Tiernan. Wolf lives in London, ON, Canada and is now working on 'Overdone', the sequel to 'Sizzler' with B.J.

Book preview

Prologue

Even the stars were in hiding — the crossover had begun.

South Florida summers were always sweltering, but air conditioning usually cushioned the blow. Not tonight, though. Nothing could. The man of the house was sleeping with no clothes on — tossing and turning, an irregular snore here and there. Except for the breathing sounds from the kids down the hall, the house was nervously still.

The man’s wife got up. Dazed from sleeplessness and the unbearable heat, she walked to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of cold water. She emptied the glass, but nothing could quench the feverish frenzy that was taking her over again.

It was three in the morning. Most of south Florida was asleep or unconscious. She sent the text message, and it was acknowledged immediately. Her pulse started to race. It was dangerous, reckless, and totally out of character, but she had to risk it. The all-consuming compulsion was too strong. Quietly, she walked to the dresser and slipped into her lavender bikini. She brushed her teeth, got two empty glasses and took the chilled bottle of Merlot out of the fridge.

The oppressive air was hot and sticky when she stepped out onto the porch. When she opened the screen door that led out to the lawn, a stretching and continuing silence surrounded her. Even the crickets were still. Motionless shadows encased the over-sized back yard, except for the one moving away from the treehouse that belonged to her son. The shadow made no sound as it inched toward the pool and slipped silently into the water.

The woman filled the glasses with wine and placed them on the edge of the pool. A hint of honeysuckle filled the night air as she sat down to wet her feet. She inhaled deeply and wiped the sweat from her forehead before lowering herself into the pool. The shadow engulfed her instantly, taking her into the depths, exploring every inch of her body. Her heart was on fire. If she could have crawled inside of him, she would have. She simply could not get enough.

Time stood still as the curtain of night embraced them. They took a few hurried sips of the red wine, and the exotic dance resumed again. The danger, the risk, and the forbiddance made it all the more intoxicating. For only a moment, the woman closed her eyes, and they moved as one to the edge of the pool. When she opened them again, he was gone.

All that remained was a primitive silence, but the promised relief had been delivered. The woman toweled herself off, picked up the empty bottle and glasses and slipped back into the house. It could have been an eternity, but when she looked at the clock, it was only three thirty. She removed all evidence, pulled on her nightie and crept back into bed. The man of the house was still sleeping and now so could she, until the unsettling frenzy built up once again and he would come for another sizzling night.

Chapter 1

How did it happen? What had gone wrong?

Eli Wickenscholz, the head Waste Disposal Officer for the city of Margate, was on a drop-off run, but not for the city this time. He had a dead body in the back of his truck and was taking it to the Everglades for disposal. He saw the train coming. He had plenty of time. But half way across the double track railway, the railroad crossing gate malfunctioned and the train sheared his truck in half.

The thunderous silence that followed was deafening. Within moments, a comfortable numbness paralyzed Eli, signaling that the rhythm of his life had been broken. Abruptly, he became a silent witness and watched the paramedics try to put him back together again. It wasn’t until his astral body started to break up that he realized there was no longer a physical body to contain him. Utterly helpless, all he could do was observe the process in silence. His essence started to move like a whisper and float away to an unknown realm caught somewhere between life and death.

There was no way to tell how long he’d been in this gray, lonely place. In the tedious sameness of this limbo world time did not exist. He could sense the billions of souls all around him, he just couldn’t see where they were. The isolation, the confusion, and the insistence to purify was suffocating.

Eli knew why he was here. He had tortured and killed eighteen people. He’d been sent here to unburden his soul, but that was not going to happen. Freeing his soul from the attachment to his sins was as far from his reach as a distant fruit. He was Milton’s devil who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

Eli was desperate to come up with a plan. True, he no longer had a body, but he was pure conscious energy and still had the ability to think. He reasoned that if he could figure out a way to assimilate enough energy, he could cross back to the physical world. Then he stumbled upon the veil.

He didn’t understand how the veil worked yet, but he had discovered there were times when he could see the people back on earth. Sometimes, he could even hear them talk.

From this new perspective, Eli became grossly aware of the frozen patterns of human social conditioning. He noticed how easily influenced and controlled by others so many people were. He would watch them hesitate, regret, and petition, but most people stood for nothing and spoke out against everything. What intrigued Eli the most was that people had no idea about the dark and dangerous energies that lurked within and around them each day. Even the priests had lost their vision on the clearing process for entities.

The veil gave Eli hope. He could see now that the human experiment had failed, and he intended to capitalize on that. Stuck in erotica, these petty and unsuspecting individuals were exactly the people he was looking for. He zeroed in on several of the more susceptible residents in Margate and started to plot and imagine ways he could manipulate their psychic and sexual energy. If he could just figure it all out, he could get back to his killing again. The plan was just a seedling idea, but he was convinced he could make it grow.

Chapter 2

Margate, Florida was the idyllic family suburb. The residential streets were lined with stately royal palms, and middle-class homes were landscaped on weekends to keep up their curb appeal. It was the kind of place where people walked their dogs, and kids felt safe walking to and from the local school.

US 441, also known as State Road 7, passed through the heart of the city. This main road was lined with gas stations, drug stores, coffee shoppes, motels, and fast food chains, but no massage parlors, adult book stores, or strip clubs could be found. This was a respectable city where people paid attention to details and to each other.

Margate had long been considered a desirable place to live, but something sinister had invaded the city. A shift of some kind had taken place, and peoples’ habits were starting to change. These changes could be noticed in the smallest of details but easily missed by the untrained eye — the gleam in the postman’s glance when he hand-delivered the mail, the way the grocers licked their lips when housewives came in for their groceries, and the not-so-subtle gestures being made on the streets. These gleams and gestures were out of the ordinary for the residents in Margate, and they were being returned in kind.

Teddy Millhausen-Jones got a firsthand glimpse of this out-of-the-ordinary behavior one sweltering June afternoon. The air was stuck in place. School was out, and Teddy had stopped by the playground to take a cool drink from his water bottle. Squinting from the glare of the sun, he raised his hand to his eyes to search the playground for his friends. Instead, he saw a slight woman holding onto the bars of the Geo Dome, her skirt hiked above her waist. The man standing in front of her was pushing up against her at a feverish pace. Teddy knew what they were doing. He was soon to be twelve. He didn’t understand sex fully, but he knew it wasn’t supposed to be happening in the park in the middle of the day.

The commanding figure of a man hesitated when he saw Teddy staring at him and maneuvered the groaning woman onto a swing a few yards away. Her raven hair swirled in the hot, wet air as she tossed her head back and clung to the swing ropes for support. Moments later, the man moaned — a long, low sound, and everything got eerily quiet.

A group of kids had pulled up on their bikes to witness the outrageous spectacle. When the man grabbed the woman again, Teddy moved in.

Hey Mister, why don’t you leave the lady alone? When there was no response from the man, Teddy shouted louder. Leave the lady alone!

The man shielded his eyes from the scorching sun and gave Teddy a high-voltage stare. Get lost, kid.

Scat, bed wetter, the woman shouted.

Teddy was shocked at the woman’s response. He was only trying to help her. Why don’t you people put your clothes back on and get out of here? he shouted. This is our playground.

A cheer broke out from the large group of kids that had gathered along the sidewalk.

One of the older boys shouted, Hey, isn’t that Mr. Larson?

Yes, a small girl agreed. And my neighbor, Mrs. Maxwell.

Revealing the identities of the two participants instantly soured the mood. They pulled themselves together and took off running out of the playground. Teddy got some pats on the back for his bravery, and the conversation turned to all things strange that the kids had been noticing around the city. They all agreed on one thing — things weren’t the same in small-town Margate anymore.

The heated discussion revealed how the kids had been given unlimited freedom as long as they minded their own business and stopped asking questions. At first, they loved all the freedom, but deep down inside they knew something was wrong and that things were on a course for disaster.

Chapter 3

Lexi-Jo Lyman had recently moved to Margate to outrun her checkered past. When Lexi-Jo was seventeen she was the main squeeze of a slick-as-an-eel con man named Kono. A talented fighter from Hawaii, Kono was waiting to break into mixed martial arts in a big way. His private dream was to be called up by Dana White and his vast UFC organization, but the call never came.

Still, Lexi-Jo believed in her man. Kono was, after all, the one who had rescued her from that dreadful orphanage she’d been living in since her parents mysterious disappearance. He had taught her how to survive. By the time she was nineteen, Kono had her fully trained in speed, technique, and survival skills. Not only was she helping him run Hard Heat, a south Florida street gang, she had become a formidable fighter in her own right. Her well-conditioned body earned her a position as the featured dancer at the infamous Take-On Lounge.

As a dancer, Lexi-Jo made lots of money, but she spent that money as fast as she earned it. The slots and card dealers at the nearby Casino Miami had little heart, and her losses eclipsed her wins. To cover those losses, Kono had to keep dipping into Hard Heat’s funds. Some of the lieutenants got wind of it and put pressure on Kono to get rid of his little hottie. Because he refused and continued to take out money, a contract went out on him with an elusive hitman named Ghost.

Kono never knew what hit him when the unswerving slug entered his heart. Lexi-Jo was devastated when she returned home that night and found him sprawled out across the bed. The anger she felt toward Hard Heat for having him killed was compelling. That was the night she vowed she would get her revenge.

Lexi-Jo took what money she had and rented a room at the Cambridge House in South Miami. She went back to school to get her GED and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in journalism.

Things were going just fine until she did that exclusive interview on south Florida gangs with Channel 10 News. Because of her inherent anger over Kono’s murder, she revealed more than she should have, and the death threats began. A loyal gang member friend tipped her off that a contract had gone out on her, too, with the same hitman who killed Kono.

Lexi-Jo knew she had to get out of Miami fast. In the heat of the night, she packed her belongings and drove to the quiet city of Margate. The next day she rented a modest, one room apartment and went into solitary confinement.

After three months of desolate seclusion, Lexi-Jo had become a shadow of her former self. Her long ash-blonde hair was now short and brunette, and her sun-bright smile had faded away.

She started to wear loose-fitting clothing, dark glasses and hats to disguise her appearance and venture out a little each day. To earn the money she needed, she spent long days in the local library doing freelance jobs under a pseudo name.

It was Friday night. She was restless and bored. The walls of her tiny apartment were closing in on her. She looked in the mirror at the lines of grief that were starting to form around her eyes. Half-laughing, half-crying, she turned on the local news to keep herself company. Another altercation was playing out in one of the local diners. Disgusted, she turned off the small TV, grabbed her hat and her purse and walked out to her car. She needed a drink. Afraid to drive too far, she headed to the local bar right down the street.

When she pulled into the over-crowded parking lot, there was only one space left. After several attempts, she managed to squeeze her red Honda Civic in between the two large vans that were clearly parked over the lines. When she opened her car door, a sickening smell of urine rose up from the sultry pavement. She had to hold her breath until she got inside.

It took several minutes for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. The five men sitting around the oval-shaped bar stopped their conversation the moment they saw her and gave her a lecherous look. She found an empty stool at the end of the bar and put her purse down between her feet to protect it. A tall, slender bartender approached.

What’ll it be, gorgeous?

Triple Vodka on ice. Tall glass.

Lexi-Jo looked around the long, smoky room. It was tastelessly furnished, a juke joint, reminiscent of a working man’s club. There were well over fifty bottles of liquor lined up, offering multiple opportunities to empty one’s wallet and wile away the hours. The classiest things in the place were the bar napkins. They had a cute little saying imprinted on them. When the moon is full and so are you, remember the barkeep has feelings too. She grabbed a few and stuffed them into her purse.

South Florida is the leader in invasive species, a man sitting three seats away shouted. They’re going to kill us all.

Who’s going to kill us all? she asked.

A short guy shouted across the bar. The invasive species, sweetheart. They’re going to kill us all.

Lexi-Jo’s eyes drifted to the numerous pictures of fish and sea life hanging along the low, dark walls. They were a painful reminder of her parents’ disappearance, and that melancholic feeling rose up. She blinked back her tears and focused on the short guy. What kinds of species? she asked.

All kinds, darlin.’ Lionfish, Burmese Pythons, Cuban Tree Frogs, giant African Snails, and rats the size of dogs.

Lexi-Jo shuddered at the thought of rats the size of dogs. She took a long sip of her drink. Her body was hungry. She needed to cool down the fever. She’d been banking on finding a hot-blooded husband with a wallet that needed some lightening. There were always some of those hanging around places like this. Instead, she had landed herself in the middle of a ring of swamp rats.

The bartender threw his towel over his shoulder and freshened her drink. I blame it on the multiple ports of trade, he said. They’ve made south Florida an epicenter for runaway species. He winked at Lexi-Jo. I ask you this. Why is it you can’t pass through security at the airport without someone confiscating your shaving cream, but these assholes manage to get through the line with plants and reptiles that don’t even belong here?

Lexi-Jo knew it was a rhetorical question, but the guy had a point.

What about the bastards who flush them down their toilets when they can’t afford to feed them anymore? the muscular guy sitting two seats away shouted. He reeked of smoke and badly needed a shave.

Yeah, those, too, the bartender agreed. They’re an unstoppable force.

Unstoppable? Lexi-Jo repeated.

The bartender looked at her in earnest. They’re eating everything in sight. When you’re the apex species and you have no predators, you eat, you screw, and you multiply. Do the math, sweetheart. Pretty soon, there won’t be anything left of the Glades.

Lexi-Jo took her drink and her purse and moved to a small table in the center of the room. A hot guy with an impressive set of sideburns had just walked into the bar. She noticed the tattoo on his arm right away. Anyone who sported I Love Mom on their arm was okay with her. She didn’t give a damn about the ecological invasion. She wanted to have sex and was hoping this guy was up to the task. She walked up to him and looked into his huge, dark eyes. Buy a hot lady a cool drink?

He ordered a bottle of Jack Daniels from the bar and whispered in her ear that he had just booked a room. Lexi-Jo smiled. They sat down at the table, had a couple of drinks, then headed to Room 13.

Mind if I call you Sideburns? she asked.

His blurred eyes met hers. You can call me anything you want.

Sideburns was smashed. Lexi-Jo had to help him get the key in the door.

The room was a narcissist’s paradise. Cheap mirrored tiles lined one of the walls and the ceiling directly above the bed. The lighting was dreary, and the air hung thick with smoke. The only sound in the room was the irregular hum of the air conditioner that was shaking loose from the wall.

Just as Lexi-Jo started to peel back the corner of the paper-thin bedspread, Sideburns fell forward against her, knocking them both down onto the bed. He put the bottle of Jack Daniels to his lips and took a long, greedy swallow. She maneuvered herself out from under the weight of his body and took a deep breath. Hey lover, how about a sip for momma?

Reluctantly, he passed her the bottle. After one satisfying sip, she handed it back and attempted to get up to undress. With a swift move, he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back down on the bed. Still sober, she looked into his eyes. Let me get my jeans off, lover.

When she tried to get up the second time, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to him again. The driving force of their combined weight caused the creaking bed to collapse. His excessive strength equaled that of two men, and it scared her. Seconds later, the weary headboard gave way, and they both went down in a heap.

What was intended to be a consensual fling was turning into a nightmare. When Lexi-Jo tried to stand up a third time, he grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her back down to the floor.

Don’t you ever quit? she shouted.

He put her in a chokehold, and she lost it. She turned her head toward his body to free her constricted airway. As soon as she could breathe again, she struck him hard in his testicles and reached around and up with her outer arm, gouging his eyes with her fingernails. Using the rocking motion Kono had taught her, she managed to loosen his grip enough to set herself free. One swift kick to the side of his head, and he was done.

The violence of the moment had shaken Lexi-Jo loose from the wild frenzy she’d been under. She