A More Ancient Killer

By Bonnie Elizabeth

An ancient killer prowls a girl's school leaving bodies behind.

 

When a body is found in the basement, night maintenance man, Raven, is the logical suspect. After all, he works alone and the dead man was his boss.

 

Raven doesn't know how he can convince the police he didn't do it without giving away his secret.

 

The FBI agent investigating has his own secrets and his own plans for Raven.

 

Can a night maintenance man survive a clash of beings that don't exist in even in nightmares?

• Language: English
• Publisher: My Big Fat Orange Cat Publishing
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393403166

Bonnie Elizabeth

Bonnie Elizabeth could never decide what to do, so she wrote stories about amazing things and sometimes she even finished them. While rejection stung her so badly in person, she spent most of her young life talking to cats and dogs rather than people, she was unusually resilient when it came to rejections on her writing, racking up a good number of them. Floating through a variety of jobs, including veterinary receptionist, cemetery administrator, and finally acupuncturist, she continued to write stories. When the internet came along (yes, she’s old), she started blogging as her cat, because we all know cats don’t notice rejection. Then she started publishing. Bonnie writes in a variety of genres. Her popular Whisper series is contemporary fantasy and her Teenage Fairy Godmother series is written for teens. She has published in a number of anthologies and is working on expanding her writing repertoire. She lives with her husband (who talks less than she does) and her three cats, who always talk back. You can find out more about her books at her publisher, My Big Fat Orange Cat Publishing.

Book preview

A More Ancient Killer

A More Ancient Killer

Bonnie Elizabeth

My Big Fat Orange Cat Publishing

Contents

A More Ancient Killer

About Bonnie Elizabeth

Also by Bonnie Elizabeth

A More Ancient Killer

My Big Fat Orange Cat

Science Fiction June 2019

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Copyright 2019

Bonnie Elizabeth Koenig

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Cover image Copyright © sepavone, ra2studio | Deposit Photo

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Cover Design Copyright © Bonnie Koenig

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My Big Fat Orange Cat Publishing

MyBigFatOrangeCat.com

A More Ancient Killer

Raven waited until the school quieted down. Kids tended to investigate unusual sounds in the dorm, which sometimes made things awkward, as it had just the other evening. Night shift maintenance meant checking everything, from the furnace that kept the building warm to the air conditioning that kept the place cool. It meant checking over the exposed wiring in the basement where he lived. It meant fixing anything the day shift had left for him and they generally left any basement repairs for him.

He didn’t actually mind. It was as good a way as any to pass the hours before sunrise. The school treated him pretty well, letting him have his own locked room in the basement and not checking too closely should a child go home with anemia because he’d overfed. Children’s blood could be so intoxicating that now and then he’d go a little overboard.

Mostly, though, he took care, a sip here and sip there.

The school was a boarding school for girls outside of Portland Maine. Nights were long in the winter, all too short in the summer. At one time he’d have left to go south for the summer but he no longer bothered. He was getting old. Four hundred and thirty nine if he counted right, which he was no longer certain he had.

Set off a long winding road, surrounded by trees, the school was a clear place of refuge for the likes of him. The main building where the administration worked was a long low rectangle filled with windows on all sides, letting in far too much light.

Far better were the main school dormitories, both large rectangular things that had, if his memory served, once been factories but had long since been remodeled into dorm rooms and class rooms, fitted out with indoor plumbing and even a kitchenette on the even numbered floors. There were six stories, plus an attic in each building, and Raven knew that every year the administration argued about whether to expand into the attic reaches. The dormers were already there, having been added when the buildings were remodeled.

In addition to the dorms, were faculty living areas which looked like Boston row houses right down to the red brick that looked out of place against the stone and wood of the ancient buildings of the dormitories.

The cafeteria was the worst, a low building with odd angles on the roof and made of white brick and heavy dark wood placed randomly in no real pattern that could be discerned. It sat on the edge of a hill and the lower level had doors leading out to a field and then a row of trees, beyond which was a pond.

That pond held three dead bodies that Raven was aware of. He hadn’t put a single one of them there but neither did he know who did. Fortunately, the bodies were now only skeletal remains, and the fears of being accused of overfeeding no longer hung over him.

Raven opened the door of his room, disengaging the three deadbolts he had placed on it. The door was behind another door with a single, normal lock. The airlock, as he liked to think of it, was only about three feet square with walls made of