A Deadly Combination: Shocking Short Stories

By Gina Dedman

This is a collection of five short stories each about different topics and characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291974263

Book preview

Downhill

The Big Hit

Olivia Shambles sat in the middle of her front room floor rocking back and forth. It was Friday night and she needed something to block it out. She didn’t want to think any more about how her life had reached this point. She had lost the only thing in life that she had remotely cared about. It wasn’t her fourteen month old daughter, Shanice, who had been taken into care after the social services found her abandoned in a grotty flat whilst her mother went on a drink and drug binge. It was her Jake. If he hadn’t found out she was pregnant, Jake would never have left. Then he wouldn’t have taken a piece of her heart with him.

Rocking back and forth, her next hit was all she could think about. She couldn’t afford to pay her bills so she spent most of the time wrapped in her dressing gown, blankets and duvet. She had become lost in her own world; her family had disowned her after Shanice was taken away as she had brought shame on them. She didn’t care about that, of course.

She sighed. It was December, nine days before Christmas and she would have to go out in the freezing cold with next to nothing on so she could get her fix. So she could forget. Her stomach rumbled, she couldn’t remember the last thing she ate but she didn’t eat much anyway. She lived on tea and fags. And heroin, of course.  It was better than sex in her opinion.

As she shoved the duvet and blanket off her, she stumbled into the bedroom and stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognise the twenty four year old woman staring back at her. She definitely looked a few years’ older, give or take. She was too thin now, she knew that much. Her bones were sticking out. Dark circles under her eyes; she couldn’t remember when she last brushed her teeth, but who cared when you had chewing gum. Her deep blue eyes were all she had going for her but make up worked wonders and she knew she only had to make herself presentable to lure the bloke in. If they wanted a shag, they weren’t fussy who it was.

She applied her foundation like a pro. She covered up the needle marks on her arm as best as she could. She stuck her false eyelashes on and put on her bright red