5 Short Stories

By Don Bambrick

Charlie is a story of a man who loses everything, including his life, but has been given a second chance at life love and living. A man with a weak heart who gives all.

Dirty Money is an international money-intrigue drama. The character in the story tries to secretly meet government officials and get them all to print money to eradicate world debt. Of course, someone else doesnt want that.

Lachlan Campbell is a love story with mythological twists to it. Set in the Crusades years, a young Scottish soldier finds love on his return journey and discovers amazing information about his fathers family sword from the most unlikely source.

Abducted is an alien-abduction story with a twist. Just aliens trying to learn about us before they make official contact. Some comedy moments and a look at how you would describe us to them.

Old Ralph is a short love story. Set in the time of Charles the First in England. The characters hide a man on the run from the church and wealthy families.

So there you have it. Romance, death, and living again, international financial intrigue, mythology in old England, alien abduction, and love. Hope you enjoy these short tales.

Buckle up though: Algoroth and Dragons are coming soon. And dont even think about messing with the dragon bonded. Dragon kindred is formidable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503500457

Don Bambrick

Don Bambrick was born in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, in 1958. He grew up and attended schools and lived in Rockhampton till he was twenty and then moved with various jobs. At one stage, he worked in Queensland Forestry for twenty years. Don now lives in a small rural community, where his pets are the native birds and animals that roam as they will. Sometimes an unwanted snake, including venomous varieties, have to be gently but firmly relocated to elsewhere from his simple abode. His stories began after reading an article about e-stories and decided to “give it a crack” as Aussies sometimes say. He likes to think his mind wanders and jokes that one day someone will find it and bring it back. He grew up with Doctor Who, Lost in Space, Star Trek, and reading Sir Isaac Asimov and a host of others. Don is an outdoors person when he can, weather depending. The Aussie bush, fishing, boating, and the odd holiday encompassing those are his favorite pastimes. Lately, writing has been the consumer of most of his time, and two more books are underway, with ideas for another bubbling away.

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Copyright © 2014 by Don Bambrick.

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

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/15/2014

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Contents

Charlie, Living Twice

Dirty Money

Lachlan Campbell

Abducted

Old Ralph

About the Author

Special thanks to Suzi Oldfield, who read Charlie and said that it must be published, and also told me to write more stories

CHARLIE, LIVING TWICE

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I t was a spring-and-autumn love that should not have happened. But they both died and lived to tell of it. Charlie looked down at the two naked sleeping young women and their swelling tummies and remembered the sex. It was the maddest situation, but he was in love, and he wouldn’t change a thing.

Charlie was 54 and the oldest of the girls, just 22, and the younger just turned 20. It was mad how they met and was the stuff of a soppy love movie.

Charlie had been a married business man, in a competitive field of music and other entertainment events. He worked many eighteen-hour days to keep it going, and his marriage died. She left with the kids and went home to her parents overseas. She and the kids had dual citizenship, and he felt too drained to fight it. He immersed himself in the business to keep it afloat and forget.

He moved in with a friend of his wife’s (ex, after the divorce came in) and started shagging her. She was also good with bookwork, and before long she did most of that while he wove the deals together. That came crashing down when she skipped with a muso, most of the cash, and a huge debt problem she had not bothered to tell him about. House and business all went to pay the bills.

He lodged a formal complaint with the law, of course. But also, of course, she and the muso went overseas and had to be tracked down. Don’t hold your breath there.

He had a few loyal mates, and one offered to let him house sit while he and the wife and kids went to Europe for a year. The house was up the coast in a small out-of-the-way village. Big enough to not know everyone, but small enough to feel away from it all.

So out of work and time on his hands to think, Charlie took to fishing occasionally and beach walking when the tides were wrong for fishing. Some local kids surfed when it was good. Certain parts of the beach were good at times, and it was not unusual to see a group or a lone surfer. It felt good some days to just watch the kids do their magic on those tiny boards and, truth be known, to perv on some of the hot beach babes who also surfed. Walking for so long was the closest Charlie had been to exercise in many years. Always on the phone ironing out tour dates, venues, finances, and drinking too much at the events. He was not flabby, but nowhere near fit.

He had been there about a month, on waving terms with some of the kids he passed on the beach, when the mad day happened. He was about 100 metres from the lone surfer girl when she tried this spectacular move on a wave. She came down the face and flew back up and appeared to try to spin in mid air. What happened was that she speared backwards and down at an awkward angle.

Charlie winced and started running. His whole gut feeling was that she had landed badly in the shallow water in front of the wave that had just crashed down on her. He sprinted as best he could to the area and headed in. She was nowhere to be seen, but her board was there, so he headed for it, hoping she would reappear and be all right. A few waves whacked him and he was making heavy work of it when he got to the board. His chest was burning from the unusual effort. He felt around and got the leg rope and pulled. And her legs came to him. Grabbing her, he got her head clear of the water, and she wasn’t breathing. In his younger days he had been made to do life-saving courses for work and remembered all the things to do. He was breathing really hard and the chest pain was awful, but he got her onto her board and tried to clear her airway and check for a pulse.

Oh, fuck, no! No pulse and not breathing. He got her on the centre of the board and breathed for her as best he could with his chest pain, which was getting worse. He found her chest centre, as the course said, and gave her compressions as he waded with her to the beach. The surf made it hard to control the board as he struggled towards the beach. The sea had taken her and was not giving her back easily. Moving her became easier as he got into shallower water and smaller waves. Some of the ugly short dumpers had almost wrenched the board from him.

He dragged her on the board far enough to be out of the surf and began trying to revive her as best he could. It was easier without the surf, but the pain in his left side and chest was getting worse. One sharp stab bent him double. He righted himself and kept at her, his breathing becoming harsher, weaker, and the pain worse.

Bullshit, he said to himself, I have got to be fitter than this. There was a loud buzzing noise in his ears, and another roaring that got closer.

He saw two quad bikes with life-savers screaming along the beach towards him. Relief almost eased the incredible pain he was getting.

They were so close now he could make out their faces. They pulled up beside him and started asking questions. ‘Hey, mate, is she breathing? Is she responding to your voice?’

Charlie gasped. ‘Chest . . . pain . . .’ And the sand rushed up to meet him, and blackness eased the pain.

He stood looking down at people crouched about a man and young woman on the beach. There was no sound, though he could see them talking, mouths working, faces looking urgent, and equipment being used on them both. Calm, sure actions, people doing what they trained for. It was quite absorbing to watch. But he could not move to help. He became aware of another standing and watching the scene. A beautiful young woman, vibrant, kind of glowing, but filled with longing. She seemed to see him but did not seem to move or talk. She seemed so sad, and Charlie realised it was the girl he pulled from the surf. It felt like a wave washing over him as he realised the man on the beach was himself. I’m dead? It didn’t seem odd somehow. It almost felt like a relief. No more strain of living. He felt sad about how his life had gone, but it was all over now, baby blue. And the girl watching was dead too? That thought seemed unfair to Charlie. She was so young and beautiful. And another thing came into his consciousness. Not a voice or sound. Just a feeling. Choose. A choice must be made. I have a choice? Charlie thought. Choose what? He became aware that the young woman was disappearing, becoming more and more invisible. Charlie thought, I hope they save her, so beautiful. Far too young to die like this. And the darkness came again.

He regained consciousness in a soft bed within a darkened room. The smell and the noises said hospital, maybe night-time. Must have fainted on the beach. Weird dream about that girl on the beach. Hope those life-savers got to her in time.

He had a go at sitting, and the pain in his chest came back, though better than at the beach. He groaned and became aware of drips and a fine tube in his nose.

He sort of sensed movement nearby; a person near him moved, and then a light came on as nurses swooped into the room. A voice said, ‘He made noises.’

A nurse came into his field of view and looked down at him. And the questions started.

‘Do you know where you are?’

‘What is your name please?’

‘Are you in pain?’

‘What do you remember?’

He felt a hand on his wrist, and someone was checking his pulse. A light checking his eyes.

If you have ever been in hospital, they ask you the same stuff all the time to check your vitals, and bore you to tears.

Charlie had a reputation for being cheeky, and he lived up to it.

‘Yep, I am in a prison being interrogated. You can call me Charlie, Officer. Shit yeah, my chest hurts, and I remember kissing some sand when I pulled a girl out of the surf. Hey, is she OK? She wasn’t breathing, but I remember the life-savers turning up as I fainted.’

‘You are in hospital. Charlie, is it? But I need your full name. No one knows who you are. You are not known in your locality and had no identification on you. And the girl is here beside you. You saved her life ten days ago.’

Charlie forgot cheeky as he absorbed this. ‘Hey, ten days! All I did was faint. And hey, the girl is here?’

A lovely young woman came into his view. ‘Yes, Mr Charlie, apparently, I was dead when the life-savers got there. I had no pulse, nor was I breathing. I landed badly trying a trick on my board and suffered a severe head knock. You came running to save me. There was a man with a disability, filming me surfing from high up on the lookout, and caught it all on film. He called the life-savers as he filmed. I saw the film, you were incredible. You died too.’

Charlie took this in, ‘I died? Too? You were dead? Someone filmed it?’

Then the other memory came to him.

‘I saw you on the beach, standing, watching, you looked so sad. I had a feeling of choice. I hoped they saved you. You disappeared and I woke up here. Crazy dream to have, hey?’

The young woman gasped! ‘That was you? I saw you too. You looked like you were so very tired, worn out. And full of deep regret. I didn’t want to go, I was screaming in my head to stay, and it all went black again. You saw it too?’ She relapsed into quiet, just looking at Charlie with wonder and tears welling.

The nurse decided Charlie and the girl were ignoring her, so she asserted herself somewhat. ‘Could we have your full name please? No one knows who you are. And next of kin. We need to notify relatives.’

Charlie replied, ‘Charles Andrew Perret.’

And the beach lovely made a noise, as the nurse glanced back and forth. Lovely said, ‘Mr Charlie, I am Charlize Andrea Perret, how funny that your name sounds so like mine.’

The nurse said, ‘Doctor is on his way. He is keen to meet you.’ And looking at the lovely, she said, ‘Righto, Miss, back to your bed too.’

As Charlize rose to leave, Charlie noticed her limping slightly. He asked, ‘You’re limping! You landed hard in the surf?’

Charlize turned. ‘I was dead. I was revived after fifteen minutes on the beach. I have had the equivalent of a small stroke. Partly my head knock, and mild brain swelling. I will mend, they say. You are the one they thought they would lose.’

At this, the nurse shushed her. ‘Quiet, young lady, let the doctors tell him.’ And Charlize was ushered out.

Charlie had maybe a minute to digest his near death when a doctor came in.

‘Ah, you are awake! Mister Mysterious Hero.’

‘Not a hero, doc, just Johnny on the spot.’

Doc looked at Charlie and asked, ‘Actually, what do you remember of the day you pulled the young lady out of the water?’

Charlie went back in his mind, remembering. ‘I was walking along the beach, just passing time. The tides were wrong for my favourite fishing spot. I saw her fall off a wave, and it just looked bad. I just ran as hard as I could to get to her. The surf was hitting me, and I was pretty puffed when I got to her, her board was attached by a rope to her foot. Or I would not have found her. I had done first aid years ago and managed to get her on her board and try to get life signs. The surf knocked us about. I was breathing hard and started to breathe for her and tried chest compressions against the board. I am not very fit and it was getting harder to breathe with the effort. My chest was starting to hurt. I got her out and managed to do better breaths and compressions. I fell over once, I think, and my head was spinning heaps. It was getting so hard to breathe, and my chest hurt. Lucky the life-savers came, because I fainted.’

All the while the doc looked at Charlie, nodding, going over it, and as Charlie stopped speaking, he asked, ‘Do you exercise much? Run? Play a sport?’

Charlie said, ‘Until recently I was a small businessman, organising concerts and similar stuff, working eighteen-hour days. No exercise and too much booze.’

Again, the doc nodded. ‘Mr Perrot, you had a benign growth near a fair amount of your veins and arteries around your heart. The pain you felt was your body becoming oxygen deprived, and in fact you became so deoxygenated that you died. Some of the blood supply to your heart has been poor for years, I would think. The life-savers had been alerted by a man on the cliff tops, filming some surf action. He captured on film the girl’s bad, er, wipe-out. He also thought it was bad and was calling the surf life-savers as he filmed you go in. He has a very good camera for his filming and zoomed in on you and the girl. As a doctor, I recognised all the signs of your acute distress and noticed your collapse early. You were in a bad way then, but you got her out, kept going while you were dying, and gave her just enough for the life-savers to bring her back. It took them ten minutes to get her breathing. They kept on you for an hour, on the beach, in the back of a vehicle on the beach, as they got you to an ambulance. You started to breathe weakly on your own and had a pulse in the ambulance on the way to the emergency