Deadly People

By Rick Newberry

A collection of short stories dedicated to the strange, the curious, and the slightly twisted. Not for the weak of heart, the timid, or those who are easily frightened, my Deadly People are dying to meet you. So, if you’re tired of the normal, bored with the safe and sane, then take a walk with me beyond the ordinary, past the conventional, and venture into the realm of the unexplainable and somewhat fantastic. Don’t be shy, stories of murder, mayhem, and madness await those who are willing to take a chance and enter the world of Deadly People.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewLink Publishing
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781948266482

Book preview

Of all the unique and complex characters I’ve created, me is the most singularly rare creature of them all. A true chameleon. Traveling through life, through time, shedding his skin like a snake, becoming a different person every day. As he struggles to explain his existence, can he succeed in commenting on the human condition? And what exactly is he?

Well, as The Beatles once sang, I am he as you are he as you are me, and we are all together.

Begin at once to live and count each day as a separate life. ~Seneca

Some time ago I found myself in a deep depression. I’d been searching for a degree of stability in my life–some normalcy (whatever that means). So, in a weak and horrible moment, I killed myself. I cut my wrists, bleeding out on the white, linoleum kitchen floor. You’d think that would have been the end of my story. No such luck.

I don’t expect you to believe a word of this tale. That being said, this is a story I’m compelled to write. The true story of me.

My name is Palmer Davis. You may be familiar with my work. I’ve been an author for longer than I care to remember–even longer than that. Some of my novels have been adapted for the screen, others re-worked for the stage. (One transformation I found particularly amusing, Two Nights in Hell, somehow became a Broadway musical.)

Suffice to say, I’m quite pleased to have had such a remarkable career. The bestsellers, awards, and fame give me a great sense of pride, as well as some justification for spending countless hours alone, banging away at the keyboard. A good friend of mine is fond of saying, at least you don’t have to work for a living. Ha.

In any case, my motivation for writing this particular story is simple—to inform you that I am a fraud. My name is not Palmer Davis. I’ve never banged away at a keyboard, scribbled anything on paper, much less cracked a book by Palmer Davis. If you’re confused, take a deep breath, relax, and allow me to explain.

Palmer Davis is fifty-nine and regarded as an outstanding author. He’s been married for twenty-three years and has one child. Palmer is currently working on his masterpiece, the elusive Great American Novel he’s always dreamed of writing. Between you and me, he’s been toying with the idea for too many years. He’s afraid to begin for fear it will fall flat. I have nothing to do with any of that. I’ve only been Palmer Davis for one day. Today.

Every day is a new day, a platitude usually reserved for someone going through a rough patch to help lift their spirits. For me, every day really is a new day. When I wake up, I’m a different person. No, it’s not a metaphor. I don’t mean I feel like a new person. What I mean is, I am quite literally a different human being. I wear their appearance like an old coat, rummage through their deepest thoughts, and bear their innermost secrets as if they were my burdens to bear–and so they are, if only for a day.

Imagine an uninvited guest taking up residence inside the body of Palmer Davis, much like a twenty-four-hour bug. That’s me, a sort of virus. I know every thought, every experience he’s ever had—his secrets, his innermost desires. But none of his secrets are as tightly held as the one I harbor. He has no idea I’m here.

After today, I will vacate his body and move on to someone new. Each and every day I must relocate—move on, as it were. In the process, I become someone else.

There are important details about the mechanics of my existence I can’t explain. I simply don’t know. That’s why I began this story with a disclaimer, my statement about believability. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Since I am Palmer Davis, a truly prolific writer, I thought I’d bend his talents to my own purposes. It’s late at night, when he does his best writing. His keyboard is in front of me, his writing skills at my fingertips. He can get back to not writing the Great American Novel tomorrow–tonight belongs to me.

To be fair to myself, if not to Palmer, the man employs a small army of editors to make his work shine. I don’t have that luxury. I only have twenty-four hours, so I’ll have to nail this in one draft and be done with it.

I woke up this morning as Palmer Davis, my wife, Judy, snoring in bed next to me. As I’ve said, we’ve been married twenty-three years. Our son, Shane, is away at college majoring in English. What else would you expect? Palmer pushed the poor kid in that direction his entire life. But maybe that’s what fathers are supposed to do. I never had one.

I have all of Palmer’s memories—an intimacy with his experiences equal to the man himself. My earliest recollection is being four years old and getting lost in a department store while my dad shopped for a new tie. Mom gave him hell for not keeping his eye on her precious little Palmy. After all, I’m their only child.

I played baseball in high school and went to college on an athletic scholarship. I graduated summa cum laude from UCLA (English Lit, of course) and met Judy on a blind date arranged by her cousin Sue. Sue and her husband Greg have remained our friends for years. He’s the one I told you about earlier–the guy who thinks I don’t have to work for a living. Ha, again.

Three years ago, Judy and I invited Sue and Greg over for a barbeque. We were having a great time until I burned my hand on the grill. That little episode hampered my ability to type for weeks. Dictation is not the same as writing, believe me. The accident sent me into a deep funk–the scar still brings back painful memories.

I could go on about Palmer’s life, but I think you get the point. I am Palmer Davis and have been since birth. But then again, I’m not. I’m me, the person inhabiting the body of Mr. Davis for one day, giving me bragging rights for the arc of his life, if only for these twenty-four hours.

You may wonder how I’ve managed to stay sane as I live out different lives one day at a time. I’ll admit, it took some getting used to. As the saying goes, the only thing constant in life is change–that’s especially true for me. To be honest, the routine of being someone else every day, a sort of human counterfeit, is second nature to me now. I can’t imagine living just one life from birth to death—it wouldn’t make any sense.

Yesterday, people called me Kyle Franklin, a rather successful trial attorney. The year was 1989. I’d been practicing law with the same firm for seven years. Tilly, my wife, screamed when she learned I’d been offered a partnership. We celebrated with dinner at LeVonnes, our favorite restaurant, and drank a little too much champagne. A good day, a happy day, filled with joy, followed by an adventurous night fueled by the effects of the booze.

Day before that, I was Kevin Kidrich, demolition derby driver by night, grease monkey by day. The year was 1951. My fiancé, Paula D’Angelo, held the title of Miss Georgia 1947. We made a great couple, very photogenic. I played the local hero with the folks around the racetrack. Paula got people’s attention everywhere else.

Earlier, I was Howard Dunfield. The year was 1959. That day still makes me smile. Howard played minor roles in the movies, a character actor. Nothing Oscar-worthy mind you, but he did have a few speaking parts in some major films. My day as Howard, I got to work on the set of The FBI Story, starring Jimmy Stewart. I had one line of dialog. "Get your head down, Smitty!" I often wonder if my line survived the cutting room floor. I’ve never seen the movie.

I’ll never forget being Christopher Lyon, an English carpenter in 1703. I’d been saving for years, trying to earn passage to the colonies. The day I awoke in Christopher’s body, I made my way to the docks, a skip in my step, letter of transport in hand. The accommodations aboard the HMS Blessing were anything but accommodating. The ship spent the better part of the first day at anchor in the harbor. Barring mishaps, the journey to Philadelphia would take Christopher another six weeks. I don’t know if he ever arrived safely in the New World, but I did–the very next day.

Poor me. Poor Julie Miller, a heroin addict struggling through life in 1954. My parents abused me physically and mentally. I dropped out of high school and found myself forever in trouble with the law. I developed a nasty addiction somewhere along the way, vile needle tracks up and down my arms. As Julie, I spent the entire day in county jail. I couldn’t wait for that life to be over.

Compared to Julie’s, my life as Palmer Davis has been great. I have a loving wife and a wonderful son. I even have a dog who growls at me. I think he senses something is not quite right with his best friend.

I’ve owned all sorts of different pets. Dogs tolerate me, and I put up with their growling. Cats, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with me. They tend to disappear whenever I show up. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to console a crying child because Whiskers, Fluffy, or Tiger ran away. I’m certain the creatures return home after I’m gone, but that’s only a guess. I can only hope.

I sometimes wonder what happens to the life I’ve left behind once I’ve moved on. Will the person remember me? Will Palmer Davis find this story on his desk in the morning and ask, what the hell is this? Sorry to disappoint–more questions I can’t answer. I like to think my host wakes up the next morning with no recollection of my visit and lives happily ever after–maybe not.

That brings me to my suicide.

Meet Drew Carson, a blackjack dealer at a mob-run casino in 1961 Las Vegas, living in a fleabag motel, spending skimmed cash on bad grass and warm beer. One night–my night as Drew Carson–I drank myself into a hopeless state of despair, miserable about Drew’s pathetic life, but also my own—a hapless soul on an endless treadmill of death and rebirth. With little thought of the consequences, I grabbed a kitchen knife and sliced my wrists. I lay there on the floor, stinging pain of my life-force spilling out of my veins, oozing like white-hot lava from a volcano. I couldn’t wait to pass out, to just get it over with, praying for my nightmare to be over.

It didn’t.

I woke up the next morning as Susan Monroe, a so-so short order cook at a not-so-fine dining establishment in Philadelphia. It’s 2025. My husband, Chuck, had left me a couple of days earlier. We didn’t have much, but the bastard took all the money, the van, everything. In fact, on the day I became Susan, he came back and took Brownie, our dog. The poor mutt growled at me as Chuck led him out of the house.

The next day, I found myself in bed with pretty, little Diane, the check-out girl at the Piggly-Wiggly. I’d promised to marry her as soon as I got promoted to store manager—a lie to get in her panties. I couldn’t help it. I’d been a liar ever since Sunday school. I told everyone what they wanted to hear and never thought twice about it. I’d convinced Diane to call in sick that day. We made our separate calls from the phone on the bedside table, telling old Farley we’d caught something contagious. We sure did, the best day of sex ever. It was 1965 and I’d just been drafted. Next stop, Vietnam–whoopee, we’re all gonna die.

Ironically, I woke up the next morning, two years later, as Colonel Phan Nguyen of the North Vietnamese Army. It’s never a good day when I wake up in the middle of a war, but I’ve done it often enough. Somehow, I manage to keep my head down and get through it in one piece. At least, so far.

Not that I have a say in the matter, but I enjoy globe-trotting in the private jet of my consecutive lives. I’ve been reborn in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and a few tiny islands in the South Pacific.

I woke up one day in 1962 Liverpool as Rita Gracewood. All I wanted was to go to the Cavern Club that night to see the Beatles, but my boyfriend, Dev, kept me busy until the wee hours. During subsequent lives, I’ve managed to miss the Fab Four in Hamburg, on the Ed Sullivan Show, and their final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, thanks to Mia, Pamela, and Frank, respectively. Don’t get me wrong, the sex was great, but I’d like to catch them in concert at least once to find out what all the fuss is about. Oh well, all you need is love.

Some of you might envy my life. Don’t. Waking up as somebody new every day can become a terrible strain on the system. As I’ve said, there is no sense of continuity. I take no responsibility for my actions.

The fact that I suffer no consequences may lead some of you to wonder why I don’t just do as I please–you know, go stark raving looney tunes.

The answer is simple. I’m just not that kind of person. Sure, I’ve inhabited the bodies of murderers, terrorists, and worse. But whenever I find myself embodying a monster, I force myself to take a breather, a sort of twenty-four-hour time-out.

You see, I’ve had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about the darker side of human nature. I recall being suffocated by evil, falling physically ill at the thought of the heinous deeds I’d committed. Over time, however, I’ve learned to recognize the early signs of asphyxiation, regulate my breathing, and gut it out. After all, I have an inherent belief that humans are basically good. I just hang on until it’s over–like a rollercoaster ride.

I carry on the best I can with whatever situation I’ve been given. I go to work, pay the bills, pet my growling dogs, and basically blend in with my surroundings. I still feel guilty about killing myself as Drew Carson. Trust me, I’ll never do that again.

I recently spent an interesting day in 2045 as Professor Harriet Simmons, a brilliant physicist and Nobel Prize winner. She specialized in chemistry, but also dabbled in quantum physics. I spent the day delving into phenomena that make me, well, me. I tried to devise an equation for who I am and what I do. What a letdown. The only thing I discovered was that I routinely break the laws of physics, as easily as breaking eggs for omelets.

I sometimes wonder if there are others out there like me—kind souls who might help me figure it all out. However, if my life is any indication, they would be difficult to spot. Besides, I don’t know what would be gained by contacting a kindred spirit. Ships passing in the night, that’s all. Ships with no compass, no direction home. Who knows, maybe everyone is like me, and they just don’t know it. Frustrating thought.

In any case, my reason for writing this story is simple—to let you know that I am. Thanks to the story telling skills of Palmer Davis I’ve been able to put down on paper what I’ve been wanting to say for years. I exist. I may not be like you, but in a way, we’re the same. Unique individuals with thoughts, dreams, and desires. We think, therefore we are.

Like you, I exist, but I don’t know why. I have no idea what the grand plan is, or even if there is one. I do my best to get by each day, and I suspect you do too.

Which brings me to the second reason for writing this story. You.

If you’ve ever had a day when the choices you made seemed a bit off. Periods where your friends say you’re not acting quite like yourself, it’s probably me. You’re welcome or I’m sorry, as the case may be. Please know, I did my best to do no harm. Things are what they are, and we must do our best to accept them. I am me, and you are you, and sometimes the twain shall meet.

Of all the lives I’ve lived, there are some I will never forget. Janice, the widowed mother of two. Henri, a priest struggling with his faith. Gunther, the teacher giving his all to his students. Countless others who make our world what it is, a place of hope, courage, and possibility. As I said, even though I can’t explain my existence, I do exist, and because of them, I am glad.

This is who I am, and I’m not about to change.

Well, at least not until tomorrow.

A man and woman electrocuted in bed as they make love. A storm with evil intent. A crazy local who hunts humans. These stories would make front page news anywhere in the world. In a place like Las Vegas, Nevada, it’s just another Tuesday.

Detective Wayne Jackson entered the cheap motel room and did a cartoon-style double take. He stood staring at the queen bed where a naked couple clung together, performance art style, their pose suggesting moments of pleasure seconds before death. Limbs entangled, backs arched, eyes shut tight.

"Le Petit Mort."

Detective Clayton Hargraves blinked, as if waking from a bad dream. What’d you say…la pet a what?

"Le Petit Mort. It’s French for the little death. It refers to orgasm."

Looks like these two took it literally. You’re running late. Car trouble?

Nope. Flash flood a few miles back. Is the M.E. here?

Not yet. Maybe they closed the highway. Hell of a storm out there.

Monsoon, Jackson corrected. This time of year–it’s monsoon season.

We got nothing like this in Indiana. But tell you what, I’ll take a little rain over a tornado anytime.

Just wait. The weather out here drives people nuts. You’ll see. Anyway, partner. You got a theory on the real cause of death? Besides sex.

Hargraves sniffed the air. If I had to guess, I’d say it had something to do with this downpour. He pointed at the blackened cash validator box attached to the bed massage unit. "It might’ve shorted out at just the wrong time, and poof. The big death."

Jackson nodded. An act of God. He glanced around the room. Threadbare carpet and flea market furnishings. The musky scent of burned flesh, raw sex, and the summer’s first rains drove him outside in search of fresh air.

The Rest Easy Motel, just off Interstate 15, midway between Las Vegas and Mesquite, wore a garish coat of pink paint, most of it faded and peeling under the relentless heat of the Mojave Desert.

A dated sign near the highway depicted a neon girl diving into a neon swimming pool. A nod to another era. Sheet lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the abandoned pool in the middle of a courtyard. It held nothing more than a shallow slurry of green water and rotting sewage.

Jackson leaned against the railing on the second-floor landing and took in a deep breath to clear his mind. The heavy rain brought temperatures down by at least twenty degrees from triple digit days and nights. The cloudburst played a drumbeat on the overhang just above his head.