Four Hours: A Dark and Thrilling Killer Short Story

By Meghan O'Flynn

Are you a fan of suspenseful short stories with unpredictable characters that will keep you on the edge of your seat? "Four Hours" is for you!

 

"Twisted, trippy, and unique, 'Four Hours' is as dark as it is entertaining."

~Bestselling Author Emerald O'Brien

 

 

The high-rise on Fifth and Main is home to many eccentric characters, the types of suit-wearing men who buy exotic pets and import plants the likes of which aren't available in stores. But when the doors close for the night, the building hosts another breed: those hired solely to care for these exotic acquisitions, those who water and preen over items they'd never be able to afford themselves. Those who hate the men in the suits. 

 

Those the professional world would rather not see. 

 

Tonight, they have one hell of a mess to clean up. 

 

And time's running out. 

 

"A rollicking believably-unbelievable romp between three friends, with a Shakespeare-inspired death count. Absolutely incredible."

~Author K.R. Stanfield

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pygmalion Publishing
• Release date: Oct 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781947748200

Meghan O'Flynn

With books deemed "visceral, haunting, and fully immersive" (New York Times bestseller, Andra Watkins), Meghan O'Flynn has made her mark on the thriller genre. She is a clinical therapist and the bestselling author of gritty crime novels, including Shadow's Keep, The Flood, and the Ash Park series, supernatural thrillers including The Jilted, and the Fault Lines short story collection, all of which take readers on the dark, gripping, and unputdownable journey for which Meghan O'Flynn is notorious. Join Meghan's reader group at http://subscribe.meghanoflynn.com/ and get a free short story not available anywhere else. No spam, ever.

Book preview

FOUR HOURS

FOUR HOURS

A Short Story

MEGHAN O’FLYNN

Pygmalion Publishing

CONTENTS

READER BONUS!

FOUR HOURS

FREE STUFF!

AFTERTASTE

WICKED SHARP

THE DEAD DON’T DREAM

SHADOW’S KEEP

Also by Meghan O’Flynn

About the Author

REARVIEW

Copyright 2021

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Opinions expressed are those of the sometimes freaky characters and do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, scanned, or transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without written consent of the author.

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Pygmalion Publishing, LLC

IBSN (electronic): 978-1-947748-20-0

FOUR HOURS

The room smelled like his best friend’s mother.

That’s what Archibald Ringwarn would have thought later if he’d had the presence of mind to think at all. He almost never thought, not all the way through things. Even that stint with his best friend’s mother was a one-time deal back behind the garage. He hadn’t considered how he might hold her ass up, not even while he was supposed to be doing it. That’s why they fell—she broke her hip and died that week, some freak allergic reaction to the painkillers.

To this day, his best friend Patrice didn’t know it was him. Archibald didn’t think about her ass, and he certainly didn’t think through how to tell his best friend that he’d single-handedly killed his mother, so he just never did. That was really the last good lay he had, truth be told, and he was thankful for it, the goofy fuck.

But if Archibald Ringwarn was a goofy fuck, his friend Patrice was goofier, all fleshy jowls and eyeballs too big for their sockets and an ugly green tentacle where his nose should have been. Though that was probably the drugs.

It was usually probably the drugs.

We join our unlikely heroes in a place of business, not unlike most high-rises offices for men who own boats and don’t need to add testicles to their trucks to show their sexual prowess. No. These are offices for the men who sit with their legs wide, the men who take up space, the men who don’t cross their knees—men rich enough to let their balls hang wherever they wish. The giant cactus in the corner of the room felt like a testament to this notion, a phallus so enormous and prickly, so rigid and angry, that it did not require fake-truck testicles to be domineering. At twelve feet high, the cactus almost touched the ceiling, the needles excessively large and so silver they looked like spikes of steel.

How the fuck are you going to squeegee a cactus? Patrice snapped. A preposterous question for another pair, but for these two, it was a routine Thursday. Almost. And cactus care was the only reason Archibald and Patrice were in the office at all.

Just give me a second. I’ll figure it out. Archibald crouched beside the ceramic pot that was bigger than he was, his good knee popping like a cap gun, the bad one groaning. His eyes ached from the glare off the needles—bright, the spines glittering like stars in a sea of the most vibrant emerald he’d ever seen. Hot somehow. Burning his retinas.

If a person were positioned behind the cactus, they’d barely