Prey for Night: A Short Thriller

By Malcolm Richards

Dying of thirst is the least of their worries...

 

The plane went down in less than a minute. One moment personal assistant Jane was staring out the window at the sprawling Mojave desert, the next she was squeezing her eyes shut and praying for a quick death.

 

Yet somehow Jane has miraculously survived the crash. Now, along with a nefarious Hollywood agent and a badly injured flight attendant, she must find her way out of the desert and back to civilisation before it's too late.

 

With night falling fast, the trio stumble upon an abandoned ranch and are forced to take shelter. But Jane and the others are about to discover the ranch isn't as abandoned as they think—and dehydration isn't the only way to die in the desert…

 

A chilling short thriller by award-nominated Malcolm Richards, Prey for Night will have you on the very edge of your seat.

 

PLEASE NOTE: Prey for Night is a short read of 1-2 hours in length.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Storm House Books
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781914452314

Malcolm Richards

Malcolm Richards writes mystery suspense fiction focusing on everyday people placed in extraordinary circumstances. Born in Cornwall in 1974, Malcolm has worked as a reading recovery teacher, a nurture group leader teaching children with complex behavioural and emotional needs, and as a teacher of creative writing. Malcolm lives and writes in South East London.

Book preview

ONE

Jane pulled her thin jacket around her shoulders and stared at the ramshackle buildings: a windmill, the remnants of a barn, and a painted farmhouse with a porch that might have once looked homely and inviting to an approaching stranger. But now? Now, even at this distance, she could see the windows were cracked and cloudy, and the paintwork was peeling off like strips of dead skin. But it was shelter from the coming darkness and the falling temperature. The only place they might find safety in this barren desert wasteland.

Glancing at her shell-shocked companions, Jane saw the same change of expression in their eyes: hope of rescue turning quickly to trepidation.

She coughed suddenly. Her lungs smarted from smoke inhalation. The bitter taste of ash poisoned her tongue. And, even though her mind was still in denial, the fatty aroma of scorched meat made her at once nauseous and undeniably hungry.

The plane had gone down in less than a minute. One second, she had been sipping a pomegranate juice and staring out of the window of the private jet, watching the sprawling desert below, the next she had been consciously aware that she was pissing herself and praying to a higher power that she had never believed in, not even when her mother had been dying of cancer.

At first, the roar of the engines had been deafening. Then the plane lurched violently to the right and thick black smoke fell like a veil across the desert view. The flight attendant, who had been pouring a drink, was thrown into the seats and onto the floor, sending alcohol raining over the upholstery. The engines cut out. The ensuing silence was terrifying. Then the plane dipped sharply and the screaming began.

Oxygen masks dropped down from compartments above the passengers’ heads, but Jane was oblivious. Outside the window, the smoke had briefly parted and the desert was rushing up to meet them at breakneck speed. The smoke returned in thick blooms, covering the horrific view. Jane managed to turn her head to the left to see forty-two-year-old Kurt Mayfield, Hollywood agent extraordinaire and thorn in her side, crying like a baby in between shrieking, Somebody do something! Somebody do something! All of his cut-throat reputation and desperately fake machismo instantly obliterated

Across from him sat the star of the show, the sole reason they were in this godforsaken tin can with wings in the first place. Royston Starr, Hollywood legend, actor of his generation. But unlike Mayfield, Royston Starr was unfathomably still and collected, not even a bead of perspiration sullying his brow, as if he were starring in one of his smash hit action movies, and any moment now he would coolly rise from his seat and make his way towards the cockpit, open the door, gently pull the unconscious pilot from the driver’s seat, or whatever they called it on a plane, and effortlessly correct the plane’s trajectory to bring it safely back to ground. It would be a rough landing with much teeth gnashing on Royston’s part, but they would all live, and the credits would roll as the emergency services arrived.

Except that wasn’t how it had played out, Jane thought, as she staggered towards the buildings. This was real life, not one of Royston Starr’s box office successes, and not all of them had survived. Even now, there was no distant wail of a siren drawing ever closer, signifying that rescue was on the way. There was only Jane, reluctant personal assistant to the still alive Kurt Mayfield, and the flight attendant, whose name Jane shamefully didn’t know.

The pilot and co-pilot were dead, pulverised on impact. Royston Starr was still sitting in his plane seat, seatbelt strapped over his waist, hands resting on his lap. A picture of calm. Except half of his head was now splattered across the seats and aisle carpet. Jane wasn’t sure what had happened to him. At the time of his death, her face had been buried between her knees, bracing for impact. All she did know was the action hero had starred in his final picture and it hadn’t ended well.

Clearing her throat, Jane hawked and spat bitter bile onto the cracked earth. Her right ankle throbbed beneath her, twisted not in the crash but as she had freed herself from her plane seat and slipped in Royston Starr’s brain matter. She was sure some was still stuck to her heel. She glanced over her shoulder. The plane, or what was left of it, was still visible but now reduced to the size of a children’s toy, smoke and flames billowing from the wreckage. It was a miracle any of them had survived.

But for how much longer?

The flight attendant was in a bad way, walking with a limp and a glazed look in her eyes, blood caking her auburn hair and drying in streaks on her face. With every step, a small whimper escaped her lips. Despite her limp, she was ahead of Jane, every so often veering to the left before course-correcting. Mayfield, who had seemingly escaped unharmed except for a torn jacket sleeve and ruffled feathers, was several feet ahead of the two women. To Jane’s knowledge, he had been first off the plane, scrambling for safety without once looking back to check if his fellow passengers were even alive.

Which was typical Kurt, Jane supposed. He had always been a self-serving bastard, the type to happily throw his own mother under a bus if it meant more money, more fame, and more pretty young women to sexually harass. Thankfully, he had yet to try anything nefarious with Jane. The downside was that Mayfield had been treating her like shit on his shoe ever since she had accepted the personal assistant job, which had turned out to be a poorly paid gig to fetch coffee, stroke Mayfield’s ego, and feed bullshit to his Hollywood clients whenever he dragged his heels on sending them their hard-earned