Snake Pit

By Joanna Foley and Will Mullins

Authors in this book -

HughAllen

MoiseCummings

ErinKelly

WilliamMullins

DeloresQuagliata

ErinSavage

JoannaFoley

WilliamCarter

RachelRacette

• Language: English
• Publisher: Free Spirit
• Release date: Jun 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9788119351039

Book preview

323-r03-a_kindle_front_cover-01.jpg

All Rights Reserved

Published by

Free Spirit

Poets Choice & Free Spirit LLC

First Edition June 2023

Winner of Contest: Joanna Foley

Cover Design by Koni Deraz, Germany

Back Cover Content by Akshay Sonthalia, India

Edited by Rebecca Jaisingh, India

Book Design by Adil Ilyas, Pakistan

Authors in this book are from - UK, USA, Ireland and Canada

ISBN: 978-81-19351-03-9

Price: $25

BCID: 347-16901739

The views and opinions expressed in this collection of stories are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Free Spirit. Any content provided by our authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club. organization, company, individual or anyone or anything. Details and curiosities about the places in this book have been found on Wikipedia and on the Web. They do not reflect opinions or quote from the publisher.

Not suitable for children.

Contents

Will Mullins

Breeze in Aquilegia

Moise Cummings

Putting Your Dog Down

Erin Savage

Sales Team for the Win, and the Lose

Rachel Racette

Survival

Will Carter

The Permmeance of Kindness

Erin Kelly

To the Grave

Hugh Allen

Varoa Mite

Joanna Foley

Vengeance

Delores Quagliata

When Will I Live:

The Vindictive Narcissist

Prologue

Will Mullins

Wilmington, North Carolina - United States

Will is a screenwriter, author, poet, and guest blog contributor based on the East Coast.

Breeze in Aquilegia

Aquilegia is a city graced by beaches, a river, an old downtown, the movies – and despair, considerable despair.

I moved to Aquilegia in July of 2001. For some reason, I seemed to need to be in a place that existed in a confusing blend of fantasy and reality. Aquilegia certainly provided that.

This water-blessed burg was one of the few towns in existence outside of Los Angeles with a large film studio and a lengthy history of high level film production. This fact drew many would be filmmakers to its shores like a siren calling sailors to their doom or at least to their frustration and poverty.

Among these filmmakers were of course, a panoply of under twenty-five actors and especially actresses, living it up at the clubs and bars downtown in between appearing in zero budget film shoots and surviving low paying day jobs.

Numerous times I witnessed naïve individuals self-financing independent films without realizing what they were getting themselves involved with. The bottom line was that Aquilegia offered little in the way of opportunity for anyone other than those who desired to be union grips or some other form of crew member, working on various film and television projects that floated onto the studio lot from time to time.

I was somewhat of an exception to that group, in the sense that I was already a modestly experienced screenwriter with some national competition successes and some minor L.A. script options under my belt. I was among those who moved to Aquilegia because it was sunny and because I had a modest savings account of sufficient size to pay the bills for a while.

Still, the allure of signing on for paid gigs as a commercial producer became appealing as that savings account began to dwindle. That is what lead me to Tinsel Productions, a successful commercial production company in town that was looking for experienced people to produce projects for corporate clients.

Of course, their success didn’t mean that they were any less loony than anyone else in town or that they were possessed by the filmmaking bug in any smaller measure. It simply meant that they had actually made some money and were waiting for the next opportunity to shoot something that they truly desired to shoot, rather than another corporate marketing video.

I joined Tinsel’s ranks, and that is where my own Aquilegia troubles began.

Shortly after beginning to work with Tinsel, I walked along the downtown Aquilegia streets with the company’s President Jason Sledge. He was a tall and funny looking guy who rarely dressed in anything other than a tee shirt and a pair of jeans.

Jason noticed we were approaching the Top Hat Bar. Top Hat? he asked.

Why not? I responded since I really didn’t know a good reason why we shouldn’t, at least not at the time.

We walked out of the humid September weather and into the dimly lit bar. It was the kind of place that was trying too hard to be hip. A silent film was being projected onto the far wall as we entered, while a musician crooned and played an acoustic guitar in the corner.

I’m so tired of these little downtown bars, I thought as we sat down to order some drinks.

Three drinks later for me and four drinks later for Jason, some guys in their mid-twenties walked into the Top Hat.

I recognized one of them as a local actor, Sam Benson. I knew there had been some trouble between him and the members of Tinsel, but I thought all was well by that point.

Jason seemed uncomfortable. He threw some cash down on the bar, tapped me on the shoulder, and got up to walk out.

I followed his lead, not understanding until we passed Sam and his companions that things were indeed still tense between Jason and Sam.

The looks they gave us as we passed by said it all. I was growing concerned that this night might not end well.

I was right.

As we walked out onto the street, Sam and the others emerged behind us. To my absolute shock, one of his cronies pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Jason.

Jason spoke up, Whoa. There’s no need for that. Why don’t you put that thing away?

I started to say something, but before I could even get the words out of my mouth, Sam grabbed the gun from the other guy and wildly fired a couple of rounds in our direction. The first missed Jason, as did the second. Unfortunately, the second caught me in the shoulder.

I felt the rough surface of the sidewalk against my body as I heard more shots being fired. I had the feeling that Jason went down as well, but at the time, I couldn’t see him.

I did see Sam and the others running away and someone from the bar whipping out a cell phone to call for help.

I lay on the ground and looked up at the sky, thinking about how there was too much to experience in life for it to end here. I wondered if the same thought was going through Jason’s mind or if his thoughts were gone altogether.

Soon after, the sound of sirens drew close. Someone leaned over me.

I heard, This one is hit in the arm. I think he’s going to be alright.

I felt a warm breeze at that moment, and I was ready for the Aquilegia despair to wash away.

***

Some years later, I woke up to the throbbing of remembrance-pain in my shoulder. I walked out into the backyard and saw someone playing