Not Another Crime?

The wind blew through the trees surrounding the house and caused the branches to clack against the window which shook free their leaves. Falling through the front door, two shadows collapsed and fell out onto the pavement in a crash of noise and splintered wood.

            “You whippersnappers!” called an elderly woman who stood in the door to the house. Her figure was silhouetted by a growing light coming from within. Soon en

ough, a small woman who was out of breath appeared next to the lady holding a tarnished candle holder.

            “Madame! Madame! Vous ‘ill get a chill!” The little woman spoke between huffed breaths as she threw a threadbare shawl over the shoulders of the elderly woman. Pushing the shawl off her, she marched down the stairs and, with a surprising strength, pulled the tussling men apart and held them by the ear. “This is ridiculous! Honestly what are we to do with young ones like you? My husband is dead for goodness sake!”

Five hours earlier, an elderly man was shuffling down the long corridor of the house. He carried a single red leather bound book in the confines of his own leathery hand which shook slightly with each step. As he passed the length of the hall, he snuffed out each candle one by one which lit the gothic portraits hanging on the walls. The ornately furnished grandfather clock began to strike twelve times as the pendulum within slowly counted the seconds into the new day. After the chiming of the clock had finished the man had reached the end of the hall and stared deeply into the clock face itself, appearing to admire the craftsmanship. All was silent save for the rasp of his lungs as he continued to look at the slowly moving hands. Suddenly the face opened like a flap and a single revolver appeared and blasted through the silence of the house. Chaos ensured.

Marching them back into the living room, the elderly lady stood with her hands across her chest.

“And you too Christina!” she said to the little French woman hovering in the doorway. “I am positively sick to death of my house being used as a murder mystery setting. I’ve lost three husbands so far to this city’s shenanigans!” As she said this, she glared at each person in turn, “and the so-called Police have never been of help!”

At this, a man in a cap sat up and glared at the elderly woman, “But I-“

“I want none of that Sir – I’m too old to be up this late and tomorrow I shall have to find another husband. Look what you all put me through.” The man sitting next to him in a balaclava sheepishly looked at his hands. At this, the doorbell rang to the house and with an exasperated point, Christina was sent to answer it. A glamorous woman soon entered the room with a notepad in hand. Her hair was pulled back through the use of a glimmering hair clasp and the peacock quill was held gracefully in her hand. “Oh and who are you supposed to be, the glamorous millionaire or yet another detective?”

“I’m sorry? I’m just an investigative reporter Miss,” she said as she began to scribble on her pad.

“An investigative reporter? Hmph! Well at least we haven’t had one of them before,” retorted the lady. Her hair curlers had slowly slipped from their places over the night and her hair was now floating in wisps about her head. At this, the glamorous woman moved over and sat next to the nervously fidgeting maid.

“My name is Natalie and I’m here to tell your story. I need to know exactly what happened. When, how and why,” the woman spoke in calming tones to the rest of the group. Suddenly the maid piped up and quickly said;

 “Zese people are crazy Madame!”

The man in the balaclava fell out from the clock the moment the body dropped to the floor. He had barely fit into the thing and now he lay on the ground gasping for air after near suffocation. Suddenly, as he lay on the floor, he inspected the man’s face. It was not who he was after. “Bugger! Got the wrong house!” he whispered hurriedly to himself. Somehow, the crime network kept mixing up the addresses of their targets; he’d heard the same thing had happened to a friend last year. He hurriedly started to pull the man down the hallway by his legs yet soon enough a small woman appeared at the end of the hall in a nightgown.

“ ’Vat is going on? Monsieur? Qui are you?” she mumbled as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Looking down the hall, she saw the body and gasped with shock. “Sacre bleu! It has happened again!” Tears began to roll down her face as her body trembled from top to toe. She turned and disappeared down the hall and out the front door. Dropping the body, the criminal turned to run after her just as a shriek came from the wooden stairs near the clock. Startled by the noise from the elderly woman behind him, he tripped and fell over a rut in the rug. Suddenly the little woman appeared once more at the front door with a burly man wearing a cap.

“Stop there!” the policeman commanded in deep tones that vibrated through the floorboards. In a panic, the criminal got up from the floor and ran like a bull towards the policeman. In a mad tussle both struggled with the other as the French woman locked the door behind her and ran past the men to help the elderly woman. The men’s fighting pressed them against the door so hard that the lock broke and they tumbled out into the street and landed on their backs.

“So this all happened very quickly,” Natalie said to the crowd in the lounge room in surprise.

“Well we’re so used to it Dear so naturally it does now. Humph!” retorted the elderly woman with a glare towards the rest of them.

“I don’t even know these people!” cried the criminal who sat squished next to the burly officer. Yet the large man turned and silenced him with a glare.

“But what I don’t understand is –where’s the body?” the reporter asked, “I didn’t see it coming in.”

At this all four of the others in the room went silent with looks of shock on their faces. Suddenly, a tentative knock on the doorframe made them all turn their faces towards it. There stood a man in a dressing robe carrying a red leather book with a single hole in it.

“Heh – always carry this with me everywhere ever since Effy told me about her previous husbands! Gives you a bit of a shock but does the trick,” the man softly said as he rubbed a bump on his head.

“Oh Winston!” cried the elderly lady, “What a relief!” Just as the maid fainted into the chair and the policeman and criminal began to scratch their heads.

“Well… case solved I guess,” said the reporter as she snapped her book shut.

Hello Out There!

Hi there!

I have loads of ideas in my head and loads of writing that I have never shared with the world. But in order for me to do so, I need to know if there are serious readers out there?

I'm getting quite a bit of traffic but not much feedback...

If you like my site and want me to keep adding stuff to it, please speak up now!

Please comment or somehow indicate to me that you're actually liking my writing on this post - just so that I know that I'm not uploading this stuff to an empty world...

Would really appreciate it. If I get enough interest, I will definitely keep posting my writing.

Thanks!

A Dinner to Die For

The inspector stepped out onto the glistening cobbles as the flashing lights on the authorities’ cars around him lit up the street in pulsing colours of blue and red. Glancing at the decrepit mansion he took in a deep breath and sighed with conte

mpt at human crime. Here, he was… again. Stepping into who knows what foul crime had been committed by the riffraff of the city. To make matters worse, the delinquents had decided to do it in some sagging and abandoned building. Life isn’t a Christie novel for crying out loud.

            The floorboards creaked under his feet he stepped through into the decrepit mansion. The stark illumination from search lights created an eerie contrasting brilliance within the usually darkened house, causing termites and cobwebs alike to shine. Broken windows and rotted walls allowed beams from the outside lights to steal into the central hall and consume the confronting scene.

Stopping short before walking into the main hall, the inspector spied an old ornate wooden table spanning the room under a dust-ridden and broken chandelier. Cups, knives and baskets of swollen food lay spilled across the table as the guests around it slumped with lifeless eyes staring beyond the table into the afterlife. It certainly was a meal to die for.

            ‘ ‘Scuse me Inspector Black but it seems we have a murder on our hands,’ piped a stout man in uniform beside the inspector who awoke from his musings about the scene with a start.

            ‘Well of course we do! What else would we have?’ he angrily retorted.

            With a grin spreading across his face, the little officer replied, ‘We ‘aven’t found the corpses yet but I ‘ave my suspicions… very unusual circumstances it being ‘ere and all.’

            ‘What do you mean haven’t found the corpses? They’re slumped at the table for crying out loud!’

            ‘Oh no sir, I do believe you’re mistaken. No corpses ‘round ‘ere. No tables either.’ With a wink he strode off in the opposite direction.

            I swear that man is as blind as a post! thought Inspector Black as he watched the little officer waddle away. Shaking his head, he strode into the darkened room that had begun to smell of rot with a cover of sickly sweet cold meat. Each guest was finely dressed as if ready for a dinner party with pearls gleaming from the women’s ears and ties hanging from the men’s necks like nooses. It was obvious that they were all wealthy and had all gathered here by choice as each one of them were impeccably dressed. But the question was why? Why gather in a place like this? Leaning down to sniff the food, the inspector began to go through the motions of considering what had happened. It was then that he noticed a corpse sitting at the head of the table with its head firmly planted in the plate of food before him. Immediately Black knew that poison had been at work and that this very man was the host of the party for corpses.

            ‘Inspector, Inspector!’ cried the officer from the upper landing of the main hall, interrupting the thoughts of the inspector. ‘We’ve found the corpses. It’s all very peculiar. They’re seated around a table like some strange party.’

            Struggling to maintain a grip on his temper, the inspector turned to the officer and shouted up to him, ‘yes, I know! I’m bloody well standing in front of them!’

            ‘So you are! What a strange coincidence. You know what? I bet they’re not even dead, they’re probably some strange red-herring to throw us off the scent of the real crime!’ And with that he strode off once more to investigate throughout the house.

            With shocking disbelief at the incredulity of his co-worker, the inspector once more began to walk around the table and study the faces of the dead. Each corpse had something peculiar about them. One man with hair oiled to perfection had two crushed plums that had been forcefully pressed into his face, one in each eye. The man next to him had a smear of greasy mustard all over his face covering the beginnings of a beard while a woman who sat opposite him had had her face vandalised with streaks of bright scarlet lipstick. As he attempted to connect the mysterious appearances of the people lying around him, the officer suddenly appeared next to him, brandishing a bright red letter.

            ‘I do believe I’ve found a clue inspector!’ Rolling his eyes, Black took the envelope and read the letter inside.

You are cordially invited to a Murder Mystery this Friday evening in the abandoned house at 6 Stumpin Street. Please arrive at 6:00pm sharp and be in your best attire that suits your character.

Your character is: Mr Boddy.

            ‘A murder mystery? What kind of sadistic joke is this killer trying to make?’ inquired Black with eyes raised in disapproval. Strangely as the Inspector glanced at his watch, he noticed it was only just six o’clock now.

            ‘Oh it’s a game, Inspector! Such a fun game, I’ve been to a few good ‘uns in my time,’ replied the rotund man.

            ‘Oh? And who is this Mr Boddy?’

            ‘Why sir, don’t you get it? It’s a game of Cluedo!’ cried the officer.

            With a jolt the Inspector looked over the corpses again in muted shock. Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, Cornel Mustard and all the rest stared back at him with gaping eyes. ‘But who on Earth is Mr Boddy?’ the Inspector mumbled to himself.

            ‘Why they were Red Herrings all along sir,’ the officer grinned happily and rubbed his belly.

            ‘I don’t understand – what are the red herrings?’

            ‘Oh you really are daft aren’t you Inspector Black? They’re the Red Herrings,’ he said as he waved to the guests sitting at the table, ‘and you sir, are Mr Boddy, the dead body in a great game of Cluedo!’

            With a triumphant cry the officer removed a gun from the front of his trousers and shot the rusted chord holding the chandelier upright. With an almighty crash the ringed metalwork fell down on top of Inspector Black crushing him through the rotted floor next to the table. All that was left was the gaping black shape of a figure of a man in the old and mouldy floorboards just like the shape of a dead body on a Cluedo board.

An Impossible Corpse

 

The snow silently drifted down from the sky in whispers of cold flurries. Softly kissing the wind with an icy touch, the flakes flew around the field before they settled on the ground. A nearby forest watched on as the blood of a girl lying at the centre of the whitened landscape slowly seeped away from her and tainted the snow with the colour of rust. Birds cawed and cried at the sight of her bruised lips and at the paling colour of her skin while a single ace of spades, which lay pinned to her thin blouse, fluttered in the breeze.

Regina Royton stepped out of the car and slammed the door closed before she pulled up her jacket’s collar against the wind. The chill had crept down her back and sent spiders of ice scrambling up and down her spine; nevertheless the adrenalin that came with a new case warmed her up as she crunched through the snow towards the fence.

‘Well, this is an unusual one,’ mumbled assistant officer Fellows through a woollen scarf as he took out a notepad and pen and began furiously scribbling away. His black cap hid the untidy shock of hair of a person who still needed a morning shot of coffee.

‘You could say that again,’ she replied as she pulled at her brown leather gloves, ‘the weirdest thing about it is that there are no footprints leading to the corpse.’

 ‘What?’ The officer looked up from his pad and stared across the field in front of him. He noticed that Royton was right as he saw that the innocent picture ahead of him was marred only by the shocking presence of the corpse. ‘Well how did she bloody well get there then?’ he said as he stared at the lifeless figure with a creased forehead.

‘We’ll just have to find out.’ With a determination Fellows was shocked to see from a new female boss, she vaulted over the fence and landed in the frosted meadow.

The snow chilled the feet bones of the inspector and officer as they trudged across the land towards the corpse. Arriving at the girl, they noticed that barely any ice had settled on her and that the snow beneath her was the same depth as the snow surrounding her lifeless body.

‘Well there’s no way the culprit’s tracks could be covered by the storm,’ observed Inspector Royton, ‘and what do we have here?’ Leaning down she plucked the card from the girl and turned it over before handing it to her junior. A single sentence was written in a slanted script above the spade picture;

Your time is up. Was this your card?

Frowning at the wording with shock, Fellows looked up to see the disinterested eyes of Royton looking at him.

‘Y-y-yes…’ he stammered as he bluntly looked at the card in front of his eyes.

‘What are you talking about?’ she angrily muttered as she began to get out her forensic equipment and set about fingerprinting the card and corpse.

‘This… this is my card.’

Five months ago, Jonathon Fellows was walking through the streets of New York, trailing behind his group of friends when suddenly he heard the screams of a girl. Startled by the sound, he stepped through the steam billowing from the vent in the road and came face to face with a man in coattails. Jonathon noticed that he was firmly gripping the hand of a struggling girl while he held a pair of leather gloves in his free hand. Looking into the face of the man beneath a silken top hat he saw blue eyes staring back at him above the thin line of a hard mouth.

‘What do you want boy?’ the man spat at him.

‘Let go of her!’ Jonathon demanded before grabbing his cell phone and punching in the number of the police, ‘I’ve got a man here on 34^th Avenue who’s abusing a woman. I need back up stat.’

‘You’ll regret this one day mate,’ the man said as he realised he was officially now on government records. Twisting the arm of the woman he held captive, he said, ‘but it’s lucky I am what I am. Pick a card, any card.’ As he did this, the girl’s screams turned into a flurry of cards which appeared to come out of her mouth. One of them, the ace of spades, flew at Jonathon’s chest and stuck there mysteriously before the man cackled and cried; ‘it seems like you’ve picked your card,’ before he vanished before Fellows eyes.

 Looking down, foul smells curled up from the underworld of the city as an open man-hole lay in

front of him. After checking the alley one last time for the girl, he walked back out into the open streets and ended the call before flicking the playing card into the nearest bin.

Now, he stood with his eyes widened at the copse below his feet. Her grey eyes were an exact match for the girl who struggled to get away from the man months ago. Kneeling down, he touched her cold skin and saw the scaring on her left hand.

‘You’re pathetic,’ the woman above him sneered down to his level. Suddenly a leather glove slapped him in the head and caused him to look up into her face. As he did so, Regina’s face moved as the mask was peeled free from its place and instead a hardened glare stared down at him from above, with the same blue eyes as the man in the alley. ‘Remember me boy? You should never trust a soul as soon as you cause an illusionist trouble.’ As he said these words, the man pulled a gun from his belt and aimed it towards Fellow’s forehead.

The world hung suspended in time as a slight pulse began to beat against Fellow’s fingertips that still rested on the girl. Just before the bullet was sent rocketing into his brain, he noticed the man’s assistant on the ground weakly turn her face towards his. The last thing he heard was the small whimper of ‘Sorry’ and the silent pitter-patter of snow.

Wow... it's been a while.

G'day. Wow. Ok so it's been about 2 years since I last posted on here and I'll be honest, I completely forgot about this blog... (until a mate of mine reminded me of it - hats off to you!) but I'm actually keen to get it up and running again. Over the past two years, a lot has happened such as me finishing school and moving onto university. The good thing is though that I have tonnes of writing that I have stored away from school and such which I can upload and share with you guys. A lot of it is Gothic Fiction or Crime Fiction related.

So... hope you like my new stuff. And, like old times, please comment on anything you like!

Coming soon... watch this space.

A Murderous Talent

The water sounded almost as if it was whispering to itself. The way it gushed around the bloated body and encouraged crimson swirls of blood to spiral out from the figure was almost calming. Tendrils of the mixture snaked around nearby rocks and stained the overhanging grass from a pure green to a sickly red. Bruising on the temples with a leaching wound reaching from a stubbled left cheek down the neck and under the collar. It was evident that the shoes were missing as a single blue and white striped sock bobbed its way downstream at a pace a snail could beat. No murder weapon was to be seen nearby...yet. This just made things more like a game of Cluedo. Was it Professor Green in the garden with a candlestick? Or perhaps Madam Peacock in the neighbor's hedge with a revolver? It was my job to sort things out - it was always my job to sort things out.

 Detectives, policeman, dogs; they were always useless, always bumbling around and tripping over the evidence from one another and constantly jibing with the Judge over the most fickle details while skipping the most important part of an investigation. Finding the culprit and the history of the victim. That's what I did, no matter how many times I've been told to "keep my bloody nose out of it". I've always hunted, sniffed, tracked and traced the culprit down to the very last nose hair found at the scene of the crime AND I've always come out with results. Let's just say some love me and some hate me - it all depends upon your perspective.

However no matter how many past investigations I've solved or uncovered, as I look down upon the body floating in front of me, having little to no long-term memory - I know that this time things will be different. To say this case is a near impossibility is an understatement. For you see, this time - I am the victim; the body is mine.

Here to There and In Between - FINAL PART

Later on we woke up with a start and remembered that we were within a large metal bird flying to who knows where. We all calmed down until we heard the footsteps. Why have footsteps always meant something bad ever since Nepal? I thought to myself as we huddled closer together.

My heart took on a rampage within my chest as they grew closer and closer to the back compartment. Barely holding onto a scream, the back door began to creep its way open slowly letting in light that glared on our faces.

Anya was holding onto Ema and Alina like they were comfort dolls, almost squeezing them to a pulp. The door opened wider and we began to hear the soft breathing of the person who was opening it. Suddenly the suspense was too much for Ema and she let out a terrified squeak loud enough to rattle any mountain nearby (or at least it seemed that way).

The person opening the door jumped before they threw it open entirely and peered in. It was the woman.

She stared at our terrified faces before letting out a sigh and turned around.

“It seems we have a couple of stowaways on board Michael!” she called back to the pilot in a language foreign to me.

“Please!” I shouted above the roar of the engine and the pilot, “We need help! Don’t hurt us!” With a look of total bewilderment the woman turned back to us. She had fair hair that curled around her shoulders and a face with two pink cheeks. He eyes were a deep brown the reminded me of my mother’s.

“Nepalese?” she said in our own language, “But how on Earth did you get here?”

So she invited us to come out and sit on the middle benches as we all told her about what had happened to us.

Half-way through she asked for a large piece of fabric from the pilot to blow her nose with and wipe her eyes. She then proceeded to tell us that she had just come from Nepal and stopped a large box (she used another word I did not know) of girls that were to be sold on the black market. Apparently she was part of some group who wished to help people from my country survive the inter-Asian disturbances.  My heart rose as I realised that it was our terrifying box that we had been imprisoned in so long ago which she was talking about.

She also told us that we were headed to her homeland; a place by the name of Australia, which was to our astonishment also known as the Great Southern Land. Soon after our discussion, she had talked to the pilot who was also her husband and came back to us.

“Now what I am about to propose is very, very serious. I want you to think about this very seriously as it will impact your life greatly. You will not be able to go home.”

“Oh, but we don’t want to go back.”

“Well then perhaps this will come as good news to you. My husband and I wish to adopt you.” she said with a tentative smile on her face.

“Adopt? What is that?” I asked her blatantly.

“Adoption is where another adult takes responsibility for lost children. If we adopt you, you will be able to stay together as a family within Australia with myself and my husband Michael. But it’s okay if you don’t want to. I am just worried that if we don’t, you won’t be allowed to come into Australia and you might get split up.” At this, Anya gave me a look of questioning.

 So we began a discussion that would once again change our lives forever.

****

As it ended up, we agreed for Belinda (that was her name) and Michael to adopt us and have all lived together in Australia ever since. I still wonder about my real parents back in Nepal but do not dare go back for fear of being captured again.

This place here is amazing, we have learned to speak English and we now go to a place called school. Personally, I don’t like school much but Ema and Alina love it. Our lives are better here but we still bear the scars of such an emotional journey through so many cultures and countries that I don’t think we will ever forget our ordeal.

I cannot help but think where or who Ashmi is with now. Is he safe? Will he have a better life? Perhaps it would have been best for him to have stayed in Nepal after the old woman died. But however much we wish, we cannot change the past.

Many have asked us how we survived and what we have done. The most often asked question is where we have been

- but we can only reply that we have been here and there and in between.

Fin

(Please note this story is entirely fictional)