.

We were parked in the midst of what appeared to be a giant junkyard. Row after row of wrecked cars of every color and model sat in various states of disrepair for as far as the eye could see.

Behind me, I heard the unmistakable crunch of gravel under boots but, before I could turn, I felt the barrel of a gun pressed between my shoulder blades. Instinctively, I put my hands in the air. Then a voice I recognized said: “We meet again.”

Julie smiled evilly. “You really are an idiot,” she said. “You actually thought I’d let you steal from my cousin?” My face must have revealed my shock because she followed that with an affirmation. “Yes Josh, Brad’s my cousin!” she spat. “If you were a little less into you and a little more into other people you probably would have remembered that.”

Brad punched me hard in the back of the head and I dropped to my knees. “If Mande wouldn’t have posted about you on Facebook, you’d be dead right now!” he said. “I’m tempted to do you anyway and take my chances. Put you in a trunk and put the car through the crusher. They’d never find you.”

Julie’s eyes were suddenly worried. “Brad, you promised me. No violence.”

“Where are the rocks?” he demanded and she ran to the car and returned with the bag. He was pressing the gun hard into the back of my head.

“I have them here,” she said.

“All of them?”

“Yes, they’re all here. Every one.”

He lowered his mouth to my ear and growled: “Steal from me again and I’ll kill you and there won’t be a body at your funeral. Are we clear?”

I nodded.

“ARE WE CLEAR?!”

“We’re clear, Brad,” I said. “We’re clear. I’ll never steal from you again.”

“Damn right,” he said. Then he cracked me in the skull with the pistol. It didn’t knock me unconscious but I wished it had. I lay in the gravel holding my head, blood running through my fingers. They walked away, got in their vehicles, and drove off.

Julie said: “So long, Romeo,” through her open window as she sped away throwing dust and rocks into my face.

I laid there for a long time before my vision had cleared enough to stand. Then I staggered about trying to find my balance. I leaned against an old truck and stuck my hands in my pockets. Then I smiled.

“Should have checked my pockets, Brad.” I said sifting emeralds through my fingers. “You really should have checked my pockets.”
The End!

.

Hope You enjoyed this Short Story Collaboration as much as I enjoyed writing it with Fred.  Always diverting to go down a new road and test my wings with something different.  Should you feel inclined, have a notion or idea for a collaboration, please feel free to contact me via my Write With Me page or Contact information.

Part Five

Part Four

Part Three

Part Two

Part One

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~Morgan~

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Morpheus was losing his mind, running from window to window and barking at the intruder. Carefully, I peered through the blinds. The ranger was talking into a walkie-talkie and walking deliberately across the lawn, down towards the dock. “You always get park rangers in your yard?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

I peaked out through the blinds. “I think there’s just one. He’s definitely looking for something. Or someone.”

Together, we scooped up the emeralds and poured them back into the bag. I watched as she stashed it above the fridge in a cupboard. “You stay here,” she said and, before I could respond, she was out the front door leaving Morpheus and me to climb the walls.

At first, I could hear her. “Excuse me!” she said walking down the hill toward the dock where the ranger stood. Then, as she got further away, the voices became muffled and I couldn’t make out the words. He handed her a sheet of paper and they talked about it for five or ten minutes before walking back up the hill. She came inside and shut the door.

“Not a ranger,” she said, “Highway Patrol.  He asked about the car.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him the guy who stole it was in my house with a bag of priceless stones that he ripped off. I told him I was going to help you fence it. What do you think I told him?”

“I suppose that was a dumb question.”

“They asked if I had seen you,” she said.

“What?”

She handed me the paper. My face was printed across the front of it.

“Wanted for Questioning,” was printed above my face and under it, “Josh McCormack.”

My heart hammered in my chest. “Now the cops want me too?”

“He asked if I had seen you and I told him I knew you from high school. He asked when the last time I’d seen you was and I said not for ten years or so. I asked what this was all about but he wouldn’t say. I asked if you were dangerous and he said he didn’t think so. Now I’ve aided and abetted AND lied to police officer,” she said in disbelief.  “We need to get you out of here. We need to get those jewels sold and get out of town for a while.”

“Then what?” I said, feeling slightly frantic. “Keep running forever?”

“What about you?” I said. “What about your job? Won’t people start missing you in a day or two?”

She didn’t answer and I paced around the living room. “This is bad. It was bad when the Adams boys wanted me but it’s REALLY bad now that the cops are involved.” I looked at the paper again. It gave my description but no details of why they wanted me. “Brad or Allen must have gone to the cops. Maybe that’s better. It’s probably harder to kill me in prison right?”

She dug around in a kitchen drawer and came up with a pair of sunglasses. “Put these on and pull your hood up. When we get to the shed, you get in the trunk. We’re going to see my uncle. He’ll know what to do.”

I grabbed the bag of emeralds and we ran for the garage. Behind us, Morpheus went berserk climbing the sliding glass door and barking his disapproval.
I was not at all enthusiastic about climbing into the trunk of her sedan.  I understood her reasoning, but the notion didn’t sit well with me.  Fortunately, when she opened the trunk and we looked in, there really was no way I would fit; I had barely fit in the back seat.  Turning to look at her with a scowl, I grabbed the emergency blanket folded neatly in the small compartment and went round her to open the back passenger side door.

“Not a chance, Julie.  I’ll lay on the floor and you will simply need to make sure you don’t get stopped.  Cover me with this.” I handed her the blanket and crawled in, situating myself in the cramped area behind the front seats that was barely large enough for a school kid.  I had a bit of difficulty finding a comfortable position, but she got tired of waiting for me and threw the blanket over me with a mumble that even Morpheus wouldn’t take so long.  Growling at her with frustration as the blanket submerged me in thick darkness, I cursed inwardly at the absurdity of it all and leaned back against the door.

The engine revved and we were on our way, although I had no idea where we were going.  Something I had neglected to ask in the rush and without being able to see where she was driving, the turns she made soon completely disoriented me.  I lay quietly for a while, forcing myself not to pose undue questions; assuming she had a plan.  Time stretched out, even if I couldn’t and I grew more and more uncomfortable.  I tried to shift, but there was nowhere to move to and my knee repeatedly pressed into the back of her seat as I struggled.

“Will you stop that? We’re almost there.”

“Almost where? You neglected to tell me where you planned to go and I’d appreciate knowing.”  She didn’t answer as she made what seemed to be a complete circle and a sound of heavy gravel beneath the tires announced we were now off the main road.  We bumped and jostled along for several moments longer, each jolt pushing me further from uncomfortable into downright miserable and just when I was about to throw the cover back with a curse and push myself up regardless of the consequences, the car stopped and she turned off the engine.

Against instinct, I waited.  I heard her door open, close, and the sound of her footsteps recede into the distance.  Cursing, I fumbled with the blanket, only to hear her returning a moment later and open the rear door.

“All clear.” She said in a low voice as if she were in an espionage movie while she took hold of the blanket and pulled it slowly off me.  I looked up at her with an intense combination of indignation and relief, but said nothing as I attempted to push myself up from the cramped position I had slumped into.  At 6’2”, trying to squeeze into the limited space behind the seats of a compact sedan had proved difficult enough; trying to extricate myself from that space was practically impossible.

Smiling at my ungainly actions, she giggled quietly and reached for my hand, tugging on me in the same manner she had just the night before, although this time I was not nearly comatose with hypothermia.  The sound of her soft giggle captured my attention so completely that when I had righted myself and stood beside her outside the car, I didn’t even look round me, but rather, stood staring down at her with an intense gaze.

She didn’t seem to notice and stepped back to try to close the door.  Shaking myself I looked round to see where she had brought us.

Finale Tomorrow!

Part Four

Part Three

Part Two

Part One

.

Fred Rock of Fred Rock Fiction recently contacted me to discuss a possible, extended collaboration during which time we would write a short story based upon a piece he had begun and then hit a wall.  I read the portion he wrote (designated above and throughout these posts in italics ) and was immediately intrigued.  Inspiration sparked, we set about sending the piece back and forth between us for several weeks, adding to the tale, discussing possible stumbling blocks, and finally editing the ‘masterpiece’.  Our final story is now ready to be shared, which we shall do in increments for your reading ease (and hopefully enjoyment!)

~Morgan~

Save

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“Maybe,” I said. “How did you know I ripped off Brad Adams?”

At first, I thought she was ignoring me. She brought out her phone and began typing and scrolling. After a few moments, she found what she was looking for and tossed it to me. “You’re famous.”

It was a social media site scrolled to a post from Brad Adams’s wife, Mande. It read:

THE FIRST PERSON WHO TELLS US THE WHEREABOUTS OF JOSH MCCORMACK WILL BE REWARDED WITH $1000! THIS IS NOT A JOKE! HE STOLE SOMETHING FROM US AND WE WANT IT BACK!

“That’s a lot of capital letters,” I said. My mouth was dry. The post had 124 likes and 29 shares. There was also a picture of me that accompanied it for the handful of people who didn’t know every person in a fifty mile radius by name. I tossed the phone back to Julie feeling sick. The whole damn world is after me. “Looks like I owe you a thousand dollars,” I said weakly.

“Oh, it’ll cost you more than that,” she said. “But first, we need those emeralds.”

“Do you really know someone who will buy them?”

“No. But I might know someone who does.”

“Someone you can trust?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” she said.

In the garage, she managed to dig up an old pair of swim goggles she had used a few years ago at the university pool. They were too small and leaked but they were better than nothing. At the end of the dock, the lake was deep and the water was murky and it sure as hell hadn’t warmed up any. It took me a long while of diving and fishing around in the cold mud with my hands before I finally found the bag. I hoped her neighbors weren’t watching – some idiot swimming off the dock in October was bound to draw attention. She stayed indoors; there was no sense in both of us freezing our asses off and we reasoned that a person in the water was tougher to spot than someone standing on the dock watching. I wondered if she was stretched out on the couch making a phone call or, perhaps, a social media post of her own. I couldn’t blame her if she was.

Back inside, the cabin still smelled of bacon and wood smoke and I dressed in some ratty sweats she had confiscated from a former boyfriend. Together, we sat cross-legged on the floor before the fireplace as I emptied the bag slowly onto the rug. The jewels poured, a thick stream of translucent green, clicking and bouncing into a glittering pile.

 “Holy shit,” I said. “I wonder how much money we’re looking at.”

In a quiet voice that was almost a whisper she said, “Enough for them to kill us both.”

Her statement hung in the air while we stared at the jewels, mesmerized.

I looked up at her and realized the ominous truth of her words.  I hadn’t thought things through, not really.  I did what I always did; I wanted, I took, but it had led me into a precarious situation and now that life-threatening choice had sucked her into its dangerous pit as well.  I suddenly wished I had made a different choice and, as I stared at her, that wish expanded.  I wished I had made a lot of different choices.  Perhaps if I had….

Suddenly, someone was hammering on the cabin door.

I cursed inwardly, drew back, noticed the disappointment and frustration in her eyes, and cursed out loud.  Neither of us moved, however; not initially. We just listened as the hammering continued, then stopped as the sound of heavy footsteps plodded round the front porch and the shadow of the untimely trespasser moved to the window.  Fortunately, she had drawn the curtains closed and they obscured the view well enough to shield us from discovery, but it was easy enough to recognize the silhouette of the park ranger in his Dudley Do-right hat as he peered inward.

To Be Continued…

Part Three

Part Two

Part One

.

Fred Rock of Fred Rock Fiction recently contacted me to discuss a possible, extended collaboration during which time we would write a short story based upon a piece he had begun and then hit a wall.  I read the portion he wrote (designated above and throughout these posts in italics ) and was immediately intrigued.  Inspiration sparked, we set about sending the piece back and forth between us for several weeks, adding to the tale, discussing possible stumbling blocks, and finally editing the ‘masterpiece’.  Our final story is now ready to be shared, which we shall do in increments for your reading ease (and hopefully enjoyment!)

~Morgan~

.

 “Think back to high school, Josh. We had several classes together. When we were little, we even rode the same bus.”

 I drew a blank.

“Julie Hanson!” she said, exasperated. “My name is Julie Hanson. I graduated the year after you? Hello? We saw each other every day. I even sat beside you in Geometry.

Still nothing.

“Lovely,” she said. “I see you’re still self-absorbed.”

“Uh…oh, Julie!” I said. “I didn’t even recognize you!”

She laughed without mirth, and threw a pillow at me. “Get some sleep, Dumbass. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up in a few hours and you can tell me all about cold water and shrinkage.”

I awoke some time later to the smell of bacon. I was happy to see she had dried my clothes and dumped them in a heap on the floor. I dressed beneath the blanket and found her in the kitchen pouring bacon drippings over Morpheus’s dog food. He inhaled it in seconds and stood watching me, licking his chops.

“Do you remember me yet?” she asked.

“No,” I admitted. “My memory has never been great.”

She nodded and stared at the stove. “Have you given thought to the other thing we discussed?”

I sighed. “The emeralds are stashed in a waterproof bag. They’re sitting at the bottom of the lake at the end of your dock. Somehow, we need to get them out before it freezes or we’ll be waiting until Spring.”

She looked up. “You threw a bag of priceless gems in the lake?”

“There weren’t many options. I wasn’t planning on swimming last night. I didn’t plan on running out of gas.”

“Brad Adams was chasing you?”

“No, just some guys who work for them.”

“So you abandoned your car and ran?”

I nodded.

“How far?”

“What?”

“How far from here? How far away is the car?”

“I don’t know. A mile. Maybe two.”

“Your car is sitting a mile or two from here?”

I felt the sudden need to defend myself. “It ran out of gas,” I said. “And it wasn’t my car, I stole it.”

“You stole it?”

“Yes.”

“From whom?”

“Brad Adams. When I grabbed the rocks.”

She searched my eyes to confirm that I was telling the truth. “Do you even know how lucky you are to have found me, Josh? No offense but you kinda suck at this.” She jabbed a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast into my ribs. “Eat. Then tell me everything. Start at the beginning. We need to come up with a plan,” she said. “A real one.”

After devouring the breakfast she made, which was far better than anything I’d eaten at the diner in a long time, I prepared to divulge the truth, or at least my version of it.  We sat in the living room like old friends.  She was nestled on the love seat beneath one of the many blankets she had piled over me the night before, while I had spread out on the couch and was staring at her brazenly, thoroughly enjoying the sight of her.

“The long and short of it is, Brad Adams owed me a lot of money from a Texas Hold-Em game a few months back and refused to acknowledge the debt.  I don’t have the ‘muscle’ they have, mainly because I don’t know any thugs; so I decided to take what they owed me.”  She stared back at me, the deep green of her eyes as impenetrable as the shadows of a forest.  I stared back, unsure if she believed me or if she was contemplating murder; her expression was that indistinguishable.  I hesitated; then plunged on in a false show of confidence.

“I hung out at the tavern until after closing, faked a last minute visit to the washroom; then slipped up the back stairs while they were closing up.  Brad was busy with some piece of…” I broke off and gestured a wordless apology for the rude reference before continuing.  “Brad was otherwise engaged and didn’t notice me when I went into the office or when I came out again.  Emeralds secured under my vest, I skirted the washroom and headed for the door.”

“How did you get your hands on them? Wasn’t there a safe or something?”  I smiled and nodded, but chose not to reveal that particular detail.

“Let’s just say I’m handy with locks.”

“Not so much with cars though, apparently.”  Her jibe was less critical than it was teasing and I noticed a smile flirting with the corners of her mouth.

“No, never have been.”

“I know.”  I stared at her again, long and hard, and it was only then that I remembered.  Nearly ten years had passed since that Geometry class she mentioned and I hadn’t given her a second thought, mainly because ten years ago she was one of those shy girls at school that no one bothered to look at twice.  Not because she wasn’t pretty, which, as I remembered, she was, but because she wasn’t one of the girls a guy could take home on a Friday night.  She had even called me Dumbass, just like she had done one Valentine’s Day when she had placed a single rose in my car and I had inadvertently destroyed it while taking one of the ‘Friday Night’ girls home. The memory didn’t sit well with me, especially since she had blossomed from pretty schoolgirl to beautiful woman during the past ten years and now I was sitting with her, alone, in her secluded cabin.

“What’s the matter Josh?  Having second thoughts?”

.

To Be Continued…

Part One

Part Two

.

Fred Rock of Fred Rock Fiction recently contacted me to discuss a possible, extended collaboration during which time we would write a short story based upon a piece he had begun and then hit a wall.  I read the portion he wrote (designated above and throughout these posts in italics ) and was immediately intrigued.  Inspiration sparked, we set about sending the piece back and forth between us for several weeks, adding to the tale, discussing possible stumbling blocks, and finally editing the ‘masterpiece’.  Our final story is now ready to be shared, which we shall do in increments for your reading ease (and hopefully enjoyment!)

~Morgan~

.

When I awoke, I was sitting on a love seat before a raging fire. She had buried me beneath a mountain of thick blankets and I was sweating. Somehow, she had wrestled me into the cabin. Whether I had helped her by staggering along or had lost consciousness outside, I couldn’t say.

I was disappointed to find Morpheus curled at my feet, watching my every move. As I began shedding blankets, he growled low and ominous. My eyes never left his. His never left mine.

 “Welcome back,” she said from across the room. She was seated on a couch in a white terrycloth robe and matching slippers, a steaming beverage in her hands. “Nice to see you didn’t die of hypothermia in my house.”

I felt as though I’d been dragged behind a truck. “What time is it?”

“Three in the morning,” she said, “but it seems to me that I should be the one asking questions.”

I didn’t reply.

“Let’s just cut right to it,” she said. “You’re expecting me to ask you what you were doing sleeping in my car. You don’t think I know who you are, or what you’ve stolen or who you’ve stolen it from. You’re wrong on all three counts.”

She had my attention.

 “The only reason you’re here and not in the police station or somewhere less pleasant is that I want in and it seems to me that you’re in no position to negotiate. Bring me in on this thing and I will help you, I can even help you sell it. Refuse my help and I’ll call the cops. Or maybe I’ll just call Brad Adams directly. I’m sure they’d be happy to know your whereabouts on this lovely evening.” 

I studied her face and determined that she wasn’t trifling with me. Resigned, I said, “I had to stash it. I don’t have it with me.”

“Yes,” she said. “I figured that out.”

It was here that I made a discomfiting discovery. Beneath the blankets, I was as naked as Morpheus.

*****

How she’d managed to remove my soaking wet clothes I didn’t care to wonder about, although with no sign of them hanging about to dry, I was in no position to dictate terms.  On the other hand, she might not be so brazen if I took the lead where audacity was concerned.  I stared at her and considered my course.

The first matter of business was determining how she knew who I was.  I glanced round her cabin, to see if she lived alone or if there might be indications of a husband or boyfriend, but the overly feminine décor more than obliged an answer.  Besides, she wouldn’t be sitting in her living room at 3AM with a strange man if there were, so I sought the answer to my next question:  was she in some way related to Brad Adams?  Blatant material wealth would have proclaimed she was, yet at closer inspection, although her home was decorated charmingly, the accoutrements were simple.

“You want the emeralds, do you?”  My blunt question seemed to surprise her, as if she hadn’t known after all and I cursed inwardly, but she smiled and nodded.

“Well I knew you’d taken something that didn’t belong to you, though I wasn’t sure what, but yes, a few emeralds would be quite helpful, Joshua.  Where have you hidden them?”  Somehow, she knew who I was, but in a town as small as this one, halfway between Fairbanks and no-man’s-land, most people did know everyone else.  I stared at her hard, trying to put a name to her face, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing her before.

“It’s Josh, and just how do you know me?”  Sweltering under the six blankets still piled on top of me, I pushed all but one onto the floor and allowed the remaining one to slide to my waist.  She smiled again and I didn’t miss her gaze as it dropped from mine to take in what the blanket had revealed.  Years of working the woodlands had honed my physique and I wasn’t ignorant of the fact that most women watched me when I entered the diner or local tavern.  I usually ignored them, well, most of the time, but it might just work in my favor now.

“You know it’s impolite to stare, don’t you?”  My tone turned more teasing and her gaze shot back to mine, then slid sideways to the fire.

“I saw everything I wanted to see earlier, Josh.  Now I’d like to see those emeralds you mentioned.”

“We can debate that point, but I’d like to thank you for not letting me freeze to death.  Will you tell me your name?”  My evasiveness brought her stare straight back to mine and she set down her drink as the demure smile curving her lips faded.

“You never were very observant.”

To Be Continued…

Part One

.

Fred Rock of Fred Rock Fiction recently contacted me to discuss a possible, extended collaboration during which time we would write a short story based upon a piece he had begun and then hit a wall.  I read the portion he wrote (designated above and throughout these posts in italics ) and was immediately intrigued.  Inspiration sparked, we set about sending the piece back and forth between us for several weeks, adding to the tale, discussing possible stumbling blocks, and finally editing the ‘masterpiece’.  Our final story is now ready to be shared, which we shall do in increments for your reading ease (and hopefully enjoyment!)

~Morgan~