His flesh scorched and blackened in the flames of the cruiser, and Hugh screamed. She had left him to die – her own husband! He kicked and kicked until the melting windshield bent and broke, and climbed out onto the grass, his black uniform burning off him as he fell to the ground.
After a minute, he decided he wasn’t dead and got to his feet.
thriller
Maybe’s As Good As You Get: Chapter Three
Rita smiled thinly when she saw her husband coming up the driveway. She hadn’t got much chance to see her mother, but the visit would do her good anyway.
He didn’t get out of the car, just sat there idling at the end of the path through the little tree-lined front garden of the Shady Rest retirement home. She would go to him. That was how he wanted it. She looked over her shoulder at the nurse who showed her out, now retreating to attend to some complaint from another resident…
Maybe’s As Good As You Get: Chapter Two
Hugh Blake wasn’t a big man, but the space he took up in a room was huge. He seemed to give off some kind of energy that made standing too close to him impossible: like a radioactive core you got too hot and had a tendency to get hurt in the process.
Maybe’s As Good As You Get: Chapter One
He had followed her into the bar that was so empty even the roaches hadn’t woken up yet and sat down. While she was cleaning the overnight spiderwebs off the bar and glasses she looked sideways at him, trying to get the measure of what he was here for.
Planet of the Sorcerer: Chapter Sixteen
They had made camp in the midst of a rock formation that rose up on all sides of them but for a narrow pass that opened out into a circular space.
Planet of the Sorcerer: Chapter Fifteen
Their escape through the furnace level was more fraught than anticipated. “There they are!” Luna heard the woman who had guided them to the Library level yell. She must have had some idea of revenge in her heart all along. Luna wondered if it made a difference that Vich-Clac wasn’t actually there with them.
It didn’t matter now, of course, that the gold-uniformed Magistrates were on their tail. Before they turned and ran, Luna noticed that the pursuers were brandishing pistols in their left hands. They looked like early-model revolvers. She had seen one in a museum once, that she’d been robbing. Killed by a museum piece… didn’t bear thinking about…
Planet of the Sorcerer: Chapter Fourteen
The cloth that covered Luna’s mouth and nose did little to alleviate the stench of death and excrement. Above her head, water dripped from ancient stalactites that clung to the vaulted roof of the tunnel. The light from her torch seemed afraid to go too far through the thick, steaming atmosphere.
Behind her, Vil-Odek’s sandals splashed on the brick floor. She tried not to think about what they splashed in.
Planet of the Sorcerer: Chapter Twelve
Luna hadn’t seen anything like the animal in the cage opposite her before: it was reptilian, with rending teeth and many limbs. It extended a forked tongue and tasted the air with a rattling hiss. Luna was held between two guards, each one holding a wrist in a long claw contraption.
Planet of the Sorcerer: Chapter Eleven
The old man stood on top of a big outcropping overlooking the waste ground. The city loomed high in the distance, but his squinting eye was not focussed on that but rather the wooden cart that rattled towards him, kicking up a high cloud of dreary dust. He gestured to the younger man who was lying flat on the rock basking in the sun.
“Look,” he muttered. “They’re dropping off a new crop.” He sat down cross-legged and watched philosophically as the cart drew to a halt, and its driver stood up and kicked a body out of the back of it.
The young man sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Looks like a rich girl. They don’t exile them often. Wonder what she did?”
Planet of the Sorcerer: Chapter Ten
Luna felt an immediate sting of sickening anticipation as the doors opened. The Alien. Vo-Vakis’ arm looped in hers was suddenly no longer a reassurance but a trap closed tight, one she had walked into with open eyes and told herself was the lesser evil. She pulled – tried to pull – away, but he held onto her.
“I know you’re nervous,” he whispered, continuing their inexorable procession towards the ballroom. “It’ll be alright.”
The Write Stuff 