Nine days left until the release date for Permanent Damage. Ten stories. A teaser every day for each story to whet your appetite, give you a hint of the plot and the feel of them.
Today, we look in on the most dangerous game of all . . . .
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
“He keeps scaring me. He doesn’t even say anything anymore, he just — looks at me, whenever she’s not looking, and — I don’t know.”
“Have you talked to Rachel about this?”
“I’ve tried. There’s no point to it. She is just so — completely blind to him.” She was shaking again, even here in the comfort of Matthew’s bed. “I just still get so scared, every time I leave her alone with him. I’m so convinced I’m going to come home and find her dead. Or just — gone, that she’ll disappear with him and not come back. And I’ll never know what happened to her unless they find her in a shallow grave somewhere.” She curled up closer to him.
“You really honestly think he’s dangerous.” Matthew looked thoughtful for a minute. “You think we should talk to the police?”
We. She liked that, now, she was part of a we. “No, but I don’t — have any proof of anything. I just — each time I see the door close with the two of them behind it, I’m sure, absolutely sure, that’s the last time I’m going to see her alive.”
“But — okay, supposing you’re right, why would he be dragging it out like this? If he was really going to kill her, why wouldn’t he just — do it?”
She shook her head. “I think that’d be — too quick,” she said. “I think he’s . . . like a cat that’s got a mouse, who keeps letting it go and catching it, and — I know he thinks this is funny. He thinks the fact that I know, that I know what he’s really like and she doesn’t — he thinks that’s funny, he’s laughing at both of us, and I don’t think he wants to give that up just yet, but I keep thinking, maybe it’s tonight, maybe this is the night he finally gets bored with it, and . . . just . . . . ”
Matthew’s eye were wide. “ . . . How have you been managing to live with all this?”
She laughed. “Not very well.”
______
“Permanent Damage” — Available Oct 1, 2012. Pre-order now!
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An unreliable narrator, MICHAEL MONTOURE ( montoure@bloodletters.com )
is an indie writer of horror and dark urban
fantasy. His
obsessions include hidden truths, secret dealings, and the changing and
fragile nature of our own pasts. He is known as much for his
spoken-word performances of his fiction at Seattle coffeehouses and
conventions as for the stories themselves. Currently working as a writer
and producer of the webseries Causality, he lives alone with
a gray cat by the edge of Echo Lake, Washington. ( Twitter / Facebook
/
Google+
)