Sample Sunday: Excerpt from "The Walk" in Mind Slices: A Collection of New and Previously Published Stories

This week I thought I would share with you the opening to my short story “The Walk.” A summer setting for this mystery seems appropriate the second Sunday in June….

THE WALK

“Tower Four, radio check.”

The scratchy voice was barely indiscernible from the background noise. The old radios were damn near worthless. State budget cuts meant that replacement radios weren’t coming anytime soon.

“Tower Four Operational.”

He had to say it again before dispatch was able to break through the static long enough to for him to hear, “Acknowledged. Stay cool.”

The mandatory hourly check in completed, the solitary man on the watchtower wiped his brow and put his tan ball cap back on his head. Two hours down and probably at least two more before he had his chance. He was new to the prison located deep in southwest Texas. Being the new man had drawn him the assignment in the sweltering tower that had no working air-conditioning. With no working AC, it was a little bit cooler outside on the catwalk than inside the tower. Unlike the other guards, he could not hide inside behind the glass. That suited his purposes perfectly, so he pretended to grumble for the benefit of the other guards while relishing the opportunity.

Mom always said every Sunday on the way to church, "There's no rest for the wicked, not even on Sunday," and it seemed like divine providence that he was assigned that tower. The old louvered windows were open as wide as they would go. Prayers for a breeze hadn’t worked; the tower was broiling.  The sweat frequently rolled down into his eyes despite his cap and he worried that a drop would slip into his eye at precisely the wrong time.

He stepped out the door onto the old metal catwalk, as he had several times each hour, and glanced quickly at the nearest tower. The guard there ignored him like he had all morning, which also suited his plan perfectly. The novelty of watching the new guy suffer had worn off quicker than he had thought possible. He didn't know him or any of the other guards on the towers around him, and didn't expect to live long enough to know them. While he cradled his rifle and kept a finger lightly on the trigger, his eyes scanned all around the flat Texas desert for any signs of life. Far to the north somewhere sat Midland, lost in the heat haze. All he saw were heat mirages and the occasional buzzard riding the thermals under the blazing June sun.

His radio squawked and he glanced at his watch. After he gave approval, the small procession began to cross the dusty inner courtyard below.  The four guards surrounding the prisoner ……

If you liked the above sample, there are 15 more short stories in Mind Slices: A Collection of New and Previously Published Stories. The book is a mix of fantasy, science fiction, and mystery with many stories containing elements of more than one genre. $2.99 it is available online at:

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OIV346 

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/243655

Barnes and Noble’s NOOK  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mind-slices-kevin-tipple/1113576100?ean=2940044983076

If you have not yet read the book, I hope you take a chance on it. 

Sample Sunday---Excerpt of "Burdens" in "Mind Slices: A Collection of New and Previously Published Stories"

Today I thought I would share a sample from my short story titled Burdens. It was originally conceived for an anthology that Texas author Milton Burton was a part of several years ago. Ultimately,it didn’t make the cut. Then, all too soon before I had another opportunity, Milton passed. I still miss him tremendously and think about him often.

BURDENS

“Sheriff?”

The radio constantly crackled with annoying background static but the voice of the day dispatcher, Sue Ellen, broke through. Her being the sister of the mayor should have meant a quick approval of my budgetary request for new radios, but it hadn’t.

“Go ahead, Sue Ellen.”

“Miss Graves down at the high school just called in and told me to tell you it has been exactly thirty-three minutes since she called the first time and she wants to know when, exactly, you will be there .”

Sheriff Max Preston suppressed a curse and shook his head. Graves was a human abomination, plain and simple, and would do the world a favor if she could find an open pit to Hell and fall in. Every week she came up with another hoop for him to jump through and there was nothing he could do to avoid the damn things. Not that he could say any of that on the radio for everyone in the county to hear on their scanners.  Sue Ellen, having all the brains and the only working moral compass in her family, waited for him to respond.

“I am headed there now, Dispatch.”

Sue Ellen acknowledged and the radio went back to its usual static- filled self. Preston drove down Main Street, passing through the stoplight at each end and then headed out on the narrow two-lane road that went by the old Thompson place south of town and the nearby church Thompson had built in an effort to save his immortal soul. If half the legendary exploits were true, no church on God’s green earth could have saved him.

About five minutes later, Preston turned onto the small visitor parking lot at the new high school. Old Dooley High, home of the Fighting Bobcats, where he had toiled for four years in hot classrooms and on hotter athletic fields, was gone with nothing on the land to mark its passing.  The new high school had the same name but none of the history, having been built a mile away from the old school on the site where the prison was supposed to have been built and by the same contractors using pretty much the same plans. So it wasn’t surprising that the high school had become a three- storied, hermetically sealed monstrosity that looked more like a prison building than a school and had none of the charm or history of the old building.

After checking in again with dispatch, Preston touched the toe of a dusty brown boot against the inside of the driver's door and pushed hard. With a squeal, the recalcitrant door opened and allowed him to get out of the patrol car. Just like new communications equipment, they needed new patrol cars, since one of the three was almost always in the shop. That too was going to have to wait until next year, if not longer. Pushing the door shut and trying to get his poker face on, he started the long walk under the punishing Texas sun down the blinding sidewalk to the building.

He hated these calls that just wasted his time and the department’s meager resources. The whole point in coming back home was to avoid the big city nonsense. He wanted the freedom he’d had as a boy to breathe, to help those who truly needed help, which was why he had become a cop in the first place, and to get a part of him back that he had so carelessly thrown away years ago when he left home without telling anyone.  His family was long gone, as was pretty much his town and everything he had grown up with, and nothing was like he remembered. Even the old Miller General Store where he used to buy comics and, as he got older, paperbacks with lurid covers that hinted at forbidden delights within was gone. Times had changed, and certainly not for the better, he thought as he pressed the door buzzer and waited for somebody to let him in.

Classes had ended at four and forty-five minutes later there wasn't a student in sight. No kids loitered around the building making plans, illicit or otherwise, for before and after the football game tonight.  Freed from their daily prison, the kids had fled to parts unknown, and he couldn’t blame them since he would have run away as fast as he could every day, too.

The lock finally popped in release and Sheriff Preston walked inside.  Just like it had last month during the fake bomb threat, the place smelled antiseptic and sterile.  Back when he was in school, a school smelled like a school. He wasn’t sure what this place smelled like, but it wasn’t a school.

If you liked the above sample, there are 15 more short stories in Mind Slices: A Collection of New and Previously Published Stories. The book is a mix of fantasy, science fiction, and mystery with many stories containing elements of more than one genre. $2.99 it is available online at:

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009OIV346 

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/243655

Barnes and Noble’s NOOK  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mind-slices-kevin-tipple/1113576100?ean=2940044983076

If you have not yet read the book, I hope you take a chance on it.