Dark & Merciless Things (A Collection of 10 Short Stories) by Kate Ellis

Author:Kate Ellis [Ellis, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

A young man answers an unusual advert for a job vacancy and gets more than he bargained for. This story of murder and sinister misunderstanding is set in an English cathedral town where not all the restless spirits in the local medieval castle are what they seem.

THE VACANCY

‘Could you scare the life out of someone? Wanted: reliable person for unusual duties. Flexible hours to suit right applicant.’

Darren stood in the street near the cathedral staring at the small advertisement in the local newspaper. Was he reliable? He supposed that he could be, given the right incentives. Could he scare the life out of someone? There was that time he’d robbed that newsagent’s shop brandishing a replica gun: the old man had looked scared all right.

But who would want to scare the life out of someone in the first place? Darren’s mind ran through all the possibilities and concluded that it was only those with something to hide who used fear as a weapon. But then did such people - armed robbers, drug dealers and such like - advertise vacancies in the local paper? Darren inhaled the smoke from his diminishing cigarette and threw the glowing stub to the ground.

He leaned against the wall of a half timbered gift shop which, according to a plaque above the door, had been built in fourteen eighty seven. The town was full of history; quaint shops and houses in magpie black and white. Not that this made much difference to Darren. In the nineteen years that he had lived in the run-down council house on the town’s farthest edge, he had never noticed, let alone appreciated, the beauties of the ancient centre. To the tourists who flocked there from Europe, the USA and Japan - from all over the world - it was an unspoilt example of a smallish English medieval cathedral city; a must for every visitor and coach tour. To Darren, however, it was just a boring hole with plenty of old buildings... but very little excitement.

Darren opened the newspaper again at the advertisements page, just to make sure he hadn’t misread or misunderstood. But there it was: ‘could you scare the life out of someone?’ He took the mobile phone he had bought from a man in a pub from his inside pocket and dialed the number given in the advert, waiting with held breath for an answer. The call was answered after a few long seconds by a man who sounded as nervous as Darren felt. After a brief conversation, the arrangements were made: Darren was to meet a Mr Melchet, the curator, at three thirty.

But it was the place of that meeting which intrigued Darren. The castle: that formidable stone fortress which vied with the lofty cathedral for domination of the town. Darren had never been inside the castle. He had only seen it from the outside; walked past it kicking beer cans with his mates or stared at its massive walls - which someone had once told him were ten feet thick - from the top deck of one of the town’s infrequent buses.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.