Passing the Time
Hey guys. I realize that most of our lives have changed drastically since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. I'm sure that we realize that life will never quite be the same again. That is a very heavy thing. I really hope that all of you guys are healthy and safe. I'm not a doctor, or a scientist so I can't reassure you, or tell you that everything is going to be okay. I'm not a politician so I can't do anything to improve your quality if life. But, what I CAN do is give you something to maybe take your mind off of all the stress and the horrific news. I can share my work and give you a momentary mental break from it all. I am going to be sharing chapters from previously published work and also, NEW books that I am working on. If you enjoy the work, please consider signing up at ANY tier you can afford. That will help to keep me from having to go OUTSIDE to sell books. Love y'all.
Here's a sample from a book I plan to release this year. For those of you who have already read, "The Prerequisites of Perdition," you will be excited to see that the book didn't quite end the way you thought it did. Here is the prologue of the follow-up novella and a sneak peek at the 1st chapter. Enjoy.
-Prologue -
“Quickly, the hallway is empty. We have to go NOW!” Brenda told the nurse and the orderly she had bribed to help her.
“I don’t know about this. I could lose my job. If we get caught…if I get caught helping you…I could lose my career,” the nurse complained nervously in a thick Russian accent as her heart raced in her chest. She had never been much of a risk-taker or a rule-breaker and there was, about to help some stranger sneak a gravely wounded man out of the hospital.
“Well I already paid you and you already took my money so it’s a little too late for this chicken shit now bitch!” Brenda snapped at the nurse in a muted, harsh whisper through gritted teeth.
“Hey, hey, hey. Take it easy,” the orderly told Brenda as he put his hand gently on her shoulder and pulled her away from the nurse who had begun to tremble terribly like a leaf in a hurricane.
“I’m not gonna take it easy. We have to get him out of here right now!” Brenda snarled as she slapped the orderly’s hand off of her shoulder. He stood almost a foot taller than her but she wasn’t intimidated by his height or the width of his shoulders. She was far more afraid of her estranged husband and what he would do if he discovered that Nash was still alive.
The nurse continued to quiver where she stood as she wrung her chubby, pale hands together nervously and stared down the empty hospital hallway as if she expected to be discovered at any moment. The money Brenda had paid her was more than she made in six months on the job, even with overtime but, she still couldn’t afford to get fired, or even worse, lose her career.
“Don’t worry Ruby. I’ll wheel him out. You just make sure that this I.V. is hooked up and good so she can travel with him and I’ll take it from there.
Ruby nodded, relieved, despite the harsh stare from Brenda who felt as if she was being shortchanged. She had wanted Nurse Ruby to come along for at least part of the ride to help her keep Nash alive but it didn’t seem as if the woman she had paid handsomely had the stones or the nerve for something so risky.
“You can move him now. He should be stable for a little while but you need to get him to someone who knows what they’re doing quickly or he might not make it,” said Ruby once her task was done.
“Thanks for nothing,” Brenda sneered. “Let’s go,” she told the tall, dark, burly orderly in the green scrubs and they were off to the freight elevator to spirit an unconscious Nash out of the hospital before the detectives came back to ask more questions about how he had been shot.
-Part 1-
Almost Dead
“I was dead for five minutes. For three hundred seconds I was gone. They tell me that one EMT refused to give up on me and eventually brought me back to life but, since I’ve been back, I don’t feel like myself. It’s like I left some part of me somewhere else. I should be dead. I think about that every moment and every breath I take, but I’m not. I’m not sure why I’m still here but I do know that there is one man that is going to regret that I am.”
Those were the thoughts that ran through Nash’s mind as he lay flat on his back, on a bed that wasn’t his own as he stared up at the peeling paint on the ceiling of a room he didn’t recognize. As far as he could guess, it had been a whole month since Brenda had secretly smuggled him out of the hospital. As per the procedure with all gunshot victims, the police had been asking questions and it would have only been a matter of time before the wrong people found out that Nash hadn’t died. A sniper’s bullet had barely missed his heart.
***I hope you enjoyed this and I can't wait to share more. Be well. Stay safe.***
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