Almost Human - excerpt

Chapter 1

Coney Forest stood, pensive, watering his carrot garden, oblivious of the black sedan bumping along the isolated dirt road toward his house. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and a whiff of earth sparked buried memories of ancestral burrows. The car stopped a hundred feet from the house, and by the time Coney noticed the passenger standing across the fence, it was too late.

“Mister Coney Forest?” the man asked.

“Yes?”

Quick as a rattlesnake, the man reached inside his black suit coat and palmed a .45 caliber semi-auto pistol. He shot Coney twice in the chest, then fired a third round into Coney’s forehead as his body collapsed into the water puddling among his carrots, crushing their delicate green foliage under his weight. Blood red bloomed into the rich brown mud.

The man returned his weapon to the holster inside his coat and waved toward the black sedan. The car rolled slowly forward and stopped alongside the fence.

“Get him in the car,” the shooter said. He reached over the fence, plucked a carrot from the garden, wiped off the mud, and ate it.

The driver got out of the car; he also wore a tailored black suit. His blond hair brushed his shoulders, and his suit moved uneasily around his heavily muscled chest and arms. Stepping easily over the low fence, he hoisted the body from the ground onto his shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind the mud and blood that fouled his suit and splashed onto his shiny black shoes.

By the time he stepped back over the fence with his gruesome load and reached the car, the shooter had the trunk open. The driver flopped Coney’s body into the trunk causing the back end of the car to dip under the weight, then the shock absorbers recovered, and the car showed no indication of its two-hundred pound cargo.

The shooter closed the trunk and looked around. Did anyone notice? He couldn’t see anyone. He threw the green carrot top toward the garden, swung into the passenger seat, and rolled up his window. “Let’s go,” he said.

Water from the untended hose continued running into the garden, mixing with Coney’s blood, and flowing pink onto the dirt road.

The driver executed a three-point turn and drove away. The car bumped wildly as it sped down the rutted dirt road toward Highway 101.

The shooter took the microphone from its cradle on the dashboard and pushed the talk button.

“Simeon to H.S. dispatch.”

After some squelch, a reply came back. “This is H.S.”

The car lurched heavily as the road changed from dirt to asphalt. Simeon shot a menacing look at the driver. Then said into the microphone. “We are returning to base with Mister Forest.”

“Were you able to arrive at a peaceful solution?” the voice on the radio asked.

Simeon smirked at his partner and shrugged. He keyed the mike and said, “Negative on the peaceful resolution. Circumstances beyond our control made it necessary to take definitive action. Forest is a fatality. Sorry, after all, we’re only human.” He released the talk button and started laughing.

The driver laughed so hard he lost control of the car. It ran off the pavement, onto the dirt shoulder and kicked up a cloud of dust and rocks before he regained control and returned it to the asphalt. Through his laughter, the driver said to Simeon, “I love it, we’re only human. You’re a riot.”

Simeon continued shaking with laughter. “You gotta enjoy your work or you might as well be stuffed in a trunk.”

The car swerved from side to side as the driver struggled to maintain control through another laughing fit. “You kill me…well, not me actually,” he said, setting them both off on another bout of laughter.

When the car reached the highway the driver turned to head south in traffic. The two men settled down, assumed a more somber façade, and the driver kept the car under better control.

“We’re only human,” the driver repeated, and they both chuckled.

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