Thriller

"When you've changed, I mean really changed, I think it first strikes you as everything else being different."

"That's good." Jonathan Tanner looked at her sideways, his folded hands resting on one knee. His other leg was extended before him, his whole posture forming some body language she couldn't read. "That's good."

"Shut up." She threw a bit of twisted newsprint into the fire.

He tilted his head slightly, lifted both palms in a sort of shrug. "No, I'm very interested. Is this what passes for thought, these days?"

Her face twisted in a way that warned him tears were coming. God, not again. He felt absurdly guilty, which he knew was her intent (whether she knew it or not). Truth was he thought it was rather clever, what she'd said - opening up a whole dialogue about how we perceive change in others, in our environment, not in ourselves. Tanner wasn't prone to introspection, but he secretly admired those who were.

"Whatever," she said, her voice a little thick. "I think it's good. I'm going to use it."

Feeling acutely the need to apologize, he compromised with himself. "I don't think, Red. I'm not a thinker. The literary community, you know they'd just eat that up."

"Oh, Jesus." The disgust in her tone was palpable. "God save me from the approbation of the literary community."

Tanner laughed, showing his teeth, a wolf's grin. "Have you earned the right to snobbery yet?"

"It's the opposite of snobbery, Frank. It's the exact opposite of snobbery. I'm never going to get through to you, am I?"

"I don't understand this artistic obsession with reaching The Common Man. The common man doesn't want to be reached. Prodded. Least of all challenged. He wants to read books about sex and death."

"In that order?"

"Not necessarily. In fact it's probably better the other way 'round."

"If I -" A tinny calliope rang out in the cabin. Cursing softly, she scrabbled for her phone. "Ah, it's my sister. Hang on."

She tripped into the bedroom, pushing the door ajar behind her. John Tanner rested his chin on his interlocked fingers and wondered, idly, if she'd have ever made it as a writer. Of course the question was moot now.

He rose to his feet with deliberate slowness, eyes searching the floor, an actor looking for his mark. A sense of inevitability gave him strength. What he did now, what he was about to do, he did not as a man, but as an engine.

He thumbed the metal in his waistband, warm from his skin.

Sliding his feet across the hewn floor like a cautious ice-skater, he felt tiny splinters pull at the fabric of his socks. They'd be all pilled in a minute. Had he brought extra? He was tempted to risk lifting his foot with the next step, but one fatal creak and this chance was over. His heart pounded in his ears.

Faintly, her voice.

"No, Brood. Frank Brood. Are you sure?"

Silence.

A crisp sound, impossible for her to hear against the static of the phone. His sock had been snagged on a particularly large splinter and then snapped itself back into place. He was stopped now, stopped dead in the middle of the room.

"No one? Not even a Brood?"

Silence. His breath.

"Are you sure?"

Silence.

"Thank you."

And just like that, the game had changed.

He switched instantly to a casual saunter, altered his direction ever so slightly to the kitchen. When she came to the door he had a bottle of local pinot grigio, its neck tucked between two fingers.

"What vintage is that?" She smiled, just as warmly as she ever had, and Tanner felt a tingle at the base of his chest.

"Young. White wines are meant to be."

"Wait, so it's reds that need to age to perfection?"

She was very close now, nudging up to him, flirty. He said, smiling, "I like this Red just now, thanks."

Red. It wasn't her name, but these days, what did it matter? The vibrant hair that just brushed her shoulders was red enough, or maybe a rich orange, maybe a burnt sienna. Sienna. Another good name for her. There was a time when he would have shared these thoughts, but now the plot had twisted.

"Why does everything have to be drenched in meaning?" he demanded, amicably. "Why not write yourself a nice thriller?" His brain, occupied, let him speak without its consent.

"Because. I wanted to do something relevant. Or, I don't know, real. Not..."

"Titillating?" He took her arm and spun her once, twice. She laughed with feigned abandon.

"I was going to say thrilling," she replied. "Thrillers have that conceit. An intent to thrill. Good writing should be thrilling without having to call itself thrilling. I don't want to set out to thrill, I want to set out to tell a story. Let the prose speak for itself."

"The Mystery of the Red Death," Tanner said, grinning. "That'll draw them in. Murder Most Dreadful. The Tale of the..."

"...Killer Journalist." She was still smiling.

One hand grasped her throat, and she gagged. The other brought out the pistol. They were in the middle of the woods, and nobody heard the sound.

Later, several hundred yards away from the cabin, John Tanner stood with a shovel and took one last look at her face. Her gaping mouth, her staring eyes. Something less than human. How did the transformation happen so quickly? She was gone now. Whatever she had been, whatever she would be. Some people called this a soul.

Funny: he'd been told all the kills are easier after the first one, but this, his fiftieth, was no easier than the second or the third or the thirteenth.

His golden anniversary! He'd have to get a drink later and celebrate.

John Tanner nudged the tip of the shovel into the dirt, and began to dig.