with Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
We are delighted to welcome back authors Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall to Omnimystery News.
Clark and Kathleen's third book in their "Cowboy and Vampire" series is Rough Trails and Shallow Graves (Pumpjack Press; May 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats); the first two titles are A Very Unusual Romance and Blood and Whiskey.
Today we are thrilled that the authors have provided us with a special short story for our readers, which they title "Punching the Night in the Teeth: A Crime Scene Mystery".
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Photo provided courtesy of
Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED HERE."
The detective was talking mostly to himself, because the two patrol officers — fresh-faced rookies barely out of the academy and bursting with professional pride — were staring at the carnage, their mouths hanging open like the swinging doors of an abandoned saloon.
After 20 years on the force, the detective had seen a lot, too much, but this was the worst so far. It was 10 in the morning and he needed a drink. Another drink.
He scratched at the salt and pepper stubble on his cheeks and then reached under his rumpled trench coat to adjust the Colt .45 nestled in his shoulder holster. The gun had a name — Brenda — and she was always ready to dance, but this wasn't a shooting thing. Not yet anyway. But the day was young.
Instead, he pulled out his battered notebook, flipped it open and grabbed the dusty pen jammed into his shirt pocket. He clicked it to life, dotting his tongue to start the ink flowing, and then held it like a club over the sweat-stained paper.
He was probably the last cop in America who even used paper, a renegade, a rebel who couldn't play by the rules, even if those rules made entering, storing and retrieving data so much easier.
All the whiskey and divorces and fights and nights alone came crashing down around his shoulders and he lashed out to avoid even one second of introspection. "What do you see?" he shouted at the youngest of the rookie cops, a boy in the knight blue armor of all the men who came before him, a child who picked up the badge reluctantly and only to appease his father, the cold and distant commissioner.
"I don't know," the boy said, shrinking back.
The detective grinned like a wolf over a lamb, revealing a row of even, white teeth — even rebels could practice good oral hygiene — and a deep-seated mean streak. "Useless. How about you toots?"
She bristled at the diminutive hurled at her from the washed-out detective, and raised her chin higher defiantly. She couldn't know it yet, but they would be lovers before the sun came up again.
"I can't explain it," she said. "But with all your many years of experience, you must know what's going on. Enlighten us."
This one had fire, he thought. He couldn't know it, but she would break his heart into 18 pieces and flush them, one at a time, by the end of the week. His eyes narrowed like a hawk circling a field of blind mice. "They stopped cleaning, that's for sure," he said, pointing at to the dishes mounded and molding in the sink. "A long time ago."
The floor was littered with discarded clothes and empty glasses and the drained corpses of vodka and whiskey bottles that clinked together as he paced though them.
"Looks like they were working some angle." Every flat surface was littered with hastily scribbled pages of text and open books, the pages dog-eared and marred by frantic writing in the margins.
"It's like some kind of horror movie," she whispered.
"Yeah, that's right, only this time it's real," the detective said. "There are no sparkling vampires here, no cowboys to ride in and save the day."
He leafed through his notes. "I called around before we got here. They don't have many friends, but the few people who even called themselves casual acquaintances said they hadn't seen these two in months. The last person to see them alive was the bartender at the local gin joint."
He lit a cigarette.
"You can't smoke at a crime scene," the young cop said. His name was Bart and he was still a virgin.
"The dead don't care about smoke," the detective muttered.
"But it's against regulations."
"Screw your regulations," he said with grimace. "All I care about is closing cases."
"And getting bombed," the beautiful rookie muttered. Her name was Tanya and her eyes were the color of jade at night. He imagined her in candlelight, shaking her hair loose and laying her service revolver on the night stand and handing him a drink.
"Until you've walked these streets as long as I have, seen the things I've seen, don't you dare judge me," the detective said. He touched the computer. "Still warm. I bet that one is too."
She touched it and then jerked her hand back, frightened, nodding that his hunch was right.
"What does it mean?" Bart asked, his voice on the edge of breaking.
The detective spun to face him, his face contorted in rage and anguish. "Haven't you figured it out yet, junior? Can't you see what's going on here? They're writers and they are so far into their project, they've disappeared from the world."
Tanya gasped and held her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with fear. Bart couldn't hold it together any longer. He snatched an ancient and half-full container of now-petrified Kung Pao and retched violently into it.
"What can we do?" Tanya asked, pale, almost translucent, and shaken — like a martini.
"Nothing," the detective said. "They're beyond all hope now." He snapped his notebook closed. "Let's go get some pancakes."
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Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall live in a house that looks suspiciously like a crime scene and spend all of their time making up stories. They are currently working up the nerve to write book four in their Cowboy and Vampire series.
For more information about the authors, please visit their website at CowboyAndVampire.com or find them on Facebook and Twitter.
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Rough Trails and Shallow Graves
Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
The Cowboy and the Vampire Series
Say goodbye to LonePine, Wyoming, a typical small town in the American west with typical small town problems — romantic intrigues, warm beer and vampires …
When Lizzie goes missing on their wedding night, Tucker is forced to team up with his bloodthirsty Russian nemesis to find answers. Crashing through cowboy country, the vampire spirit world and wrecked salmon canneries, they confront an evil more ancient than even the undead — human greed — twisting science into something terrible.
Can there be a happily-ever-after for a cowboy and vampire, or is their unusual love just a delusion? Time to cowboy up!
