Occasionally people who aren’t into speculative fiction ask me if I’ll ever do something that isn’t science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural horror in this column. But I have, on occasion, and we’ll go that route again. And since it’s nearly autumn—which we often call “fall” in the U.S. and Canada—here’s a “fall” story.

“Special Guests”
Suspense
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Raymond Murchison was a cold-hearted bastard. Given the business he was in, that made sense. But aside from his money and his business and his cold-heartedness, he was ignorant of nearly everything else—even when it came to Felicity. To him, she was just another woman to treat like a whore—but I loved her. When she and I got together, I counted on his ignorance.

I wasn’t one of his assassins, but I was one of the bad guys. I was a pilot, smuggling shit for him in his cargo planes. I got paid well and had to pretend I didn’t know the vile shit he did. I’d convinced myself that my bad deeds were okay compared to his worse deeds, until one day when he and one of his strong-arms accompanied me on a flight up the coast—which wasn’t unusual.

“It’s Special Guest Day,” Murchison said jovially, referring to our passenger. That made no sense until, while I was busy flying the plane, I heard a gunshot in the cargo area.

I spun about as the muscle-bound thug hit the floor, blood seeping from his chest. Murchison was seated, his gun still smoking. I screamed and swore and panicked, but Murchison only laughed. “You’re soft, Jimmy, but I like you,” he said. “Fly out to sea a ways, and I’ll toss this thieving bastard out.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” I cried. I knew he couldn’t kill me for panicking; after all, he couldn’t fly the plane.

“Yeah, I did,” he said, his voice as cold as ice and as hard as rock. “He stole from me. I got no patience for that. Now, you’ve been loyal to me, Jimmy, so we’re taking that loyalty to a new level.”

I flew on, trying to forget that he was rolling the body of our Special Guest out of the plane behind me.

*   *   *

When he’d discovered the man had been ripping him off, Murchison’s justice was one vicious, swift sword. After that murder, he put a lot of faith and trust in me, taking me deeper into his life, and I took many Special on their final flights. I hated it, but still kept taking the paycheck. You’d think I’d have learned how to behave that day—but I didn’t plan on Felicity.

Murchison went through women like cops through doughnuts. Felicity was his steady, and he treated her like dirt. She was a trophy girlfriend to bring out in public, but in private she was nothing more than a sex toy to smack around, even as he banged other chicks every weekend. And she was beautiful—the kind of woman that makes guys say, “What the hell is such a gorgeous woman doing with that sleazy bastard?” And she wasn’t stupid; just brainwashed, and resigned to her situation. She’d been twenty-four when he’d roped her into his evil world; six years later, with plenty of lost youth buried inside her, she’d given up. It wasn’t right.

Over time, we became friends. Good friends. When Murchison was out of town, I’d stop by her house and we’d talk for hours. Sometimes we’d even talk at his mansion, with him in the next room. And Murchison, bless his ignorance, never suspected we were falling for each other. We kept our feelings under control until we ran into each other at a mall one day, and—I don’t know what the hell happened—before we knew it we were in a cheap motel room, tearing up the sheets like crazed teenagers.

Our trysts continued, first only when Murchison was out of town and later when he wasn’t. We got more daring. It wasn’t just sex; we were passionate and in love, but we knew we were courting death.

“We have to leave,” she implored one day as we recovered, drenched in sweat. “I can’t live like this. I can’t be your love and his whore.”

In that squeaky old motel bed, we planned to leave California forever. I had plenty of cash in the bank, and she’d squirreled plenty away from money Murchison had given her over the years. We’d start our new life together far away.

*   *   *

We decided I’d pick up some extra cash by doing a few final runs for Murchison before vanishing. I was preparing to fly a run out the following Monday when Murchison showed up with another unsuspecting strong-arm.

“It’s Special Guest Day,” Murchison said with a wink to me as the unsuspecting henchman strapped into his seat. I grew instantly sick thinking about it. I told myself it was the last time; Felicity and I would be gone soon, and I would no longer be part of such madness.

We took off a few minutes later, and soon we were north of anywhere that mattered, out over the mountains, when I felt the cold steel press against my neck. “Put it on autopilot,” Murchison hissed almost gleefully in my ear, “and come on back.”

My mind raced as I gripped the yoke. “What is this?”

“You’re the Special Guest,” he said simply. “If I have to shoot you here, I’ll do it. But I’m sure my man back here doesn’t want to fly this plane with your blood and brains on the controls.”

I trembled and my head spun, and I gripped the yoke until my fingers hurt. My altimeter read eleven thousand feet. “Why are you doing this?”

Murchison laughed, jabbing the gun into my neck again. “You know how it works, Jimmy. This is what I do to people who steal from me.”

“I didn’t steal a dime from you, Raymond, I swear—”

“Oh, you ripped me off good,” he snarled. “Now move.”

My shaking body grew as cold as Murchison’s heart as I got up and moved to the back. Murchison backed away as I came, keeping the gun on me from a safe distance. The strong-arm also had a gun pointed at me. I was fucked.

“Open the door,” Murchison ordered when we reached the cargo area, and my stomach churned. I unlatched the door and deftly slid it open. Screaming wind buffeted me. I grabbed either side of the door frame and held on for dear life.

“I liked you, Jimmy,” Murchison yelled over the roar of the wind and the engines. “But you messed up when you stole my woman.”

I sagged where I stood, my fingers tightening on the door frame, as I realized what this was about. Apparently, Murchison wasn’t as ignorant as I’d thought.

I looked out at the clouds below. I’d never been afraid of heights; but standing at the open door, with a gun pointed at my back, I was terrified.

“So for that, you’re going out that door,” he shouted gruffly over the roar of the plane’s engines. Not too far from my head, out the door, a huge propeller spun madly. “It’s either on your own or with a bullet. You choose.”

I gripped the door frame with vise-like fingers. Above, the sky was bluer than seemed possible; below, the blanket of white clouds obscured the Earth. They looked soft and solid—as if I might bounce on them a few times and then come to a rest. “I’d rather not do it either way,” I yelled.

“That ain’t happening,” he said.

I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, and I was glad I wasn’t facing him. “Please, Raymond… we can work this out.”

“You shoulda thought of that before you banged my woman,” he snarled, ramming the butt of the gun into my back to punctuate it. “Now jump, or I’ll shoot you first and kick you out.”

One way or another, I knew, I was going out of the plane. If he shot me, I’d be dead for sure. But if I jumped without a bullet, there was a cosmically slim chance I could survive. I remembered a story about a woman who fell eight thousand feet and bounced. Broke a lot of bones, but walked away from the fall. We were at eleven thousand. Maybe I’d survive. Once I left the plant, I’d have about a minute to find out.

I turned suddenly, and Murchison backed up, cocking the hammer back on his revolver. “I’ll jump,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from wavering too much. “But let me say my piece. You treat Felicity like a doormat, Murchison. You abuse her in every way. She’s afraid of you. I saw all those things, and I got to know her. But this was never about disrespecting you. I fell in love with her.”

An incredulous smile spread across his face. “I hope it was worth it.”

“It was.”

“Good. Cuz you’re going to fall for her again.”

The gun erupted. It was like a baseball bat swung at my shoulder, knocking me back and spinning me around, and suddenly I wasn’t in the plane anymore. I tumbled crazily, and I fought for control and leveled myself, facing up. I saw the silver-skinned plane angling away from me, and I imagined Murchison laughing as he watched me fall.

I was suddenly engulfed by clouds. My shoulder sprayed crimson into the white. I was bleeding profusely, although I didn’t think it was fatal. How ironic.

As quickly, the whiteness no longer surrounded me, and I saw the clouds retreating above. Painfully, I rolled my body over, arms and legs wide to slow my descent as much as I could, and I beheld the mountains on Earth below. They were approaching fast.

The Earth was colorful—gray slopes jutting up through green forests, ponds and lakes glimmering in a sun I couldn’t see. I searched quickly, recalling the woman who bounced. The ground had been soft, spongy, moss-covered. If I could land just right, maybe I, too, could bounce and survive. As if.

Almost directly below me, I saw the pond. It didn’t reflect blue sky like the other water bodies, but it did shimmer slightly. I thought it was shallow, perhaps muddy… or perhaps full of rocks. What choice did I have? I angled my body, arms to my sides, using my feet as rudders, and aimed for it. I had several thousand feet, but not a lot of time, to perfect my targeting as the lake loomed closer. I adjusted my trajectory; adjusted again, rode the wind...

*   *   *

I hit what amounted to a mud flat and made a human-sized crater bounced like a rubber ball, but I sure as hell couldn’t walk away, much less move. It was a pair of hikers who found me hours later, near death in the mud, and called for help. I had a stack of broken bones and some internal organ damage and bleeding, but they patched me up nicely. I hobbled out of the hospital just a few days later.

The story was that I’d been beaten and shot by muggers and dumped out there, left for dead. I couldn’t ever prove anything against Murchison, after all, and didn’t want to implicate myself in his illegal activities. I just wanted to move on with my life—get Felicity and get out of there forever.

I was still stiff and sore, but I took a cab home and got my Corvette. I drove past Felicity’s street and saw her car in the driveway. She was home—off Murchison’s leash, a rarity. Since Murchison thought I was dead, I parked three streets over, so my car wouldn’t be noticeable.

I let myself in the back with my key and, in one fell swoop, everything rushed through my brain.

Getting into Murchison’s business. Breaking the law. Witnessing murders.

My own immoral, cowardly behavior.

Meeting Felicity and falling in love with her. Making plans to run away. Murchison discovering us. Murchison shooting me and letting me fall to my death from an airplane.

How I sassed off to him before he did it, about Felicity and I being in love. He might have forgiven her if all we’d done is fuck. But I had to tell him, and now I’d survived all of it for nothing.

Felicity had been Murchison’s Special Guest.

She was reclined back on her couch, sporting a Colombian necktie. I think she was wearing white, but everything was red. Her swollen tongue lay grotesquely between her bare breasts. There was much more to the picture—the horrible stench, her cut-off nipples and chopped-off fingers, the countless maggots and flies—but it hurts too much to even think about it.

*   *   *

Besides dumb luck and a soft landing when I fell from that plane, there were two things that saved my life.

The first was before that day: my love for Felicity. I really had fallen for her, and she saved me in every way I needed to be saved.

The second was the day I found her: a burning vengeance.

Felicity was gone, but I was fueled by the memory of the last time I’d seen her. That’s what brought me to the peak of this obscure mountain, hoping no other trail hikers would show up, waiting.

I’d watched him coming up the trail for some time, and he’d come alone, as instructed. But I knew he’d be armed. I stood in the bushes, behind an immense boulder, waiting patiently. I heard his huffing and puffing. He had been childishly easy to coax up here—just one cryptic letter telling him to be here alone on this date at this time, and that “I know what you did to Jimmy in the airplane.” Signed “X.” It likely made him very nervous; as far as he was concerned, I was dead, and nobody but he and his pilot knew about it. All I wanted was to talk about money, I said. Bring anyone with him, and I’d go to the cops with plenty of proof.

He stepped into view, ten feet away, and turned to survey the view off the edge of the precipice. He was breathing like the fat cigar-smoker he is. Amazing he survived the hike at all.

I stepped from behind the boulder and fired the gun into the air. The explosion echoed through the canyon. Murchison yelped like a frightened dog and stumbled over sideways, landing on his fat gut on the rock. He scrambled to his knees and blinked in surprise, shielding his eyes from the sun. His mouth gaped as he realized.

“It can’t be,” he said hoarsely.

I leveled the gun at his head, but I had no intention of shooting him there. That might kill him and deprive him of the thrill of the ride. “It is,” I said. “Walking proof you can skydive without a ‘chute, Raymond.”

He stepped back, and then realized how close he was to the edge of the cliff. He looked back to me with white horror on his face. “What... what are you going to do?”

I smiled down the barrel of the gun at him. “I think you know. It’s Special Guest Day.”

He managed to grow even whiter. “Oh, Jesus … you can’t…”

I’d played this out in my mind many times. “I hit a mud flat by a pond, Raymond. It was a million-to-one chance, but I survived. Look over the edge, Raymond. No mud down there—just rock.”

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head.

“It’s just a hundred feet, and you’ve got a lot of protective fat. I’d say that makes your odds better than mine were. Now, I’m not bargaining with you, Raymond. You either jump or I’ll plug you—right in the shoulder, right where you shot me.”

“You can have Felicity,” he said frantically. “You were right… I treat her like dirt. And she loves you—”

“Felicity’s dead,” I said. “But you know that, because you had her killed. All because she and I were in love.”

“I didn’t—” he started.

“Don’t insult me with that lie,” I shot back. “Now jump, or take the bullet.”

I cocked the hammer back and stepped forward, aiming at his shoulder. He was fast as he went for the gun tucked in his belt, but I anticipated it. Before he could bring it up, I fired dead-on and his gun flew out of his hand. It clattered to the rock and bounced over the edge of the cliff. He stared at me in horror.

“Jump,” I said through clenched teeth.

His face darkened. “You can’t do it, Jimmy. You can’t shoot me. You have to make me jump because you don’t have the balls to shoot me. You’re a wuss, Jimmy, and we both know it.”

“That was before,” I said. “Even after what you did to me, I’d have left with Felicity and started a new life. But you took that from me.”

I could see in his face that he knew I wasn’t just talking tough, but I didn’t give him any more time to think about it. I shot him in the shoulder and his body spun around, as mine had, and he went over the edge. I listened to him scream, all the way down.

I didn’t go to the edge to look, though. I can’t handle heights much anymore. I simply stood in silence and thought about it, overcome with a bizarre mix of satisfaction and emptiness. The satisfaction won out. I headed back down the mountain trail, and I actually hoped he’d survived.

Because I’d love to do it again. And again. And again…
 

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.