Bull's Eye

by Carlos Orsi

About the Author: Carlos Orsi is Brazilian writer with three short story collections and two novels published in Portuguese. In English, his work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Crypt of Cthulhu and in the anthologies Rehearsals for Oblivion (Elder Signs Press), War Stories (Apex), Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (Titan) and 'Swords v. Cthulhu' (Stone Skin).

Excerpt

There was the desk, with a fresh-looking white sheet of paper on top of it. There was the chair, capsized, and beside it, the fallen can of Old Speckled Hen beer, cut at the top, that the Professor used as a support for his pens and pencils. Those were all over the carpet, Miss Falasco on her knees catching them, madly catching them, mechanically, shaking, trying hard not to think about what else was on the carpet. Not to look at the body. Dead. Professor Duval, historian, an authority in World War II spying and Special Ops, killed by what seemed a shot from a small caliber weapon at close range: there was a black-red hole, all blood and gunpowder, where his right eye ought to have been.

At the door, Ricardo gasped. Miss Falasco, the university president’s secretary, tall, thin, young and blonde, smartly dressed in a black skirt and cream-colored jacket, jumped to her feet, pens and pencils falling from her hands, raining once more on the carpet. There were tears in her eyes.

“You sent the janitor for me?” Ricardo asked. He’d been awake, washed and dressed since 6 AM, after being expelled from the bed by an especially ghastly nightmare, and some three hours later the janitor of the History Faculty building appeared, asking for him at the Visiting Scholar’s Hotel in the campus. The university’s buildings officially opened at half-past eight, but the senior professors had their own keys, and the staff arrived between seven-thirty and eight. Duval had probably been there all night, too excited to go home as the votes were counted.

Story Comments