Paperback
Kindle
About the Author: Zandra Renwick is the author of over a hundred short stories under various pen names, including "The Dead Man's Dog," shortlisted for the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award. Her fiction has been translated, podcast, perfomed on stage, and developed for television. More info at zandrarenwick.com, or in online haunts under @ZandraRenwick.
Detective Kessler stepped to avoid the green rivulets pooling near his wingtips. Nightshifts were wearing on him, Colony City’s after-dark cycle of dank oily rain that turned everything to slush and mush. Kessler couldn’t remember when he’d last seen the thin green watery light that counted as sunshine from the local star. All he got these days was raindrops like ink, colorless when dry but misting like crushed black crystal, thick and glittering—that, and dead guys with green goo instead of blood running from the various openings of a human face. The stiff seeping green ichor at his feet was his third this week.
Deputy Stipples ducked under police tape and splashed across the black puddles. “Colony Coroner for you, Detective,” he said, offering Kessler a phone. “Says you’ll take her call.”
Kessler liked this new boy, fresh off a colony boat to replace the deputy he’d lost last month who’d given up rough frontier life for the easy way out. This kid had some cheek in him. Kessler liked that. Found it promising.
He gave Stipples a hard stare, but the kid had weathered his stares before and seemed to be developing an immunity. The deputy grinned, dark raindrops dripping off hair plastered across his forehead. “Should I tell her you’re busy, sir?”
“Give me that.” Kessler grabbed the phone, waving Stipples back the direction he’d come and hunching into his collar for some small protection against the wet glimmering mist. “Madame Coroner?” The pause over the line stretched long enough, he thought she might’ve hung up. “Rachel … you there?”
© 2021 AM Marketing Strategies. All Rights Reserved.