Wet Work

by Davin Ireland

About the Author: Davin Ireland was born and bred in the South of England, but currently resides in the Netherlands. His fiction credits include stories published in over seventy print magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including Aeon, Underworlds, The Horror Express, Zahir, Pseudopod, Rogue Worlds, Storyteller Magazine and Something Wicked. You can visit his site at http://davinireland.com/

Excerpt

Tug was getting restless. He’d been fidgeting since the sun went down, lips moving without articulating words, raw-knuckled fingers scrabbling across the thighs of his jeans as if searching for lint or a stray thread. When he was in that state, the world about him became a backdrop without significance. Now, as the last of the daylight drained into a nearby stand of pines, he could contain himself no longer. “Need to stretch me legs,” he muttered. “Take a piss, go for a walk. Somethin’.”

Shane Decker was having none of it. He’d planned the job down to the last detail, and things were about to happen. “Wait till the wife heads out.”

“Fuck the wife, I’m burstin’. I can’t hold it.”

“Two more minutes.”

But two more minutes came and went and the target property remained a brooding silhouette. No action, no sign of the woman. Four minutes turned to six. Tug fidgeted and squirmed. This was embarrassing. Decker was about to relent when the bolts on the front door clattered and a woman in a pink tracksuit with white trim braved the gathering dusk. She was in good shape—slender, tanned, a decade younger than her husband, with hair scraped back in a blonde ponytail that swung invitingly every time she moved. She pulled the door shut behind her, spent a minute or two stretching in the lee of the car port before setting off down the garden path at a gentle jog. Decker and Tug slid below the line of the dashboard until she made the street, at which point Tug’s hand strayed toward the door handle.

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