Distracted: A Thriller (Chap 1)

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PHILLIP THOMAS DUCK

DISTRACTED

A Thriller

ALSO BY PHILLIP THOMAS DUCK

Excuse Me, Miss

One Quick Kiss

Modesty

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This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DISTRACTED.

Copyright © 2011 by Phillip Thomas Duck.

All rights reserved.

Two Daughters

DISTRACTED

FIVE SCARS. 

Each one symbolic of far more than just the courage and resiliency I showed in overcoming each of them. I glanced down at the man who’d attempted to add a sixth to the chaos of old wounds already present on my upper body. A dull blade rested just out of his reach on the oil-stained concrete bed. His right hand lay at an odd angle, particularly slack at the wrist joint. No two fingers on the hand pointed in the same direction. His moans were as muscular as winter wind. And the smells associated with his fear—urine, voided bowels, vomit—made breathing the stagnant air of the mostly empty warehouse an unpleasant exercise.

I ignored his moans and his closed eyes and began relaying the extensive history of my scars. “This,” I said, raising the tail of my T-shirt to expose the thick caterpillar etched into my abdomen, “was my first. A dull blade like the one you just tried to use on me. The infection was far worse than the cut. The first time my invincibility was ever called into question.”

Water dripped from the eaves in a hypnotic plop. Physically I struggled to stay in the moment, eyes burning, nostrils flaring against the horrid smells, my mood crying out for an attentive audience at the very least. But the downed man’s eyelids were shut, and the tortured sound that reminded me of early January continued to flow from his mouth.

A decent man would have accepted the quit in him.

No one had ever accused me of being a decent man, though.

I nudged his tender ribs with the toe of my shoe. He winced and squirmed on the cement floor, moving like spilled milk on a tilted tabletop. I flexed my gloved hands in response, my veins rich with adrenaline. Life had always proven itself to be unsuitably complex for me. There was little I knew with certainty. My skills and acumen were limited. As much pain as I had inflicted, I didn’t even have a firm grasp on that. What did pain truly feel like? What thoughts crossed the mind of those in the clutches of it?

Ending the pain, though…in that area I had clarity.

I dropped down in a baseball catcher’s crouch and whispered to him, “This one by my left pectoral, precariously close to my heart, isn’t actually from a knife. It’s circular as you can see, but ragged around the edges. Looks like a disrespectful cigarette burn in the carpet. Gun shot wound.”