NSA Global Database

Sometimes (usually lunchtimes in Starbucks) I get bored and decide to piss around, but rather than do anything publicly offensive I write 'investigative journalism' pieces for the NSA (meaning 'News, Sorta Accurate', not the other NSA).

In these I play the role of myself as a headstrong, and slightly psychotic, reporter out to expose the evils in the world today and bring justice to the unjust. That's the idea anyway.

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Kyle Spence, mild mannered investigative journalist for the other NSA, I stood outside a dark and seedy hive of villainy in the very heart of this sleepy community.



I knew that inside, right at this very moment, a crime was being committed, a rape against the community. A lawless metaphorical penis forcing itself into the soft pink vagina of this virgin land. A giant throbbing member having it's way with the people of here. A dark manhood having it's wicked way with the citizens of this place.

I had fallen asleep to Skinemax again.

Casually I made my way into the heart of this foul place.

Inside a painted Jezebel flaunted her assets like the brazen hussy she was, I knew that if I were to ever uncover the cancer that was the drugs baron I would have to start with the whores.

"Hi, welcome to Tesco."



"I'd like to buy some of the good stuff," I spoke to her as one knowledgeable of all things crack related.

"I'm sorry, sir, which good stuff would you be referring to?" asked the crack whore coyly.

So that was to be her game, she would show caution in case I was a cop, play the innocent but that's ok, I'm a professional.

"You know, that stuff that gets you a buzz."

"Do you have a facial tick, sir?"

"Not at all," I said, continuing to wink to reassure her that I am in the know, "I was just thinking about something... harder."

"What??" She exclaimed in an obvious ploy to test my authenticity.

"Something to just stick in there, that will make me gasp with the release."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave, sir."

Shit, I'd been rumbled. Thinking fast I scissor kicked her in the knee and legged it for the fruit and veg, where upon spotting a handy display of potted plants on special offer I took advantage of nature's bounty.



From my vantage point I studied the whore as she summoned her pimp, he took off in the direction I had last been seen running and from the walkie talkie in his hand I could see that he was obviously lower down the food chain.

With no thought for my own personal safety (we journalists thrive on danger and adrenaline) I stepped from my haven and continued on my quest to expose the filth on our streets.



Creeping through aisles stacked high with chemicals with such innocuous names as Surf, Lenor, and Caustic Soda I came to realize the true spread of the poison eating away the heart of our community.

"Disgusting filth," I mumbled to myself, then seeing a woman with a young child lift a box of something marked Dreft, my good temper finally gave way and I screamed.

"YOUR CHILD SHOULD BE TAKEN FROM YOU, YOU FILTHY CRACK WHORE! YOU ROTTEN SKANK!"

I ran, leaving the woman to think about the consequences of her actions as she tended to the crying child, probably the most attention that the critter had seen since birth.

Dreft, Persil, Tide, Daz, Bold. All these new names to confuse those of us who would seek to root out the wicked stuff and expose it's purveyors. Flingers, poppers, tabs, whack, smack, crack, dope, smoke, X, Y, and Z. Whatever happened to the good old days when it was Cocaine, Opium, and when spoiling oneself... Heroin?



Running smack into a guy a suit I realized that the game was over, it was the big enchilada, the hairy cojones, the mother of pearl.

He called himself 'The Manager'.

"Sir, might I ask what all the commotion is?"

Flanking him on either side were two heavies in blue shirts and black pants, they wore batons on their belts and carried walkie talkies.

"I'm just looking to buy something to get my mind off what a rough day I've been having," I said casually from my vantage point on the floor.

"Sir, I've had complaints about you from several members of staff, not to mention the customer you just yelled at. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store."



"YOU CAN TAKE MY LIFE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER TAKE MY FREEEEEEDOM!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I was hefted off the floor and escorted toward the front door.

Violently I was nudged outside and brutally told not to set foot across the door again or they would call the cops.

In best journalistic manner I straightened my jacket, lit a cigarette and promptly gave the 'security guard' the middle finger.

It was hard to believe that I could have been exposed so easily and as I type this I wonder if it is at all possible that someone could have tipped them off to my presence.



My journey into the inner circles of the local drugs racket was eye-opening. It was truly surprising how close I got to the top, and it is now that I understand how powerful the ring has become that they can be so cavalier about peddling their wares in open defiance of society's laws.

This reporter for one hopes never again to cross their path.

When The Man Comes Around

Since writing The Echoes Of The Golden Spike I had a notion for turning my hand to another Western, but something a bit grittier than before, something with real outlaws and hombres in it. I also have had a strange notion to write something with a bit of ultra-violence in it, probably because nothing that I have ever written could be classed as violent, even The Planetside Legacy was more of an adventure than a war story.

So I have combined those to desires into one story about revenge, trying to be reminiscent of the old Sergio Leone movies like The Dollars trilogy. The final novella is stylized as an old Dime Novel and since starting 'The Devils Boots' may become 'When the Man Comes Around pt1, The Longest Sunday'.

This is the opening chapter and is fairly tame as it sets the scene, it may not be to everybody's taste...

Available to buy now on Amazon and Kindle

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01. A Heart Torn Asunder

And I heard as it were the noise of thunder,
One of the four beasts saying, "Come and see,"
And I saw,
And behold, a white horse

A brisk wind was about the land as the sun fell lazily toward the horizon, the creatures of the prairie coming from their places of hiding from the brutal New Mexico day. The baked plains causing the air to shimmer as the heat of the afternoon released into a flame orange sky speckled with the first of the evening stars watching the New World.
Amanda lay on a patch of recently disturbed earth, her body ached and heavy tears turned dust to mud on her face. She cried long and sorrowful as she leaned her head against the cold slab of a tombstone, this last six feet was as close as she would be to her husband and son now.
Wailing, she dug her nails into the dirt, cursing the men who had done this to her, cursing the people and their apathy, cursing God for abandoning her.
She still hurt from the violation, the bruises on her body would take a long time to fade but still that would be nothing to the deep scar that was cut upon her soul.
With tears she remembered lying in a cuddle with her James in front of the fire, he kissed her on the forehead as they talked about life, love, and being together.
On the cold dirt she ran her hand as she had done that night along his thigh, "Come on," she whispered, "I'll show you how much I love you."
They kissed and they made love, and as they lay in the afterglow the front door was kicked open and the dream became a nightmare.
They made James watch as they had their brutal way with her, Billy had walked in and they shot him dead.
In the midst of the screaming and the crying another shot went off, in the corner of the room James was gone suddenly silent. Amanda screamed his name as she fought against the coarse and stinking thug on top of her, she bit and gnashed until at last her attacker beat her unconscious.
She awoke in the daylight bleeding and battered, she cried.
And she cried.
And she cried.
The next thing she remembered was her youngest son, Patrick cuddled to her breast. By God's grace he had been spared, but in Amanda's heart would have been better they had died than live now in this shattered world, robbed of family, robbed of security, robbed of dignity.
This morning James and Billy were buried, Patrick had went home with her parents as Amanda wanted to spend one last sunset with her love, to see out one last day together.
And again she wept.
Behind the tears in her eyes she saw in her mind with flawless clarity not the faces of her attackers but that of the one man who hadn't had his way with her.
A grizzled man of little words with the dead eyes of one who had looked into the very maw of Hell itself and had said, 'alright'.
He had watched Amanda pinned and exposed to the world and clearly he found it distasteful yet rather than stop the abuse he stood outside with his lieutenant. He left them to torture her.
She hated that dead-eyed bastard with the fire of suns.
A match flared in the darkness beyond the tombstone, an incandescence that brought around it the darkness of the night into the reality before her. She was alone in a cemetery and someone in the shadows stood watching her.
As she rose, carefully backing away toward the town at her back, she kept her eye on the glow of the cigarette tip hovering six feet off the ground.
"I can have your vengeance for you," a voice like the primal darkness itself said, "I can make those who hurt you and yours suffer for their crimes."
Amanda stood still, her eyes trying to penetrate the darkness beyond the grave, on a clear night under a starry sky there was nothing but a perfect blackness beneath the old cemetery tree.
A perfect blackness and the glow of a cigarette.

***

The first rays of sunlight set the sky ablaze over the town of Armageddon, a morning red as fire and pregnant with a sense of foreboding.
The wind whipped up dust devils in the empty streets and a single tumbleweed bounced it's lonesome path past the deserted saloon. In the stables a horse whinnied and somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
In the homesteads along the outskirts families rose, it was Sunday and soon it would be time to hear the Word of the Lord.
Farther out on the plains, beyond the ranches of the simple farmers in the dry flats that reached out for Old Mexico there stood a tree ancient and gnarled. It had stood on this spot since time immemorial and had played witness to the passing of empires, it's bleached bark bore countless small scars from the hurried age of man.
The twisted and bowed old sentinel had watched the world change again and again with nary a care for it was patient like the Earth, knowing the transient things would soon pass on in their eternal rush.
But on this Sunday in 1862 against a sky on fire the crooked old hardwood had hanging in it's boughs a young man.
Crucified.