Once the local hotspot, the downtown area was now mostly spaces for rent on either side of the charming street. The flower shop, a café, and a clothing consignment store were the only businesses still standing, but they were all on the brink of closing for good.

  Staring off into the distance, Dale saw the lights from the Mega-Lo SuperMart, turning night into day with a glow that spread out in waves across the town. It was like a beacon of sorts, a bat signal calling to the residents of Franklin to shop for things they almost certainly didn’t need nor want.

  Dale hissed as the cigarette burned down and hot ash fell on his fingers. He dropped the butt and ground it under his heel, sweeping the broken cigarette out into the road with his foot. He waited until an oncoming car drove slowly past the shop before stepping inside and flipping off the neon “OPEN” sign.

  Catching his reflection in the door, Dale sighed heavily. He had always looked young for his age, but the years were gaining on him. His hair was now more grey than brown, the lines in his face deeper than ever, and the dark circles under his eyes making him look like a beaten boxer on the bad days, of which there were many.

  He walked slowly through the shop, taking in the floral arrangements and selection of blooms lining the shelves. While some still looked bright and alive, most were beginning to droop and wilt, spilling petals like tears.

  Dale grabbed a broom, quickly swept up the fallen petals, and scooped them into a dustpan. He looked at Cynthia out of the corner of his eye, watching as she tallied the day’s receipts, hoping to see a smile land on her face. As always, a frown was all there was to see.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  At the sound of his voice, Cynthia finally smiled, but he could tell she was forcing it. “Not great, but we live to fight another day.”

  That gut-punch feeling hit Dale again, making him want to scream and destroy all the displays in the shop.

  He feared for the health of his wife. Cynthia had always been a happy, vibrant personality, but she looked like a shadow of her former self now. Her cheekbones were a little too prominent, a sign that the weight was falling off at an alarming rate. Her once lustrous strawberry blonde hair now hung limply, framing green eyes that had long since lost their sparkle.

  The shop was dying, and the Darlings were going down with the ship.

  “We got a letter from the city. They are not picking up the trash until we pay our outstanding bill,” Cynthia said, waving a final notice envelope in the air.

  Dale waved away the comment. While they still dumped their dead flowers in the dumpster out back, he had begun taking their household trash to the dumpsters behind the Mega-Lo SuperMart. In the grand scheme of things, their trash was a small drip in a rapidly overflowing pool.

  “We need to clear out some of the dead stock. It looks bad,” Cynthia said.

  “I can do that. Why don’t you head up and get some rest? I’ll be up in a minute to start dinner.”

  Cynthia smiled again but still managed to look sad. “You’re too good to me.”

  “That’s because I love you.”

  Dale watched her head to the back of the shop and go upstairs to their apartment. Losing the shop also meant losing their home, which was the one thing that scared him above all else. Dale had been moving their meager funds around as much as possible to stay in business, but robbing Peter to pay Paul was not a long-term strategy.

  There has been talk that the Franklin Town Council was going to gentrify the downtown area in an attempt to breathe new life into it, but talk was all that was happening. Dale knew that change had to happen quickly if they were to survive and flourish in an upgraded downtown area. He wasn’t holding his breath.

  Grabbing up the worst of the flowers, Dale dumped the dying blooms into a trash bag and went out back to the alley where the dumpsters sat. The bulb above the back door had long since burned out, but the lights from their apartment did enough to create a path to the garbage.

  A wooden enclosure, the gate broken and hanging open, surrounded the dumpster. Dale always thought of the fence as an unnecessary addition, which was why fixing the gate was low on his to-do list. He flipped open the large rubber lid and dumped the garbage bag inside, wiping his hands on his pants once the deed was done.

  Turning to leave, he heard something crunch underfoot. Dale didn’t need to look to know that it was a syringe. The alley behind the shop had become a breeding ground for bums and junkies, all of whom knew that the cops rarely swung by anymore.

  Cynthia deserved better than the life they were living now, but they were both fast running out of ideas on how to change things. Dale had started sending out resumes to accounting firms a few months prior, but no one seemed interested in taking on a fifty-something man who had been out of the industry for the past twenty years.

  Locking the back entrance to the shop, Dale headed upstairs to a home that was probably not going to be theirs for too much longer. It was a sobering thought and one that filled him with dread.

  He stepped into the apartment just in time to hear Cynthia finishing up a conversation on the phone. She looked guilty when he walked in and bustled off to the kitchen. Dale followed her and asked, “Everything okay?”

  “Of course. I was talking to Sarah.”

  Hearing the name of his daughter, Dale knew what was coming next.

  “She says that the offer to go live with them still stands. They’ve converted the basement into a nice living area.”

  Dale sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t know, Dale. I love this place almost as much as I love you. It’s... it’s hard to walk away.”

  Wrapping his arms around her waist, Dale nuzzled his wife’s neck and whispered, “Then we stay and fight.”

  “Side by side forever,” she said, placing her hands over his.

  “Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this book, I’d be very grateful if you’d post a short review. Your support really does make a difference, and I read all the reviews personally so I can get your feedback and make my books even better.

  Thanks again for your support!”

  John Watson

  Acknowledgments

  It has been a hectic few years in the publishing world, and I know I would not have made it through without the support of my wife, my publisher, my PA, and my regular readers. All of you make this journey so much fun to be on.

  I look forward to your continued support and hope that I can continue to deliver words that make you uncomfortable and perhaps even a little scared.

  John Watson

  Born under a gloomy, grey, Scottish sky, it is perhaps no real surprise that darkness has always felt comfortable to John Watson. After countless hours spent in his local library, he found that he was more at home in the worlds of Clive Barker, Stephen King, and James Herbert than he was in his own. The need to carve out his own niche in the horror genre drove Watson to slice open his mind and let the words spill onto the page.

  From donuts to mysterious karaoke bars in the middle of nowhere, Watson mines the depths of the ordinary to find the evil that lurks beneath the surface. He dares you to join him in his ongoing forays into the dark side.

  John Watson’s Novels and Novellas

  Karaoke Night

  Crueller

  Off the Grid

  Be Kind, Rewind

  Cradle Robber

  Slave to Blood

  Swimming Upstream

  Salem

  Through the Eyes of the Mummy w/M.W. Brown

  Salem Unleashed

  The Greys

  Curse of the Bean House

  Rotten

  Sundown

  Anthologies

  Infamy

  Beyond the Jungle

  Murder Maker

  Murder Makers

  Follow John Watson https://www.facebook.com/authorjohnwatson

 

 

  John Watson, Bloody Mary

 

 

  Thank you for reading books on GrayCity.Net
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