Lyrical Darkness: 11 dark fiction stories inspired by the music that rocks your soul Read online

  Lyrical Darkness

  11 dark fiction stories inspired by

  the music that rocks your soul.

  A Note to Readers

  Dear reader,

  Thank you for selecting Lyrical Darkness. We hope you enjoy this independently published collection of stories.

  On behalf of all the Indie Authors included in this book, I ask that you consider writing a short review on Amazon. A simple review is of great benefit to readers and authors alike, and it’s the best way to offer feedback on your reading experience.

  So even if you don’t read every story in the collection, I urge you to take a moment and write a simple review to support the authors and help other readers who may enjoy this title.

  Thank You!

  Table of Contents

  She Loves You

  Smooth Criminal

  Satisfaction

  Swamp Witch

  Rococo

  The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Again

  Delilah

  Angie Baby

  Maggie Mae

  Every Breath You Take

  The Hotel California

  Authors

  Lyrical Darkness

  She Loves You © 2015 Ophelia Julien

  Smooth Criminal © 2015 Andrea Jones

  Satisfaction © 2015 David McAfee

  Swamp Witch © 2015 Donnie Light

  Rococo © 2015 Connor Millard

  The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Again © 2015 Ann Fields

  Delilah © 2015 Niki Danforth

  Angie Baby © 2015 Terri Reid

  Maggie Mae © 2015 Sharon Love Cook

  Every Breath You Take © 2015 A.T. Reid

  The Hotel California © 2011 Donnie Light

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or printed editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  She Loves You

  by

  Ophelia Julien

  “You know who I ran into yesterday?” David Chase pitched the question in the most casual tone possible, seeking to startle his companion into an uncomfortable and thus greatly satisfying reaction.

  Eric LaMark looked bored as he speared a bite of steak. “Who?” he asked, voice nearly expressionless to convey his disdain.

  “Emmy. Emmy Cosgrove.”

  The reaction was better than he hoped. Eric choked on his mouthful of sirloin, gulped a large swallow of ice water, and stared at his tablemate with shocked if watery eyes. “Who?”

  “Emily Cosgrove. Emmy. You know. The girl you proposed to three years ago that turned you down flat and went back to England?” He paused a moment. “She never even said goodbye,” he added in a soft voice, more to himself than as a comment.

  Eric stared at him, struck into silence, a fact David noted with a quiet glee.

  *

  David had been looking for Emmy, seeking her unconsciously, for those three years, but when she turned up again he was still shocked. The first time he saw her was at the intersection down the block from his office. She was kitty-corner to him, waiting to cross to his side of the street, but she didn’t see him wave at her when they passed on opposite sides of the through street, and the lunch crowd was so big that he lost sight of her as she continued on her way.

  Emily Cosgrove. She had been the major heartbreak of his college life, a sweet-smiled, sweet-faced biology major with dark hair, exotic eyes, and the surprising accent of a girl born and bred somewhere in England. She had told him where, but it hadn’t meant much to an Indiana boy. All he knew was that her accent made her that much more attractive. When they talked, her conversational prompt wasn’t “uh-huh” and “go on” but a quick “yeah, yeah, yeah” uttered so softly and so politely that he was both charmed and flattered that she found him so interesting. Well, maybe she didn’t, but if not, she never let on. He lost his heart to her the very first time they spoke in the student union.

  And of course she fell completely ass-over-elbows for Eric LaMark, childhood annoyance grown to a rich, good-looking, charming, self-centered jerk of a pre-law major who was somehow irresistible to women in a way that both baffled and irritated David. He had known—hadn’t he?—that as soon as Emmy and Eric saw each other, he, David, would achieve instant invisible man status. This was nothing new, but this time he minded. Emily was the world to him.

  So when he ran into her again in the here and now, this time as he lingered over one last cup of coffee at the sidewalk shop before getting himself back behind his desk, his life took on that amazing rainbow sheen it had when she was around. He had missed her when she fled back to England, but the edge had worn away with time. Now as he stared up at her smiling face he felt his heart give a painful leap even as he was smiling back. “Emmy,” he had whispered, and stumbled to his feet. “Please,” he said aloud. “Please, sit down.”

  And she had, edging around the chair beside him before he could pull it out, and settling herself into it, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder in that familiar gesture. “David Chase,” she said. “All dressed up in his suit and tie. Aren’t you the best sight ever?” Her accent washed over him like sun-warmed honey.

  “How are you? What are you up to? How’ve you been? Where did you go?”

  She held up her hands to stop him, laughing. “Stop, stop!” She looked him over and smiled with approval. “Do you even have time for this? Have I caught you during your lunch break?”

  “Yes and yes. I’m nearly done with lunch, but I have time to catch up, at least a little.” He gazed into her dark brown eyes and was rewarded with warmth and affection. “And if I run out of time, maybe we can continue over drinks? Say, five-thirty?”

  She smiled at him again. “Oh, why not? We can chat for a bit. It’s taken me forever to find my way back here.” She sat back in the chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Where should we start?”

  “You, of course.” David couldn’t stop staring at her. He had missed everything about her, the sheen of her hair in sunlight, the liveliness in her every expression. She was even wearing an outfit he remembered from several years back, the simple black skirt paired with a brightly flowered blouse that turned her skin to spun caramel. “Where did you go? I know Eric planned to propose to you.” She glanced down for a moment and David feared he had put his foot in it. “I’m sorry, Em. We don’t have to go into that—”

  She waved his concern away with her hand. “No, it’s all right. It was a long time ago. “You and I talked about that, right? That Eric was going to propose? Truth is, he didn’t.”

  “He what?” David was appalled. “But I thought…�
��

  “You and me both.” She made a wry face at him. “We didn’t end well,” she admitted.

  “That bastard. That son of a—” David was spluttering in near fury.

  “Never mind,” she said, voice soft. “I should have realized. Eric always was the womanizer, wasn’t he? So handsome. So smooth. A right lady-killer, that one.”

  “He’s a lot of things,” David said bitterly. “If I’d known, well.” He looked at her and found the courage to say it. “I always loved you. You knew that, right?”

  Her smile was sad. “I picked the wrong guy, huh?”

  He swallowed. “It’s not like it’s too late,” he said.

  She looked down again, her hair swinging down across her face, and was silent for a moment. David reached out to touch her shoulder but she raised her head to look at him, leaning back against the chair, and once more gave him her sunniest smile. “Want to hear something really funny?” she said. “I still think about him all the time. And I still love him. Do you believe that?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

  A bitterness twisted her mouth but it was gone in a second. “He hurt me really badly, David. You have no idea. Now,” she said with a shrug, “I don’t think that he meant to, but there it is. But if you ever see him…” She broke off and looked at him. “Do you?”

  He couldn’t lie to her. “Yes.”

  She grinned. “Tell him I love him.” Then she laughed. “And don’t even ask me. Yes, you have to do this.”

  He sighed loudly. “All right. I’ll tell him.”

  “And you? What about you?” she asked.

  “Pretty boring,” he answered. “I finished school. I’m still working at the first place that hired me.”

  “Really? What are you doing?”

  “Remember how I wanted to go into computers?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, her accent coloring the simple prompt. “Did you?”

  “No, I wound up in communications.” He made a face at her laugh. “I work for an advertising agency.”

  “That’s good, David. Really good.”

  “It’ll do for now. What about you?”

  “What about me?” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, wow, is that the time already? David, I need to go, I’m sorry. Maybe catch up another time?”

  “Drinks at five-thirty?” Her expression told him no. “Okay, then tell me where and when,” he said, rising from his chair with her.

  “Can I find you here most days?”

  “Here or very close. Usually around lunch time.”

  “Marvelous.” Emmy could say that without sounding like an upper-crust matron. “I’ll find you, promise.”

  “I’ll hold you to that!” he called after her as she blew him an air kiss and hurried away down the sidewalk, disappearing into the crowd.

  *

  David ended his tale and smiled faintly at the memory. “And just like that, she was off and running.”

  Eric had stopped eating. “This is a joke, right? That you saw her?”

  “What? No. No joke. Why would I do that?”

  But Eric didn’t answer the question. Instead, “She said that she still loves me?” His voice was hollow.

  “Yup. I have no idea why.” David glanced at his friend, smirking, and was startled by the expression on Eric’s face. “I’d have given my right arm for her to say that about me. I can’t believe you didn’t propose to her.”

  “She told you that, too? That I didn’t propose?”

  “Yeah, she said that. And she told me I should tell you that she still thinks about you. I don’t know why.” He looked at Eric. “Why didn’t you marry her?”

  “Why didn’t you?” Eric snapped back.

  “You were in the way.”

  They stared at each other and then Eric pushed back from the table. “I’ll see you another time,” he said and turned away.

  “That’s what Emmy and I said to each other, too.” As soon as he said it, David saw Eric’s back stiffen mid-step, and he gloated.

  *

  Dinner that night consisted of a microwave meal, a cold beer, and a long conversation with Maggie Brooke, ex-lover and good friend. “The thing is,” David said, pulling the film from his pasta primavera and wishing that he still had some garlic bread in his freezer, “I haven’t seen her in three years and it was like no time had passed at all.”

  “Meaning what?” Maggie had eaten already at her own apartment and answered David’s invitation to come over with her characteristic amiability. Maggie rarely got excited about anything, a trait that made her a great friend but somewhat lacking for a love relationship. Still, once they realized they were better platonically than otherwise, they enjoyed a connection that was open, honest, and relaxed. David knew he could tell Maggie just about anything.

  “I’m not sure. I think it means that I’m still in love with her.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “David, you fall in love every time you turn around. Remember the hostess at that seafood restaurant? And then there was that teacher you met when you joined the health club. And after that—” She caught the expression on his face and relented. “I think if you could do it, you’d have gone after the weather girl on Channel 8.”

  “She’s not my type.”

  “She’s exactly your type.”

  “Not when she has a fiancé who’s an ex-NFL linebacker.”

  Maggie grinned at him. “Okay, that’s valid. But to get back to…Emma, was it?”

  “Emmy. Short for Emily.” He grabbed a fork from the drawer beside the stove and came to sit at the table with her. “I don’t know, Mags. It was amazing to see her. And then I found out she’s still in love with Eric.” His voice was dark around a mouthful of pasta.

  “Eric? The guy you’ve known since junior high?”

  “That would be him. Jerk,” David grumbled, half-joking. Being envious of Eric was a fact of life.

  “You always say that about him.”

  “You’ve met him. You said the same thing.”

  “True. He does like himself quite a lot.”

  “Here’s the thing. Three years ago, Emmy and I were convinced Eric was going to propose to her. Hell, he just about said that to me. But he didn’t. And she hightailed it back to England right after. I would have tried to find her, but didn’t have a clue. I only had her address and number while she was living State-side.”

  “Didn’t you get suspicious when she just disappeared like that?”

  “I would have been, except that Eric told me he had proposed and that she had turned him down.”

  Maggie raised an eyebrow in what could have been mistaken for curiosity. “So Eric lied. Why do you suppose?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” David washed down the last of his pasta with a swig of beer and wished again that he had garlic bread in the house. “And I don’t have any kind of idea. Emmy told me today that they ended badly.”

  “I can imagine, if she thought he was going to propose and he didn’t. Would she have accepted?”

  “In a heartbeat.” David cleared his throat. “She was crazy about him.”

  The question about Eric’s non-existent proposal haunted him off and on over the next week. Why did Eric make up a story about being turned down? And why hadn’t Emmy at least come to say goodbye before returning to England? More than that, what brought her back three years later?

  He kept a lookout for her every time he went to lunch, and he went to lunch even in the rain so he wouldn’t chance missing her, but she never showed. After a while, he could almost have believed he had imagined the entire encounter.

  Except that Eric got weird.

  They usually met twice a week or so for a beer after work. David always wondered why they had kept up those after-work drinks long after their first year out of college. They had been in the same circle of friends at school, but shortly after graduation most of the group had drifted away to other
destinations, seeking better jobs or following love, marriage, and family. They probably met more out of habit than a desire to see each other socially. So here they were, still meeting at a corner tavern-slash-grill, usually on Mondays and Thursdays, not quite talking over old times, but somehow not discussing anything of any importance, either. Until Emmy reappeared.

  At first, Eric pointedly ignored anything David said about her. After their first several meetings beyond Emmy’s reappearance, though, he broached the subject himself. “You said she wanted me to know that she still loves me?” His voice had that strange, hollow quality that emerged when her name came up.

  “Yup.” David pulled the knot in his tie part-way down and unbuttoned his collar button.

  “Why would she say that?”

  “Because it’s true?”

  Eric took a gulp of his beer. “It can’t be,” he muttered, staring down at the table.

  “Why didn’t you ever propose to her?”

  There was a long silence. “Are you still in love with her?” Eric finally asked. He was still looking down, this time at the label on his beer bottle, and David had to strain to hear him over the noise in the bar.

  No hesitation on David’s part. “Yes.”

  Eric shook his head. “Then you may not want to hear this.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “All right, then. You’ve been warned.” Eric took a deep breath and released it with a sigh. “I didn’t propose to Emmy because she’s crazy.”

  “What?” David was stung. “What are you talking about? She’s the sweetest, probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. How can you say that?”

  “Oh, she’s all that you think she is. Beautiful without a doubt. And sweet? Sure thing. But there was always something wrong in her head. Some loose wire or something. But you’d never guess until you got to know her. She’s certifiable.” He favored David with a wintry grin. “Gonna hit me? For disrespecting the woman you love?”

  “That could happen. Define certifiable.”

  “Aggression. Mood swings. I don’t mean laughing one minute and crying the next, or even going from content to depressed. I mean extreme mood swings. Like laughing one minute and trying to claw your eyes out the next. She was needy, clingy. And if I didn’t meet her needs or cling back, she’d get angry. I mean angry.”