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  THE GAVIN ENGLISH BOX SET

  VOLUME 1

  KEN LINDSEY

  Table of Contents

  ---PART ONE---

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Morning Haze

  Chapter 2: Coffee Time

  Chapter 3: Meet and Greet

  Chapter 4: The Rail

  Chapter 5: Hungover

  Chapter 6: Contacts

  Chapter 7: The Bat, the Blue Label, and the Bell

  Chapter 8: Breakfast Time

  Chapter 9: Lies and Omissions

  Chapter 10: Cuts and Slices

  Chapter 11: Blood and Strawberries

  Chapter 12: Meat and Greet

  Chapter 13: Small Miracles

  Chapter 14: One Shot

  Chapter 15: Blood and Stars

  Chapter 16: The Stars and the Darkness

  Chapter 17: In the Hospital

  ---PART TWO---

  Prologue:

  Chapter 1: Looking Up

  Chapter 2: The New Girl and the Bulldog

  Chapter 3: Daddy Issues and Coffee Dates

  Chapter 4: Baby's Arm and the Bath Water

  Chapter 5: Anticipation

  Chapter 6: The Girl Scout and the Steam Room

  Chapter 7: Sex and Pastries

  Chapter 8: Smokes and Mirrors

  Chapter 9: The Stakeout

  Chapter 10: Date Night

  Chapter 11: The Morning After

  Chapter 12: Just Another Victim

  Chapter 13: No Coincidences

  Chapter 14: Chicken and Spit

  Chapter 15: VHS and Whiskey Hold All the Answers

  Chapter 16: Late for Dinner

  Chapter 17: Friend Zone

  Chapter 18: Love Hurts

  Chapter 19: Unhappy Endings

  ---BONUS SHORT STORY---

  GAVIN ENGLISH

  JACK DANIELS

  GAVIN

  JACK

  GAVIN

  JACK

  GAVIN

  KARA

  JACK

  GAVIN

  JACK (PISSED)

  GAVIN (WITHOUT A PADDLE)

  JACK

  GAVIN

  JACK

  GAVIN

  ---PART THREE---

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Dirty Pictures

  Chapter 2: Sucker-punches and Etorphine

  Chapter 3: Fire and Tequila

  Chapter 4: Good Sleep and Bad Truths

  Chapter 5: Date Night

  Chapter 6: Discipline and Coffee

  Chapter 7: Choking Hazard

  Chapter 8: Lies and Football

  Chapter 9: The Wolf

  Chapter 10: The Snitch and the Empty Tomb

  Chapter 11: Gym Shorts and Silence

  Chapter 12: Memory Lane

  Chapter 13: Stories and Songs

  Chapter 14: Watching and Waiting

  Chapter 15: Leave a Message

  Chapter 16: White Walls and Water Works

  Chapter 17: Gunshots and Sirens

  Chapter 18: The Dance

  ---PART ONE---

  Prologue

  The girl ran through the deserted park faster than she had ever run in her life. The cold night air pressed against her tear-soaked cheeks like sandpaper, forcing her to wipe her face with her sleeves as she went. He followed behind her somewhere, but she no longer heard his pounding feet. A stitch of pain raged in her chest, and another in her side, as her muscles cramped in protest.

  She slid under the old jungle gym, hoping the orange glow from the streetlights around the playground might keep him from coming after her. She swallowed and gasped and gulped in the air selfishly, trying to refill her aching lungs and give her body a chance to recover. Wood chips dug into her skin wherever it touched the ground, but she refused to move a muscle.

  She flinched when a breeze spun the merry-go-round at the opposite end of the playground, making it creek. Her heart beat like a drum line, crashing within her chest and throbbing deep in her ears. Keeping as still as she could, the girl looked up and down the street. Nothing. Yet. Maybe he had given up the chase.

  A stick cracked somewhere off to her left and she gasped and jumped, slamming her head against the underside of the jungle gym. She bit her lip as stars blurred her vision. The girl wanted to yell or scream or cuss, but knew deep inside that silence was her only chance to stay hidden. She gingerly ran two fingers along the sore spot on the top of her head and the fingers came away warm and wet with blood.

  Dread. It was a word she didn't think she had ever used, but the only one that seemed to describe her feelings in that moment.

  Then a pair of headlights turned onto the road which outlined the west edge of the park. The engine sounded soft, and the lights were bright. In those lights, she saw her salvation. She would run to the street, wave down the car, and get the driver to give her a ride to the police station. Even if he hid with her there in the park, close to the playground, she saw no way he could beat her to the fence if she ran with everything she had.

  The car came closer. She took in a deep, steadying breath through her nose and scooted forward using her elbows and knees. Carefully, she inched her way out from under the jungle gym. Once out, she climbed to her feet and dusted the wood chips from her knees. She flinched and looked around in a panic as the debris rained softly to the ground. No movement in the park. No sound.

  The car pulled to only a hundred yards away. It was now or never.

  She counted herself down silently. Three.

  Two.

  One!

  Before her first step landed, something above her snatched a handful of her hair and she screamed, all thoughts of running lost. With no time to react, he yanked her up off her feet and pulled the girl over the bright red railing of the jungle gym, slamming her to the hard-plastic grating next to the swinging bridge. More pain. More stars.

  He pinned her body with one knee on her sternum and the other on her stomach and clapped his hand down over her mouth. "Ssshhhh, Jennifer," he whispered, bringing his nose only an inch from hers. His breath swelled hot and wet on her face. His eyes shone wide and hungry in the pallid light of the oncoming car, with only a sliver of green bordering his overly dilated pupils.

  She took in shallow breaths through her nose. He held her still and silent until the car passed. It felt like an eternity.

  Once the car drove safely beyond the park, he gave her a grin that made her skin prickle. A second without his hand over her mouth, and then something rough and wet took its place. The cloying smell drove everything else away, and with her next breath the world turned gray.

  Chapter 1: Morning Haze

  The song from my phone’s ringer filtered into my head while I slept. My ex-wife danced on my grave, then spat on it. The tang of the previous night's stale fries and whiskey rolled around on my tongue as I woke up and a brand-new hangover scratched back and forth in my skull with every movement.

  The music stopped as I got out of bed. I ignored the phone and grabbed the last cigarette in the crumpled pack on my nightstand. Wasn't my brand, but since I found myself all alone on my big Queen mattress, I called finders keepers and lit the bitch up. The first drag burned, but covered the flavor of the night before, so it didn’t bother me.

  My phone rang again. As I snatched it up from the nightstand, I realized the music was wrong. Early jazz, which meant I had gotten an email. They were always the same: BeachBunny49 wants your hard on right now, or BarelyLegalSteven is brewing a load to your liking. Stupid spam. Get drunk and visit one little transvestite porn site... Never again.

  The phone light flicked on and I took eight tries to get the digital slider thing to move over. The message bar showed a missed call from Yvet
te, which may explain the dreams I had. I remembered the night before and realized I must have gotten low enough to drunk dial my ex.

  I cleared the missed call notification and moved on to the email. The heading looked vague enough to be porn, "Saw your ad," but the sender's name didn't have a bunch of numbers after it, so it might have been legit. I opened it up.

  -Hello,

  I'm not sure why I'm doing this. I need help. My daughter has been missing for almost a week, she ran away... That's what the cops say. I want to find her. I don't think she would go like this, but I need to know for sure. If she hates me or doesn't want to be here, that's fine. She's old enough to take care of herself. But if it's something else... I think it is.

  Please help me. I don't have a lot of money, but I'll beg borrow and steal to find out the truth. If you are willing to help, please call me.

  Thank you,

  Rachel

  775-555-1505

  They're always runaways. Parents suck and teenagers suck and eventually someone needs to get away. It would be an easy fare, so with a little techno-magic I don’t understand, I pushed the number and saved it to my contacts list. I'd call her after I got coffee and a greasy breakfast to clear the cobwebs.

  I still had residual wood, so my morning piss came hard and I had to clean up the side of the toilet when I finished. After I flushed, I looked in the mirror. It wasn't pretty; someone left a swollen hickey on my neck, which I didn't remember getting, and my lip had dried blood covering a split that still tasted of pennies. That might mean a fight, or it could mean good sex, but I had no idea which. I ran my fingers over the stubble on my chin. It wasn't too long yet, but I hated the gray I saw sprouting up. I gave myself a quick shave.

  In the kitchen, I ground coffee beans and boiled water and threw them both into the French press. As I started thinking about making breakfast, my phone rang again. This time a heavy metal guy screamed about how a girl lit his clothes on fire. My ex-wife. I slid the answer bar to take the call.

  "Thanks for calling Gavin's pimpin' house of pimpery. Can we slap something up for you today?"

  "You are such an asshole." Yep, that's her, my blushing bride of yesteryear.

  "Good morning to you, too, Yvette."

  "It's bad enough that you get drunk and call me begging for sex every other damn night, why in thirty blasted hells would you call Mike?"

  Shit. Last night must have been a riot. If only I could remember it. "I don't know, Yvette. Maybe I got nostalgic and wanted to bend his ear for a minute."

  "Goddamn it, Gavin! I didn't get a second of sleep last night because he kept playing your voicemail, over and over. 'Yvette, did you let him do that to you? You never let me do that, you said never ever.' You described our honeymoon to him!"

  I didn’t try to bite back the laugh. I wanted to listen to that voicemail as much as I had ever wanted anything, but if I asked I'd be in even deeper trouble.

  "You're an asshole!" It was her special squealing holler, which meant we were heading for a meltdown.

  "I'm sorry, hun. I don't remember anything from last night. If it makes you feel better, someone punched me in the face." I lied. "Do you want me to call him and apologize?"

  "Fuck off, Gavin."

  "Love you too."

  After she hung up, I looked down at my fingers. My last cigarette in the world burned down to the filter and my heart broke a little. The universe had decided to make me leave the apartment today. Damn it. I hated leaving home, especially to buy cigarettes. Nevada isn't too bad as far as smokers’ rights, but in Reno, there's always a twelve-year-old at the counter who will give you a look when you ask for a pack. A look that says, 'You're as bad as Hitler for smoking that cigarette.'

  I pushed the plunger down on my French press and watched as the red water turned brown, then black. The scent sent an invigorating tingle down my back; I love coffee more than anything when I wake up. Not as much as I love whiskey at night, but that's apples and oranges. After rummaging through the cupboard, I found my Superman travel mug and filled it. The first sip went down hot and delicious, and it helped to part the morning haze.

  I needed smokes, and I knew I should call the email girl back. Smokes first. I kicked through the laundry on my bedroom floor until I found last night's pants. My wallet was still there, and it even had a little cash in it. That's nice, perhaps the morning wouldn't be a total crapshoot. I shoved the wallet into my pocket and put the pants on. How dirty could they be?

  After grudge-humping my Jeep through morning traffic for half an hour, I bought my cigarettes at a convenience store and walked to the coffee shop next door. I would be able to get more coffee, check out a few barista girls, and make my call there.***

  One week before

  Every breath she took hurt. She fought it as long as she could, hoping to stop breathing. Hoping that she would stop altogether.

  She knew he wouldn't let it end until he finished with her, but a fleck of hope arrived hours before. The hope that the end was near, and he would let her go. He had someone new strapped down in the other bed. Another "lover" for him to spend his time with. With any luck, that meant that he planned to end her pain, let her die.

  "Good morning, my darlings," he said as he flicked the light switch, illuminating the room with the pale-yellow glow of the bare bulb that hung overhead. The light caused her to flinch, suck in air too fast. A thousand tiny needles stabbed into her chest at once.

  She strained against the strap that held her head down, trying to watch as he came into the room, following the same routine he had since she first arrived. He opened the closet next to the steel door. Took out a clear plastic apron and a pair of bright yellow dish washing gloves and put them on. He hummed an old battle hymn she only ever heard in the movies her dad watched when she was a little girl. Then he walked to her bed, wearing his usual smile.

  "And how are we this morning, Denise?"

  "Wonderful now," her voice sounded shallow, and the words came out slowly. "I missed you while you were gone." She learned the answer by her third day with him. You had to be polite if you wanted to eat. Nothing else changed. The knives still came, and the needles, and all the other things he used to both destroy her body and keep her alive.

  "I'm glad you said that," he said as he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. His breath reeked of mint. She remembered her first weeks with him; his breath had been minty then too. But that was so long ago that she had almost forgotten about it. Now it was minty again, and some black void inside her roared with jealousy. The mint was there because of the new girl.

  "You smell nice," she whispered as he made his way to the sink where the knives were waiting.

  "Thank you, lover. I figured that since this is our last day together, I should be extra fresh for you." She couldn't move her head to see what he was doing, but the water ran and the knives clinked against the metal bottom of the sink.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, Denise, our time together has been amazing. You've been a generous and fulfilling lover, and I will never forget you. However, you have nothing left to give and I need to move on without you."

  For the briefest second, Denise imagined home and her mom and her friends. Then she remembered where she was, and what he did to her. Another deep breath, uncontrollable pain. The thought of death was even sweeter than her silly thoughts of home.

  She didn't reply, and she had no way to wipe away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. He came closer now, still smiling, and ran his thumb beneath her right eye. Something heavy slumped on the bed next to her.

  "I want to introduce you to our new family member before you go, though, Denise. I think you’ll remember her. She's asleep still, so you won't be able to catch up, but I thought it might be nice for you to see a familiar face."

  One arm slid under her neck while his other arm went beneath her hips and he lifted her from the bed as easily as he might move a baby from a crib. She struggled to not look at the remains o
f what had once been her body. Denise remembered running, pedaling a bike. She tried to stop remembering.

  He carried her to the side of the other bed, the one that had been empty since her first day, all those months ago. He angled her body, and then her head, until she saw the form lying there, still as if she were sleeping.

  It took a moment, but she realized that she recognized the girl in the bed. Her hair had grown longer, and she may have lost weight, but there was no mistaking her best friend.

  Her chest burned and ached as the first sob escaped. "No. Please no."

  He turned her away and started back toward her bed. "You wouldn't want me to be alone, would you, after you're gone?"

  "Pleeeease..."

  He laid her back on the bed with care, and she convulsed against the sheets as she cried.

  "Don't ruin this, Denise." His voice changed, became darker. "I don't have time to argue with you. Our first meal needs to be prepared before she wakes up. It’s important to make a good first impression, like I did with you."

  Denise kept sobbing. She thought she might throw up, and she couldn't form words any longer. She looked on as he picked up the heavy thing from next to her. He moved it from the side of the bed, up to the pillow. He smiled again as he showed her the carpenter's hammer. It sounded heavy when set down next to her, but it looked like nothing in his hand, just a small piece of wood with a smaller hunk of metal at the end.

  "We're going to have my favorite tonight, like you and I did on your first night at home. I only get it once in great while, and I've been looking forward to it for a long time."

  As he lifted the hammer above her head, she remembered that first meal vividly. It had been tasty after two days with no food. After they ate, he told her that brains were considered a delicacy in many parts of the world.

  She barely felt the hammer as it smashed through her temple.

  Chapter 2: Coffee Time

  When I got up to the counter to get my coffee, a thirty-something jock-itch with a manager's badge met me with a terrifying grin. "What can we brew for you today?"