On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 228, of 240 so far.

Beauty

Heering tried to remember what it had felt like first thing that morning at breakfast, before everything went wrong.

There had been coffee, and a croissant, and fresh strawberry jam, and a bowl of fruit. Sunlight streaming in through the windows, only mildly tempered by thin, gauzy white curtains. A cool breeze, already warming with the coming day. There was even a copy of Le Monde, folded so crisply that he’d half expected to find an ironing mark on the back of it.

The idyll had lasted a solid forty-five minutes or so, until Heering regretfully got up from his little table towards the side of the hotel’s dining hall, folded the newspaper once more, then tucked it under his arm and walked back out into the marble-lined reception area which he’d admired extensively upon first arriving.

The bank of elevators were off to one side, discreetly secluded in an adjoining low hallway, but it was the brass plaque marked in three languages with Stairs that was his intended destination.

It had been barely two hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime now, as he crouched at the far side of the elaborate antique chest of drawers which seemed to serve simply as decor in the corridor which led from his room on the sixth floor and eventually connected with the dedicated stairway leading to the rooftop pool. A bullet struck the mirror hanging over the piece of furniture, indicating that his hiding place was no longer worthy of the label, and Heering considered that even now, in this by no means unfamiliar situation, there was aesthetic charm to be found.

The wallpaper, for example, was exquisite, Heering thought as he popped up to return fire, killing the man who had been moving rapidly down the corridor towards him. Inlaid with delicate gold patterns whose essential opulence nevertheless stopped well short of crassness, instead giving an overall impression of quality but with refinement. It was a difficult line to walk at the best of times.

He crossed to the doorway a short distance further along and on the opposite side, and found that the door was locked. The sound of approaching heavy footfalls came from around the bend in the corridor in the other direction, presumably bringing the colleagues of the now deceased man whose last thoughts were expressed in abstract form on a portion of the beautiful gilt paper. Heering gave a small nod of approval; red and gold did indeed go well together.

There was another junction some ten metres past the locked door, and Heering covered the distance in moments, finding the connecting corridor blessedly empty. It was short, leading to a laundry closet, large cleaning cupboard, and finally what he was looking for: the prominently-marked door to the dedicated fire escape stairwell. Opening it would trigger an alarm automatically, but happily the alarm in question was already sounding, ever since Heering had triggered it just after killing the uniformed maid who had knocked on his room door claiming to be there to clean the chamber; a claim belied by the very obvious (to a trained eye) firearm concealed at her waist.

Heering had shot her straight through the door itself, which was a pity given that the heavily-lacquered portal was a true original, created by a carpenter of a skill level rarely found today, and it had surely been in service for longer than a century. But there had been nothing else for it.

The footsteps were now of at least two large men running, and the sound was much closer than before. Heering collected a fire axe from the nearby emergency casing on the wall, hefted it, then pressed the fire escape exit bar and shoved the door open with great force in a single motion.

As anticipated, the door itself caught the first of the assailants who were lying in wait for him, staggering the broad-shouldered man with a beard that Heering immediately recognised as someone from the dining room at breakfast. The axe made quick work of his companion, a smaller and more nimble killer whose admittedly impressive speed was insufficient to take him beyond the reach of the weapon’s cutting edge. The man’s head sailed dramatically down the enclosed stairwell, leaving spatter patterns on the elegant maroon walls.

Heering now moved fully into the stairwell and slammed the door closed behind him, moving off to the side in a crouch and counting to five before putting three bullets back through the door at what was approximately waist height for the men who had just reached it from the corridor he’d just left. He was rewarded for his efforts by surprised cries of agony and the sound of something heavy striking the floor.

It was the work of only twenty seconds to descend the stairs to the ground level and then one further storey below, where the fire escape exited near the perimeter of the hotel’s underground car park, only metres from the ramp leading up to the surface. While this area was of course relatively modern in nature, Heering profoundly appreciated the many considered touches that tied its identity to that of the grand institution whose foundation it had become.

Brass signage was here, too, and all of the supports were diligently painted in the hotel’s signature maroon, with gold-coloured highlights in the bay numbers, speed limits, and driving directions. Not far from the nearest supporting column, a man and a woman stood side by side, only now noticing Heering’s presence.

He shot the man in the forehead, and deftly threw a small and perfectly balanced knife to strike the woman between the ribs and pierce the left ventricle of her heart, definitively aborting her attempt to draw her own firearm and kill him.

Satisfied that he’d eliminated all of the immediate threats, Heering once again concealed his gun, then set off at a jog towards the ramp. He saw with delight that there were even some fluted glass sconces adding a comforting and delicate touch to the adjacent area where the elevators were. He smiled.

There was such beauty all around, if you just took the time to notice it.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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