Mystery
Black widow

The day I met my husband I knew then and there he was the one, I was going to marry him then kill him.
Yep you heard correctly kill him. You see imp the black widow, so far I have over £10 mil but it’s just not enough, it’s the thrill really. You just get this big rush and your blood is on fire and watching the life slither away is just something you have to see in your lifetime. Its in their eyes, you see the pain, sorrow and hurt when they finally realize they are going to die, that you have betrayed them,  its like a light bulb flickering on and off and finally POP it goes out.
I’m not evil, and I only pick mean evil rich men anyway. I have over 1000 disguises and different passports so the police can never catch me.
Most of the times I make it look like accidents or suicide but if they deserve it I just leave it for what it is. Murder.
I didn’t always do this, and I suppose you want to know how I got into this?
Well here it is the story of the Black Widow, have fun and if you a rich man beware, it could be you next!

 
A flaming horizon screams your name.

As you turn to the west to face the cliffs far above the azure blue waters of the Ionian Sea, the scorching summer sun sets before you in a cascade of golden flame. Wiping the sweat from your brow, you glance around surreptitiously before closing the trunk of your rental car — force of habit, you think to yourself, as there's no one within hailing distance. You're over 300 kilometers west of Athens, but not far from a modestly small Greek city by the name of Pyrgos.
Your task complete, you get back into your dusty and slightly dented rental and turn the key. As the engine sputters to life, you quickly check your gas gauge. Silently, you curse yourself for letting it run nearly dry — you're supposed to be a professional, goddamnit, but the distractions you've had to endure over the course of the last twenty-four hours have been nearly unbearable. You might be able to make it back to Pyrgos. However, the prospect of being stuck in the middle of the night on a nearly deserted coastal road is not enticing in the least.
Rummaging through your glovebox, you find what you're looking for and slip it into the rear waistband of your pants. It's mostly concealed by your baggy shirt, and shouldn't be noticeable. You look around and notice a small farm off in the distance to the east. There's always a chance they might be able to help you out. Of course, maybe you could just help yourself.

 
Bete Noir

I swayed back and forth in the wicker rocking chair, allowing my troubled mind to focus on the jarring metronome of its creaking. I was waiting. The greater part of me did not wish that waiting to end, for when it did my life as I knew it would be over. Whatever followed, it would be ugly and short. Through the open doorway, I saw headlights pass across the hallway and disappear, accompanied by the sound of a slowing engine and gravel crunching in the driveway. Seconds later, a car door slammed shut and footsteps crunched a path to the door. The tinkle of breaking glass gave me hope. They had no key. Surely...surely, if it was one of them they would have a key. Perhaps I was about to shoot a complete stranger; some hired thug, not even a local.
More footsteps; in the hallway now. I sat motionless and wished I'd chosen a quieter seat. The figure in the doorway was tall. I hesitated in pulling the trigger; just long enough to the see firearm in his hand. I knew it would be there, but the shock came all the same. It was shock that pulled the trigger; shock that sent my brother lurching backwards, and down...down.
I had to step over him to leave the room. I think that was the hardest of all. I told myself not to look, but I never was one to listen. There was something unfamiliar in his countenance, something alien in that contorted expression that, in retrospect, helps me to distance the man I killed from the sibling I shared a childhood with.
 The police won't get involved. I can almost see the headline now - "Suicide of prominent local businessman". It'll be pushed into the background like a bad dream. But I won't, and now they know it.

 
Red Fox

  The adventures of a redheaded teenaged girl, I'm thinking, may seem quite dull to you ---
  Hey! I'm talking to you. Yes YOU, sitting right there. No, not the person in the other room or the weatherman on the T.V. dressed in some god forsaken yellow raincoat and having too much resemblance to a duck. I'm talking to you, right there, with your buttocks planted firmly in your seat and your eyes reading my every woo-
  See! I caught you didn't I?? Ha.
  Alright, so, now that I have your attention, let’s begin. You see, this is not a story of some angst ridden adolescent with flaming red hair and an acne problem.
  No, it's actually quite the contrary. In fact, there is no redheaded teenaged girl, but rather, an imposter.
  Oh! Sorry, I think I seem to be losing you. I guess I'll have to start all the way back at the beginning. Well, here goes:
Two months earlier
   The warm summer wing blew a scattering of decrepit leaves across the main highway through the town. This highway had long needed repair, and the multitude of potholes proved for a very bumpy ride.
  Running parallel to the river with its low lying summer waters, the dilapidated highway had been deserted since the end of the school year, and as the carloads of families left to find a desperate solace in the form of a summer vacation, the crumbling potholes called a silent Farwell. The potholes, the road in which they thrived, the whispering remnants of the once overflowing river, and the whole of the inanimate town knew that the families' return would not be the same.
   This disillusion of cheery summer adventures that filled the air as the school children and their families fled their confines had quickly been deflated. The remaining people of the town, spinsters, old man Joe, the owner of the general store and his wife Eleanor had felt the bad omen that ruined the joy in the receding laughter and cries of 'freedom!' that reverberated off the streamlined metal of the distant vehicles.
  Little did the townsfolk know, this omen was not a regular spiritual phenomenon bringing dread and angst to the town? Unlike its counterparts, this omen had a corporeal form. The people left in the town did not see the black tipped ears and long, bushy red tail of the Red Fox as it quietly lurked in the dark corners of the outlying buildings.
  They did not know either that imminent danger followed in the Red Fox's wake.

 
Broken Dreams and Other Fallacies

Carl woke to a hand on his shoulder, rocking him gently.  "Hey, mister."  a woman mumbled, nearly incoherent through her tears.  "Don't be dead.  Oh please don't be dead."
He groaned and tried to open his eyes.  His left opened to blurry red sand.  The right wouldn't open.  Blood had seeped along the eyelid, sealing it shut.  He was sweating profusely and the headache was like the throbbing of two enormous kettle drums right behind his ears. His vision swam as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over him — a good sign of a concussion.
His hands spasmed unintentionally and the woman offered a little yelp, and then shuffled back away from him.  "Oh, Jesus, Thank God.  I thought you were dead."  Carl heard the scuffle of dust as the woman scooted back.
Carl tried to move himself to a sitting position, noting the cool air on his chest and legs as he did.  Blearily, he drew his fingers up to his eye and picked at the dried blood; until he could open his eyes and focus.
He was naked. Not that there was anything wrong with that.  Except the last thing he'd remembered, he was in the S.I. Officers lounge after the Red Dynamites hearing at Lagrange 5.
Carl drew his hand up over his forehead and through his close-cropped brown hair.  It was slick with his sweat and crusty in parts with the dried blood.  He felt like he'd been in a mother of all bar brawls.
The woman was naked too.   Maybe five feet tall, blonde, with a pinched face and puffy lips, skin blotchy from crying.  She was in good physical condition — like a dancer or a gymnast.  She didn't sport any obvious body modifications, but she was thin enough that she could have come from a lighter-gravity.  There was a heavy abrasion along her left side, on her cheek and shoulder, where the reddish dirt they were on had gotten into the wound.
"Where..." Carl began, but it took a moment to get the saliva going again, to ease his parched throat.  "Where the hell are we?"

 
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