7
A serial anthology by Mychael Black & Shayne Carmichael
Torquere Press
Turn of the Screw
Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. Faith, hope,
charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence. These are the Seven
Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues. Each month, one of these sins
or virtues will be explored in a new story.
Don't miss this fascinating collection of short stories.
: :
Excerpt from "Discovery" (Hope):
"Discovery"
Hope
The buildings around him were eerily quiet, but Cal was used to that.
He’d been sent to forage for more supplies and had decided to
search a previously unsearched area downtown. Cal was armed and alert,
but he expected little trouble.
Monolithic, decayed ruins surrounded him; they looked like the broken
teeth of a giant monster beneath the light of the moon. Most of them
seemed to be apartments or office buildings, once filled with life. Now
they were nothing more than the destroyed remnants of the past.
Just as Cal was about to turn a corner in search of hopefully more
productive stores, he caught a glimmer of light in a smaller structure
nestled between what he thought were apartment buildings.
The golden light flickered and a shadow passed by a broken window. What
had once been a small church was now just a ruined shell of stone. A
tattered cloth lay over the unevenly broken doorway, its frayed end
barely brushing the ground.
It was unusual to find any survivors these days, but it
wasn’t
unheard of. If there were any inhabitants in the area, Cal
wouldn’t be able to take whatever he wanted. The small
fragments
left of humanity were sporadic and far apart. His group had some
contact with others in what was left of Chicago and Washington, DC, but
he had no information on survivors in this area.
He approached the church, and then hesitated in front of the door.
Pushing aside the cloth, he stepped inside. It wasn’t until
he
cautiously walked toward the hall that he saw a man kneeling in the
center of the aisle beyond the first pews.
"If you have come to rob me, you're wasting your time."
Not at all bothered by the greeting, Cal stilled not too far away from
him. The man appeared greatly careworn, far beyond the slight silvering
of his dark brown hair. From his frock, Cal assumed he must have been
the minister of the church. “I’m not here to rob
you. I
came here to forage, but when I saw your light, I realized there might
be people here already.”
The man stood slowly. "To my knowledge, I am the last one in this
section of the city. There were others, but they've since died or
abandoned it altogether."
“I didn’t think there was anybody left in this
place. My
group left the city a few years back, and we only come here for
supplies. Why haven’t you gone?” Taking care to
make no
sudden moves, Cal cautiously stepped over to one of the pews and sat
down.
"And go where?" The priest stretched out his arms. "I gave over fifteen
years of my life to this church and its congregation. My wife held on
as long as she could, then left with the last group. I imagine she was
tired of waiting on me. Fifteen years and for what? Ruins, abandonment
by the very people I cared for? What else do I have to bother living
for? If suicide wasn't a sin, I would've done it by now."
Faced with the bitterness of the man in front of him, Cal tried the
blunt approach. “Frankly, my group needs all the living hands
it
can get. Some of us are still struggling to stay alive out there.
I’m Cal Worth, and you are?”
His arms dropping limply to his sides, the priest sighed. "Thomas
Gentry."