A Twist Of Noir 567 - Chris Benton

REAL ESTATE - CHRIS BENTON

The door bell rings. I’m hoping it’s my wife consumed with forgiveness. Instead, it’s some guy wearing a shiny blue three piece suit with a gun pointed at my head. He backs me into my living room. I notice the gun he’s holding has a silencer. Not a good sign. He closes the door behind him and smiles like a waiter. He’s wearing surgical gloves, another bad sign.

“Hello, Larry,” he says and I recognize him. Jeremy Lander, a kid I used to beat the shit out of at Autumn Park Elementary whenever I was in a bad mood.

“Hey, Jeremy, long time no-see, bro.” I try to smile and fail miserably.

Jeremy blows both my kneecaps into bowls of bone salad. I collapse in a blinding red world of agony, which suddenly dims into a kinder pain. My eyes open to find Jeremy laying a syringe on the coffee table. He takes out a pair of pliers and bends down next to me.

“I was selling real estate,” he says. “As you know, the market is kind of slow...but I did discover a very rare, very remote piece of property.” He taps his temple softly with the pliers. “And it will never cease to appreciate in value.”

He unzips my jeans and, when I feel the cold mouth of the pliers begin to close, I wake up screaming again in another strange bed.

BIO: Chris Benton was born and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina where he still resides. He can be found on Facebook.