Mid Week Tease: Welcome to Hell!

August 14, 2013

Thanks to Sandra Bunino for starting a new weekly meme. All of the participants are sharing teasers from our latest works.

My snippet is from my short story, Slave Driver, which will be in Evernight Publishing’s HIS anthology that releases TOMORROW!!, August 15th. I am one of twelve authors. I hope you’ll consider adding it to your TBR pile. 🙂

“What’s your name?”

“Kristy Kreem.”

Both of Phyllissa-T’s brows lifted, and her lips twitched. “Like the donut?”

Kristy rolled her eyes. God. Why hadn’t she changed her name back? Married she gladly bore her cross. Newly widowed, she’d honored his memory. Too bad she hadn’t known about his philandering then. Now she was stuck with wonderful but delusional memories and a crappy name that was a craptastic memorial to the man behind both. Nine months later and moving on with her life, the moniker had worn paper-thin. “No. Kristy with a T instead of a P and the last name’s K-R-E-E-M.”

“Right. Hey, Blake. Your six o’clock is here.” She enunciated each syllable of the name, “Kristy Kreem,” snickered and turned in profile. “Yeah, I get it now. Okay, will do. Thanks.” She hung up and fixed her gaze upon Kristy, sober and unsmiling. “He said he’d be right out. Go ahead and have a seat over there.” She nodded to indicate a row of uncomfortable looking chairs against the wall. A propped open door behind and to the right of Phyllissa-T marked the entry to the workout area. To the left of the chairs was another door marked “Members Only”. The place was really nothing more than a commercial storage unit or garage they’d converted into a gym. Her friend Curtis had sworn by the place and convinced her to give it a try. Curtis had transformed himself from cute doughboy to cut Olympic god in nine months.

She settled in the chair that looked least likely to have been sweat all over, and pulled out her phone to check for messages. Her office had been mercifully kind and left her alone for a change. Being the Operations Manager seemed to put her at almost everyone’s beck and call. Computer broken and can’t get through to IT? Call Kristy. Can’t find a document you need on the server? Call Kristy. Looking for that announcement from the CEO from last year? Good old Kristy will conjure it up at the snap of your fingers. Your fingers, not hers. Was it any wonder she’d gotten so out of shape physically that her doctor had ordered her to engage a personal trainer and nutritionist?

A shadow fell over her. Satan had arrived without even making a sound. “Kristy?”

Kristy looked up and there he stood in his beefy, sadistic glory, all muscles and skin and scars. And vaguely familiar.