The Devil In The Details
Her fingers were numb with panic as she fumbled with the locks on the door. She felt her heart rattling in her ribcage as the blood struggled to reach her extremities. Her skin had already started to blister and crack. Time was running out. The door was three inches thick and made of solid timber. It had four metal bolts and a state-of-the-art lock that a greasy salesperson with a moustache had assured her was ‘unpickable’. She leaned against the door and rattled the handle as if checking to see that it was genuinely there. She had begun to rent the tiny flat less than the month ago. A safehouse. It was cramped, the kind of place that should’ve been described as cosy but the whole room was rank with cold, the only feature of note was a huge oak desk. Shivering she tried to catch her breath, as she crossed the small room, Crouched down and touched her hands to the bitterly cool metal of a safe. The textured dial spun neatly beneath her fingers. From the safe she retrieved a Ruger LC pistol, a bottle of Jameson whisky, and a small, black, leather book. She placed the whiskey and book on the table and checked the gun. Seven bullets sat in the magazine and one in the chamber. She placed the gun on the desk and after a greedy yet much needed swig from the bottle, she began to push the heavy desk towards the door. The book began to shake as the desk vibrated. The smell of age clung to its thick black binding, the grain of the leather sat deep and speckled, the dead cells of some unfortunate creature now a pleasing pattern for the eye.
