Book Excerpt: Storm Warning – E.A. O’Neal

Today E.A. O’Neal stops by to share an excerpt from her book, Storm Warning. 

Excerpt from the story Collision, featured in Storm Warning

The white and blue pick-up bore the initials NCF on the side.  It sped up to the curb in front of the station.  The two officers in the back jumped out. Jean had expected them to have machine guns slung over their shoulders but they were unarmed. Two others emerged from the station, also empty-handed, as the driver got out and began issuing orders.  Jean remembered that a month ago there had been a story on the news about a lack of guns for officers working at small stations. The government could barely afford to arm the police in the big cities like Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, much less in the smaller towns.

The mass in the shadows quivered with impatience.

“Wait,” Henri hissed.  “Wait.  Wait.”  What they were about to do was his idea.  He was the one who’d given them the information.  They listened to him and waited.  Another officer came out.  Six!  Jean frowned at Guy.  Guy sensed his fury and eased away from him.

“In silence,” Henri murmured.  “Remember, in silence until we are upon them.”

As if his excitement had made him deaf, Josef, a fisherman, made to break for it but the baker caught him by the back of his shirt.  “Not yet,” he whispered, furiously.  “When Henri says, imbecile.”

The fisherman pushed him away but subsided when Guy pulled his right arm back.  “Stop, you will mess everything up.”

“Now,” Henri hissed.  “Now.  Go, go.”

The mass detached itself from the darkness of the marketplace and surged forward, their sticks and knives clutched in their hands.  Jean’s jute bag bounced uncomfortably against his stomach.

“Bondye.” An officer saw them, dropped his end of the bale and sprinted inside the station.  The others whirled.  One lunged for the handle of the pick-up truck’s cab door but the baker smashed the flat of his machete against his hand and the man cried out in pain.  Two more tried to dash into the station but the door was shut.  They pounded on it then, giving up, took to their heels. An officer, the one who drove the truck, was the only one with a gun. He pulled it from his holster and fired a round of shots like mini-explosions.  The man in front of Jean groaned and fell.  The fisherman swung his machete and the officer screamed as the blade sliced through blood and bone.  The officer clutched his arm and screamed and screamed, his mouth open wide.

Another officer shouted at them to stop, his voice high and frightened.  “You will bring big trouble,” he screamed.  Jean craned his head to see who it was because he thought he knew the voice but the stocky man stood with his back to the light and Jean couldn’t make out his features.

“Stop, go home, turn around.  Big tr….”  Somebody shoved him aside.  “Please,” the man screamed.  Jean’s eyes widened as he saw the flash of a blade behind the man.  The officer was unarmed, there was no need to kill him but the blade disappeared and the officer fell.  Jean squinted as he tried to make out who had done it.  “Guy!”  People shoved past him.  The man turned. Guy!  His face was in deep shadow but Jean would know his brother anywhere.  He tried to push through the others to get to him but they wouldn’t let him pass, intent as they were on getting to the truck.

“Quick now,” Henri said.  He pushed one of the bales off the truck and leapt up to reach the others.  Jean saw now that Henri wore a blonde wig, not a hat as he’d thought.  The crazy wig was the kind of thing somebody might wear during carnival when you wanted to pretend you were somebody else, somebody with a better life.

Jean sliced into one of the bales and pulled apart the plastic wrapping, exposing the bricks of cocaine.  People grabbed them up and stuffed them into the bags they’d brought.  Jean sawed another bale open, and another.  There were six bales in all which meant more than enough bricks to go around.  He pushed as many as he thought he could carry into his bag, eight or nine in all, and looked around for Guy.  Villagers crouched over the bales.  One woman had brought a basket and was stacking the bricks in it in a neat and orderly way.  “No time,” Jean snapped at her.

Storm Warning (2013)[image error]If you like the happy thought that the Caribbean is just sun, sand and smiling natives bearing coconuts full of fruity drinks, beware! Set on the fictional island of St. Crescens, the five stories in this collection will take you deep into the heart of an island society where poverty, corruption, greed and sex form a potent and explosive brew.

In ‘The Dead Bishop’ appearances are both deceptive and dangerous. Meanwhile, one woman’s desire to transform her life has deadly consequences in the title story and, when greed meets desperation in ‘Collision,’ the body count rises. These and the other two stories will keep you guessing and leave you thinking!

 

Amazon USAmazon UKGoodreads About E.A. O'Neal[image error]Eugenia O’Neal is a Virgin Islander whose first book, From the Fields to the Legislature, was based on her master’s thesis for the University of the Virgin Islands. She has lived and worked in Barbados, Philadelphia and London and presently resides on Tortola.

 

 

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Book Excerpt: Storm Warning – E.A. O’Neal | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave