Deadly Messengers (2 page)

“Such a great read! Just when I thought I had guessed what would happen, I was surprised.”
Ashley
(Good Reads Canada)

“Thrilling, tense, interesting and topical. If you like your thrillers with meat on their bones get into Deadly Messengers.”
Jo-Ann Duffy
(Australia)
Duffythewriterblog.com

“I didn’t want to put this down once I started reading.”
Meghann Sherman
(Good Reads USA)

“I found it a real page-turner and read in no time.”
Jesena Đurović
(Good Reads Serbia)

“Fast-paced, well-written, and everything moves at a terrific pace, the kind of book I might even be tempted to read in one sitting.”
Dan Sihota
(UK)
Dansihota.blogspot.com

“I loved reading this brilliant well written masterpiece by Susan May.”
Danielle Urban (
USA)
Urban Lit Magazine

“This book is a lurching ride through every person’s worst nightmare.”
Janis Milford
(Good Reads Canada)

“A very well written Crime Mystery book. 1 book you must read to the very end. A very easy rating of 5 stars.”
Tony Parsons
(Good Reads USA)

“OMG One of the best books I have read in 2015. I highly recommend it.”
Samantha Curtis
(Good Reads UK)

“Susan May pulls no punches with this page turning thriller.”
Julie McBride
(Good Reads Australia)

“I spent my entire study period, afternoon and English class in twelve hours, reading through this unforgettable book.”
Rebecca McNutt
(Canada)
Author of
Smog City

“If you liked Gillian Flynn novels or “The Girl on the train” by Paula Hawkins, you are going to love Deadly Messengers.”
Jorge
(Good Reads-Germany)

“A great job taking us along for the ride; I enjoyed trying to figure out “just what exactly is going on here?!.”
Candi Horihan
(Good Reads USA)

“POWERFUL! Ms. May is definitely an artist of her craft. Not too many authors, especially unknown ones, can leave me with the feeling of amazement.”
Jan E. Klein
(Good Reads USA)

“A fun read and very fast-paced”.
Riana Barbara
(Malta)
Thelivesofabookaholic.blogspot.com.au

“Gripped the imagination at the first page and held it until the last when it left you gasping for more… I couldn’t put it down.”
Pippa Willis
(Good Reads UK)

“I really, really enjoyed this book. It’s fast paced, exciting, has great characters.”
Cynthia Corral
(UK)
Lostbookmark.wordpress.com

“Brings our fears home to us with “Deadly Messengers,” a tense tale of mayhem by design.”
Jay Cole (
USA)
www.amazon.com/author/jaycole

“The book doesn’t wait for you to settle down as it hits you with a brutal mass killing from page 1”
Ishita Choudhary
(Good Reads India)

“It’s my first book of dear Susan ‘n I love it. It’s amazing”
Neha
(Good Reads India)

“Susan May is responsible for my un-hoovered house and my growing ironing pile. I started this book and finished it in a day.”
Karen Male
(Good Reads UK)

“Grabbed me at the start and by the time I got to the last 100 pages or so, I couldn’t put it down and I had to finish it.”
Terri
(Good Reads Australia)

“Filled with wonderfully descriptive passages and well constructed characters, this book was a thrilling read from its first word until its last.”
Sharon Berge
(Good Reads USA)

“A very gripping, gritty thriller that will keep you on the edge as you try to work out what is driving normal, sane people to kill.”
Carolyn
(Good Reads USA)

“Creepy, unnerving and leaving you on the edge of your seat wondering what is about to happen. One of the best books I have read in a long time.”
Chelsea
(Good Reads UK)

“A unique twist on the crime that I’ve never seen before and was very cleverly plotted out.”
Lisa
(Good Reads USA)

“It’s a gripping, entertaining, eye-opening and well-researched novel. What I liked best about this book is its highly social and moral significance.”
AJ The Ravenous Reader
(Good Reads Philippines)

“Fast read, exciting, too! A page-turner.”
Jeri
(Good Reads USA)

“Easy to become so trapped inside the book that the world around you becomes lost. So good, I didn’t want to sleep until I’d finished.”
Natasha
(Good Reads UK)

“Deadly Messengers by Susan May is described as a “can’t-put-it-down thriller” and most definitely lives up to its reputation.”
Jan
(Good Reads UK)

“Describing everything in such detail that I could imagine myself right beside the killer.”
Hannah Haines
(Good Reads USA)

“Recipe for Compulsive Reading: One cup each of horror, crime fiction, science fiction/science fact. Add a dollop of incredibly well written, fast paced, action packed narrative. Guaranteed to produce a satisfying outcome!”
Carol Seeley
(Australia)
Readingwritingandriesling.wordpress.com

“This is a great book, very fast paced and full of action.”
Emma J.
(Good Reads UK)

“Deadly Messengers is a total mind rush and real page turner that has mystery, suspense, and lots and lots of murder.”
Vanessa Vallejos
(Good Reads USA)

“I was literally feeling very anxious, heart racing, pulled in, and wanted to get to the end of this.”
Suzanne Robinson
(Good Reads Australia)

“A good thrilling book that definitely many would enjoy
.”
Amanda Weidensjö
(USA)
www.AmandaWeidensjo.ca

 
Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

TOBY BENSON PAUSED AT THE alley’s entrance to hoist the ungainly blue sports bag higher on his shoulder. Traveling here, the awkward, precious cargo had caused the bag to slip down his arm, forcing him to stop several times to rebalance the weight.

He stared up the dark corridor of gray shadows and fractured shapes, the towering buildings only allowing the barest slip of light to enter from the full moon overhead. Wall lights hung above the back entrances to the establishments illuminating a collection of trash containers, sentinels to the doors. A perfect location to film a horror movie; just add haunting music and the audience would be clued something terrifying was about to happen.

Toby didn’t notice these things. Somewhere deep inside, perhaps, he registered them on a subconscious level, understood he should be afraid or this wasn’t the place for him. If he did, though, the thought didn’t make it through to that part of his brain controlled by self-preservation.

He saw nothing except a strange mist settled over his vision like a swirling film on the surface of a pond. He heard nothing except the voice in his head, which he imagined came from God, spoken with such authority he couldn’t resist. The voice knew him, wanted to help him and guide him toward his destiny.

At the end of the brick corridor a doorway lay, guarded on either side by two tall commercial waste containers. Pieces of trash dotted about their bases as though rejected competitors that hadn’t made the cut—scattered bottles, empty cardboard fast-food containers, plastic bags, paper, and even what looked like a woman’s shirt. Wasteful. Thoughtless. Humanity’s flotsam discarded to become someone else’s problem.

Human beings were filthy creatures.

He noted the fleeting thought, but decided it was unimportant and unrelated to his future. To the mission.

The back door glowed a fluorescent green as though it were showing him the perfect entry. A signal he was on the right path.

Green meant go to him, but he didn’t fully understand why.

On the opposite side of the building would be the front door to Café Amaretto. Toby knew this area well, the entertainment section of the city, populated with myriad restaurants and clubs, ranging from small cafés to silver service establishments.

As he neared the doorway, the green intensified, the light piercing his eyes, making his brain feel as though it were pulsing. The alley, which had been dark upon his entry, now appeared bathed in green. This radiance, like colored breadcrumbs, gave him assurance this was his mission path.

This way. This is for you.

He’d followed the markers for the past hour, and they’d led him here. A streetlight, a car, a crosswalk sign—they were all just like the door. At first they would shimmer softly with a gentle hum of color against the darkness of night, then intensify as he neared, so he never doubted his path.

The voice buzzed again in his brain. He stopped and listened, tilting his head to the left, then the right, stretching his neck. The sound of his joints cracking like a sharp snap, felt like a mini-explosion in his skull.

Then he was moving again. The voice wanted him inside that door.
He
wanted to be inside that door.

Ten more steps and he would be inside and then—

Wait.

Toby stopped, his feet felt suddenly magnetized to the ground. He stared at the door a few steps away. Inside the door lay his future, the rest of his life, the thing he was born to do, an act to change the world.
So said the voice.

Doubts slipped into his mind, a million ideas and images circling simultaneously as the gray film covering his eyes disappeared.

Why did it matter? Why was he really here?

An urgent idea swept over him. He should be home asleep, or watching television, his girlfriend snuggled against him.

The word
desperate
hung before his eyes, ferociously demanding his attention, with the same fierceness the door beckoned. He
should
be home. Not here. Not in this alley. Not ten steps from that door.

Toby wanted to turn and walk away. His legs wouldn’t move, wouldn’t allow him control. His desire to move forward greater than his desire to back away and abort the mission.

Mission?

Where did that come from?

He didn’t go on
missions.
He went to work. He came home. He made plans for the weekend. Plans for dinner. Plans for the future. He thought about his past, only twenty-seven years in the making. He didn’t walk down dark alleys. Not like this.

Toby began to turn, to walk away, but the sight of the door caught him. The deep green flashing:
Enter me. Enter me, now!

He did want to enter.
Yes.
Be inside, on the other side of the door. The need, strong, intoxicating, overpowering him like a drug. The thought wended through his synapses, drilling into his subconscious until thoughts of his girlfriend and his life disappeared, until it became him and the door, and the thing stowed inside his bag.

Ten steps, he now took, the sound of his boots echoing in the hollow of the alley, the reverberations, earthquake loud in his skull. All doubts evaporated, his steps, the sound of destiny as he approached the door.