BIO

KIERAN SHEA’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thuglit, Dogmatika, Word Riot, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir ...as well as in some beefy-looking anthologies most of which will make you question the tether of his shiny, red balloon. To his self-deprecating astonishment he's also been nominated for the Story South’s Million Writers Award twice without sending the judges so much as a thank you note. He co-edited the satiric transgressive fiction collection D*CKED: DARK FICTION INSPIRED BY DICK CHENEY and his debut novel KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY is out now from Titan Books. Kieran divides his time between 38°58′22.6″N- 76°30′4.17″W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W.

5/22/09

Bardsley, Abbott, Memorial Day

The Anthony Neil Smith's Hogdoggin' rally keeps chugging along and today it's Greg Bardsley's turn.
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Bardsley. Guacamole maestro, cad of crime. I'm positive he's pulled on his lead-tipped clown shoes and is looking to stomp somebody to death.
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Oh. And look at that-- Patti Abbott is joining the rally. The flavor deepens. Yes, that would be estrogen kicking your butt.
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Other things. It's Memorial Day Weekend...so thank a veteran. I do, just like I thank anyone who works for a union every, single Labor Day. Not the same thing by a long stretch, just sayin'. Anyway, do it. These men and women have laid it on the line and are still laying it on the line in our insane world, and they deserve a word of thanks.
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I don't know about where you live but 'round here this weekend is the biggest traffic clusterfuck you can imagine. Like yank your eyes out awful. People heading over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the beach, Naval Academy graduation with, oh wait, the President is coming? Fuck. See you Tuesday.
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Meanwhile across the Bay, Dick steams in his duck blind, drinking blood supplements confident in his narcissistic assessment that his multi-million dollar property has been scrubbed clean from Google Earth. Hood-eyed, mumbling the lyrics to Billy Ray Cyrus' "Could've Been Me" way out of tune...he takes occasional breaks, stomping around the brackish shallow weeds with a machete. Ticks wedge their insidious ways into the meat of his spindly white calves while his wife, Lynne, waves desperately at him from the porch. She begs him to come inside, but he ignores her. The sun sets and Dick glares at the darkening water. Not far away, just off the edge of Dick's eighty-foot dock, a nine-foot bull shark cruises like sentry... a million nerve endings in its snout processing input. Dick can't see the shark but he knows it's out there, just as sure as he can feel the weakening beats of his own heart. Fucker is just biding its time, Dick grumbles. Biding its time.