Lead(Terri Talley Venters) 82
Pb
[Xe]6s24f145d106p2

Lead

Roy’s palm sweated as he held his pistol in the dark alley. Donning his finest suit and top hat, he stood back-to-back with his opponent and waited. Waited to live or waited to die?

Recalling the events of the evening, he regretted challenging Sir Thomas. Roy’s adversary was heralded the finest shot in South Carolina and proved himself many times in this very alley, sending a handful of Charleston’s finest gentlemen to an early grave.

But as a gentleman, Roy had no choice. Thomas said the unthinkable and insulted the honor of Roy’s fiancée, Sarah. Roy immediately defended Sarah’s honor and challenged the English nobleman to a duel.

“Gentleman, begin,” Roy’s best friend and ‘second’ said.

Roy paced away from Sir Thomas.

One, two, three…

Time stood still as he paced to either his death, or his victory. He thought about running down the alley and disappearing into the dim light of the breaking dawn.

He’d live, but endure the brand of a coward for the rest of his life.

Four, five, six, seven…

He contemplated turning around early to shoot his opponent. He needed to outsmart the Englishman, but cheating would only lead him to the gallows to be hung for murder.

Eight, nine, ten!

Roy stepped wide to the left and quickly turned around. He pointed the pistol at Sir Thomas and fired with confidence. He watched Thomas fly backwards into the brick wall of the alley, landing dead with a lead bullet in his chest.


160 years later

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, look,” David said. The eight-year old jumped excitedly as he pointed towards the brick wall of Philadelphia Alley in Charleston, South Carolina, also known as ‘Bloody Alley.’

“What is it, Honey?” Mommy asked.

“I just saw a ghost,” David said.

“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. There’s no such things as ghosts.” She shook her head incredulously at the active imagination of her son.

“But the man said,” David referred to the ghost tour guide.

“He just said that to scare little boys and gullible tourists. You didn’t see anything,” she said.

“But, Mommy, I did. I saw a black shadow float across the alley and disappear into the wall.” David pointed to the digital camera.

“Were you taking pictures again?” Mommy asked.

“Yes, Mommy.”

He clicked the camera into view mode and tapped the back arrow. He held the camera up high so they could view the pictures together.

“You took a video?” she asked, impressed with her son’s technical gadget skills.

David tapped on the play arrow of the camera and played the video he’d just recorded of the alleyway. They watched in unison as the dark shadow of a man in a top hat flew back into the wall.

*****

This is 1 of 118 short stories in my Elements Of Mystery Collection. Each story is titled after an Element from the Periodic Table. All my 20+ published books are available everywhere eBooks are sold worldwide. Print books are available on Amazon. Free shipping with Prime. Please visit my website https://www.elementsofmystery.com/

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