The Writing Inertia

 ( Click this link to get the full novella on Amazon ) THE WOMEN WHO CAME BACK WRONG Two Bengali girls came to Germany to build a future. The dead had been waiting for them to remember the past. PART ONE THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW Rinky saw the woman before the train stopped moving. She was standing in an upstairs window of a ruined castle. Impossible, of course. The train was moving too fast, the castle was too far away, and the rain had turned the glass into a trembling grey mirror. Yet for perhaps three seconds—no more—Rinky saw her clearly. A tall woman. A long grey dress. A white face. And one hand raised against the window. Watching the train. Watching her. Rinky jerked backwards so violently that the elderly man beside her woke with a grunt. “What happened?” Moupriya asked. “Nothing.” “You jumped.” “I thought I saw someone.” “Where?” Rinky looked again. The castle had vanished behind wet trees. She pressed her palm against the cold glass. “Nowhere.” Moupriya stared at her for a...

 Chapter 1: The Smiling Corpse The stink hit Nadia first, a thick, cloying sweetness that clung to the back of her throat. It was a smell she knew, a charnel house memory from a decade past. Ten years, they’d said. Ten years since the city had woken to find its children snatched, its women butchered, all bearing the same grotesque grin – a lipless slash that mocked defiance. El Matadero, they called him. The Butcher. Dead, they said too. Buried under a slab of cold, unforgiving stone. Nadia pushed through the throng of onlookers, their faces pale smudges beneath the unforgiving Barcelona sun. The rookie, Garcia, a fresh-faced kid with nervous sweat blooming on his upper lip, bumped into her. “First one?” he rasped, his voice barely audible over the low murmur of the crowd. Nadia didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The scene sprawled before them, a tableau of grotesque artistry. The body, a young woman with hair the color of polished mahogany, was sprawled across the chipped tile of the ...