Inspection by DJ Tyrer
Please, let him telephone me, now. I need to know who Johann’s bringing. I need to know if the rumours are true – if he is coming.
“Ah, yes, hello. Speaking. Indeed. Indeed. Really. Thank you.”
Yes! Yes – yes – yes! He will be among them – I can’t wait. At last, I can show him just what we’ve achieved here in his name.
This is perfect.
#
Somehow, he is more charismatic, more mesmerising in person. To be in his presence feels like being in the shadow of a god – and, I’ve been given permission to guide him around.
Only… he doesn’t seem that impressed. I suppose he does have an entire country to run, of which this place is but one tiny part, but what we are doing here is vital – so vital.
He bids me goodbye and heads for the car that will return him to his plane.
“You are doing very well, my dear.” My heart melts at his words – he appreciates my efforts.
Then, he is gone, swept out of my life as swiftly as he entered it.
Time to return to my duties, my never-ending task – to earn the praise he offered me.
I click my heels and call the guards to me. We have a schedule to keep.
“Bring them,” I say and Helga nods. She has no trouble keeping the inmates in line, getting the job done.
Within minutes, she has a subdued crowd of women and children lining up in front of the doors, naked and shivering. Slowly, they shuffle in and I prepare to release the gas. I count them off: Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five.
DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing, editor of the View From Atlantis webzine, was a finalist in the 2024 Defenestrationism.net Flash Suite Contest, and has had flash fiction published in anthologies and magazines around the world, such as Alder and Ebony (Iron Fairy Publishing), Annihilation (Black Ink), Apples, Shadows and Light (Earlyworks Press), Drabbledark II (Shacklebound Books), Journals of Horror: Found Fiction (Pleasant Storm Entertainment), and Punk (Black Hare Press), issues of Sirens Call, Tigershark, and Worlds of Possibilities, and on Cease Cows, Reflex Press, The Flash Fiction Press, Space Squid, and Trembling With Fear.
