THE HUMAN BULLET, Benjamin Percy

It was right here. And if you looked at the country as a map – if you thought of Texas as the grip and Florida as the magazine clip and the Northeast as the barrel – America was a gun.

A new long short story by Benjamin Percy, and that lovely moment where you can just relax and be told a story by a master thriller writer. Especially one who’s having fun with the form.

Walker didn’t need anything. When his wife said, “What about a suit? You said you wanted to get fitted for a new suit. You said the old one was too tight,” he said, “Yeah, but when do I ever wear a suit?” and she said, “You never know when there’s going to be a funeral.”

Here’s the bit. Guy gets shot in the head. Wakes up from his coma six months later, convinced that it was his family who died when in fact they were uninjured and he was the only one who took a bullet. And he explains to his therapist that the last six months unfurled very differently – his family are dead and he became an avenging vigilante. His doctors insist that the bullet in his head lit up his brain for six months and he dreamed that entire alternate timeline in his coma. But that timeline is very, very detailed. Which is true?

A writer is in control of their tool when they can lay down a phrase like “the soft basin of his elbow” or “The same lies slid sideways.” I tore through it in a single sitting, and it held me on the precipice of its truth the whole time. Marvellous.

And a round of applause to this interesting outfit Neotext for putting this sort of thing out into the world.

THE HUMAN BULLET, Benjamin Percy (UK) (US+)