Dead Waft in December Thanos Kalamidas Dead Waft in December A Phantom Recorder Chronicle Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Dead Waft in December Dead Waft in December Thanos Kalamidas A Phantom Recorder Chronicle Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Dead Waft in December T he first flakes of snow hit the windshield like whispers from the grave. A sliver of a moon hung above South Ash Street, slicing through the fog with just enough arrogance to make it dra- matic. In the driver’s seat, she adjusted her rearview mirror. No one behind. But they never were, not when you needed to feel watched. She twisted the dial on the dashboard. The tape deck hissed, whined, then caught. Recording #2 – Subject: Tobias “Toby” Crane. Suspected: Human trafficking, arms dealing, acquitted twice, charges dropped once. Status: Breathing. Location: Unknown. Until now. Thanos Kalamidas The tape clicked into place like a bullet in the chamber. * * * * * * “I told you I don’t like the cold,” Crane said as he lit a cigar in the alley behind The Velvet Lark. “Makes my hands stiff.” “You think that’s why they’re shaking?” she replied, voice smooth as aged jazz and twice as bitter. She stepped out from the shadows. Her coat flared with the breeze, black wool, high collar, one gloved hand already tightening around the handle of the small re- corder at her hip. Crane turned, recognized her. Flinched. Like a man seeing his childhood ghost again, grown up and armed. “Well hell,” he muttered. “You’re her, aren’t you?” “That’s what they say.” She walked forward, slow and precise, like punctuation. “The Phantom Re- corder.” He snorted. “What are you, a fed with a flair for theatrics?” Dead Waft in December “I’m just the ending you earned, Toby.” He lunged, not with desperation, but with prac- ticed fluidity. The kind of man who’s been killing for so long, his body moved like a chess piece in a crook- ed grandmaster’s hand. She ducked under the swing, clipped his wrist with a blackjack. His pistol fell with a clatter onto frostbitten concrete. He gasped, reaching for his belt, but she had the barrel to his temple before he remembered how to beg. “I’m not here to kill you.” “That a fact?” “It’s a process. You’ll talk. And then the people will listen. I’m just the medium, Crane.” “You think people care what a dead bastard has to say?” “They care more when the bastard talks before the bullet.” She clicked the recorder on. A red light blinked. * * * * * * Thanos Kalamidas TAPE BEGINS Static. A shuffle. A cough. Then his voice. “Name’s Tobias Crane. I was born in Hammond, Indiana. I had a dog named Brisket. I broke my sis- ter’s collarbone when I was twelve, because I wanted the remote. Let’s not pretend I was ever sweet. I knew who I was by the time I grew hair on my knuckles.” He chuckled. Coughs again. “I moved flesh like it was furniture. I told myself they were already broken. Girls from Belarus. Boys from Venezuela. You only flinch the first few times. Then it’s just logistics. Planes. Trucks. Crates.” Silence. “I saw the inside of every courtroom from here to Phoenix. High-priced lawyers with black teeth and white smiles. Money cleaned better than bleach.” “Why?” she asked softly. “Because I could,” he whispered. “And nobody stopped me.” She said nothing. Dead Waft in December “And now?” “Now you’re a cautionary tale,” she replied. * * * * * * It ended in the same alley it began. A single round to the kneecap, first. Then two to the chest, one to the head. She didn’t savor it. She didn’t blink. She left the body slumped beside an overturned trash can. Lit by the neon pink flicker of The Velvet Lark’s sign. She placed the recorder on his chest. * * * * * * The next morning, the broadcast went out over pirate radio frequencies. The Phantom Recorder’s voice, neutral, steady, guided the country through Crane’s last confessions. It played over speakers in broken apartment buildings and on static-flooded AM car radios driven by men with tired eyes. No one claimed the body. No one missed him. She sat on the rooftop of a tenement building as the last of the broadcast faded out. Snow tickled her cheeks. A bottle of rye sat untouched beside her boot. Thanos Kalamidas She stared into the skyline, jagged and bleeding or- ange through the winter haze. * * * * * * “Recording #2 complete.” Target: Removed. Truth: Served cold. * * * * * * She didn’t cry. But she lit a cigarette with fingers that trembled just enough to remember Tobias Crane’s last words. “I knew who I was. Just never figured out who I stopped being.” And like every monster she’d meet after him, he spoke clearest just before the end. THE END Dead Waft in December Dead Waft in December A Phantom Recorder Chronicle Thanos Kalamidas Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi magazine Design: Thanos Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas Dead Waft in December A Phantom Recorder Chronicle Thanos Kalamidas , a multipublished writer, cartoonist and illustrator; born and grew up in a picturesque neighbourhood on the moun- tainside of Hymettus in Athens, Greece. Then his life took him to Berlin, Germany and to London, UK for studies. After a brief stay in Yorkshire he moved his life to Paris, France while working in Tokyo, Japan and in Cape Town, South Africa. In the last 25 years he became a permanent Scandinavian resident and recently, in his glorious sixth de- cade, he moved to a scenic village in the Växjö area.