This author doesn’t have a huge number of stories on the site the quality is stunning. Different and intriguing. This is what Leila said about this one:
A killer in winter. That’s what we have here. Killing Frost by Sharon Frame Gay takes a disturbing look not only into an evil mind, but also at a possibility, no, likelihood–that the circumstance she aptly describes in this work of short fiction exists in reality. I’m already too close to spoiling it for the reader; and the questions most certainly will finish that bad work. So, I recommend that you read the story then take a look at Sharon’s replies.
Q: In the matter of form there are double and triple meanings scattered throughout the work, including the title itself. Laying it all in with the subtlety you displayed must have been a challenge. I see it as a job similar to handling explosives and hoping to hell that they don’t go off prematurely. How did you go about this?
Q: James is a bastard, to put it mildly. Even if caught, he’d be like one of those ninety-two year old concentration camp monsters who got to experience that which he routinely took from others. I won’t ask if letting him off the hook was difficult, but I do wonder if you believe that there are actual Jameses out there?
Leila Allison
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Sharon’s Responses:
Q: In the matter of form there are double and triple meanings scattered throughout the work, including the title itself. Laying it all in with the subtlety you displayed must have been a challenge. I see it as a job similar to handling explosives and hoping to hell that they don’t go off prematurely. How did you go about this?
ANSWER: Leila, I wish I could say I was clever enough to plant the double and triple meanings throughout the story, but alas, I am simply a scribe to my somewhat unusual characters. When I sit down to write, I am prompted by a word or a sentence, and away I go. I don’t come up for air until the story is finished, and seldom do I know how it will end, until it does. I did, however, give a bit of thought to the title. For the most part, I have some very inventive characters who stand behind my chair and whisper their tales in my ear. James Earl Frost was one of them. He manipulated this story, and me, then walked away. Personally, I am very glad he went back to the retirement home instead of sticking around in my study! Once, I felt a chill upon my neck as though a hand were placed there, and I thought perhaps he was becoming a bit too fond of me.
Q: James is a bastard, to put it mildly. Even if caught, he’d be like one of those ninety-two year old concentration camp monsters who got to experience that which he routinely took from others. I won’t ask if letting him off the hook was difficult, but I do wonder if you believe that there are actual Jameses out there?
ANSWER: I was sitting around one day, contemplating my navel, eating chocolate, and thinking about serial killers, which I often do. I wondered what happens to them when they grew old. If they managed to escape capture and punishment, where do they go? What do they do? Do they ever lose that blood lust? Do they repent? How tempting would it be to commit murder in the winter of their lives? Do they? How many nursing home deaths are actually murders? It sure would be easy to do. That’s when James wandered into my study with his can of shaving cream, uttered a deep, maniacal laugh, and started to talk. So yes, I absolutely believe there are aging killers out in this world, hunkered down in a hidden lifestyle, perhaps waiting to strike again.
This story was published by kind permission of Clarendon House Publishing and can be found in Sharon’s book Song of the Highway.
literally stories 
This is an excellent story on display this morning. i hope everyone who hasn’t read it gives it the time. And my thanks to Sharon for her first rate replies.
LA
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Thank YOU, Leila, for your thoughtful answers and for tiptoeing into James’ room at the retirement home, shaking him by the shoulder, and awakening a beast one more time!
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Oops – I meant to thank you, Leila, for your thoughtful QUESTIONS, but I have only begun to sip my coffee this morning. I appreciate you finding old James in the archives!!! Thank you!
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It’s all right. Having that James fellow lurking around in your character roster would be enough to unnerve Wonder Woman.
LA
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Excellent choice as always Leila!
Sharon – I enjoyed reading this again. There is one line that is a wonderful consideration and that is the line about the club of those who have never been caught. It’s a bit of an enigma though as surely you would need to die before anyone could say that you had never been caught. In fact it would have to be even longer than that, more an eternal thing.
You just wonder how many would belong to that club.
Hugh
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Thank you Hugh for your kind comments! You are right – it ain’t over til it’s over. And I left the door a tiny bit open for James. He may well succumb to his bloodlust at some point and then get caught. Or, who knows if some well meaning nurse’s aid doesn’t find that canister of shaving cream and inadvertently open it? Then, that would be another whole story. How do elderly serial killers cope with incarceration? Or maybe, just maybe, that canister was meant to be found. Maybe James is crying out for discovery to cleanse his soul. Or…and most likely…it is a game with him. Russian Roulette, so to speak, right to the grave!
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