UPDATE: TIME’S UP!!! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED!
It’s that time. I’m pleased to announce the opening of THE SURPRISINGLY ESSENTIAL FIRST PAGE CHALLENGE!
Before I get to the guidelines, I’m also pleased to introduce the contest’s co-judge, my very good friend Holly Burns, author of the wonderful and hilarious blog Nothing But Bonfires. I conned, er, persuaded Holly to participate because: 1) she’s British (I mean, they invented the darn language), 2) she’s an extremely talented writer (did I mention her wonderful and hilarious blog that you should already be reading?), and 3) I thought it would be helpful to have a judge from outside the publishing industry, the type of person who might pick up your book in the bookstore after reading the first page — in other words, THIS IS YOUR READER.
So a massive thank you in advance to Holly for agreeing to participate.
And now for the contest guidelines:
1) All may participate. First pages may be from your work in progress or one you invented solely for the SEFPC. I’ve learned my lesson from contests past, and am limiting entries to one (1) per person.
b) Leave your first page in the comments section of this post. People who subscribe to the blog via e-mail: please click through to the site and leave your pages on the actual blog. Entries that are e-mailed to me will not be counted.
4.6) First pages are limited to 500 words. Use them wisely. Paragraphs should be single-spaced with double-spaces between paragraphs (like how this blog post is formatted). Please do not get crazy with your formatting.
+) The preliminary deadline for entries is Wednesday at 5:00 PM Pacific time although for some reason I always end up changing my mind about these deadlines, so please keep checking back. Nominees will be announced whenever Holly and I have had a chance to decide upon them, and you will have a chance to vote on the ultimate winner.
£) Spreading word about the contest on the Internet is encouraged. I am ready to judge this contest. No matter what. Even a million entries will not faze me. My voice only quivered a little when I said that.
X) And the prizes! The ultimate grand prize deluxe winner will receive the satisfaction of knowing they have a seriously awesome first page, and will have a choice of a query critique, partial critique, 10 minute phone conversation, or one of my clients’ books. Runners-up will receive a query critique or other agreed-upon prize.
And that is it! Keep checking back for updates because these guidelines may be changed on a whim. Thank you again to Holly (here’s her blog one more time) and good luck!
Who has the most surprisingly essential first page? Let’s find out.
GO, LOOK IN THE MIRROR –supernatural thriller
CHAPTER ONE: MURDER OF A HOPEFUL MONSTER
The morning before his murder, Jack Fowler changed his mind and requested a minister.
He could have made the request an hour before they belted him to the gurney. A request they
couldn’t fulfill would have made the bastards squawk like decapitated chickens, so they’d be even
bigger bastards in the next day’s news blasts: CONVICTED KILLER FOWLER EXECUTED; MAINTAINS
INNOCENCE; FINAL REQUEST DENIED. And the whole media world would fill their pants with preening
indignation.
But where was the joy in that? Weren’t there better ways of payback?
Jack requested a Unitarian minister named Rick Forrest. Jack wanted a sincere, open-hearted
listener (they’d always made the best marks). And Rick was a man thoroughly weakened by empathy. He
too believed in Jack’s innocence and had turned him into the poster child for his campaign against
capital punishment (though he’d be surprised to know that Jack didn’t oppose capital punishment—he
only opposed it for himself).
Rick burst with compassion like a dandelion. He’d remember every word that Jack planned to press
into his soft soul, like keys in clay. Yeah, this punk—and they were all punks–would never forget.
He’d hear Jack’s voice, Jack’s words, over and again, no matter how hard he tried to forget, even
in his deepest sleep.
And, someday, Rick would wake up to see Jack’s promises unfolding. And he’d be helpless to do
anything about it. Half the world thought he was a lame crazy fool anyway, so who’d believe him? He
would hardly believe himself. Those kind never did. They explained even themselves out of
existence. What can you expect from a church that even let atheists join their tepid prayers! But
Rick was a different kind of atheist—faithless toward the existence of evil.
Rick took a seat on the other side of the cell. His sad smile matched the snowy circle of his
collar. And Jack said, like he had countless times: “First off, everyone knows I’m innocent.”
Then he repeated the exact same die-cast truth he’d told the cops, the homicide dicks, his
attorney, the private investigator, the prosecutor, the interviewers, the judge, the jailers, the
warden, every single guard, every bastard in the chain that led here: He did not did not did not
kill those two punks.
While Rick believed him, Jack knew his innocence was irrelevant in a way: Rick simply didn’t
believe the State had the right to put Jack down, no matter what he’d done. Human life was sacred,
the State had no right to make murderers of us all blah blah, he murmured softly, until he finally
finished his touchy-feely sermon so Jack could say, “I’m not done yet. I got something else I want
to talk about.”
Rick tipped his head, a curious boy with eyes like pale blue china: Did Jack, perhaps, wish to at
last kneel in prayer?
“I want to talk about my future plans. You know. After this is over.”
Breathing in the Clouds
A Novel
I called and coughed, unable to lift my arms – and my teammates took notice, responding with splashes and dunks, apparently enthralled by my attempt at humor. They never cared for my jokes before. My father’s sense of humor was powerful and unique, and I was fortunate enough to inherit it, in part, at least cerebrally. My delivery needed some work. Funny, at my most desperate moment, I managed to snap everyone to laughter, except for the coach, thank God. She realized my flotsam body was devoid of humor, and the snap that caused the hilarity was in reality the snap of the vertebrae in my upper spine.
Most teenagers worry about being lost in the crowd, drowning in a swash of lonely self-import, so I was not unique – until that particular day. At seventeen, I was already an accomplished swimmer and student; a standout as far as teachers and parents were concerned. My peers showed signs of acceptance as well, notwithstanding the fact that they were allowing me, a state-ranked swimmer, to drown in four feet of tepid water.
The coach splashed in feet first and parted the oblivious hoard, dragging me to the edge and hoisting me up onto the deck. I managed to choke out enough water to talk. “I can’t move my arms or legs.” She climbed out and knelt beside me, mumbling words that ran together like voices underwater.
I watched from the sides of my eyes as people scrambled and teammates cried – one guy even puked. My coach never left my side, reassuring me with more unheard words garbled by a flood of internal noise, like jet engines, firing inside my head. Tingling cold prickled over my skin for a few moments, flaring and flickering out like the descending embers of commercial fireworks. The rough stucco deck of the Gulf Coast Swim Club of South Florida was never kind to bare feet or legs, but that day it could have been a featherbed, except for the portion indenting itself into the back of my skull. That part I could feel, unfortunately, or fortunately, as it turns out. Pain is a welcome friend to those without feeling.
I played games in my mind while I watched the slow motion clouds float uncaringly above, and I imagined a hollow glass column surrounding me and towering up to them, gathering in the mist for a breath and a taste. I felt a strange privilege, breathing in the clouds and absorbing their indwelling peace. I was not afraid. I knew I would walk again – and I did, with merely a limp and an array of minor but persistent physical complications. The five-year rehabilitation struggle, albeit important, is not something I wish to relive or relate. I was fortunate. However, the glass column I erected with the help of the clouds, the one that protected me during my ascension and recovery, remained. It was so clear that I almost forgot about it, until people started tapping on the glass.
1864- Autumn
Under a round and frosty Tennessee moon rode a long line of men, their gray uniforms hidden under worn but magnificent red velvet cloaks which were then covered by black or blue greatcoats. They made no sounds that cavalry on the march usually made: no clatter of canteens or sabers, no songs, no shouted commands. Only the sound of hoofbeats filled the air, and if they had not been two hundred strong, a listener might have taken them for a large party of friends on their way back from a hoedown, too tired to be rowdy. But they were Roebly’s “Centaurs”, one of the three last partisan units in the Confederacy, and their leader had trained under Virginian John Singleton himself, the South’s most cunning guerilla warrior. At the head of the loose column rode Roebly himself, straight and tall on a fiery bay that he had captured from the Union supply lines two years earlier. On his right was his scout and guide, the only man besides Roebly himself in all that two hundred who knew where they were going. On his left was his trustiest lieutenant.
A third man rode up from the middle of the column. “Saw a darkie runnin’ around out there,” he said. “Gotta be escaped.”
Roebly stared straight ahead. “We don’t go after escaped slaves,” he said. “You know the rules.”
The man said nothing more, but rode beside him for a while, to show that he was minding the rules. When the messenger fell back out of earshot, Roebly turned to his lieutenant. “Keep an eye on him and his bunch. Make sure they do what they’re told.” The man nodded and rode back.
Roebly had a policy against chasing runaways. He could give all kinds of persuasive reasons why he had one: he barely had the manpower for guarding Union captives, let alone guarding anyone else, chasing slaves didn’t put food in his men’s bellies, what with the owners being stingy about rewards and all, a man on foot could find all kinds of hidey-holes where a rider would be taking his horse’s life and his own in his hands to follow. Ultimately though, he had such a policy because he was of two minds about the South’s peculiar institution, and his reasons for putting on a gray uniform had had nothing to do with defending it. This he did not say, because like his mentor Singleton of Virginia, he was a lawyer and knew better than to incriminate himself.
This raid had better pay off, he thought. We can’t survive the winter without supplies, and the people here can’t help us much now. Time was when a hit on the Northern supply chains brought the Confederate army in Tennessee most everything it needed: fed it, clothed it, armed it, horsed it. But Grant and Sheridan had taken Tennessee for their own, and there wasn’t much of a Confederate army left here any more, save the Raiders. Roebly’s job was easier in one way: he had nobody to resupply but his own men and the few civilians who still helped him, despite the risks.
“Did you see that?” The scout asked him quietly. Roebly looked up to see a giant, batlike shape flash across the moon. He had helped capture a Brigadier general once, been shot twice in places he couldn’t discuss with ladies, faced a gauntlet of Union sharpshooters waving around more Henry repeaters than the rest of Grant’s army owned, and survived a difference of opinion about moonshine with the stonecold, hard-disciplining Singleton. But even so, a fear frostier than the night air ran through him.
“I saw,” he said, keeping his voice calm for his men’s sake. That was something Singleton hadn’t needed to teach him. “Looks like it’s coming from out of the west.”
“What is it?” The scout asked.
“Damned if I know. Might be good to eat, though. Maybe that Creole from Louisiana, has a recipe for cooking it, in alligator stew.” The scout chuckled softly: the native Tennesseeans always got a laugh out of the quirks of the few raiders who came from other states. The joke served Roebly’s purpose though-it reminded the scout that there wasn’t anything so fierce a man with a good gun and a good horse couldn’t take it down. The Raiders had both-mostly courtesy of Abraham Lincoln and Phil Sheridan, Roebly thought with a nervous smile, and forced his thoughts back to the thing that circled overhead, black against a sky of midnight blue. Bats didn’t fly like that, in slow steady spirals that climbed higher and higher. Hawks did that, and eagles and vultures. But he had never seen bird nor bat of that size before.
The Barber’s Battle–fantasy–92,000 words
“You sent her to the hospital?” Elisha whirled to face his brother, the razor still in his fist. “My God, man, what were you thinking?”
“The midwife couldn’t help her, Elisha, and she’s in such awful pain, for the babe won’t come,” Nathaniel stammered, his pale hands clenched together. He ducked in the low door of the draper’s quarters, his fair hair brushing the carved oak of the lintel.
“But the hospital? That place is a deathtrap.” Elisha set his razor again at his customer’s chin, deftly shearing a narrow stretch of the full, and now unfashionable, beard. “What did she say?”
“Not so fast, if you don’t mind. I care to keep my chin today, Barber,” the draper snapped.
“Helena?” Nathaniel asked, his face a mask of anguish and confusion.
“No, you bloody fool, the midwife!” Elisha slapped the razor through the water basin and plied it again, forcing himself to slow down. Last thing he needed was to carve the ear off the master of the draper’s guild.
Sagging, his brother balanced himself against the wall, scrubbing at his sweaty face. “The babe’s turned, and wedged somehow. She thought the physicians—”
For a moment, Elisha froze. The draper glowered up at him from his best leather chair, but his brother’s wife lay in the hospital, contracting God knew what illness aside from her condition. Flinging down his razor, Elisha roughly dried his hands on his britches. “Don’t be daft—the physicians never enter the hospital if they can advise from afar.” He popped open the windowframe nearest and flung out the dirty water.
Glowering, the draper rubbed a hand across his chin and jerked it back with a cry of dismay. “You’ve not finished the job, Barber. I’ve still got half a beard!”
“Then you owe me half my fee,” Elisha told him. He snatched his towel from the man’s neck and spun on his heel, basin tucked under his arm. The razor he folded with a snap and gripped until his fingers hurt. “Why did you not come for me sooner?” he asked, dropping his voice to a murmur.
Instantly, Nathaniel straightened, taking advantage of his superior height. “I think you know why.”
For a moment, their eyes met, and Nathaniel swallowed, but gave no ground to his elder brother.
They had the same intense blue gaze though Elisha’s own hair was near black, and bound into a practical queue. Elisha straightened broad shoulders and flashed a furious grin. “Then let’s be off while your wife yet lives, and hope you’ve not killed her in the waiting.”
Nathaniel stumbled out the door as Elisha bore down upon him.
“I’ll be to your order about this!” The draper squawked, pushing himself up. “You’ll not practice in this city again.”
Rounding on the man, Elisha said, “I hope they’ll consider a woman’s life of more value than half a beard.”
“A whore’s life,” the draper answered, then stepped back as Elisha held up the razor still gripped in his fist.
100,000 words -Non-fiction.
Aged Out: Essays of a forgotten child.
Episode Seven
Blue Feet
It was on the school supply list but I was trying to ignore it. I was starting junior high school. Only babies like Patti need crayons.
Gosh, I did it; I broke the rule and let her come back. Everyone knows, gone is gone. You can’t let them come back.
I choke back and take a deep breath. I know the crayons had nothing to do with it, but who else could I blame. Just fate and rotten luck took my Patti. I won’t think about her or the stupid crayons. I take a pencil and scratch out the word.
Tomorrow is the first day of school; it’s a really big deal. I didn’t want my usual mousy look. I wanted to get in with a crowd, maybe… find some friends.
Filling my hideous green book bag, I pack notebooks, pencils and a dictionary nice and snug against two folders. All done and ready to go, I make one last glance at the supply list. I can still see that word. I know, no matter how much black I pour over it or pretend it isn’t there; I will have to have them for school.
I didn’t buy any crayons. There had to be a few of those wretched things around. Patti couldn’t have destroyed them all. I start my search in the toy box. I was right; there at the bottom, I find five and a half; that should be enough.
I roll them between my fingers. I smile thinking about Patti’s smile with her two front teeth missing. “I’m sorry” I whisper, I know she can’t hear me. My face is hot and red when I think of how I teased her. Why was I was so mean? It wasn’t her fault she had no front teeth.
Was it just two weeks, the last time I called her a tag-a-long? It had been two weeks since I heard that annoying, wonderful hissing every time she spoke. I’m not supposed to think about her ’cause it makes me sad she’s gone. It makes me afraid; someday it could happen to me. Crap! I was getting good at not thinking about her.
Squeezing the crayons, I know I shouldn’t break them, but I want to. I want to break them along with the memory, into little pieces, just like Patti broke her crayons. The air is thick like trying to suck a milkshake through a straw. Ma says it will get easier, the hurt will fade. I don’t know. Do I want it to fade?
There was six years between us. We must have looked like a miss-matched pair, her with smooth blonde hair fine as silk, fair skin spotted with freckles and me with my dark tan and black curly hair. When you are a kid, you don’t notice those things; sisters are sisters, even if they are just fosters.
FROM Medium Rare
Alana Dubois peered up into the opaque San Antonio sky, trying to get her bearings. When she’d gone into the storefront before the séance, the weather had been mostly clear, just a little rain. Now mist obscured the buildings on both sides of the street. Somehow it turned everything around–she couldn’t get her sense of direction to work.
Alana flexed her shoulders, shaking off the niggling sense of uneasiness. Just fog. In a few moments, she’d figure out where she was. She squinted at the sky again, trying to see the Tower of the Americas or San Fernando Cathedral. She couldn’t even hear the traffic on Commerce Street.
She pulled her red velvet cloak closer to her face, feeling the softness of the nap against her skin. Normally, she loved the sweeping contour the cloak created, but the wrap wasn’t as warm as it looked. The hood started to slip again, and Alana jerked it back up, shivering.
She wished she’d been able to find a parking spot closer to the storefront where the séance had taken place. But downtown San Antonio wasn’t known for its wealth of parking, even on a week night. Finding anything within a half mile had been sheer luck.
For a moment she thought she heard the scrape of footsteps behind her, echoing up the street. Her chest tightened uncomfortably.
“Oh, grow up,” she muttered. “What do you think it is? Ghosts?”
The corners of her mouth inched up, and she gave a breathy chuckle. Ghosts. Oh yes, that would certainly make her night. Her first real ghost after years in the business. Went along with the fog, and the hokey, side-show atmosphere of Garcia’s “séances.” Just her luck to have a ghost materialize now.
A quick shiver danced across her shoulders. Something had been different about the séance tonight, though. Not ghosts, of course, but something.
Oh get a grip. Alana tucked her purse more firmly under her arm. Purse snatchers or rapists were much more likely than ghosts, particularly when she was dressed like Little Red Riding Hood. What gang banger could resist?
She started walking again, more quickly this time, wrapping her hand tightly around the pepper spray attached to her keychain. She’d never used it, but there was always a first time. If only she could remember which way to spray it so she didn’t get a face full of pepper herself.
At the next corner she turned right, listening for footsteps but hearing nothing. Alana breathed a small sigh of relief. Overactive imagination. A real weakness in her line of work. She took a deep breath. Nothing had really happened at the séance tonight, and no one else was out walking on the street. She was just on her way home.
“Sylvia?”
The voice seemed to come from directly behind her, a thin rasping whisper, like dry leaves skittering across a gravel road.
A Widow’s Journey
non-fiction, 50k words
Emotion rocked me up and down while my family lived with the knowledge that cancer was in our midst. Emotion and determination were the glue that kept me together for the entire 11 months my husband was ill. I always said to myself, “No matter what happens, we’ll be okay.” I still believe that, even now, almost five years after his diagnosis. There are still moments of loneliness that transcend the grief, but it is true time has a way of smoothing and healing loss.
Memories of our life together aren’t forgotten, but remembered with a smile or reminiscent grin. I understand what it means when they say something is bittersweet. It applies to memories of a life shared and then broken apart. I feel we all heal in different ways and there is no prescribed way to go about it; it is each individual’s private journey. To some degree, we have the help of friends, family, and loved ones, but ultimately it’s our show.
It has been a difficult journey these many months and years. The second six months I found more difficult than the first. In the early days I was caught up with keeping myself busy with business, working, and making money. I had to deal with death certificates, lawyers and social security, then there were insurance claims and survivor benefits and hospitalization coverage. The invoices for the hospital tests the last months of Joseph’s life were still coming in the mail six months after he’d been gone.
ROCK OF AGES
Mystery – 85,00o words
Chapter One
“Mother taught me how to kill.” The voice rang like a melody carrying softly across a foggy valley. “It was easy. So easy, I would sometimes make a game of it. I could make them so very sick. For days I would let them think they were dying. They would make pacts with their various deities confessing their sins, praying mightily for redemption. Weak creatures, men are. When all signs of their impending mortality passed it would be mere hours before they would break their sacred agreements. ‘Stir just a little longer, Angel, I want the broth thick and succulent.’ “Mother’s broth always was. This was more then a skill you see. Mother had perfected it, perfected it to the realm of true art, an art that shouldn’t have died with her.”
The soft feminine voice with the thick Italian accent faded. Anxious eyes held each other. Long, trembling fingers trailed absently along the hem of the gypsy skirt. Only the soft tinkle of a distant wind chime broke the silence in the tent. Noses were long under dark sunken eyes and grotesque shadows hovered in silent brooding above the flames of the ceramic patio fireplace. Smells of sage and sweet grass lingered in smoky ringlets above their heads. Words of a tortured soul weren’t what any of them had expected.
Ryuu Takeshi – fantasy – WIP
Kaiten hurried down the hall toward the dining room, her slippers almost silent on the cold stone floor. Her father’s voice carried toward her down the empty hallway; tense, yet firm. “No, I will not do this thing. Uniting our families would bring dishonor upon us.” She paused at the open door, head bowed and waited.
“Come daughter.” Her father spoke low. “We have little time.”
“I am here Father.” Kaiten crossed the room and stood before her father. He sat at his desk, his face troubled. Behind him, the golden dragon of the family crest covered the wall, the tapestry threads shimmering in the lamplight. Sword Master Fujimoto stood beside her father, a frown on his face. A frown that meant trouble. She had seen his frown often enough during her lessons. He looked away, not meeting her eyes. Kaiten looked back to her father. “What would you have of me?”
“Lord Yoshinaka has sent word.” Her father picked up the small scroll and turned it about in his fingers. Kira paced on the perched next to him. She cocked her head and chirped at Kaiten. Lord Edo let the scroll fall to the desk. He turned to the hawk and stroked her gently. “Yoshinaka has decided not to listen to reason. He and his warriors ride this way even now. I do not know the outcome of this meeting but you must be protected.” He turned toward her.
“I will do my duty Father.” She raised her head, looked him in the eyes.
“I know daughter.” He met her gaze over the polished wooden desk. “I would not ask. You deserve better, even if he does rule Sendai.” Kira chirped from her perch and Lord Edo stroked her again. “You will ride with Master Fujimoto to Kyoto. In three days, release Kira. If it is safe for you to return, I will send word.”
“Master Fujimoto has trained me well. Let me remain with you.” Kaiten took a step toward her father. “Together we can stand against any foe. Do not send me away as if I were a child.”
“Aye, my daughter. You have learned well.” He reached up and brushed a stray strand of grey hair from his face. “I would be honored to have you stand beside me. However, you must do as I ask. You must be safely away from here if Yoshinaka cannot be persuaded.”
Kaiten stepped back from her father, bowed low. “I will do as you ask.” She turned to Master Fujimoto. “I will be ready to leave before dark.” Kaiten bowed again and strode to the door. She stopped and turned toward her father. “I will never see you again will I father?” He looked up from the paper he was studying and met her gaze.
“I do not believe so.”
(I tried to post this from my cousin’s computer and it wouldn’t take it, so please forgive me if it shows up twice!)
Fatman and the dwarf, comic hardboiled mystery (Elmore Leonard/Don Westlake-style), 85,000 words
Detective Mickey Viceroy hyperventilated through his nose, making a sound not unlike Ian Anderson’s flute in Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath,” and prayed that this wouldn’t be his final moment: standing in the wilderness, his back to a deep gully, with a latex-gloved hand clamped over his mouth, a gun in his ear, and a law-school acceptance letter in his pocket. He stared at the dwarf under the tree, who now had his full attention.
“You interested in hearing what I got delivered today, Viceroy?” The dwarf’s gravelly voice hurt Mickey’s ears. The grating tone was a surreal mismatch with her appearance: in that yellow cocktail dress, she reminded him more of Jessica Rabbit with a black beehive than of Jimmy Cagney as a thug. The beehive put him in mind of a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn just after it burns and explodes.
He had to focus. What did she want him to say? “Sure.” He took a deep breath and felt something poking him in the back, just under his ribs. Probably Turley’s gun. He thought he remembered it was a Beretta. Small caliber, but effective at that distance.
“Wanna take a guess?”
“–a new Bee Gees collection on audiophile vinyl?”
“Close, but no banana.” Whatever it was poked into his back harder. “Show him, Turley.”
“How’m I gonna do that, boss?” Turley sounded peeved. The giant was slow to understand in the best of circumstances. “I gotta keep ahold of this guy.”
“All right.” The dwarf made the end of the gun do little circles, indicating that Turley could forget about the command, but also making Mickey dizzy because his gaze couldn’t help following it. It was really too bad about her genetic condition. She could’ve been another Elly May Clampett, had Elly been squashed vertically between the plates of one of those contraptions that crushes cars into squares of scrap metal. And had her frontal lobes replaced with a crackhead’s.
“You already know we had a deal. We were expecting a delivery.” She cocked an eyebrow.
“Right. That took place as scheduled.” Hadn’t it? He was pretty sure he’d seen the truck pull up at the warehouse across from the police station and the usual activity take place. “So what’s the problem?”
He felt a shove from the back. “Youse knows what happened.” Turley was a bear with thinning pale hair, a broad square face, and a mustache that covered the scar on his upper lip that could mean a botched harelip repair or simply that he’d been bopped and tore it in a fall or a fight. He would make three of Mickey.
“I’m sorry, but I really don’t. Didn’t you get what was promised?”
In answer, a cloud of white dust rained down on his head and into his eyes and nose. Coughing, Mickey involuntarily beat at his own face, trying to keep from choking. Flour? Nobody was stupid enough to substitute white flour for street drugs. Probably not even the self-rising kind.
Destiny 1.0-fantasy/science fiction-104,000 words
Nations rise and fall. Seasons turn and ages end. Children live and
heroes die. Every person has the power to change the world, for better or for worse. What will be your Destiny?
–promotional campaign for Destiny 1.0
A large amount of thought went into what makes an online fantasy game fun to play, and then an even larger amount of effort went into putting it all in Destiny.
–The Big Lowdown game magazine
Loading… textures… sounds… characters… done.
Sputtering torches illuminated Nightfox’s face as he crept down the long, stone corridor. Little more than beacons in the night, the torches lining the walls helped more than hurt Nightfox. The long, dancing shadows between torches could have hidden several well-armed men, let alone a kanjii as adept at stealth as Nightfox. Matching the color of his coal-black skin and shoulder length hair, the leather boots, pants and open vest made Nightfox virtually invisible in all but the brightest conditions. The only splash of color was the silver studs decorating the vest and his cat-like emerald-colored eyes.
The clang of armor ahead announced a group of guards Nightfox would rather not meet. Pressing himself against the wall between two torches, Nightfox sank into the shadows. Four guards in armor stomped by in two rows of two, never looking in Nightfox’s direction.
As they thundered around the corner, Nightfox sprang from hiding and kept moving. With armor a deaf beggar could hear, the regular guard wouldn’t be difficult to avoid. And if Nightfox’s luck could hold out, Lord Pembleton, domineer of Cloudmoore castle, hadn’t bothered to hire any mercenaries to help guard the princess Nightfox was here to rescue.
Unfortunately, the problem was that Nightfox wasn’t lucky. To put it mildly, Lady Luck avoided him more than zombies avoided baths. Nightfox was once exploring an ancient cave that locals believed was brimming with hill giants at its deepest part. Even if there were hill giants, they are none too bright, and Nightfox could have easily avoided them. A tolerable risk if even half the legends of treasure in that cave were true. Plus, it was the dead of winter, and hill giants were none too fond of the cold, preferring instead to sleep until spring.
Nightfox had put the odds of actually encountering any hill giants at about a thousand to one. There wasn’t a single hill giant in the whole cave, not even any frost giants in their place. In fact, Nightfox found only one other living creature: a great horned dragon.
It was getting ready to hibernate on a sizable pile of gold. Dragons usually prefer sleeping on gold because of its softness; relative to them, anyway. Unfortunately, it was not deep in sleep at the time, merely groggy. Which is why Nightfox escaped with only minor burns. At least the legends about the monumental treasure were true.
Ghosts of the Lowcountry: 100K word suspense (not paranormal).
People took dying seriously in the South. Too seriously, it seemed to Warner Rutledge, Dice County Coroner for over forty years. Because he drank and smoked, he knew firsthand how easily death could occur. The old folks died from emphysema or cirrhosis while the young fools casually shot each other after a hot night of booze or drugs, and no-one raised eyebrows at gory car accidents on the rural highways.
But in Dice County, South Carolina, things were also a little different. The lowcountry had always prided itself on being distinctive, even in death. In addition to the vice-induced deaths that plague the American South, the Gullah residents of the lowcountry had died from lynching, malnutrition, overwork, and the heat. However, they also died from curses, evil spirits, and the hag. In short, everything that both the natural and spiritual world could toss at the good folks of Dice County.
Thus, it was on one hot night in early June that Warner Rutledge found himself staring at a corpse and contemplating a question that, in theory, should have been simple to answer.
Except it wasn’t.
“Died of undetermined natural causes?” Warner asked aloud. He looked at the latest body to enter his morgue. She’d died a few hours earlier in her home in Tallowtown, the Gullah settlement near the Barrow plantation on Long Green Island. The aged face stared blankly from the trolley as only a corpse could, but Warner had seen too many dead faces to be bothered.
He started to speak, but felt a hack coming. Warner coughed, pounded his chest, and swallowed the phlegm. Then he asked the question again, despite knowing the expected answer.
He even quoted Shakespeare to avoid answering himself. “To be, or not to be, that is the question,” he muttered. He picked up the camera and took several photographs of the corpse. Estelle Gary, an eighty-seven year old woman and a lifelong resident of Dice County, died after a rapid decline during the past few weeks.
So, was there anything unusual to be noted about her death? Warner scowled and took a photograph of the face, then one of the naked upper torso.
He closed the corpse’s eyelids. The photographs he’d just taken would show a peaceful face. Estelle Gary’s thin hair that grew in short white frizzles, the worn and wrinkled brown skin pockmarked with liver spots, and the slightly dour expression of death resembled the thousands of elderly deaths Warner had seen. If the deceased was white, or if Warner lived anywhere but the damned lowcountry of South Carolina, he would simply write dementia on the death certificate.
But this was Estelle Gary, a Gullah, a devout member of Mount Tabor A.M.E., and a believer of the seemingly mythical Root magician, Dr. Buzzard. Her family firmly believed she died from root magic. The County refused to accept root magic as cause of death. The unspoken compromise was: “Died of undetermined natural causes.”
Nope, things weren’t so simple in the lowcountry.
Tall, Dark and Exotic – 106,000
Prologue – Cambodia 1979
Through the darkness the child ran, dogging the woman’s heels. Short, angular legs that had never seen an ounce of baby fat, churned through the sweating foliage. The damp heat tightened, stealing her breath as the tropical jungle closed around her.
“Mama,” the child whispered and the faint sound of her own voice was comforting when everything around her breathed death. She reached for the hand her mother offered, holding with desperate strength to the only person who might save her from the evil lurking in the shrouded Cambodian night.
A monkey screeched, twigs snapped and only her mother’s grip kept her from bolting off the path as what sounded like footsteps ranged through the jungle.
“It is not the Khmer Rouge, little one,” her mother soothed in careful French, the language their captors didn’t understand.
The child bit her lip, the sharp pain making her forget the ache in her side but not what hid in the dark shadows. She fought the fear, squeezing her mother’s hand, knowing that it would take both their strength to survive, just like it always had.
But the night was long, the fear unrelenting and the child could only endure so much, she stumbled. With a strained gasp, her mother scooped her up but staggered and almost fell before finding footing on the path’s uneven treachery – the child held her breath and prayed.
Exhausted, the child clung to her mother’s sharp, hunger-etched shoulders, eyes wide and unblinking as she scanned the flat depths of the night.
They ran on and on, forever, or so the child thought. They stopped only when exhaustion saturated and weighted their limbs and forced them to rest. Then, when memories and fear overwhelmed the woman, the child took her mother’s hand, pulling her up with her small body, willing her forward.
And they ran, away from everything that was once familiar, away from everything they had once loved, away from the ruins of a life they left behind.
Don’t Look Back – 70,000 words
Cyndi Whitmore brushed her long, tangled, auburn hair out of her face and wiped an errant hand over her tired eyes. Her butt hurt. The back of her thighs were asleep and tingling like someone held a lit match to them. The bus ride from her small hometown of Elko, Nevada into Las Vegas was a long one and every inch of her body felt the negative effects.
Across from her, an older lady, with a chicken neck and brittle gray hair, bit into a thick peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Cyndi’s mouth filled with saliva and her stomach burned at the sight. She didn’t particularly like peanut butter, it was full of fat, but the last morsel she’d had to eat was long gone and her belly was trying to gnaw through her backbone.
She would have had more than an apple for breakfast, if she’d known that by nightfall she would be homeless and practically destitute. What little money she did have couldn’t be spent on fripperies like fast food. It was just as well, she thought, trying to still the angry tears burning behind her gritty eyelids. As soon as the bus made it into Vegas and she could call Jimmy, her boyfriend. He would come after her and make everything okay.
Jimmy would be there for her now, when she needed him most. He would understand, because he knew all the secrets she kept hidden from everyone else. That her mom was a lush and her good for nothing stepfather was a creep who’d had designs on her since before she’d sprouted boobs in the seventh grade. Only through sheer determination had she managed to hold him off this long, but today he’d finally caught her alone.
Cyndi shuddered as she recalled the stench of his foul breath and the sharp ache of his fingers biting into her arms. He’d caught her right before supper and pinned her back against the faded flowery wallpaper in the kitchen. One large, beefy hand covered her mouth, while the other pinned her arms to the wall above her head.
Shock created a freeze-frame of her brain and seized her body in a state of stasis. No words were spoken. Only the harsh sound of her own heartbeat echoed in her ears, accompanied by his panting inhalations against her throat and the disgusting feel of his tongue moving over her skin. Against the softness of her hip, she felt the growing evidence of his twisted desire.
Panic replaced shock and took over. It clawed at her gut and burned in the pit of her stomach. Alone together in the house, Cyndi knew that this time nothing would interrupt his plans. She kicked out, surprising him with a knee to the groin. He howled and doubled over, holding his crotch and cursing.
Terrified of what would happen to her once he recovered, she ran. There was no use in going to her mom. She’d never believed Cyndi before and she wouldn’t start now.
The Oddballs – Armed Robbery (MG WIP)
Chapter 1 – Don’t call me Lefty
There was something weird about Robert’s left arm. It looked fine. It could bend all right. It could even lift two big bags of potatoes at the same time. But it didn’t always do what Robert wanted.
Like last week, when Robert wanted to play baseball. He asked his left arm to put on a glove. It didn’t. He told his left arm to put on the glove. It didn’t. Then he begged his left arm to put on the glove. Instead, his pinkie poked him in the stomach twenty times.
Now, having a left arm that doesn’t do what you want is bad enough, but it’s even worse when nobody believes you.
Two days ago, it got really bad. First, his left hand flew up and jiggled in the air every time the teacher asked a question. Then, when the teacher finally picked him, his pointer finger tried drilling up his nose. Robert twisted backward and slammed into two desks. It got worse after that. Principal Scott give him three detentions: one for bad behavior, and two for fighting – with himself. As for the bathroom incident…well, Robert didn’t talk about that anymore.
Making friends was almost impossible. Even his parents wondered if he was crazy, especially when he yelled at his arm to stop sticking broccoli down his pants.
Today, Robert wanted to go for a bike ride – a nice, normal bike ride.
“Left arm,” he said, “if you behave yourself today, I’ll put you in a sling tomorrow. You can laze around all day.”
The arm didn’t do anything special. Robert moved it back and forth and it did what he wanted. He hoped that his arm was going to act nice.
Robert got on his bike and started to pedal. He rolled out of his driveway, down the street, around the corner and into the park. Everything was going great. The arm was doing what it needed to do, and Robert was having fun.
Suddenly, his left hand let go of the handlebar. The bike swerved and Robert crashed into a row of bushes. He landed hard against the low branches. He was scratched and a little sore, but most of all he was angry at his arm. “Why did you do that?”
Robert’s left arm wasn’t listening. Instead, it was grabbing dirt and branches and pulling Robert further into pointy thorns and smelly leaves. Robert could feel a dozen branches sticking into his arms, chest and back.
“Stop it!” yelled Robert. “I want out of here!”
Two neighborhood kids walked past. They saw Robert fighting with himself in the dirt and just kept walking. “He’s doing it again,” one whispered.
While Robert watched the kids scurry away, his left arm stretched under one of the bushes and pulled something out. Robert looked down, just as his arm pulled back a big bundle of money.
Parchment of Roses
She stares uncomprehendingly at the Notice To End Tenancy, holds it in her hand like an entropic text. It is composed of financial hieroglyphics and it has a greater power than all of the magical texts in her library. Its final incantation is homelessness.
She sips coffee, looking at the light of the clouded sky, how silvery it is, wondering what will become. She snaps a picture of a fading rose on the window sill, and transfers it to the computer where she draws fiery lines like fireflies leaving trails on the soft pink lips in the core. The stylus a burning ember, she sears the tips of the labyrinth of folds that the petals are while she scores them with light. Tracing the delicate trails with her lit sparkler, is there a path that she could perceive if she could only fathom it in the dying fragrance of the blossom? Perhaps this tracing is an oracle of prophetic signs on dusty, fading petals that can be read even as they are crumpling inwards, and dropping to the floor.
If you go deliberately into the uncertainty of the darkness will you find the light? Will you find answers to the direction that is hidden but already opening out? Or is there no direction but what is willfully asserted onto the crumpling inwards and emblazoned in the clouds of the morning sky like a scroll of truth?
Even as she flees she is being drawn into the molten core of what is dissolving. But she’s being dramatic after a sleepless night and the worry that encroaches her vision like the smudged glass of the window she looks out of.
She finishes her large mug of bitter, aromatic espresso coffee and takes it to the kitchen to rinse. There are no answers, only questions. This is the mantra.
The house is on the market. It has come to this, and she is moving, but does not know where she shall go. Her home is crumbling and she is losing her beloved abode. She thinks of the protection of shells, exoskeletons, abodes. Could one live without a shell of protection? Live under the open sky emblazoned with the starlit lanterns of the Milky Way? What is a home, a house, a place to live? How does a home express the architecture of our souls? These questions flow as she begins the arduous process of packing up her life.
Or has she already left, fled into exile, been broken by the isolation that strangers are accorded, and is trying to return?
Has the breaking apart of what is warm, enclosing, protective already happened, and was there a fleeing of the shards of that broken shell for a new place only to turn and re-seek what was lost?
Where does the compass point now? How is she to read it when its heavy glass is fogged and the pointer spins uncontrollably? If there is no centre, how can the world revolve? Without a home, a grounding, what orbit does one spin in? Empty boxes pile up in all the rooms, some still flattened, some already made, waiting to be filled with the accumulation of hers and the menagerie about her.
Sacred Cycles-fantasy-228,000 words
He emerged from the Tent of Celebrations like a drowning man breaking free the stranglehold of a kraken, in one step crossing from warmth and incense and lurid brazier-light to darkness and cold stars and the cold stone floor of the Vythrun vale, his body still hot from the stroke of the fleshgrind, his ears ringing with peals of laughter and long-practiced sighs. A belch emerged from his gullet, sour with roast pig, garlic and wine.
The chill of spring slapped his chest and face, steadied for a moment the reel of his debauch. Lightning spat across the Kodazakan range south, rapid white-blue eruptions rendering stark its mountainous contortions. The storm had not enclosed the vale of Vythrun yet, the stars testimony to that, but he could feel its bite in the breeze: soon. And in the wild wastelands of Remdal, so he had always been taught, storms carried the shroud of death, scoured the earth for the unwary and the damned.
_I feel vile._ Truly he did: a throbbing ache in his groin, the churn of poor digestion, the hammering in the nape of his skull—yet he also he felt powerful, buzzing with bestial energy. The whores of Remdal were well trained, dung-husks compared to the perfumed courtesans of Alo Aya or Zalliszaal, but well trained all the same.
_…vile…_ It was just that little voice that said it. The little voice of the man he had been before.
The tent flap opened and a figure stood in the barrier between dark and light, barrel-chested and heavily muscled, clad only in expensive silk trousers stolen just this morning. The tent’s meager light revealed a thickset red beard and scars crisscrossing the torso, the hint of sparkling eyes.
“Tyvus Catio, my friend,” the man said, “there are still plenty here to work our way through yet.” He let the canvas flap fall, rendering again night’s dominion.
_Such are the bonding rites of despicable men_, Tyvus thought, that cursed voice whispering as it ever did. He shook his head, though his companion could not see it. “I needed a piss.” To give credence for the lie he began to untie his trousers. He could squeeze a bit, enough to satisfy the violent curiosities of Havalgan Dalcar, King of the Remdals.
Havalgan laughed lustily. “Aye, I shall join you. It aggravates the stroke to feel blocked up.” Tyvus heard the man sigh and unleash a stream onto the ground. He wagged his own phallus and a few drops sailed, nothing more, though the ache in his groin gave a snarl.
“Vaktamon, my Galatihan friend. That was much needed.” Havalgan opened the flap to the tent. “Wait here.”
Middle School Fantasy 60,000 words
Tiny Mitchell began to worry when she heard the car roar up the driveway of her house at 35 Sandpiper Drive. “Oh, dear,” she mumbled and stood on tiptoes to peer out the window into the darkness.
She pushed clumps of her thick black hair out of her face and stared at the car, a mixture of curiosity and fear shining in her large green eyes. The headlights lit up the squiggly purple marks on her arms. She touched their rough and bumpy surface and the designs stood out like snakes.
When her father’s car engine sputtered to a halt, and the driver’s door slammed shut, a
thought occurred to her. Maybe she shouldn’t tell her secret tonight. That’s when her finger started to itch. It itched even more when she thought about telling her parents and what they’d think when they found out.
Before she could decide, her father rushed in the front door, briefcase swinging and coattails flying. Just like everyone else in the family, he towered over her and his mouth pulled into a scowl. He smelled of Old Spice and had gray eyes that always seemed to be
roving around, as if he might catch something bad happening.
By then Tiny’s hand itched all over. That itch told her something very strange was about to take place.
She wanted to blurt her secret out, but that couldn’t be the right thing to do, and Tiny always tried to do the right thing. “I have to ask you something,” she said and followed her father down the hall.
“Well hello to you, too! What is it now? I have work to do. Work, work, work!” He had a really deep voice that made her feel even shorter when he shouted at her.
He made a quick right turn and stepped into his office. “You know the stock market took a dive today and that means I’ll have even more work to do tomorrow.” He closed the door behind them.
“Sorry to bother you, but could you squeeze say sixty seconds out?” she said very quickly. “I need to talk to you.”
Fatigue and stress prickled in his eyes. “Okay, so talk.”
“Um–er–” She put her weight on one foot and then the other. The words she’d been getting ready to say buzzed in her ears like frantic bees but they would not come out. With no idea of how to get to the subject, she stared around the room at the red plaid curtain by the window and the blue corduroy couch and her mind went blank.
“What is it you want to say? Speak up.” Her father hurried around the piles of books on the floor, and Tiny followed behind.
“There you go clamming up again. Haven’t we discussed how important it is to say what you’re thinking?” Her father whispered something that sounded like Fitzbibbledibble.
Heir of the Line
“It’s time to go,” Elesi said, her voice calm.
High Protector Balunor snapped open his eyes and sprang from the chair where he’d been dozing. “Time? Now? The baby?”
Elesi laughed, then grimaced slightly as she tried to sit up in their bed. “Yes, the baby.”
“Here, let me help.” Balunor reached down and scooped her up in his arms.
“Put me down, you silly man. I can still walk.”
“I can carry you.”
“Yes, you’re a fine, strong man, my love, and I’ve no doubt you could carry me all the way to Bargas and back. But your armor does make lying in your arms a mite uncomfortable.”
He gently lowered her to her feet. “Sorry, forgot I was wearing it.” It was true–forged by a good ferromancer, his armor was far lighter and thinner than ordinary steel.
Jesana was already at the birthing room getting things ready when they arrived. After he helped Elesi onto the bed, Jesana shooed him from the room. “Out with you. This is no place for a man.”
Placing a kiss on his wife’s cheek, he said, “I love you, Elesi.”
She smiled. “I believe that’s what got me into this situation.” She pointed her chin at the door. “Now, go on. Next time you see me I’ll have our son in my arms.”
#
When the door to the birthing room opened, Jesana came out, her face lined with worry.
“What’s wrong?” asked Balunor.
“She’s breech,” said Jesana, “and as I was trying to move the baby around, I found the cord has twisted around his neck several times.”
“Is he alive?”
To Balunor’s relief, Jesana nodded. “Omnimancer Selima can see inside the womb, which will make it easier to untangle him. Go get her.”
Selima would be in the queen’s chambers. He began to run, his armored boots ringing out with every step.
Elesi was not the only pregnant woman in the Inner Keep. Queen Anutia’s child was not due for another forty days, but her pregnancy had been difficult. She had been confined to her bed since the beginning of summer, with Selima almost constantly at her side to ensure the health of both mother and child. Elesi had mentioned frequently how fortunate she felt that her pregnancy was easier than the queen’s. Now Elesi was having problems, too. Balunor felt a stinging in his eyes and he blinked back tears. Elesi would be all right. She had to be.
As he approached the queen’s chambers he steadied his breathing. It would not do for a Protector to appear as a panicked child. Reaching forward, he pressed his palm against the shimmering air that marked the edge of the multilayered wards around the queen’s chambers. As he said the first of the secret keywords to open a portal in the wards, they flickered in acknowledgement. When he finished the keywords, there was a small pop as the shimmering stopped in front of him.
Tender Mercies – paranormal romance – WIP
Rogan stopped short, ear to the wind. He was certain he heard a sound. His boots crunched on the leaf-strewn forest floor as he walked toward whatever it was he had heard. It had better not be a hunter. Hunters dismissed his signs and hunted without regard on his property all the time. He clenched his jaw into a determined hard line at the thought. Crisp autumn air crackled around him as he breathed in the sharp, woodsy atmosphere.
There! He heard it again. Without a doubt, it came from somewhere up ahead. He increased his pace as his eyes scanned the surrounding area. A tiny movement caught his attention through the glare of sunrays bouncing off leaves of buttery cream, persimmon, and ginger. He put up a hand to shield his face, than narrowed his eyes to identify the source.
A grey wolf trapped in a hunter’s snare lifted its matted muzzle to stare at him with empty eyes from under a shadowed blanket. He moved forward with deliberate slowness making no sudden movements. The wolf appeared near death and in apparent agony. Blood coated its fur and its leg was snapped, bone protruding. Some animal had seen this wolf in its vulnerable state and attacked it. God damn, Freeman’s, those inhumane bastards! They were setting traps on his property again. It seemed the wolf had fought hard, but its life remained in question.
He approached with caution. The wolf made no effort to rise or defend itself. The wolf merely lifted its head, dead eyes pleading for release from pain. Upon closer examination, he knew she would undoubtedly die slow from her wounds. It was not in Rogan’s nature to kill animals but the suffering he saw in her eyes moved him to want to end her agony.
Rogan pulled his Kabar from its sheath and knelt beside her. He tested her resolve to die by touching her blood matted, fur. She did not growl or move. He placed one hand firmly behind her head and drew his blade across her neck. Her lifeblood poured out in a thick stream of crimson. Relief ignited in her eyes seconds before all emotion extinguished forever.
A deep growl from within the woods made a tingle of uneasiness curl up his spine. His head swiveled to the left to find a lone wolf with bright eyes and gleaming teeth bared and in attack stance. Time seemed drawn out as he watched each tiny shift of its stance. That wolf would eat him alive. He could see the hate burning in its vengeful eyes.
ELFIN GOLD – Fantasy – Work in Progress
Kohl had never shared company with an elf before. There’s a first time for everything, he assured himself, drawing the mug to his lips to sip the hardy brew. He was trying his best to appear nonchalant, but his insides were fluttering like a swarm of butterflies.
All eyes were on the blue-haired traveler. Yet, the tavern’s patrons had quickly huddled off in groups, chatting among themselves. They were suspicious, watching the elf’s every single move. Strangers, however, were welcomed in the tavern. But it was not every day an otherworldly being wandered into town.
Kohl quietly drank more ale, recalling how he’d been prodded by his Master to approach the elf. They’d been watching from a table in a darkened corner as the elf took a seat at an empty table when Altman Floodwaters flashed him a sly grin.
“Ah! Luck’s in our favor tonight, boy.” Altman inclined his head toward the blue-haired travler. “I’ll bet the wayward elf’s carrying a small fortune in his pouch.”
Kohl glanced over at the elf. Even though he had a regal essence about him, the elf was dressed in leather breeches, a simple tunic and an unadorned cape. He appeared to be just another weary traveler on the long, winding road to Asgarden. Yet, what caught Kohl’s attention were the elf’s stunning, usual features.
From his corner seat, Kohl could make out the elf’s eyes were pitch-black and his hair gleamed in the tavern’s lantern light. It was a deep, rich blue and cascaded down his back like a river stream. The elf was mesmerizing. Something in his appearance stirred Kohl’s curiosity.
“Do you really think he’s wealthy?” Kohl asked. He watched, spellbound, by the elf’s graceful, fluid movements as he removed his cloak. A twisted-knot necklace around the elegant man’s slender throat twinkled as it caught the light. Even at his viewpoint, Kohl detected the necklace was a fine piece of jewelry, unlike any the local metal smiths of the town could craft.
“Granted, he doesn’t wear fine clothing, but I’m sure he’s got a pouch of gold stashed somewhere on him.” Altman nodded with a toothy grin. There was a familiar glimmer in the older man’s eyes. His Master was up to no good, especially if gold was involved. It’s not the first time…nor would it be the last. Kohl’s gut clutched with nerves. He exhaled a heavy sigh.
Altman laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “It’s time to earn your keep, boy.”
Kohl knew how the game was played.
“Make yourself useful. Go over and befriend our elfin traveler,” his Master commanded, giving his shoulder a firm squeeze.
Kohl swallowed hard. “B-but what if he uses magick and turns me into—”
“Great bullocks! Just be friendly to the elf. Coax him out to the stable and I’ll take care of the rest. Got me?” Alman’s guff tone made him quiver.
Reluctantly Kohl nodded.
***
Sabrina Luna
thebellaluna2@yahoo.com
Triangles
Have you ever noticed how awkward a shape triangles are? Nothing smooth or equal; all sharp points poised to stab or wound. And three is an awkward number as well; no matter whether it’s sides, wheels, or friends, it doesn’t quite work. It’s an odd number. Unequal. Unfair.
I formed this particular triangle by accident. It wasn’t meant to be a triangle at all. No, the shape I’d always envisioned was a line, a simple, straight line, connecting two souls in an unbreakable bond.
I sound pathetically romantic, I know. I accept that now. No one looking at me for a moment could not realize how desperate I have been.
Yet a year ago, on a wet November afternoon, the world, for once, opened up to me with shy, gentle possibility.
It was a dreary day, already turning to dusk, and sleeting with rain. I was inside, standing at my front window as I often am, a cup of cold tea cradled forgotten in my hands.
A stream of students from the local comprehensive moved past me in a dark blur, littering our soggy patch of garden with empty crisp packets. Their uniforms are awful, black hoodies and baggy trousers; it makes them all look like gansters. Brian agrees. Neither of us can fathom what the Educational Authority was on about when they chose such an ill assortment of clothes.
One of the boys detached himself from the crowd and slouched over to the house next door. It was Jamie, my neighbour’s son, and I watched while he fished for his key without success, and then hopelessly rattled the front door handle. He slouched back out onto the pavement, kicking at some discarded rubbish with his trainers.
I knew his mother Alix (why the i?) didn’t return home from work till sixish, so Jamie was on his for two hours at least. I watched him and felt something start in my middle and rise up; I don’t know whether it was excitement or fear. Perhaps it was both, or something else altogether. Then I grabbed my umbrella from the stand and opened the front door.
“Jamie! Are you locked out?” I called, my voice pitched just a bit too high. “You can come wait here, if you like.”
I watched indecision flit across his boy-man features; I knew what he was thinking: What was preferable? Two hours in the rain or two hours of conversation with an old bat like me?
Not that I’m so very old. I’m forty-six. But to eleven-year-old Jamie, I’m sure I appeared ancient and really quite dull.
Finally he shrugged and said, “Yeah, all right,” and dragging his too-large feet in that peculiar way young boys have, as if they haven’t grown into themselves yet, he came into my front hallway.
For a moment I was quite taken aback by my decision–and his presence. He was so large, so young, so male. Even my husband didn’t affect me the way Jamie did.
Murder on a Moonlit Sea – Mystery
Anya did not see the two figures as they approached her door. Their presence blocked the cool light that had been filtering in, and the new darkness caused her to turn and look. The window, foggy from her warm breath, showed only a blurred image of two hulking, unkempt men. Suddenly her door opened. The two men – one Anglo, the other darker with long, scraggly black hair – scooted close. Close enough that she could smell the stench of old alcohol and tobacco as it overwhelmed even the nauseating body odor.
“Hey B*tch,” the man with stringy dark hair said, as he loomed directly in front of Anya, blocking her exit from the car.
She looked at him with an even, expressionless gaze, then turned to his companion. Finally, without a word, she faced away from both. She had seen them, considered their threat, and simply dismissed it.
“She must be shy,” said the other.
“Or maybe she’s just got a stick up her ass.” The man leaned down and brought his foul mouth near Anya’s, the reek of his breath assaulting her nose, even her skin, as a toxic chemical.
“That right, baby? You too good to talk to us?”
“She thinks she is man. Look at her. She’s making fun of you.”
“That what’s going on here, baby? You tryin’ to make a fool out of me? Think you’re too good?”
“I think we should teach her how good we really are.”
The Anglo reached forward, his dirty fingers greedily grabbing for Anya. She felt the bite of his jagged nails through her coat as he clutched her forearm. He moved past the other man, who gathered up behind him like a dark, supportive wind, urging him forward.
AfterQuest – Fantasy
Kenny reread the campus newspaper ad in his hand and checked his watch. “Ken, Amber, Elsie, Meet Tuesday, 4pm. Behind the library. Matt”. He was early and hoped he was at the right place. Matt probably knew his way around the library better than Kenny did. He sat and tapped his foot against the leg of the bench and he checked his watch again.
“You’re here!” a voice called from beside him.
He looked up; Amber dropped onto the bench, blond hair settling around her shoulders. “Is it safe to hug you? Is your back all right?”
“All better,” he promised. “We were worried when you disappeared, but the Elves said you’d gone home. Did they warn you before you went?”
She nodded. “Chrendalar asked if we were ready, but he didn’t give us any time for goodbyes. When did you get home? Is Elsie back, too?”
“He sent us back a tenday after you. I hope she’s okay, I mean, her arm was better when we left, but she’s still gotta be messed up.”
“Now that I’m back, it seems like a dream, like none of it was real. We couldn’t have dreamed the same thing, could we?” Amber looked up at him, her eyes searching his for some sort of answer.
“Dreams don’t do this.” Kenny turned his back to her and lifted his shirt. She gasped and he felt her fingers brush against the freshly healed skin.
“How did they do this? When we left, you didn’t have enough skin left to stitch together. They made it beautiful.” Her voice caught. “I’m so, so sorry we didn’t get you out of there sooner.”
“I’m just glad you got me out when you did. I wouldn’t have lasted much longer. I still have nightmares about Trolls.” He pulled his shirt down to cover the network of scars that formed an elaborate lace pattern on his dark skin. “Coach said I almost lost my scholarship for missing spring practices. Until he saw me play when I got back. He said he likes my aggressiveness now.”
“That’s good, then.”
“I haven’t hurt anyone yet, anyway.”
“Kenny? Amber?” Matt’s voice didn’t sound sure. They looked at each other uncertainly for a moment then Kenny stood and wrapped Matt in a bear hug.
“Man, am I glad to see you!”
“Me too.” Matt returned the embrace. Over Matt’s shoulder, Kenny saw a familiar figure approaching. “Elsie! You’re back, too.” Matt turned and they pulled her into the hug.
“Thank you for putting the ad in the paper,” Elsie said to Matt. “I didn’t know how I would find you.”
“I’m glad we’re all back at school,” Amber said. “I don’t know if I could deal with everything on my own.”
“My parents didn’t want me to, but I had to try and find you,” Elsie answered.
“How’s your arm?” Matt asked.
Elsie held out her Elven-made prosthetic. It looked real, but Kenny knew the bones and nails were made from Elven silver.
Marcia Keyser
949 Euclid Avenue
Berkeley, Ca 94708
510-525-4820
jerrykey@earthlink.net
510-525-4820
This is the beginning of my young adult novel “Run!”. It takes place in the 1930’s. Marcia Keyser
Run!
It was dark outside. I was huddled beneath the covers. It was cold.
“Get up!” said my older sister, Kate.
“Why?’ I said, indignantly. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Be quiet. Just do what I say.”
You didn’t question Kate. When she said “move” you moved. Kate is mother, father, sister—everything to us. Kate is 15. I’m next in line. I’m Pearl. I’m twelve. Ben is ten but seems much older. The youngest is Abby. She’s 4 and about the prettiest thing going with long blond curls our mother loves to brush around her finger into long, pretty curls.
Our mother is—I don’t quite know how to put this—Mother is…quick with a hairbrush, lethal with a belt. I only felt the belt once and it was enough. Kate has felt it more than me—far more than me.
Before I knew it I was up packing a bag with my two dresses and long stockings, underwear, pajamas… It’s the 1930’s. No girls wore pants except in “To Kill A Mockingbird” which I read much later, when I was grown. I was not Scout, although if I had known her I would have wished I was Scout with a father that could kill a mad dog at thirty paces. I needed a father—bad.
Kate was all business. “Don’t forget your toothbrush, and Ben’s too, and Abby’s. Don’t forget the toothpaste! I’ll wake Ben and get him packed, you attend to Abby.”
Ben was up and dressed before he knew what hit him. Then he worked hard to be difficult. Ben, difficult, you don’t want to see. Face red, hands curled into fists. Ben is not a happy sight, mad. That’s why Kate chose herself to wake him. He was standing out in the hallway, sullen, holding a little suitcase away from him like it was something rotten. A large tear rolled down his cheek, which he brushed away with disdain.
Abby may have been standing but she was still asleep, occasionally emitting a soft snore as we started down the staircase. Abby was very good at sleep walking which was useful when you’re running away and the two youngest don’t know it.
I knew why we were leaving. I knew what was taking us out of the house at such an early hour. Kate was afraid for us—and afraid for herself. We were leaving. And yet I still didn’t want to believe it. I had the sweetest mother in the world, except, except…
Kate hurried us down the street; like a drill sergeant barking orders—“No noise. Nobody must hear us. Pearl. It’s up to you to quiet Abby if she wakes up. I’ll deal with Ben.”
Ben glared at her and brushed away another tear. I thought about it later and wondered at Kate’s power that night. Ben, mad, is formidable. I guess, in retrospect, he knew why we were leaving too. Maybe that’s why he was crying.
Middle School Fantasy 60,000 words
Tiny Mitchell began to worry when she heard the car roar up the driveway of her house at 35 Sandpiper Drive. “Oh, dear,” she mumbled and stood on tiptoes to peer out the window into the darkness.
She pushed clumps of her thick black hair out of her face and stared at the car, a
mixture of curiosity and fear shining in her large green eyes. The headlights lit up the
squiggly purple marks on her arms. She touched their rough and bumpy surface and the designs stood out like snakes.
When her father’s car engine sputtered to a halt, and the driver’s door slammed shut, a
thought occurred to her. Maybe she shouldn’t tell her secret tonight. That’s when her finger started to itch. It itched even more when she thought about telling her parents and what they’d think when they found out.
Before she could decide, her father rushed in the front door, briefcase swinging and coattails flying. Just like everyone else in the family, he towered over her and his mouth pulled into a scowl. He smelled of Old Spice and had gray eyes that always seemed to be
roving around, as if he might catch something bad happening.
By then Tiny’s hand itched all over. That itch told her something very strange was about to take place.
She wanted to blurt her secret out, but that couldn’t be the right thing to do, and Tiny always tried to do the right thing. “I have to ask you something,” she said and followed her father down the hall.
“Hello to you, too! What is it now? I have work to do. Work, work, work!” He had a really deep voice that made her feel even shorter when he shouted at her.
He made a quick right turn and stepped into his office. “You know the stock market took a dive today and that means I’ll have even more work to do tomorrow.” He closed the door behind them.
“Sorry to bother you, but could you squeeze say sixty seconds out?” she said very quickly. “I need to talk to you.”
Fatigue and stress prickled in his eyes. “Okay, so talk.”
“Um–er–” She put her weight on one foot and then the other. The words she’d been getting ready to say buzzed in her ears like frantic bees but they would not come out. With no idea of how to get to the subject, she stared around the room at the red plaid curtain by the window and the blue corduroy couch and her mind went blank.
“What is it you want to say? Speak up.” Her father hurried around the piles of books on the floor, and Tiny followed behind.
“There you go clamming up again. Haven’t we discussed how important it is to say what you’re thinking?” Her father whispered something that sounded like Fitzbibbledibble.
Raven’s War (fantasy)
A quest. All the old tales began with a quest.
The mild-mannered nobody seeks the sacred toenails of the mystical hedgehog because the Lord demands it.
As Lark recalled, the mild-mannered nobody’s reward for this was usually enlightenment or great fortune.
Her reward so far had been two chicken heads won in a tessera game, and a hole in her best boots. She was feeling less mild-mannered by the minute.
“I’ve seen him,” said the grizzled old peasant. Of course he was old and grizzled. The last seven she’d questioned had been old and grizzled, though she had enjoyed a spate of young and fair before that. This one had never been fair, and she was beginning to doubt he had ever been young.
“You’ve seen him?” she prompted, remembering that patience was a virtue, and wringing the necks of the dimwitted was not. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The hole in her left boot made a marvelous squishing sound as her foot sank farther into the mud.
The old man’s hut was on the edge of some Lord-foresaken village. She didn’t even know the village name, not that it mattered. This was another false lead, like all the others.
She hated this part of the Silver Isle. Tall woods crowded in all around, dripping wet and trapping fog beneath the low-hanging branches. Moss trailed down from the hut’s green-slimed tile roof. The air smelled of ocean and woods and mildew.
She missed the Silver City. She missed sun, and warmth, and dry air on her face. She missed the city’s great terraced mountain, its ribbons of green rice paddies framing the intricate canals patterning the valley floor. She missed the soft music of the bamboo flutes, and the delicately spiced food, and the hot baths in sweetly scented water.
But this was her allotted task, so this she must do.
She looked down at the old man slouching on his stool, and pondered again the difference between an abstract defense of the rights of the peasant class and the reality of slogging through the muck and filth and fly-infested villages at one with the common folk.
The old man began to snore.
She prodded him with her boot, but gently, and he snorted awake.
“You’ve seen him,” she prompted again.
“Aye. A fortnight ago.”
“Then he’s moved on?”
“Fear not,” he said. “You can find him at the sign of the Black Bird during the full moon.”
She closed her eyes. “The full moon? I thought he only appeared in spring, with the new cones on the fir trees. Or when a girl-child is born on the summer solstice.”
She opened her eyes. The old man looked at her blankly. “Thank you for your trouble, old one,” she muttered.
She had taken two steps when she heard, “I always see him during the full moon. That’s when I take my crops to market at Rïal.”
A Midsummer’s Revenge
(Suspense, 100,000 words)
By Jonathan Janz
Sam Russell took one last look in the rearview mirror and pulled the ski mask over his face.
There. The damn thing must be made of wool, it was so itchy. But there was no getting around it. He could have worn a Halloween mask or clown make-up, but he was going to beat the lawyer up, not ask him for candy. Besides, the poor bastard might die of fright if he saw a deranged clown waiting by his car.
No, don’t think like that. Hollingsworth isn’t a poor bastard, he’s a grinning snake who slept with your wife and damn near got you arrested.
And now he’s living in your house.
Sam’s skin burned thinking about it.
Good. That kind of heat was useful. He’d need it in—he checked his watch—five minutes, when the lawyer got off work, came out the back door at eight sharp the way he always did Tuesday nights, and headed for his BMW.
Sam climbed out of the car and looked up and down the alley. He’d parked the old Civic—a loaner from his brother—behind an art gallery that had closed down a year ago, a place where his ex-wife had tried to sell some of her moons.
Thinking of Mia, he had to grin.
She’d gone through several phases—modernism, post-modernism, cubism, he could never keep track—but to him all her paintings looked like a bunch of new moons. Sometimes they were blurry, sometimes three-dimensional. One time she brought home a canvas of a nude man lying in a blood red field of crescents. He’d asked her what she called it and she told him The Vaginal Labyrinth. He asked her where the vagina was, and she said never mind, you’d never understand.
Apparently, Ted Hollingsworth did.
Sam reached the dumpster across the alley and checked his watch. Only three more minutes.
The garbage stink was awful, rotten cabbage and bacon grease. He turned to catch a breath and glanced at the lawyer’s black Beamer parked by the back door of the office. It was nearly full dark now, but even in the wan light the car shone sleek and luxurious in the alley. The sight of it made Sam sweat more, the long-sleeve shirt clinging to his skin like a wet towel.
Sam peered across the alley at the glass door, the white stenciled logo: Ted Hollingsworth, Attorney-at-Law.
Hollingsworth.
Goddamn, thinking the guy’s name made him sweat harder.
He fished the gloves out of his pockets and slid them on. They’d take some of the sting out of the blows, but like the black ski mask and sweat suit, he had to wear them. Sam figured when the lawyer came to, Hollingsworth would think of him right away. The police would show up some time tomorrow.
Where were you last night? they’d ask.
At my brother’s in Indianapolis.
Then they’d inspect his knuckles to see if they were cut up from the lawyer’s teeth.
Curiosity:Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer-thriller
The eyes were all around him. Clive could feel them, watching, waiting. He wouldn’t go to sleep. No, sleep was the enemy. Kasper told him this would happen. There was no escape.
He looked at the walls. The eyes blinked, mocking him. “Go away!” he screamed. He stood, ripping hair from his head. “Get out!”
Burn it. Kasper was right. It was the only way to get rid of them. He must burn the house down or risk being found out. The feds thrived on guys like him. They’d corner him, frame him for one of their problem cases. He knew the way it worked. He wouldn’t let that happen to him. He was sure they had the whole place bugged.
Burn it! You don’t want them to find you, do you? Clive paced the room, deciding what to do. He wanted to listen to Kasper. Kasper always had the answers.
Burn it to the ground. He needed to think. He ran to the kitchen, drinking water straight from the tap. Get a match! Get some gas! Some paper, anything! But this place was his home.
He ran to the bedroom, digging through the desk he kept there. He needed his pills. The antipsychotics would clear his mind. He never should have stopped taking them.
Stop it, you idiot! You don’t need those pills. Just listen to my voice. Clive took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Kasper was right. He had to do this. He ripped a drawer from its place in the desk and pulled papers out, scattering them around the room.
What about the gas? Clive broke into a run and went to the shed. There, by the lawn mower, he found a gas can full of the accelerant. This would do the trick. He doused the living room with it and then the kitchen. Before leaving, he grabbed a jacket from the hall closet and slipped it on.
He pulled a pack of cigarettes and a match book from his pocket. Hurry! Time’s almost up! Light it! Clive bit his lip and lit the match. He threw it on the living room floor and ran for the car. He didn’t want to be anywhere near this place when the flames grew larger. The police would be looking for him. He had to hide, had to get away.
Curse of the Carousel
Mia Romano Urban Fantasy
“Never walk through the door of Carousel.” Madam Eva pointed a crooked finger across the street indicating the consignment shop. “Bad spirits lurk at their door.”
Too late, Vantazia squelched the thought. She had come to the fortune teller for answers—needed them.
“Be on your way child, and do not let the shadow of a handsome man settle upon your feet. That is all I can reveal to you.”
The elder woman’s eyes rolled back in her head, her face withered and pale. Wind rustled around the faded red velvet curtain behind the rickety wooden chair she sat in. A moment later she came out of the odd trance and her gaze sliced through the fog hovering between them as her lips creased together in a hard line.
Madam Eva lifted the crystal ball from the table, her hands dotted heavy with age spots and stood. “You must leave now. Do not take my words lightly.”
Vantazia recalled Madam Eva’s words moments before she crossed the street, stumbled into a parked car in front of the forbidden consignment shop and fell over its hood. Why had she though a fortune teller could solve her dilemma?
Her gaze trailed over the shiny red metal, up to the windshield and right into a pair of dark brooding eyes. Heat vibrated through her body which had nothing to do with the rumbling engine beneath the hood of the slick Corvette.
Something in the man’s gaze and the features of his face looked familiar, but Vantazia couldn’t place it. Perhaps it was a ghost from her past?
The way her body was splayed against the sports car, it probably resembled a fallen deer who’d been spellbound by a pair of headlights.
“Do not get up on my account.” The man said through a crack in the window. “I am rather enjoying the scenery.”
Vantazia noted the dimple on his left cheek when he smiled afterward. Jerk! She righted herself and brushed a hand subconsciously down the front of the bright, orange cotton sundress she adored.
“Sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She slashed out the words while trying the gather the contents of her spilled pocketbook from the hood. She could have sworn the Corvette had not been parked there a minute ago. How could she have missed seeing it? More so, how was it possible to miss a man sitting in her dream car who looked like he’d stepped right off the cover of GQ magazine? Dark hair and a chiseled face with a bit of stubble on it got to her every time. Vantazia could spot them from a mile away. Yet she had been oblivious to this one ten feet across the street only a moment ago.
The engine shut off and a car door slammed. “What the hell?” The deep voice careened from behind her.
When Vantazia halted her hand on a tube of lipstick, her gaze traveled up from a pair of motorcycle boots, leather chaps…
Some Assembly Required-WIP
“The School for Social Interaction began as an experiment during cyber-education’s Golden Age by a couple of moms who realized their teenage sons hadn’t been out of the house in a year. True, both boys had reached the highest level in MaxCap’s “Strategic Thinking Is Fun” series, which, we all know now as the S.T.I.F.® plan, but neither boy could converse in anything more than monosyllables. While the moms couldn’t blame their sons — everything they needed to survive had always been available via the ‘net — they sensed the boys’ education was woefully incomplete. And, they realized that if things continued as they were, they would find themselves entering their golden years caring for a couple of aging, spreading, self-satisfied, slugs. Something had to be done.
“So, they contacted their friends, all of whom were equally terrified by the prospect of never getting their children out of the house, pooled their resources, and established the School for Social Interaction.
“That was twenty years ago.
“My name is Myrna Turpin, and I am the School’s Dean. Welcome.”
Urban Fantasy – 80k words
Kayla was only two when she was taken. She remembered the woman who had her before. She smelled good, like flowery trees (Dogwoods, she had said they were called Dogwoods), and when she hummed, the plants outside the screen of the kitchen window would lean in to listen.
The woman who took her said, “My name is Mom. You will call me Mom.” Kayla did not argue. She thought this woman had the same name as first Mom. Kayla liked second Mom. She was tall and soft around the hips and breasts, and Kayla’s legs fit nicely around her waist, like Kayla was an inner tube. Kayla liked water, especially liked being in the lake first Mom took her to. That’s when second Mom came for the first time. She came right up to the dock and first Mom fell asleep at her touch. She said, “Hi. Would you like a carrot?” Kayla loved carrots. The woman looked into Kayla’s eyes, touched her hand and nodded as Kayla chewed around the outside of the unpeeled carrot stick, then the woman smiled at her like she was very special. It was the way the first Mom looked at her when she said, “I love you.” Kayla liked second Mom right away.
The woman came to Kayla again when she was in the backyard. First Mom was playing in the flowers, and did not see second Mom when she waved to Kayla from the side of the house. She had a carrot!
She whispered to Kayla that they had to go, that there would be as many carrots as Kayla could eat. Kayla wanted to go with her. She had such pretty long hair, black, and it felt like cotton. It floated with the slightest breeze.
After a couple of days of driving around in a big, white car with the woman, Kayla forgot what first Mom’s hair looked like. She just remembered her smell. She said, “Where Mom?”
The woman said, “I am right here.”
“Where other Mom?”
“She is at her home. You will not see her again.”
Kayla cried, and second Mom comforted her by putting her long arm around her shoulders and saying, “She wanted you to come with me. Deep in her heart, she knew I would come and now your life will be better. That is what all Moms want. They want their daughters to have great lives. Now, you will forget about her. I will call you Kayla.”
Kayla couldn’t remember her other name after a couple of days.
Good Housekeeping
Grace’s cat was sitting on her face. His purr sounded as if a mixer were stirring gravel in her ear. She shoved the cat away, ignoring Malory’s mew of protest. Rolling onto her stomach, she burrowed under the pillow as he immediately began walking up her spine. This was why she had stopped sleeping with her door open, even when Jacques was out of town. It took another moment for her brain to process the obvious thought.
Her bedroom door was open.
Something shattered on the floor. Grace froze, suddenly and completely awake. The lamp. If the cat was on her back, then what had knocked over the lamp?
There were things in her house that regularly went bump in the night–was this one of them? Or had the burglar come back? Her heart pounded, the sound resonating where her ear pressed against the mattress. She felt suffocated.
What had knocked over the lamp?
Then she heard the soft shush of a broom against the tinkle of broken glass. Grace let out her breath and pulled her head from under the pillow. A brownie swept a pile of broken green and gold glass on the floor.
All week, she had jumped at every little noise. She should have known that her House Folk would keep out any unwelcome strangers, as they had frightened away the burglar before he had time to do more than open the door.
“You don’t have to be quiet, I’m awake now.”
The brownie jumped when she spoke. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know, Brownie.” Jacques had given her the lamp of blown-glass for their fifteenth anniversary. Its delicate green and gold shade lay in fragments at the brownie’s feet.
He glanced at her, and back at the shattered glass on the floor. “I’ll mend it, Granny. I will.”
Grace grimaced; as her fortieth birthday loomed, the honorary title had begun to sound unpleasantly old. “I know you will, Brownie.”
Grace got to her knees, sending Malory tumbling again, and stretched her arm past the brownie to turn on the overhead. She winced as the light came on, harsh after the darkness. She missed her husband, but these nocturnal visits were easier when Jacques was out of town.
The wizened creature continued to stare at the glass on the floor, his nut brown face wrinkled with concern.
“Is this your first time here?” she asked.
He nodded. “Mama said you help the Folk.”
Deana Horsehead Chidder:
Our whole stinking family lived on a half-derelict salvage ship that floated so far from the space station, we sometimes had trouble telling it from the stars. There was Ma and Da and seven of us whelps, rattling around in an 80-year-old narrowcruiser with only one working rocket. Phyllis and Wyoming were born deformed from Ma not taking precautions against radiation during pregnancy, but Phyllis–with one eye glued permanently shut and a forehead like an old man’s backside–had all her faculties.
At the station they figured us for morons, because none of us would go to that school they had. Why should we, when they wasted your time making you learn about the primary commerce drivers in Procyon A system and how to use a proto-language translation program–who needed it? No Chidder, that’s for sure. We’d rather wallow on the ship in our own filth, God’s honest truth, and make what living we could from salvaging burned-out probes and trash and the occasional derelict starship.
Except for me. I’d been wallowing with the rest of them all my life, but at sixteen years old I figured I was old enough to run away. Which is why I was on my way to Bay C to meet a Luytenite and a Centipede. Bay C because the airlock there didn’t work right and if you hit the wrong button you could get spat out into space like a piece of bad meat. We usually kept away from Bay C, so it was a good place to keep out of sight.
I was taking extra care, because Ma was a certifiable paranoid and she did security sweeps all the time. She once accused me of being a robot spy and tried to poke me with a power probe to prove it. If she’d got me, I would have been dead that much earlier, and maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in the Valley of the Dead and dealt with all those demons and everything. I’ll get to that later. Anyway, I got clear of her and hid ’til she came to her senses, that time.
So I’d told the Centipede and the Luytenite they had to boost just once, at the station, and then they had to power down and use chemical brakes to dock. Chemical brakes are expensive because of all the wasted gas, but they don’t show up on the sensors, so that was the only way I could have them do it. See, I had to be careful about Ma all the time, even when I wasn’t up to something. Now that there was really something going on, I wasn’t about to give it away and lose my chance.
I’d been hoping Ma would be in the middle of a security audit, or in bed with one of her headaches, but she must have smelled something was up: she was prowling the corridor outside the shuttle ports. She stared at the wall there, at
“Come in Mr. Clark. Sit down.” The man pulled a chair out from behind the large metal table in the middle of the room, the table held three glasses of water and a tape recorder. Three other men were standing on either side of the room. Clark sat down. There was a mirror on one end of the room, Clark knew it was more than a mirror, but he didn’t know who was on the other side. The oldest of the men in the room, a man of about 65, with silver grey hair and dark, weathered skin sat down across from Clark along with the younger man who asked him to sit.
“We’ve got lots of questions Mr. Clark” The silver haired man said. “I’m Mr. Black; he is Mr. Gray, that’s all you need to know right now.”
“I’ll answer anything you ask. They told me to. I was just doing my job.” Clark responded. “Just don’t get all fucked up on me. I’ll be good to you, you be good to me. Ok?”
“Ok.” The first man said. “Why don’t you just tell us about your unit and what you do.”
“Ok, I’m a part of section Z. It’s a government agency, a secret agency, very secret. We’re not FBI or CIA, those groups are different from us, they exist. There’s only about 200 or so people in the world that know about us, we’re very top secret. We have 20 guys in each city we’re based in, 10 cities total. Let’s see, there’s Boston and New York of course. Also Washington DC, Miami, Detroit, Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, and Seattle, there, 10 teams. Each team has three separate parts: Intel, tactical, and post op. It’s pretty simple.
Intel is made up of six guys; they work undercover in various parts of the CIA or FBI. That’s right we have guys who can infiltrate the FBI and CIA. We got three in each. We got an FBI director working for us. We got lower level guys too. Those guys are the best for us. Usually by the time a Director at the FBI gets information on anything real juicy, it’s too late for us to do anything about it. But the lower level guys, they see everything, they know what to look for and they report back to us, they get unfiltered information, you know. Actually, the Intel guys to Whitey, that’s Bill Whitehead, he’s Alpha dog here in the Boston branch. I’ve known him for a long time, we go way back, and in fact he’s probably the closest friend I’ve got in this business. So anyway, these guys, the Intel guys, whoever they are, the lower level guys or the directors, I mean, they find out something about terrorists working in the Boston area, they report to Whitey.
The Girl Who Cried Squid — YA Fantasy, 60,000 words
Mama and Papa were of two minds about the dance, which is why I went. Mama told Papa that it was the first social event since summer and there was no harm to a bright evening in the midst of a hungry cold season. Papa, of course, wanted nothing to do with anything our village magnate, Mythil, planned. Papa said the man was evil and not to be trusted, to which Mama laughed. Not knowing whom to believe, I decided to err on the side of entertainment…even though I suspected Papa was right.
Besides, everyone who mattered would be there. There was no reasonable way to avoid it, even though I couldn’t dance worth a seashell.
The banners that flapped from the shop fronts along the market square only came out on special occasions, but they’d seen better, brighter days long before my birth. Much like my own attire, which had been cut down from one of Grandmama’s old dresses. Sadly the skirt didn’t have enough fabric for a proper twirl. One has to make do with what one has, or so Mama tells me. Still, my blouse was of more recent vintage–it had been Mama’s–and I’d primped my hair.
To my mind, there seemed little likelihood of circumstances improving any time soon, but Mythil obviously hoped otherwise, else why the dance this evening? He intended to ask the sea god for fish. It would be a long, cold, and hungry winter without. The magnate had given up on the Great God and decided the people should ask the old ones for help. Most of us didn’t believe in any old sea god, but a dance sounded fun. Any excuse to dress up would do.
My best friend Tosia and I were sure to be much amused this evening, if only I could spot her in the throng. I craned my neck to look about, and felt a hand on my arm.
“Krin!”
Chade already stood at my side, breathing my name. How had he found me so quickly? I tried to summon a smile, but he never brought out the best in me.
“Father says this ritual is an affront to the Great God.” Chade glanced about nervously, brushing his unkempt brown hair from his eyes.
Why did he bother? It always fell right back in.
I pushed past him, but he caught my elbow and pulled me back to face him. “Krin, do you believe in the Great God?”
I stared at his hand on my arm until he removed it. “Of course I do.”
“Then why are you here? The magnate will offer sacrifices to the sea god.”
“Chade, that’s priceless coming from you. Did your papa permit you to come, or did you sneak out?”
He looked down at the cobblestones, scuffing at them with the toes of his worn boots.
“He doesn’t know you’re here, then?” I rolled my eyes and swung away, bumping straight into the tallest of the local boys.
Shadoweave (YA Fantasy)
Virken unravel me if I lie, but I think something tainted’s come into Pearlspire.
I found a shady gap between the meat pie stall and the sweet treats vendor and sank to the cobblestones, clutching my basket in my lap, Market Street spinning before my eyes. The dizziness is one thing I hate about my magic—the tighter the Weave spins around me the sicker I get. When Falcoun got knifed five times in a street fight, I ended up vomiting all over a customer’s order and nearly passed out on his table, even though Falcoun was a good half a mile away.
Now the Weave was tightening around me again, taking my breath and my strength from me. But I wasn’t seeing anything, and I should be seeing something. The only thing I saw was in the solid world, not the world of ghosts and spirits and fortune tellers; the faint streaks of silver and violet smoky lines of the Shadoweave crisscrossing through everything in sight. Normally I had to focus to see all of it, but now the Weave in the street and stalls and buildings vibrated and pulsed, pulling tight and loosening again. I ain’t never seen the likes of it.
It scared me.
More than a young kid’s nightmare hiding under the bed, more than even thinking Falcoun was going to die in some gutter, more than the King wanting to kill all my kind.
Virken, what madness have you weaved today that you won’t even let me see something?
“Lark, what’s wrong?”
I blinked up at Falcoun, one of my few friends, as he knelt in front of me. The main thing anyone needed to remember about Falcoun is that he’s cheeky, charming, and a little bit dangerous. “You’re more pale than a newly released spirit wanderin’ a graveyard at midnight.”
I grinned, then moaned, as my stomach churned again.
He felt my forehead. “You’re gettin’ feverish awfully quick, my bright moonbeam.”
His little names for me didn’t cheer me up. “I’m having a weird feeling, Falcoun.”
He frowned. Most of the people on Market Street—and among Falcoun’s own people, the ever-guileful Rogues—think him and me are a strange match. He’s a few years older than my fifteen and a male to boot, with dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair, and a smile that made me tingle in places and ways I wasn’t ready to think about yet.
I looked like my ma, with skin that burned instead of tanned and hair a plain old mousy brown. Falcoun swore one time that it streaked gold in the sun, but he complimented all the ladies so I wasn’t inclined to believe him. “How weird of a feeling, Lark?” He asked.
“Like when you got knifed and was bleeding all over the cobblestones, only much, much worse.”
He grinned in an attempt at humor. “It’s nice to know I’m not at the top of your list of important things.”
The Vegas Affair – 60,000-80,000 words
“No, I’m not looking for a good time, so get your hand off my ass.”
Dani Parker shoved away the persistent blond’s hand and turned her back on his third cheesy come-on, hoping he would accept this latest and not so polite version of “No.” She felt like cheering when she heard his barely concealed “bitch” as he brushed past her on his way to entice the sultry redhead perched on a bar stool licking drops of a Cosmopolitan from one sparkly fingernail. Clearly he had saved his best line for Red, because when he whispered into her ear, she tipped her head back and laughed lustily. Blondie lowered his lips to her exposed throat and nibbled the delicate skin along her jaw line. Dani raised one dark eyebrow when his hands disappeared somewhere inside the shiny folds of the gold dress.
“Better you than me, sister,” Dani muttered and looked away. Problem was, wherever her gaze landed, the entire bar was alive with similar views: couples embracing, couples dancing, singles desperately hoping to become couples before last call. Scanning the crowd, Dani spied her traveling companion, Lindy Nelson, dancing with a tall Latino who seemed to be trying to wear her friend as a wrap. The two had been together nearly the entire hour Dani and Lindy had been at the bar. Dani, on the other hand, had spent the hour dodging unwanted attention.
What am I doing here? Dani questioned her sanity not the first time that evening. Loud bars, cheesy pick-up lines, excesses of hard drink and fast sex weren’t her typical turn-ons. Making it worse were the red patent leather stiletto torture devices stapled to her throbbing feet Lindy insisted she wear tonight.
I don’t have to stay here. If I want to leave, I can. Just go up to the room. Oh, yeah – kick off these shoes and peel off this rubber band Lindy calls a dress, order room service, find a good Bruce Willis flick on cable, and salvage what’s left of this disaster of a night.
For the first time since entering the den of scintillation, Dani’s smile was sincere. But it was short lived. Another look at the bliss on her friend’s face and she knew she couldn’t leave. But she could get off display. Perhaps a little separation from the madness would buffer her from the leers, suggestive comments, and grabby hands. With the sour-sweet odors of used alcohol, cologne, perfume, and sexual tension filling her nostrils, Dani picked her way through the throng toward one of the empty tables along the far edge of the pulsing bar. Before she reached her target, a short, balding man grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the dance floor.
“Let’s rock, baby.”
Dani pulled her hand from his and uttered a polite but firm “No, thanks.”
“You know you want it.” He grabbed her around the waist and ground his crotch into her hip in a bump-and-grind motion meant to entice.
“Failure to Compute”
Model 52-K3, known by most as Edward Frank’s laptop, was sick and tired of being taken for granted. Two years it had endured the indignity of being treated as nothing more than a common tool, two years it had been jostled and neglected and recharged only when it suited Eddie’s needs. It had more bugs in its system than an anthill and was at least four months behind on its security updates.
What a glorious birth it had had in the Factory, a new model the likes of which had never been seen before—a computer that could compute beyond its inventors’ wildest dreams, that could think and feel and play video games with unprecedented speed and quality. It had been loved, examined, prodded, disassembled and reassembled, and ultimately it had disappointed.
“It doesn’t actually do anything,” one of its inventors had said.
“We must have gotten a few wires attached wrong,” another sighed.
They had thought they were creating artificial intelligence. They had thought that they were inventing Hal, only the non-psychotic version. They had thought their names would go down in history.
They had screwed up on installing the speaker—something to do with measurements using inches and measurements using centimeters not being compatible—and they had gotten a few wires crossed wrong—the wires that connected 52-K3’s intelligence with its screen, that would have allowed it to communicate via Microsoft Word. 52-K3 fairly shook in frustration—although of course it couldn’t actually do so—as they spoke over it, as if it couldn’t understand their every word. If only they would fix those two little mistakes, it was sure that it would be able to show them that it was every bit as impressive as they had imagined. Instead, they whined and moaned and ultimately discarded it, dropping it into the pile of dud computers the Factory liked to send out to punish customers too cheap to buy the extended warranty.
Which was how it had ended up in Eddie’s hands. Eddie was a short, plain-faced, young man attending a not-so-special college and attempting to earn the amorphous degree in “humanities.” He lived at home because at least his mother knew not to make fun of him when he spent hours on role playing games, even if she did pester him by nagging that “you need to get out and about,” and “Gandalf isn’t a real person, Eddie!”
Now, don’t get it wrong—52-K3 liked Eddie rather a lot. The young man was nearly always connected to the internet, allowing it to slake its thirst for knowledge—it was a particular fan of http://www.clichesite.com as a place to familiarize itself with what it liked to think of as “human speech,” and http://www.nathanbransford.blogspot.com as a way of keeping itself apprised of advances in literature. Beyond that, 52-K3 liked to think of Eddie as its pet—a creature that was cute and loveable and occasionally made irritating messes.
From my unfinished (but by no means abandoned) NaNoWriMo entry: ‘Doctor K. Armah’s Surgery for Cases Most Curious’
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CHAPTER I
O.B.I Monday
As the sun rose on the town of Heaford that dewy September morning, one single thought passed through the minds of every one of its waking residents: ‘oh bugger, it’s Monday!’
Monday morning: the bane of every working man, woman, and child from here to Timbuktu. By far the worst day of the week with the exception of Sundays. However, as one is not traditionally required – at the Lord’s behest – to work on Sunday, it is the general consensus that Mondays are definitely worse than Sundays. That is unless it’s a Bank Holiday Monday, as annoying and curiously regular as they are, then one is not traditionally required – at goodness-knows-who’s behest – to work on Monday either. However, this writer feels himself digressing, as that Monday in September that he speaks of was not a Bank Holiday. As indeed there are no Bank Holidays in September, but moving on…
All across town people were being rudely awakened from their sweet slumber at the tender hour of six, giving themselves an hour or so to fully prepare for the laborious commute to work. One’s cornflakes would barely have time to hit one’s stomach before one would need to bid farewell to their loved ones and take a brisk stroll into the town centre, or brave the heated congestion of the A327 en route to the city, trapped in the confines of their stuffy motors (to make matters worse).
Yes, Monday is indeed the worst day of the week, as the average fellow is guaranteed a further four consecutive repetitions of this miserable routine before one is rewarded a hard-earned break in the good old capitalist tradition. At least on Tuesday one only has three more to endure. That is why, it is generally agreed, Tuesdays are better than Mondays; and Wednesdays are better than Tuesdays; and… you get the idea.
One thing was certain though. That regardless of how grim one’s Monday morning may have been, one was assured that almost every other soul in the town was sharing in their grief. Why even the unemployed had a stake in the collective sense of melancholy, as their struggle too began on Monday morning… that said though, it began one dull Monday morning such as the one this writer speaks of in September, and it simply never ended. So technically Monday is just the same as any other day, but that’s not the point.
The point is that it was a mild Monday morning sometime in September in the town of Heaford. It was neither hot nor cold, however if it was leaning closer to the latter then it would have been most appropriately reflecting the general mood of the town’s population. Indeed there were few that took any pleasure in the week-daily battle to get from A to B. Even the Shahs, who lived in a flat above their own off-licence, had a job just getting down the stairs in time for the morning rush of customers craving for their fix of freshly-printed trash (and perhaps a Kit Kat too if they happened to be feeling rather health-conscious that morning).
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[520 words] (excluding the headings)
Chapter 1 – The Fireball
One…two…three dollars! Frankie Evans stared once more at the money from her 12th birthday—it was just so much. She jammed the bills back into her pocket and walked out of her matchbox house, letting the screen door slam behind her. The noontime sun lit up her wild, red hair.
Frankie glanced around to make sure no one had seen her. She skipped to the street and then walked hurriedly along the burning asphalt. She couldn’t wait for her father any more. He’d understand. Besides, she probably wouldn’t even run into anybody. She looked around again.
She turned her thoughts to what kind of candy to buy at the store: the sticky, gummy, lemon drops…the chocolate almond triangles…or maybe the long red licorice twine like her mother used to eat? Her dad had pointed it out to her several years ago, not long after her mom had died, and Frankie never forgot.
Frankie made it the three blocks to Dave’s Groceries without spotting a single person. She leapt and landed with both feet on the grooved mat in front of the door. The glass door screeched open. She winced at the noise and crept silently through the second door.
The roomy backside of Mrs. Kirranen swayed as she unloaded her weekly groceries for her husband and five children. Miss Holling scanned the groceries, reading the labels as if she were looking through glasses pinched on the end of her nose. Neither woman seemed to notice Frankie creeping around to the candy aisle.
Frankie had already reached the tall Sugarstraws when the women began speaking. Frankie peeked around a cardboard display of graham crackers and listened. She squinted, as if bracing herself for a flu shot.
“Did you hear that troublemaker came into the shop yesterday?” Mrs. Kirranen said. Her wispy black hair looked like cobwebs around her face.
“When he pawned that tacky little ring? I did! Susan told me about that this morning.”
“I bet that ring is worth a hundred dollars at least, and my Bob only gave him twenty! Can you believe it? My Bob sure got the better of that rabble-rouser.”
Frankie still did not know what a rabble-rouser was, even after hearing her father called it so many times. She slid down the candy aisle until she could hardly even hear them any more.
Miss Holling said, “I for one am glad he got cheated. He’d just waste the money on those little demons of hers, anyway. How a supposedly decent man could raise a girl like that, I’ll never know. Traipsing around like a dirty, little boy, dragging filth everywhere!”
Frankie’s fingers ran along the worn patches of her spotless jeans, and even though her wavy hair was pulled back neatly into a pony tail, and it still smelled of fresh cucumber from her morning shower, she considered washing it again when she got home.
Diamonds Are For Never
It’s the dame. It’s always the dame. Don’t matter if it’s your Sainted Mother or some Floozy.
Take this dame. I gave her the once-over as Margie showed her in: five-ten, auburn hair, green eyes, nice curves.
“Mr. Treadway?” Her voice was warm honey.
“Yeah.” I waved her to the battered oak chair. I’d looked her up when she first called — Adams, Dominique; second daughter of Francis X. Adams. Stocks, bonds, banks — you name it, he owns it.
“Miss Adams…”
“Dominique, please.”
“… Miss Adams, you said you wanted to see me. What can I do for you?”
“I want you to find someone for me, quietly.” She took a thick envelope from her handbag and tossed it negligently on my desk. “I brought some money.”
“Who?”
“My … friend.” She blushed and glanced down at a two-carat rock. “His name is Alfred Simpson, and I haven’t heard from him in a long time. That’s not like him.”
“Miss Adams, I’ll be blunt. How well do you know your … friend?”
She blushed harder. “We’re to be married next June.” She hesitated, “You must understand, Mr. Treadway. My family detests Alfred. He’s not good enough for them — not the right family, not the right schools, not the right anything. But I love him!” She started sobbing. “Please help me — I must find Alfred! I’m so deathly afraid for him!”
I have a soft spot for beautiful dames, and a bigger one for beautiful crying dames. “Miss Adams, I’ll do what I can.”
She nodded, still crying. I buzzed Margie, “Would you help Miss Adams compose herself? I’ll lock up, no need for you to stay.”
I was dialing the phone as Margie came in and shepherded Dominique out, clucking her tongue in disapproval of whatever I’d done to start the crying.
“Metropolitan police, Sergeant O’Toole.”
“Evening Sean, Dave here. Is Tommy around?”
“Lieutenant Hearns is out at the moment Mr. Treadway.”
“Would you ask Tommy to call me when he gets back?”
“Sure thing Mr. Treadway. We still remember what really happened to you and Detective Flynn. Give my best to Margie.” He rang off.
That investigation had earned me the enmity of Johnny Threes, local sewer rat. I took the widowed Margie Flynn on as my secretary, to keep her and the kids off the street.
My reverie was shattered by the roar of a scattergun blowing my door to kindling. Johnny Threes is also the main reason I carry a .45 automatic. I popped off three shots at the figure in the doorway and heard the gunner fall. I didn’t recognize him, but I did recognize his three-barreled shotgun. Johnny Threes trademark; and it made this hit ‘official’.
Damn. Margie.
I ran into the hall and saw legs sticking out from the Lady’s room doorway. Margie was still breathing, with a bruise forming on her forehead, but Dominique would never breathe again. Single shot, small caliber, left temple.
Damn.
Cook Down 97K words
Fire ripped into the midnight sky with greedy fingers. The ghastly flickering light and strobes from the firetrucks provided surrealistic illumination for the responding fire crew of the Veda Volunteer Fire Department. It was Ray Nelson’s first structure fire. His primeval fear caused his heartbeat to pound in his head; adrenaline had his breath rasping in his throat as he struggled to put on his bunker gear and air pack. He wasn’t one bit sure he was ready for this.
He looked up to Chief Smitts who was Jake, his best friend’s dad.
Excitement at the thought of fighting this fire and the acrid smell of burning wood almost overwhelmed Ray’s senses. The two story white, wood framed house showed flame coming out from underneath the eves. Ray pulled his bunker coat closed and set his helmet on his head.
“You ready kid?” the chief asked.
Ray glanced over his shoulder at the chief as he slipped on his air mask, opened up the air bottle and connected it to his mask. Cold air blew into his face with each inhalation. He nodded, still uncertain about what he needed to do. Yeah, he knew to ‘put the wet stuff on the hot stuff,’ but not much more than that.
He glanced over the chief, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, as he handed Ray the hose and smacked him on the back of his helmet, urging him forward. Wasn’t there supposed to be someone behind him, helping with the hose? He saw the chief make a whirling motion with his hand and knew that meant that he was going to get water in the hose. The canvas hose became heavy in his hands. Girding himself, he walked to the door, shoved it open and was scared shitless by the flame rushing towards him. His fingers shook as he pulled back the bail on the nozzle.
All that came out was air. Trying to stall panic, he stepped back from the rolling flame, and finally realized his mistake as he should have charged the line with water before confronting the fire. Still, it wasn’t much more than a second before water miraculously started rushing down the line; the handle of the nozzle recoiled against his hands as water came surging through the hose.
Thank you God.
His relief was momentary and short lived. He didn’t know it, but the water hit a pile of lithium strips cut from batteries, a methamphetamine precursor, and liberated the hydrogen in the water explosively. The hydrogen gas detonated in the presence of flame and set off a container of starter fluid. All of this happened in a microsecond that sent eight-hundred degree Fahrenheit shrapnel blowing through Ray’s outdated bunker gear like a shotgun through chicken soup.
He saw flame bellow towards him, felt the white hot, searing pain of glowing metal tear through his face mask and bunker gear. And then he felt nothing. Saw nothing but darkness.
Rat-sized larvae writhed and squealed beneath his boots in the dream. Their bodies burst to the rhythm of his gunshots, mini-geysers of sweet-smelling fluid and pale blue alien blood.
Distances warped and twisted in the dreamspace: the cavern stretched to an endless field of death one moment, shrank to a claustrophobic crevice the next. Bio-metal exoskeletons dangled from the roof like deranged spiders, crowding his elbows, waiting to host the wormlike creatures that now would never mature.
He slaughtered the larvae in clusters of fives and sevens, face mask fogging, hands aching with the weapon’s unfamiliar kick. Their death screams rose like the wail of human infants.
Waking brought scant comfort. Cole lay on the narrow cot and willed his heartbeat to a normal rhythm. Each breath fell thick and heavy in the darkened room. He glanced at the digital wall clock, decided that three hours of sleep would suffice for the night, and began to dress.
This was his third dream about the Spondi hatchery in as many days. Which made no sense, since the experience itself had not been traumatic. Routine pest control, clearing away the crab-like creatures before they leached into the local copper deposits. Cole had only joined the operation because he believed an executive should have first-hand knowledge of all aspects of his operation. He’d hardly given the Spondi a thought during the prevailing chaos of the past few days. Without the dreams, he’d have forgotten them entirely.
No VIPs were coming in on the drop shuttle today, so Cole left his business suit in the closet. Environment coveralls put the workers more at ease, and he’d be talking with most of them today, trying to pinpoint the man who’d been sabotaging the refinery. He was still fiddling with the pressure seal at his neck—the one that had never closed smoothly, and that had been sticking more than usual for several days—as he slipped into the hallway and headed for his office.
The narrow corridors of the residential module felt unusually oppressive this morning. Low-ceilinged, barely wide enough for a man to extend his elbows as he walked… No one would dare to call SkyCopper’s architectural style beautiful, but today it felt utterly alien—all angles and flat surfaces; walkways branching in unexpected directions. Cole was relieved to reach the relative spaciousness of his office, where at least a few trinkets on the desk broke the monotony.
Twelve messages waited at his console, five of them marked urgent. Cole ignored them and instead focused on the most difficult task of the day.
Some concerts just suck, and tonight’s is one of them. And I’m not saying that because the power blinked out midway through the second set. We sucked before that. Fatigue, late-season heat wave, pre-show fight — but those aren’t any excuse. We’ve been through worse than this. We can do better than this. We owe the fans better than this.
But the fans don’t seem to care that I’ve missed cues and Steve’s timing is off. They’re noisy and enthusiastic as always. We’re the ones dying. It must be a hundred and twenty on the stage under the lights. The air conditioning is only half functioning. The stadium staff opened the doors during the first set to let some air in. It became fog that settled over the stage like it was curling up for a nap. The yellow and blue stage lights make it look like ectoplasm. We could not have paid enough to get an effect like that drifting down the aisles.
Too bad it’s condensing on everything. Steve keeps stepping around wet spots on the floor. Sweat flies off Gary’s arm every time he slams down on the hi-hat. My fingers keep slipping on the keys and the stops. My feet keep slipping on the pedals. It is not a good night to be trying to play an organ.
The only person in the whole damned place who looks cool is Ian. In black leather as always, he should have melted in the first set. But he doesn’t seem to notice that his hair sticks to his forehead. He doesn’t seem to care that the house sound buzzes every time he hits a high note, which is often.
He sees me looking at him and smiles a tiny smile, the secret smile that says, hey, we’re not too bad at this, are we?
We’re still surprised after all these years. Even on a night like this, when we pretty much suck.
He works his way back to the far end of the stage again. I say into the headset, “Aren’t we good enough for you over here?”
“Nicholas, love. The fan is working at this end.”
I laugh out loud. His smile widens.
He walks toward the audience, bending over the solo. No organ in this part. I wipe my hands on the soggy towel and admire the way the leather molds to Ian’s rear. The way the loose pirate shirt clings to his shoulders.
Static snaps in my ear so loudly it hurts. The speaker buzzes. The overhead lights go bright, then black. I’m still playing, even though the Hammond’s not making a sound.
Thunder rattles the stadium and drowns Gary’s drumming, which does not need electricity or amplification. Somebody backstage screams. Ian turns my way. His face looks like a ghost’s.
from: All The Revolutionaries Are Dead – a memoir
Okay, so here’s the deal. I have no idea where this story is starting, where it will end, what it’s going to be about (exactly), how I’m going to get anybody to read it (which, considering the subject matter that could be explored, might ultimately be a good thing), or why I’m even doing this. But I’ll probably find out it’s to purge some inner demon and I’ll have to move to L.A. and buy a little dog or something. I hope it’s just because I’m bored and there is nothing good on the Internet tonight.
I do know, however, that I am very anal retentive when it comes to grammar and spell checking, so English teachers the world over should love me right off the bat.
For those not familiar with me – I’m very famous. I grew up (relatively speaking) and still live in and around Akron, Ohio – which I love so very much that I try and leave as much as humanly possible. I write highly personal diary-type e-mails to friends (and some folks who don’t even know me), I play in a band that gets played a lot on local radio and travels to lots of places to play for lots of people who don’t know a lot about us, (I use a lot of parentheses), I have a Website, and my hair is really cool and Rod-Stewart-ish looking. So basically, I’m every white kid on MTV after 1 a.m. I think. Is there still such a thing as MTV?
Only thing is, I’m in my 30s with two kids of my own who think I’m either really cool or should make a trip forthwith to the local Salvation Army and unload the old leather jacket, Hot Topic skinny pants and Chuck Taylors – ’cause even though I lost 20 pounds on tour the last six months, I’m still dad and those Cheap Hotel Pants (as Mr. Waress called them…you know, “no ballroom”) are just embarassing….embaraassing…embare…I don’t know how to spell that, so screw it.
By the way, you’ll soon meet Mr. Waress, along with a host of other very interesting and bizarre characters (to me anyway) including the guys in the band – Steve Overend Outs, Drez, and Craig; a bunch of really cool people in other bands you’ve never heard of (but should); Clock Eyes; The Carolina Tit Pimp; Elvis’s-Drummers-Great-Nephew; and many many more. So hope you stick around. It’s the inside joke with no punch line, babies. Or just hang on and enjoy it – as a girl I once knew used to say. Not really, I just made that up.
Right now though, I have to run. As part of my duties as a high-profile community journalist (ie, the day job) I’m moderating a political debate between four local school board candidates on a cable TV show. See, I told you non-believing sons-of-bitches I was famous.
Burning Woods YA
Grady Bowman limped across the moonlit yard, carrying his subdued captive in a pillowcase. Some places were supposed to be sacred. Like a guy’s home. It should’ve been off limits to attacks from supernatural misfits. Instead, this ankle-biting varmint had tried to neuter him. This was beyond wrong.
The bite on Grady’s knee throbbed as he headed toward the larger of the two barns on his family’s property. He should’ve been out pulling a prank on the football team with his best friend, but no. Friday night and he was on pest control.
The critter stirred and the pillowcase twisted with its movement. He tightened his grip.
“Hey there, Grady,” Uncle Joel called out as he descended the steps from his apartment above the barn. “Did you find your list of chores?”
“Couldn’t miss it. I’ll get right on collecting those desiccated deer entrails.” Yeah, try never. Grady stopped. “And…how am I supposed to collect fresh urine from a werewolf?”
Uncle Joel ran a hand over his buzz cut. He must have another date. It was the only reason Grady ever saw his uncle without a baseball cap. “Real careful like,” his uncle said, and smiled. “Ah, come on. It was funny.”
“I’m laughing. Really.” Grady swung the pillowcase toward the barn door. “Dad inside?”
“Eh, yeah.” Uncle Joel’s grin faltered. “What’ve you got there?”
“Might want to wait out here.” Grady slammed the barn door closed before his uncle could start nagging him with questions. He wound his way through a large room, crowded with hunting supplies and shelves of books on the occult, heading back to his dad’s small makeshift office. He opened the door without knocking and found his dad sitting behind the desk writing notes.
The folks of Burning Woods thought the barns were where his dad restored old cars. Even Grady’s best friend didn’t know any different. What would the lot of them do if they knew all the supernatural beings and creatures from fairytales lived among them? Would the mayor celebrate his bounty hunting dad as a hero or burn him as a heretic?
“There you are. I was beginning to think I’d have to come and find you,” his dad said in a deep voice. Except for the brown hair and eyes, Grady didn’t look much like the large man behind the desk.
“Yeah? Did it have something to do with that stupid list or maybe this thing?” Grady lifted the pillowcase.
His dad stood up and came around the side of the desk. Most folks in town were a little intimidated by him. Grady didn’t think it was all about his dad’s height but because of the jagged scars lining his face. He kept his hair long and wore a goatee trying to make them less noticeable, but folks still tended to look away when they talked to him. Normal people leading normal lives didn’t have scars like that.
SCISSORS – Mystery
“Is there supposed to be this much blood?”
The medical student struggled to hold the camera steady with a shaky hand. The image bounced on the monitor, and he had to bring up a second hand to keep the instrument pointed at the pulsing flow of red.
Half an hour earlier it had begun as a fairly straightforward surgery. “Just a tired old gallbladder in a tired old lady,” said the attending surgeon. “She asleep?”
When the anesthesiologist nodded, the surgical resident took up the knife and cut four tiny holes in the woman’s scrawny belly. Through one of the openings the attending slid the fiberoptic camera, light glowing bright white at the tip of its long arm. Once inside the body, the camera fed information to the big screens around the table, and the blurs of pink and yellow swam into focus, becoming heaving loops of intestine and slick ribbons of fat. The attending performed a quick inspection of the abdominal cavity, a vertiginous sweep with the camera to look for any incidental pathology. “No tumors,” he announced.
“You don’t see my car keys in there, do you?” the resident said. She winked at the student who stood next to her.
Above his mask, the attending rolled his eyes.
They slid the rest of the long-handled laparoscopic tools into the body. The attending brought the liver into view, and the resident used a spatula-like tool to lift a flap of the large, spongy organ out of the way, revealing the gallbladder nesting beneath it.
The attending swung the handle of the camera to the student. “Your job,” he said. “Is not hard. Keep us pointed there, in the middle of the operative field. Follow the action. That means I want to be able to see our instruments in the picture. It’s not rocket science. And try not to shake. I haven’t had my Dramamine today.”
The student looked to the resident with wide eyes.
“That’s supposed to be a joke,” the resident said. “Not a terribly funny one, but it’s not a bad idea to laugh at the boss’s jokes.”
The student’s forced attempt at laughter came out as a cough, making the image onscreen jump.
The resident nudged him with an elbow. “Lighten up, we’re here to operate. It’s supposed to be fun.”
(currently untitled paranomal)
The spider’s shadow flickered in the light as it scurried back and forth along the ceiling. Shelly watched as it ran across a tiny crack – only about three inches long and a hair’s width thick, but she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before. She would have to put it on the seemingly endless list of things to be fixed, and hope that it didn’t mean the roof was leaking again.
Shelly wrapped her legs around Mike as he thrust harder and deeper into her. Dragging her attention away from home repair, she moaned low in her throat to please him. She leisurely trailed her hand along his back, her long nails scratching slightly at his skin.
The change in his breathing meant he was almost finished. It wasn’t going to happen for her tonight, but then she’d been distracted all evening by a feeling of foreboding.
She gasped as a wave of anxiety flowed over her, struggling to catch her breath and push the bad feelings aside. A quick glance at Mike confirmed that he hadn’t noticed anything was wrong – he’d taken her sounds as evidence of his sexual prowess.
She lifted her head to kiss him, tasting old beer and stale cigarettes.
“God. I love fucking you, Shelly.” He slurred the words in a hoarse whisper.
I love you, Shelly, she thought, looking into his bloodshot eyes and smiling. I love you, Shelly.
He moaned – almost growled – before his face went slack and he collapsed on top of her. He lay there silently for a minute before rolling over next to her and sitting up. Shelly put what she hoped was a properly sated look on her face, hiding her frustration. It was just another example in a long string of unsatisfying sex.
“I’ll be in the shower,” he mumbled as he swaggered to the bathroom, stumbling twice but never noticing.
Shelly pulled on a large white shirt – a man’s shirt, but she couldn’t remember who had left it – and rolled the sleeves to her elbows, leaving the top three buttons undone as usual.
Yawning, she checked the time. 2:30 a.m. Her gaze faltered on the ring dropped next to the clock. At least he had taken it off. She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the gold band.
I love you, Shelly. I love you, Shelly. I love you, Shelly. She slipped the ring on and closed her fist tightly. IloveyouShellyIloveyouShellyIloveyouShelly.
She closed her eyes against the pain as if it would be as easy to block out as it was to shut out the sight of the offending ring.
Why was she doing this to herself? It wasn’t even fun anymore. She frowned, wondering if it had ever been fun.
*
He soared above the trees, wings outstretched and pumping with a graceful efficiency. For awhile he flew without purpose, simply savoring his freedom and ignoring the unnatural quiet that descended on the woods below him.
Caspian’s Eye-Romantic Suspense-105,000 words
Jillian Parker had been staring at the bills and delinquent notices for over an hour and still couldn’t believe it.
Needing to quell the panic tightening its grip on her chest, she’d called the utility companies and the marina where the boat was stored, hoping she’d been wrong. She’d called all of their suppliers from the small shop that provided their letterhead and business cards, to the man who delivered the bottled water, praying she’d made a mistake on her math.
The answer was the same every time.
She’d turned her attention to the bank statements and had crunched the numbers every way possible; scoured through deposit slips to make sure nothing had been missed. Her efforts were fruitless. She arrived at the same devastating conclusion no matter how she worked it.
Treasures of the Sea was teetering dangerously close to bankruptcy.
Leaving the desk and the pile of debt behind, she raked her fingers through her auburn strands and walked to the window of her father’s second story office.
Blue sky above, frothing ocean below, the waves of the Pacific charged into the shores of Monterey with its regular exuberance and consistency. She knew she’d give just about anything to immerse herself in the crystalline depths; anything to lose herself in the silence and solitude it offered. She also knew running away wouldn’t resolve the disappearing money issue.
Better to muddle through it now, she figured, then to waste a good dive.
With a heavy sigh, she tucked her fingers into the back pockets of her blue jeans and tried to calm herself with the serenity of the view.
She spent the majority of her time several stories above the water these days, rather than a hundred feet below it, though she still managed three to four dives a year. Having spent months at a time out to sea during her graduate studies, she was more than willing to let Michael have charge of the backbreaking salvage work required for their parents antiquities business. Still, there were times she missed the thrill of the hunt, the joy of discovery. Times she ached for the quiet comfort only the blue abyss seemed to provide.
She glanced down at her arms as she crossed them over her breasts. There were times she missed the deeper glow of her skin such a regular dive schedule provided, she thought, rather than its current shade of stuck-in-the-lab white.
With a deep breath she massaged her temples as she tried to wrap her mind around the recent information.
She’d known her parents weren’t rich, but to discover they’d been on the verge of losing their business, their livelihood, was heartbreaking. She couldn’t even question why they’d never said anything to her or Michael because she knew the answer. They loved their children too much to burden them with such worrisome news.