Tag: Fiction

An Excerpt from Killing Time!

Cover

Hey, all!  The free giveaway for Killing Time ends tomorrow, so if you haven’t downloaded your copy yet, I thought I’d just give you a taste of what you’re missing:

July 5, 2002

I thought I’d lost it. Totally flipped, tripped and fallen into strait-jacket land. But I went back this morning, and it was still gone.

Listen to this. Sounds crazy, but I swear it’s what happened.

Yesterday, I was down watching the fireworks over Liberty Island, when the Statue of Liberty disappeared. Just like that, just—ffft! —vanished in front of thousands of people.

That’s right. You probably don’t know what the Statue of Liberty is. Nobody else did.

It’s a good thing that New Yorkers are used to random street lunatics. If I’d been anywhere else, running around and screaming at people about a 300-foot statue that no one else remembers existing, I probably would’ve been locked up.

When I woke up this morning, I thought maybe it had been a dream, or a hallucination, so I went back downtown to check it out.

Still gone. Liberty Island was a major entry point of immigration, just like Ellis Island. And nothing more.

 

July 12, 2002

Patient is beginning to suffer from hallucinations. Further evidence of an organic-related dysfunction, perhaps damage or chemical imbalance effecting the sensory and memory areas of the brain. The need for that CAT scan is becoming urgent—a regimen of drug therapy should be started as soon as possible.

Dr. West

 

July 7, 2002

Now I get it. Now it makes sense. I know what’s wrong with the shape of the world, now. Things are missing.

I didn’t get lost, that day, looking for my deli. It really was gone—and isn’t it funny how I haven’t thought much about it since it vanished? I used to go there three times a week! I didn’t even bother trying to look for it.

How often has that happened? All along, I’ve been noticing—subconsciously—that things were missing, but I’ve explained it away, then forgotten about it. That must be what’s happening to everyone else.

So why do I remember?

 

August 3, 2002

(Rustling. Leaves? Wind? Footsteps.)

I’m walking in Central Park. Some monuments were missing—a statue here, a fountain there—but I expected that.

But the trees!

What I didn’t expect were the trees. Some of the trees are missing. Whatever’s happening, it’s happening to living things now, too?

What could be doing this?

 

August 16, 2002

(Whispered)

Fred didn’t come in to work today. Not that unusual, right? People take sick days and days off, right?

Wrong.

Someone else was sitting at Fred’s desk, and his cubicle was completely redecorated. So I asked what happened. Did Fred get fired? Did he finally retire, only really quietly to avoid all the fuss? They all looked at me like I’d just grown antlers. Who’s Fred? They asked. Mary has worked here for the last six years.

(Pause. Footsteps pass by)

Six years? What’s this horsehockey? Fred’s been in this company—in this same damn spot—for as long as anyone can remember. At least twenty years.

I looked around to make sure that I was in the right department. After all, I’m going crazy, right, doc? Maybe I just got confused. But no, I was in accounting, right enough.

(Pause. Footsteps pass.)

I tried to call Fred’s home, but I just got one of those damn sirens and the message that says the number’s no longer in service and there’s no further information.

So I find myself with two options: either I hallucinated eight years of stopping by this cubicle every day, Super Bowl parties, and stopping by the pub on the way home; or someone is messing with me and has ‘disappeared’ Fred and all evidence of his existence to do it.

Which is crazier?

(Phone rings. Pause. Phone rings several more times, then stops)

Or maybe there’s an option three: that Fred really doesn’t exist anymore. Just like the Statue.

My god, is it working on people now?

(Phone rings)

I have to answer that.

For the rest, head on over to Amazon and download yourself a copy.  And while you’re there, check out the rest of the library.  Keep watching for further promotions, and new stories coming soon.

 

Killing Time Available for Free Download Now Through Thursday!

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The Lovecraftian (or Twilight Zone-ish, if you ask my father) story of a man watching as time fragments around him is available for free download at Amazon now through Thursday!

While you’re there, check out the rest of the library!

An Excerpt From Looking The Other Way

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Hey, all!  Just a reminder that Looking the Other Way is available for free download on Amazon through Thursday 7/28.  For a taste of just why you might want to download it, take a look at this excerpt:

By the time I got to the other people – to what I so naively believed to be “safety” – they were edging, too. Not away from me, though, nor from the disturbed homeless guy I was fleeing. They were backing away from the edge of the platform, staring at the tracks, wide-eyed and wide-awake at last.

Human nature being what it is, I promptly turned to look where they were looking. When I did, I immediately – finally – knew what the hissing sound had been. I would have known sooner if I hadn’t been paying all of my attention to the angry hobo.

The tracks were full of vermin.

It was a living river, flowing from the Queensward side – from the deep and unbroken dark beneath the East River. Probably shin-deep or worse, if I’d actually dared to get down there: rats squirming and climbing and tumbling over each other as an endless current of cockroaches carried them along.

They were running from something. Was the tunnel flooding? Should I be headed for the surface, like right-frigging-now?

But no, that wasn’t it. If I looked further up the tracks, toward the tunnel, I could see what they were running from. Right behind the cockroaches was a tide of…well, they looked like cockroaches, too, except that they were black – I mean absolute, gleaming, lightless, deep-space black, like chips of the all-consuming Void moving among the plain brown carapaces of New York’s everyday garbage-eaters – and they were big. The ones the size of my finger were running before the ones the size of my palm, who were running before the ones the size of my whole hand, who were…

Then, just as I was about to make a run for the surface – possibly while screaming like a little girl – a dark shape appeared in the tunnel. It looked human and it lurched along like it was drunk or unsteady on its feet, like the homeless guy up on the platform.

I started forward; plague of giant mutant cockroaches or no, a person down on those tracks is in several different kinds of deep trouble. The train would be along any minute, but it might not even be that long before a stumbling drunk stumbled into the third rail.

I didn’t get two steps before Janitor’s Coveralls grabbed my shoulder. “Dejalo, m’ijo,” he said. “Leave it. This is their territory.”

“Their what?” I said, starting forward again. Then I stopped short as the figure emerged from the tunnel.

It wasn’t human. If it ever had been, it wasn’t anymore. More of the black cockroaches – these ones with weird silver-colored ridges and knobs forming patterns on their shells – were swarming all over it. Over it and through it. Black bugs dripped from the sleeves of its trench coat and the cuffs of its raggedy corduroys; they spread like sweat stains across its ancient white undershirt; they concealed its feet as it shuffled forward through the swarm. It opened its mouth and a horrible crackling noise emerged, followed by more of the finger-sized black beetles. Worst of all, when it raised its head so I could see under the battered brim of its hat, I saw two of them lodged in its eye sockets, like tiny pilots operating the vehicle that had once been a man.

For the rest, head on over to Amazon and download yourself a free copy.  While you’re over there, check out the rest of the library.  And keep your eye out for future giveaways!

The One Rose Trilogy, Matriarchy and Following Your Own Rules

Compass Rose

(This review was first published on April 1, 2014, on my old blog.   The articles it refers to will appear here eventually, but this one had to go up now in response to this tumblr post.)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that used the Left Behind novels as a worst-case example for remaining consistent to the rules you establish in your story (as they are the worst-case example for so many things). In the same post, I included what I consider to be a good example of remaining consistent to the rules you establish: the One Rose trilogy by Gail Dayton.

Having had a bit of time to think about it, it seems that the positive example and advice for internal consistency deserves a bit more attention, as does the One Rose Trilogy itself.
Continue reading “The One Rose Trilogy, Matriarchy and Following Your Own Rules”

Looking The Other Way Available for Free Download now through Thursday!

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Like the title says, Looking the Other Way, one of my more popular short stories, is available for free download from Amazon, now through Thursday 7/28.  More news in the coming week!

Opening Day at The Grindhouse

Slasher 2 Final Full Size

The Grindhouse is now open!  And in celebration of the grand opening, we’re giving away free tickets!  That’s right: both gory, raunchy stories currently up at the Grindhouse are available for download at Amazon absolutely free from now through Thursday!  Don’t miss out!

Another Fine Portrait of An Awesome Character

Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines has posted a new portrait of Queen Viarraluca, the protagonist of Dubious’s upcoming fantasy novel, First Empress.  Once again, the portrait is the work of the talented MJ Barros.

Queen Vi is looking particularly imposing in this portrait.  As Dubious explains on Tumblr:

The scene here is where she confronts a nobleman who conspired to pay an assassin to take her out. The confrontation doesn’t go well for him.

It doesn’t go well for the assassin, either.  Somehow, we’ve developed this cultural idea of assassins as the ultimate death machines, but we forget: assassins don’t have opponents, they have victims.  If an assassin is fighting anyone, they’ve already screwed up.  And if they’re dealing with a warrior, a warrior who sees them coming…well.  In that case, it tends to be the warrior who has a victim instead of an opponent.

PS – I recommend you check out “Portrait Four”.  It’s just as NSFW as Dubious warns, but it’s also beautiful.

It Was Taking Too Long

Hey, all.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been rolling out my old short stories one at a time, each complete with their own product page and a promotional post on the blog.  But like the title says, I decided that was taking too long.  Those stories were published before.  There was no point in drawing things out.

So now, all previously published stories are once again available at Amazon.  All are also enrolled in KDP Select, so if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, they are available there for your reading pleasure.

Product pages coming soon, as well as new stories.  And keep your eye out for promotions!

 

 

The Guardian Cats of New York City: Watcher On The Shore is now available for sale!

Watcher on the Shore Title

Hey, all!

Like the title says, The Guardian Cats of New York City: The Watcher On The Shore is once again available for sale and for checkout on Kindle Unlimited.  For the story that gives us our first look at what happens when there’s something too big for the Guardian Cats to handle – and how they manage to help any – check out the Short Stories page, The Watcher On The Shore‘s own page, or just go straight to Amazon.

To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

Nar-Tali didn’t often envy the senses of the two-legs, nose-numb and half-deaf as they were. But tonight he would have accepted their night-blindness if it had brought with it the distance and clarity of their vision. The Thing that was coming, it was coming from the water. He could sense that now, feel it in his whiskers and fur and bones like the coming of the storm. But as much as he strained his senses toward the Great Salty Water, he could detect nothing. The roaring of the rain filled his hearing; the water and the wind washed away all smells.

Then the skyfire flashed again, and he caught a glimpse of…something. It was distant and unclear and it was only there for a moment, but it was…it was like a hill had suddenly risen up out of the water, then slid smoothly back in.

The sky rumbled in response to the skyfire, drowning out all sound. But as the last of the echoes of the sky-roar faded, Nar-Tali thought he heard the last echoes of another – a distant reptilian bellow.

There it was again. Much closer this time. And much, much louder.

Nar-Tali noticed that the ragged two-legs was standing beside him now, staring out at the Great Salty Water. For all the good it would do him. Even if the hill in the water surfaced again, all he would see was black on black. Not that he, Nar-Tali, was doing much better. With all this blinding rain coming down, he might as well be a two-legs himself.

Wait – there it was. The hill in the water. It was beside the long wooden sidewalk that went out onto the water now, and it was approaching shore.

On some instinct, Nar-Tali nudged the ragged two-legs, then pointed toward the shore.

The two-legs nodded. He saw it, too.

The hill was rising out of the water. Only it was longer now. More of a ridge.

The ridge kept rising. And rising. And then it broke the surface, and…

Oh. Great. Sekhmet.

It was huge.

Bast have mercy, it was a great serpent. As long as the sidewalk-over-the-water…no, longer, as long as one of the great metal serpents that carried two-legs in their bellies as they screamed along the rails. And at least as thick.

Its head was broad and flat and angular, with horns and razored spines sticking out in all directions. Its mouth, with its three rows of fangs, was easily capable of taking the ragged two-legs whole. Its scales gleamed black in the light of the boardwalk lamps, and its eyes glowed a poisonous green.

It thrashed and coiled its way out of the surf, and then it was on shore, rushing forward on thousands of limbs of all description. Crab legs and lizard feet supported it as tentacles and jellyfish stingers waved in the air.

It was so big. So impossibly big. As big as old Apophis, but he was no Bast. He was just Nar-Tali. He couldn’t fight that. But he’d felt the calling in his bones tonight, the call to duty. Why had he been called if he could do nothing? There must be –

And then the ragged two-legs was striding forward, a stick in one hand, the other under his coat. “Whoa there!” He shouted. “Hey, whoa there!”

Looking the Other Way is now available for sale!

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The first story of the dark beneath the City is now available for sale!  Check out the updated Short Stories page, the story’s own page, or, if you’re in a hurry, just go straight to Amazon.  It’s available both for purchase and for checkout with Kindle Unlimited.

(All stories previously released through this site are now available only through Amazon, and can now be checked out through Kindle Unlimited.)

Excerpt:

The tracks were full of vermin.

It was a living river, flowing from the Queensward side – from the deep and unbroken dark beneath the East River. Probably shin-deep or worse, if I’d actually dared to get down there: rats squirming and climbing and tumbling over each other as an endless current of cockroaches carried them along.

They were running from something. Was the tunnel flooding? Should I be headed for the surface, like right-frigging-now?

But no, that wasn’t it. If I looked further up the tracks, toward the tunnel, I could see what they were running from. Right behind the cockroaches was a tide of…well, they looked like cockroaches, too, except that they were black – I mean absolute, gleaming, lightless, deep-space black, like chips of the all-consuming Void moving among the plain brown carapaces of New York’s everyday garbage-eaters – and they were big. The ones the size of my finger were running before the ones the size of my palm, who were running before the ones the size of my whole hand, who were…

Then, just as I was about to make a run for the surface – possibly while screaming like a little girl – a dark shape appeared in the tunnel. It looked human and it lurched along like it was drunk or unsteady on its feet, like the homeless guy up on the platform.

I started forward; plague of giant mutant cockroaches or no, a person down on those tracks is in several different kinds of deep trouble. The train would be along any minute, but it might not even be that long before a stumbling drunk stumbled into the third rail.

I didn’t get two steps before Janitor’s Coveralls grabbed my shoulder. “Dejalo, m’ijo,” he said. “Leave it. This is their territory.”

“Their what?” I said, starting forward again. Then I stopped short as the figure emerged from the tunnel.

It wasn’t human. If it ever had been, it wasn’t anymore. More of the black cockroaches – these ones with weird silver-colored ridges and knobs forming patterns on their shells – were swarming all over it. Over it and through it. Black bugs dripped from the sleeves of its trench coat and the cuffs of its raggedy corduroys; they spread like sweat stains across its ancient white undershirt; they concealed its feet as it shuffled forward through the swarm. It opened its mouth and a horrible crackling noise emerged, followed by more of the finger-sized black beetles. Worst of all, when it raised its head so I could see under the battered brim of its hat, I saw two of them lodged in its eye sockets, like tiny pilots operating the vehicle that had once been a man.