Fearful Thing – Halloween Story 2012

Here is one of two Halloween stories I have had in my head this year. The hope is to start work on the second soon. Very soon. 

This hasn’t been edited so keep that in mind when you run across errors. 

Enjoy. 

 

Fearful Thing

    It hid in the dark, in a hole dug in the corner of a basement of a burned out house on the bad side of town. That’s what he’d heard at least. That’s what the street people said. Where the house stood, or what remained of it, was never one of the showcases of the city, was never the place that families went to live when they sprouted children, no, this was the place you came when you had nowhere else to go. This was a place of flop houses, drug dens, and chipped dreams. The fires had hit in the eighties, sweeping from the house at the end of the street and engulfing half of the houses, the others being coated in the soot and debris that fell like snow and covered everything for a half mile. The house where it started still showed its skeleton, and the house beside it was the same way, the cement stairs that once lead into the house leading now to nowhere and the ribs of the house revealing nothing within but emptiness. The teenager stood at the edge of the crater and stared down into it as the sun slipped into the darkness like a secret lover. She had taken the bus out here and had walked the fifteen blocks to get to the house. No one came out to this old neighborhood anymore, not even the squatters, and she wasn’t worried about anyone else. Whoever might be out looking to cause her trouble wouldn’t much like what they found if they hassled her. Not at all. So here she stood, her head full of the stories the old men of the street had told her for the price of some stolen wine and a shared cigarette or two.

“It lives in the basement. You’ll know which house by the smell of the sewer and the ribbons tied around two crooked light poles that stand at the end of its driveway. No one knows who puts those pink ribbons there but every year they bleach, fade, and rot away only to be replaced the next Spring. When you find those ribbons you’ll have found the house.”

And here she was.

She’d found the house.

    And just like they’d said there were ribbons on the two blackened light poles, faded from a long, hot Summer and just barely held together as Fall’s cool winds slithered over the streets. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up and dug her hands into her pockets. Someone had left Jack-O-Lanterns on the porches of the old houses here and it sent a shiver up her spine. It was like hearing laughter in a graveyard. She wrapped her fingers around the small thing she’d brought with her in her pocket and bit down on a smile as she kicked rocks into the hole. It was getting dark but there was enough light to see into the basement and just as she’d been told, there was a rope tied to an errant piece of metal and the rope dropped down into the darkness and in that darkness lay the basement and there, in the far corner of the basement was a hole that was dug into the earth, a hole that glistened with wetness, even as the light faded. The girl lit a cigarette and kicked a few more rocks in and then clenched the butt in her teeth and knelt down to grab the rope and slowly she lowered herself down. And they were right about something else, her street friends, it stunk here, and the closer she got to the hole in the wall the more she gagged. She pulled the handkerchief she was wearing around her neck up and covered her nose. There were more ribbons down here, all pink, all worn. In the far corner, opposite of the hole were several glass mason jars, all full and in a pile but her curiosity, strong and dark as it may be, wasn’t enough to lure her to investigate. No, she was here for something else. She started to march towards the hole but when her left foot sank into a small crevasse and her boot got caught she was stuck and heard something chuckle from the darkness of the hole. Something that sounded like leaves catching fire. Damn. She hadn’t wanted to hurry things, to rush things, her curiosity strong enough to stave off her fear but it seems that, even know, even here, even with this she wouldn’t get her way. She saw something move in the darkness but it was black moving against black so she could make out no shape. The girl looked down and saw her boot was lodged and lifted her leg but it was still stuck, she looked up and the darker black moved in the darkness, shifting weight and watching. The girl lifted again and still her boot was caught. She looked up and the darkness was gone, replaced by a wide shape that stunk of the sewer and gave off waves of thick heat. The girl twisted her foot from side to side and lifted and she felt the light go out of the basement, felt it as if it had drained away or been sucked away. She was out of time. The girl knelt down and pulled at her foot and it shifted, sure, but it was stuck and good. Having no other choice she quickly untied and then began unlacing the boot and as she did she felt something big and heavy approach and hover near, could feel the thick heat of it and its smell made her gag. She didn’t look up. She didn’t look up. She didn’t look up but focused on the boot and when she had it loose she closed her eyes and stood quickly and pulled her foot up with all she had and it stuck for a second then was free and as soon as she was free she hobbled away from the shape and into the other corner. As soon as she was to them she spun around and looked in time to see something that glistened with blackness as it receded into its hole. And again came the sound of leaves catching fire. This time it was laughing at itself. The girl had gotten the better of her there but that didn’t happen often, and never twice.

    The girl shifted her weight as she tried to keep her bootless foot off the damp dirt and watched the hole but saw no movement. It was watching her just as she was watching it. The heat of the basement had subsided but it was still warm down there and as she caught her breath, weighing her options, she noticed that as hot as she was there was a chill against her leg. She risked a glance and saw that she was standing next to the glass jars, jars that looked to almost give off their own light, here in the gloom, jars that were full, full and labeled with a name and a date, scrawled in brown on the otherwise clean surfaces. It cherished these. It prized them. She could tell by how clean they were. They may not be stacked neatly but these were still its prizes. The girl knelt to take a closer look and heard a hiss from the shadows and the air turned hot. She ignored the heat and the sick feeling of dread that was bubbling in her stomach and squinted to see what was in the jars. That sickness calcified into a knot that was quickly rising up her throat as she saw what some of the bottles held and she shot up and away from them. There were dozens of the jars, dozens upon dozens of them and probably more hidden away in other places in the basement, older jars, far older, with more of the same. Trophies, trophies that ranged from hair, to nails, to fingers, to bone, to…a fetus, the jar she’d seen had held a fetus and the date marked on the jar was only three weeks earlier. The name on the jar was Treece. She had gone to school with a Patreece but the girl had gotten herself pregnant and had dropped out to be with her twenty-something year old boyfriend. Patreece that went by Treece with the pretty brown eyes and the shy smile. The girl spun around to leave, to run, fear slipping its fingers through her hair and across her cheek in cold rivers but the heat burned it away and the basement was sweltering. She felt the heat on her, against her like someone crowding near, and she felt sluggish and sleepy. The sound of the leaves again but now it sounded like words.
I take. I take. I take what you give me…and perhaps I give you something in return.
There was no joy in those words, nor was there a threat, just a bargain, a bargain that had been promised. The offer of a barter. And was that what was in those jars? Trades? Barters? And for what? She thought of Treece’s jar and felt sick.

    The basement was gone, covered over in darkness that was full of life. She could hear nothing, the sound dampened, but could feel that something was moving, something heavy and vast, something greedy. And it was that greed, that perhaps that made her wonder again what else was hidden in these ruins. But she had come for this. She had come to barter. She had come to trade. She felt it near, so near, and could smell the rot and stink of its breath. It knew why she was here, knew she wanted to strike a bargain, and now it was simply waiting to see if it was worth its attention or not. The girl reached into her pocket and winced as she caught the edge of something and felt the sting and burn of blood. It came closer and her hand wavered. Wavered until she thought of all the blood that she’d worn, worn like dress when things had started to go bad and someone turned their eyes on a twelve year old girl. Five years. It had been five years but it felt so much longer, as if time itself had recoiled at the sight of what had been done to her. She gritted her teeth and pulled her prize free and the heat decreased a little and she felt it move away, not quickly, as if out of fear, but more out of curiosity. The girl held the thing she’d brought tightly between her fingers and pushed first one, the other sleeve of her jacket up. The heat rose and it came closer.

    Five years. Five years and it wasn’t over. She was no little girl but she was thin, she was pretty, and she was clearly still their flavor, though they still had a taste for the young meat. She grimaced with disgust. It started with a hand on the knee. A hand on the back. A kiss on the cheek. It started as a friendship. That was how it started. And now her sister, her nine year old sister had a new friend, a new friend that was very familiar to the girl, who had known them since she was twelve. It had been that first time, when everything went red, and she had known it was wrong, had cried and cried and cried until there were no more tears left in her, it had been then that she knew things would come to this. She never would have guessed it would lead her here though to take care of things. 

Her face was burning up, it was close, impatient, bored. It was time.

“I have a bargain. I will give you something if you will do for me a favor. One favor.”

There was a heavy silence and she could feel its hot breath on her as it considered her words.

“Favor?” It asked.

“I will give you my most prized possession, something I cannot live without if you will take care of a problem.If you will do me this favor my possession is yours.”

“Fa-vooooooooor?” Impatient again.

“I need you to make someone go away. I need you to…I need you to make them go away. I need you to make them go away…forever.” And did she mean that? Did she mean the implication? Then she thought of her sister, and how soon, very, very soon, she would start being taken to secret places, and told secret things, and taught about blood.

“Bargain?” It whispered. 

The girl felt tears welling up but the heat of the thing burned them away. And was it fair, was it fair that it had come to this? Was anything fair? Some things can’t be tattled away. Some things can’t be fixed. Some scars don’t ever go away. Sometimes they just end in red.

Like this.

“I offer this.”

The girl took her prize and gritted her teeth and before she could think twice she ran it down her arm and split the skin open and sent wide rivers down her arm. The thing recoiled in shock and her arm burned incredibly but it was too late to stop now. She switched hands and her hands was shaking now, she felt sick and weak but she ran the blade down her arm and more rivers sprouted and she dropped to her knees. She dropped the blade and forced herself to look up and there, in the center of the darkness she saw the thing that lived here, its face drawn with shock at what she was doing, and seeing it, she would have surely gone mad had she not been so far down the well and falling fast.

“I…I…I offer…I offer my blood. I offer my body…I offer myself…please, please, please…protect her…please protect her…”

    She wobbled, she wavered, and she started to fall sideways into the jars but before she connected with them something stopped her, something grabbed her roughly and with great strength. She was pulled back up and kicked her feet and realized she was being held up, above the ground. Everything was going white. She closed her eyes. She was drifting. She felt something hot and rough against her skin, against her left arm, then her right, something that burned and stung but before she could wonder what it was her mouth was forced open and something cold and hot at once flooded her throat and she thought she felt glass against her teeth, thick glass like a jar has, and then she was dropped to the ground again and everything went black.

    The thing was in her dreams waiting for her. It revealed itself to her and it was an awful thing but there was more to it than that and it took her hands and showed her what it was, and her heart ached at what it had been through, and raged and what it had become. It was a monster, a thing, a beast, but it had not always been that. But some armor, chosen to protect, can also bind, and now it was bound, to this place, and to the darkness. And for the first time in years she cried.
When the girl woke her face and eyes were wet, though she couldn’t tell if it was from tears or dew. It was morning and everything in the basement was damp and she felt soaked through. She sat up and realized she had passed out in a corner of the basement where there was a nest of clothes. Why was she here? Her mind felt fuzzy but suddenly everything rushed back to her and she looked down at her arms and there were long, jagged scars that ran from her wrists up to the ditches of her elbows, scars where something had burned her wounds closed. It hadn’t worked.

It hadn’t worked.

    She stood up slowly, carefully, her hand on the cold black wall of the basement, and she looked towards the hole and saw nothing. She stumbled forward and her foot kicked something that made a high, sharp sound and she looked down and saw the razor, coated black with her blood, and beside it was a jar, lying on its side. She knelt and looked down at the jar and saw yesterday’s date – October 30, and the year, and inside was thick, red fluid. A lot of it. She stood up quickly, queasy and weak but run through with fear. She was about to leave, leave as quickly as she could but something caught her eye in the corner, near the hole – another jar. This jar was larger, far larger than the rest, and far older, in fact it was more of a jug and she had no choice but to see, to see what it was, despite the danger. Despite the fear. She stumbled forward and got within ten feet and didn’t need to go any further. She saw all she needed to see.
Within the great glass jar was her sister’s teddy bear, floating in a mixture of thick brown and yellow fluid, the bear itself soaked in red, and floating with it were the hands that had hurt her for so many years, the mouth that had assailed her, and all of the parts of the person who had brought her here in the first place, had brought her to the darkness.

The girl smiled.

    It was a shaky, weak smile but the darkness was gone. The morning had finally come. The girl looked past the jar and into the darkness and saw something black move deep within the hole. And she smiled and said nothing. After a moment the girl turned and made her way slowly to the edge of the basement and climbed up and out. Mist covered the ground and it was as if she’d woken from sleep into a dream but she knew that this dream would be sweet, and she would wake from it safe, and that her sister would never fall asleep to tracing the highways of scars that ran across her body like she had. And it wasn’t a perfect ending. And it wasn’t a pain free road ahead. But it was a happy ending, and for once, she could greet her dreams with a smile.

- c

If ya liked this, check the links to your right for my books. 

Tips Off The Top

As far as I have had my blogs, and we’re talking a lot of time now, a lot of years, since nearly 2000 so that’s a lot of years and a lot of rambling and as much as I may like to think I have nothing but pearls of wisdom and deep thoughts to offer the fact really is that well, a lot of what I write is rambling. Especially in the early days. But then, there was a catharsis in it all. Blogs/journals were a place to exorcise yourself and it felt good if you were careful and not too revelatory. I can’t say I learned a lot from it but it felt good in the early days to know that some of what I was saying was reaching someone and was heard, because that matters. In an era where we are all struggling to be heard but rarely listen the blog has changed. It seems that it is  more about Me and less about Us. It’s not about trying to connect but trying to differentiate as so many of us push to get noticed, to get seen, and to get famous.

Fame.

The thing about fame is that it is a kiss without emotion. It feels good when you’re doing it but when it’s done, when it’s gone, it meant little and lead to nothing.

Fame.

What I offer you, friend is not a path to fame, it is not a path to riches, but it is a path towards finding that part of yourself that we sometimes neglect and I offer that part water and light and hope.

Traditional publishing is dead.

Long live traditional publishing!

I come to you as a writer, an author, but not one of any great name or legacy but the thing is, that’s ok. I didn’t get into writing to become a legend, I got into it to amuse myself, to exercise my mind, and to just tell stories. And that is what matters to me, the stories. Sure, I want to sell some books, I want to make some money because this is Art but this is business too and you can’t forget that. You can’t. When you first start writing you have to be willing to ‘give it away’, as much as you can do because these are stories, nothing more BUT nothing less. A story alone may not have power but stories together gather a lot of power and a lot of strength. So you can give away a short story or poem here and there just so you can give people a chance to get to know you. Get to know your work.

Consider writing a job, even if it isn’t.

Sometimes you have to put in that training time to prove yourself, and to some people, you’ll never get hired but that doesn’t mean that you stop working at it, that you stop writing, it just means that you find a different employer.

Publishing has changed. It’s not hard to see it but that doesn’t make it any less shocking and worrisome. There are just not those smaller presses anymore that will put out the lesser and unknown authors. It’s too expensive to print, promote, and to release and ship these things and when the market crashed in recent years it was a way to clean house and that house cleaning meant a lot of smaller publishers died and others went wholly digital, and the rest, the rest focused on commodities. And there’s the rub – these stories, these books are commodities. They are ‘goods’. And as such you have to accept that some people will value your work more than others. It doesn’t mean that your work is better  than anyone from Joe Writer that writes fan fiction for fun or any worse than Steinbeck, Hemingway, or King. It just means that the market bears what it bears and right now, in mid-2012 classy smut is in. Just as vampires were in, just as zombies were in, just as bios were in and on and on. If you have the right story at the right time you can make some good money (with a lot of work and a lucky break) but that doesn’t mean that your story is necessarily better than someone with the right story at the wrong time.

That’s the thing too, being a business, if you are going to pursue it seriously then you have to make the decision of why you write – for profit and fame or for fun and to tell stories? Either path is valid, believe me, but I offer that it’s better to do something you love and suffer than to suffer for something you’re doing for money because unless that money is coming in it’s going to be a waste of time.

Slowly I am inching towards something and that something is this -

If you love to write…write.

Write.

WRITE!

And write your ass off. Write as much as you can and stretch yourself. Write blogs, reviews, stories, poems, and keep it varied. Why? Because the more you grow and challenge yourself and your writing the better at it you become. Fall in love with writing. That’s the key.

Make your own schedule.

Scheduling is a big thing for writers and it makes sense because the further you get from it the more of the threads you lose. It can still be a good story but you’ll lose your passion for it and that’s dangerous. It’s easy to get distracted from writing and you need to learn the discipline it takes to see projects through. Everyone can write a story or poem, not everyone can finish those things and see them through to completion.

Learn.

You have to be up for learning and the biggest thing you can learn is to edit. It will ALWAYS be helpful to get the opinions of others but the first opinion you need and in many cases the most important is your own because YOU need to feel that this is the story you meant to write, that you wanted to tell, and that it’s told how you meant to tell it.

For me I write, I let it sit, then I go back to it and go through it and see what I think and change and fix from there. My short fiction I am pretty picky about since I prefer to decide how that plays out but the novel, that thing needed other eyes on it. Had to have outside editing because it was so big that if I was missing some things I had to find them and fix them and make them work.

Publish!

Now, this is where you are getting MY advice and most writers may disagree with me but to hell with them. I am telling you to publish. Now, this means a lot of things to a lot of people but for me it means this – get your work out there.

It’s great to publish a piece here and a piece there and it’s something to work on because you need to go through that and heck, maybe you break through with something and you can get started on things in a different way.  But for me publishing has kept me going. I don’t know that I’d suggest doing it how I have done it but there’s something to be learned.

After you’ve been writing for a bit and have a body of work, and I think this works better with stories, then you need to start thinking about what you want to do with them. Stories work easier because if you write a novel and put that much time in you will want to pursue traditional publishing, just so you know you did. Stories are good because you can put a collection together of anything from three stories on depending on length and format and you have something valid. I cut my teeth with ‘zines and chapbooks but with services like Create Space and Lulu you have the chance to put out a professional looking book and that means so much more.

So why the hell are you doing this?

Because until you have that book in your hands, until you see why you do this, and until you have to start learning how to promote yourself and your book and how to market and how to price and how to sell your work you are just working with theories. Books make you move from theory to practice. And you need to know what you are working with and you need to learn what works and doesn’t. In essence, you need to learn to be a sales person because that is part of the deal now. And for me, seeing what it becomes, seeing what stories are meant to be, it really brought it all home and made it real and made me love it all the more.

Follow Your Path.

Every writer out there has THEIR way to do things and THEIR way to become successful and all that other crap but here’s the deal – this is your journey, your path, and you need to find your own way. Listen to what everyone says, even mopes like me, but in the end you have to decide the course you need to take. Once upon a time I let someone tell me I was no artist and I quit art for a looong time after that and that’s my fault. I can’t imagine where I’d be if I hadn’t listened to them. I may not have been a great artist but I may have been a happier person because I loved art and I shouldn’t have let someone talk me out of that love.

So write.

Write not because you have to but because you want to and you want to share your stories. There are so many options now. E-books, podcasts, open mic nights, chapbooks, self publishing, comic conventions, horror conventions, sci-fi cons, and on and on and on. There are so many options and so many resources and so many of us, so many of us writers out there that you don’t have to be alone. Remember that. It gets pretty lonely being a writer and that loneliness doesn’t go away easy but you are not alone.

You’re never alone.

This is your journey. These are your stories. If I can impart anything unto you it’s that you need to let yourself dream, let yourself be in love with the writing, let yourself struggle and strive, and finally, let yourself do this and see what happens.

No one promises us a future, we have to make it, and as writers that’s easy because we’re well versed in writing the future, the past, and everything in between, and we should be damned before we let someone talk us out of being in love with writing and pursuing our dreams.

…c…

http://www.meepsheep.com

To Those In Need–a story

To Those In Need

    The snow was falling. This wasn’t the first snow of the season but this was the most significant snow, the first real snow. The city was huddled together against the cold and spreading darkness but passed in silence, defenses up against forced holiday cheer. As the snow falls the darkness seems to take on a life all its own and the masses move closer to one another, bumping against each other and grunting in response, angry at the closeness but loathing the dark and what it brings. And in the dark things begin to move. They come from the shadows, from between the walls, from behind dumpsters, from under cardboard castles, crawling out into the night and stretching like children as their days begin. The scavengers. And as they emerge the people on the streets purposefully ignore them, actively ignore them so as not to be infected with the sight of them. In the distance the tolling of the church bells. First one church, then another, as if in competition, then finally, distantly, a third and last church awakens to toll the birth of a new hour. One of the scavengers climbs from out of a dumpster and watches the people as they march by outside of the alley, hustling back and forth, some with packages, some with briefcases, some with purses and all of them actively ignoring him and as they do he smiles, smiles beneath a thick black beard that flows down from his face over his throat and across his chest. He reaches down absently and pulls his pants up with a hand as the other hand scratches in the nest of his beard. Suddenly he feels new eyes on him and turns to see one of the others staring him and his smile drops. No need for façade with these. He narrows his eyes and sees the heat coming off the woman and can smell her. She smells like rot and waste. The scent makes him sick. He stares at her and she stares back, wavering, after a moment she speaks.

  “I don’t like you.”

He smiles at her, his mouth spreading open as he leans forward towards her. The woman frowns takes a step back, then another and her eyes look away from the scavenger in the dumpster and out to the alley’s entrance and the people there. To get there she’d have to walk past the scavenger too close to him and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t like him. He reminds her of a sick dog her grandpa had had down south. The woman looks over her shoulder to the back of the alley and sees more of the scavengers as they too stretch from waking. Beyond them is another alley entrance and more people passing by. Her skin is crawling. She doesn’t like it here. She doesn’t like it here. She doesn’t like it here. She is cold, and her feet hurt, and her belly is empty and she wants to be away from these sick dogs and back onto the streets amongst the people. She turns back and the scavenger stands before her still smiling, smiling with so many teeth, so many teeth. As he opens his mouth all she can think of is that dog, that sick red dog and the way it would look at her from under her grandpa’s porch, how it would growl at her from a cloud of flies, how it was sick, was very sick until her grandpa took a gun and made it better. She stepped away from the scavenger but he was faster and on her in a moment and after that she is cold no longer.

    In the streets the growing shadows thin out the crowds and as the bells toll hour after hour even the streets begin to empty. As the streets and sidewalks grow barren though the bars and restaurants fill with the sounds of laughter and talk, the sounds of the season barring out the thunderous sound of snowfall. As the people move indoors the scavengers slink from their hiding places, coming out toward the bright lights and roar of the people. Drawn, always drawn to them, and drawn to the people that they hate as much as the people hate them. They prefer the darkness, the silence, and the company of rats and insects. They don’t even want to be with one another but stick to packs for protection and little else. Some still reproduce, or attempt to, but such as them never do well in the wilds, on the streets, and there is nowhere else for them to go. Not here. Not in this place. This place is too loud, too bright, and there are too many people shoving in on them. It seems as if it’s always been like this. At least since the days when they came here, following the people as they migrated and shadowing them and now, and now they were here, trapped by the people and with them. The bells toll and the scavenger puts his hands over his ears and retreats into the darkness, sneering. So loud. Always so loud. He closes his eyes and can see the reverberations in his head, like great white waves rushing over him. He bends forward and vomits noisily into the alley and as he is bent forward he feels a hand on his back, patting him, comforting him. He turns quickly, vomit and blood dripping from his lips as he does.

  “My, my god, man, are, are you all right? I, I am from St. John’s down the street, I, I am making my holiday rounds, spreading the word of the Lord and giving aid or comfort where needed. You, you…are you alright my son? Do you need aid? Do you need comfort?”

The scavenger looked up at the priest and the smell of him was overpowering. He could smell the detergent in his clothes, the soap from his hands, the remnants of shaving foam and beneath it all the faint scent of cigarettes. The priest smiled down on him but the smile faltered then faded. The priest took a step away from him, then another, giving a sign of the cross as the scavenger licked the blood from his lips and smiled at the man. His teeth were not sharp, his hands were not powerful but he was stronger than this man, and he had learned where the softest parts were, the places where it was easiest to bite and get what he needed. He was hungry. The old woman was full of disease, of rot of the mind, rot of the lungs and that was making him sick. It was making the lights too bright, the sounds too loud. He needed to feed. Needed it now. He still lead his pack, was still the strongest of them but he was getting older, and if he let this disease live him in, let her tainted blood survive in her then they might make their move, might make sure he never saw another night. He saw the blood coursing through the priest and smelled the fear. And fear made it better, made the kill sweeter, made it like the old days, made it like when they were all much younger and the world much less crowded and loud. He smiled and the priest was frozen in his eyes, frozen in his stare. The scavenger could feel the blood caking and freezing in his beard and heard the others behind him, whispering to one another, watching to see what he’d do. He was sick. He needed to feed. He had waited long enough. He was old but even full of poison he was faster than a man and he was on the priest in a moment, too fast for the priest to scream, too fast for him to run. The scavenger stood before priest and looked into his eyes and grabbed his hands and could feel the blood thundering through his veins. His stomach growled. The scavenger looked into the eyes of the priest and saw the fear, the old fear, the fear his kind had seen since the beginning, when the scavengers and the humans rose from the same mud, and suckled from the same breasts before the scavengers chose a life of darkness and the humans a life of light. The scavenger fell to his knees before the holy man and brought his hands to his lips and held them at his lips and kissed them softly.

  “Go, priest, go now, go now and take this gift from a long lost brother, take this gift and go back to your world. Go back and remember why your kind fears the dark. Go and make merry while you still have a chance. Go and live. GO!”

    Screaming the last and shoving the man away. The priest shakes his head, dazed and looks away from the man kneeling before him, past him to the things that are running this way, and there, there is Satan, there is Lucifer, there are the adversaries agents and he is off, he is running, he is away into the lights, into the world, into the safety of the open air where it didn’t stink of blood and filth. And behind him a scream, a scream that will echo in his heart until the end of his days but he doesn’t look back, cannot look back, looking only to the distant church that quickly approaches him and falls on his knees before the savior, thanking him for this night and for every night he may have before him, and cannot help but weep as midnight’s bells sound out through the night.

more?

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A Book, Is A Book, Is A Book…

With the advent and infiltration of the e-reader and the tablet into the marketplace and popular culture there is a sudden rising fear with writers and readers alike that the book as a physical thing is in its last days, something that is sorta sad and funny at the same time. It isn’t sad because books are not worth saving, as it were, but sad that we are so afraid of things that are inevitable and evolutionary and may even be good in the end.

The Good -

With the adoption of the e-book and all of those supported formats we as a public are going to have SO MUCH available to us. We will have the opportunity to discover so many new writers, so many new stories, and in many ways it will be a level playing field for a time because someone like me who isn’t with a major publisher could find the same audience that someone who sells millions of books will. Now, I am sure there will come a LOT of changes in how we purchase e-books so that the lesser known and unknown authors don’t ‘clutter’ up the virtual aisles but truly, if a writer were so motivated, they could become a best seller as an independent, could gain a following, and if they are actually good, could become a household name in time. There are authors now that are doing well with just their e-books but I am not sure anyone is getting rich, though that could change. It’s a delicate balance, these e-books, in that you can’t have the price too high or people won’t buy it so you have to rely on selling a LOT of your inexpensive e-books to make your money, which is sometimes better said than done. But, better to have the opportunity, right? How many great stories and great writers were never discovered because the publishing industry were not interested in them? With the growing acceptance of self publishing authors are not bound to publishers as they once were. Heck, I think we’d all like to have someone other than ourselves and our friends pulling for us but as great as a publisher can be, they can also be an issue as well because once they decide your book is no longer marketable or relevant then they stop supporting it but you, as the author, never give up on it. If you wrote a good book it is still as relevant as it ever was, no matter how old the story may be. E-books are not perfect but they are the best chance indie writers have to make waves in a very, very big sea.

The Bad -

Books are going away. It’s inevitable. You can rage at this fact, can mourn it, or can adapt. Books are wasteful. Not all books, but my god, do we need a million copies of every book printed? Really? No. No because books are wasteful. These are not the days where you’d get a great book, read it, pass it on, and the book would live on from person to person to person. No, people just don’t read as they once did. It happens. We are working more, are busier, and have more pursuits than ever before. It isn’t just television but it’s easier than ever to discover music, art, movie-making, dance, heck everything, than it once was. So while many are watching movies, television, or playing videogames, some are not, they are doing other things that just isn’t reading. And so be it. Why some people are judged harshly because they don’t read is beyond me. We need every person with every interest and viewpoint to make up the rich tapestry of life, not just the pseudo-intellectuals who feel they are well read. BAH! But back to books. Books are wasteful. It’s just a fact. Too many books are produced at too high of a cost in manufacturing, then at too high a cost in the retail market, and unless the book hits it goes from best seller racks, to half off, to discount, to remainder, to donation, to trash and then it has to be – hopefully – recycled to start the process over again. What we need is an evolution in the book and book store industry. Books are important. Stories are crucial. But we need to stop mass producing things. We need to streamline. Make the books that are special the hardcovers, and do them in a way that make them something worthy of that honor. Make them well made, and make them collectible and if they are good books people will pay a little extra for them because they will be a form of art collection. Make paperbacks print on demand and have kiosks readily available so you can go to any bookstore – ANY! – and someone can plug in the book they want, pay for it at the kiosk or counter, and have it printed as they wait. And then have recycling stations at the store so if someone wants to get rid of their books they can return them for re-sale at a discount or can be recycled and someone can collect a refund similar to what some states do with bottle returns. Make paperbacks affordable, inexpensive, and watch them blow up again. Make a paperback five dollars or less and they’ll be huge. Make books special again. Stop mass producing, stop over-producing, and stop worrying about e-books. Not every book needs to be physically produced, that’s just a fact. Sometimes it should be an earned thing. Every story deserves to be read, it’s just that every book doesn’t need to be physically produced.

The Inevitable -

Books are going away…and it’s ok. I love books. Love them. But I love the art of books, love the design, and love books that are special. Paperbacks are great, are easy to read, but are very, very poorly made and are not made to last the test of time. It’s a shame that so many stories and books from the eighties, seventies, sixties, and well before that were lost because they were fun stories but were printed as pulp books that were not made for longevity. Paperbacks need to be easily recyclable so when they are getting worn they can be returned and recycled and kick the person a little incentive to do it…incentive toward more books. E-books are not bad. They force writers to think out of the box (out of the book, HA!) in the ways they want to present the tale. It allows them to be as creative as they want to be. It lets them add links, images, music, anything they want, but it has to serve the story. And just as it happens with self published work there will be a lot of bad out there, a lot, but if you spend a dollar on it and hate it you can delete the file. Now, I am definitely one that likes physical media, I don’t like the idea of a magic ‘cloud’ that keeps things that I purchased but unfortunately we are moving away from physical media. Again, it is inevitable. In the end what is important – the story or the medium in which we get it? E-readers are evolving SO quickly that if you don’t like them now wait, they are getting better. As someone who has a tablet and has comics and books on it, they are an amazing way to discover things and to catch up on work you weren’t able to before. I love books, as a writer I have to, but I also understand that things are changing and we can either change with things or fight them and freak out as they change. In the end it is the story we remember most, the tale, and however we get it – as a book, as a story we are told, as an e-book, as a movie – it is always that which is the most important thing of all – the tale. I don’t think books are going away for good but if we don’t find ways to better use them then we’ll risk losing them altogether and that’s the worst thing that can happen.

So, what’s your story?

It’s a Perfect Time for a Good Scare

Looking for some great new stories? Check out the Masters of Macabre contest, give the stories a spin, and see which you like best. http://mastersofmacabre.wordpress.com/

The best part is that YOU get to pick the best story.

Awesome.

Check out the link and the great stories.

c

New Fiction Coming Your Way

Not only do I have a new book out -Noches De Corazones Negros but I also have a new story going online on Thursday, September 15th on Horroraddicts.net

The story is part of their Masters of Macabre contest and the audience chooses which story they like best.

I think mine is a pretty fun tale. You need to check it out. My good friend Mark Eller did the reading and it should be great.

Hope you like it.

 

The Road Ahead

It isn’t easy being a prognosticator. You stand on the edge of a fog shrouded precipice and try to guess whether or not there’s a place to step just within the gloom. You try to look into the future based on the present and decide what comes next, and it isn’t any fun. Alas, in life, we are forced to try to choose our paths as far in advance as possible so we can avoid any deadends that may lay ahead. With writing it’s all a matter of looking at projects that are unfinished, undone, or not yet ready for release and you sometimes lose focus on the task at hand. For me there has been one book I have wanted, no, needed to be released and that is my novel A Shadow Over Ever. This is a book that began as a short story in 1994 and lead to a novel that has been sitting drawer-bound for years. I have added, I have edited, and I have passed it on to friends but it has yet to see the light. I adore this book. There is a lot to it and I have been dying to get it released for ages. This was the book though that I wanted to have traditionally published. This was the ‘big one’. Alas, the world has still not discovered the awesome that is my writing so it comes down to two choices -

Self Publish.

Or.

Wait, wait, wait.

I am tired of waiting. I have sought tradtional publishing for the book and have failed at every turn so it falls to me to trust in the book, in the work, and to release it myself. I have no problem with this and have quite enjoyed the books I have self published thus far. The thing though is that there are limits to where self publishing can get you and I really thought this book (and The Meep Sheep to be completely honest) was saleable. I thought it was a desirable property. Perhaps it is. Time shall tell.

As of this blog the book is in the hands of a friend who is editing it for me and when she is done I will get it back and begin the arduous task of fixing the mistakes and mending the fences. After that it’s on to art for the cover, layout, and then publication next year. When next year? I can’t say for certain. Probably Spring, but time will tell how big of a job it is ahead of me. But with this book’s release finally approaching it brings me back to where we started, and that is with prognostication.

May of 2011 will see the release of the follow up to The Meep Sheep, a book that is sort of like an addendum to the first but which fills in some of the details about the places, people, and events that shaped that world. It’s a pretty dark but pretty fun book. After that I have the novel, which will release next year. And after that?

Nothing.

I have made the decision that I will stop publishing my books indefinitely after A Shadow Over Ever is released. As of that time I shall have six books out that all need to be promoted and supported and I need to focus on that and not publishing any longer. I have been blessed with the ability to put my work out these past three years and it’s been amazing. It made me remember why I fell in love with writing in the first place. I love doing the conventions, the art shows, and every manner of show in between and have loved getting the books out in front of people. Having said that though the fact remains that none of these books is in great demand and it seems pure folly to keep putting new books out until I rectify that or come to terms with it. I love what I have done and truly could put a LOT more books out but it just makes no sense. So after the novel is released I will take a hiatus. I will still write, and to some degree I will support the books but I am not sure what that entails or what comes next. I am open to everything and can hope that there’s a great response to the novel and what I am doing. I have to gird myself though for the possibility that that will not be the case.

So what comes next?

Well, first is The Kreep Sheep, which I am hoping you’ll all love the heck out of as much as I do. After that is A Shadow Over Ever next year, and then, well, nothing. I will keep writing and doing the rest of the stuff I do but there won’t be any more books out for a while. I promise at leasr one more book after the novel, some day, even if it’s the last book. I have SO many stories and I want you all to be able to read them all but, time shall tell.

For now it’s on to The Kreep Sheep, the Motorcity Comic Con and beyond and then there is…

c

Invocation – a story

The first thing you may ask is – why on earth are you giving a story away? Well, I like the story, and I want people to read it. That’s the easiest answer. But truly, this is a way to let you see what I do, and how I do it. And if you like it, then hey, you should check my books out. The links to the right have the info for all that.
The second thing you ask is – why am I wearing clown pants, and that my friend, you have to answer for yourself. Here’s the story.

Invocation

“In blood did we come, and in fire shall we go. Aye preacher?”

The calf’s mouth twisted into a parody of a grin before starting to chew at its own foreleg again. As it chewed through its leg the boy stood placid five feet from it, rubbing is hands together for warmth. It was late autumn and the taste of winter was already in the air. He was dressed warmly, in wool pants and a sweater made by a townswoman specially for him, but there was dampness in the air he couldn’t shake. Just there was the feeling of being watched by things unseen. He had been here in the barn for over three hours already and he was getting anxious. He had been called here just this monring by the widow, a woman who was his father’s half sister, though she had been pushed from the family when his da was but a boy. The widow had been losing animals and strange things had happened on her farm and she felt the boy was the only person who could take care of the matter. So he had come, but while he had come with business in mind it seemed the thing in the goat only wanted to play. It was toying with him, playing games, as it had done the other times he had faced it.  If it truly was the same thing he had faced at the other three farms. It was hard to tell. Lies and games. Games and lies. So many games, but beneath them all was the danger, the very real danger because the most horrible thing it could do was tell the truth, the worst and most awful truth. That had happened at the last farm, the Henkins’ place, where it had talked about his mother. Secrets about his mother and father. The boy shook his head violently back and forth. His mind was wandering and that was dangerous, he needed to concentrate, to be here, or else, or else…

The thing let out a satisfied grunt as its leg fell onto the hay of the barn and its blood pumped out across the wood floor.

“You look cold, preacher, come, warm yourself with my blood before it cools. Isn’t that what you people do? Or is it just the blood of your so-called savior that warms you?”

The boy ignored the thing and picked up his Bible again. It was cheap and old, a present from his mother when he first started his work for the Lord, and it still bore the names of the previous owners and their scribbles and underlining throughout it. It was modest, it was worn, but it felt good in his hands. He looked back at the animal and saw that the calf was losing a lot of blood and would be gone soon but the thing in it was going to get the most out of its puppet as it quickly chewed through its remaining foreleg. The other animals of the barn screamed and moaned at what was going on pushed against their corral and it took everything he had for the boy to block it out. This had gone on longer than he had thought, than anyone had thought. He could still hear the crowd that stood outside the barn, huddled around a fire to keep warm, but could tell their numbers had thinned. He had done three others like this but they had all been with animals and had gone quickly. This though, this was…this was different. This was going to be worse.

“I am going now, preacher. You have bested me. You have won, oh, oh the fires, they burn, oh how they burn! ” The calf, two legs now gone, kicked its back legs and let out a low moan as its eyes rolled up into its head and a thin trickle of blood ran from its mouth and then it was finally still. The animals around the boy began whimpering again, sensing the same thing he did, that it was far from over. And while they were frightened, the boy knew too well that the last thing wanted was another animal. It wanted more than just that. That wouldn’t be enough anymore.

In the quiet moments as the boy waited he surveyed the damage the thing had already committed – much of the barn’s floor was covered in blood and there were four animals lay bled out in the form of a circle that formed around the boy. When he had arrived both cats had already been dead after having told the widow stories of her dead husband’s infidelity, but he got here in time for the goat and calf to be taken, which left only one more thing in the circle other than the boy. And it was always the circle. Always. Even Hell had its rules and for they of the shadows it was the circle where you could call them or expel them. The circle was where you played the game out. Whatever was brought into the circle was part of the game, part of the play, and for the boy, he was part of it too. He could chase it from animal to animal to animal throughout the barn but until it finally killed all of them here or until it settled into something else, something bigger. The animals he could take completely and the boy could do nothing to stop it. There was no expelling them when they were in the lesser animals. There was no resistance, no strong will, so the thing could take it over, as the stories told back to Jesus and before. But in animals they had little power to do more than blaspheme and upset people, ah, but in humans they could do a great deal of damage, but it was also only from a human that they could be expelled. It took something with self awareness and Will to aid in their expulsion, and once expelled they would return to whatever darkness they called home and the body and soul would be cleansed. The boy had never really even expelled the thing before. It always seemed to leave the host body willingly, as if it got bored.  In fact he feared that the thing in the barn with him was the very thing he had dealt with before, still here and waiting for him as he arrived. But the people believed in him, the boy who could speak to demons.

It had been several years now that the boy had walked in the Light of the Lord. Was it five or six? He wasn’t sure. He had taken the gift of the Word and the hand of the Lord after nearly drowning when he was seven, when he had thought he had seen a light and had heard the voices of the angels but when he had awakened he found he was among a group of girls who had gotten him from the lake and onto land before it was too late. And was it the angels that had been calling him or the girls? He wasn’t sure but whatever the reality of what had happened, he had promised to serve the Lord, and had done just that, taking up the Word and spreading it every Sunday in the town. When the thing, the demon, began taking animals in the town he had been called to expel it. But each time he had gone to the home where the thing had appeared to do the Lord’s work the thing had toyed with him and left on its own, leaving the dead animals behind and promising to see him again. Had he scared it, with the words of the Bible, and his own righteousness? Or had it truly left on its own? He couldn’t be sure. Now though, now was his chance to truly expel it, to be rid of it and to do the Lord’s work and, thinking this, he gripped the Bible tightly in his hands and stood. It was time to finish this game.

“Lord, look upon your servant and grant me the grace to drive the evil from this town. Grant me the strength to send the shadow back into hiding. Grant me the power to purge the unclean enemy.” The words felt good, felt hot in his mouth, and the shaking in his legs slowed and then stopped the more he spoke.

He was not the only one with something to say though.

“That’s it preacher, that’s it. Talk dirty. I like it when you talk dirty.” The calf’s head lifted slightly, the light gone from its eyes but the thing still in it, using up the very last that was left of the animal. Sucking it dry before moving on.

The boy looked down at the poor creature, which attempted a smile but finally collapsed before it could. This thing had eaten and been made fat on the meat of the Lord’s creatures, but it would have no more. The boy smiled with righteousness and he raised his head and looked to the farthest part of the circle, where the light was thinnest and where lay the wiry form of a girl. The seventeen year old was Angela, the only daughter of the widow. She was weak in the mind but strong in the Lord and tonight she was bait. It had not been the boy’s choice to use her but his father’s, telling the boy that the demon must be called out and expelled. And to expel it you needed a human. And to do it right you needed someone pure. Why it was his father’s shunned niece that was chosen, the boy wasn’t sure. The boy had never met his cousin formally but had seen her at the church every Sunday and she had always seemed a sweet girl, despite her slowness of mind and body, and she had his father’s soft grey eyes so it tore him to know she was here with he and the thing, but it was the Lord’s Will and he could only follow it. He took a breath and waited.

He didn’t wait long.

There was a heavy feeling in the room as the thing took her, the girl having been slipped sleeping medicine in her dinner milk, and when the demon finally took control of her, the boy realized what a mistake they had made. Her body twitched as it found its control, her legs shaking, her neck twisting back and forth violently and her hands slapping the hay covered floor until it finally had her and slowly she sat up and faced the boy.

“Now we all have what we wanted when we started this game. So, tell me, preacher, how are you going to chase me out this time? Do you think you’re finally strong enough to do it? Or shall you run crying for your mother as you did the other times.”

“Unclean spirit, you are commanded by this servant of the Lord Almighty and his Host to depart His child. Return to the fire, return to the flame, return to the Abyss which sent you forth.”

“Pretty words. Pretty, but useless. Do you think words will make me leave? Do you really? Poor, poor boy. They lied to you. Your God lied to you. I am never leaving this girl. Never. She’s mine now.”

Laughter filled the barn, high pitched mad laughter and the boy heard a gasp from outside the barn and a scream that had to be Angela’s mother. The animals too were upset again, having crowded to the far corner of their corral, away from the he and the girl. The boy’s hands were shaking again but he tried to put it out of mind. It was lying. It always lied. God was good. God was good. God was good…

“Out. I command you out! The Lord, God has dominion over the Heavens and the earth and over the soul of this child. I cry thee depart and return to your infernal master!”

The girl stood, slowly, awkwardly, the braces on her legs making it hard for the thing to move smoothly. It snarled and bent down to pull at the braces and as it did her hands and legs were cut, but it kept pulling at them until finally it was free of them and Angela’s hands and legs were covered in deep gashes and blood. It smiled at the boy and took a step toward him, wobbling as it moved, unsteady but coming. Her face was blank, her expression dead, but the eyes, the eyes were wide and wild, like his mothers had been when she had gotten the sickness and his father had put her down like one of the livestock.

“Do you know what I like about little girls, preacher? Do you? No? I like the same thing you and your daddy like – the soft parts. The wet parts.” The thing ran Angela’s hands over her body, the blood leaving a trail from chest to crotch to thigh to throat to lips before running her hands through her hair and dying the white blonde hair with the red. It shuddered forward another step.

The boy felt his stomach turn. This wasn’t working. It wasn’t even afraid of him. It wasn’t afraid of the Lord. He clenched the Bible tighter in one hand and dropped the other to his side and pulled a small bottle from his pants pocket and uncorked it. In one motion the boy lifted his hand and splashed liquid from the bottle onto the thing and it let out a howl of pain that set it back to the darkest part of the circle again.

“Cheating. That’s cheating, preacher. Using another’s Holy Water. Using REAL Holy Water. Where did you get it? Calvin, that drunk of a barkeep? Maybe O’Flynn, the pedophile that owns the feed mill? Or was it your mother’s? Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? Dear mother who daddy put down when I started calling her out to play. Using something she had used to protect herself for so long. Ah, but you see, it was she that sought ME out, not the other way around. Did your daddy tell you that? It was she that called me to play at first.” The thing laughed and stood in the shadows, rocking back and forth on bare feet.

As the boy watched the thing it began picking at Angela’s arms, as if pulling bugs from her skin, and as soon as it picked something it raised her arm to the mouth and then went back to picking again. He couldn’t make out quite what it was doing but it turned his stomach to watch. The barn was hot and he was sweating now. He looked down at his feet and the lamp. Three other lamps outlined the circle and filled the barn with light, but despite the flood of light shadows still moved in the corners of the barn and the boy felt eyes other than the thing on him. It must have sensed this.

“Oh, we’re not alone, preacher. No, I always travel with friends. They prefer the shadows though – they’re shy, where I always like the attention. So, now that you’ve used up all of your, sorry, your MOTHER’S Holy Water, what’s next? More spells? More nonsense from that book of yours? Oh, preacher, are you hungry?”

The thing stepped from the shadows and the boy took a step back from it and let out a gasp. Angela’s arms were coated in her blood where big chunks of her skin had been pulled free to reveal the muscle beneath and all over her face and mouth like lipstick was the story of what it had been doing to her in the dark. The thing held a small piece of meat out to him and smiled but when her didn’t come to take it, ate it itself.

“Lord, I beseech thee, I am but your servant but fill me with your righteousness, fill me with your Light. Let me by thy sword. Let me strike this enemy low and cast it out.”

The thing laughed and began pacing around the circle. The boy stood dead center so it walked around him, never coming closer but never breaking the circle. It was contained. But not dispelled. But then it changed the game.

The demon stopped pacing and looked at the boy, smiling, rocking back and forth. It put its fingers in the girl’s mouth and began pulling at the sides until long tears formed and ran up her cheek. More blood poured out and the boy could see her teeth clearly through her cheek and a thick, wet laugh escaped it again. Then it cocked its head to the side and turned away from the boy and looked down at the circle. It thrust and arm out into the open air of the circle and swung it around. Then thrust the other outside the circle. It then took a step from the circle and the boy gasped. The thing shuddered as the blood on Angela’s skin sizzled. It forced a pained laugh then stepped back into the circle and the girl’s skin was blackened in spots and one eye was drooping now. The thing raised her hand up and pushed at the eye, as if trying to fix it, then, giving up altogether, pulled it from its socket and let it hang on her cheek.

“Do you like the game? Preacher? This IS great fun, I must admit. You’re so much more fun than your mother. She only wanted power. You people. You HUMANS, you APES – you and your power. Always power, or money, or whores. Never an appreciation for the game. Ah, but you, you seem like you could get a taste for it. Am I wrong, preacher?”

The thing took a step toward him and the boy stepped back. His heart was racing, he was sweating, his breath was short but deep down, deep down he was enjoying it. Deep down there was a fire in his belly that was growing. He had stopped shaking and beneath his determined face was a grin waiting to escape. This was truly the Lord’s work. This was power. He smiled and took a step toward the demon.

“Demon. Foul THING from the Abyss. Be GONE and return to the PIT where you come from. You are a DEVIL and a DEMON and the Light of the Lord is STRONG in me and I shall overcome you. OUT!”

The boy raised the Bible at Angela and the thing hissed at him and limped back to the dark part of the circle again and started giggling.

“Oh yes, you have a taste for it. This is going to be fun, preacher. Very fun. I see a lot of games in our future. A lot. I can hardly wait.” Its voice still a whisper, but now it had a lisp because of the torn cheeks. Like a hiss. The barn creaked and there was movement in the shadows. The demon crouched and hissed at the boy and made Angela urinate all over the floor.

“DEMON I say thee beGONE from this girl. BeGONE from this clean, innocent soul. Return to the Abyss and flee from the Light. I say thee beGONE in His name BEGONE!”

The thing laughed and sat down with the girl’s legs splayed. Her face, throat, legs, arms, hands all soaked with blood and her cheeks flapping as it spoke.

“I never came for the soul, preacher. I came for the game. Always the game. We’ll be seeing you again. Oh yes, we’ll be seeing you again. I think I like you. And deep down, I think you’re starting to like me. Isn’t Love grand? Good night preacher.”

The barn shook again, the light from the lamps went low, the animals started to whine and cry, and the sound from the corners rose to a crescendo until suddenly it all stopped and the girl slumped backward out of the circle and onto the ground. The boy let out a long sigh and wiped sweat from his brow. He smiled and held the Bible up above his head in one hand and nodded. It was a glorious night. The boy lifted the lamp at his feet and walked over to his cousin to look down on her. She was bloodied and torn but she was free of the evil. She was free. She stirred slightly and moved, and as she moved the many wounds on her must have sung out and she screamed with pain. She rolled over and looked up at her cousin and, seeing a kind face, held her hand out to him, hoping he could take her pain away. He looked down at her, at her wounds, at the tears and her weakness and suddenly knew what he must do.

The boy lifted the lamp high above his head and then dropped it onto the girl and almost immediately the kerosene spread across her skin and clothes and she caught fire, and with the fire came more screams. The boy watched her writhe a moment then turned and grabbed another lamp and he threw that into a corner of the barn that had hay piled high. He grabbed one more lamp and threw it toward the animals, which were tied up together in the small corral. He then went to the barn doors and threw them open wide. Outside a hundred eyes watched him silently.

“She is clean. The demon is gone. But her body is unclean. The barn is unclean. The animals are unclean. Let it burn. Let it all burn and let the Lord’s wrath wash the evil from this place. Praise to He, Amen.”

“Amen.” Replied the flock.

A woman ran forward from the back of the crowd, stopped to look at the boy a moment, and then ran into the fire to find her child. The boy made his way through the crowd, Bible in hand, and smiled as hands reached to touch him, to feel his energy, his power. As he walked, quickly emerging from the crowd and separating himself from it, from even his father who jogged after the boy, he began to hum. It was only three days until Sunday and he had a feeling it’d be a packed house. That made his smile wider still. Lucky for him he had just the sermon for them.

One they’d not soon forget,

Amen.

Cranking it out…

It is strange to stand where I am today, on a hill, not a high hill, but a hill just the same, and to look down into the valley where I started writing when I was a teenager. I started with a pencil and pen and paper, writing in those Mead notebooks, writing and writing and not sure what I was writing for or where it was going. I remember reading these wonderful books, these great stories and wanting to do that, wanting to tell those stories. I didn’t want to be those authors, but I wanted to tell those stories. I mentioned it before but I lost the biggest, most ambitious piece I wrote back in those days in an unfortunate accident, but the story lingers in me, and the work was not in vain.

Pen and paper went the way of the whale when I got a word processor as a graduation present. It was a Brother something or other and was an in-between to a computer. It had a monitor and was electronic and it was beautiful. I wrote so much stuff with that. It was simple, it didn’t do a lot, but my god did I love it. I wrote stories, articles and reviews for the ‘zines I did with my friends, and then however many love letters I wrote back then. The hell of the word processor was that I had all this work saved only in that format and when I upgraded to a computer well, a lot of it was lost. And that is hard. It’s hard to let those go, those ghosts, those ex-stories. It’s hard to know that many are lost. Not all, some made it into Back From N othing, heck a lot of them did, but a lot were lost too. But then, losing stories is something I have gotten used to.

A computer was different, and still is. Writing long hand is so intimate, and connects you so much with the story, it becomes part of you in a way. Writing on a computer makes the story fluid, always changing, always moving and evolving. That is good for the story, but it takes the connection away. I love writing on a computer because I can write, edit, and post it or send it from one device. Not bad. The convenience is a hell of a thing, but it does take some of the fun away. I have to admit though that I wouldn’t go back to longhand. I just can’t stand writing and re-writing something. I did that for years. Handwriting the story, or a hunk of it, then going back and typing it and using the original piece as starting point.

I guess it is the same with all arts, all crafts, all passions. You start somewhere and you move from there. I started taking pictures on old simple 35mm cameras, then a simple digital camera, now a prosumer camera. I began painting rough pictures and have gotten better with time and work, experimenting as I go.

It’s always about experimenting and finding what works best but as we evolve our passions we do leave something behind. And that is growth, that is life, but sometimes you need to look back and see where you came from and how you got your start in order to really appreciate where you are.

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The Ones That Get Away

Twice I can recall times where writing just broke my heart. The first time was I was still a teenager and had been working on a story called Road Kill for what must have been weeks. It was the longest piece I had written I was really proud of it. I had a notebook I had the story and some other random stuff in and, for some reason, I placed the notebook on top of my mom’s car and forgot it. Naturally she went somewhere that day and POOF no more story. I was crushed. I was so proud of that story and it was just, gone and lost. The loss of it still bothers me because it was my fault. The good thing is that the story was strong enough that nearly twenty years later it is still in my mind and waiting to be re-written. Just a matter of time.

The second time I had my heart broken by writing was a bit worse. A bit scarier for a writer. A few years ago I had been having trouble with the computer I had at the time and it was just acting up and being finicky, as computers are wont to be. A friend of mine, a woman I had dated a few years earlier, told me she could fix the computer without a problem. She’d back up everything and re-install Windows and do it all up. Not a problem. Awesome. So she came over with a friend and started working on the computer. It was a long job so her friend and I hung out and talked and watched as the computer was worked on. Time passed and I was sitting in my living room with the friend of a friend and we were talking and all of a sudden my friend starts freaking out and crying and I am like, uh-oh. We rush into the bedroom, where my computer was, and my friend is bawling her eyes out. She screwed up something. She had forgotten to burn discs of all my documents, including personal letters, and all stories, and I had lost all photos and all music. Oh crap.

I had lost a LOT. In terms of music and photos, and personal letters, I lost a LOT. As for the stories, I was lucky in that I had a lot of stuff saved to discs and stuff but really, I lost a lot. Dozens of stories were lost for the ages. Gone and, now, forgotten.

I was crushed, I was heartbroken, but it was the first time I had really shown the stuff of adulthood because I let it go. My friend didn’t mean to do it, felt awful about it, and that was all there was too it. I lost the stories. Hell, I lose a lot of stories from sheer forgetfulness. Maybe the stories were great, maybe not, but there were more in the well, all I had to do was drop the bucket and haul them up.

Going through what I have with stories, I always wonder what other stories have been lost, to me and to anyone else. What poems. What art is lost to the ages for whatever reason. The ghosts of the ones that got away are thick with the arts. Haunting us with what may have been and never shall be now.

And you have to honor the passing and the dead, the lost and the never found. You have to honor them because for a moment they were all you thought of and could imagine. For a moment they were your future. But futures change and we must change with them. We have no choice. Some dead will never be buried, but that doesn’t mean we forget them. With luck, with work, we honor their memory and move forward, taking what we learned from and through them and hoping we can do their likeness well.

I have lost a lot of stories, but in their losses, perhaps the lessons learned were more important than the stories themselves.