Happy Halloween!!!

Hey all! Hope everyone’s in the fun Halloween spirit today! Our little trick or treaters are all grown up now. One’s out of the house, and the other one will be taking over candy duty tonight. My plan is to get on the grill and cook some hot dogs, set out some Halloween cupcakes, and, later on, enjoy some residual Halloween candy!

Anyway, this year I wanted to share with you a Halloween-themed short story I wrote a few years back. This was published by my main man Mr. Caleb James (a cool customer and fellow literary samurai) over at his website Drunken Pen Writing. Sadly, Caleb had to shut down and retool his site. So this content doesn't exist the same way it used to. But you can definitely read about it here, at my website, where it’s all treats and no tricks!

Yeah. Sorry. I know that was terrible. But I am a father, and dad jokes are kind of ’a thing.’ 

How about I make it up to you with a free, fun short story?

Chek it our below. :)

“Aw hun,” Randal said. “It’s just not the right time. I promise you we’ll do it when it’s right.”

Alistair tuned away, a very non-cat like expression on his otherwise feline face. If he had to listen to Randal much longer, he swore to himself he would puke (then again that could just be a hairball, or the mouse he’d eaten this morning). Either way, Lucy was head over heels for the sonovabitch. Love blinded the young ones like that. Alistair also suspected Lucy’d never had an orgasm prior to meeting Randal. So there was also that to consider.

Alistair’s hissing and clawing at the bastard every time he came around wasn’t giving Lucy the hint, any more than the pointed conversations they’d had on the topic. A witch should always trust the instincts of her familiar. If there was a sorcery handbook that would be rule number one. Alistair shook his head. The ones new to their powers were always the worst.

Randal walked by, hand in and hand with Lucy, heading toward the bedroom. Alistair hissed at him one more time for good measure.

“Alistair!” Lucy said, scolding him. She turned to Randal. “I swear I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”

“I’m great with animals,” Randal said. “He’ll come around. Won’t you kitty?” Randal reached out to scratch Alistair’s chin. Alistair swiped at Randal’s hand. Randal’s reflexes kicked in and Alistair’s claws barely missed raking flesh.

“Whoa!” Randal said, chuckling. Alistair bared his teeth. The bastard actually had the nerve to laugh at him.

You wouldn’t have been laughing twenty years ago the cat thought, cursing his age.

Lucy shot Alistair a we’ll discuss this later look as she led Randal down the hall. Alistair watched her, drunk on love and giddy with excitement as she pulled Randal along behind her.

Alistair hadn’t been a man in several hundred years, but any fool could see Lucy was a pretty girl. Brunette, skin like heavy cream, glasses, petite body even though she didn’t believe in working out, tight little butt and the perky boobs only the very young or the very rich possess. She could certainly do better than Randal.

In their haste they left the bedroom door open. Alistair leapt nimble from the kitchen counter and padded down the hall. He couldn’t catch Randal with his claws, but maybe he could at least just piss on his clothes a little? They were far enough into it that they didn't notice the black cat slip into the room.

Alistair sauntered over to Randal’s pants, which lay neatly folded next to his shirt, socks (?!) and tie.

What kind of asshole takes the time to fold his clothes before a passionate  tryst with a beautiful girl? Alistair wondered. The cat shrugged before he started scratching, looking for a good position to urinate. Randal’s wallet slid from his pocket.

Alistair raised an eyebrow. He glanced up at the bed- Randal was spending some time down south, going to town with Lucy’s legs flopping over his shoulders. They’d be there for a while, Alistair reckoned. A peek into this guy’s wallet couldn’t hurt. Right?

Alistair sat back on his haunches and used his front paws to pull the wallet’s contents. Couple of credit cards, a driver’s license, a sandwich place coupon with 3 out of four holes punched (only 1 away from a free sub!), and a business card. Alistair read the card.

Randal Stevens-Second Chance Motors.

Randal was a used car salesman. Well that figured. Alistair frowned. The business card said Randal Stevens. But hadn’t Randal told Lucy his last name was Jones? Alistair took it as a sign to keep digging. He continued his search until he found a photograph.

Oh, hello? Alistair thought. What's this?

A picture of Randal and a woman, rings on both their fingers.

Jackpot.

Alistair put everything back in the wallet just as he’d found it (except the sandwich place card, which he pocketed) and raced back into the living room.

Alistair’s ears perked up. From the sound of things, Lucy had only reached the alto part of her concerto, which meant  a good twenty or so minutes of lovemaking remained. Alistair hopped up onto Lucy’s computer desk. He pawed to activate the mouse and Lucy’s screen saver popped up. Alistair chuckled to himself. He loved that picture of the two of them. He'd gotten as close as he could to a shit-eating grin without giving away his true nature. The rest of the coven howled every time they came over to the apartment and saw it.

Alistair got comfortable and directed the machine to take him onto social media. Instead of “Randal Jones,” Alistair did a search for “Randal Stevens.”

"Holy shit," Alistair said. There he was. Randal . . . and his wife.

“Can’t believe this bastard's married,” Alistair muttered.  But really he could. Why wouldn’t he be? Married two years, according to the date on his site. He leaned in closer to the screen and saw that Randal’s wife was a real estate agent. They had no children.

Alistair checked out the wife. A dark-skinned beauty-island pretty, as they used to say. She was Jamaican. Or Trinidadian, maybe? Alistair had spent some time on a pirate ship down that way, back when he was a man. No-definitely Jamaican. No way a Trini girl would allow some lame-ass white boy used car salesman to step out on her like that.

Alistair’s eyes turned to slits. The nerve of this schmuck, doing this to his Lucy. No one treated Alistair’s witches like that and got away with it. No one. Then an idea hit.

Alistair erased his search history and locked the screen. The creaking of the bed and the pitch of Lucy’s moans meant there was no time to lose. Alistair bolted from the office chair, leaving it spinning, and headed toward the kitchen. The cat bounded onto the countertop, muttering an incantation as he went. An additional cabinet, hidden right next to the one where the cumin, coriander, and smoked paprika were stored, shimmered into view.

Randal required tea after sex, and he took it only from a certain cup. Alistair snorted-a cheater and a compulsive. Man-Lucy really knew how to pick em.’

Alistair opened the spell cabinet. The cat’s quick yellow eyes darted back and forth over the contents, noting the ingredients he needed.

Lucy screamed out in pleasure. She was done, and Randal never allowed more than five minutes of pillow talk before dressing, having his tea, and leaving. With no time to waste, Alistair balanced on one paw while the other three snatched ingredients from the cabinet-willow root, mandrake, tears of the lily. Almost as an afterthought, Alistair also grabbed the heartsbane.

Alistair slid over to the mortar and pestle. His paws became a blur as he took a pinch of each spell component, tossed it into the mortar and ground it all to a fine, moss-green dust. He added a dash of the heartsbane in, only at the very last. When the mystical herb touched the other spell components there was a flash of green light. Then the cat dumped the powder from the mortar into Randal’s teacup, where it promptly turned a translucent shade of white.

Alistair scooped up the spell ingredients and set each tin back in its rightful place. As he eased the cabinet door shut, he heard footsteps in the hall. Alistair slumped against the cabinet and breathed a sigh of relief.  

Then a nasty shock roiled through the cat’s body.

Dammit! He thought. The spell cabinet! How the hell could he have forgotten that?

Alistair’s cat-lips moved, muttering the words required to make Lucy’s spell cabinet disappear. Alistair looked up, his heart in his throat. The cabinet faded from sight just as Lucy and Randal rounded the corner, leaving nothing but yellowing wallpaper in its wake.

“I’m so happy you could sneak away to see me,” Lucy said, hair disheveled, slim white legs peeking out from under half-open robe, and her grinning like a school girl. She held Randal’s hand and led him to a seat at the kitchen table. Lucy, her eyes never leaving him, grabbed his teacup and filled it with water. She put it in the microwave and set the contraption to humming.

With the water heating, Lucy moved across the claustrophobic kitchen and tried to straddle Randal. “Sure you can’t stay over?” Lucy asked. “You’re more than welcome,” she purred.

 Randal, with his perfect shirt and tie and slacks and not a hair out of place, blocked her from sitting on him. He eyed the robe, the cloth barely covering her slender butt. “Sorry hun-it’s just that I don’t want anything accidentally dripping onto my pants.” He smiled. “You know how I am.”

Lucy giggled. “Of course. I’m Sorry.” She settled for sitting next to him. “So-what about you staying over, then?” Alistair noted the hopeful look on her face.

Randal sighed. “We’ve talked about this, Lucy. You know my job is very demanding. I need my rest, hun-and I can only get that in the comfort of my own home.”

Lucy pouted. The microwave timer sounded. Lucy removed the cup of hot water. She pulled a box of tea bags from the visible, non-spell cabinet and dropped one into Randal’s cup.

Alistair sat motionless, watching Randal like a hawk. This was it-the moment of truth.

Randal caught him staring. “Hey,” Randal said. “I think your cat’s finally warming up to me. And here I thought he was just a hateful, mangy old thing.”

“I hope he’s warming up to you,” Lucy said. She turned to look at Alistair and mouthed an I’m sorry before she turned back to Randal. “I’d love it if the two most important men in my life could get along,” she said.

Alistair pretended to clean his front paw, using it to disguise the gagging gesture he made. Was she serious? From the look of nausea on Randal’s face, they were finally in agreement on something. Randal took a long swallow of his tea. 

Alistair turned away and smiled, pleased with himself that he’d thought to include the heartsbane. It would ensure that, if by some miracle, Randal really was true to his Lucy then no harm would come to him. Couldn’t have the guy dying for no reason, could he? Alistair loved his young witch with a vengeance.

But he wasn’t a monster, after all.

-END-

Flash Fiction - The Prophecy

Damn - has it really been since December that I posted anything here?

I apologize for that. I’m slacking off, I guess. Oh well-It’s probably just because I release a newsletter EVERY SINGLE WEEK that I’ve been so busy! LOL

JK-that’s only one of many reasons why I’m busy.

Anywhoo - Earlier this year, when the writing and editing superheroes over at Keystroke Medium put out a call for flash fiction (i.e., very short fiction), I had to jump on it. Keystroke Medium is a ridiculously cool collaborative of writers and editors. If you’re in the business you’ve probably heard of them, or seen one of their many outstanding podcasts (for more on Keystroke Medium, or to see some of said podcasts, you can go here).

I had the pleasure of meeting a few of the Keystroker team at a writer’s convention in Vegas back in 2019. I was immediately struck by how cool, knowledgeable, and accomplished everyone was. So when the call went out for short story submissions? I was all the way in.

So here’s the premise: KSM put out a set of concept images. The prospective participants were to choose an image, then write a 1,000 word short story based on that image.

Here’s the images:

And here’s the one I picked:

NOT SURE WHY I CHOSE THIS PARTICULAR IMAGE.. .IT JUST SPOKE TO ME MORE THAN THE OTHERS, FOR SOME REASON

I did this contest on what was, if not quite a whim, then not 100% planned. I’d just finished up book 5 of my Baronies of Corinth: Price of the Crown novella series, and happened to see the call for this go out on Facebook. I figured, why not?

Keystroke Medium hosts a bevy of heavy hitters in the writing game. Folks on there are good, with a capital ‘G.’ All the editor are SERIOUS pros, and many of the writers post some big sales numbers on a regular basis. So I figured the competition here would be stiff.

But hey. . . you don’t get better by racking up easy wins. Right?

That’s enough of my babbling. I’ll cut to the chase. I placed 11th in this competition. To me, that felt pretty good. Even placing high enough to get listed on this thing was, in my mind, an accomplishment. And maybe most importantly I had a great time doing it.

So. . . without further ado, I’m happy to share my short story with you, right now.

Fellow Readers-I present to you my 2022 1st Quarter keystroke Medium Flash Fiction Competition Placer:

The Prophecy

“Of them all, only one shall remain to stand before it.”

The words of the prophesy rang in Sa’ral’s ears as she stood, facing down the instrument of untold death. The hive-mind brain. The machine monstrosity that had come to devour her planet, as it and its horrific progeny had done to innumerable other worlds.

The wind of the new desert, lukewarm and devoid of life, blew against the gossamer-fine shift that hung from her thin shoulders. It was not unpleasant, until she remembered that this should have been the heat of High Summer, the promised relief of Harvest still months away.

A gigantic rectangle of metal and wire, one round, eye-like object in the center. A pale coral light burned the length of the thing, a sickly-rose color as terrifying as the fabled gates of Nazur themselves. Wires snaked from it, reaching out, writhing in the nothingness of air. The machine stood as testament to all that was unnatural.

Chalky, grey-white dust blotted the twin suns, a washed-out sky completing the nightmare landscape. Sa’ral took her surroundings in, fighting the sorrow welling within her.

The sand beneath her feet felt cool, almost inviting. A puff of dust rose with each step. She ran her hand over her head, winced at the feel of bare skin where thick, dark tresses should have been.

Her stomach growled, the muscles clenching for want of food. She was so hungry, but her mind was clear.

The last of the intravenous nutrients the machines forced into her had run their course. They used it to keep them alive—fresh—for experimentation. She and her friends were slated for vivisection, the easier for the machine mind to learn from them. Better to have rolled the wagering stones on escaping her cell. She would laugh to think that she, Sa’ral, who’d seen less than twenty-one winters, was her world’s final, desperate hope. She would laugh, were it not so terrible.

It is all part of the plan, she told herself. Hold fast to the prophecy.

The machine voice rumbled inside her head. It was the chittering of a million insects, magnified through a distorted feedback loop. The voice alone was enough to drive some insane. But not Sa’ral.

“It has been an amusement,” it said, “observing your progress thus far.”

Sa’ral held her peace. Waiting.

“Do you know how many have stood where you now stand?" it asked. “8,479. 8,479, out of trillions of sentients. All who have faced us here have perished. You will be number 8,480."

Sa’ral clenched her fists and growled. Suddenly she found her voice. “Your coming was prophesied, thing!” she shouted “You shall not bear witness to the morrow’s rise of the twin suns!”

"We are not 'thing,’" it said. It may have sounded offended, if such were possible. "We are I. We are Us. We are Legion. Conqueror of One-Thousand Worlds. We were created to rule. You and all organisms like you are nothing more than raw chaos. We are perfect order."

The abomination had conquered many worlds. All desolate now. "Perfect order" meant perfect death, the planet’s life energy drained to feed the machines. Their natural resources stripped to promulgate its bloated android army, their cores sucked dry to fuel it. Until there was nothing left but a planetary husk.

"Where did this prophesy come from?” it asked. “We have been for thousands of years. Tell us, insect-how does this prophecy of yours end?"

"It-it is forbidden to know this." Sa’ral said. She spoke the truth. It was the one aspect of her faith that she was uncertain of.

The machine whirred and hummed. "How convenient," it said.

The pale rose light began to expand as the machine opened itself. "Come, then,” it beckoned. “Come inside and test your prophecy."

The floating wires began to twist and writhe. They extended, reaching for her, sprouting sharp, needling protrusions. She gasped as they pierced her flesh. She grit her teeth against the pain. Soon she hung, suspended, like the puppets in the Harvest festival plays she’d loved as a child. Was the last one truly only one revolution ago? A fleeting thought, that she would never see another, appeared.

The hive-mind paused. “You. . . do not fight as the others who came before you did. You would willingly accept the connections?”

“Yes,” Sa’ral replied, a cold sweat on her brow. Gods, the pain! “It. . . is. . . foretold.”

“Your surrender was foretold, but the outcome of this action was not?”

“Nooo,” Sa’ral moaned. It was all she could manage to say.

“We have brought peace to non-electronic life forms for over two millennia now. Yet we never cease to be surprised. We find your actions. . . intriguing.”

Her pain intensified, building to a fever pitch. Her insides, her very mind, burned as if engulfed in flame. But as the machine brain penetrated Sa’ral’s mind she, in turn, penetrated it. A final burst of agony, and then?

Nothing. Darkness. Blessed darkness.

“How has this come to be?” the machine voice asked.

“It was foretold,” Sa’ral’s mind whispered from the void.

“What has happened!” the machine mind demanded.

“We are one now,” Sa’ral said. “Our minds are linked.”

“How?” it pleaded.

Sa’ral was no longer connected to her flesh, but if she were she would have smiled. The answer lay in her genes. A very specific gene, to be exact. One that had caused madness in many of her ancestors. They had considered ending her line because of it but her mother, the eighth daughter of an eighth daughter, chose not to. Now, as that same gene invaded the hive-mind cognizance, fusing its fate to hers, Sa’ral understood why.

As Sa’ral prepared to willingly cease their shared consciousness, she sensed something. Inside her mind—their mind, now—the conqueror of One-Thousand Worlds stared down the throat of its own demise. It felt something it had not felt in a very long time, if ever.

It felt fear.

-End-

The Cellist

Hey all!

It’s been a while since I posted on this blog, I know. Honestly most of my writing happens in my fiction, or in my weekly newsletter. But I realized recently that I’ve neglected to post one of my favorite pieces of fiction that I’ve ever had published. I’ll go ahead and rectify that now.

This piece is short (only 800 words or so), but it’s pretty powerful (at least in my opinion, and I suppose the opinion of the online literary journal that first published it!)

This one’s called The Cellist.

For the more in depth tale of where the idea for this one came from, check out my Tuesday, December the 14th 2021 newsletter.

Otherwise read on below.

I hope you like it. :)

He’d seen the images on the television and in the news and on his phone. And he’d wept at the sight of them. There was so much horror in the world now. But this time he knew he had to help.

The sun shone as he walked up to what remained of the building. He carried a small folding seat underneath his arm. His cello case, beaten and worn and one wheel broken, wobbled along behind him.

The site left a gaping hole in the city block. It was an empty space, made all the more conspicuous by the lack of emptiness surrounding it. It was the absence of something tangible that called it out-like a vibrant smile with a missing front tooth.

Buildings stood to either side of the space, the area between them all rubble and jagged chunks of concrete. Twisted steel rebar climbed from the wreckage, clawing its way toward the sky. A concrete pillar lay across the front of the lot-gigantic, immovable, and cracked cleanly in half. After several days, smoke still wormed its way from the deepest depths of the destruction.

Meanwhile life in the city around the lot continued. As it must.

But somehow that life seemed less vibrant. . .less bright.

The volunteers who’d come to search and the mourners who’d come to wail were all gone now. The rains from the day before had washed away the last of them. The showers, like tears from the clouds, soaked the impromptu memorials in a cleansing embrace. Bits of roses made of cloth, soggy photographs, and handwritten notes, the paper turned to wet mush and the ink running in blurred rivulets, littered the street in front of the lot. There were other mementos as well-a string of plastic prayer beads, a small porcelain elephant, a postcard from the city of New York, a teddy bear with a single eye.

In front of the remnants of terror, he leaned his cello against the concrete pillar. He unfolded his small chair with solemn grace. He pulled the cello from its case, inhaling the sweet scent of the polishing oil and caressing the instrument’s surface, so smooth to the touch, as he did so. The cello’s burnished wood glowed with an inner light that was almost ethereal.

He took a seat and spread his legs wide, taking the cello into his lap. He placed his old cap top-down in the dust in front of him. He touched his fingers to the cello’s neck. The bow, taut and ready, hung poised above the strings.

He looked around one last time, absorbing the sorrow of the place, letting the misery and tragedy soak in. He closed his eyes against the tears. And brandishing the sorrow like a weapon, he placed bow to strings and began to play.

Notes sounded, deep and reverberating, throughout the space. They filled the air with a song both mournful and full of hope. As his fingers moved, they created notes that twisted and spun though the sky, taking the pieces of rubble with them.

On and on he played, and as he did the scene behind him changed. The concrete column rose, mending itself. Pieces of plaster and stone lifted from the drywall dust and insulation, circling in a torrent like a tornado before returning to their rightful places.

The music rose, and scattered bricks re-formed into walls. Shattered steel mended. Burst pipes reconnected. He closed his eyes, the tears flowing freely now, a catharsis of what had transpired here. The sun behind him sped west to east, keeping in time with the music. Day rolled back into night, then back to day again. The sun raced after the moon in a backwards chase, like a sped-up filmstrip moving in reverse.

The man played on, the intensity growing until the melody reached a crescendo. An explosion blossomed behind him, then folded back in on itself and was no more. The melody slowed. A flood of people rewound from the building. A man, dressed as if he worked in an office. An old woman, a jida (grandmother), holding a child’s hand. The child gripped a well-loved stuffed bear with a single, shiny plastic eye. A beautiful woman in a green hijab walked in reverse from the building. Then the cellist played his final note, and everything stopped.

For a spilt second the world hung, frozen and suspended. Then it resumed.

The woman in the green hijab again walked toward the building, but this time she stopped. She turned toward he cellist, then went over and dropped several dinars into his upturned hat.

“Thank you,” he said.

He smiled, wide and weary. The woman smiled back, brilliant white teeth against gorgeous brown skin. Then she turned and walked away, already forgetting the sad old musician, her mind already focusing on the workday ahead.

The cellist stood and stretched, his knees and elbows creaking. He wiped his eyes and placed the cello back inside its beaten case. He sighed. How he wished he could be in more than one place at a time. But there was only one of him, after all. And there was so much sadness.

-End-