Six Sentence Sunday - Willow in the Desert (WIP)

Instead they had great, grinning mouths, mouths filled with dagger teeth that gnashed as they came on, as if anticipating biting into Royce and his fellows, of tearing and rending flesh and bone and gristle.

As if in a nightmare, Royce turned from the oncoming monsters, his numb legs starting to run for the sleeping building three blocks away.  He ran for his gun, but his feet slapped the sand-covered road in slow motion.  His heart boomed in his ears, a bass drum in the sudden cymbal crash of yells and screams behind him as the men scattered in different directions.  His breath sobbed in and out, screeching like a badly tuned violin.  Beneath the hellish symphony whispered the dry whir of the mutant alien creatures gaining on him.

First Four Friday - Lilith

Chapter 9:

A Mercedes purred down a dirt road that was little more than a rutted, root-tangled trail.  The car with its German-engineered suspension managed to seemingly float over the uneven road.  Trees crowded the path, and the car’s occupants cringed instinctively at the branches that reached out in an attempt to claw the expensive finish.  Somehow contact was averted in every instance, the car navigating the tight confines with aplomb.

Under contract, release date TBA

The Ghost Who Followed Me: My Third Haunting, Part 1

The house on Ellis Street in Brunswick, Georgia, was like any other in that neighborhood.  It was older, built in the 1940’s, with a huge front porch and pull-chain ceiling lights.  Not fancy but not bad.  The neighborhood was still middle class at the time (early ‘80’s) with a low crime rate.  Kids could ride their bikes on the streets after dark without worry.  You knew your neighbors. 

We lived in a wood plank-sided house that was painted a nice clean white.  The eight rooms of the house all opened into each other, no hallway required.  The two front rooms were the living room and my bedroom, the next two were my mom and stepdad’s room and the dining room, then my brothers’ room and the kitchen, and at the back were the bathroom and back porch.   It was unremarkable to the eyes.  There was nothing about it to suggest anything but a comfortable home.

I moved in with my mom and stepfather when I was eleven, having lived with my father and his wife for four years.  My mom celebrated by buying me beautiful French Provincial bedroom furniture.  My room was cozy and perfect for a temperamental pre-teen who liked her privacy.  I had a television, stereo, and a phone with my own number.  What more could a girl want?

The first indication that I’d landed in Spook Central for the third time was the intermittent sound of those pull-chain light fixtures.  I’m sure you know that distinctive sound they make when you turn the lights on and off.  I heard it in my bedroom often when I was alone though I was nowhere near the light.  That metallic sliding of the chain being pulled, followed by the click that announced it had been turned on or off would sound and I would whip around to see … nothing.  And the light’s status of either on or off wouldn’t change. 

There were also numerous cold spots that I would run into throughout the house.  These spots occurred year-round, whether it was the deep of winter or the nastiest humid summer day you could imagine.  They popped up all over the place, but mostly in my mother’s room.

None of these things were really a big deal.  I shrugged them off and continued to be a self-absorbed adolescent, more interested in music and my friends than a few strange noises and temperature changes. 

But then the truly weird things began to happen.  About a year after moving in, I had my best friend visit for a sleepover.  We were having a fine time when my mom poked her head in the bedroom to say she needed to make a run to the corner store and to keep an eye on my two-year old brother who was asleep in her bed. 

Beth and I were cool with that (we were either cool with a situation or SO not cool with it … life is amazingly simple when you’re twelve), and Mom left to run her errand.  Shortly afterward, I heard my brother make a noise.

“I’d better check on him,” I told Beth, and she went with me to my mom’s bedroom.

The instant we walked through the doorway, the air turned freezing.  This wasn’t a cold spot; the entire room was frigid.  Though the rest of the house was toasty warm, I could actually see my breath in there.  My skin crawled, and Beth’s eyes were big round saucers.  The room felt not just cold, but bad.  I covered up my little brother to the chin.  My mom’s bedspread was a heavy red velvet piece, so I was reasonably sure the tyke would be warm enough.  Then we got the heck out of there.

“It was so cold in there,” Beth whispered the instant we got back to my room, as if afraid she would be heard.  “Tamara, that room didn’t feel right.”

I wholeheartedly agreed.  I was still shivering and suddenly couldn’t wait for my SO not cool mother to return home.  And I thought I’d check on my brother in five minutes, just to be sure he was okay.  I’d recently seen The Exorcist, and I had scary thoughts running in my head.

We didn’t get to check on my brother.  A vertical beam of light, like a shaft of gold, appeared in my room near the door.  I thought I had to be seeing things, but Beth gasped and was suddenly pressed to my side like we’d been superglued together.  The light moved slowly across the room towards us where we huddled on my bed.  It was between us and the door.  There was nowhere to run to.

It was probably three feet away when it stopped moving and slowly faded from sight.  An instant later the sound of my mother’s car door closing let us know the parental protection was back on site.  I rushed to her bedroom, Beth hot on my heels, to make sure my little brother was okay.  Not only was he okay, he’d kicked that heavy spread off because the room was now warm.

Pretty creepy, but the next occurrence was downright freaky.  You remember that shower scene in Psycho?  Yeah, there’s nothing like being vulnerable when you’re naked and emerging from the bath.  I know this from experience because that’s where I was when I was confronted by the grinning boy who couldn’t possibly exist.

To Be Continued…

An Excerpt from The Willow and the Stone

            Carli had tried to get up the courage all day to again broach the touchy subject of moving farther north for the winter.  Coming across the three sisters crop with its Native American connotations seemed like an omen.  She took a deep breath.

            "I had the dream again."

            "Don't start with that."  Renee turned her back on her. 

            "I don't think we should ignore it."

            Renee spun on her.  "I can't believe you expect me to travel north just because some Indian tells you to.  An Indian you dreamed, may I remind you."

            "I don't think it's just a dream."  Carli tried to keep from begging, but a plaintive note crept into her voice.  "It's so real.  It's not like any other dream I've had," she lied.  Renee didn't need to know about the other dreams, the ones that came true.  "It's just as real as you and I standing here right now."

            Renee shook her head.  "This is ridiculous."

            "Please."  Carli had to make her listen this time.  "Last night he said we can reach the Rock before the first snows if we start north now.  All we have to do is go to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—"

            "Then north to an old limestone mine converted into a secret hideaway the aliens know nothing about.  And we'll live happily ever after."  Renee straightened to tower over her.  Her dark brows beetled together, but she kept her voice below a shout.  "It's just a dream, a fairy tale.  If you don't get that through your head, you'll really crack up."

            A lump formed in Carli's throat.  She swallowed it down.  "What could it hurt to check?"

            Renee threw her hands up.  "Remember how cold it was last week?  This is just a brief hot spell.  Winter is coming, which means snow up north.  Which means you and me freezing to death."

            "But the Native American—"

            "Enough about the Indian and the Rock!  They don't exist!"  Renee exploded, her last vestige of patience disappearing.  "You need to make a choice.  Come south with me to Florida, or follow your delusions to your death.  Either way, I don't want to hear another word about the Rock."

            She tied her bag closed with sharp, economical gestures, her lips tight.  She slung the bulging sack over her shoulder.  She looked like a harridan Santa Claus.  "I've put up with this dream nonsense for two months now.  I'm not going to listen to any more.  I'm heading south, and it makes no difference to me whether you come along."

            Carli knew Renee cared more than she would let on, but she meant business this time.  The tall woman turned and stalked away.  Carli fumbled to tie her own bag closed.  She looked after Renee's retreating back then turned longing eyes in the opposite direction. 

            He waited there, in the north.  Waited for her.  But to go alone, without protection, where the specter of Death beckoned with a mocking grin and empty eyes...

            With a resigned sigh she hoisted her heavy sack and hurried to catch up to Renee.

Ebook now available from New Concepts Publishing

Six Sentence Sunday - Lilith

  “I nearly choked on the poor guy's fear.  I saw what he saw, which was the most gorgeous and horrifying woman ever created, if that makes any sense.”  He surprised Alex by shuddering.  “I guess you had to be there.  She made short work of him.  I don't think he lasted five minutes once they started – you know.”

Under contract

Now on Sale: The Willow and the Stone

It's published!  Available as an e-book from New Concepts Publishing.  It will go out to Kindle and Nook in approximately 8 weeks, though it is supposed to be Kindle friendly direct from the publisher.  It turns out my netbook and Kindle hate each other, so I can't verify that personally.

A little tease is in order here:

Four years ago, insectile aliens arrived on Earth in great pyramid ships.  Now mankind is reduced to a few pockets of survivors, skulking in the shadows to elude the creatures that rule the planet.  Among those survivors are Carli Dixon and Renee Johnson, an ill-matched pair thrown together through circumstance.

Battling their extraterrestrial enemy and the betrayal of their own kind, Carli and Renee struggle against impossible odds to find safety.  Rescuing each other from certain death cements their friendship.  But to survive and save others like themselves, they must risk everything … including each other.

Category:  Science Fiction.  Includes graphic violence.

Chapter 1

            Renee slapped her hand over her companion’s mouth.  The brunette manhandled the smaller woman into the shadows beneath the stone bridge they‘d just emerged from.  Carli didn’t struggle against Renee’s grip, but she squealed a muffled cry of protest into the stagnant West Virginia night air.

            "Sssssshh!" Renee hissed, her grip tightening.  "Aliens!"

            Carli froze against her for an instant before breaking free.  She slammed herself against the inside of the arch to merge with the blackest of shadows.  Renee crowded her, also sliding into the dubious cover of darkness.  The bridge, more picturesque than a bastion of protection, was small with wooden beams buttressing the stones above.  A perfect spot for vacationing tourists to pose on for pictures to bore their co-workers with, but a ridiculous spot to depend on for one’s life.    

            Two monstrous creatures glided into view, their elongated insectoid figures silhouetted in the bright moonlight.  They stalked up to the bridge that spanned the dry, dusty creek bed and joined the women in the darkness.  Carli and Renee melted behind a support beam. 

            Trapped, Carli's frantic mind whispered.  The monsters had them for sure this time.  She squeezed her eyes shut but couldn't block out the aliens' cricket speech.  They chirped and chittered, grating against her ears.  She wished she could be struck deaf.  Sweat tickled its way down her spine. 

            Muscular Renee, who couldn't begin to approach the power of the spindly aliens, tensed beside her.  The creatures came abreast of the hidden women, chirping ear-bleeding conversation right in front of them. Carli tried to shrink further back, mashing her backside into the unyielding, unsympathetic stone.  Renee crushed against her. 

            A pebble slid from under Carli's foot and clinked in protest as it dislodged and rolled down the slope.  Her mouth flew open to scream; surely the monsters heard the rock crash down.  No whistle of sound escaped her locked, straining throat, but her heart was a bass drum of thunder booming through the night. 

            Her eyes screwed shut against the sight of the looming predators, Carli waited for the bristle-haired mantis arms of an alien to embrace her.  She waited for its needle proboscis to slide into her flesh and secrete its paralyzing poison.  She waited to sag helpless in the grip of the monster while it sipped the life from her veins.  She waited to die a slow, fading death.  Her heart pounded louder than ever, as if to beat as hard and fast as it could in its few remaining minutes.

            The chittering aliens, intent on their conversation, stalked past.  Disbelieving, Carli’s eyes flew open, and she watched them pass from under the bridge.  Motes of moon-glittering dust danced in the wake of the monsters’ long, tapered legs. 

            She released the breath she'd been holding in a rush and sucked it in again as one alien swiveled its head around.  It looked back at the bridge that hid the two women.

            Carli's stomach lurched at the pale orb of the creature's face glowing in the moonlight.  Wispy tufts of hair sprang in sparse bunches from its bullet-shaped head.  The proboscis writhed like a blind worm where a nose and mouth would have been on a human.  Its grayish flesh seemed stretched too tight over its skull; there were no wrinkles, not even creases on its face.

            Its eyes shocked her the most; eyes cold in intent, but horribly human in appearance, almond shaped and ringed with black lashes. 

            The creatures’ naked torsos were long and smooth without benefit of hair, muscle tone, or even genitalia.  Carli had no idea if skin or a harder shell covered their bones; happily she’d never been in contact with one.  Odds were she’d someday lose that joy.

            The searching alien's too-human eyes slid over the women without alerting.  Carli's body sagged as the creature turned away and stalked on with its companion.

            The women huddled under the bridge listening to the monsters' conversation die away and smelling the sour tang of their own sweat.  Carli shuddered violently, knowing that Renee could feel it, and didn’t care.  Probably Renee was shaking too; this had been their closest call yet. 

            Frogs broke into chorus from their shelters within the tall grass on the banks.  Renee shook free of her paralysis, grabbed Carli's hand, and yanked her out into the open.  Under the moon's accusing glare they sped away, tearing a path through the grass to escape the creatures that had all but destroyed the human race.


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Still Waiting for the Release - But We Have Cover Art!

Yay!  I like it.