D.M. Anderson's Free Kittens

The J.R. Turner Interview

2012-01-26T10:34:00.000-08:00

Jenny Turner (aka J.R. Turner) is a fellow author who has written many books of various genres, from young adult novels to adventure fantasy and seemingly everything in between. She is also the primary editor at Quake Publishing, the young adult imprint of Echelon Press, and edited this writer's first two novels. People who wear more than one professional hat are always interesting, and she was nice enough to share her thoughts on her own writing, editing the work of others and the publishing business in general.

Thanks for taking the time for an interview at Free Kittens. If you don’t mind, I’ll start with the dumb questions, such as, do you remember what first inspired you to become a writer? Was it another author, a particular book, or something else entirely?

Julie Garwood inspired me. Well, truthfully, she ruined me. I remember when For the Roses came out. I couldn’t hardly wait for the release because I’d devoured all her books more than once. On release day, I was there with money for a hard cover. Yes. I bought my first full-price hard cover—which was about half my weekly grocery budget at the time. I devoured it just as quickly—in one single day.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover and that’s exactly what happened over the course of that long, long year waiting for another book from Garwood. I chose one bad book after another. I decided I’d rather spend my time writing the book I wanted to read, instead of reading a terrible book.

I know I’ll never forget getting that first acceptance letter for a story. What was your first publishing credit?

I had an essay published in a charity anthology with proceeds going to an abused women’s shelter. The book was Crumbs in the Keyboard and I wrote about the craziness of motherhood.

You’ve written and published stories in a variety of genres. Any particular genre you enjoy more than others?

I usually really love the book I’ve just completed or had released so I’m not sure if it’s because this book really is special, but Redemption, my urban fantasy novel, has made me fall deeply in love with the genre. A reader recently compared the ending to The Stand and I was walking on cloud nine. I loved the post-apocalyptic element—the struggle for survival against evil. All of it was just a blast.

Your most recent young adult novels are the three (so far) in your Extreme Hauntings series. How would you describe these books to those who are curious?

Kaylee, the heroine, is such a superb character to work with. These books led me toward the more paranormal/supernatural aspects of writing. After having such a fabulous time working with ghosts, demons, and monsters, I wondered why I waited so long. The quest for internal understanding when the whole world has gone wacko, and everyone thinks Kaylee’s gone wacko, is a really cool dichotomy to work with.

Did you always intend Extreme Hauntings to be a series, or did you start off thinking the first would just be a stand-alone novel?

I had been invited to write a YA series for Quake, so I knew in the beginning there would be six books total.

I’ve been fleshing out the concepts and outline for the fourth book. This one takes place in a boot camp for teens. Kaylee and Davey are convicted of arson and assault, and the courts are not happy with them considering the legal trouble they’ve faced in the past. I’m looking forward to seeing how the authority figures in this book handle what happens when the supernatural entities begin to make themselves known.

What are some of the challenges in writing young adult horror, a genre where it can be easy to cross the line between what‘s acceptable and unacceptable for kids?

My biggest concern is making sure the horror feels real to the reader. I don’t rely on the gross or the morbid to make them squirm. These are ghost stories and I really want to convey that spookiness, that terrifying moment when those eyes you feel on you in an empty room prove to belong to an unknown, unseen entity. That’s not an easy task, but it’s one I hope I accomplished.

What is the one book you’ve published you are the most proud of? Why?

Gosh, this is so hard. Every book is different and every book has reasons to be my favorite. I’m proud of My Biker Bodyguard because it was based on my family and it won awards. I’m proud of DFF: Dead Friends Forever because it was my first YA book, my first published horror novel, and the first one I wrote for my kids. I could go on and on!

You are also one of the editors Quake Publishing, Echelon Press’ YA imprint, which I’m assuming takes a lot of time. How do you manage to find time for your own projects when you aren’t busy editing the work of others?

I love editing and fortunately, Quake has a lot of really great authors who make my job easy! Mostly I have the time because I’m one of the lucky few who doesn’t have to have a day job. Because of this and a passion for the work, I’m able to accomplish many things. I rarely take a day off, not even weekends, because when I wake up in the morning, I’m eager to get to my computer and work on my current project. Vacations can be tough on me because half my brain is working on a novel or seeking solutions for an editing project.

As an editor, what do you look for when considering a manuscript submission? What makes a good young adult novel?

A strong style and voice will conquer almost any initial plot or character difficulties. I’ve avoided manuscripts where the author proved to be difficult or too emotionally invested in the current draft. I respect an author’s ownership of the work, but I also respect our in-house style-guide and if the two can’t meet—then we’re both out of luck. The best books in the YA genre go where they need to go and not shy away from plot points one might feel are offensive. Any subject matter can be handled delicately.

Young adult fiction is currently a huge market, with a glut of authors jumping on the Stephanie Meyer or J.K. Rawling bandwagon. Is there a type of YA novel you’d like to see more of besides wizards and vampires?

I’m open to anything as long as it oozes imagination, passion, and admirable writing.

What advice would you give to would-be authors in terms of writing and submitting?

Don’t submit too early! Great ideas and great books can be lost because authors are unaware the book still needs a good solid editing. Don’t expect editors to do it for you. I’d rather work on a stellar novel with solid writing than a potentially extraordinary novel that’s in dire need of a second pair of eyes.

As we both know, having one’s work accepted is just the beginning of a long process, especially in terms of promotion. What are some of the most effective ways you use to get word out about your books?

Social media and face-to-face contact. Those two can work wonders and create a lot of buzz for a person. I think there are two ways these ventures can fail, however: interacting only with people you know and lack of follow-through. Don’t cancel your book signings, don’t ignore your blog and other accounts. Just because you have them, doesn’t mean they will be any good unless you work at them!

I just recently bought a Kindle and I love it. I’ve been able to buy books by my favorite authors at a fraction of the price, and I’m more willing to take a chance on new authors. However, I’ve also noticed that the current explosion of e-books has resulted in a lot of stuff out there that may not have ever seen the light of day through traditional publishing. What’s your take on the impact of e-publishing on both writers and the publishing industry?

I think it’s fantastic. Anything that puts the control and profits into the hands of the people who do the work is awesome. With the way e-books are taking off, I think we’ll begin seeing a lot more first-time authors build a following and gain recognition where they may have been unable to breakthrough in the past.

Finally, where are the best places to find your books, as well as places where readers can learn more about you?

I’m converting my website over to my wordpress account right now. The address for my wordpress account is: http://jrturner.wordpress.com and my website is: http://www.jennifer-turner.com/

All my books are available at Amazon.com and on Smashwords. Thank you so much for this opportunity to share with your readers!

Free Kittens would like to thank Jenny for sharing her time.

The Hole

2012-01-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

Though his eyes were still thick with sleep, Tom couldn’t help but notice the massive, unsightly hole in the middle of his front yard the second he opened the garage door. He scowled, angrily retying his bathrobe. A blue Lexus hummed past, indifferent to the sudden blight on the Jacobson yard.

“Great,” Tom spat. “Gophers.”

He bitterly grabbed his trash can and dragged it to the end of the drive, staring in disgust at the unsightly hole the entire time. He’d just reseeded the entire damn yard in the spring, shortly after he and his wife bought the place. A whole weekend of labor undone by a worthless, wily rodent.

After dropping off the trash, he gingerly tip-toed across the lawn to the hole. Morning dew flitted from the grass with each step, dampening his slippers and dotting his bare ankles with tiny drops. Hands on hips, he surveyed the damage. Surrounded by a ring of unearthed soil, it resembled a recently-erupted volcano. Tom peered into the cavernous black abyss, thinking the mother of all gophers must be living beneath his property.

“Say, Tom,” a familiar voice greeted from behind. “How goes the battle?”

Tom turned to see his neighbor, Herb Blisard, jogging in-place on the sidewalk. The old man flashed a congenial smile as he removed his earphones and wiped sweat from his forehead. He was dressed in the same too-snug blue sweats and Oregon Ducks T-shirt he wore for every morning run.

“Hey, Herb,” Tom replied. “The battle?” He scowled as he aimed a rigid finger at the vandalism in the middle of his yard. “That’s how the battle goes. Goddamn gophers.”

Herb stopped jogging and slowly exhaled, regarding the hole with a serious face.

Tom slowly shook his head and sighed. “Can you believe it? In a neighborhood like this? Homes starting at 400K, a Lexus in every driveway, a swimming pool and barbecue in every back yard, in-ground sprinkler system, and all it takes for my property to look like White Trash Central is a stupid, pea-brained rodent. Now I gotta shell three hundred bucks at Home Depot to get rid of the little bastards.”

As if on cue, Reggie Bannister, a neighbor from two houses down, sped by in his Lexus, throwing a friendly hand out the window on his way to work.

“Gophers?” Herb mused, stepping up onto the lawn to join Tom. Also putting his hands on his hips, he appeared to study the cavernous hole for several seconds. “It ain’t gophers, Tom. Hole’s too big for it to be gophers. Looks to me like you’ve got zombies.”

Tom’s eye grew huge. “Zombies? How could I have zombies?”

Herb chuckled knowingly. “Let me guess…the realtor conveniently forgot to inform you this neighborhood was developed on top of an ancient burial ground.”

Tom stared back dumbly.

“Yeah, that figures. Hard to sell homes built on top of dead people, but it doesn’t instill much trust in real estate agents, does it?”

Tom’s face sank as he stared ominously into the hole. “Zombies. This is worse than gophers.” He buried his face in his hands.

Herb slapped him on the back. “Not really, Tom. Gophers usually burrow back into the ground only to pop up somewhere else in your yard later. Just one gopher could put dozens of tiny holes all over your yard. When zombies rise up, they never go back ‘cause they’re too hungry. So unless you’ve got a whole nest of ‘em under your yard, you’re actually pretty lucky.” He nodded down to the hole. “All you gotta do is find this zombie and get rid of it. You don’t want something like that hanging around. Lowers the property value.”

“What makes you think a zombie would stick arou-”

A sudden, ear-piercing shriek erupted from inside Tom’s home.

Panicked, Tom gripped Herb’s arm and stared with dread at his house, noticing the gate leading to the back yard was ajar. “Oh, God. Nicole!”

Herb suddenly pulled a handgun from the waistline of his too-snug sweats and charged forward. “Come on!”

Feeling helpless, Tom sprinted after his neighbor, following him through the gate into the back yard.

They both suddenly stopped.

There on the patio, moaning as it pounded the sliding-glass door with moist, gelatinous hands, was the grungy and gray undead corpse that had clawed its way out of the front yard. Strings of yellow drool dangled from its jaws. Chunks of soil and flesh dropped off its bones and plopped to the concrete with each strike of the glass. Tom’s wife, wearing nothing but the fuzzy pink robe he gave her a few Christmases ago, stood screaming on the other side of the door, hands flailing in terror.

“Nicole!” Tom cried.

The corpse reared its head toward Herb and Tom. Both eyes were gone, leaving oozing black sockets. Its mouth fell open as it suddenly shambled toward them, knocking over the gas grill Tom spent an hour cleaning the other day.

Herb drew careful aim, cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger. The blast was deafening, scaring a few sparrows from some nearby trees. The ghoul’s head exploded, immediately spattering the nearby wall of Tom's $400K home with blood, brains and shards of shattered skull. The rest of the body collapsed to the ground in a wet heap.

Slowly exhaling, Herb lowered the gun and tucked it back into his sweats. “There…problem solved, buddy.”

As Nicole offered them both an exasperated look before throwing the curtains closed, Tom said, “Thanks, Herb, I appreciate it. But what if I got a bunch of the undead under my yard?”

Herb clapped Tom’s shoulder with one hand and patted the butt of his gun with the other. “My friend, not every lawn maintenance tool can be found at Home Depot.” He looked over and noticed the nearby fish pond Tom had recently spent a weekend digging. “Though I do suggest going there to get some fencing. Goddamn raccoons ate all the koy in my pond. Nasty critters…worse than zombies.”

2011 in Review

2012-01-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

Fox News Channel recently claimed the latest Muppet movie has a communist agenda. On a related note, Free Kittens has recently discovered Bill O’Reilly likes to pleasure himself while watching the film, Air Force One.

In the land of douche bags, The Situation is their king. He’s such a douche bag that Abercrombie & Fitch, the official clothing line of douche bags worldwide, offered him money to stop wearing their clothes for fear of tarnishing their image. Now THAT’S a douche bag.

With the release of their collaboration with Lou Reed, Lulu, Metallica now owns the world record for most career suicide attempts. Not to be outdone, previous record-holder George Lucas plans to reclaim the title by making The Phantom Menace the first film of his Star Wars saga to be re-released in 3-D. Really???

In an effort to promote awareness and raise money to help preserve the dwindling environment of the polar bear, Coca-Cola released a special series of white soda cans. Weeks later, the cans were discontinued because people were mistaking them for Diet Coke. I’m not sure what is worse, the fact that no one bothers to read the freaking label, or the fact the Coca-Cola basically said, “Screw the polar bears…no one’s buying Coke!”

A woman, thinking she was paying to see an action film similar to The Fast and the Furious, sued the producers of the film, Drive, for false advertising. Inspired by this idiot, the staff of Free Kittens has decided to sue any studio that ever used the meaningless term, ‘beyond imagination,’ in promoting their films. After all, these films are obviously not beyond imagination because someone freaking imagined them. Hence, false advertising.

A woman sued Wal-Mart after she was overcharged two cents for a package of sausage. She won $100. Once again inspired by one American’s attempt to collect a check without doing anything to earn it, the staff of Free Kittens (me) sued his wife for spending too much at the grocery store. She now owes him nightly backrubs and complete control of the TV remote.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, Free Kittens has learned that ESPN will stop broadcasting boxing matches, claiming it would be far less expensive to simply set up cameras in any Wal-Mart store on Black Friday and record the mayhem.

A nine year old student was suspended two days for sexual harassment after he was overheard calling one of his teachers ‘cute.’ On a related note, Free Kittens has learned that a recent newborn child was arrested for having the gall to emerge from the womb with an exposed penis.

Former wizard apprentice Harry Potter just recently discovered that a degree from Hogwarts, while impressive, doesn’t provide him with any actual employable skills.

Around the world, thousands of kids who became experts at games like Guitar Hero suddenly realized they could have better spent all that time actually learning how to play the guitar.

Millions of Tweeters worldwide suddenly came to the realization that nobody gives a damn about what they have to say.

Kim Kardasian’s marriage and immediate divorce was headline news in 2011. Meanwhile, the death of Anne McCaffery, one of the most prolific and best-selling sci-fi writers of all time, went by nearly unnoticed. I’m sorry…I have no punch line for this one.

Jersey Shore Christmas ornaments. Seriously. I saw them at Walgreen’s. There’s one of The Situation lifting his shirt to show off his six-pack. I have no punch line for this one either.

After a news story broke that a children’s book available on Amazon.com, The Trinity of Superkidds, was authored by a convicted serial killer who likes to write naked in the dark, sales to the book briefly increased dramatically, outselling books by struggling writers who never even got so much as a parking ticket (and, yes, I’m referring to me).

The video game series, The Legend of Zelda, was the first to be inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame. I guess that means such games as Pong, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong had absolutely zero impact of the gaming industry. On a related note, Free Kittens has learned the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced that all their previous inductees have been removed to make room for Britney Spears, since it is obvious only the past twenty years truly matter in the course of human history.

Michael Jackson is still dead, and has been for almost two years, The maggots have since picked his carcass clean. That hasn’t stopped millions of born-again Michael Jackson fans willing to forgive high-profile cases of child molestation accusations. I guess, when you’re dead, all is forgiven. The powers-that-be even managed to convict Jackson’s doctor in order to free Jackson from blame for his own death. Yeah, that makes sense…the previous 30 years of never being told no had nothing to do with it. Hey, everyone…the guy is DEAD. He was a once musical genius, but he also liked young boys, got hooked on drugs and fell in love with his own celebrity. Get over it.

2011 in Perspective

2012-01-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Eve, 2011, and I’m currently sitting in my office by myself, SyFy’s annual Twilight Zone marathon blaring in the background. My 16-year-old daughter is upstairs doing her usual cyber-socializing, and the wife and youngest daughter are out at the movies. New Year’s Eve doesn’t seem to be a big deal anymore. Okay, maybe New Year’s Eve was never that big of a deal, but like a lot of folks, I used to make it a bigger deal than it really was, using it as an excuse to get completely blotto and engage in behavior that, if I were 20 years younger and 30 pounds lighter, I would be deemed, in modern vernacular, a douchebag. Yeah, those days were fun, but I don’t really miss them. My New Year’s Eves may not be all that exciting, but it is kind-of nice waking up on New Year’s Day without dry-heaving and feeling like my head is going to fly apart.

I don’t ring in the new year with the hubris I once did, but I’m actually thankful I have a new year to ring in at all, and really, I’m enjoying how I’m spending it tonight. I used to lament getting older, but now I know getting older is much better than the alternative. Last year at this time, I had just been released from the hospital after a life-threatening illness and spent much of the year recovering.

Gotta pause to catch this Twilight Zone episode - one of my favorites - where a man condemned to live on an asteroid is provided a female robot companion.

I also turned 48 this year, just a couple of years away from 50, yet somehow, it doesn’t bother me as much as turning 30 did. Because of my illness, I’ve taken a good hard look at the past year, and my life in general. I never became a big rock star, never raced in the Daytona 500, never married Jodie Foster. Even after my longest-held dream of being a novelist was actually fulfilled with the publication of my two novels so far, Killer Cows and Shaken, the actual financial returns of those books assures me that writing will likely always remain just a pleasurable pastime.

Despite being a teacher with a newly-acquiried master‘s degree, I still live paycheck-to-paycheck. Retirement is probably not going to ever be an option. I’ll probably never own that mid-life-crisis muscle car I always wanted. I’ll probably never get to travel abroad. I will probably never get out of debt. I’ll probably never have the social life I did 25 years ago.

But at the same time, I have a beautiful wife who loves me for who I am, despite my quirks, hang-ups and occasional delusions of grandeur. I’ll probably never provide her with the worry-free life she deserves, but she sticks with me anyway. We are going on 23 years, and with the exception of my parents and her sister, we’ve been married longer than anyone else in our immediate families. At this point, it’s truly looking like a case of ‘till death do us part’, and I feel good about that. She’s my best friend and I never feel like I’m missing out on anything by being married to her.

I have two loving daughters who I wouldn’t trade for the world. It seems like only yesterday when they were just born, yet I sometimes have trouble recalling my life without the two of them around. They are funny, charming and have been a joy to raise. My youngest is my new ‘horror movie buddy’, and my oldest is at that really interesting age when I may always not be her first choice of people to pal around with, but when we do, hilarity ensues.

Another great Twilight Zone episode. This is the one with an assortment of people are trapped in a cylindrical room, only to discover later on that they are just dolls.

And even though my job as an educator is currently in utter turmoil (district budget problems, reduced pay from furlough days, increased workload, etc.), I still love what I do. On those days when I don’t, I now try to remember two things: 1) that I’m alive to have a job to complain about, and 2) no matter what, teaching beats the hell out of what I used to do for a living (flipping omelets at a hotel restaurant).

As a writer, I’ve made almost no money from the two novels I’ve gotten published. Okay, so I’ll likely never wake up in a coastal beach house overlooking the Pacific and retreat to my office with a cup of coffee to continue work on my next bestseller. I still enjoy making stuff up, and one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me was having students come up to me to sign copies of my books. Maybe respect is better than money.

I’ve reached the point where personal vanity is no longer a priority. I’m no longer someone women take a second glance at, and I’ll never again be in the same physical shape as I was in my 20s. This is actually pretty liberating. I do not think I’m a hideous human specimen, and my wife finds me desirable, so that’s really all I care about. And you know what? I’m pretty sure I have a LOT more sex than most single guys my age, and I don’t have to work that hard to get it.

I also reached the point where I truly do not care what inconsequential people think of me. I’m 48 years old. I love heavy metal music. I love wearing my hair long. I love playing Mario Kart. I love throwing on my ripped-up and sleeveless Motorhead T-shirt on weekends. I love the fact I’ve not used (or needed) my cellphone for over a year. I love horror movies with gratuitous violence. I love wasting entire days reading my Kindle when I could be walking-off some pounds on the treadmill. And I love the fact I don’t feel like I have to grow up and act my age. And, in a way, that is growing up, isn’t it? Sorry, folks. I like my life, and your approval of how I live it is no longer needed.

Sure, a lot of 2011 sucked, but I am also reminded of the important things that were uber-awesome about it. If fact, when it’s time for me to leave this world, 2011 may end up being one of those years for which I’m the most thankful. This was the year I first became truly happy to be alive, surrounded by people who love me for who I am.

Well, I gotta stop here. The next Twilight Zone episode is the one with a woman in her apartment dealing with the sun getting closer to Earth. My oldest daughter loves this one, too (a girl after my own heart). I’ll call her down to catch it with me. Another great New Year’s celebration, likely to go down as one of my favorites.

Maybe your perspective will have you feeling the same way.

The Last Christmas

2011-12-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

On the eve of last Christmas I turned out the lights;

I tucked in my daughter and wished her goodnight.
“Tomorrow is Christmas!” she uttered with joy

“When Santa brings presents to good girls and boys!”

“That’s right, little princess,” I replied with a grin

“But you must be asleep for Saint Nick to come in.”

With a smile and a giggle, she closed her eyes tight,
Trying her best to fall asleep for the night.

After closing her door, I walked down the hall

To where my wife snoozed, oblivious to all.

I climbed into bed without making a peep

And stole back some blankets for a warm winter’s sleep.

As I began to drift off, my mind wandered free;

I pictured my little Natalie, circling the tree,

Gasping with joy when she saw her new bike -

A thank you from Santa for leaving cookies he liked.

I heard a sudden noise - it came from downstairs.

Could it possibly be there was someone down there?

I opened my eyes and stifled a scream;

I heard it again - not part of my dream!

I climbed out of bed and ran ‘cross the floor

And gingerly opened my top dresser drawer.

Heart beating madly, and quaking with fear,

I pulled out the gun I got for Christmas last year.

As my wife snoozed away, thinking all was well,

I crept to the hallway and loaded some shells.

Determined prevent being totally robbed,

I was gonna put a cap into this thieving slob.

From atop the stairs, footsteps I could hear

Of a man trying to rob us of our Christmas cheer.

I crept down the steps, cursing my bad luck;

Dammit - that bike costed one hundred bucks!

I saw a black shadow, bent over the tree;

Consumed by his task, he didn’t see me.

Raising my pistol, I drew careful aim;

I squeezed off a shot, screaming, “Here comes the pain!”

With a big burly grunt, he fell to the ground,

And I roared in triumph, having put the perp down.

From upstairs my wife cried, “Hey, are you okay?”

I said, “Never better, ‘cause I saved Christmas day!”

I began to breathe easy, thinking all would be right,

But all of that changed when I turned on the light.

I stared at my victim and became suddenly sick;

Rolling ‘round on the floor was good ol’ Saint Nick.

Through angry clenched jaws, he stared up at me;

Clutching his wound, he screamed “You shattered my knee!”

I rushed to his side and cried, “I didn’t mean to!”

With an agonized breath he roared back, “Screw you!”

A cry from behind - and I turned to see

My horrified wife and a bawling Natalie.

“Daddy shot Santa!” she wailed in surprise;

My wife simply glared with hate in her eyes.

My mind in a panic, I threw down my gun

And ran to the phone to call 9-1-1.

My wife yelled at me, “You yuletide louse!

I knew this would happen with a gun in the house!”

I heard coming sirens, then a knock at the door;

As I answered it my kid cried, “I love you no more!”

“Report of shots fired!” said a cop in dismay;

And then he saw Santa, knee bleeding away.

Drawing his sidearm, he said with a frown,

“You shot Father Christmas and you’re goin’ down!”

I said, “I’ll explain, please listen, for God’s sake!”

He said, “I’ve busted some bastards, but you take the cake.”

They slapped me in handcuffs and hauled me away

For shooting Saint Nick and ruining Christmas day.

My wife sold the bike to pay for court costs,

Then into a filthy cell I was tossed.

I’ll always regret the shot that I fired,

For Santa said, “No more,” and then he retired.

I’m now serving time, doing twenty-to-life

With a cellmate named Bubba, who calls me his wife.

Copyright 2011, D.M. Anderson

The Unfortunate Pig

2011-11-15T21:54:00.000-08:00

I met a pig today.

Not on purpose. It was one of those weird little incidents that, while not necessarily life-changing, you never forget simply because it is one of those times when you wonder how things would have turned out if you’d have done just one thing differently.

While I was at school (I‘m a teacher), my wife called saying she locked herself out of the house, and wanted me to come home and let her in. Good timing, really, because this was just when my lunch started. I had roughly forty minutes to get home, unlock the house and get back before my next class started. I was a little miffed having to skip lunch to bail her out, but that anger subsided when I remembered it was chicken nugget day in the cafeteria (my school’s nuggets have roughly the same taste and consistency as a plate of Hacky-Sacks).

I made it home in about 15 minutes. The driveway gate was open when I pulled in. We’re usually pretty good at keeping it closed, since Murphy, our wheaten terrier, isn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box. But after climbing from my car, I saw Murphy was actually trapped in the house, barking at me through the living room window (his eyesight ain’t so great either). I had expected my wife to be sitting on the porch with a sheepish grin on her face, but she wasn’t.

Figuring she was in the garage on the treadmill to pass the time, I headed toward the back of the house. And that’s when I saw it…a pig. Not a very big one, about the size of our dog, pushing his snout through some weeds on the side of the house.

Okay, so it’s not like I just spotted a giant squid flopping around in my yard. But I live in Portland, Oregon, not exactly Times Square, but not Green Acres, either. My house sits on a busy street just a few blocks away from a 7-Eleven, a wrecking yard and a strip club. How in the hell did a pig end up here? Until now, the most unusual animals to venture onto my property were the occasional frogs climbing the side of my house, and two raccoons humping atop the storage shed one night. And I guess there was also the time my neighbors decided to fill their pond with crawdads; one of the critters apparently did not like the new living arrangements and kept crossing the property onto our driveway. I returned it to them twice before my neighbors finally realized crawdads didn’t make great pets.

But this was a pig, and not one of those cute & fuzzy potbelly ones people adopt as pets. This was a pig pig, fat and pink, the kind most of us only come in contact with only after they’ve become pork chops. Okay, maybe he was a little cute, like the one in Babe. But still, he was wet, muddy and not something I'd want sitting in my lap.

I froze and stared, the reality of a farm animal on my property not really registering for a second. The garage door was open, and one of my wife’s disco CDs blasting from within (yep, she’s on the treadmill).

“Honey?” I called, which startled the pig from his burrowing to look up at me. “There’s a pig in our yard!”

She didn’t hear me, but the pig heard all he needed to before breaking into a sprint, whizzing past me as fast as his little piggy legs could carry him. He snorted as he went by, obviously terrified, toes clicking on the driveway as he scurried out the open gate.

“Hey, wait!” I yelled, feeling immediately stupid, as if the beastie would suddenly stop, rear his head and reply, “What is it, Dave?”

Hell, my own dog doesn’t come to me when I call him.

Still, I felt a bit panicked and chased after him. We live on a busy road, and I worried he might run out into traffic. He may not have been a beloved pet, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him get pancaked by an SUV.

By the time I reached the end of the driveway, he was nowhere to be seen. I was a bit relieved at the time. At least he didn’t run out into the road. He must have disappeared into the neighbor’s bushes or something.

Finished on the treadmill, my wife came out of the garage. I asked her if she had seen the pig in our yard. She looked at me like I just had a six-pack for lunch.

“I swear to god,” I claimed. “There was a pig snooting around in the weeds. I hope he stays off the road.”

I could tell my wife thought I was making this up…or worse, hallucinating. In fact, she only half-jokingly suggested that very thing.

Anyway, after checking the time, I forgot about the pig. I had to get back to work fast to be in time for my next class. Kids are allowed a few mulligans when it comes to tardies, but teachers aren’t.

Back at school, I told the students in my next class about my pig encounter. None seemed too impressed. Granted, seeing a pig may not be as awe-inspiring as a UFO landing in your yard, but it isn’t like the streets of Portland are teaming with swine. The only comment I got back was from one girl, who asked, “Was it fat?” Yeah, like the pig’s size was the missing detail to make my lunchtime account a better story.

After the school day ended, I got home in time to join my wife in waiting for my daughter’s bus. On the way back from the bus stop, there was the little pig lying on the side of the road, about thirty feet beyond our driveway…

Dead.

Fortunately, my little daughter had a friend with her, who she’d invited home for a play date, and in their quest to get home and start dressing Barbies, they didn’t notice him. I’m glad, because she only recently informed us she would no longer eat pork because pigs are cute animals.* Not only that, she doesn’t handle death too well just yet; she cried for two hours when a fifty-cent snail in her fish’s bowl died.

After the girls had vanished into the house, my wife and I ventured over to the dead pig, which was definitely nailed by a car. I guess he wandered out into the road after all.

“See?” I said to my wife victoriously. “I told you I wasn’t making this up.”

But inside, I was kind of sad. No, I don’t get upset every time I spot roadkill. In fact, part of me does a silent cheer whenever I see the bloodied carcass of a raccoon that met its end with a car bumper. Raccoons may be cute, but they are nasty, mean animals (and one beat the shit out of my cat once, which resulted in a $300 in veterinarian bill).

But a pig? In the city?** I do not know how he got there, but the little critter was obviously out of his element and probably scared to death. And as I looked down at his carcass (not a bloody, gory mess…just lying there on the sidewalk with his little black eyes still open, which actually made it worse), I started to wonder if I could have prevented this. What if I had closed the gate when I got home to let my wife in? What if I had tried to catch the little pig as he tried to flee my driveway?

I tried to reason with myself in order to feel better…he wasn’t my pig, and it wasn’t as if I had the property or resources to take care of a pig, even temporarily, while I scouted the neighborhood to find its owner. My wife suggested going to Zenger Farm, a nearby business which isn’t so-much an actual farm as it is a tiny agricultural Mecca for hipsters to congregate and buy pumpkins and wine. Maybe one of Zenger’s animals escaped. So I checked. But they had no pigs, just some chickens and bunnies for school kids to fawn over during field trips (just what purpose do bunnies actually serve on a farm, anyway?). After that, I felt I did all I could for the little pig.

As I write this, it is still lying on the side of the road, thirty feet from my driveway, as cars whiz by. I feel bad about that, because someone in my neighborhood is obviously missing a pig, and probably wondering where the hell he is. It ain’t like owning a cat. Face it, even if you love cats and probably think they return that love, you have to admit sometimes they just decide to take off and never return. But surely there must be someone missing their pig, even if they only intended to make bacon strips out of him.

And, as I write this, I’m thinking I should go outside with a few towels and hoist him off the sidewalk, away from the road where he met his death. Why? I don’t really know. It ain’t like we bonded or anything. I dunno…maybe it’s to make up for not trapping him in my yard earlier this afternoon. After all, he'd still be alive if I'd have just closed my driveway gate.
This dead pig isn’t my problem, so why am I making him my problem? It isn’t like I asked him to wonder into my yard.

I guess this is one of those ‘would’ve, could’ve should’ve’ moments we all face at some point in our lives, even though there is no way we could predict subsequent events in time to change the outcome. But that doesn’t always make us feel any better about how things turn out.

So, I still feel bad for the little pig that wandered into my driveway.

*She rescinded that proclamation just a couple of weeks later, when she awoke to the smell of bacon frying on the griddle last Sunday.

**No Babe jokes, please. I’m in mourning.

The Stephen Brayton Interview

2011-11-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

Free Kittens recently caught up with Stephen L. Brayton, author of the novels, Beta and Night Shadows (both published by Echelon Press). When he isn’t writing, Brayton is also an experienced martial arts instructor, in addition to having a day job. He is a pretty busy guy, so we here at Free Kittens are pleased he took some time from his busy schedule to let us know a little more about him.

First, two obvious questions everyone's gonna ask anyway...What first inspired you to write? And when was that moment when you decide this was something you wanted to pursue?

I read mysteries (Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators) as a child. I started developing my creativity with writing short skits for my sister and me to perform. I wrote a few short mystery stories featuring a Quad Cities detective but didn’t start seriously writing until at my first job out of college. I found I had a lot of free time so I would write. When I moved to Oskaloosa I decided I really wanted to create something to submit to publishers. Not knowing how to go about it, I just began the way I thought best and learned from others throughout the years.

As a writer and reader, what are your favorite genres?

I still enjoy a good mystery, thriller, police procedural, a few legal mysteries. I’ll try sci-fi if I think the book looks interesting.

Your five desert island books...

Forgive me for just a moment, but at first I thought you were asking after my five favorite books about desert islands. I wasn’t sure I had read any that would qualify unless they started writing novelizations of Gilligan’s Island episodes. Then my brain clicked and now the question is even tougher. What five books would I take to the island? I have hundreds of books in my library, many waiting to be read, so although I have a few favorites, I’m going to have to go with the next five on my list of to be read and hope the supply ship shows up soon.

How would you describe your work to someone who knows nothing about it?

Beta is the first adventure of Mallory Petersen, six foot blonde martial artist and private detective. She has a knack for attracting the odd cases but when she starts trailing after a kidnapped eight year old girl, things get serious in hurry. Humorous scenes temper the serious subject matter as Mallory uncovers a child pornography ring.

Night Shadows: Think of X-Files with a twist. A federal agent who investigates paranormal and supernatural occurrences teams with a Des Moines homicide officer trying to stop a horde of killer shadow creatures.

Action mystery fans and those who like a little fright in their stories will enjoy these.

Tell us a little about yourself. Like a lot of independently published authors, I am assuming writing is not yet a full time career. How do you pay the bills in between writing projects?

I thought about knocking over banks and convenience stores to help with finances, but those pesky cops kept showing up and ruining my plans. So, I dropped that idea and began looking into identity theft…

Wait, scratch that. Actually, I instruct martial arts four nights a week as well as a full time job in the hospitality business.

I enjoy fishing in the summer, maybe a little golf once in awhile. I’d love to find a place to restart racquetball games. I really enjoyed the exercise.

I notice on your website you are heavily into martial arts. Tell us a little about that. Has that interest influenced the types of stories you write? Do martial arts play a part in some of your tales?

I took advantage of a two weeks’ free classes back in 1990 and never looked back. I earned my black belt in a little less than three years and opened a club in 1996. In 2003, I took over the Oskaloosa club.

When I started thinking about a private investigator series I considered using the detective I had written about years before, but I was so impressed with the women in my organization, I created Mallory Petersen, fourth degree black belt. One of the challenges is to create various scenarios to show off her wide range of skills.

In your publishing/submission efforts, what's your greatest experience? What's your worst?

Well, an obvious positive would be getting accepted by Echelon Press for publication. However, in my travels and networking I’ve met so many wonderful authors and editors and so the wonderful experiences continue with those developing relationships.

I don’t know if this was the worst experience, but it sticks in my mind as one of the most disheartening. When I was still learning my craft and sending out submission queries, I tried to follow the guidelines for each publisher. One night I’m sending out email queries and I shoot one to a publisher at 9:45. Not half an hour later, I receive an email rejection. Really? How much serious consideration was given? I sighed and thought, “Live and learn.”

We all have that one story that, no matter what else we accomplish, remains the nearest and dearest in our hearts. If you could choose one story or novel or yours (published or unpublished), which would it be and why?

Each author develops an individual style and I wouldn’t want to copy anyone. I don’t want anyone to say, “Well, he writes just like(insert name here).” However, I would like to have half the talent the pair who created Ellery Queen possessed. Their stories were so fundamentally solid, complex, intriguing, and entertaining. I also admire the immense skill of H.P. Lovecraft. A true master. The language he used and the images he created were outstanding. I hope one day somebody can read my stuff and have similar thoughts.

What's your writing process? Some map out everything in advance, some wing-it. Some maintain a strict schedule, some don't. What do you do?

I want to be more disciplined and I’m always looking to have better time management to be able to write. I can’t be forced to write which why I don’t join the annual NaNo event. I just can’t write with someone constantly looking over my shoulder wondering how many words I’ve put down. I would like to have a set time each day to write, but my schedule is so full I have to wait for a few hours free at work.

Ideas will pop into my head and if they seem interesting, I’ll write them down for future reference. If one won’t leave alone, I’ll jot a few scenes, a few possible characters. If the idea starts to be look promising, I’ll see if an outline can be completed. I’ll note points of future research, questions to ask certain people. Then I’ll start thinking about character profiles, maybe a subplot. After that’s completed, it’s time to start chapter one.

Any advice to aspiring writers looking to break-in to the business?

Do your homework. Don’t worry about plot, character, queries, synopses, or anything do with story structure. Learn how to write. This means basic punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Learn how to put together a proper sentence. Learn the rules. Develop a style where you then learn when and where to break them.

Promoting your books comes with the job. What types of things do you do to let the world know about Stephen Brayton, the author?

I’m on several social networking sites. Facebook and Twitter as well as a few .ning sites and others. I’ve created a book trailer for Beta (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_mDGLOPe8), bookmarks, postcards, done a few blogtalkradio interviews. I’m also planning on visiting some martial arts studios and hand out material to promote the book. And of course, blog interviews. Love them!

Where can one find out more information about Stephen Brayton and his work?

Please visit my website at: www.stephenbrayton.com, my blog at: http://stephenlbrayton.blogspot.com, and if you want a book reviewd at: http://braytonsbookbuzz.blogspot.com. Plus, check me out at Facebook and Twitter. Then, tell your friends.

Even More Demotivational Posters by Dave

2011-11-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

Free Kittens Round-Up

2011-11-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

KITTEN KIBBLE:

Well, the ebook version of Shaken was made officially available today. A nice way to begin my Sunday just before the NASCAR race (made even better when I heard Kyle Busch is being force to sit out of the race...I hate that guy). Now some of the real work begins, mainly trying to get word out that it is available and where to find it, trying to send review copies and set up interviews. All that, of course, would be a lot easier if I didn't have a day job getting in the way. Who knows...maybe someday. Anyway, you can click the cover on the right to download it right now.

I recent gave an interview to Stephen Brayton, a fellow author and martial arts enthusiast. You can check it out here: http://www.booksummit.com/profiles/blogs/around-the-globe-with-dave-anderson?xg_source=facebookshare . Look for an interview featuring Stephen in Free Kittens very soon.

KITTEN KOMPLAINT:

Here's something I found quite depressing. It seems that Amazon is selling a children's book called The Trinity of Superkidds, by J.D. Bauer. It was published by PublishAmerica, a barely-disguised vanity press that pretty-much accepts any crap someone sends to them. But here's the rub...J.D. Bauer is actually convicted serial killer Charles Kembo, currently serving a life sentence for four murders. This has outraged a lot of people lately, which I suppose is understandable.

But here's what makes me sick. As of this writing, the Amazon sales rank of The Trinity of Superkidds, written by a serial killer who also confessed that he prefers writing naked in the dark, is about 38,000. I'm a school teacher and family man, and the current sales rank of my first young adult novel, Killer Cows, is only 1,800,000. Being the 38,000th selling book may not seem very high, but based what I've been able to discover, it is currently one of the bestselling books in PublishAmerica's library. Granted, that still doesn't amount to much, but it does suggest to me that there are a lot of people buying this book out of morbid curiosity.

I also find it interesting that, just a day ago, there were several reviews of the book posted on Amazon by readers outing the author's identity, but as of right now, all of them have been removed. Yet, the book is still on sale.

KITTEN KWIPS:

Why is Kim Kardasian's divorce part of my morning news?

The new Opeth album, Heritage, is awesome. Even if you don't like metal, I recommend this.

A lot of my male seventh grade students love to make fun of Justin Beiber, but I'll bet there isn't a single one who wouldn't trade places with him, given the chance.

Barack Obama needs to commission the construction of a giant robot. People who would build a giant robot are clearly insane, and not to be messed with. All he'd have to do is air-drop one of those babies into the middle east, and everyone would throw down their guns, because anyone crazy enough to build a giant robot is someone you shouldn't anger.

Grimm is a great show, and it's filmed in my hometown!

It's hard to feel sorry for anyone in the NBA when you realize the reason for the lockout is that they can't agree on how to split up the FOUR BILLION DOLLARS IN REVENUE the league earned last year. I hope they cancel the whole freaking season. The more I read about pro athletes, the more I love NASCAR.

Speaking of NASCAR, I believe I already stated how much I hate Kyle Busch, but I'm sure glad he's there. Every sport needs a bad guy.

Is it just me, or is “Don't get smart” a dumb thing to say to your kids?

"On the Boardwalk in the Moonlight", from D.M. Anderson's "With the Wicked."

2011-10-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

I never found vampires particularly scary. Still, there are two vampire tales in With the Wicked. The first, “The Bottom of the Well,” was published as an e-Book by Echelon Press . The second, “On the Boardwalk in the Moonlight,” was first featured in a small magazine called Nocturnal Ecstasy in the 1990s. Being that it is a fairly benign and humorous story, I’ve used it to teach story elements to my seventh graders (albeit with some of the language revised). I guess maybe you could it an ‘anti-vampire’ story. This one is very short, and in my opinion, kind of funny.

ON THE BOARDWALK IN THE MOONLIGHT

They walked hand-in-hand on the boardwalk, just as they had every night since meeting only a week ago. Like clockwork, they stopped at the same spots to listen to the seductive swirl of ocean waves. It was as though each night was created exclusively for them.

Dimitri glanced over at Clare, who closed her eyes and let the soft sea breeze brush through her hair. She was so beautiful, so sweet. Not just another meal.

How the hell do I tell her I’m a vampire?

After a few quiet moments, they walked on, content to enjoy the silence of each other.

He loved her. She had to know that. He swore to himself to be completely forthcoming and honest, even if the consequence was losing Clare forever as she ran away in horror. After all, she had awaken feelings in him he thought were long dead. She deserved to know who he was; what he was. He owed it to her. And maybe, just maybe, she loved him enough to join him in eternal darkness, to live forever in each other’s arms.

Dimitri hadn’t prayed in centuries, but tonight he prayed to God for Clare’s unconditional love. Did God have the wisdom and compassion to forgive one who had forsaken Him so long ago? Was any god that forgiving?

At any rate, Dimitri promised both God and himself that he would not take Clare unless she wished to be taken. What was that old saying…if you love something, set it free?

Clouds above cleared, allowing the moon the smile down on the two lovers. Clare stopped again and beamed upwards.

“The night is so beautiful,” she said softly. “I wish it never had to end.” She gazed into his eyes, tightening her grip on his hand.

Dimitri smiled back, then kissed her forehead, basking in the radiating warmth of her flesh before working his way to her earlobe. “It doesn’t have to end,” he whispered.

She sighed contently as she wrapped her arms around him. Her touch made him ache with hunger.

Tell her. Tell her now! There will never be a better time.

“I love you, you know,” Dimitri breathed into into ear.

“Yes,” she replied, tightening her hold on him. “I know.” Her soft lips found his neck, parting just enough for her tongue to brush his flesh.

Dimitri swallowed hard as he prepared to test just how strong her love for him really was. He reluctantly pulled her away and stared intensely into her eyes. “There’s something you need to know, Clare. Something about me. Something you may not want to hear.”

Clare frowned, her face growing concerned. “What is it, Dimitri?” She suddenly eyeballed him suspiciously. “You aren’t married, are you?”

Despite his nervousness, he managed a chuckle. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that…” Dimitri paused. Okay, here goes. “Clare…I’m a vampire.”

She stared back blankly for several seconds, then replied, “Excuse me, a what?”

“A vampire…you know, Bram Stoker, Christopher Lee, Team Edward…” Before she could react or reply, he added, “But please believe me that you are in absolutely no danger, dear Clare. I love you, and even though I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity in your arms, I’d never-”

Clare suddenly broke into laughter, loosening her grip on him. Dimitri frowned as as Clare giggled and snorted uncontrollably until her eyes watered. He had a few ideas on how she’d react to his revelation, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.

“Vampire, huh?” she replied, still snickering through pursed lips as she tried to reign in her laughter. “That’s okay, darling. I’m a vicious, man-eating squid.”

Dimitri frowned indignantly. “But I’m serious. I really am a vampire.”

“So am I. I really am a man-eating squid.”

Clare suddenly ballooned and exploded like an over-inflated party doll. Her fine flesh and long flowing hair ripped apart, giving-way to moist, writhing tentacles. Dimitri screamed as he stared into Clare’s real eye, a huge, snotty orb that malevolently stared back. Clare’s massive beak hungrily snapped as her tentacles gripped him. He screeched in pain, feeling suckers and claws pull and rip at his flesh.

“You’ll be tasty,” Clare gargled.

“But I loved you,” Dimitri croaked.

She hoisted him into the night air, smacking her jaws in anticipation of the meal. Dimitri’s bones crunched as she squeezed him in her slick arms, drowning out the breaking waves. His bulging eyes watched in horror and sorrow as Clare pulled him toward her hungry beak.

Copyright 2011, D.M. Anderson

"Shaken": A Novel of Mass Destruction

2011-10-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased and proud to announce the release of my second young adult novel, Shaken. It will be available as an E-book in November, followed very shortly by the paperback version during the holidays. Echelon/Quake, my publisher, has just sent the cover, which I really like. It’s bleak looking, but reflects the tone of the story. I also love the tag line Karen Syed, Echelon’s CEO, added under the title…“A Novel of Mass Destruction.” I love that because it tells any potential reader know exactly what to expect (kind of like Snakes on a Plane). In fact, maybe the book should have been titled, Shaken: A Novel of Mass Destruction.

Anyway, I must hand out massive kudos to Karen, as well as Jenny (J.R. Turner, to you), who has worked extensively with me during the revising process of both of my novels. These two ladies totally rock. I don’t know if we’ll ever meet in person, but they can consider themselves hugged. When I started Shaken, I set-out to write Die Hard for kids, and with their help, I think I’ve accomplished that.

To celebrate the book’s upcoming release, presented below the opening chapter of Shaken. And, of course, your feedback and opinions are always more-than-welcome.

SHAKEN

The lights flickered and Natalie felt like she was losing her balance. She wasn’t dizzy, though the illusion of the room spinning was similar. Her body slowly swayed back and forth as if she stood on a boat at sea. She tried to steady herself with a nearby table, but if anything, the sensation grew more intense.

The fake crystals of the cheap chandelier hanging over the dining room table tinkled. This wasn’t just in her head.

“Whoa!” Lucy cried from upstairs.

Trinkets on the shelves rattled. Another cheesy painting, this one on the dining room wall, fell off its nail and slapped face-down on the floor.

What the...

A jarring jolt under her feet, under the floor, dropped Natalie to her knees. She struggled to stand, but the floor shifted so abruptly she could barely stay on her hands and knees. The bookshelf toppled over; an avalanche of paperbacks barely missed her. The living room window imploded as the frame caved in.

Something struck her head; Natalie yelped as white dust and plaster billowed to the floor.

Oh, God, her mind panicked. She scrambled under the dining room table. The ceiling is falling!

From somewhere upstairs...a high-pitched scream. Natalie barely heard it over the roar of the trembling cabin.

“Lucy!” She crawled from under the safety of the table. Ignoring the raining plaster from above, she scooted on all fours to the nearest kitchen counter and used it to pull herself to her feet. The floor literally shook.

Dishes, glasses, pots and tumbled from the cupboards and crashed to the floor. The sink faucet snapped; water erupted from the ruptured spout and drenched the crumbling ceiling. The window over the sink exploded, showering her with glass. A shard gashed her cheek; warm blood rolled down her face.

Lucy kept screaming upstairs.

“Hang on, Lucy! I’m coming!” She barely heard herself. Natalie scrambled out from beneath the table and though she gripped the counter, she could hardly stand. How was she even going to reach the stairs, let alone climb them? She felt like she was being shaken to death.

She stared in horror as a crack appeared between her feet, ran across the floor, up the wall and onto the ceiling. There was a splintering whack! like a gunshot, and seconds later the room was split into two. Part of the upper floor collapsed, crushing the dining room table she had cowered under a minute earlier. A huge support beam snapped and dropped from overhead. Natalie dove out of the way, just as it swung like a wrecking ball and smashed the kitchen counter to pieces.

The lights went out. Natalie screamed in the dark and the world shook apart around her.

"Karma's Messenger," from D.M. Anderson's "With the Wicked"

2011-10-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

Many of the stories included in With the Wicked were previously published in various small press magazines. "Karma's Messenger," however is new, and I still may make some revisions to this one, so what you read here may not actually be the final version. I'm posting it just to see what readers think of it so far. I've never solicited feedback for a work-in-progress before, and thought doing so would be interesting. So feel free to let me know what you think.

KARMA’S MESSENGER

Andy felt the front tire explode before he actually heard it.

“What the fuck, Hanks?” Sovereign screeched from the backseat, eyes suddenly huge and white.

If they weren’t doing 90, Andy probably would have been able to guide the car to a stop. Instead, the dusty black Charger swerved to the shoulder, struck a small mound and became airborne. Helpless, he released the wheel, wrapped his arms around his head and braced for impact. In the backseat, Sovereign and McPherson screamed. The car seemed to fly through the air forever before Andy felt the nose dip back toward Earth…

This is gonna be bad.

And it was. The Charger’s front end struck the ground, immediately crumbling. The air-bag exploded from the steering wheel, shoving Andy backward and breaking his nose. The windshield shattered. The shriek of tearing metal drowned out everything else. Gravity shifted. Andy was suddenly upside-down, then right-side-up again; being pinned to the seat by the airbag was the only thing which kept him from bouncing all over.

Then, sudden stillness. Andy sat with his eyes squeezed shut as desert dust filled his nostrils. The ringing in his ears slowly gave-way to eerie quiet; aside from the dying hiss from the mangled Hemi-powered engine, and his rapid breathing, he heard nothing.

He slowly fluttered his eyes open; the blood-stained white airbag rapidly deflated. Empty Arizona desert stared back. Before engine smoke stung his eyes closed again, a tiny prairie dog scurried across the sand, ducking behind a cactus.

He looked into what was left of the rearview mirror. McPherson was dead, face frozen in eternal torment.

Good riddance. The man was a fucking psycho, anyway.

But Sovereign was nowhere to be seen.

Pain settled into Andy’s face and chest. Both throbbed from the force of the airbag. Blood poured from his busted nose, but at least he was able to move and breathe, meaning he didn’t break any ribs.

Could have been a lot worse, he told himself as he hurriedly unbuckled the seatbelt. He knew he had to get out of the car quick and get the hell out of there. Cops could be descending on them that very moment.

He froze, thinking he heard a distant siren, then exhaled in relief when, upon closer listen, it was obviously a hawk or vulture flying overhead. But his relief was short-lived. He knew unless he got off his ass right now, the next sound he heard really could be sirens.

Where the hell did Sovereign go, anyway? Did he ditch us?

Andy yanked the door handle. Initially, nothing happened. Bracing himself, he threw his shoulder into the door, wincing in pain. With another shriek of bending metal, it popped open easily. He climbed out, squinting up at the desert sun. Heat blasted his face, like he’d just opened an oven. This time of day, it must have been 110 degrees. He regarded the wreckage of the Charger. Once a pretty nice set of wheels, the car was now a steaming, mangled heap of junk, almost unrecognizable. Too bad; this was the best getaway car anyone had ever provided him with.

A hundred feet behind the wreckage was the highway - wow, we really flew some distance, didn’t we? To his relief, the road was empty, meaning nobody saw the crash. Thank God.

Then, turning back to the wrecked car, he spotted what was left of Sovereign, lying in a heap several feet in front of the car. His pastel shirt and Bermuda shorts were ripped and bloody; his face was sliced up, almost unrecognizable. His neck looked broken The man must have flown through the windshield on impact. Too bad. Andy didn’t know the guy too well, but he seemed okay. At least Sovereign wasn’t blasting clerks and security guards on the way out the door.

Incredibly, Sovereign’s left hand still clutched the briefcase. The case itself had popped open; hundreds of shiny stones dotted the desert sand around it, sparkling in the sun.

Not good, he thought as he checked his watch. We still got a buyer waiting for this shit in Phoenix.

Dropping to his knees, Andy started scooping handfuls of diamond-encrusted sand back into the case. The sand was scolding hot, his bare knees burned, but he ignored the heat. He had to get as many rocks as possible before-

Andy’s palms suddenly tickled. Several hairy black legs popped from the sand in his hands, kicking a few diamonds back to the ground. He gasped and dropped it, backing away a couple of steps. A large tarantula scurried from the discarded pile and scampered around in a quick circle.

“Jesus Christ!” Andy cried, eyes bulging. He watched the confused spider in revulsion before swallowing hard, stepping forward and stomping it flat. There was a sickening pop as its innards squirted out from beneath Andy’s tennis shoe. “Fucking little monster.”

Despite his urgency, Andy took a minute to regain his composure, feeling a bit stupid at his reaction to such a tiny critter. But he couldn’t help it…as far back as he could remember, he always hated spiders.

The beating sun remind him of another problem, of far more concern than the spider under his heel, or getting to Phoenix in time for the exchange…

How long can I stay out in this heat? And I must be miles from the nearest town…

Still quaking from his encounter with the tarantula, Andy gingerly hunkered down, closed the case and pried the handle from Sovereign’s dead hand. There were probably a lot more stones lying around in the sand, and he plucked up the few he saw, stuffing them in his shorts, but time seemed to be a growing issue. He had to get out of there, away from the wreckage, away from the bodies and away from that smashed fucking thing under his foot.

The guys in Phoenix would just have to settle for what they got.

He spotted Sovereign’s gun, the ivory handle protruding from the man’s Bermudas. Being a wheelman, Andy had no use for guns and never carried one himself on a job. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he even fired one. But things were different today. Thanks to fucking McPherson, who laughed as he blew away at least three people during the getaway, the cops weren’t just looking for thieves. They were looking for killers.

Just in case, Andy took the revolver, tucked it into his own shorts and lumbered toward the highway, clutching the briefcase.

He heard the sound of an approaching car, maybe a half-mile away. Just by the sound of the engine, he could tell this was no cop. Cop cars never rattled or pinged. This engine had at least 100,000 miles on it. But it would be enough to get him where he was going.

Andy bolted to the side of the highway and ducked behind some sagebrush. He peered through the thickets; waves of heat billowed from the black pavement. A white sedan - it looked like an old Ford Taurus - approached from the north at a leisurely pace. Compared to the Charger he just destroyed, it wasn’t the sexiest getaway car in the world, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

He felt butterflies; confrontation wasn’t really his forte, nor was car-jacking.
Just calm down, man. You’ve got the gun, for Chrissakes. Flag them down and take the car.

Andy was just about to step out onto the highway when, less than a hundred feet away, the Taurus slowly pulled off to the shoulder and stopped.

Oh shit, did they see me? Or the wreckage? What if they’re calling 9-1-1 right now?

The driver-side door cracked open. A white-bearded old man, donned in thick eye-glasses and an Arizona Diamondbacks ball cap, slowly climbed out. Decked-out in black boots, white shorts and a sweaty Megadeth T-Shirt, he was certainly odd looking. He squinted at the sun, then yanked a handkerchief from his rear pocket to dab his neck. Then he casually reached back into his car and pulled out a small plastic box and yellow gloves. If he had seen Andy or the crashed Charger, he sure was being casual about it.

Andy kept crouched and rigid, ready to attack if the old fart reach for a cell. Instead, the man shut his door, crossed the highway and marched out into the desert, snapping on the gloves like a doctor prepping for surgery.

What the…was the guy going off to take a leak or something? With gloves? Must be OCD or something.

Who cared? What matter was that he left his car behind, ripe for the picking. And it looked like he wouldn’t need to use the gun after all. After waiting a few more seconds, Andy sprang from the sagebrush and bolted to the Taurus.

His heart sank when he tried to open the driver-side door. Locked.

Shit, that means he’s got the goddamn keys with him!

If he had his kit, he’d have this old beater jimmied and hot-wired in less time than it would take for that old man to drain his dragon. But out here, in the middle of nowhere? Andy nervously glanced across the highway, squinting into the desert. Nothing but cactus waved back. The old man was nowhere in sight. Andy quickly paced back and forth before kicking the front tire in frustration.

Think, dammit!

Stopping to stare at his bloody-nosed reflection in the driver-side window, he supposed he could smash out the window and hot-wire the car the old-fashioned way, but that would be loud, and take precious time he probably didn’t have.

“What the hell are you doing out here in this heat, young man?” barked a voice behind him.

Andy’s heart leaped into his throat as he whipped around, hand on the gun butt sticking out the back of his shorts. The old man stood across the road, clutching the plastic box with both gloved hands. Behind those thick lenses, his eyes stared back curiously before his face contorted into a wince.

“Geez, buddy, you okay? What happened to your face? Have an accident or something?”

Andy released his grip on the pistol, slowly exhaling, and brought a hand to his busted nose. Despite his throbbing pain, relief swam over him; the old fart seemed harmless enough. “Yeah, you could say that.”

The man frowned, looking around. “Where’s your car?”

Andy cocked a thumb back to the wreckage.

The man’s eyes grew large. He shook his head and whistled. “Damn, look at that mess. Haven’t seen a wreck like that since the Daytona 500. You okay? Anyone with you?”

“No, just me. I think I blew a tire.”

“I think you’re lucky to be alive. I also think you’re lucky I came along. Not too many folks travel this road anymore, not since they finished the freeway. In this heat, your goose might have been cooked.” He crossed the highway and extended his hand. “Name’s Jackson, Art Jackson. You want me to get on my cell and call for-”

“No, no,” Andy quickly replied before returning the handshake. “I’m not that badly hurt. Maybe if you just give me a ride or something, that‘d be great.”

Art Jackson frowned, stroking his fuzzy chin. “Hmm…well, I’m sorta working right now and it’s a long way back to town. I mean, if you wanna wait ‘till I‘m done, I guess I could give you a ride. Got bottled water in the trunk if you need to clean up your face and cool off.”

Andy clenched his jaw impatiently. He did he best to sound congenial. “How long are you gonna be out here?”

Art shrugged. “Dunno. I’m about half-done…maybe an hour or two.”

Andy shook his head. “I can’t wait that long.”

The old man stretched a glove off with his teeth and dug into his pocket, tugging out a cell phone. “Well, then, let me go ahead an call-”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Jackson.” Andy set down his briefcase, pulled out the gun and aimed it right at Art’s chest, doing his best to sound calm and cool, like he did this all the time. The truth was, he had never actually aimed a gun at anybody. “Drop the phone and give me your keys.”

Art backed away a couple of steps. “But-”

Andy cocked the hammer. “Now!”

Startled, the old man opened his fingers; the phone dropped and clattered on the pavement. He never took his eyes off the gun barrel.

“Now drop the box, toss me your keys and get on your knees.”

Again, Art complied. He let go of the box - it popped open as it hit the road - then reach into his other pocket. His lower lip trembled as he tossed the keys.

Andy caught them in mid-air. “Now, Mr. Jackson…on your knees.”

Tears started to roll down Art’s face and he slowly dropped to the road. “You’re gonna kill me now, aren’t you?”

“Not if you do what I say.” While outwardly remaining cold and hard, his heart sort-of went out to the old dude, being so terrified. Andy would never kill anyone, but Art Jackson didn’t know that. “I just need your wheels, Mr. Jackson.”

Art blinked. “You…you’re gonna leave me out here? In the middle of the desert? I‘ll die out here.”

“Want me to shoot you instead?” Andy replied. But the man was right…about two things. First, hardly anyone used this old highway anymore; that’s why Andy chose it for their escape route in the first place. Second, how long could an old man last in this blazing sun and scorching heat in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town?

But I can’t bring him along with me. Isn’t that kind of like taking a hostage?

He leaned down and snatched up the phone. “We can’t be more than an hour from Phoenix. I’ll call 9-1-1 once I’m there and-”

Sharp pain suddenly struck just above his right ankle, so intense that Andy almost lost his footing. He cried out and looked down. Attached to his foot was a big brown tarantula, fangs buried in his flesh. Andy flailed and kicked wildly, dancing in agony on the pavement until the spider finally let go. It flew threw a few feet through the air before plopping to the road between Andy and Art.

“Son of a BITCH!”

The old man fell from his knees to his butt, clutching the empty plastic box and reclosing the lid.

Andy gawked down at his rapidly-swelling ankle; two tiny rivulets of blood snaked from the puncture wounds into his shoe. The skin around the wound became pasty-white. And it hurt like a motherfucker. Gasping hot desert air, he spotted his attacker, eight legs fluttering as it scurried toward the old man.

Before he realized what he was doing, Andy limped over, trained the gun right down at the spider and fired.

The shot was deafening.

The recoil jerked his arm back.

The spider disintegrated.

The bullet ricocheted off the pavement…

…and buried itself in Art Jackson’s brain.

The old man’s head flew back, a perfect hole between his surprised blue eyes. They stared straight up at the hot afternoon sky, the last thing they would ever see.

“Oh, shit,” Andy gasped, watching the old man drop to the ground, left leg kicking a couple of times before he ceased moving altogether. Momentarily forgetting his own wounds, Andy stared dumbstruck at the dead body, still reeling from what just happened.

The last echoes of the gunshot finally dissipated in the distant desert hills.

Jesus Christ, I just killed a man. I just killed a man for no reason. Just like McPherson.

Andy shot a panicked glance in each direction, seeing nothing but heat billowing from the road. Not another car was in sight, thank God. He tucked the gun away, grabbed the old man by both arms and dragged him behind some nearby bushes.

After dropping Art’s lifeless arms, Andy checked the highway again, his stomach doing summersaults. Sweat plopped into his eye, stinging it shut. He squished a finger in his socket to clear it out, then regarded the body at his feet.

I’m not longer just a wheelman, he lamented. I’m a murderer. I’m no longer looking at doing time if I’m caught. I’m looking at a needle in my arm.

The thought made him wretch; Andy leaned over and hurled. Vomit splattered the sand. His leg pounded painfully; the bite wound had ballooned to the size of a gold ball. Blood still seeped into his shoe. As he reached down and rubbed around the wound, which only made it hurt worse, another thought crossed Andy’s mind…fuck, how poisonous are tarantulas anyway?

Goddammit, worry about that later! Get your ass outta here first, or the state of Arizona’s gonna stick something in your skin a hell of a lot worse than spider venom!

Andy limped to the old Taurus, stopping to pick up the briefcase. Because his hand was trembling, he missed the lock a few times before finally being able to stick the key in and open the door. He tossed the case into the passenger seat and jumped in, wasting no time before starting the car and hitting the gas. The rear tires kicked-up sand and gravel. The rear-end fishtailed as Andy cranked the wheel, climbing off the shoulder onto solid pavement.

Within a few seconds, Andy Hanks was once again speeding down the road, picking up where he left off. The further he got away from the dead body of Art Jackson, the better he started to feel.

Sweat oozed from every pore in his body. Whether it was from the heat, the bite or his own anxiety, Andy wasn’t sure, but he countered it by cranking the AC. Cool air blasted from the dashboard, bringing relief as it began to dry the sweat on his skin.

Ignoring the nagging sting of his ankle, he pinned the gas pedal to the floor. The speedometer shot from 70 to 90; the sudden acceleration caused some of Jackson’s junk to slip off the top of the dash, empty water bottles, wadded napkins, a few CD cases and a lot of stray paper. Some of it dropped on the passenger seat, some onto the floor. A single yellow business card fluttered into his lap. Keeping the wheel steady with one hand, Andy snatched it up, eyes darting back and forth from the open out the windshield to red-embossed font on the card:

CREEPY CRITTERS, INC.

Tarantulas, Scorpions, Small Reptiles

Supplying pet stores throughout the Southwest for over 40 years.

Arthur T. Jackson, Owner

Andy frowned, tossing the card to the floor. Tarantulas? He suddenly remembered the plastic box Jackson was carrying, the one which popped open when he dropped it.

Geez, is that what the old fart was doing out here? Collecting spiders? Was that what…

Renewed pain pumped beneath the skin of Andy’s ankle. Somehow, knowing it was one of Art’s captured spiders made his leg hurt worse. He tried reaching down to massage his open wound and keep the steering wheel straight at the same time. Bad idea. At this speed, the Taurus veered onto the shoulder; gravel pelted the undercarriage, brown dust spewed from the tires. Something loudly bounced around in the back seat. Andy sat back up straight, slapping both hands back on the wheel before guiding the car back onto the road. He let off the gas a bit; maybe doing 90 wasn’t such a great idea anymore.

Regaining control, he craned his head to see what was making all the noise in back. He frowned, then took a quick look forward to make sure he stayed on the road. Glancing back again, fear struck him. On the seat was a large cardboard box. It was tipped over, and inside were several smaller plastic containers, just like the one Old Man Jackson was holding.

There must have been a few dozen of them, in the box, spilt on the floor, strewn all over the backseat. Most of the lids had popped open, probably from being tossed around so violently.

Panicked, he faced the road again. He spotted the business card on the floor. Something big and black scurried across it. He remembered some of Jackson’s last words before a bullet ended his life: I’m about half-done…

Andy’s skinned crawled. Half done? A spider wrangler? That means-

His neck tickled, then instantly erupted in fiery pain. Andy yelped, slapping at his neck, his hand striking something thick and hairy; it wiggled under his palm, then bit again. Another stab of agony.

The car careened onto the shoulder again.

Andy roared, squeezing his fist closed and crushing the spider in his grip. Pulling his hand down, he looked down at his clenched hand in horror. Fuzzy black legs poked between his fingers, still twitching.

His foot inadvertently punched the gas pedal to the floor.

“Jesus!” Andy screeched, frantically shaking his hand. Spider pieces flew everywhere; a single leg stuck to the windshield.

Another bite, this time to his left thigh. Andy screeched and released the wheel altogether, using both hands to swat the spider that had crawled up the seat to join him.

Out of control, the old Ford Taurus slid sideways. It skidded loudly along the road, tires shrieking. One of them finally exploded; sparks erupted from the naked rim before it dug into the pavement, flipping the car over.

For the second time that day, Andy bounced around in the driver’s seat, arms flailing. Boxes, bottles, business cards, loose diamonds, his gun, as well as dozens of huge black tarantulas, sailed all around him as the car rolled over and over.

After what seemed like an eternity, all movement ceased. The Taurus came to rest in the middle of the highway, upside-down. Smoke and dust filled the car. Lying on the interior roof, Andy coughed and wheezed. His left leg was in agony; he managed to lift his head to check it out, wincing in horror at the bloody shin bone that had punched through the skin.

God, I’m a mess, he thought crazily.

Something dropped onto Andy’s chest…another frisky tarantula, courtesy of Creepy Critters, Inc. This one seemed to be staring right at him. Andy tried to raise a broken arm to squash it, only to be greeted by more unbelievable pain. The spider scampered forward, towards his face.

Another one dropped from the floor above him, landing on his groin.

Movement from the corner of his eye. Andy turned his head. Another spider raised up, waiving its front legs defensively before leaping forward to bury its fangs into his forehead.

More fangs chomped the hand on his broken arm. Another spider crawled up the left leg of his shorts to bite him in the ass.

Andy wailed in torment. Collective venom coursed through his veins, slowly shutting down organs one-by-one. His limbs, both in-tact and broken, convulsed uncontrollably as more and more of Old Man Jackson’s captured spiders joined in on the kill.

"The Man in the Fluffy Bunny Suit", from D.M. Anderson's "With the Wicked"

2011-10-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this in the early 90s, before I had kids. Now that I have two daughters of my own, revisiting this one was kind of hard. Still, it was one of my earliest published stories, first appearng in The Unknown Writer in 1998, and will also be included in my With the Wicked collection.

THE MAN IN THE FLUFFY BUNNY SUIT

Roger Peterson, the man in the fluffy bunny suit, hopped purposefully down the sidewalk, a permanent holiday grin etched upon his papier-mâché head. Under his mask, he felt sweat trickling down his face, occasionally stinging his eyes and obscuring his vision, which was already regulated to what lay directly before him through the black wire mesh of the bunny’s mouth.

It was unusually warm for an Easter morning, and inside the stuffy suit summer had arrived early, bathing Roger in musky sweat mere moments after he put it on. However, he was in too-fine a mood to let it bother him. If one of those awe-struck children could see the man behind the rabbit, they’d have seen an even bigger grin than the one plastered outside, the genuine smile of a man who felt like the luckiest guy on Earth.

Inside the rabbit’s head, Roger’s breathing was heavy and labored, drowning out the sounds of the neighborhood. He barely heard the occasional passing car, the angry protests of birds perched in maple trees, or the squealing of excited kids running over to receive one of his special hand-painted eggs. His basket was heavy, making hopping difficult. With each jump, the eggs rattled and clacked together. But he was confident they wouldn’t break until the time was right, and with each approaching child, the basket became lighter. It wouldn’t be much longer until he was finished.

He’d brought twenty eggs in total, including one for himself, which he had taken great care to paint last night. Roger was no artist; it took him seven hours and a fifth of Yukon Jack to finish the job. The effort was well worth it, though, for they were beautiful eggs, brightly adorned with stripes and polka-dots of all sorts of different colors. They were much nicer than the ones his mother made when he…

…was a boy, before he was even in school, Roger would awaken on Easter morning in anticipation of the hunt in the backyard of their trailer home. The sun would barely be awake, and wasn’t quite warm enough yet to shake the dew off the lawn. His mother, knowing her son always woke up early on Easter, would be out in the yard even sooner, strategically stashing eggs. There were the usual hiding places, of course, like the old wine barrel where mom tried to grow tomatoes each year, or the Dr. Pepper thermometer that leaned against the side of the trailer. The thermometer used to hang on the front porch of the house they once shared with his father.

Roger grew to know Mom’s Easter routine, but he played along anyway, milking the event for all it was worth. He always started in the middle of the yard where Elvis, their friendly old basset hound, was tied up. Roger knew no eggs would be there because that was Elvis’ territory and everything in that ten-foot radius was his. He and his mother learned that a few Easters ago when the dog chowed down on nearly all of the eggs within his reach. Eggs, it turned out, didn’t agree with the dog’s digestive system and he farted all night, stinking up the whole trailer. But it wouldn’t be Easter if Roger didn’t start the hunt in the middle of the yard, skillfully dodging Elvis’ droppings - ‘doggy mines’, mom called them.

Most kids loved Christmas, but Roger loved Easter most. It was the holiday when his mom always smiled, laughed and took snapshots of him with her boxy little Kodak camera. Roger didn’t like Christmas, because Mom would shuffle sadly around the house in her bathrobe, spending most of the day staring at the television with a drink in her hand. Sometimes she cried, holding her only child in her arms and apologizing for not being able to afford a tree, for having nothing more to give him to unwrap than a cheap trinket from a second-hand store. Roger felt sorry for her, yet would get angry at her display of self-pity. It wasn’t the mom he knew and loved during the rest of the year.

But on Easter, she was happy. She was beautiful. She’d always throw on the yellow dress she once eloped in and fix her hair the way loving TV moms always did, then spend the entire day with him. After the great egg hunt, he’d eat a couple of eggs, then the two of them would plant themselves on the sofa and catch the Bugs Bunny cartoon marathon channel 12 showed every Easter. Roger absolutely loved Bugs Bunny, and would often mimic the famous rabbit whenever he said…

“…what’s up, doc!” Roger greeted in his well-honed Brooklyn bunny voice as he handed one of his eggs to a little red-headed kid. The boy giggled and tried to snatch a second egg from the basket, but Roger playfully side-stepped him, raising the remaining painted treasures out of reach.

“Sorry, doc,” he said. The papier-mâché head made Roger sound as though he were talking into a bucket. “Only one per customer. Gotta have enough to go ‘round, ya know.”

“It’s for my sister!” the boy cried defensively.

“Where is she, doc? Don’t she wanna meet the Easter Bunny?”

The boy pointed across the street. Roger had to turn most of his body in order to see where he was pointing. A little blonde girl, no more than four or five years old, stood in the middle of her front yard, staring back wide-eyed and open-jawed.

“She’s scared of you, Easter Bunny,” the boy added seriously.

Roger’s sudden laughter bounced around inside his rabbit head. “Afraid of me? I’m just a rabbit. Why, I wouldn’t hurt a single hair on her pretty little scalp.”

“She’s scared of Santa, too. Had a cow when my mom took us to meet him at the mall last Christmas.”

“Can’t say I blame her, there, doc.” Roger knelt beside the boy and placed a fluffy paw on his shoulder. “Tell ya what…you go tell your sister that, if she comes over, I’ll give her the best egg I got…one I’ve been saving for myself.”

The boy obediently nodded and darted back toward his house, checking the road for traffic before crossing.

Roger peeped into his basket and counted four remaining eggs, including his own. He heard muffled laughter behind him, and he turned to spot three kids scampering up the sidewalk ahead of their mother to greet him. This was turning out perfect.

He smiled behind his costume, then looked back across the street at the boy and her sister. She glanced over at Roger, then uncertainly back to her brother. After she slowly nodded, her brother encouragingly nudged her in Roger’s direction, ushering her the same way…

…his father ushered him into the back seat of the car and slammed the door shut. Roger shook rain from his hair and looked out the window at the grassy hill where Mom would spend eternity. He had hoped she would go to Heaven, but his Dad set him straight the night before. “Dead is dead,” he bluntly said.

Roger pulled a Hot Wheels race car from his pocket - the last thing Mom ever bought him - and mindless flicked the wheels as his dad’s new wife hurried into the front passenger seat and clicked on the radio. Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun” drifted from the car speakers. Mom always loved that song.

“Dammit,” Dad’s wife hissed, checking her watch. “I think we missed the lucky number drawing.” She pulled the rearview mirror in her direction and produced a compact from her purse to fix her face, which was wet with rain.

Roger’s father climbed into the car, soaking and angry. “Why the hell couldn’t the funeral be indoors,” he groused, bringing the engine to life. “especially since I paid for the fucking thing.”

Roger felt tears threaten to sting his eyes, and he fought hard to beat them back. Dad hated seeing him cry. At mom’s eulogy, a single tear escaped his eye. A handkerchief was thrust in his face. He looked up to see his father staring into him, a single brow raised in disapproval.

“Wipe your face, son,” he quietly insisted. “You’re acting like a girl.”

There were only five people at the funeral, although Marcie, Dad’s new wife, didn’t really count. She had never even met his mother. Still, Roger was grateful she came because, even though he didn’t like her much, she usually managed to keep Dad’s temper in check. He hated to think what Dad would be like today if Marcie hadn’t come along.

The car rolled down the road leading out of the cemetery; Roger took at long last look out the back window. Through the rain, he could see two groundskeepers in heavy raincoats shoveling dirt into his mother’s grave.

I wish there was a Heaven, he thought gloomily.

Once again, he fought the urge to cry. Once again, he was victorious.

Dead is dead. Stop acting like a girl.

“Turn around, Roger,” his dad said. “Let Mom fix your hair.”

Tucking the race car back into his pocket, he silently obeyed as Marcie turned around with a comb in her hand, sitting on her knees and leaning forward to reach his head. His father playfully took one hand off the wheel to pinch her rear.

“Stop it!” she playfully giggled, swatting at him if he were a fly.

Roger didn’t know how much longer he could battle the tears.

“Look sharp, Roger,” Marcie said with a smile that never reached her eyes. “You father made reservations at the Doubletree for Easter brunch.”

“Yeah,” Dad snickered, his anger subsiding. “I’m so damned hungry I could eat a whole rabbit.”

Marcie slapped his shoulder and laughed. “You’re awful! You…

“…can’t eat these eggs,” whined the youngest of the three kids who had run up to him. Their mother, standing about ten feet behind them, was busy taking snapshots with her camera.

“Course not,” said Roger, staring down at the kids. “These eggs are special. The kind you keep with you forever.”

The oldest of the three, maybe seven or eight years old, examined hers methodically. “Is there candy in them?”

“Better than Candy. If these were real eggs, once you eat ‘em, Easter’s over. If there was candy in ‘em, once the candy’s gone, Easter’s over. With these eggs, it’ll always be Easter. It can be Easter forever, for however long that is.”

“I wish it was Christmas forever instead,” the youngest pouted.

“Christmas? Christmas is the sad time. That’s the time to watch TV, the time to cry, the time to wish your father dead-”

“Come on kids,” the mother interrupted, staring uneasily at the rabbit’s fake blank eyes. She grabbed the youngest by the hand and pulled him away. “We’ll be late for church.”

“Church?” Roger piped with concern. “Who died?”

The woman didn’t answer as she hurried her three kids away, all of them clutching their new Easter gifts.

Just then, Roger felt something tugging his fluffy cotton tail. He whipped around, ready to fire, then breathed a sigh of relief to see it was just the red-headed boy, who had returned with his little sister in-tow. She stared ominously up at him with huge unblinking eyes, her thumb crammed securely in her mouth.

“Hi, doctress,” he chirped, kneeling until his eyes her level with hers.

The girl stood rigid, too terrified to move. Her older brother giggled.

“Doc here tells me you’re scared of the Easter Bunny.”

She nodded, backing away a step.

“That’s okay. There’s no need to be afraid, but I do know how you feel. I was afraid once, too.”

The boy was suddenly incredulous as he scoffed, “The Easter Bunny afraid? What could the Easter Bunny be afraid of?”

Roger chuckled. “Doc, everybody gets afraid sometimes.”

“Not me!” Then the boy ran off to do a summersault in the nearest lawn.

Roger pulled his last egg from the basket and showed it to her. Of all the eggs he worked so hard on last night, this was his favorite; fluorescent orange with navy blue stripes. Painted in yellow on one side was ‘I’M A BAAAAD MUTHAFUCKA!’, and on the other side, ‘DEAD IS DEAD.’

“I do not want you to fear me,” he said. “I just want to help.” He held up the egg in one paw. “This egg is special. It takes away the fear. It takes away sadness. I was going to save it for myself, but I’d like you to have it. Would you like that?”

The girl nodded and took her thumb from her mouth.

“What’s your name?”

“Megan,” she replied quietly, lips curling into a tiny smile.

“Well, Megan, I’m done being scared. You don’t want to be scared anymore, do you?”

She shook her head. “No, Mr. Bunny.”

“Then give me a hug.”

Megan went to him. He welcomed her into his fuzzy yellow arms and pulled her close. For the first time in years, Roger felt tears awakening, but not in sorrow this time. His father wasn’t around anymore, so he welcomed them.

Suddenly, a few hundred feet away, in the direction the woman took her children, an explosion…

…rocked the hills to the south. Roger’s heart leaped into his throat. He whipped around, clutching his rifle, ready to fire.

“Calm down, Bugs,” Rico said, putting a hand on Roger’s trembling shoulder. “Fight’s over. That’s just our air support mopping up.”

As if on cue, a low flying jet roared over them, disappearing over some trees to the north.

“Come on, Bugs. Let’s torch this place and get the hell outta here.”

Roger looked beyond his friend to see other guys in his unit ushering locals out of the village, prodding stragglers with their gun muzzles. “Why do we gotta burn it down?”

Rico lit a cigarette, then held his lighter to the grass roof of the nearest hut. “Keep yer pants on, we’ll get humpin’ soon enough. Then we’ll get shitfaced and whore around ‘till morning. We earned it, I’d say.”

The fire spread rapidly. Within minutes the whole hut was in flames. Thick black smoke snaked into the sky.

“Beautiful,” Rico sighed, gazing upward.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Roger quipped, still darting his head around nervously. It was always the quiet times that scared him most. “There’s nothing beautiful about this.”

Rico gave a here-we-go-again roll of the eyes. “Don’t start up again, Bugs.”

“Rico, there’s nothing here. It’s a farm village.”

“Yeah, a farm village of American-hating murderers.” He searched the ground around him. “Where’s my fuckin’ helmet?”

Roger‘s jaw dropped. He loved Rico and would die for him, but sometimes his buddy could be so damned ignorant. “Village of murderers? I just watched Jennings blow a lady’s head off in front of her own kids. Who are the murderers here?”

Rico flicked his smoke away and stared hard at him. “Look, Bugs, we’re all scared shitless. I get an hour of sleep a night. I can’t take a shit most of the time, and when I do, it comes out like Niagara fucking Falls. You know why? Cause these motherfuckers don’t play Monopoly the same way we do. I don’t know if the next slant comin’ my way is a farmer or a walking bomb. I saw an old bitch cut a buddy in half with a fucking machine gun hidden under her poncho. So, if a guy like Jennings is a little overzealous, so what? Good riddance, I say.”

Roger heard Rico’s flag-waving kill-or-be-killed tirade before, and Rico was probably right. It was guys like Rico who survived shit like this; it was guys like Rico who kept guys like Roger Peterson alive.

“If you’re smart, Bugs, you’ll stop pumpin’ piss for these assholes and look out for number one, or you ain’t gonna live to see another cartoon.” Rico continued the search for his helmet while Roger watched him in silence. The only sounds were distant booming in the hills and the crackle of burning huts.

“Sorry, Rico. I didn’t mean-”

“Forget it, Bugs. Stop being sorry all the time. You can’t help what you feel.”

Roger tried to ignore the sick pang in his stomach. He hated making Rico mad, and always worried that the day may come when Rico would get sick of putting up with him. Roger knew he wouldn’t have lasted very long in this place without Rico. It was Rico who befriended him when the rest of the unit thought he was just dead weight. It was Rico who got him laid for the first time by a local hooker. At first, he thought his buddy would join the others by teasing his virginity. Instead, he set Roger up with the best girl in the brothel, even paid for it. Those were the best two minutes of Roger’s life, and he had Rico to thank for it.

Maybe Roger was sort of a pet project for Rico, who educated him in a way teachers never could, and watched over him after his father gave up. And he always displayed a level of patience for Roger that no one had since Mom died. The only time Rico ever got angry was when Roger started showing compassion for these people, especially the children.

Rico grinned when he finally found his helmet, lying upside-down in the mud next to a rusty water barrel. He had developed an almost superstitious attachment to that helmet. It was adorned with beer bottle labels and clever Ricoisms, such as ‘I’M A BAAAAAD MUTHAFUCKA!’ and ‘HAVE SOME HELL.’

Roger snorted, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “Happy now?”

“Happy as a cat in a fish house…or is that a fish in a cathouse?” Rico cackled wickedly.

Roger smiled and shook his head. “What the hell does that even mean, man?”

Just then, they heard a rustling sound from behind. They wheeled around, unslinging their rifles. Out of some nearby bushes, two young girls came shambling toward them. Their clothes hung off their brittle bodies like tattered rags on a scarecrow. They had no shoes; mud squished between their toes as they ran.

“My God,” Roger gasped. “They look like they haven’t eaten in days. Parents are probably dead.”

“Easy, bugs.”

“Give it a rest, Rico. We probably killed their folks.”

One girl ran to Roger, the other to Rico. Roger looked down at the child - she couldn’t have been more than five or six - his heart breaking as she clutched his leg. She smiled a toothless grin while tears carved rivers in the grime on her face.

“I’m sorry, kid,” moaned Roger, willing himself not to cry. He didn’t want Rico to see him acting like a girl. “I’m so very s-”

“Bugs!” Rico screamed. “They’re fucking wired!”

He turned to see Rico rolling around in the mud, trying to pull the child off his leg. Roger looked down at the girl hugging him. Only then did he notice the hand grenade fastened to her thigh. The pin had been pulled.

“Buuugs!” Rico roared, eyes threatening to burst from his skull as his helmet fell back off.

Then he exploded. The force of the blast threw Roger to the ground. Blood, mud and meat showered around him.

“Nooooo!” he screamed. “Nooooo!” Why did everyone he loved have to die?

The other girl still clung to his leg. She bawled as she tightened her grip. Before he could comprehend what he was doing, Roger ripped his Bowie knife from its sheath. Grabbing a fistful black, tangled hair, he yanked the girl’s head back and plunged the blade into her throat. Blood shot at him like a fountain. He twisted the knife, pushing it in further, until the tip busted out the back of her neck. The girl’s arms loosened their grip as life poured out of her. Roger let go of the knife, snatched up the tiny body and hurled it as hard as he could. She landed on her back, splashing into a puddle about ten feet away. Roger dove the opposite way and hit the ground, shielding his head to await the explosion.

Several seconds passed. It should have gone off by new. Roger cautiously raised his head. The girl lay lifelessly in the mud, staring vacantly into the smoky sky.

A dud, he realized in horror. Grenade’s a dud.

Gorge roared up his throat. He sat up, leaned over and spewed his rations onto the ground.

“I murdered her!” he wheezed. “Oh, sweet Jesus Christ, I killed her!” Wiping his mouth, he remained rigid on his hands and knees. He gawked open-mouth at the girl, then started sobbing out loud. He didn’t care who heard him.

The girl’s head flopped over to face him, the left half disappearing into the muddy water. Her dead, glassy right eye remained open, staring back accusingly.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” he slurred, strings of spit and vomit flying off his lips.

She didn’t reply. That dead right eye bored into him.

“Stop it.” Roger slowly stood, ignoring the mud that dripped from his fatigues. He unslung his rifle and clicked off the safety. “Stop looking at me!”

Blood from the girl’s neck turned the puddle purple. The eye continued to stare him down.

“Stopitstopitstopitstopit!” He fired away, pumping round after round into the dead girl. Her body jumped and jerked wildly as Roger…

…picked Megan up, cradling her in his paws. Screams filled the neighborhood as another grenade exploded a block away.

“What’s that?” Megan’s brother cried.

“Oblivion, doc,” Roger said calmly. “Sweet oblivion, where fear can’t follow. Life is pain, doc. Life is fear. But dead…well, dead is just plain fucking dead.”

Megan began to cry, squirming in his paws as another explosion vibrated the sidewalk beneath them. Roger rocked her gently, making soft shushing sounds as she bawled. “It’s okay, honey. I’m here. I’m here.”

He heard distant sirens as he plopped his butt on the sidewalk, keeping a tight hold of Megan. Her brother bolted away, screaming for his dad.

“I wanna go home,” Megan whimpered as she trembled in his arms.

“So do I, little one,” Roger said. “So do I. We’re gonna go home together, the way we should have before.”

Roger Peterson, the man in the fluffy bunny suit, shook the paw off his left hand, then off his right, making sure not to lose his grip on Megan. Her sobs grew louder, as did the approaching sirens. He stroked her hair gently, clearing it from her face.

“You and me, Megan…we’re gonna make things right.”

He held the grenade before her eyes, the sweat from his hand smearing the paint.

“Remember this trick?” he whispered before pulling the pin.

A police car roared around the corner and screeched to a halt. Roger clutched Megan tighter as two cops leaped from the car, guns drawn and leveled at his head.

“Dead is dead,” Roger said.

The egg exploded.

Copyright 2011, D.M. Anderson

ebooks-4-cheap

2011-10-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

With the popularity of ebooks increasing almost exponentially, so does the number of online outlets where they can be purchased and downloaded.

A particularly cool site is ebooks-4-cheap (http://ebooks4cheep.wordpress.com/). I like it because it provides links to purchasing books (all $5.00 or less) from a variety of genres and publishers. There are a lot of great books out there which simply do not get a lot of exposure, and this site provides detailed summaries and purchasing info about selected books you may never have known about otherwise. And, if you’re at all like me, the best thing about ebooks is the lower price, and I’m a lot more willing to take a chance on trying out a new author if it doesn’t cost me much. And ebooks-4-cheap only features books which cost less than your average movie rental.

And sometimes it costs nothing…what I really like is the site’s Free Friday feature, which presents titles which can be download for no cost at all. This particular week offered several recipe books available for your Kindle. Gotta love anything that’s absolutely free, huh?

"The Shortest Straw," a Short Story from D.M. Anderson's "With the Wicked"

2011-10-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

THE SHORTEST STRAW

Beck stared solemnly through the portal; countless stars winked back. They used to be his friends, his inspiration. Now they giggled as they twinkled, mocking the only dream he ever had.

In the window’s dirty reflection he watched his haggard crew file into the briefing room like prisoners being led to an execution. They looked just like he felt: hopeless, defeated, betrayed. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. He and his crew were supposed to be high-fiving and relishing their new roles as returning heroes, basking in the glory of a ticker-tape parade through the streets of New York as millions of people cheered their safe return from the first mission to the outer reaches of the solar system. A successful mission would have assured Captain Damien Beck carte blanche at NASA; the world would have been his.

Instead, because some dumbass at United Aerospace fucked up the math, the crew of the Megellan were now forced to play Russian Roulette. It was hard to be a hero with people like that in the world.

Megellan’s massive engines made the deck hum beneath his feet. He scarcely notice them most of the time, but today was different. Today those engines were carrying him to a place few people were ever forced to go.

His stomach rumbled.

With a heavy sigh, Beck turned away from the teasing stars and faced his crew. They’d all taken their usual spots at the table, leaving Blackmore’s chair empty. His heart panged with remorse, though not because he missed Blackmore, who died during a spacewalk a month ago. The man was actually quite a pain in the ass. But if Damien could have foreseen subsequent events, he’d have the stowed the man’s body rather than commit it to the stars.

Beck took his place at the head of the table and regarded his four remaining crew members; none of them looked like they wanted to be here any more than he did. Staring down, he feigned clearing his throat.

“Gentlemen,” he began, doing his best to avoid their sunken eyes. “I want to start by saying if there was any other way out of this situation, believe me, I would have chosen it. We’ve all gone well-above the call of duty in service of our country…our planet, and-”

“Why don’t you save the fucking speech for a camera that cares,” spat Ryan Claypool, the ship’s engineer. “This is all bullshit and you know it. Who gave you permission to play God? Your daddy, the senator? Well, gee, he’s back home in Oregon and we’re up here in-”

“What’s your alternative, Claypool?” Dr. Emerson shot back. “That we should all die? We’re still 48 days from Earth. This ain’t the commander’s fault. He’s just dealing with it.”

Claypool snorted. “Yeah? You gonna feel that way if you lose?”

Beck glared at Claypool with cold eyes, who uncomfortably crossed his arms and slumped in his chair. As usual, the engineer talked big, but was easily beaten down with a stern look. Claypool was always such a fucking little monkey.

“As I was saying,” Beck continued. “whatever happens today, you’ll all be regarded as heroes back home. And remember, we all agreed that whomever is selected today will have died in the line of duty, and given a burial in space. A hero’s burial, just like Blackmore.”

“Oh, sure,” Claypool uttered with a bitter smirk. “The Megellan’s dirty little secret. Don’t wanna tarnish your Roger Ramjet image, do we, Captain?”

The two other crew members, Steinman and Peart, shifted nervously in their chairs.

Beck resisted the urge to lunge across the table and grab Claypool by the throat. The little shitstain just didn’t get it. This wasn’t just about the crew of the Megellan; NASA couldn’t afford another screw-up. If word ever got out about this it would spell the end of the whole space program, as well as Beck’s career, and this whole mission would have been for nothing.

“Jesus Christ, Claypool,” Emerson retorted. “the captain could just as easily be the one. Grow some balls and stop making this harder than it already is.”

The table became silent, each man’s eye shifting warily, almost suspiciously, from one crewmate to another. Beck stuffed a hand into his pocket and pulled out the straws, one clipped considerably shorter than the others. He regarded them thoughtfully, then glanced over at Emerson. “I don’t see anyone objecting to you holding the straws, Doc. Of course, that means you’ll have to draw last.”

Emerson nonchalantly shrugged. “Don’t mean shit to me, Captain. Let’s just get this over with.”

Beck handed Emerson the straws, who took a few seconds to make certain they all appeared to be the same length when clenched in his fist. The doctor then held them before Peart; the navigator squeezed his eyes shut as he selected. He paused a few seconds, tightly clutching his catch before glancing down at it.

Wasting no time, Emerson leaned past the navigator to where Steinman nervously waited.

Beck eyeballed Claypool, noticing a single stream of sweat rolling down the engineer’s pasty cheek as the event unfolded. Damien smiled inside; watching the smarmy little crybaby provided a brief moment of guilty pleasure.

Steinman drew his straw, cupping it in both hands as though he’d caught a butterfly.

Emerson grunted as he reached across the table, pushing the fistful of remaining straws in Claypool’s direction. The engineer winced, then scowled at his captain. Beck could have sworn he saw tears welling up in the man’s eyes.

“You can’t do this, Captain,” Claypool pleaded. “You can’t decide the fate of another human being with a handful of plastic.” He crossed his arms and pouted. “You can’t make me draw.”

Damien was prepared for this. Without a word, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a pistol. Originally his great-grandfather’s, it had been handed down from father-to-son for generations, sort of a good-luck charm in the Beck family. Bringing a gun onto a spacecraft wasn’t exactly within NASA regulations, but he’d be damned if he was going to fly without it. He was aware of everyone’s shock at seeing the gun, but it wasn’t like none of them snuck their own contraband onto this flight.

Beck leveled it at the engineer’s head. What remaining color Claypool had in his face quickly washed away as he stared wide-eyed into the end of the barrel. “You’ll draw, Claypool, or we’ll end this little lottery right now.”

The last of Claypool’s resolve bled dry; with a trembling hand, he slowly reached up and humbly plucked a straw from Emerson’s hand.

Sorry excuse for a man, Beck thought with contempt as the two remaining straws were held up for his choosing. Without looking away from his fidgeting engineer, Damien lowered the pistol and drew a straw.

And he could tell, just by the way it felt in his hand, it was the short one.

Blood pounded behind his face as he watched Claypool leap from his chair. The engineer grabbed Peart’s wrist and held their straws together, letting out a triumphant squeal when they turned out to be the same length.

Beck looked out the portal once again; the stars, once his friends, giggled back even louder this time at the irony of the whole thing.

He’d played out this scenario a dozen times in his head since making the decision; not once did it turn out his way. He was supposed to return to Earth a hero, exactly the kind of symbol NASA needed right now for the public to rally around. Not some sniveling and selfish pussy like Ryan Claypool.

This wouldn’t do at all.

Without hesitation, Beck raised his gun and fired.

There was an ear-shattering crack.

A perfect black hole suddenly appeared in Claypool’s forehead, instantly silencing his victory cheers. The engineer’s eyes crossed before he dropped to the deck like a sack of meat.

Beck eyeballed his crew, one-by-one. They stared back in dumb shock. Several seconds passed while they watched smoke drift lazily from the gun barrel. His ears still ringing, he stared back at Emerson, who mouthed, Jesus Christ.

“What’s done is done,” Beck stated calmly. “Nothing can change that. Our food problem is solved…that’s the bottom line.” Absently pointing his pistol in Peart’s direction, he applied his best, most-practiced look of authority. “You and Steinman take the body to the galley and get it prepared. There’s a world-wide reception awaiting us when we finally reach home. A hero‘s welcome.”

Never taking their eyes off the gun in their captain’s fist, Peart and Steinmen obediently stood up and complied, struggling to get a good grip on Claypool’s corpse.

“And remember…” Beck added as they dragged the engineer away. “…medium rare.”

He was vaguely aware he was salivating.

Copyright 2011, D.M. Anderson

“The Shortest Straw” was inspired by my all-time favorite short story, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” While I cannot ever aspire to achieve the perfection of that tale, I think this particular story (first publish by Burning Sky magazine) offers a blackly humorous take on the same idea. This will also be included in my With the Wicked collection.

The Collection, a Short Story from D.M. Anderson's "With the Wicked"

2011-10-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

Before I turned to writing young adult novels, I wrote a lot of short stories, mostly horror and very black humor. Several of them ended up being published in various small press magazines around the country (most of which are not around anymore). I kind of stopped after awhile, partially because I had to focus on my teaching career, but also because I learned to enjoy the young adult genre enough to try my hand at writing it.

But during an extended illness last year, I had a lot of spare time on my hands, and started digging up some of those old stories. A lot of them were garbage, but some of them, in my humble opinion, are still pretty good. In fact, I recently revised one, “The Bottom of the Well,” which is published as an e-book short by Echelon Press earlier this year.

So, even though I’ve mostly committed my writing career to the young adult genre (still revising my third novel, The Dark Ride), it seems a shame to have these stories just sitting in a desk drawer, so I’ve been rewriting and revising them as a book, tentatively titled, With the Wicked, which I hope to submit to my publisher in a few months. But, unlike Killer Cows and Shaken, these are definitely NOT young adult tales. Most of the stories are dark, twisted and really violent, so much so that I may try to get them published under a pseudonym.

But until them, I thought I’d post some on this blog from time to time, starting with this one, titled “The Collection,” originally published by a magazine called 69 Flavors of Paranoia, once a great 'zine, now a great website ( http://www.69flavorsofparanoia.com/ ). Hope you enjoy the story. Feedback is welcome.

THE COLLECTION

Just as Clay settled into his old recliner for the evening and popped open a Budweiser, the doorbell startled him. Who in the hell would be coming by at this time of night? With an irritated sigh, he took his remote and hit the mute button, silencing Letterman’s monologue. He sucked the foam from the top of the beer can, set it on the end-table, then struggled back out of the chair.

This better be Angelina Jolie all gift-wrapped with a bow on her head, he thought as he retied his bathrobe and shuffled to the front door.

The bell impatiently rang again, just as Clay was about to unlatch the door. He paused with a frown, moving his hand away from the latch. His heart nervously sped up. Perhaps it would be smarter to see just who was interrupting his nightly routine, especially this late. He flicked on the porch light and peered through the peephole in his door.

Staring back was the face of a man he’d never seen before. The fish-eyed glass of the peephole made his nose look disproportionately huge. He sported a short, easy-to-maintain haircut, neatly parted on the side; it was much like Clay’s own hairstyle, only a but darker. The man has a pleasant smile on his face as he looked back at Clay; he obviously knew he was being studied. He was smartly dressed in a casual gray suit, not unlike the kind Clay wore to work everyday. A black tie completed the look, which the man stepped back to straighten, as if he knew Clay was paying attention to his attire. After finishing the gesture, he stepped forward toward the peephole again, still grinning.

Guess he’s not here with bad news, and nobody dresses like that to rob houses. Must have car trouble and his cell phone ain’t working.

Chuckling at his brief paranoia, Clay unhooked the chain, opened the door and looked the stranger up and down, pausing to admire the man’s shoes, impeccably-polished loafers which reflected the porch light.

The man continued to smile pleasantly.

“Can I help you?” Clay asked.

“Boy, I sure hope so,” the man replied with a toothy grin. “Are you Clayton Walker?”

Clay frowned, fumbling with the belt of his robe and eyeballing him curiously. The man obviously didn’t need to use the phone. Perhaps he was here to deliver some bad news after all.

“Uh…yes.” Clay nervously balled his fists. “Is there something wrong?”

The man continued as though he didn’t hear the question. “The same Clayton Walker who manages the escrow department at Fidelity Title?”

“Yeah, that’s me. What’s this all about? Who are you?”

The man clapped his hands together and exhaled a long, slow sigh. “Hot dog! I’ve had a devil of a time finding you.”

With lightning-speed, the man drove a fist into Clay’s face, breaking his nose. Blood squirted from both nostrils as Clay yelped and flew backward. He landed on his butt and grabbed his gushing face with both hands. His eyes filled with water, so he couldn’t quite see the stranger invite himself inside, shut the door behind him and rehooked the chain.

“Jesus Christ!” Clay cried, spittle spraying from his bloody lips. His entire face throbbed, like it was pumped full of air. After the tears drained from his eyes, he looked up at the still-pleasantly smiling man standing over him. “What the fu-”

“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” he said, calmly donning a pair of black leather gloves.

Clay pulled his hands from his rapidly-inflating nose and scooted backwards across the carpet, just as Letterman was delivering the night’s Top 10 List. The man watched with amusement as he reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun and leveled it at Clay’s head. Clay felt his crotch become warm and wet as his bladder emptied.

“Stop right there, please,” the man said, briefly looking over to the television. He chuckled good-naturedly. “That Letterman. I do find him amusing, except when he uses the word ‘ass’ too much.”

“What do you want?” Clay screeched, eyes fixed on the open maw of the gun barrel trained on his forehead. “Please! Take whatever you want! I gotta safe in my office! Just don’t hurt me!”

The man turn back to face Clay, raising a surprised eyebrow. “You mean that broken nose you’re sporting didn’t hurt? Gee, I hope I’m not losing my touch.” He pointed the gun at Clay’s bare foot and fired. The blast was deafening; Clay’s toes disintegrated in a spray of blood.

If Clay’s eardrums weren’t suddenly clogged from the gun blast, he’d have heard himself screeching at octave levels he didn’t know his voice could reach. He gawked at his mangled foot in horror, his lungs sucking-in air for another scream.

The man snapped his fingers and frowned. “Darn it…I forgot to use the silencer.” His voice sounded hollow and distant as he smiled down at Clay and reached back into his pocket. “Guess I really am losing my touch.” He pulled out his silencer and quickly screwed it onto the end of the gun. “Oh, well. That ringing will go away in a few seconds. Sure does wreak havoc on the ol’ eardrums though, doesn’t it?”

While Clay rocked back and forth on the living room floor, wailing in agony, the man peeped through the blinds of the front window. “Good thing you don’t have any neighbors close by. If I’m not more careful, one of these days I won’t be so lucky.”

Clay really heard none of this. He continued to scream, squirm and gush blood as he stared in horror at the man’s smoking gun barrel.

“Pleeeze!” he screeched, reaching up to the man with a dripping hand. “Don’t kill me! I got money! I got lots of stuff…all yours! J-j-just…don’t kill me! Oh my God!”

The man calmly raised his hand and warned, “Please, my good man, stop screaming or you will lose your other foot. I’m just here to collect what belongs to my client and I’ll be on my way. And, please…do not take the Lord’s name in vain again.”

Clay bit hard on his lower lip to quell his cries. Bloody snot whistled out his puffy snout while his lungs continued working overtime. His throbbing, distorted foot made him forget the pain in his face. It took all the energy he had left to stop screaming.

After the man patiently allowed him to regain some composure, he knelt by Clay’s face and smiled again. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Foster, Robert Foster, but my friends call me Bobby. Collecting debts and stolen property is my profession.”

Clay’s swollen, blackened eyes grew as wide as the could under the circumstances. Debts? Stolen property? What the hell is he talking about? I don’t owe anyone money, and I’ve never stolen a thing in my life!

“S-sir,” Clay slurred, pausing to hawk a wad of blood on the floor. “Y-you must have me confused with someone else. I don’t mix-in with that kid of crowd.”

“Ah, yes.” Foster chuckled. “I’ve heard that very same thing many times before. Trust me, sir, a guy in my profession an ill-afford to be wrong. You are the man I’m looking for.”

“W-what are y-you talking about?” Clay cried. “I don’t owe-”

He was silenced as Bobby Foster aimed the gun back at his face. “Please, we are in the same room. No need to shout. I represent the interests of one Richard T. Owens. Does that ring a bell?”

Clay frowned, raising his eyebrows. “Richard Owens? Who the hell is that?”

“Watch the language, sir. Don’t remember Mr. Owens, huh? Fear not, my good man. I will refresh your memory.” Foster stood up, strolled over to Clay’s old recliner and eased himself in, crossing his legs. He spotted the open beer on the end table and smiled. “Nothing like a good, cold brewski to cap off an evening, eh, Mr. Walker?”

Clay laid motionless, too terrified to do anything but stare at his attacker as the man picked up the can an took a long, slow tug. After swallowing hard and smacking his lips, Foster looked back down at him. “Richard Owens was an employee at a local Safeway store. He hired me fifteen years ago to get back what you stole from him. Obviously, it took me awhile to find you, but I always get my man.”

This is insane, Clay thought crazily. Fifteen years ago? This must be some awful fucking nightmare. Any second now I’m gonna wake up in my recliner in a cold sweat with my foot still intact.

“Now,” Bobby Foster continued. “You seem like a nice enough fellow. If you’ll kindly return what you have stolen from my client, I may forget I ever found you.”

“For Chri-” Clay spat, then checked his tongue. “-for Pete’s sake, uh, Bobby, I seriously don’t know what you are talking about. I’ve never stolen anything in my life, and I don’t know this Richard Owens you’re talking about.”

Bobby Foster smiled and stood once again. “Sir, I believe I told you my friends call me Bobby. You may call me Mr. Foster.”

Bewildered, terrified and throbbing, Clay lost control of himself. He started sobbing again, never taking his eyes off the barrel of Foster’s gun.

“Tell you what,” Foster offered congenially. “I understand that you can’t just hop up and retrieve it yourself, now that you‘re slightly incapacitated. Why don’t you just tell me where it is, I’ll go get it, and we can enjoy the rest of Letterman together. Should be a good one tonight. I understand Bruce Willis is one of the guests. I always did love his Die Hard movies…except for all the f-words.”

“Please, Mr. Foster,” Clay blubbered, a string of pink drool hanging off his lower lip. “You gotta believe me, I don’t know what-”

He was suddenly cut-off when Foster quietly popped a bullet into the other foot. Clay writhed and twisted around on the floor, gawking deliriously at his newly-missing toes.

“How ‘bout this,” Foster suggested over the screaming. “I’ll start checking each room of your house, one by one. For each room I don’t find it, I’ll comeback in here and shoot another body part. Deal?”

Clay gurgled and wailed, eyes threatening to burst out of his skull.

“I’ll take that as a yes, my good man.”

Foster reholstered his gun and strolled past Clay into the kitchen. Seconds later, Clay managed to control his crying long enough to hear the man rummaging through drawers.

He looked at the expanding dark red patch of carpet he lied on. He never realized how much blood could spew from one’s own feet.

This can’t be happening to me!

Just as he was about to bemoan his fate with more wails of self-pity, his eye caught the golden gleam of the knob on his front door. Then he glanced in the direction of the kitchen; Foster’s shadow has hunched over what must have been the microwave cabinet. What the hell was he looking for?

Clay didn’t hesitate. Clenching his jaws hard to stifle any more screams, he rolled onto his stomach and turned himself to face the door. With all the strength he had left, he used his arms to drag himself across the floor, raising his mangled feet so they wouldn’t drag on the carpet. Crimson snot blew out his nose from the effort, but he didn’t dare open his mouth, knowing damn well he’d unleashed another scream from the agony of moving.

He stopped briefly, catching his breath and raising his head to check his progress. That’s when it hit him…

Foster had rehooked the chain on the door.

Clay stared hopelessly at the chain, at least two feet higher than the knob he thought he could reach by just getting on his knees; it might as well have been twenty miles away. To reach it could mean standing on the two nubs that were once his feet. He didn’t think he could do it without screaming bloody murder.

But I’m surely a dead man if I don’t at least try.

Clay shot a look back at the kitchen - Foster’s shadow was no longer visible - then at the floor behind him. Judging by the slug-like trail he left, he was losing an alarming amount of blood. He had to get out now and just pray Foster didn’t hear him. Still, despite his overwhelming fear, he began to feel cold and just a little bit sleepy.

Shaking cobwebs from his brain, he gritted his teeth as tight as he could and shuffled the remaining distance on his elbows. Dropping his feet, lightning bolts of pain shot up his legs when his bloody stubs struck the floor. He successfully stifled a cry; his teeth drawing blood as they bit into his lip. Pawing up the front door with sticky hands, leaving streaks of bloodstained prints across the stained wood, Clay managed to get to his knees. Gravity increased the blood flow from his wounds, making the open nerves pound in protest. To slow the flow, he carefully raised his feet off the floor and balanced on his knees.

At least he didn’t feel tired at the moment. Nothing like a heaping helping of pain to jolt a man back to reality. He wasted no time, knowing enough about first aid that, as he lost more and more blood, the sleepy urge would soon come back to try and suck him away. He extended his right hand up and desperately clawed at the chain. After stretching his torso as much as he could, Clay managed to clamp the chain between two trembling fingers. He grinned triumphantly. Thank God he did end up having to try and stand.

Then the hand exploded.

Clay fell away from the door and dropped back to the floor. He clamped his good hand over the spurting wrist, squealing helplessly. He rolled and screeched on the spongy wet carpet, eyes gigantic as Foster slowly strode over to him and squatted.

“Where on Earth are you going, Mr. Walker?” he asked innocently. “And just how far did you think you were gonna get on those feet?”

Clay was well-beyond any ability to reply coherently. All he could do was roar in agony and wait for this stranger to put an end to this madness. He stared into the steady, smoking barrel of the gun in Foster’s hand and prayed for a quick death.

Instead, Foster holstered the gun and grinned.

“Cheer up, my good man,” he happily piped. “I found what I’m looking for, so I’ll be leaving now.” He held the prize before Clay’s eyes, a cheap white ball-point pen, with a yellowed strip of scotch tape wrapped around a crack in the plastic. The words on the barrel read, Safeway Food & Drug - Ingredients for Life. Clay had seen it before, lying around in the kitchen junk drawer with old batteries, receipts and matchbooks.

Foster neatly slipped the pen into his inside pocket and stood. “Mr. Owens will be happy to get this back,” he said, pretending to brush lint off his sleeve. “Take some friendly advice, my good man. Next time you borrow someone’s pen to write a check, make sure you give it back.”

With that, Foster gave him a friendly nod, unlocked the door and strode out.

Moaning and shivering uncontrollably, Clay stared out the door in shock, watching his assailant disappear into the night. For several minutes, he didn’t move, content to lie on the floor and bleed while his mind tried to comprehend what had just happened to him. Who the hell is Richard Owens? What is the big deal about a cheap old pen? And after fifteen years?

Pain quickly shoved away all of those questions. They weren’t important right now. What really mattered is that he was alive, and if he wished to remain so, he needed to get to his phone and call 911 before he bled to death.

He craned his head back into the living room. There was his cell, sitting next to the beer on the end table. With his remaining hand, Clay yanked the terrycloth belt from the loops of his robe and clumsily wrapped it several times around his gushing wrist, hoping to slow the flow of blood.

Suddenly, he heard a shuffling sound from outside. He quickly looked back to see Bobby Foster charging back at him from the night, a toothy grin plastered on his face. He leaped up the steps of the porch and drew his gun once again, leveling it at Clay’s head.

“Good thing I checked out this pen when I got back to my car, My. Walker,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s all out of ink.”

Before he had a chance to scream, Clay was silenced by a bullet to his brain.

Copyright 2011, D.M. Anderson

Why Are You Talking To Me? (An Ode To Male Bathroom Etiquette)

2011-09-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

Why are you talking to me
While I pee?
I came to this rest room to empty out me,
Not converse with every stranger I see;
Is this a place to make friends? I disagree;
We ain’t hunting buddies surrounding a tree
Shootin’ the shit as we
All three
Go pee.

Look about the rest room and you can see
Numerous urinals into which you could pee;
Instead to choose the one right next to me;
Don’t you see...
This stands contrary
To unwritten rules in the history
Of public pee,
Which are obviously
Foreign to you but sacred to me.

To engage in urinary banter with me...
Well, gee,
To me
That seems sort of faggy,
You see?
So listen to me -
Leave me be -
Shut up while I pee,
Or I’m liable to beat the shit out of thee.

Author Updates

2011-08-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

WHY THE NAME CHANGE (AGAIN!)

I chose Free Kittens because it was the name of a humorous education-related newsletter I used to write to amuse fellow teachers (and later raise money for ailing local students and their families). The reason it came to be called Free Kittens is the result of being reprimanded for posting untitled rants and/or observations related to school business to people who didn’t necessarily want to read them. So, the name Free Kittens (due to the fact that, at the time, many teachers used the system for personal communication, like selling stuff) became sort of a code word for those who did enjoy my observations. Everyone else could simply delete the email. Later, when the district mandated that our email system could only be used for district business, I began to publish Free Kittens as hard-copy issues, given only to chose who wanted them. The name stuck, and was sort of a running gag to those who enjoyed it.

It only made sense to use that name for my blog. And since it is no longer published through any school resources, I’m free to write whatever I want (education-related or not). I did need to modify the title, though. Upon first Googling Free Kittens, I was inundated by thousands of site actually advertising free cats, along with a few sex sites. So now, at least for awhile, this blog is called D.M. Anderson’s Free Kittens, which is probably the best move, since keywords still promote me as an author, and I get to retain the running gag I’ve cherished for years.

SHAKEN

My second novel is still on-schedule to be published in November, first as an ebook, later as a paperback once it sells enough copies. For those of you who bought, read and enjoyed Killer Cows, I personally think this one is better, although a lot different and definitely not a sequel.

KILLER COWS

A lot of people have asked me if there will be a sequel to Killer Cows. All I can say right now is that is still up-in-the-air. I’d like to write a Cows sequel, because there is a lot of unfinished business with these characters, and especially since most of those who read and/or reviewed it have really liked it. But writing a novel is a long endeavor, and I’m not too keen on spending the better part of a year writing a sequel to a novel that few people have read.

THE DARK RIDE

I’m still revising this one, my first flat-out YA horror novel. At first, I intended it to be the darkest, most violent and bleak novel so far. But I’ve since decided the book would be better with a lot more humor and whimsy. So, the revision process will take awhile. I’m thinking it will still be bloody, but fun-bloody, like Army of Darkness. I’m soon post an excerpt to get some feedback.

DAVE’S MOVIE GUIDE: A LIFETIME IN THE DARK

Anyone who’s ever read my stuff knows I’ve always been influenced and infatuated with movies. This is a work-in-progress which details the movies which have had a direct or indirect impact or influence on my personal and professional life, under the tongue-in-cheek guise of being an actual movie guide. At the same time, the book does provide trivia and true background information about the films discussed. Blockbusters, classics, cult films, award winners and obscure titles are all included in this one, interspersed with narrative explaining why they are important, and how specific movies can reflect and/or impact one’s life.

Books Which Should Be Banned

2011-08-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Ban these books! Ban them now! Protect our children (whom we all know can’t think or formulate ideas all by themselves) from the influence of these so-called ‘authors’, who obviously have an nefarious agenda beyond simply entertaining the youth of America and encouraging them to drop the XBOX controller for a few hours in order to read:

The Harry Potter series. How dare J.K. Rawling! She has the audacity to inspire grade school kids to read 600+ page novels when that time could be better spent watching TV, not to mention the number of young readers who select wizardry as a career choice afterwards.

The Twilight series. Of course, we all know vampires are evil, but that’s not why Stephanie Meyer’s books should be banned. It’s for selfish reasons, because her novels have disrupted my sleep patterns. My oldest daughter insisted on attending the midnight release party of Breaking Dawn, which meant I had to drive her and her friends downtown in the middle of the night so she could be one of the first to get a copy. I had to stay awake until 2:00 AM to pick them up, and was grumpy all the next day from lack of sleep. To make matters worse, my daughter didn’t clean our cats’ litter box because her face was buried in the book all day.

Every other teen vampire novel. They teach impressionable youth that vampires aren’t monsters to be feared, but simply teen emos (teemos?) in love. That ain’t gonna help them much if they ever come across a real vampire, who probably won’t look like Robert Pattinson.

Everything by Edgar Allen Poe. He’s just too weird to be trusted with our children.

Halo (and any other book based on a video game). I’m actually half-serious here. You know you are obsessed when the time you spend away from your favorite game is spent reading about them. See that shiny orb in the sky outside? It’s called the sun. Go enjoy it.

Captain Underpants. This popular series could influence kids to imitate the actions of its hero. And there reaches a point in a child’s life when running around in his underpants is no longer cute.

Green Eggs and Ham. Oooh! Stay away from this one, kids! It might encourage you to put weird-colored things in your mouth that don’t belong there. What’s next, Bleu Cheese and Drano?

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Now I know why I have currently a problem with rodents in my house. My kids are giving them chocolate chip cookies! Well, there goes their allowance. I need that money to pay for an exterminator.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Poor Cindy Lou Who, waking in the middle of the night to see a man without pants hovering over the Christmas tree.

Hop on Pop. Kids, why would you want to jump on your dad? You know he has acid reflux and digestive issues. Or is this book encouraging you to slowly kill him for the insurance? Did your mom put you up to this? Just for that, I’m revising my will to leave everything to the dog. At least he leaps on me because he’s simply happy to see me again.

Goodnight Moon. Talking to inanimate objects, such as mittens, bowls of mush and socks, is a tell-tale sign of insanity. Do we want our kids to talk to articles of clothing just before they go to bed? If Edgar Allen Poe (see above) wrote for children, he’d have come up with something like this, only the baby bunny would have killed the old lady whispering hush, then stashed her remains under the floorboards.

Killer Cows. My first novel. I can’t think of any reason it would be banned, but if any of you can, that’s a lot of free publicity for me. After all, nothing says ‘buy me’ more than a media product which sparks moral outrage in a few loudmouthed individuals who think their own personal values will save the world. Thanks in advance.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author, who doesn’t really believe anything he just posted.

Excerpt from "Shaken" (Coming in November 2011)

2011-07-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt of the first few chapters from my upcoming novel, Shaken, which will be released in November, 2011. Hope you enjoy it.

The lights flickered and Natalie felt like she was losing her balance. She wasn’t dizzy, though the illusion of the room spinning was similar. Her body slowly swayed back and forth as if she stood on a boat at sea. She tried to steady herself with a nearby table, but if anything, the sensation grew more intense.

The fake crystals of the cheap chandelier hanging over the dining room table tinkled. This wasn’t just in her head.

“Woah!” Lucy cried from upstairs.

Trinkets on the shelves rattled. Another cheesy painting, this one on the dining room wall, fell off its nail and slapped face-down on the floor.

What the...

A jarring jolt under her feet, under the floor, dropped Natalie to her knees. She struggled to stand, but the floor shifted so abruptly she could barely stay on her hands and knees. The bookshelf toppled over; an avalanche of paperbacks barely missed her. The living room window imploded as the frame caved in.

Something struck her head; Natalie yelped as white dust and plaster billowed to the floor.

Oh, God, her mind panicked. She scrambled under the dining room table. The ceiling is falling!

From somewhere upstairs...a high-pitched scream. Natalie barely heard it over the roar of the trembling cabin.

“Lucy!” She crawled from under the safety of the table. Ignoring the raining plaster from above, she scooted on all fours to the nearest kitchen counter and used it to pull herself to her feet. The floor literally shook.

Dishes, glasses, pots and tumbled from the cupboards and crashed to the floor. The sink faucet snapped; water erupted from the ruptured spout and drenched the crumbling ceiling. The window over the sink exploded, showering her with glass. A shard gashed her cheek; warm blood rolled down her face.

Lucy kept screaming upstairs.

“Hang on, Lucy! I’m coming!” She barely heard herself. Natalie scrambled out from beneath the table and though she gripped the counter, she could hardly stand. How was she even going to reach the stairs, let alone climb them? She felt like she was being shaken to death.

She stared in horror as a crack appeared between her feet, ran across the floor, up the wall and onto the ceiling. There was a splintering whack! like a gun-shot, and seconds later the room was pulled in two. Part of the upper floor collapsed, crushing the dining room table she had cowered under a minute earlier. A huge support beam snapped and dropped from overhead. Natalie dove out of the way, just as it swung like a wrecking ball and smashed the kitchen counter to pieces.

The lights went out. Natalie screamed in the dark and the world shook apart around her.

Five Hours Earlier...

Connor

“Earth is a 3-D puzzle, made of large pieces called tectonic plates. Every part of the world’s surface, land or sea, sits atop these plates. Areas where they meet are called subduction zones, and sometimes one massive plate will slide beneath another, triggering an earthquake...”

A few of the dorkier kids hung on Miss Flint’s every word. Most however, looked like Connor felt, anxiously fidgeting in their seats as the clock took its sweet time getting to the magic hour. Five minutes till Spring Break, and Flint was gonna use every single one of them.

Oblivious to the time, she droned on. “On December 26, 2004, just off the coast of Indonesia, the Indo-Australian Plate slid beneath the Eurasian Plate, producing an undersea earthquake measuring between 9.1 and 9.3 on the Richter Scale. One of the strongest quakes ever recorded in modern times, it created tremors which were felt as far away as Alaska, and caused the entire planet to wobble on its axis. The quake displaced massive amounts of ocean water, triggering a tsunami measuring over 100 feet high, which struck the Asian coast, killing 150,000 people and leaving over a million others homeless.

“Some of you may remember the quake in Japan in 2011. Even though it happened thousands of miles away, Hawaii was affected by the tsunami, and beaches all along the West Coast of the United States were closed. You may even recall our schools closed that day, just in case.”

She paused for dramatic effect, convinced she had the entire class mesmerized. Connor glanced around; most looked bored.

“Just off the coast of the northwestern United States, not even 100 miles from where we now sit, lies the Cascadia Subduction Zone. It stretches beneath the Pacific from Canada’s Vancouver Island down to northern California. There is evidence several massive quakes have erupted from this region over the past 3,500 years. Each was followed by a tsunami. It last happened at around 9:00 P.M. in the year 1700. To this day, it is believed to be one of the largest known quakes in history, and the subsequent tsunami ravaged the entire coast.

“If the Cascadia Subduction Zone were to rupture today with the same magnitude as it did in 1700, both the quake and tsunami would cause unimaginable destruction across the entire Pacific Northwest, devastating such major cities as Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma, Portland, Victoria and Vancouver, B.C...

“…and as for the fate of our little coastal paradise, Pangea Bay would likely be wiped off the map.” Flint paused again. A few kids oohed and awed. Having heard it all before, Conner rolled his eyes.

What a drama queen.

Connor’s best friend, Taylor, who sat next to him, leaned over and quietly cackled. “Do ya think anyone’s even listening to her?”

“Ha,” Conner barked, louder than he intended.

Miss Flint suddenly stopped, whipping around to stare into him. The rest of the class, Taylor included, froze.

“Something funny, Mr. McKenzie?” She raised a brow. “Or don’t you believe any of this?”

He shot a helpless glance to Taylor for backup, but his best friend was in self-preservation mode, suddenly staring sheepishly at his desk to avoid her wrath.

Quickly recovering, aware his classmates were staring, Connor offered his best who-me? face and smiled. “No, ma’am. Your story is riveting. And I hope it does happen. I‘ll jump on my boogie board and surf all the way to Portland. Maybe catch a Blazers game.”

Laughter erupted from the surrounding students.

Miss Flint grinned back, a phony smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a telltale sign she didn’t appreciate his latest smart-aleck comment.

The laughter ceased immediately.

“That reminds me,” she said as she sauntered to her desk. “Some of you may find this riveting...your mid-term progress reports. You wouldn’t want to head off to Spring Break without these.”

A collection of groans and sighs filled the room as Miss Flint went from desk to desk, dealing out her students’ fates.

When she reached the back row of the classroom and held out Connor’s report, she pinched it with two fingers as though it was crawling with germs. Her thin lips puckered, like they’d just sucked a sour pickle. Connor stared back hard, willing her to drop dead as he snatched the report from her hand. He didn’t bother to look at it; he knew his fate from the look on her face.

“Your welcome, Mr. McKenzie,” she chided before moving to another row.

“Prune face,” he muttered under his breath.

She whipped around and glared. “What was that?”

Some nearby students giggled, including Taylor.

Connor pasted on his sincerest grin and held open his arms. “Nothing, Miss Flint. You have a great spring break, okay?”

A few more chuckles. Miss Flint’s pickle-sucking smirk disappeared, rendering everyone silent.

“Mr. McKenzie, I’d like you to stay after class for a moment, if you don’t mind,” she said evenly before continuing her task.

“Whatever.” Connor pretended he didn’t care. The truth was just the opposite. Bringing home an F in Physical Science would seriously screw up his vacation. Mom got angry when he brought home C’s, let alone flat-out flunking a class. And all because ol’ Flint had it in for him.

“Good luck, dude,” cackled Taylor as the bell rang. “I’ll wait for you in the parking lot.”

While other students gathered their books and filed out the door, Connor sulked in his chair. Miss Flint returned to her desk, shuffling papers until she had him alone.

“Mr. McKenzie...” she began, not bothering to call him by his first name; that honor was reserved for the few butt-kissers she actually liked; for everyone else it was Mr. This or Ms. That. “...care to tell me what your problem is this time?”

Connor said nothing, avoiding her stare while he impatiently fidgeted.

“Let me guess. You don’t think you deserve your grade.”

“You got that right,” he spat, staring down at his progress report in disgust.

“Mr. McKenzie, you didn’t turn in your Simple Machines project–”

“That’s only one assignment.”

“The biggest one of the term, young man,” she scolded.

Young man? Connor bitterly mused. To you, Jesus is a young man.

“But it isn’t just the project.” She managed that holier-than-thou tone he hated. “You also got D’s on both tests, and never bothered coming in after school to make them up.”

“I have baseball practice after school!” Connor slapped the desk in anger. “I told you that!”

“That’s not my problem. Baseball isn’t one of my priorities.” Miss Flint sat back in her seat. “And after I have a word with your coach, it will no longer be one of yours.”

“Hey, you can’t–”

“Oh, I can and I will, Mr. McKenzie. You’re almost always off-task in class, you’re disrespectful and disruptive. You’re certainly intelligent, but you’re also lazy and never apply yourself. You’re in this quandary because of you, not me. So if you want to blame someone, take a look in the mirror, young man.” She shook her head sadly. “I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. McKenzie...you’re certainly nothing like your father. I never heard him piling on the excuses when he was in my class. I think he’d be quite disappointed in you right now.”

Connor glared back hatefully. “Don’t talk about my dad, Miss Flint. You don’t know how he’d feel, and you sure as hell don’t know me.” His eyes stung as tears threatened. He willed them away, refusing to give Pruneface the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

“No need to use that kind of language, Mr. McKenzie,” she said curtly.

“Yeah?” Connor promptly stood, snatched up his binder and progress report, then stomped toward the door. “How this....up yours, you old windbag. What do you think of that?”

With another pickle-sucking face, Miss Flint slowly stood. “I think, come Monday after spring break, you’re going to find yourself suspended.”

Damien

They drove all the way to the train station without saying a word. His mom sat in the passenger seat, sniffling and occasionally wiping tears from her cheeks. Mike stared straight ahead as he drove. Damien couldn’t see the man’s face, but doubted any tears squeezed from those eyes

Except tears of joy, maybe.

Mike pulled his truck into the parking lot of Coos Bay’s lonely train station and gently eased it into two spots. Damien gripped the suitcase next to him, anticipating a quick escape to avoid any gooey goodbyes from Mom. She didn’t want him to go, but Mike was nothing if not persuasive, promising her, with his usual salesman’s pitch, this was best for everyone.

Best for you, you mean, Damien thought, staring daggers into the back of his stepdad’s skull.

As soon as Mike killed the engine, Damien hoisted his suitcase and climbed out of the back seat, taking a last, longing listen to the ocean waves crashing nearby. He was sure going to miss that sound.

Then he deliberately slammed the door as hard as he could, hoping to get Mike’s goat.

Instead, his stepdad leaped out of the truck like a child waking up on Christmas morning; not even Damien abusing the man’s precious Humvee (which he insisted on calling a rig) was going to ruin this day. Mom grabbed another tissue and composed herself before joining them.

Damien didn’t wait, shuffling toward the station like a condemned prisoner. It wasn’t until he reached the entrance that he noticed he was by himself. He turned around, frowning as he watched Mike throw open the hatch of his ‘rig’ and hoist out his army-issue duffel bag.

What the...

He watched with mounting dread as Mike slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and marched toward him with a mile-wide grin. Mom did her best to keep up, eyeing her husband uncertainly.

“What’s up with the bag?” Damien already dreaded the answer. “I got everything I need in my suitcase.”

“Oh, this isn’t for you.” Mike put a meaty hand on Damien’s shoulder and chuckled. “I’m coming with you, tough guy.”

Damien blankly stared back, unsure he heard right.

Apparently satisfied with his stepson’s reaction, Mike held the door open for Damien and his mom to enter the terminal first. “After you, Damien Heston,” he said. “Our chariot awaits.”

Natalie

She was startled awake when a shark struck the side of her face. Dropping into her lap, its one good eye stared vacantly back. The other had fallen off years ago. Natalie ripped headphones from her ears and glared at her sister. Lucy bounced in her booster seat and giggled.

“Not funny, you little brat,” Natalie spat.

From the front seat, their mom craned her head with a stern stare. “I told you a million times not to call her that.”

“She threw a stuffed animal at me.”

Lucy aimed a tiny finger at her and yelled, “You started it!”

“Did not.” Natalie gave her a harsh glare, which made Lucy giggle louder.

“Did to!” Lucy held out her hand and demanded, “Give him back.”

Natalie clutched the old stuffed fish and held it just out of Lucy’s reach. “You want this? What do you say?”

Her little sister swiped at it with a tiny hand. Natalie playfully yanked it away.

“Give me Crunch now!” Lucy demanded.

“Nope.” Natalie shook her head, then stuffed the animal in the seat pocket in front of her. “He was mine before he was yours. Now I want him back.” Not true, of course. She outgrew her attachment to that stupid animal before her sister was even born. Lucy, on the other hand, loved old Crunch. She didn’t care if he was missing an eye, or crusty brown stains spotted his fur. Despite her bounty of newer stuffed animals at home, Crunch was the one she hauled everywhere.

Dumb kid.

Like flipping a switch, Lucy turned on the waterworks. Tears filled her eyes as she kicked her legs and whined.

“What’s the problem back there?” Their dad scowled as he drove.

“Lucy’s being a brat,” Natalie insisted.

“I said don’t call her that,” Mom groused.

“Mommy, Natalie won’t give me Crunch!” Lucy cried before cramming a thumb in her mouth.

“‘Cause you threw him at me. Must mean you don’t want him,” Natalie teased.

Lucy raised the volume of her tantrum.

Her dad angrily glared back and barked, “Stop teasing her and give it back before I turn the car around and go back home!”

“Fine. I don’t want to go on this stupid trip, anyway. I got better things to do.”

Dad’s jaw tightened, a sign he was about to explode into one of his obscenity-filled tirades. They used to scare her, but they came so often lately she could easily tune them out.

Mom intervened, squeezing Dad’s shoulder as she glanced back. “Natalie, you’re fourteen, she just turned four–”

“But–” Natalie tried to protest before Mom raised a silencing hand.

“You’re her big sister, and you need to just overlook it when she’s trying to antagonize you. You weren’t any different when you were that age. Now stop teasing and give Crunch back to her.”

Disgusted, Natalie grabbed Crunch and tossed it into her sister’s lap. Once again, the little chumbucket gets away with murder; once again, I’m the bad guy.

Her mom looked at Lucy. “What do you say to Natalie?”

Lucy glared, stuck out her lower lip and scolded, “Bad sister!” Then she clutched Crunch to her cheek and stuck her thumb back in her mouth. End of argument.

“Lucy, you be nice,” Mom encouraged with a sweet grin.

Natalie sneered back. “Aren’t you a little old to be sucking your thumb?”

“That’s enough, Natalie,” Mom added before turning back around.

“Whatever.” Natalie crammed her headphones back in her ears and dialed through the songs on her iPod.

A few minutes later, Crunch pelted her in the face again.

Connor

After he left the building, Connor went to the nearest trashcan, yanked his unfinished Simple Machines project from his binder, and tore it in half, then in quarters. The term was over; there was no point in hanging onto it now. A few pieces of tattered paper fluttered to the ground as he stuffed the can. Not bothering to pick them up, Connor hurried to the school parking lot and found Taylor, leaning against the back of his Chevy pick-up and talking to Tawnya Garcia. His best friend was decked out in his usual gear...a letterman jacket and the most recent ‘funny’ tee-shirt he picked up at Wal-Mart. This one read, I didn’t say it was you’re fault...I said I was going to blame you.

“Hey, buddy,” Taylor said. “Turn around.”

“Why?” Connor asked, doing as requested.

“How ‘bout that...still intact. I thought for sure I’d see one of Flint’s high heels buried in your butt.”

Tawnya giggled. She laughed at all of Taylor’s attempts at humor, even when they weren’t always that funny.

“Yeah, ha ha, dillweed,” Connor muttered.

Taylor shot a glance at Tawnya. “Hey, I’ll call you later, okay? Me and my comrade here got some business to discuss.”

“Okay,” she said hopefully before strutting away, intentionally swinging her hips in a clumsy attempt to appear sexy.

“Kinda hot in a ditzy sort of way,” Connor offered admiringly. “For a sophomore, anyway. You gonna ask her out?”

Taylor chortled. “What, Tawnya? No way.”

“Why not? You know she has it bad for you.”

“You obviously haven’t sat and talked with her for five minutes.” He aimed a finger at his own head. “Scrambled eggs up there, dude.”

“Then why string her along?”

Taylor shrugged indifferently. “It’s fun. If and when some dumb little hottie ever thinks you’re like the greatest male specimen walking the planet, you’ll do the same thing.”

Must be nice, Connor thought enviously. He was no slouch, but rarely dated anyone as hot as the girls who threw themselves at Taylor. And the guy always acted like it was no big deal. Taylor didn’t know how good he had it.

“You’re gonna die a lonely man if you keep blowing these chicks off,” Connor said congenially.

Taylor laughed again. “Not a chance. Come on, it’s time to celebrate. Spring Break is upon us!”

Taylor climbed into the truck and fired her up. Connor tossed his backpack and binder into the bed with Taylor’s baseball gear and joined him.

“So...” Taylor said, screeching out of the parking lot and heading toward downtown Pangea Bay. “...let’s hear it.”

Connor slapped a hand to his forehead and pulled it down his face. “Man, I’m so screwed. Not only wouldn’t she listen to me about my grade, she’s gonna have me thrown off the team. I’m probably gonna be suspended, too.”

“Suspended? What for?”

“‘Cause I totally went-off on her. My mom’s gonna go ballistic when she hears that. She’ll take away my boogie board and ground me for life.” He sighed heavily. “You’re looking at a dead man walking.”

His friend slapped the steering wheel and snickered. “Went off on Flint? What’d you say, dude?”

“Up yours, windbag.”

Taylor’s mouth fell open. “You got some big ones, buddy! That old lady’s the biggest hard-case that ever rolled through Pangea Bay High. She scares the crap out of everybody. Even me!” He turned into the parking lot of Crazy Dog, a fast food place where a lot of kids hung out on Friday afternoons. “What’d she say to get you so riled up? Was it the baseball thing?”

Connor stared out the windshield as his friend found the only open space left in the tiny lot. “She brought up my old man. Said he’d be disappointed in me.” His head sunk as he stared into his lap, fighting tears again. He didn’t want Taylor to see him cry any more than Miss Flint.

Taylor’s grin morphed to a scowl as he killed the engine. “Man, that’s a low blow, even for her. She knows what happened.”

Despite his efforts, Connor's eyes filled up; a few droplets soaked into his jeans. “Do you think she’s right? Do you think my dad would be disappointed in me?”

Taylor pounded the dashboard. “Dude, don’t listen to her. Just because she had him in a class a jillion years ago doesn’t mean squat. She’s just an old lady who’s burned-out from teaching too long and has no life of her own, other than making kids miserable. Who gives a crap what she thinks.”

Connor couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. “I miss him, man,” he sobbed quietly. “I miss him so much...”

“I know, man,” Taylor squeezed Connor’s trembling shoulder. “I know. We all miss him.”

“She didn’t have the right...” Connor furiously rubbed his fists into his eyes. “She had no right.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Connor slowly pulled himself together.

“Come on, dude,” Taylor finally said. “Let’s go inside before people start thinking we’re a couple of queers.”

Connor suddenly snickered; snot shot from his running nose.

“Yuck,” Taylor groaned, yanking an old paper napkin from the glove box and wiping his dashboard. “Snot rocket!”

Connor bursted into laughter...

...as the pick-up started to slowly rock.

Taylor’s key-ring, still in the ignition, jingled like tiny chimes.

“Huh?” Taylor grunted, gripping the wheel.

The truck swayed back and forth. Connor looked back, thinking one of Taylor’s football buddies was bouncing on the tailgate. No one was there, but at the outdoor dining area just outside of Crazy Dog’s pick-up window, several wide-eyed customers gripped their tables. A few sodas shook and toppled over. A kid he recognized from his Humanities class, a pint-sized sophomore named Albert, struggled to keep his balance at the take-out window, teetering like he was drunk. Connor shot a nervous glance out his window; the car next to them rocked too and its alarm went off.

Then the shaking subsided.

He looked back again to the big commotion at the dining tables. Customers stood wide-eyed and paralyzed, jaws falling open in dumbstruck awe. One lady pulled a wad of napkins from a dispenser to wipe the drink that dropped in her lap.

“Dude...” Taylor said, finally releasing his grip on the wheel. “...was that an earthquake?”

“I dunno,” Connor replied. He opened the door and climbed out, wincing as the car alarm next to him continued to screech. The vehicle’s owner ran out of the restaurant, aimed his key ring, and shut it up.

“You boys feel that?” the man asked with a grin. “Healthy little tremor, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” was all Connor could muster.

Movies of Mass Destruction, Part 3: The Best and Worst Disaster Movies

2011-06-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

As I wrote in a previous blog entry, I have sold my second novel, Shaken, for publication, and is scheduled to be released in November. Although Killer Cows will always have a special place in my heart because it was my first published novel, I personally think Shaken is a better book, mainly because it was inspired by a film genre I’ve loved my whole life…the disaster movie. For those of you too young to remember, disaster movies had their heyday back in the 1970s, followed by a brief resurgence in popularity in the 1990s. A lot of them were fun, even the bad ones, though for the most part, their portrayal of kids and teenagers was usually pretty bad; the kids were either so sickeningly cute or gratingly obnoxious that you wanted them to die (with rare exception, never happened). Being a teacher, I thought writing a disaster novel strictly from a teenage point-of-view would be interesting.

I’ve loved the genre ever since being dropped off one afternoon at the Southgate theater by my parents to catch The Towering Inferno during a matinee back when I was eleven years old. Until then, all I ever got to see was Disney stuff. This was my first ‘grown-up’ movie, where people actually died and stuff exploded. It was awesome, and I caught every other disaster movie that came along, Earthquake, Airport 75, The Hindenburg, The Swarm, etc. Good or bad, I watched ‘em all. They all essentially had the same plot, but I didn’t care, so long as a lot of stuff got destroyed, and those characters who deserved to die usually did.

Even now, I think it is still my favorite genre. Its brief comeback in the mid/late 90s (Twister, Deep Impact, etc.) was especially cool. Yeah, the movies are kinda dumb - no one’s gonna confuse them for documentaries - but who cares? They’re fun…even the aggressively bad ones. Show me someone who didn’t enjoy Independence Day and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t enjoy breathing.

That being said, the following is a list of some of the best, and worst, movies of the genre I love.

The Best:

Independence Day - Aliens arrive in giant flying saucers to kick our asses. The only movie to feature a dog outrun a giant rolling fireball, or Will Smith as a macho pilot able to expertly operate an alien space craft mere minutes after climbing into the cockpit. But who cares about plausibility when the White House gets wasted? And what does it take to destroy this vicious alien race? A laptop. It’s also nice to know our computer software is compatible with alien technology.

Earthquake - L.A. gets wasted by the big one. Lorne Greene plays Ava Gardener’s father (he must have conceived her when he was eight), while Charleton Heston turns in the last decent performance of his career. Watch for a cattle truck which flies off a bridge, and no cows topple out! This one earns extra points for killing off a majority of the cast, and features Lorne Greene demanding, “Take off your pantyhose, dammit!” Too bad he never said that on Bonanza.

2012 - In the real world, I am a middle school teacher, and a few of my more intellectually-challenged students thought this was more than a movie…it was a prediction! That aside, this could be the mother of all disaster movies, one which kills off 99.9% of the human race, yet still manages to tack on a happy ending. And who knew John Cusack, playing a failed writer, possessed such superhuman abilities as to outrun a volcanic eruption, steer a sports car off a crashing cargo plane and escape a massive earthquake in a limo? The funniest movie since Twilight.

The Day After Tomorrow - I’m convinced director Roland Emmerich once had a really bad experience in New York. Maybe he was mugged, or maybe he had money bet on the Knicks and lost a bundle. At any rate, this movie marks the third time (after Independence Day and Godzilla) in which he totally destroys The Big Apple. The science presented in the movie may not be credible, but at least it sounds credible.

The Poseidon Adventure - If you’ve ever wanted to check out Shelly Winters’ giant underpants, this is the movie for you. Besides that, this movie is simply a lot of fun for what is essentially a pretty dark movie (hundreds of people onboard, but only a handful survive).

Titanic - Sure, it made Leonardo DiCaprio a star. Sure, lots of teenage girls swooned and cried. Sure, it only gets interesting once the ship starts sinking (90 minutes into this three-hour movie). Sure, it made that stupid-ass song, “My Heart Will Go On,“ stick in our heads long after the point we would kill someone if we heard it again. Sure, it’s proof that writer/director James Cameron is only second to George Lucas in the dumb dialogue department. But it is the only disaster movie to win a Best Picture Oscar.

The Swarm - Killer bees! So deadly they can cause people to hallucinate, passenger trains to careen off cliffs and nuclear power plants to meltdown. Michael Caine plays a sunflower seed-scarfing entomologist placed in charge of killing them (he’s also placed in charge of delivering some of the worst lines in disaster movie history). Richard Widmark is the standard military man who exists just to deny there’s even a problem (even though people are dying by the thousands) and suspects Caine has some secret agenda (!). This movie does have the distinction of being one of the few to kill-off its obligatory obnoxious child character.

The Cassandra Crossing - A deadly disease onboard a loaded passenger train! The government’s solution? Crash the train, of course. Ava Gardner’s back from Earthquake for another round of all-star mayhem, this time cavorting with boy-toy Martin Sheen (yes, you might throw-up in your mouth a bit). Sofia Loren adds luster just by showing up. Richard Harris takes his role seriously. Bad guy Burt Lancaster looks perpetually constipated. The climactic train wreck is phony, but fun…kind of like when I turned 14 and decided I’d outgrown my Hot Wheels and train sets, so I proceed to blow them up with firecrackers. Bonus: O.J. Simpson saves a little girl. How could this guy be a murderer?

Deep Impact - I knew I was gonna love Deep Impact ten minutes into it, when an astronomer, upon discovering a giant comet is on a collision course toward Earth, rushes from his observatory to warn authorities; speeding down the mountain in his jeep, he’s involved in a fatal, fiery accident while fumbling with his cell phone. The incident doesn’t really have much bearing on the story, but let that be a lesson to all you assholes compelled to yack on your phone when you should be watching the road!

The Towering Inferno - The world’s tallest building goes up in flames, along with a lot of aging actors in leisure suits. Tons of people die, including characters whom you either manage care about or totally despise. This is also the last movie where Steve McQueen manages to come off being cool. The only disaster movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (losing to The Godfather, Part II) until Titanic twenty years later. Bonus: O.J. Simpson saves a kitty. Again, how could he possibly be a murderer?

The Worst:

Armageddon - Hyper-edited by to the point it could trigger seizures, this two-and-a-half hour assault on the senses is mind-numbing. It strives for some Titanic-inspired sentimentality (Ben Affleck & Liv Tyler using animal crackers as foreplay? Yeech), but fails because uber-macho director Michael Bay is more in love with his ham-fisted MTV-style approach to nearly every scene in the movie, including the action sequences. I have to think the special effects guys working on this film had to be really, really pissed off that most of their hard work was left on the cutting room floor. On the plus side, Armageddon is better than Transformers.

The Concorde: Airport ‘79 - If you’re in the right mood, it’s actually funnier than Airplane. Check out the scene where George Kennedy, piloting the fastest plane in the world, opens the cockpit window to shoot a flare. On the downside, you also have to watch him engage in post-coital pillow talk with a hooker. The Airport franchise was well-past its expiration date at this point, and really, the only difference between this film and Airplane (the ultimate parody of the entire genre) is that this one takes itself seriously. Now that I think about it, maybe this one should be included on my ‘best’ list.

Meteor - Made back when Sean Connery must have really needed the money (he gave up being James Bond to do this crap?). The story may predate Armageddon and Deep Impact by twenty years, but even though this film was American-International Pictures’ big-budget attempt at competing with the major studios, it is still rife with stock footage, crappy FX and dialogue as bad as any AIP drive-in exploitation film, and makes The Poseidon Adventure look like a David Mamet screenplay. It’s still better than Armageddon, though, for the very same reasons listed above. Maybe this should be on my 'best' list, too.

Any disaster movie that ever premiered on the SyFy Channel - The price we ultimately paid for the innovations of Jurassic Park. Just because CGI can produce visual effects cheaper than miniatures doesn’t mean they are better. About once a month, SyFy trucks out a plethora of shitty and phony-looking apocalyptic crap, usually starring one of the Baldwin Brothers, some guy named Dean, or a former 80’s pop tart (Tiffany or Debbie Gibson, take your pick). Most of them are only worth watching if you can’t find your remote.

Poseidon - A high-tech remake of The Poseidon Adventure, gone is the gloriously silly dialogue and outrageously dumb characters. However, corny as the first movie may be to modern audiences, at least we cared about the characters. In this one, we don’t give a damn about anyone, to the point where star Kurt Russell makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his daughter, and in we go, “Okay, another one dead.” And even though its CGI effects are impressive, they really aren’t any better than the traditional effects from the first movie. This is one of the few disasters movies where I walked away thinking, “so what?”

Killer Cows: My First Great Signing Event

2011-06-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

I had another book signing not too long ago. Actually, I didn’t have a book signing myself; I was invited to participate in Got Books? event held at Klindt’s Bookseller in The Dalles, Oregon, the same place I had my own signing last year (when two people showed up!). This was an event featuring twelve authors of young adult fiction, and was heavily promoted to the community.

Since my current novel, Killer Cows, wasn’t exactly doing gangbusters in the sales department (despite some great reviews), how could I pass this up? And Angela, who more-or-less runs the store, has always been very supportive of my book. Of course I wasn’t gonna say no, even if my previous signing ventures have been somewhat underwhelming. And even though Klindt's isn’t exactly a local bookstore (I live in Portland, 80 miles away), my wife suggested we make a weekend of it, since her mother lives a few hours away and we always pass through The Dalles to get there.

Unlike my very first signing event on the Oregon Coast, where I was seated among 50-or-so other authors with far more promotional experience, I arrived prepared with flyers promoting Killer Cows and my upcoming second novel, Shaken. I remember that first signing; I showed up with nothing, and I was the only author who was trying to promote a young adult novel to patrons who were more interested in non-fiction and fantasy novels.

Anyway, I was really excited for the Got Books? event; I would be among several authors who write for the same audience.

Then, two days before the event was to start, Angela emailed me with alarming news: Although she had twelve copies of Killer Cows on-hand in the store, she ordered an additional twelve copies from my publisher which did not arrive. At first, I was alarmed. But, based on my previous experience, I didn’t see a problem…I only signed a few books at the other signing events. Twelve books in the store? I thought I’d be lucky to sign half of them.

I felt worse once I arrived at Klindt’s the day of the event. I was seated toward the back of the store in the young adult section, between two other authors who had actual agents and whose books were released by major publishers. Worse yet, there were only 12 copies of my book available, compared to the stacks of novels from other authors. Again, because I’m currently with a smaller independent publisher, I didn’t think running out of books would be a problem. I was instantly humbled - how could I compete with authors who had several novels with big-time publishers and oodles of copies ready to sign? Who was gonna care about this struggling author with one book to his name from a small publisher? Still, I gamely put out my flyers and hoped for the best.

Thankfully, the best is exactly what happened.

Once the event started, dozens of kids and parents came to the section where I was signing, and all of the available copies of Killer Cows sold within a few hours. Some kids and parents asked questions about the book, and I did my best to answer them, even though I wasn’t used to doing so. When the copies ran out, Angela provided order slips for people to fill out, which didn’t end up being too successful (after all, this was a signing event). Still, it did my heart good to see that my little novel sold just as many, if not more, copies than the big-time authors around me.

The best (and worst) part was when a young girl, Elizabeth, approached my table with a copy of Killer Cows she purchased long before the signing. I was actually caught off-guard, since she had already read and enjoyed the book. I had the feeling she wanted to talk about the book more, but being someone who isn’t used to such attention, I just replied that I had a sequel in the works and it was nice to meet her. After I signed her copy and she left, I got the feeling that meeting me was a disappointment. There I was, talking with someone who was an actual fan of my novel, and I didn’t know what to say.
I still have a lot to learn about PR, don‘t I?

Anyway, Elizabeth, if you ever read this, meeting you was a pleasure. It’s readers like you who make all of the hard work worth it.

I had a lot of fun, and it did my heart - and ego - good to see copies of my first young adult novel being snapped-up as quickly as those by big-time authors. In addition, I met a lot of nice people, and bought a few YA novels that have both inspired and humbled me. But most of all, I was happy to sign a lot of autographs. It’s the biggest rush in the world. Killer Cows will probably never sell a gazillion copies, but for a brief moment in in a small town, I sort-of felt like a celebrity.

Now I get the honor of trying to do the same thing with Shaken.

Fingers are crossed. Heck, they’re double-crossed.

Shaken, My Next YA Novel, in Light of Real Events

2011-05-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

About two years ago, I finished my second novel, Shaken, about an Oregon coastal town ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami, as seen through the eyes of three teenagers. It is scheduled to be released by Echelon Press /Quake this August.

In the meantime, we all know what just happened in Japan recently.

No, I’m not the first author to write about an earthquake or tsunami disaster, but I did do a lot of research when outlining the ‘what if’ storyline. Lately I've seen the same ‘what if’ scenario on TV every night, with countless quake experts offering their speculative insights on what would happen if a similar disaster struck the American coast. Essentially, I’ve been watching my own research on live TV.

And, no, I’m not looking at the release of Shaken as perfect timing, like a ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ Law & Order episode. Quite the opposite. When I woke up to see the first news reports of the tragedy in Japan, my first thought was, “I can’t believe it actually happened.” When researching and writing the novel, I knew such a violent disaster had occurred before and would likely happen again. But I honestly didn’t think it would be in my lifetime, not on the massive scale I chose to depict in Shaken.

Shaken is intended to be a fast & fun story for young adults, and I sincerely hope it will be appreciated as such, even though it’s going to be released a mere five months after the tragedy in Japan, where thousands lost their lives. I’d hate to think the average reader would assume I’m an author trying to profit from such a catastrophic event (though I was permitted to amend the opening chapter to acknowledge the Japan quake). Based on previous reactions from friends and students regarding the amount of time it took for the publication of my first novel, Killer Cows (Quake), some may not take realize it would be physically impossible to write, submit, edit and release Shaken in such a short time. It is simply coincidence that real life and a work of fiction are happening at roughly the same time

Bargain eBooks: Bargain eBooks #201:

2011-05-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

Bargain eBooks: Bargain eBooks #201:: "Killer Cows by D.M. Anderson Genre: Young Adult Price: $2.99 Where to Get It: Amazon.com (Kindle) Barnes and Noble (Nook) Omnilit ..."

The Ultimate Job

2011-05-06T17:50:00.000-07:00

The New York Times just reported a study published in Gender and Society journal, which shows that male main characters in classic children’s books far outnumber female ones. This study looked at almost 6,000 books published between 1900 and 2000, and suggested this inequality could send the wrong message to impressionable children.

This report was also the topic of a story posted on AOL. Needless to say, there were quite a few comments from readers whom, more or less, said this was another example of political-correctness gone too far. Many other readers cited several classic books and novels where the main characters were female.

Whether or not I agree with the claim made in the study, mainly that the inequitable representations of males and females in children’s books have a severe impact on a child’s perception of gender, isn’t really why I’m writing this.

I’m writing because the five individuals (college professors) who conducted this study actually thought such a study was worth that much time, which one would think might be better spent teaching. And furthermore, that they were actually paid for their efforts. I’m writing because I want to know one thing…

Where can I get a job like this?

Performing a study on whatever pops into your head sounds like an awesome job. I can just see these authors pondering something to occupy their time, perhaps sitting together at a big round table, sucking down their $5.00 Starbucks coffees…

AUTHOR #1: Hey, let’s count the percentages of males versus females in all those old books we grew up with! Then we’ll develop a theory why all those beloved classics are bad for kids!

AUTHOR #2: Yeah, yeah! Good idea! I’ll bet no one has thought of that! We can make it sound like having kids reading these books is as bad as giving them heroin!

AUTHOR #3: Sounds good. I’d much rather spend years analyzing old children’s books than trying to solve the problem of making sure all kids can actually read them.

AUTHOR #4: Hey, wait a minute. We’re gonna get paid for this, right?

AUTHOR #1: Of course we are. It’s a study. We’re university professors. If it’s important to us, it will be important to all.

AUTHOR #4: I’m sold.

AUTHOR #5: Yeah, but what about all those animal books? A lot of the most famous children’s books in history feature animals, and their sex is never revealed, like Winnie the Pooh.

AUTHOR #2: Are you kidding? Winnie the Pooh is totally a guy.

AUTHOR #5: How do you know? Ever met a guy named Winnie?

AUTHOR #2: Well…no. But A.A. Milne calls Winnie a ‘he.‘ And when Disney started making the cartoons, they gave the character a male voice.

AUTHOR #3: That’s it! Since Milne’s dead, let’s go after Disney! Those sexist bastards!

AUTHOR #1: People, people, let’s focus on one thing at a time. We’ll go after Disney next year. In the meantime…inequality of gender in children’s books. Focus people!

AUTHOR #5: I’m sort of troubled that A.A. Milne refers to Pooh as a ‘he’, even though it’s just a stuff animal. Milne should have used he/she, just like I do when I word my dissertations to offend as few people as possible. I’m also troubled by the fact that, if Pooh is a male, he’s presented in illustrations without a penis. Last time I checked, all males have penises. If Pooh is a male, yet shown without a penis, what signal is that sending to kids? That‘s okay for a male not to have one? What exactly is Milne’s agenda, here? Is he saying that a penisless man is powerless?

AUTHOR #3: You know, that actually makes sense. After all, countless pieces of classic art and literature use the phallus as a symbol of power. Maybe it’s no small coincidence that the only character in the Pooh books who’s undoubtedly male is Christopher Robin, the one character wearing pants in order to conceal his dominant manhood. And have you noticed that, in all of those Pooh books, none of the characters can solve their problems without enlisting Christopher Robin, the one character we know has a penis? Maybe Milne is saying that a penis equals power.

AUTHOR #2: Maybe Pooh’s penis is just really small and hidden by his fur. If that’s the case, then Winnie the Pooh books actually send a positive message to young male readers…that having a small penis doesn’t make you less of a man.

AUTHOR #4: Not according to my ex-wife.

AUTHOR #3: Come on, guys. If Milne wasn’t trying to assert the superiority of males, then why didn’t he create Christine Robin?

AUTHOR #1: Everyone stop! You’re losing focus again! We’re studying gender inequality in kids’ books! And, by the way, any book that would dare make men feel good about themselves is a bad book. Don’t you know that already?

AUTHOR #4: Okay, then. Gender inequality. I think there’s plenty of-

AUTHOR #2: I know! Goodnight Moon! A sexist tale if there ever was one!

AUTHOR #5: What? You are kidding? How is Goodnight Moon sexist? It features a female mouse taking care of her babies.

AUTHOR #2: Exactly! Where’s the husband? Probably out on the town while the wife assumes her society-established, stay-at-home role of the glorified housekeeper! And what is she doing in the book? She‘s knitting…a chick activity if there ever was one.

AUTHOR #1: Hey…enough of that. Say the word chick again and I’ll have your tenure revoked.

AUTHOR #2: Sorry, sorry. But why isn’t the old woman whispering hush doing so while changing the oil in her car or something? You know…something that might empower a woman and make young readers understand they don’t have to fit into a predetermined role?

AUTHOR #5: Hey, the author, Margaret Wise Brown, was a woman. I seriously doubt she had a sexist agenda.

AUTHOR #3: Ms. Brown was probably oppressed by some domineering husband. Maybe even A.A. Milne himself.

AUTHOR #1: Look, we’re not gonna analyze each individual author’s agenda. That’s too much work. Let’s keep it simple…tally up the boy characters and girl characters, and if the results turn out how we like, we’ll publish our assertions. Remember, our task is to discover gender inequality in innocent children’s books, then condemn them for their gender bias.

AUTHOR #5: But what about the countless books with animal characters in which their gender isn’t ever made clear?

AUTHOR #1: Hmmm…that does tend to complicate things a bit.

AUTHOR #3: I got it! We’ll separate the non-gender animal books from the others, and later insist all the illustrations be redrawn, giving all the animals penises or vaginas. Then we can do this study all over again, making sure there are an equal number of penises and vaginas in every children’s book…and if not, we can condemn those books, too!

AUTHOR #1: Thinking ahead. I like that. We can make the same money all over again, with half the effort.

Sounds like an awesome job, huh? Simply develop a sense of moral outrage over some timeless classics that have enchanted and inspired people for generations, then use your intellect to inform everyone how wrong they are for allowing these books in their houses. And if you can relate your findings to its potential effect on kids…well, you’re on Easy Street.