Tag Archives: vampires

Kickstarter for “Zehlreg A. Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium” Launches Tomorrow!

zagIf you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Remember when I said that my western/horror short story “Blood Trail” was accepted for publication by End of the World Pubishing?

Well, the kickstarter starts tomorrow morning, Friday, May 31st!

According to the publisher, the final word count will be around 125K, which is huge. Also, reaching for the stars, they also want to raise enough for an audiobook as well.

Go to the Zehlreg A. Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium kickstarter page. If necessary, create an account (I had to go through about a dozen captchas just to make mine).

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My short story “Blood Trail” Accepted for Publication in “Zehlreg Augustus Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium”

western

Screen capture from hyperion-tales.com

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I don’t have a lot of details yet, but my “E.E. Durban, Occult Consulting Detective” short story “Blood Trail” has been accepted for publication by End of the World Publishing.

The theme is called Zehlreg Augustus Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium and is “where the Wild West meets the vast worlds of Fantasy!”

More specifically:

Our theme is intentionally broad to allow would-be contributors to rustle the dogies of their imaginations as freely as possible. A few ideas we have had, purely as examples, are: What would it be like if there had been dwarves around for the California gold rush? What animals elves or orcs might drive and what antics might ensue? How would a saloon fight go if some folks in the saloon were magic users? For that matter, what would magic look like/be used for and how would the general populace use it? Show us Sitting Bull with magic that controls water! Show us ghost riders chasing the Devil’s herd! Show us Billy the Kid with a wand! Or on a dragon! Or both! Show us Annie Oakley, Magic Missile Sharp-shooter! The possibilities are endless.

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Night Delivery

sat

Image source: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

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Motionless, she stood gazing down the tunnel. The path extended as far as the eye could see, encased by walls of grimy bricks. That wasn’t very far since Colleen’s flashlight battery seemed to be dying.

“Not now when I’m so close.” She didn’t dare speak out loud. It was bad enough that they could find her by her light, but without it, she would be blind.

She readjusted her backpack, the load seeming to get heavier with every step. Colleen asked herself for the thousandth time that night if the job was really worth it. It paid well enough so tuition and textbooks weren’t a problem but that was because of the potential danger.

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Book Review of Transient: A Tech Noir Novel

trans

Cover art for “Transient”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Transient: A Tech Noir Novel (2016) by Zachry Wheeler isn’t your ordinary vampire tale. In fact, when I first started reading it, I had no idea there were vampires involved.

It’s set in the future by quite a few years or decades.

Jonas is a transient, a human being who has infiltrated Eternal (vampire) society, in this case, Seattle. He was sent by the last remnant of humanity, hiding in places on Earth the Eternals can’t or won’t visit. He’s a spy who uses subterfuge and drugs to pass as in Eternal, suppressing his body heat and his aging.

Much of his story and the history of things are told in journal entries about the past.

Once the Eternals were the outcasts living on the fringes of humanity, but they were able to expand, to wage war, to take over, to cast out humanity when they were unable to turn them via the virus that creates the vampire state.

But as you might imagine, Jonas, having lived for five years among the enemy, has started to understand them, to admire their rather idyllic society, to make friends and the most forbidden act…to take a lover.

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“Dark Valentine Holiday Horror Collection” Available for Pre-Order Now!

valentine

Promotional image for the forthcoming anthology “Dark Valentine”.

As you know if you’re a regular reader, three of my stories were accepted in the Dark Valentine Holiday Horror Collection: A Flash Fiction Anthology. What you don’t know is that it’s available for pre-order right now, with auto-delivery to your kindle device on February 1, 2020.

The link above is universal to Amazon, but here’s more:

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Stop Me From Falling Published in “The Devil’s Doorbell”

doorbell

Promotional image for the Hellbound Press anthology “The Devil’s Doorbell”

It’s been out for over a month, and I never heard a peep from the publisher. My “signature” vampire romance is one of 16 tales told in Hellbound Books Publishing’s The Devil’s Doorbell: An Anthology of Darkest Romance. For those of you in the UK, here’s where you can buy it.

Plus, here’s an excerpt:

“I’d hoped it was over.”
“I didn’t come here for you, I…” It was another in an endless stream of lies. “I had to see you. Something won’t let me end it. Why won’t you let me go?”
“It makes no sense to be falling. You’ve got her, I’ve got him, you shouldn’t even be calling.”

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The Latest From the Rejection Files

dragon

from “The Hobbit” (2012)

I’ve received three story rejections within a relatively short space of time recently, which is disheartening. The first one was a long shot I sent to Uncanny Magazine. I wasn’t surprised when they sent a very speedy rejection email back to me, but I figured “worth a shot.” Of course that means the short SciFi story has been rejected three times so far.

However, the other two I actually thought had a chance. Here are excerpts from them both:

Strange Pawns

NOTE: The one requirement for this anthology was that both dragons and vampires had to be included. I set my tale in alternate versions of World War Two just for giggles:

Hodhas and Meldaborne personally led the 2nd Airborne Wing of Dragons on their fourth night of successive attacks against Berlin, supported by scores of RAF Mosquitoes. The city suffered from round the clock bombing runs, with the American Army Air Force assailing the capital by day.

The RAF insignia was proudly displayed by the dragons, each wearing a large sash that encircled their torsos. Jagi, however, had hers painted directly on her scales.

“Maintain formation in the dive, my cohorts,” ordered Hodhas, who seemed all but invisible against the ebony sky. “Our plunge to the Reichstag is coming up in moments.” Each of the dragons tilted their wings in acknowledgement, deftly avoiding flak from anti-aircraft guns on the ground, or those few that were left after the last twenty-four hours of perpetual bombardment.

“On my mark…dive!” The obsidian mother dragon curved her body downward, folding her wings back like a falcon, and in unison, 58 other dragons, one of six remaining attack forces, followed, screaming out of the ether like enormous birds of prey.

“I see something ahead. Too small to be aircraft, and we know the Luftwaffe has been destroyed…” Hodhas never finished her sentence as hundreds, perhaps thousands of bats surged upward from the city under cover of darkness, each with a wingspan of six feet or more. Their cries were maddening, and both fang and claw pierced the armor of the dragons, causing blood to be drawn from a dozen wounds in a matter of seconds.

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The New Dragon Saga: Descending Darkness

vampire

Desktop background for “vampire”.

Chapter 9: “The trouble with being legendary is that it is very difficult for me to remain anonymous, at least for very long.” The infamous vampire, King of the Undead, Dracula stood before the seventeen-year-old wizard with a smirk on his face, just faintly revealing his twin, elongated fangs.

“So what happens now?” Landon had faced foes as powerful as the vampire liege before, but never without allies, especially his mentor and friend, the golden dragon. Now, on this half of a mysterious world forever in night, he was alone.

“Why whatever you want, my young magician.” Dracula clapped his hands twice and then sat back on his obsidian throne. Presently, a score of servants, all appearing as human as the teen, came out from behind curtains left and right, quickly supplying a table and chair in front of the sorcerer, and then producing platters of beef, chicken, assorted vegetables, and a flagon of ale.

“Having not partaken in a meal such as this in so long, it was difficult for me to decide how to serve you, so I selected a variety of food stuffs.”

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The New Dragon Saga: Impaler

dracula

Promotional image for “Theatre68 presents Dracula”

Chapter 8: The temperature on this “night world” had suddenly become sub-zero, but that wasn’t the reason for Landon’s paralyzed muscles as the vampire Estaban lunged for his throat. The seventeen-year-old wizard was still holding tightly to his staff, and in a panic, he released a wave of light from the iron covered top, now shaped to resemble an eagle.

The disfigured undead being shrieked in horror as the simulated Sun’s rays raked across his melted face, the result of being engulfed in a dragon’s breath, as he reeled backward. Brilliant illumination continued to shine forth from the head of the staff, engulfing a three meter in diameter area around the two of them, the only sanctuary from the otherwise arctic winter that had possessed the wooded landscape. The snow was streaming down all around them, driven by high winds, but inside the mystic bubble, everything was warm and calm, except that the screams of the vampire had now been reduced to a helpless mewing.

“Talk. What happened to you? Who’s behind all this?” The experience was far too close to his recurring nightmare to be mere coincidence, but Landon still didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle put together yet.

“The Master,” Estaban gasped, agony coursing through him like poison in this veins. “You can’t stop him. You’re dead already, just like me.”

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The Sympathizer

“Ander Diaz is a Basque name.”

“Yes, but fear not. I am a proud Basque but also a sympathizer. I have promised, on my life, to see you across safely.”

Robert Norton’s keen blue eyes looked into the night. “Life. An interesting concept.”

“We must wait for your escort.

“Why risk yourself me?”

“My grandmother was like you. She was very beautiful. I even met her once., before they hunted her down and…”

“I understand.”

“Sir, realize I do not sympathize with the Nazis, just you.”

“But only they will welcome me, protect me. I see my contact on the other side.” An ice cold hand patted Ander’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. I’d never have survived in England.”

“The underground will always be here. Good luck.”

“Thank you.” The vampire rose from their hiding place and crossed over into Nazi occupied France. There would be good hunting here.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw challenge. The idea is to use a Google Maps image and/or location as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 149.

Today, the Pegman takes us to Basque Region, Spain. I had a tough time finding a hook for this, but then, it had been a long time since I’d written a vampire story.

One way for people to get out of Nazi occupied France during World War Two was into neutral Spain, but what if the only way for a vampire to survive was to join the Nazis?

Read other stories based on the prompt at InLinkz.com (The grandchildren came over early, so I have to make this fast).