A free short story- Fourth and Inches

There hasn’t been a whole lot to write about lately, still plugging away at The Blood Plague War. I am over 80,000 words now with a few chapters left to go, the next chapter is going to be a real hard one, then it should be smooth sailing.

Anyway since I haven’t posted anything in awhile I thought I would put up a short story. It is kind of a strange one. It was written for a shoot out, with the theme of “bugs”. I decided to write about an alien invasion and how sports teams in America were conscripted to fight against them, yeah a little weird.

The "bugs" in my story were the team, the "Spiders" which I thought was a fun way to make the topic my own. Some of the other participants didn't seem to get that part so I guess I went a little too far outside the box. Anyway here is what I wrote with 1 week to plot, write, and edit. Please excuse any typos, I have not been back through this one to edit so I am guessing it might be a little rough.

Fourth and Inches

By Alva J Roberts

September 16, 2015

0856 Hours

The air was filled with a thick, choking dust that made it hard to see and even harder to breathe. The dust mixed with the sweat that ran down his forehead and dripped off his chin, and filled his nostrils with the thick earthy smell of mud. John Peterson clenched his assault rifle close to his chest; he had never held a gun before and it felt a little heavier than he expected, but the weight of the weapon did nothing to calm his fears as he and the other men wandered through Hell.

It had to be Hell.

What else could it be?

The signs they passed said it was Chicago but that was impossible. Chicago was a city, not ruined wasteland of shattered concrete and broken bodies. In the distance, a gigantic skyscraper gave up its eternal struggle with gravity and collapsed to the ground.

Somehow the building seemed important, as if John was somehow linked to it, or that it was an omen of things to come. The whole thing made him feel like he was going to be sick.

He didn’t belong here, but he did his best to play along; at least the guys were here with him. He took comfort from the spider emblazoned across the back of his friends’ uniforms and on their helmets. The Spiders were marching to war; it was on odd thought, one that kept darting and dancing around his mind, never quite landing. It was just too unbelievable to be real.

“Raider One, move into position,” a voice crackled through the two way communicator on his helmet.

“Okay, boys. We got our orders. Let’s head in,” Sergeant Rivers said. John nodded to the officer. Was that how you were supposed to acknowledge an order? Or was he supposed to say “yes sir” or something?

John had no idea. His “military training” had consisted of a five minute lecture on how to use his gun and ten minute lecture on what happened if he tried to run away. He was no soldier.

He was a just a semi-pro football player. He shouldn’t have been fighting aliens. Heck, he was barely a football player. He was a kicker. He had never really been that into sports but a couple of year ago, Coach, God rest his soul, had seen him messing around with a football in the park. The thirty thousand a year salary that the Spiders offered was better than what he was making at McDonald’s.

John shook his head and jogged after Sergeant Rivers. It was strange how many random things kept popping into his mind. There was a very slim chance he was going to survive this but keeping a clear head and sticking close to the only real soldier seemed like a good idea.

He tried not to look at the tortured city as he ran. If he looked to close, he could see that buildings were not the only broken things in what had once been Chicago. When he first entered the city he had seen a little blonde girl, maybe five years old, the poor girl looked like some kind of broken doll, cast away by a child who had gotten too old for such things. The image bounced around inside John’s head along with the rest of his jumbled thoughts.

“They’re coming!” Henderson shouted. Sergeant Rivers crouched down in the rubble; John quickly followed suit.

“Wait for it…wait…” Rivers whispered. He held his hand in the air, making a kind of calming gesture. John knew that the man couldn’t have wanted to be there anymore than he did, but despite the fact he was leading a group of civilian “volunteers” the man was calm. His face showed no emotion. John did his best to mimic his stoicism.

“Now!" Sergeant Rivers screamed.

The men jumped to their feet. The sound of fifty-four assault rifles firing at once engulfed the street corner in manmade thunder. John screamed as he fired his eyes barely able to take in the scene in front of him.

They were monsters.

Really, really big monsters.

With tentacles.

From outer space.

It sounded like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, but it was all too real. The huge black glistening bodies moved forward in an unrelenting wave. The things were the size of compact cars, their bodies looked slimy. Their octopus-like tentacles varied in length, the largest were as big around as John’s waist.

John jerked a grenade off of his vest and threw it into the advancing horde. Thick green blood spewed through the air. The explosion tossed one of the monsters backward to land on its comrades. John bared his teeth, in a half smile, half grimace.

He jerked his rifle back up and began firing again. The bullets tore into the monsters, but for each one that dropped another took its place. Despite their huge size, the monsters had no problem crawling over the fallen bodies of their compatriots.

John glanced over at Rivers just in time to see the veteran soldier turn and run. John spit out a curse. The sergeant was the only one of them who hadn’t been fitted with collar. Apparently there was a reason Rivers survived when most of the military was already gone, and why he seemed so calm. He hadn’t planned on fighting.

“Coward!” John screamed after him.

“Come on, Spiders. We got this, this ain’t nothing,” Henderson shouted a few seconds later. The guys responded like it was the most stirring speech they’d ever heard. They always did; that was one of Henderson’s gifts.

John kept firing and took a step backward. The shock collar around his neck gave him a little jolt. Just a warning. The real army couldn’t have them running away. A few more steps backward and the thing would send 10,000 volts through him. He grunted.

He couldn’t go backward. He threw another grenade. Chunks of rubble and green sticky blood rained down on him. The things were getting too close; he needed some room.

“Davidson, onsides left!” John commanded. The men around John jumped to do what he said. En mass he and his men ran to the left, just as they had done a dozen times or more in football practice. Their guns barked loud and clear. Clouds of smoke joined the choking dust in the air.

John looked back to see that Henderson had his men lined up in the spread offense. Hamar, a veteran linebacker and defensive captain, had his men set up in a 3-4 defense alignment. John almost laughed out loud. The playbook was implanted in their brains. There was no doubt they would have made it to the championship this year.

This was the not time to think about football. The assault rifle jumped in his hands as he fired bullet after bullet. The slimy alien creatures fell one by one. John’s heart hammered in his chest, terror wrapping its ungentle fingers around his heart. The image of the broken little girl suddenly came to the forefront of John’s mind; he gritted his teeth, thrusting his fear away. The bastards needed to pay for what they did to Chicago and the rest of the country, but no matter how many of them died, it would never be enough to pay for that one ruined little body lying forgotten in the rubble.

“Some of the flyers are coming!” Eric Carlson shouted. Carlson was a second string corner back, and part of John’s special teams unit.

John felt a stab of guilt when a huge tentacle slammed down onto Eric’s head. The sickening pop of shattered bone triggered John’s gag reflex. Another tentacle crashed into Benjamin Lions. Lions was a veteran defensive end, regulated to special teams for the last few years of his career. He deserved better. An even larger wave of guilt washed over John; he was the special teams captain and these men were his responsibility.

“Fall back, fall back!” John shouted. They had a few dozen yards they could run before the shock collars kicked in, then maybe another hundred or so before they were killed, but that was it. In that small radius there was a lot of wreckage; maybe they could find somewhere to hide or something. John had no clue what to do, but if they kept fighting, they would all be dead in just a few minutes.

John tossed another grenade towards the monsters before running for cover. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Henderson doing the same. The quarterback wore a look of determination, like he was in the playoffs. The monsters were closing in behind Henderson and the offense as they ran. There was no way they were going to get away and there were too many of the aliens between John and the offensive team to help.

“Run for it! We’ll hold ‘em!” Hamar screamed. What was left of the Spiders’ defense sprinted forward between the retreating men and the aliens. The men were screaming like banshees. Huge tentacles slammed into them, flinging the massive linemen around like children.

“Bastards!” John heard himself scream. He jerked his rifle up to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. There was a click and then nothing. Out of ammo. How the hell did you reload the thing?

John flipped the gun over to look at where the clip went in. That had to come out and a new one went in, but was there some kind of lever or something to do that?

Something big and gooey pounded into John. He flew through the air, his rifle flying from his hands. He crashed into the unforgiving rubble headfirst. Pain blossomed across his forehead and down his shoulder. The world was spinning around him.

He tried to get up, but fell back into the rubble. Blood was running down his face into his eyes, making it even harder to see. He reached down to his hip and tried to pull out the gun holstered there, the police issued “glock”. But his fingers fumbled across the snap holding the gun in place.

A nearby explosion rocked the ground around him and suddenly he was soaring through the air again…

September 16, 2015

1201 Hours

John moaned as his eyes flicked open. His whole body ached and throbbed like it was one giant bruise, but the pain that ran though his left arm nearly drowned out all the other aches. He had no doubt it was broken.

He went to reach for it but stopped himself. The monsters might still be around. He peered around carefully, the aliens were gone. So was the rest of the team. The only people he saw were a few unmoving bodies. By his count only ten of the fifty-three man squad was down, but where was everyone else?

“Henderson? Hamar?” he called out hesitantly as he sat up, his right hand cupping his injured left arm. Flakes of blood fell off his face as he spoke, but he could still feel an itchy mask of the stuff covering his forehead and most of the right side of his face.

“Peterson,” a voice called out hesitantly. A small figure seemed to appear from the nearby rubble.

“Phillips? What are you doing?” John asked. Ryan Phillips, a running back, was one of the few guys on the team smaller than John. In fact, John, at an even six feet tall, towered over the man known more for his blazing speed and his ability to scurry around defenders than for toughness or strength.

“I took cover. I would have hauled you in but I thought everyone who was still here was dead.”

“Still here? Where is everybody?”

“Henderson and the rest of the offense took off somewhere. The special teams and the D got taken by those things.”

“Taken where?” John asked.

“Phillips, Peterson? Is that you?” Henderson’s booming voice called out in a loud confident tone.

“Keep it down. We don’t know if those things are still around,” John replied as Henderson and what was left of the offense climbed over some rubble. They looked dirty and grungy, their clothes torn, but a determine game day look was still plastered across their faces.

“We know where they are. We followed them flyers to the base. We were hoping that the army had sent some back up or something. They turned off the shock collars, but our radios are out. We don’t have that many guys, and there’s a big alien there. Humongous. It’s got to be a queen or something. The others are all bringing it food and cleaning its back.”

John didn’t know what to say. A queen. He had heard the few real soldiers still alive talk about it when the team first got drafted. Back when all the pro and semi pro sports teams in America were still in shock about being “volunteered for service”. The idea made sense; the athletes were well conditioned, and already had a kind of brotherhood. But what had really sold the idea was the damn Detroit Lions.

The perennial underdogs, the “losingest” pro football team of the last decade, had been in New York for a preseason exhibition game, but once the US army was defeated. The Lions held off a horde of aliens for hours. They died to the last man, the pampered pro athletes laying down their lives to buy the people of New York valuable time to flee.

"Well," Henderson, began his trade mark smile and vacant blue eyes gleaming, "it looks like it fourth and inches, boys. Do we punt and head back to base or do we go for it?" Henderson shouted the last few words. The players cheered. John cringed; he hated this kind of stuff.

"Maybe we should go for a fake punt?" John suggested, an idea coming to him. Henderson was a great guy and a good friend but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, if John was going to risk his life trying to save the rest of the team, he wasn't going to let a man with an IQ of eighty two plan the mission. Besides, killing the an alien queen would be a good start on paying them back for the tiny broken child that haunted the corners of his mind.

September 16, 2015

1602 Hours

John held his breath and tried to be as quiet as possible as he crawled closer and closer to what they were now calling The Nest. His injured arm was in a sling and he had a glock in his right hand and another holstered on his hip. There was no way he could hold a rifle steady with one hand or reload. Between both guns, he had thirty-two shots.

If he really needed it, he had a large duffle bag across his back with ten more rifles and a dozen hand guns, and all the grenades they had left. The bag was a tiny little mobile armory, one he prayed he would never need to touch. The weapons were for the rest of the team.

John's plan was a simple one. Henderson and the guys would attack and he would rush down and free everyone, give them the guns, and then he and the captured team members would kill the queen. Once the queen was dead, they'd make a run for it.

Henderson should be leading the men in soon. Then it would John’s turn to act. There was a lot of pressure resting on his shoulders. He took it all in stride and tried to stay calm. He was known for his calm on the football field, but his secret had always been not caring if they won or lost. That just wouldn't work here. He couldn't help but care if he lived or died. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let go of that that dead little girl. If he got out of this alive, he would go back and bury her. She deserved that.

"Get 'em!" Henderson's voice thundered through the air. The sound of gunfire and the smell of smoke soon followed. John watched and kept still.

The aliens rushed in to protect the queen, shielding the huge gelatinous creature with their own bodies. Syrupy green alien blood formed a mist in the air and pooled beneath the monsters.

Enormous tentacles whipped out towards Henderson and the rest of the offense. Most of them dodged to the side, but a few of the bigger guys were smashed to the ground. Bright red blood flowed down the mound of rubble to join the pool of green ichor, but the men never stopped shooting.

The aliens changed positions to better protect the queen, and suddenly, he had a clear view of the rest of the team lying on the ground. Thick fluorescent cords wound their way around them, but they were alive and most of them were jerking at their bindings. He had an opening. John took in another deep breath and ran.

“Don’t break your ankle,” John whispered to himself as he sprinted down the hill of uneven rubble. That was the last thing he needed. A broken limb as he rushed in like some kind of hero from a bad sci-fi story.

Across from him, he could see Phillips running down to the men, too. John had doubled up on the number of men running down, that way there was twice the chance of getting the men free. In retrospect, he probably should have chosen someone other than himself. There were guys a lot faster than him on the team.

But no one was faster than Phillips.

The running back was already cutting through the odd rope that bound their teammates before John had even made it half way down the slope. John gritted his teeth and pushed himself harder, feeling a tight burning sensation in his huge quadriceps muscles.

“Here...take…this,” John shouted as he sucked in huge lung full’s of air. One of the players who had been tied up began passing out the weapons from John’s duffle bag. He was a rookie, and John couldn’t quite remember his name.

There was a roaring sound. John’s head jerked up. The aliens had spotted them.

“Fire! Shoot those damn things!” John screamed.

He raised the glock and began to fire. The handgun wouldn’t do much, but it was something. The rest of the team opened fire, the sound of their assault rifles splitting the air.

Some of the aliens turned to attack John and his men. They weren’t trying to capture them alive like they did in the last battle. Apparently the Spiders were now too dangerous to be food.

The men struck by the tentacles were broken. There was no other word for it. They looked like they had been pushed off a building. John tried not to look, tried not to see the blood splattering through the air as the aliens pounded his friends into nothing more than piles of raw meat.

His glock clicked as it ran out of bullets. He tossed the weapon to the side and pulled out the other one. He unloaded the weapon in the nearest alien, and then threw the empty gun at it for good measure. The jellylike beast, already riddled with bullets, collapsed to the ground.

John looked around, feeling helpless. He didn’t have anything to fight with. He bent down to scoop up a rock and spotted the duffle bag. He tossed aside the rock and ran forward. He needed a gun.

There were no guns left, but there were grenades, a bunch of them, maybe twenty. John’s eyes jerked up to look at the queen, his thoughts racing.

“Phillips, the queen is the goal! We gotta run Yellow Twenty-Nine!” John shouted. It was a trick play, one they never really planned on running during a game but it was fun in practice. A fake punt was a rare thing, and a fake punt with a twist was even rarer.

“Got it,” Phillips yelled his voice cracking.

“Hike,” John screamed. He sprinted forward. His legs already burned like it was the first day of training camp, but he forced them to move. A tentacle came thrusting towards him. He jumped to the side, barely avoiding the strike. Pieces of rubble were thrown into the air, a fist-sized chunk just missing John’s face.

John glanced over his shoulder; Phillips was still there. The running back looked frustrated by the relatively slow pace. But John couldn’t run any faster. He jumped over another alien appendage, and stiff-armed another smaller one out of the way.

Suddenly, the sun seemed to disappear completely. John looked up to see a colossal tentacle coming down towards him. There was no time to jump out of the way. He spun around and tossed the duffle towards Phillips; it was awkward with one hand, but the bag sailed through the air in a perfect lateral pass.

Then John’s world became a thing of pain. Utter and total pain. His vision flashed red and then black. His whole body felt like it was in a vise. The world spun in an out of focus.

His vision came back into focus just in time to see the duffle bag of grenades sail through the air to strike the queen. The explosion shook the ground. Phillips was thrown backward by the blast; chunks of alien queen flew through the air and bright green blood fell like rain.

The other aliens howled. An image, clear as day, of a little girl suddenly appeared in front of him. She smiled and waved thanks. John tried to wave back but his arms didn’t seem to work. A low grunt escaped his lips. Blonde hair tickled his forehead as the girl bent down to kiss it. Warmth flooded through John, fighting back the chill creeping though his body. Then the girl was gone.

John let his head fall to the ground. He was tired; god, he had never been so tired. He would just rest his eyes for a minute.

October 18, 2015

1037 Hours

“Peterson, you still in bed?” Phillip’s voice pulled John from his dreams. The running back still had some bandages over his burns, but he was looking better. “The general wants to talk to the whole team. They made a special trip just so us guys in the infirmary could hear what he had to say.”

“Let’s go then,” John said. The other players in the infirmary made a line behind John. It was an odd kind of procession; there were a couple of guys from some Portland soccer team, a few minor league baseball guys, and a guy from the new US Olympic Gymnastics/Special Forces team.

They filtered outside quietly. The general was already talking.

“…have done more for this country than anyone could have asked. You are to be commended. The last queen died yesterday,” a cheer rose up, but the general cut them off, “but the fight is not done. The ships are still orbiting the planet. It seems that creatures they dropped down were not the actual aliens--”

“What do you mean they weren’t aliens?” one of the soccer players asked. He was a tall man sporting a number thirty three on his green jersey.

The general looked taken aback for a moment but then seemed to remember that he was not speaking to trained soldiers. “They were monsters from another planet, but they were not the beings who initiated the attack. It would be like if we went to another planet and dropped a cargo ship full of rabid wolves or lions. The monsters we fought were just a tool. There are still some very intelligent aliens orbiting Earth who want to destroy us. Their first plan failed, but you can be sure they have something else up their sleeve. I need some volunteers to go into orbit and deal with this threat to our planet.”

John and Phillips locked eyes. Phillps’ expression was unreadable.

“You boys ready for the kick-off?” Henderson asked, his round innocent face appearing from the crowd around them.

“Looks like its game time,” John answered.

A Story Published

I have a story in the February issue of Static Movement called A Time For Heroes I wrote this one for one of the shoot-outs at Pill Hill Press. The theme was aliens and I wrote a story about super heroes during an alien invasion. I liked the characters so much I started a YA novel (Haven) based on this short story. You can read the short story here HERE.

Shoot-Out Story Published

I’ve been talking about the latest PHP writer’s shoot-out over the past couple of weeks. These are just short story competitions that we have at Pill Hill Press, the rules change with whoever is hosting the event and some are competitions while others are more like writing workshops. No matter what the format they are always fun.

Anyway the time before this one I wrote a story called The Terrifying Legend of Jim, it was a horror story but one written with my own odd sense of humor. The result was what could only be called a horror parody. It got very good reviews during the shoot out. I shopped it around a few places and got some very complimentary rejection letters. Which is kind of a weird thing to say, but when a pro-paying magazine that you really, really want to get in, that usually only sends out form rejections, sends you a personal rejection that says they like your writing but the humor of the story didn’t quite fit the magazine and then they go into a few specifics about what they think would make the story stronger for another market, well that is pretty exciting.

But all I was getting was rejections and then my wife, editor in chief of Pill Hill Press, told me that Shane McKenzie(one of the other participants in the shoot-out) would like the story for an anthology he was editing for Pill Hill Press. When we first started PHP we published a few of our stories to fill in when someone didn’t provide a contract in time, but we try not to publish our stuff.

I made an exception for this when I heard that my short little story was part of what gave Shane the idea to do the anthology. The fact that I had (partially) inspired someone to…well do anything really, with my writing was a huge ego boost and I sent it off right away. Well the book is out!

If you are interested in fun horror parodies pick up a copy of It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

A Free Story: Across the River Styx

Hello all, as I mentioned in the last few posts I have been doing a writing "shoot-out" where we have a week to write a short story and then a week to score everyone else's story. I wrote this one for the last prompt which was courage. I really didn't have an idea, the prompt also said that we needed to write a meaningful story.

Any of you who have read my writing know that I don't write with a moral, or a meaning in mind. I write entertaining stories and if more can be read into then that is great.

Anyway, I don't really think this one is ever going to get published anywhere, it is missing a huge part of any story--conflict. There is practically no conflict, and what little there is, is barely dealt with but I did my best to mask that with a little humor. Anyway, that being said I actually got some pretty good feedback, so I'll let you decide if it is good or not. For your reading pleasure:

Across the River Styx

by Alva J Roberts

Charron sighed and scratched his dirty unkempt, beard. A family of fleas swarmed away from the invading digits, narrowly avoiding certain doom as their home of many years was destroyed. The father flea screamed curses and made a few obscene gestures at the demigod, but Charron barely noticed.

His thoughts were on other things, most notably his complete and total hatred of his job.

Though seldom seen at job fairs, escorting the souls of the recently departed across the River Styx into the afterlife was not a hard occupation, and it did have its plus side. The river was dead in every sense of the word. The oatmeal like texture of the water made it a breeze to oar across it. And he was outdoors, kind of, which was nice. And he met a LOT of interesting people, which would have been a plus had he been a people person.

But sadly, he was not a people person. In fact, he hated everything about people from the way they walked and smelled to the stupid way they talked.

“Oh, I am so scared. Where am I?” Charron mimicked out loud in a high pitch squeal. As he poled his boat back across the river.

“In terra conclusit os futuo tuum,” Charron said to the empty boat. It was his new favorite phrase, but it was still dangerous to utter to actual people. With the fall of the Roman Empire a few hundred years ago, it was a little safer to say, but telling someone that they were “In the land of shut your fucking mouth” could get him fired, no matter how elegant and sophisticated it sounded in Latin. And he didn’t want to lose his job; with the Celestial recession and all, it was a real rough time.

Three quarters of Olympus was out of work. People just weren’t worshiping locally anymore. Then you had your big super center divinities that would come into an area and put all the other divinities out of business and then jack up the piety. It made finding and keeping a job tough. For all its faults he had steady…well actually, very steady work. And that was something. But he dreamed of more.

Half way across the river he stopped and pulled out some leaves and slowly rolled them into a cylinder, which he placed into his mouth. A small flame appeared in his hand, his divine powers creating the flame from nothing. He raised the fire to the cylinder and he drew a deep lung full of smoke.

The nice Mayan fellow in feathers who showed him the trick of the tobac-co had told him it was only for ceremonial purposes, but he snuck off fairly frequently to the middle of the river, to have a smoke. He worked hard, and he was due a little break every now and again.

Besides, his shift was suppose to be over nearly a hundred years ago but there had been a mix up that fouled everything up. Apparently the guys over at Asgard Inc. had tried to start the Ragnarok the same day the Apocalypse was scheduled to begin. And to make a long story short, their little argument over who got to go first ended up turning into a full scale fist fight.

The whole thing ended with a lot of hurt feelings and Ares running away crying with a broken nose. So the matter was now tied up in litigation that was becoming even more complicated by all the layoffs. The trial was scheduled to end in 2012, but that was over a thousand years away.

Besides that, it was July, and he was sure that anyone who had ever come within a hundred miles of the River of the Dead in the middle of a heat wave would certainly understand his desire to destroy his olfactory nerves.

By the time his break was over and he made it to the shore, there was a huge crowd waiting. Apparently death waited for no man…or demi-god. His ferry slid into muck along the shore with a loud squelching noise. Before he said a word, the people started to swarm onto his ferry.

“Slow down. There is plenty of room for everyone. No, ma’am, I don’t know where your purse is. Trust me, you won’t be needing it,” Charron said. “You there, in the back, the one with all the chainmail, no pushing. This is not Valhalla; if you were trying to go to Valhalla you took a wrong turn at the last crossroads. The Valkyrie should have led you down the right path. You need to turn around and go back a few miles and take the left hand turn. Oh, yes, I will most certainly be giving the folks at Asgard Inc. a piece of my mind the next time I see them…”and so it went on, until everyone was seated in a more or less orderly fashion.

Charron took his own seat at the back of the ferry, careful to avoid eye contact with his passengers. The briefest glance and there was no doubt he would be subjected to twenty minutes of hearing about Aunt Marge’s surgery, or how the cousin in Carthage was doing, and small talk was the last thing he wanted.

But as he, rowed there was a slight shifting of passengers; suddenly, one of them was sitting fairly close. The man was covered in wounds: small wounds, large wounds, dozens of them all over. Blood covered his entire body. Only a few scraps of cloth hung on his ruined frame. One of his hands was completely gone.

He was sitting close enough that Charron began to feel uncomfortable about the silence, but he was so busy trying not to stare that it was hard to think of anything to say. He couldn’t deny his curiosity. After a little while longer, he decided to find out how the man got his wounds. But he had to be sly about asking; you couldn’t just come straight out and ask someone about something so personal.

“So...ah…how about them Vikings?”

“Yes, they were quite mistaken in thinking this boat would take them to Valhalla.”

“Yeah… so…um…how’d ya get all futuoier up? I have seen a lot of futuoier up people -- once I saw man that got attacked by a saber tooth tiger and ran away only to get trampled by a mammoth. He was pretty futuoier up, but mauris, you are really futuoier up,” Charron said.

“I am a hero. We were outnumbered and low on supplies. Rather than surrender, we charged bravely into the fray to fight our enemies,” the man replied, pride coloring his words.

“Really, and how’d that work out?” Charron asked. He had heard this story a time or two before.

“I died, but the bards shall sing of my bravery for all time.”

“Oh. Not to be a downer but um…did any of you survive?”

“Well, no…”

“Did the other side have a lot of respect for you? Very honorable, and all that?”

“The last thing I remember was someone pissing on my face,” the hero replied, his voice suddenly thoughtful.

“Oh. Well, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think anyone is going to be writing any songs about you. I know it isn’t much help, but you probably should have just surrendered, then paid someone to write songs about your bravery. That’s how all the real heroes do it.”

“What do you know of heroes?” The wounded man turned away from Charron to stare at the chunky surface of the river.

“Actually, sooner or later I meet them all. Most sooner. Heroing is a very high risk occupation. And heck, some of them don’t even wait until they’re dead. I can’t tell you all the paperwork I had to fill out when Hercules came down here…”

“What is paper-wark?” the man asked as he turned back to Charron. He looked like he couldn’t decided if he was going to be sick or start crying.

“It’s well…very civilized…I am sure it’ll catch on upstairs real soon. It’s--“

“It doesn’t matter,” the man interrupted. “You may or may not be right about heroes, but we did win a great victory. The Rock Eye Clan will hold the mountains for all time,” the man said. The sick feeling disappeared from his face. He looked tranquil.

“Rock Eye Clan? You fighting the Snake Clan again?” Charron hated to ruin the man’s tranquility, but he did have a right to know everything.

“Yes.” The man’s brow furrowed.

“Hate to tell you, but you guys been fighting over that mountain for a very long time. I try not to talk to the passengers too much, but it seems like every generation or two I get someone from one of your tribes telling me they will hold the mountains for all time. I hate to break it to you, but the Snake Clan will probably be fighting your grandchildren for the land.”

“I am only twenty years old. I have spent my whole life training for war. I have no heirs.” The man really did look like he was going to cry now.

Charron swallowed a lump in his own throat. He really needed to remember not to talk to his passengers. He hated people.

“Sorry to hear that. So…um…them Vikings sure are something, huh?” Charron asked. His job really didn’t seem so bad, it could be worse. At least what he did mattered in the big scheme of things.

Summer Shoot Out

I got my feedback for the first round of the shoot out. The shoot out I am refering to is the PHP summer shoot out. It is a writing competition where all the participants anonymously rate other stories and give helpful comments. The goal is to be the one with the highest score, but no one really cares too much about who wins. All the winner gets is bragging rights. It is more about getting a few good stories to publish than anything else.

 

I did okay. On a scale of 1 to 10 my scores ranged between a 3 and a 9 with an average of 7. It’s not really a competition but that puts me right in the middle of the pack.

I wrote a fantasy story set in a land I have mulling over for my next fantasy novel. I thought the story needed a few hundred words cut from the beginning but I ran out of time. I don’t know what possessed me to write a 5,000 word fantasy story in a week.

The feedback was a little mixed but everyone who commented on it enjoyed the setting. This shoot out is a little different than some of the other ones. As we rate each other stories we are suppose to write comments about the beginning, the end, and the overall story. Then we are suppose to write one thing the author did well and then one thing they didn’t do well.

Any way here are some of the needs improvement comments from three different reviewers: The story takes a while to get going… revise the beginning of the story to be more succinct..too long an introduction where nothing really happens, a lot of titles for people and things that could have been toned down.

I knew the intro was a little long so this was no surprise and I was a little worried that so many unfamiliar terms might throw a reader off. My excuse for both of these is that this is the first short story I have written in almost a year and I was use to the pacing of a novel. It has nothing to do with the fact that I am wordy with a tendency to ramble.

I really didn’t expect the other half of the reviewers comments on what needed improved: I would actually like it if there was a bit more to this piece, more about the world or maybe even just more in depth about the past Order of Protectors…no suggestions needed…little jumped out in this story that could be changed to make it better.

So there were two people who said that there was nothing that needed changed and one that said that they wanted to read more. I think pleasing half of a group of random writers is pretty good. The one that said that he/she wanted more to this piece also said they would like to read more about his world.

So what I am taking away from round one is two things, first: I should revise the intro of my story to make it shorter without changing too much of the story, and second: the world I created for my novel is a good one.

A Few Updates

The Pill Hill Press shoot-out is over, I ended up with a score of 29.57 which put me in second place to William Wood who had a score of 29.94. I was very excited to come in second place with such a great group of writers.

It was a confidence boost I needed, I have gotten seven short story rejections in the past week. ~sigh~

But I started using the pyramid form of sending stories out. It is where you send your stories to the highest paying markets first and then send them in to smaller markets afterward. It sounds like common sense, but before I was just sending my stories to what ever publication caught my eye rather than worry about payment.

I decided that I really want to be a member of SFWA, it is my new goal with short fiction. I really didn't expect a pro paying market to nab up one of my stories, but it would have been nice.

As I wait for the next inevitable round of rejections I started working on Godswar again. I figured out where I went wrong, and had to cut nearly 20,000 words to get back to the point where I took the wrong path, but I am writing steadily again and have gotten almost 8,000 words written in the last two weeks, a far cry from the 2,000 words I got done in the entire month of June and July.

I know where the novel is going and I have clear path set in my mind. The words are just flowing, I love that feeling.

I think the problem that I could only write once a week, and I wasn't going back to review what I had already done. So I would just read the chapter before and say "hmmm, looks like its a chase scene, and then start writing. Well, that one chase scene lasted for the entire 20,000 words I cut. It was very...um...exciting...yeah thats what I'll call it.

I started writing brief synopsis of my novel as I go. After I finish each chapter I write the synopsis of the chapter. Should make it easier when its time to edit anyway, and then if I take a break from the novel I can know what is going on.

What's goin' on

I have been a little negligent in posting here. So what has been happening lately?

I have written three short stories for the Pink Elephant shoot-out and scored three rounds. My first story (for the bloody carnival theme) was about a possessed carnival ride, my second (for the aliens on earth theme) was a story of a group of super-heroes after the aliens have taken over the earth.

I am still waiting for the scores on round 3 before I can post about my story but eight now my average score is 14.67 which puts me in second place, first place has a score of 15.53 and there are two others who have more than 14 points. The last prompt is spell-casters which is right up my alley, but I need to come up with a story that has wide spread appeal.

My story from Pandora’s Nightmare was accept as a reprint online at Mirror Dance. This continues my goal of getting my print stories online, so that more people can read them.

Other things going on?

Well are house, for the most part, is back together. The windows are all bordered up, the glass is cleaned up and new windows are scheduled to go in. Jessy and I are planning a week long vacation so that we don’t have to be there when they are working on the house. We found a pet friendly cabin near Deadwood South Dakota, about an hour and half from home. This will be the first time we have ever taken our dogs with us on vacation, and it should eliminate a lot of the worries.

Plus, Deadwood is just a fun place. A couple dozen casinos, museums, little shops, all in a town of about 10,000 people. Our cabin also has a hot tub, playstation, tv, etc. So even if we stay in, we should have a good time.

Last week we went to see a Bob Dylan concert. My wife and my father in law LOVE Dylan so this is the the third concert I have been to. Bob Dylan's music is good so I don't mind and concerts are fun anyway. The difference with this one is that it was during the Sturgis Biker Rally.

It was standing room only and there were just too many people for me to feel comfortable. There were people touching me on all sides. People who were drinking and needed a shower.

And there were too many half dressed women for me to feel comfortable having my wife there. No matter which direction I looked there were topless women, so I spent the whole time trying not to look in any one direction too long. I knew that if I did I would hear about it later.

Jessy and I wandered off from the crowd and found a little hill we could sit on by ourselves and still see the stage. So we both ended up having fun. In the end, the music was good, but I don't want to go back to Sturgis during the biker rally.

Health Issues and Writing

I didn't get much writing done the last week and a half. I had a "flare up" of my lupus. What does that mean, I pretty much felt like I had the flu. I was tired, like really tired, I had joint pain, and felt "sick".

This time it was a little different, the joint pain from lupus is caused by arthritis, when you have a flare up it starts to develop in your joints. Before my knees ached and elbows hurt, but last week it was in my hands. My knuckles were swollen and it hurt to pick things up much less type. I am really hoping this is not common, I am just starting to figure out my voice when I am writing, I don't need problems typing.

I did get my story for the PHP Pink Elephant shoot out down. The theme was bloody carnival and I think my story is one of my better pieces of writing. I also finished the first chapter of Twilight of Worlds. When it rains it pours and I have ideas where both my other novels are going. I wish I could type three stories at once.

Waiting...

So I have to leave for my dental appointment in fifteen minutes, and I needed something to do besides pace around the house and be nervous. So I thought I'd write a post on what I am woring on.

Short Stories:

I currently have no plans on writing short stories. I just got knocked out of the writing shoot our between Pill Hill Press and Liquid Imagination so I have one new short to give a good edit to and send off. Comments and scores (on a scale of 1-10) on the story ranged from a 3- "this reads like a bad Conan comic" to a 9- "This was a fun fantasy romp, I would like to see expanded into a novel"

I still have 12 stories out.

Novels:

The Lion of Solkara has gotten another rejection, maybe it is just a little too cliched, but I sent it out again. Kingdom of the Dead has the first three chapters submited and I am waiting on a response, as I wait I am doing a good edit of everything else. Summer's Blood, there is something wrong with this story and I am having trouble figureing out how to fix it. The begining feels forced, like I wanted to get to the later parts and I rushed the first couple of chapters. I am having trouble editing it. God's War, I am on chapter 9, and working towards the finish, this one is coming along nicely.