Other Books
February 2015 – SableDrake Enterprises
Bruce Too
Excerpt:
Aubry was put in charge of mosasaur research. At the end of her four year term and just before she presented her thesis to the board, she was offered a permanent position. Her thesis, a paper on the Hainosaurus pembinensis x megaptera novaeangliae, secured her doctorate, yes, but the research that went into it and the four foot long specimen in the tank at PaleoGen secured her job. She loved the little bugger, as much as any parent could love a child. With PaleoGen’s permission, she named him Bruce Too.
Bruce was a 43 foot tylosaur – part of the mosasaur family – found in a bentonite mine smack in the middle of the original Lake Agassiz. Aubry had been to see a replica in a museum as a very young child, and it had terrified her. Now, swimming in the tank with a juvenile Bruce Too, she didn’t understand what she’d been so afraid of. He was just a giant reptile, and like any other beast, he could be tamed.
September 2014 – AugNoWriMo
Asleep
Excerpt:
I can’t believe no one else has thought of this yet. Looting used to be the first thing anyone did in times of crisis. Maybe there aren’t enough people left here, or maybe they’re just too scared to come out of their houses. Either way, I needed some supplies, and the drug store was the only place I was going to find them. That’s where I got this notebook.
I also grabbed the rest of the case. Pretty bulky to drag around if I have to leave, but for now I think they’ll be a good thing. It’ll help the time pass to write it all out, even things that are still happening.
Mostly I went for the drugs. Nothing hard core, I left most of the Oxy and other pseudo-morphines behind. Well, I say that, but thing is, I hid them very well. I may need them in the future and I don’t want some wandering druggie to find ‘em and use them for their own fancies.
January 2014 – SableDrake Enterprises
Thick – co-written as Melanie-Jo Lee
Excerpt:
The cold had either numbed her body or she’d become used to it, so she ducked under to rinse herself off, then swam out a little way.
When she surfaced and brushed the water from her eyes, he was there.
The grimy man from the night before stood on the edge of the water, staring out at her. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was grinning far more widely than a human should be able to. And he had his hand down his pants.
Her heart skipped a beat. Paddling in a frantic circle, she looked across the lake, but didn’t see the canoe. She panicked. “MARCELLA!?”
September 2013 – AugNoWriMo
Galleys Between – Recovery
Excerpt:
The last thing I remember before the world went a crazy kaleidoscope of black, red and white was the sound of church bells. Big ones, you know? Like they have at Notre Dame in Paris.
Big fucking bells.
That means my world slid to one side and I ended up underneath it. To put it into English for you, I had a seizure. Not the falling-down, bite-my-tongue, foam-at-the-mouth seizure you’re probably visualizing right now, but a quieter kind. Gentler, if you prefer.
Quieter, gentler, except for one small detail; I was driving at the time.
When I came to, I was upside down and some guy in a bright yellow jacket was telling me to hold still. I nodded, but that was about all I could do, and I’m not sure I even really did that. It could have been my brain telling me I did. I knew it’d be a while before I’d regain control of my limbs and body; it always takes at least fifteen minutes from when I come to, until I can wiggle my fingers.
May 2011 – Twisted Library – OUT OF PRINT
Thirsty
Excerpt:
It used to irritate me that they didn’t acknowledge my presence. I knew they were there, and made sure to let them know I knew. They could have paid me the same respect. Seemingly, my state of existence itself precluded their acknowledgements. I suppose I shouldn’t hold their lack of vision against them. After all, not everyone can see a being such as me. Not at first, and sometimes, not at all.
The gifted can see me all the time. This gift has become a genetic inheritance passed down through the lines of the rich who could afford the vaccine for the last man-made plague that swept the world some fifty years after the panic at the change of the millennium. The ones that didn’t go mad immediately after the injection went mad slowly over time; allowing enough time to copulate and bear children. And the things the children could see, while having driven their parents insane, they accepted as part of everyday life. And that was ok – as a child, I had human playmates. Of course, as I grew older, they became nothing more than food.
April 2010 – Northern Frights Publishing
My Beautiful Boy
Excerpt:
The boy wearing a torn shirt and jeans pulled the cart across the deck in front of the small office building. As he trudged it through the door he thought about the rewards he would receive after the hard labor today. Never in his life had he seen so much treasure in one spot; the Outsider would be ecstatic on his return to the compound. No one had found this before, even though it should have been one of the first places they’d searched.
The old floorboards squeaked. He knew they were barely holding his weight combined with that of the cart, let alone the return trip being double that. This would be the final time he crossed the floor in this building, the final time he would have to be frightened for his very life.
October, 2009 – Strange Publications
It Never Lasts Forever
Excerpt:
It was a night much like this one that I broke into the abandoned house over on Main Street – you know the one, don’t you – and met Old Lady Parker. At first, I thought she was a dusty old cobweb. All I could see of her was the top of her head, so I pushed it out of the way. I knew right away something was wrong, I mean, cobwebs aren’t heavy and they don’t clunk when they hit a wall.
March 2009 – Corpulent Insanity
The Legless Ones
Excerpt:
Luna smiled at her new brothers, thinking to herself that they resembled the dragons who danced the fields in fall, after the harvests. Of course, the others would never have seen them. Sinann and Boann didn’t like walking the fields, and Lugh never went out at night. Still, she didn’t want to get stuck making sure the three stayed out of trouble. As her mother turned to leave the mound, she hid herself in the voluminous robes and made her escape.
She managed to get to the horizon before her mother noticed her and scolded her. Showing only half her face, Luna remained rebellious and rode the skies for the rest of the night.
October, 2008 – Strange Publications – OUT OF PRINT
The Lion Roared
Excerpt:
The clunking noise from behind the firewall of the beat-up ’74 Malibu had progressively become louder for over an hour. No matter how many times Emmy turned the stereo up, it didn’t seem to take too long before the clunking over-powered the heavy bass beat.
There was a moment when she thought she could feel the thumping right through the gas pedal; Emmy could have sworn the pedal pushed back at her foot. Telling herself it was just nerves from driving through the storm, she kept on; eyes straining in their sockets as though the simple act of bulging out a bit would give them super powers. That was what she needed really – super powers. Infra-red vision to see through the swirling snow or laser eyes to burn through the harder drifts. Screw that, Emmy thought to herself, I’d super power up a bubble and just float there. Swearing under her breath, she admitted she wasn’t even entirely sure where there was… Brad’s map had been of little help for the city chick.
May 2008 – The Parasitorium
Days, Hours, Minutes, Seconds
Excerpt:
I waited on the other side of that door, only it wasn’t really me. It was, but not. She looked like me and talked like me, but she could do horrible things. She knew I was scared of her. Her name was Maya.
I once watched as Maya took slivers of wood and slid them into the eyes of a bird she’d trapped. The bird didn’t make a noise as the wood pierced its eyes; I hoped it was dead.
September 1, 2007 – Llewellyn Publications
Vampires: Dispelling the Myths
Excerpt:
What are some of the stories you’ve heard about vampires? Surely, in this day and age, there isn’t a person out there who hasn’t heard of or read about Dracula. That undead, night-prowling Count of immense powers and unlimited appeal has caused quite a stir—and perpetuated the frightening myths that can make reality hard to live in.
Holy water, silver, sunlight, and garlic are banes to the Hollywood vampire. But being a real vampire does not give you an automatic allergy to silver. Holy water does not burn like acid, and garlic does not keep you at bay. The only myth that seems to hold some grain of truth to it has to do with sunlight. Sunlight will hardly reduce a real vampire to ash, but for myself, I do easily burn. I only burn once a year, though, and that turns into a deep enough tan that I don’t burn again. However, I don’t like being outside in the sunlight simply because it hurts my eyes, even when I wear heavy-duty sunglasses. I won’t sit out in the sun for more than half an hour at a time. This is true for summer or winter. Cloudy days are often just as bad.
Fall 2007 – Graveside Tales
Clipped
Excerpt:
Norman hated Edgar; as much as he loved Michelle, he hated Edgar. Edgar was Michelle’s boyfriend, and her boss. Norman knew the private meetings in Edgar’s office quite often included Michelle bending to her graceful knees behind the old man’s desk. A “bracing blow” one of the other guys had commented, standing around the coffee machine two days ago. He’d even gone so far as to jokingly ponder whether old man Edgar’s pubic hair stuck in the mass of metal in her mouth.
That made Norman think of the lettuce, caught in the sparkling wires of her braces. Norman didn’t stick around to join in the laughter.
Now, sitting here staring at the mess on his desk, he felt a justified, righteous anger begin to grow in his mind. Norman would rescue Michelle from the dishonorable grasp with which Edgar held her. He’d save her. Again, his fingers traced lightly across the desk, picked up another object which he popped into his mouth. After he’d swallowed, he repeated the motion.
Updated January 1, 2014
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