A reunion with his life’s only true love, Maxine, relieves Gerald Hollenkamp from his years of regret. Time, however, cannot be paused for the sake of memory; and Gerald fears he has lost his true love for good when Maxine’s weakening mind places her in a retirement home. Yet a magic remains, and with a glamour masking his gray beard, Gerald has a chance to remain next to Maxine.Fate separated Gerald Hollenkamp from his life's only true love Maxine so many lost years ago. Though Maxine moved forward in her life and raised a family of her own, in a home shared with a loving husband, Gerald drifted from one job to the next, with a small key kept in his pocket to always remind him of Maxine, with a key's charm in his pocket protecting him from the dangers his drifting years encountered. And just when Gerald thinks he will no longer have to taste the bitter regret that has plagued his days, Maxine's weakening memory once again separates Gerald from his love. Only, that small key holds a last hope, a power to veil Gerald's face in shimmering magic, a power that gives Gerald a chance to in the end remain next to Maxine's side. Views: 750
Until the arrival of a pair of brothers, Buck would have whispered to anyone who could hear him that loneliness was the most painful aspect of his haunting. With the arrival of brothers, Buck's old home is filled with games that remind Buck how to laugh. But when an uninvited spirit intrudes, Buck's ghost will transform into any shape needed to defend the new brothers he comes to call family.Their family's new move into the large home in the country makes brothers Trent and Trevor very happy. They enjoy the space now provided in the home for their toys and games. They enjoy the open air of the woods behind their home. And most of all, Trent and Trevor enjoy the company of the ghost residing in the home who joins them in contests of video game hockey. Trent and Trevor's mother, however, does not share her sons' excitement for a trespassing ghost. When she returns from a business trip with a voodoo mask she believes will exorcise the young ghost from her home, she instead brings a far more terrible, and vengeful, spirit into the brothers' room. That terrifying new spirit shrieks and chokes, and the war Carol and her sons will wage with that wraith reminds them that blood is not the only defining marker of family. Views: 745
The Khy'Meir tribes posses few weapons with which to combat the Alhambran Empire. The tribes cannot match the empire's swords, nor do they have the stones with which to build walls. The tribes' only weapon is fear, wielded by their shadows infiltrating the enemy's homeland. But the tribes underestimate how deeply the fear cuts, realizing too late the doom shadows help to summon.The Alhambran Empire has captured a shadow agent of the Khy'Meir tribes. Though they would be happy to murder an agent responsible for casting so much fear through their empire of glowing temples and paved roadways, the captors must stay their hand, for the warlock has told them the shadow agent must be kept alive and lucid. The warlock and his king have forged from the legends of the Khy'Mier tribes a weapon of unparalleled power, a weapon with which to finally scatter the enemy tribes to ash. But the warlock and the king find they cannot put that weapon back in its cage, and so the fate of two enemies hinge on whatever answers a shadow is able to voice. Views: 737
Brandon Tuggle slumbers and toils upon the world's sharpest acres. During the day, he mans the salvage crane and stacks refuse into teetering piles. During the night, he traces maps in his dreams. His skin is scarred by the salvage yard's sharp piles, and lonely Brandon wonders where all his uncles have gone. It takes a surprise visit from Mercy before Brandon can see a color other than rust.Loneliness irritates Brandon Tuggle's scarred skin. He never knew his mother, and his father has left him behind in the Tuggle salvage yard to be raised by a crowd of uncles. Each day, Brandon operates the yard's giant crane as a fleet of trucks dumps the world's refuse at his doorstep. He is helpless as his uncles vanish amid the maze of junk piles looming throughout the yard, and Brandon can't help but worry that he too will soon find himself lost in that jungle of sharp steel and rusting ore. But a day comes when a truck delivers him Mercy, opening the door to color and splendor that Brandon never thought he would see floating between his family's junk piles. Views: 728
The followers of Griffin have built their thirteenth colony in record time. The United Systems rewards the effort by placing the governance of Griffin XIII into the hands of the colonists. For the thirteenth time, the followers of Zeb may live in true freedom. Only none of the twelve previous colonies named Griffin remain, and the ultimate danger resides in the colonists themselvesKassie Mayhap strives to live her life true to the tenants of Zeb Griffin. While the lethal, lavender and gold skies of Griffin XIII sway beyond her colony's glass dome, Kassie vows to live a life of self-reliance. She will answer to no government. Nor will she seek to establish any rule over her neighbors. Kassie will seek no charity, and she will pay no tax. The United Systems has retreated back into the stars with a promise to leave the colonists of Griffin XIII to themselves. Only, the United Systems delivers a final tool to each patriot of Griffin XIII as a last payment for his or her labor. Though the tool feels so soothing in each hand that grips it, the tool empowers each colonist with the power to both preserve and destroy. Though all twelve of the previous colonies of Griffin XIII have perished, Kassie remains faithful that the thirteenth effort of her people will survive in the merciless worlds beyond the supervision of the United Systems. Views: 700
John Johnson is tired of his family and name, and so his dreams weave elaborate stories to replace the mediocrity of his days. And then one summer night, a tattooed wizard arrives at the community park to unfold magic of the most incredible kind. With a final unraveling of chain, that stranger transforms John Johnson into a new man by replacing the bonds John knows with much more sinister knots.A tattooed wizard unleashes double-edged magic in this excerpt from the novel The Sisters Will Dance by Brian S. Wheeler. The wizard with the strange patterns of ink swirling across his skin discovers an audience of one in the young man named John Johnson. Spells of earth and smoke unfurl at the wizard's summons and captivate John, whose life until witnessing such magical powers felt timid and dull. The wizard saves his most amazing, and most diabolical, trick until the end. With water and chain, that wizard wraps John's soul into floating, iron chain, and so forever shatters the smooth conformity until then known by John Johnson's days. Views: 685
Grandfather Henry clutches his granddaughter, his Sunflower, close as armies prepare to turn his village nestled in the valley into a battlefield. The roses still bloom no matter that the surrounding hills are so dry, and Henry knows the village defenders will once more rise to protect them. Only, Sunflower must know the dark, and bitter, tale of their defenders’ origins.The roar of cannons and the crack of rifles whistle over Sunflower's village as the frightened child clutches her grandfather. Sunflower's grandfather assures her that the legends regarding the defenders of that village nestled between the hills are indeed true, that the village's defenders will rise from the dust and destroy those who descend from the hills seeking to harm the blossoms that provide such uncanny color in a land teeming with dust. But the grandfather holds no detail of his story back from his Sunflower, aware that even his granddaughter must know the truth of those monsters she wishes would rise from the dirt. Views: 685
Llungruel linger in the lom fields around the village. The llungruel is a feared lizard, whose bite brings ravaging fever that drives the mind wild. Malek and Elloch hate the creature, but they must bear the poisonous lizard to grow a sustaining harvest. But after the llungruel kills a brother, Malek and Elloch vow to destroy the lizard, and so discover secrets more bitter than the choking lomMalek and Elloch's village has not hungered since the gray men and their gray ships transformed the surrounding swamps into fields by planting the lom seed onto the land. Though a prevalent and hardy staple crop, the lom is also bitter. The llungruel lizard, with its venom that turns its victims' minds wild, multiplies in the fields and plagues the villagers depending upon the lom. Malek and Elloch vow to destroy the llungruel after they must witness a brother succumb to the lizard's poison. They vow to ignore any of the gray men's rules that prevent them from banishing that fearful creature. Their quest will unveil bitter truths, and demand further sacrifice, before a more delicate balance can be rediscovered to bring relief from the llungruel hissing in the field Views: 679
Chuck Wuebbles has lost much since his relocation into Old Town. All of the possessions Chuck earned as a younger man have been noted in the Administrators' black notebooks, to be liquidated to pay for the care Chuck's age will inevitably demand. Yet the Administrators have not taken all. Chuck still possesses his old skills; and with a knife and cleaver, Chuck vows to keep one final freedomThe sick and the old fuel the modern world's economy. Age and disease supply a final, and renewable, resource for a new world's commerce. Chuck Wuebbles has turned old, and so the Administrators have assigned him to a housing unit in the Old Town district, where the care which Chuck will, surely, one day soon need may be delivered quickly. Only that care, that supervision and concern comes with a cost which forces Chuck to watch the Administrators claim possession of his wealth in order to pay for all the doctor and hospital bills eventual sickness will demand. Yet when the pain visits, Chuck vows to keep his suffering a secret with a plan to keep the last possession of his pride through the end. Views: 651
Larry McPeak has come to the seer's crimson table in hopes of reaching beyond the veil separating the living from the dead. Among those gathered at the table, only Larry doesn't hide his face behind a mask, and he fears the oversight will prevent him from peering into the table's waters. But the seer promises him his turn, and so Larry stares in the rippling cloth hoping to touch the other side.Like all the others who shamble out of the shadows to find the light of the seer's crimson table, Larry McPeak's loneliness yearns to reconnect with lost loved ones. It is Larry's first time seated before the table, and he realizes as the others gather that only he does not cover his face with a ghastly mask. The seer assures Larry that the donning of any mask is not required to gaze into the waters that ripple from the crimson table. The seer promises Larry that he will get his to gaze into the table's vision, to hope that someone waits on the other side to hear his voice whispering across the divide. Larry gazes at what his companions seated at the table call into the waters, and in the end, learns we he too wishes for a mask. Views: 641
Harmon’s heart breaks when his dog Tonka turns wild and and buries teeth into his master. The madness overtakes that mighty dog just as Harmon fears the third man drawing close. The third man brings the bullet and the blade. The third man reminds all the old pushers and pimps that the city never forgets. So Harmon hurries to train Tonka’s replacement, and in the end, Harmon succeeds too well.Harmon Fowler fears the past hunts him. Harmon could once count himself as one of the street princes, once as one of the street boss's trusted men, granted the permission to pimp women and peddle dope in the city's underground trade. But then one street boss replaced another, and Harmon was forced to flee the corner he once ruled, stopping only when he found a rural and ruined town in the heartland so forgotten that Harmon believed the village might hide him from the hitmen the new boss would likely one day send on his trail. He transformed himself into a breeder and trainer of fine dogs, and he strove to introduce a new canine line that would cement his fame. Harmon nearly had that goal in hand when the sheriff warned that strangers came to town, strangers who Harmon sensed came from those old street corners he long ago fled. Views: 641
Mallory and Mitchell Howard hope a vacation to the woods will help them rediscover their chemistry. If a break from the responsibilities of their everyday lives fails to reignite their old passion, then Mallory and Mitchell hope they might return as changed partners thrilled by new love. Yet the woods hold something sinister, and soon neither Mallory nor Mitchell recognize their own reflections.Though they have settled into routine, Mallory and Mitchell Howard fail to feel content with their lives and marriage. Their passion for one another has faded as both begin to watch one aspiration after another slip beyond their grasp. Thus Mallory and Mitchell flee into the north woods, hoping an unplanned, spontaneous vacation will return some of the carefree splendor of their lost youth. But Mallory wakes in the night at the sound of a pounding at their hotel door and stammers to see a shadow at the foot of her bed. Mallory soon after trembles as she witnesses her face in the mirror transform into a woman she does not know, and fear chokes her as Mallory desperately runs from the reflections that suddenly haunt her. Mallory and Mitchell enter the north woods hoping for change, but neither anticipates the transformation the shadows between the trees deliver. Views: 635
Nigel Hightower cannot sleep in a world built upon dreams. The machine has shunned Mr. Hightower, refusing to give him digital manifestations of his dreams. So Mr. Hightower finds solace in crafting replicas of the lost world's wildlife for the children too young for the computer, until a series of updates threatens Mr. Hightower's audience so that none remain to call him “replicant maker.”The world has retreated into the limitless landscapes the computer constructs out of zeros and ones. Every citizen of the machine realizes his or her dreams. Everyone is content. No one lacks for any kind of wealth or pleasure. Everyone except for Nigel Hightower. For the machine has shunned Mr. Hightower by replacing his dream with nightmare. Like a child, Mr. Hightower cannot thrive in the virtual landscape. And so he creates mechanical creatures to stir the imagination of the children, who like himself, find no solace in an electronic world. Now even the children threaten to leave Mr. Hightower as updates tempt their younger minds. Mr. Hightower promises to resist the machine with a final, incredible creation. Views: 612
The rural community of Owensville has grown old. The glass factory that once gave that town heart has been shuttered for decades. Yet the residents still hope that Mr. Turner will rise from his bed to bring life and industry back to their sleepy streets. Each morning those residents gather at the foot of Mr. Turner's crumbled wall and pray that man's bones provide answers they desperately need.Following the death of her father, Lauren Freeman decides to pay an overdue visit to Owensville, the town of her family’s origins. She travels to the estate of her grandfather, Roscoe Turner, a man who built and managed the great glass factory that long ago provided purpose and means for the families who settled in that rural town. Lauren is shocked to discover that one of the walls to her grandfather’s home has collapsed, and that Grandpa Roscoe’s body sleeps in a bed exposed to wind, sun and rain. Yet cousin Maximillian holds up a hand and tells Lauren that calling for help can no longer do any good, and Lauren must learn what forces Max to keep a family skeleton in the daylight Views: 608
Ben Cane has outlived the world, and so he waits for his ailing grandchild to deliver his execution in the center of that room surrounded by glass walls. Every bone in his body throbs with arthritis. His guts burn after so many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. And mercy is the last thing Ben desires at the end of the world.Mallory Cane resists the urge to cry as the projectors knit glory all around her. She knows that all of the worlds the vision chamber shows her have long gone extinct. None of the laughing hyenas remain. No more elephants shrill. The eagles no longer soar. Not a single domesticated dog or cat remain to nuzzle with Mallory when her illness brings suffering. She understands that the vision chamber offers only illusion and heartbreak, and yet her father forces her to look upon the color that glowed before the world was wasted. He tells Mallory that she must be made strong, and that she must remember all that has been lost. He tells Mallory that she must prepare herself to punish that generation that did nothing as the world faded to gray. Views: 607
