Talking to Myself 2

            With the release of both Dead Mouths books on the same day, what can we expect from this monumental release? I would hope that they would signal something ambitious, like Wilco’s Being There double disc, which was released together after A.M. Now, it wouldn’t be a big deal to see a band like Wilco do this since they’re a major player in the indie scene, but to compete with the glory that was Son Volt’s Trace, Jeff Tweedy had to respond in a big way, or he would have been that other guy in Uncle Tupelo. For me, the books were always meant to be together as one unit, so it’s not unthinkable that they’re both out the same day. It wasn’t like I always planned to hold off until I could do a Guns ‘N Roses Use Your Illusion. Besides, I won’t be holding the top two spots on the first week of chart sales. Instead, I want to put the backlog catalog out and move forward with halfway done projects like Intersections, The Last Day of Hunting Season, and The Wendigo Story, which will have a better name at some point. Sitting and looking at unfinished files, either for lack of time to write or inspiration to edit, is just depressing.

            That both of these books are from the same work is why they’re the same name? Yes. One book would have been too long and too expensive for a demo book / vanity printing. I thought about a different name for book one, but I just couldn’t so they’re both Dead Mouths.

            There are many new characters in these books, but there are a few older ones. Can you tell us about them? First and foremost is Tony Lucas. He’s the Blanding, Utah, chief of police. I’d describe him as a conservative man’s man in 2016. I wanted a character that my dad would like. He’s a great cop, a loving husband, a loyal friend, and the head honcho protector of his town. If I could be anyone in the story, I would be him because he balances professional between tough in a perfect way despite his use of unorthodox means like “wall to wall counselling” and the like.

            However, there’s another character that is more your persona? Yes, that would be Dave Robinson, who was drafted to be the lead, but as he was always the Roy Scheider in Jaws figure, it was clear that he couldn’t be the lead for what this story was meant to be (originally a trilogy, but now much longer). When I jackhammered the outline and went from a secret passage in a cliff dwelling leading to a single confrontation with a demon to what it is now, which is much different, his life became necessary to make S1 happen, but it was necessary in a different way than I originally made it be.

            How was it like Martin Brody? Well, Brody was a Chief of Police on an island, but he was afraid of the water. He was forced out into the ocean and left to his lonesome to confront the shark. The same is true for Kurt Russell in Executive Decision. Steven Seagal is wiped out and the desk jockey has to become a military hero. In this book, Dave’s anxiety and obsessions mix with his office nature to force him to step up or die. I like that in a character. Here, he’s not a hero in a traditional sense, nor is he one in an actual sense, but he does get opportunities to be heroic. Even if other characters will be the real heroes.

            Heroism is important for you. It most definitely is. If we look at large groups of the characters being led to a place where they will be intersecting in the book Intersections, we see others intertwining here to lead each other to a good place. Thus, it’s more like Stephen King’s The Stand or The Walking Dead than The Avengers, but a character like Colin Jameson, who is the sole focus of The Wendigo Story is a Captain America style superhero for what he represents and how he can do it. His military commanders, guys like Marcus Powell and Bart Doherty, as well as other men and women he will end up with also have power and special powers.

            You mention a lot of men, but who are the women? Well, Charlotte Robinson is one of these women, but she doesn’t know how she will be yet. The “writer” Susan Mavern is also more a part of the story than a pair of preludes. In addition, the most central lead female character in this story so far is Suzie Heilman. She’s more a paranormal source of power who is intermingling between many lives. And yeah, I’m being deliberately vague to not give things away with any of the characters, less people won’t buy my book! Originally, she was a throwaway line that became a character. Now, she’s kickass!

            You have other characters that grew out of that. I do. Both Charles “Chuck” Johnson and Henriette Fressineau were minor characters that begged for life and a second chance at living. Both would have had quick demises in the original story, like an unnamed character assisting Jack Bauer in 24, but they didn’t, and now they’re part of the new jackhammered plot because I couldn’t kill them off immediately, like I had planned.

            Killing isn’t easy, is it?!! Not at all. The most violent death in the books took me to a month-long break from writing. After that, it’s easier, but it feels real to hurt an imaginary character in that way. This death rattled me, even with its toned-down writing.

            Without giving the plot away, was this a main character? Well, I can’t give it away, so I’ll just say the character isn’t as quick to enter and leave as a “Random Cop #8,” if that’s what you’re asking!

            What about the Greers? It was essential to allow the history to develop and grow. I wanted to be true to a conservative desert ranch feel with a little bit of mystery. I also wanted the family to be likable, but I wanted them to be conflicted and able to make heel turns if necessary. That they’re not easy to pin down makes the book go forward into suspense.

            As for your villains, what were you going for with them? With Smothers, I wanted stock evil with the potential for complete evil like Senator Palpatine in the Star Wars movies. By the way, the voices of Kaldac and Ralph Richards often sounded like the Emperor to me when I was writing their parts in Eureka in Flames. As for Thurman Strong, he was always villainous, but he was never the arch-nemesis to what was going on; he just made it happen. Gary has evil in him, but there is just a lost middle-aged man in him. He’s like many bosses. People don’t always like them, but he’s not deliberately scheming to destroy the world. As for the demons and Visions of Clouds, they get to be and breathe, but their histories, other than what’s revealed in these first two books is part of the book after Intersections, which is called A Lot of People Die.

            A lot of musical and baseball things happen in this book, which seem like personal interests, but they aren’t, or are they? Benson Villaneuva and Chico Gutiérrez are both central to Intersections after being background “noise” here. You may not be a baseball fan or a fan of an indie rock band, but both are needed to move the plot through to Season Three’s all-out action fest that is coming. Trust me; your patience will be rewarded. That said, all of the music that’s here means something to me, so I would support the bands or listen to the music to hear connections that I was intending.

            So what’s different here than the quick and dirty standalone Eureka in Flames than here? Well, the characters had to live and breathe instead of action from the first page to the last page. The older Greers; Harlan, Archibald, Ethan, and Willard, had to live again to make Harvey who he is. Barry Greer also had to be mentioned with members of Tony Lucas’ now deceased family to understand later chapters. Dave and Charlotte’s Pennsylvania lives and Suzie’s upbringing, from Japan to America, had to be told. Predetermined intersections and fate needed to prepare the characters to be together, both now and in the past. How can we care for characters if we don’t know who they are?

            This is something you learned from literature, right? Yeah, I’m a goll-danged Russian novel, but I’m also The Walking Dead. I’m an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I’m influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne short stories as well as Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant.” I’ve said it before, but I also follow the guidance of Aristotle’s Poetics for rules. Nevertheless, for as literary as I once was with Orwell, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, and the like, now I prefer Destination America shows and straight forward history done well.

            Is the character Wolf a product of history? Somewhat. He’s based on a man that I met at Ute Tribal Park in 2003. That guy was desert-hardened and cool in an older, tough guy kind of way. I think Wolf does him well. I also want Wolf to be a voice for Native America and a hero for a history that I find very intriguing.

            Dead Mouths is based on history, right? I mean not completely, but… Yeah. It was based on Waldo Wilcox’s news story of giving away his land, which housed many undisturbed Native American ruins, which led to this book. I said, “What if he did it because the land was haunted?” I mixed in some things I had read about cannibalism at Cowboy Wash, which mixed with my later on reading of Christy and Jacqueline Turner’s Mancorn. Between that and a healthy love for the archaeology and geology of the Colorado Plateau’s wilderness mixed with the supernatural, you get Blackrock Canyon.

            So what would you say to someone getting ready to read about 680 pages over two books of your story with the promise for much more to come in the indefinite future? Enjoy! I hope to have Intersections ready for Christmas sales, but all is depending on when I do The Wendigo Story and time between teaching and a planned surgery that is coming in December. I’d also say, “Thanks for supporting my writing dream.” It means more than most people will ever realize.

August 20th... it's coming quickly.

Dead Mouths book 1+2 will be released in Kindle and paperback formats August 20th.

Until then, check out Eureka in Flames in Kindle and paperback formats! 

Talking to Myself

So now that you’ve indie published your first book on Amazon, how do you feel? Completely overwhelmed with the positive response. The goal for sales was 50, and in the first week, I saw 54 books sold. What’s amazing is that half of the sales were actual books. Some books were even being sold outside of my immediate or secondary reach. To be successful, it can’t just be about friends, family, and friends of family. All of the sales made me ecstatic, but those other sales moved things to another level.

So what happens now, and what are your next goals? Well, obviously, the next goal is triple digits. Inevitably, every author wants his or her work to grow to a point where it takes on a life of its own and he or she wakes up to new sales consistently. Inevitably, it would also be nice as Eureka in Flames joins additional published works so that it and they receive interest that I know they would deserve from mediums outside of the independent realm. To have my books read as a series would show just how valuable they are to people.

What do you mean by this “independent realm?” Obviously, every author sees a book as a film. I did write Eureka and the beginning of the as yet unnamed Wendigo book with the intention that they could be made into a movie, but I wrote the main books of the Blackrock Canyon series (Dead Mouths and Intersections) with a feel of a Walking Dead TV series in mind. I would love to see the characters visualized and expressed from my prose. While the subject matter and the language do get intense, I would prefer it to stay within PG13 or R, where it feels like some younger people might be OKed to see it with their parents, though it couldn’t be watered down beneath that. That said, I don’t ever want it to become a gratuitous violence thing like Saw or nudity for the sake of women baring their butts and chests just because like some of what Game of Thrones felt that it had to be. I know some people really dig on that show, but for me, I think I would have liked it better as a high school kid.

That seems to be a bold line in the sand for a book and a potential barrier to some fans who carve those things. Yeah, perhaps it is, but the rules of Aristotle’s Poetics that discuss focusing on the scene at hand and not deliberately shocking readers, thus detracting them from the scene with unnecessary nipples and orifices or grossing them out with blood, covers all of this. Things that don’t have to be there seem anathema.

But this doesn’t mean that these things aren’t there, does it? Of course not. There is actually one really horrific death in Dead Mouths Part 2, where a character is brutally murdered. However, it’s done off screen, much like Oedipus gouging out his eyes. The result of the action is seen, and the reader knows what happened because he or she witnesses a bandaged victim – not a knife wielding self-abusive act. To witness a murder up close or a bloody act like that would be too much. For me, it was the hardest thing to write because I had to imagine it and put it on the paper. I hated creating it in the same way that I hate watching terrorist actions in movies. We need to see them to make a villain that can be hated in that way, but to see innocent life lost in violent ways or even to witness a bad person killed in evil ways by darker forces can be too much.

What purpose did this murder serve, if I can ask without giving the plot away? It made a certain lesser character evil and moved said person up to the Major Leagues in later books.

How does killing characters make you feel? Well, if it’s Officer 1, it’s no big deal. Just like in 24, if they don’t give an officer helping Jack Bauer a name, you know he’s meat. In Eureka, there are people that shuffle off, and they have names. This isn’t a bad thing since a reader has to be able to believe that Tony Lucas, David Robinson, “Wolf” Owens, Harvey Greer, Chuck Jones, and Suzie Heilman can all die even though they’re the book’s core six. Granted, it’s nice to get the Walking Dead’s “If Glen dies, we riot” feel, but when they have to bring a dead character back / not give him an official send off on Talking Dead to create a sense of immortality, it’s too much to believe that a main character has a chance to die off unless it’s a very special episode.

But those characters are part of Dead Mouths, so you’ve had 15 months with them. You feel more personally toward them than Eureka’s characters, don’t you? Yes and no. While I wrote the first story (Eureka) quickly, I did it with the experience of Dead Mouths pretty much behind me. In that book, Henriette and Chuck were both meant to be quick exits, but somehow, I grew attached to what could be their greater purposes. Thus, they were saved from a quick exit and given life blood because I just couldn’t kill them off at that point. Thus, they became some of my “six characters in search of an author.” The same could be said for Suzie, Chico Gutierrez, Benson Villaneuva, and Sean “Big Dig” Caruthers. All of them were non-essential / one-off points in the plot or just a series of adjectives and extras, but now Intersections relies on them and their history to advance Blackrock.

And that’s how Eureka in Flames came to be. Yeah, even The Demon Hunters of Dodge County were a throw-away line in the story that shined out with potential in one of the final reviews. Making them into a team of phonies that have to play it real begged to be written. When I came up with a way to connect it to Blackrock Canyon, it just seemed like, “You gotta do this, dude.” And I did, knocking it all out in about a month…  maybe a little over it. This allowed me to go back into the final edits of Blackrock with more color to them than if I did things otherwise. For this, I’m glad I got too overwhelmed and read with the Blackrock drafts during my revisions after adding “reality” the story.

A short one-off book is what you went into Dead Mouths thinking, too, right? Yeah. I would have knocked that out in a couple months, 250 pages, and done. Then, I had about 400 pages in 8.5x11 Word formatting, which turns out almost twice as long in 6x9, so I had to split the book in half to make it manageable and affordable. What’s more, the story took on a life of its own, and it’s now an expanding universe. Keeping it as one book would be a $30-40 paperback, even with the affordable Amazon / Create Space prices.

So why $2.99 with Kindle? Why not go cheaper to attract fans and reviews? That was the original plan, and if I could have made 70% at $1.99, I would have, but they were taking 65% at that price point. I couldn’t have my publisher make more than me. That seemed wrong. I’ll accept cost for credit cards, advertising, and delivery platform, but that’s it.

How much do you make on an $8.99 book? I get $2 and change for penny candy, which I can’t complain about at all. The reader gets a beautifully printed book, and both the printer and the writer get cash. Once again, for Amazon’s platform, I have no gripes on this at all. They’re top notch.

So you like the print job? If I could, I’d marry it, but it’s a book and I’m married, so yeah. In all seriousness, holding the book for the first time was a humbling thrill. It was more beautiful than I ever realized it could be.

How about the first autograph? I was even more humbled, and it was hard to write a lot, but what I did write was done with sincere appreciation and respect.

Are autographs important to you? Giving my fans back the respect that they have for me is important. If someone wants an autograph or a picture, I’m there for it. I’m not so huge that I can’t accommodate a crowd or in need of bodyguards to keep overzealous fans away. I don’t ever want to be that guy, even if I ink a seven-figure HBO / Warner Brothers deal. Some people are afraid to lose the intimacy, and they try to stay indie when they should go big, even if they have to listen to the haters cry “sell out.” For instance, I think of the first wave of Neutral Milk Hotel reunion shows. They sold hundreds of thousands of discs to adoring fans plus introductions via “illegal” downloads, and people loved those discs, especially Aeroplane over the Sea. It was disappointing when they played shoeboxes and sold out show quickly like that when they should have been doing 2-5,000 person places. Then they did a proper tour at venues, and I saw them twice, which was incredible, especially at Ommegang Brewery. That was my favorite show ever, and I’ve seen a lot of shows. If I ever get lots of fans, I’d like to still be able to accommodate for them for book readings the like. Being generous to those who drop cash for us shouldn’t be a chore that comes for a price like with some people. I think of the money I paid for a picture with Carlos Mencia. Funny guy, and I know money is a good thing, but at some point, where does it end? The same can be said for ridiculous prices to pose with sports stars. I get if it’s for a signed ball or bat, but $50 because someone had a minor role on a championship team for the sake of a “complete” ball? That’s business, not love of the game and the fans.

So how long is this universe that you spoke of a few questions ago? If I had to guess, Eureka, the 2 parts of Dead Mouths, the untitled wendigo story, and Intersections have things written for them. There is a stand-alone book entitled The Last Day of Hunting Season, which connects back to Blackrock as well. The next book after that is A Lot of People Die, and then there’s One More Death, which are both names of songs by Passionate Chaos, which is Benson Villaneuva’s band. That’s eight, but I could easily do a lot more. I would expect at least one more other than that, which is much more than the original trilogy, even when Dead Mouths was all one book.

In Eureka in Flames, you had characters who you envisioned as real people, I guess as guidelines for who could play what if it ever got to that point. Who were these people? Margaret was Elizabeth Saint. 

Lee was Zak Bagans. 

Steve was Chadwick Boseman. 

Yadier Molina represents Gilly well, with his tattoos and tough guy look. 

Allison also needed a tough ol’ gal, and I thought of Jamie Lee Curtis for that. 

As for Ernie, I thought he would be played well by Nick Groff..

As for the other Ghosts of Shepherdstown guy, Bill Hartley, I guess could be a good cameraman, but I had no role for him in this book. 

Kevin Spacey would have done well as Tim. He just seems to represent the perfect evil asshole – in a good way.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? Thank you for checking out my book. If you haven’t already done so, you can buy it at the link listed. Previews are available here. My Facebook page is here. Finally, my regular website is here. Please share the word. It’s how indie writers get known.

Band of Horses - Is There a Ghost video and teaser clip from the soon to be released Eureka in Flames

As I wait for my file to come back from Amazon and the inevitable wait for my book to be listed online after I convert it to Kindle, here's another teaser from the middle of the book and the video of the song that goes with it. There first 2 discs were really good (the first one - Everything All The Time - is one of my favorites). This is on the 2nd one - Cease to Begin. Check it out and support them, too.

In the dark and even with the night vision equipment, the walk to the bathroom took longer to accomplish moving from the casino to the tucked away restrooms, which were located a few hundred feet down the hall. The fear of strange objects behind huge potted plants and trashcans presented an opportunity for evil to pop up and appear at any moment. Fortunately, it didn’t rear its ugly head, but its potential presence still scared the trio to the core.

“With it being pitch black in there, I think we should all go in together and make sure that nothing and nobody is stirring,” Linda hesitantly said.

“Not even a mouse, Linda. I promise. When it’s all clear, we’ll excuse the man child, and he will watch the hallway until you’re done, and when I say ‘will,’ I mean WILL Joshua.”

“How long do you expect to be in here?” Joshua asked.

“Why? Are you scared to be in the hallway by yourself, Tough Guy?” Allison asked.

“I’ll admit it. Yes, I am,” Joshua said. “The last time I was alone with him, he threw a shelf full of glasses at me.”

“But he missed on every toss,” Allison smiled. “You’ll be OK. I’ve got no feeling right now. If he were here, I’d be goose bumps all over.”

“Not long, Joshua. Two minutes tops,” Linda added.

“Can you handle 120 seconds, Big Guy? You’ll hear a flush, water running, and footsteps. Then you’ll see us. The sooner that we get started, the sooner that we can get back into the light and the sounds of the casino so you can be protected by a pair of girls. Are you going to be OK with just you and the infra-red goggles and assault squirt rifle? Maybe you can pretend you’re Rambo.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I’ll be fine. I hope,” Joshua mumbled as he reluctantly smiled.

And with that, the group walked in the bathroom. Once again, the lights weren’t working. Not even the emergency footlights were, so they used the flashlights to illuminate everything. Nothing moved or stirred, so the older woman covered the main floor of the bathroom while her younger companion went into a stall. Outside, the tapping of Joshua’s foot bounced along with him singing Band of Horses’ “Is There a Ghost” very softly and tunelessly for a good thirty seconds before Linda spoke.

“You OK out there, Allison?”

“I think so, but his foot tapping is getting a little off beat. I may not know a lot of music, but I know and like that song.”

At that, they both listened to his musical rendition, and then both his singing and the tapping stopped.

“If you don’t know any more lyrics, Joshua, I do,” Linda said.

The request was greeted with more silence as the woman stood up in the stall. As she did, Allison walked nervously to the front door to see what was or wasn’t going on.

Suddenly, as she went to push out on the door, a huge force slammed hard against the barrier that had created privacy. Immediately, the older woman fell to the floor. Where once the door provided privacy, now it represented an impediment to not only understanding what was on the other side, but in reaching a clear pathway to safety in the open hallway on the other side.

“Joshua! Quit screwing around,” Allison screamed, but still she heard nothing in reply. “If you’re screwing with me, I will kick your ass!”

Still the women heard nothing from him. As she listened, she realized that he was immature, but this seemed out of place, even for him.

“Rotten meat. I smell rotting meat,” Linda said.

“That’s not good, Linda. What’s more, I’m getting that feeling and the goose bumps again,” Allison said, realizing what was coming for them.

Jumping out of the stall and running to the sink to grab her Atomic 2000 Squirt Blaster, Linda stood by her companion’s side. She too held her gun up and aimed at the door like she had seen Special Forces soldiers do it in the movies.

“Are you ready for what’s out there?” Linda said, more for a break in the silence than an answer. They both knew that they had to be.

Eureka in Flames Introduction and Shout Out. I'm officially going to print!

I can’t remember a time in my last thirty years when I didn’t write. Originally, this was bad poetry and prose, which is similar to how many young people begin to write. Fortunately, that ended, and now every single page I once wrote is shredded. Frankly, that was as cathartic as writing my feelings. I must say they’re both good things.

Eventually, my writing became stories of travel and hiking as well as introspective understanding of who I was. Since that was too personal to sell, I chose to write fiction, embracing my post-literary interests of the paranormal, travel, baseball, and American culture to create something I could be proud of. Now that I have put my finishing touches on this, my first book, it feels incredible to be able to look back on the things that have gotten me to this place where I can publish my first book.

First and foremost is the love and support of family and friends. Whether they be the family I’ve found along the way (my wonderful wife, Heather) or my parents + sister and the rest of my extended family (especially my Gram, who let me build forts in her apartment as well as to play with my Star Wars figures at her place every weekend of my youth – rest in peace), I’ve always been able to be lost in other worlds of daydreams and fantasy.

Quite simply, from an early age, I was encouraged and allowed to be imaginative. This led me to Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, V, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Independence Day, Altered States, Contact, The Mummy (the Brendan Fraser one), Creature Double Feature, Ancient Aliens, The Conjuring, A Haunting, Signs, Monsters and Mysteries in America, Jaws, and a lot of other science fiction / aliens / ghost stuff as well as great action movies like Die Hard and the Asian cinema of John Woo and Chow Yun Fat. This is not to forget the myriad of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Norris action movies in my formative years (not to mention one too many viewings of the original Red Dawn).

In addition, music is a big part of who I am as a writer and person. From my earliest days with Billy Joel to Iron Maiden to Neutral Milk Hotel to the Polyphonic Spree to the Misfits to Phish to Jack Johnson to Okkervil River to Jay Z to The Hold Steady to Slayer, songs have always inspired me to sing along and to move on through. My mp3 player ranges from cheesy pop songs by Taylor Swift to metal music by King Diamond. There’s a time and place for everything, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to live in a world without music of every genre. Simply stated, I could have never written this book with bad music or silence. For this, I do name check songs, bands, and literary things to get other people interested in them as well. Support your favorite artists.

Along the way, I have also had many great teachers who allowed me to grow as a writer, teacher, and person with their style and willingness to take on my honors contracts and personal discussions (Ron Borkert, Bill Harst, Dave Leight, Susan Hartman, and Eric Wolf come to mind). With them, I was able to do many great projects and learn so much more than I would have if I didn’t participate in class actively. Because of them and my parents, I was shown the value of education. While I didn’t always understand or appreciate education or the do this / do that approach to things, I eventually did embrace it, and I was able to teach myself by learning to observe what others did and by absorbing information and education experience because of it. In addition, I was supported by many colleagues and peers in the educational world to be allowed to educate other people to the value of writing. I can’t begin to state what that means to me. Teaching and being taught are great things. Embrace knowledge in all that you do.

In an ideal world, I would list lots of names, and they would be definitive with regard to who has helped me along the way. However, I know that I’ll forget people, so rather than try to be all-inclusive here, I’ll thank all of my friends from those who were there with me during the awkward and lonely high school years, the wild ride of the Loft days, my time in the Air Force, the England experience, the post-England college time (which began twenty years before the day this book was originally released), and the last fifteen years of my life, which have been involved in being an educator, hiking, traveling, and living life while listening to great music, experiencing movies, reading books, and embracing an America that I almost left.

For all of the mistakes I’ve made, the dumb things I’ve done, and the bad choices I’ve made along the way, my family and friends have stuck with me to get to this place. I appreciate that. I must also say that I still can’t believe that I have a wife who would embrace my eccentricity and rough around the edges nature to still be here for me, nearly 9 years after our first memorable date. Like Lou Gehrig, I’m the luckiest man of the face of the earth to have someone who’ll let a major undertaking like this book series happen.

Also, in whatever came my way, I always found great people to influence and inspire me. One of those people was MaryAnn Schaefer, who edited this book and provided writing advice to me. I am very very grateful to her for that. I’m also very thankful that she allowed me to have a couple of Air Force / England Thanksgivings with her, her husband Bill, and her daughters Sky and Nicki all those years ago. I can’t begin to explain what they meant to a young guy 3,000 miles from home on the holidays.

In this writing endeavor, many of you will choose to help me either by advertising or buying this book. You will read my works and provide constructive criticism. You will inspire me while I keep working on the Blackrock Canyon series, which is well over 500 pages at this point in four different books. I think it has a couple thousand to go, but that’s just me. THANK YOU!!!!

I look forward to entertaining you along the way. Hopefully, I’ll even inspire some of you to embrace your own creativity, which would be awesome to see all of the Dylans and Lydias of the world to take a keyboard to bang out their stories. The world is your oyster. Do what you have to do. It’s go time. Where would we be without writing or the oral tradition or petroglyphs?

Thanks for reading and supporting my art. Dan.

You guys and gals are awesome. Really.

Eureka in Flames Teaser Beginning - redone with 3rd part added

BEGIN

“We’re a popular show and we make a lot of money for cable television, Lee, but we’re not that popular that we can just go around destroying video equipment at random! You’re not a Nine Inch Nails show in the early nineties. Our show isn’t something that the fans just expect the stage and instruments trashed at for the end of the episode.”

Lee Johnson’s hand was still visibly shaking as he tried to grasp the donut shop’s coffee mug. It was almost twelve hours after the cast of Demon Hunters of Dodge County had abandoned their first ever episode in the six seasons that they had been on the air. Through the discussion, the lead investigator of the four men and two women team was trying to hold his composure while debriefing with his producer, Tim Hobson. Failing at this, his producer was very irate at all of the actions that had occurred before and during the incident where his team abandoned the Standall Brothers’ Saloon taping.

“So you think we staged it? That Gilly just threw his video camera on the ground? Do you think he’s the kind of person to just spike a camera because he needs to perform on cue? He’s not the Broncos’ DeMaryius Thomas after a touchdown, you know.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, but we both know that the nature of this television ghost investigation game is to accentuate the ‘action’ when you have something on the hook and to make mountains out of molehills when you don’t necessarily have beyond a shadow of a doubt evidence. Whether the activity is there or not, the show must go on, and we need our equipment in one piece to do that.”

“I know that’s how it’s been played by the industry and even by us from time to time, but I assure you that this time was for real. Honest to God. Besides, we’ve always tried to keep it one hundred, even when the editing and direction called for something else.”

“You’ve always been Hollywood, Lee. Sell that ‘I didn’t do it’ shit somewhere else.”

The muscular, shaved-headed man of thirty years of age continued to defend himself despite his producer’s protests, saying, “You know that we were in a real active hot spot. This isn’t chicken shit nonsense or families looking for airtime when they come up with a good enough story to get a team into their house to make some spare change. This is more than just smoke. We have raging fire to go with it.”

At these words, the producer nodded appropriately that he knew that this situation had the potential to be different, but he was not completely buying it.

“Besides, no other team has lasted the night in that place, and there have been many who tried. Most people are out soon after dark. We made it until 3:15AM before we had to abandon the shoot. To you, that may be quitting, but to us, it’s a record with all of the banging, clanging, screeching, and attacks we suffered before Steve smashed out the back door to get out of a situation we were literally locked into.”

“I personally left that door unlocked, Lee. Don’t tell me you didn’t have the option to just walk out any time you felt the urge.”

“That door was barred shut, Tim!”

“Then who locked it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well whoever did it is going to pony up for a new one since that’s another thing we’re going to have to pay for since you and I both know the Standalls’ insurance won’t touch it or any damage caused by so-called ghost hunting incidents.”

“The hell with that. I’ll put a door up myself.”                   

“And what’s this about a record before running out? Call it something else, will you? You’ve done nights at Bobby Mackey’s, Pennhurst, Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, and Lizzie Borden’s house plus various other residential poltergeist hauntings in your 68 episodes. What was here that wasn’t anywhere else?”

“Something really nasty,” Lee said, staring down his boss. “Whatever was there wasn’t going to let us stay there until dawn at 6:11AM, much less to come back for another night of investigation tonight. There was an actual physical manifestation present, not just some kind of an eerie presence. I saw it with my own eyes. It talked to me. It attacked me, and I’ll tell you, for something without substance, that shit hurts when it smacks a person up.”

“So where’s my evidence other than scars that could have come from your own team? That shit was played out perfectly on Adventures with Spirits when the Smith Brothers got caught faking their investigation. Why no videos and pictures?”                                                                                       

“Because the creature only appeared when we lost the handheld.”

“What about the GoPros?”

“The batteries went dead.”

“Just like that?”

“You know as well as anyone in the game that spirits and other evil entities have a way of doing that to battery-operated electronics.”

“And what did this evil force tell you that only your crew heard?”

“It said, ‘I have come to the world again to join forces with the twins, and together, we will reign in darkness for all of eternity.’”

“That’s kind of vague and weird.”

“I know.”

“It doesn’t seem scary enough to drop a video camera or kick out a back door.”

“Words and phrases are all in presentation, and in the presentation, the demon materialized and threatened to kill us while it talked about some crazy stuff with twins.”

“I’m almost willing to believe that because even your dumb ass couldn’t make that nonsense up, but c’mon; there’s no context to it. What the hell, Lee?”

“I’m being honest with you. It was a demon speaking to me.”

“Not Ralph? A demon threatened to kill you?”

“Yes. There was no mention of Ralph at all from this creature.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t Ralph?”

“I saw both of them materialize last night, and this wasn’t Ralph.”

“And you have no video or audio proof?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like Occam’s Razor to me.”

“Screw you, Tim. I’ve never seen or felt anything like what happened in there last night. I never experienced that kind of an attack before. The EVP we had earlier said the name ‘Kaldac.’ If I remember Steve’s story correctly, that’s the name of some bad ass demon, and we do have proof of that.”

“It said something, but we don’t know what it said. It was a growl of static-y noise.”

And with that, the ghost hunter just stared at his producer. Inside his thick black goatee, his lips seemed to pause in the open position as he held himself back from threatening to kill the executive.

“Lee, c’mon. Demons from the ancient Wild West? Are you sure that American Paranormal’s spooky backstory isn’t just scaring you? I’ll accept angry ghosts, but I’m not ready to call this a demon just yet.”

“You’re producing a show about demon hunters, and you’re telling me you don’t personally believe in what you’re selling?’

“I believe in whatever video can tell me, and I believe in good television. If you capture it digitally for all to see, I’ll believe in mermaids, a Minotaur, pixies, and the Easter Bunny. Let’s just focus on what really happened in there, Lee. You ran off, and you left the set a wreck. Now, I have to clean up your mess.”

“We’ve been to a lot of places, Tim. You’ve said so yourself in the last minute. I’ve been taunted, scratched, punched, and shoved, but I’ve never had all four things happen to me at once as I’m also getting bitten up by some invisible creature. Look at them! Look at this trio of scratches! That thing was mocking God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.”

Hobson looked at Lee’s muscular, tattooed arms. Up and down his arms to include near his shoulders, there were bite marks and those three deep scratches. They all just couldn’t have been self-inflicted, could they?

“So you and Margaret weren’t getting frisky, were you?”

“The bites happened while we were filming on camera, Tim. We do have images of that.”

“But not the scratches?”

“Yes. I mean, no, they didn’t happen on camera.”

“It appears that some of them had to have been caused by someone other than you, but the video images are grainy, and it goes dark quickly, so I don’t know what to think, especially without the rest of your group’s dental records to make sure that things aren’t too identical. Besides, nothing was physically around you while it was happening, and you were filmed from a distance by Ernie’s GoPro.”

Lee looked back at him, visibly disturbed and ready to punch the man in the head.

“So tell me, what did this demonic physical manifestation look like if you have nothing to show me from its presence?”

“Like I said, I can tell you that it didn’t resemble the pictures I’ve seen of Ralph Richards. Richards was a big, ugly dude with a beard that touched his chest, but this was a dark, monstrous beast that came out of the shadows.”

“With horns and claws and fangs?” Tim asked, trying to maintain his seriousness.

“Claws and fangs, but more sleek of flesh and burly in his appearance. I didn’t see horns. He was also a hell of a lot bigger than a man. I would say that the monster had to be at least ten feet tall and imposing over me. Standing under his shadow, I felt like I was being crushed under rocks.”

“So how did he protect himself against the heat of the light bulbs when he took them out? Those things get pretty hot. Did he have oven mitts on?”

As Tim finished saying that, he was laughing a little bit to Lee’s obvious irritation.

“That’s another thing. We had no way to squeeze or cause four light bulbs to implode at one time to leave the room in blackness. You can check those light sockets and where the glass crashed. There’s no explosive residue from setups like some teams have been known to use when they’re staging special effects. You’ll just find four different crash sites.”

“At least you got that moment on camera before the darkness came. The shattered glass and shock on all of your faces were awesome moments. They will be great for commercials, and we can milk that for viewership.”

“I’m glad you approve of at least some of what we’ve given you.”

“I do, but I know that you’re the best in the game we’re playing, and I should have a hell of a lot more quantifiable evidence than what you’ve given me. Because you ran like little bitches, I don’t. Now, we have to go back and shoot more historical footage around town and perform post-investigation interviews to get 42 minutes out of this mess of a show.”

“That’s easy enough. There are a lot of interviews with the people in town and our crew, and there is stuff from a lot of the other local teams. Besides, you can film the scene’s aftermath and get all of that on tape.”

“You’ll go in and do that? You aren’t too afraid?”

“I’ll go in during the daylight with a lot of people around. I’m afraid, but not too afraid to do that.”

“Lee, why don’t we just cut the crap and go back next weekend if you’re too scared to do it tonight? The property owners are still willing to let us in; in fact, they’re desperate for Allison to do her take on an exorcism or to use her white witch magic on camera. We can give the fans more. We’ll make it a two-part episode and milk your fear as a rematch against evil for the end of the season.”

“Next week is Daylight Savings Time. An extra hour of darkness after the Witching Hour isn’t exactly my idea of fun. That’s more time to get really messed up by whatever this beastly thing was. Richards, we can handle, but not this Kaldac demon.”

“If you agree to this, Lee, The Paranormal Network is going to let us go live, extra cameras and additional people. Maybe we can convince some other groups that ran out to join you. I’ve already been on the phone with Arlen Hooper. This could be the big time for all of you. Even Allison has never been involved in something as intense as this, and she’s banished some nasty ghostly things. We can be kings of the hill in the ghost hunter business.”

“Well, that sure sounds like great television, but let me tell you from an insider’s perspective that it’s either that or we could be dead. Then it doesn’t matter how rich I am. Like Tolstoy said, in the end, all I really need is about six feet of ground to make my home. I want to be alive for my fame when I’m living the good life of riches and all that goes with them. I don’t want these moments of notoriety to be posthumous.”

“The door is open either way, Lee, but just remember that you assholes owe me a video camera. You also need to get the Standalls a back door regardless of your decision. That comes out of your paycheck. They’re not looking for a cheap screen door either.”

“We may owe you a video camera and have to secure the rear entry of the saloon, but we can get the money by doing a show somewhere else. Maybe we can shoot the Calhoun Plantation in North Carolina again. That was very active, and the Calhouns will happily have us back, too.”

“We’re not in the business of advertising haunted house amusement parks for Podunk towns in the middle of nowhere.”

“We would be if they paid or were close enough to a town of size.”

“Yeah, but they’re not willing to pay enough to cover our travel expenses. Besides, the site was only active with static-y EVPs and unexplained noises. There weren’t even good growls there, let alone clear words from beyond. What’s more, other groups are in and out of there all the time. Nobody who is anyone gets chased out of there. Girl Scout troops go there for fun. You guys need to up the game. There’s only so long any show will last if it’s not treading new and ‘dangerous’ ground.”

“I don’t know, Tim. I just don’t know. There’s gotta be ‘safer’ dangerous ground.”

“Quit being a bitch about this, Lee. Take some time to get yourself together, and we’ll talk about this Tuesday when Maggie gives you your man card back.”

“Two days isn’t going to change my mind, asshole.”

“A lot can happen in two days. Meet me here on Tuesday at noon with your team. Until then, you can stay in the motel and relax. It’s on me, even after your disrespect.”

“You’re gracious.”

“I’m a realist. Think about it. Talk to your team. I’ll see you then,” Tim stated and walked out to Lee’s hostility and still shaking hands consuming him from within.

NNNN

Every episode of Demon Hunters of Dodge County began the same way. The loud metal music performed specially as a favor by King Diamond expressed exactly what the fans were going to get. The appearance of the six crew members one by one until their picture came across as a group presented them as a mix of pro wrestling combined with the paranormal as a grudge match between good and evil.

The first face on the screen was Lee Johnson, the lead investigator. He was a burly dude, but something inside him always seemed to betray a certain fear when the scare factor jumped up to the next level. He was known to scream threats at ghosts to taunt them, but when he seemed to be retaliated on, he was the first one out of the room. Tim knew about this, and he directed the editors to create an almost comedic presence with his team leader’s video presence because of it. Nevertheless, something in Lee wanted to prove his mettle when the chips were down. He wanted to be brave, but he just never had his shot. For this, he felt like a man on a mission balanced with a tiger trying to deny his own stripes. Stuck between Hollywood’s version of good television and his own fear to confront deeper challenges, he came off more as a wimp than a warrior. This was something that always nagged him to the core.

Next was Margaret “Maggie” Constantine, the co-lead investigator and girlfriend of Lee. She was a beautiful raven-haired expert in the world of the paranormal; however, she never smiled much, and she definitely took every situation as being far more serious than it usually was. Often accused of having resting bitch face, the industry blogs referred to her as a “handful” and a “ballbreaker,” but at the same point, they expressed how she was the most talented ghost-hunter member of the group other than Allison Hoffman. For this, many people felt she should be the team’s true leader. As compared to the rest of the team, she seemed to be able to identify and relate many other groups’ scenarios that mirrored what they were getting into, and for this, she was definitely more than capable of helping the group to get out of trouble before they got into it. However, as the team never really got into deep trouble, she, too, was waiting for her real chance at fighting the real dark entities of the world.

As for the rest of the crew, Hoffman didn’t want to serve as the leader due to her independent nature, nor was she wasn’t trying to be a leader with her suggestions. Her job was to fight the demons head on with borderline exorcism techniques and full-on white magic. Nobody else in the group understood how to do this. As to her exorcism techniques, she was quick to note that the only reason it was described as “borderline” was because she wasn’t sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Thus, for both of these “powers,” the most intense attacking / defensive skills that the Demon Hunters employed came from her. As a result of these skills, she served as the team’s demonologist and resident medium. Allison was also the oldest member of the group at 64. Despite the fact that she was going gray, everybody knew not to mess with her because they weren’t as tough as the demons and poltergeists that she had stared down and grappled with on other shows she had been on. From Ghostly Intruders to Poltergeists of Texas, she had been on at least twenty different shows as a cast member, guest, or an assistant. She had also toured the country on the lecture circuit, so when Hobson hired her on as part of the group, it was quite the coup. It also cut into a big chunk of the additional funds that they earned when they got six extra episodes for Season Three. Nevertheless, she did bring in the viewers and the sponsors, so she pretty much paid for herself. Since being involved with The Demon Hunters of Dodge County, she never really got the chance to shine in the same way she did when she was in Poltergeists of Texas. The events on her final episode of that show happened at a haunt in San Marcos, Texas. There, a particularly angry specter left her in the hospital for the better part of a week, but she rebounded and moved on to the Demon Hunters’ show as tough as ever. You can’t keep a good woman down, even when a poltergeist hurls her over a second floor railing and onto a coffee table in the living room.

Steve Sanford appeared next on the credits. Billed as the technology specialist, the burly African American man knew how to use the tools of the ghost hunting trade. Whether measuring room temperature, collecting EMFs & EVPs, or utilizing night vision, he was a pro with all of the routine gear that the crew would need, and he was known to always have interest in the new stuff, too. Sanford also dictated computer and photographic protocols for how he wanted the group to be seen by the audience. Despite his “do this; do that” approach, he was very gracious, and the team and audience loved him. In fact, when his scenes played back for the television audience, he was the most popular member of the core group, as much for his handsome looks as for his knowledge of technology and ghost hunting. Other teams had requested him to drop ship and come across to them as a key member, but Sanford’s childhood friendship with Lee kept him from betraying his commitment to the Demon Hunters, even for a huge salary increase.

Guillermo Rivera was the only smiling member of the group during the opening credits. Affectionately known as “Gilly,” this Puerto Rican man was shown laughing as he brandished his movie camera as the video specialist and constant recorder of the group’s actions. While all of the members of the team had GoPro cameras mounted to their helmets, Gilly was the man who filmed the routine on the spot actions of the group with a handheld camera. He also sat in with The Paranormal Network’s editors and Steve Sanford when they were discussing the best footage to use for the actual on the air episodes that would be played out for their hundreds of thousands of routine viewers. His filming was always first rate, and the storyboarding / editing process was slick and easy when he took over the computer to bring an episode to The Paranormal Network. This skill combined well with his being second to Steve Sanford in technical equipment and electrical troubleshooting. His quick grasp at understanding new tasks made him very useful on a lot of the group’s investigations.

Finally, the last member of the team, Ernie Lackey, was the historian and junior investigator. He was also the only non-American member of the group, as he hailed from Bury St. Edmunds in England. As the newest member of the team, he replaced Tracey Lynn Slater when she left at the beginning of the current season to have her first child. He had worked with the team on earlier episodes, but he was never a consistent member until the necessity to fill in her vacated spot came to be. There was no point endangering babies that weren’t yet born, and it seemed like Hobson was pushing Lee to move toward more difficult assignments that yielded more results than garbled EVPs and historical information that never played out well on screen. Prior to this show, Lackey did have some experience with a show called Those Who Bring Fear to Ghosts, which was a hardcore approach to ghost hunting. This team reckoned themselves as a crew filled with men who were willing to wrestle or exorcize spirits, so they did a lot of taunting while coming out with a lot of “bruises.” Their leader was a former priest named Dante Lassard, who had also studied exorcism for years. However, he had never been able to perform it until he got on the show. Just like Hoffman, he was also disavowed by the Catholic Church. After his first ritual, he seemed to average an exorcism every other week. Sometimes, this got a little much for the team and the audience, so Lackey was ready to jump ship when the opportunity came. Nevertheless, he did like some of the more challenging haunts that his former team went on as opposed to the routine, safe stuff that the Demon Hunters were drifting toward.

From their beginning, the group had always worked well together, and when the opportunity came to investigate the Standall Brothers’ Saloon in Eureka, Nevada, the crew felt that they had to jump at the chance. Just like having the same opportunity as a bull rider would get when he went to take on Bodacious, the Standall Brothers’ Saloon represented a serious opportunity to get in on some real poltergeist action. Besides, Tim made sure to hint how the crew of Those Who Bring Fear to Ghosts was looking to get in on this site’s action as well. This just couldn’t be allowed to be, so he called a meeting with the men and women to discuss the proposal.

The bar itself had been built in the early 2010s, which led to some early questioning as to why it was so plagued, but as the crew of American Paranormal found out, it was built on the land that a brothel and saloon named For the Love of Silver stood on. The name, it turned out, had a double meaning. Silver was the last name of the madam who ran the saloon and it was also the main occupation that brought 10,000 people to this town in the middle of the Nevada desert when it first grew out of desert rock. However, for all of the possibility that the town once had, only 600 or so people remained when the ghost investigators started to come out to interview the current proprietors, ghost enthusiasts, and historians.

In recent years, the Standall Brothers’ Saloon ideally represented an opportunity for travelers on the Loneliest Road in America to stop and get gas or food or lodging on their way to California or Denver. This road, Highway 50, had many small towns like Austin and Fallon, as well as a slightly bigger town in Ely, but it was the Loneliest Town on the Loneliest Road, which needed a reason to bring back the glory days of 125 years ago. Five years ago, that was what caused Tyler and John Standall to take a chance at building a mega entertainment facility and casino in the middle of a dried up desert. For a state looking to promote tourism across areas not named Las Vegas and Reno, they were all too happy to publicize this restaurant and the small casino that operated inside of it.

“What could go wrong?” the town’s mayor, Stewart Compson, once said in what became the most ironic statement in the town’s history.

But who could fault him for his excitement? Nobody “sensible” believed in historic ghost stories, and the land that the saloon was situated on wasn’t doing anything for anyone, so why not turn it into a fifty-television screen bar and entertainment complex to encourage people to stay in town overnight? With that possibility would come more gas stations, restaurants, and even a motel right across the street at what would become an opportunity for truckers and tourists to take a load off for the evening and walk across the road to enjoy their evenings with one-armed bandits and two-armed women. It was a win-win situation for everyone until it seemed to be attracting a reputation of fear and spookiness, which came right out of its historic past and into the town’s politically apprehensive present.

When the town and the complex appeared on American Paranormal, the Standall Brothers’ Saloon’s status as a place for ghost hunters and fright seekers alike to visit was cemented, much to the chagrin of Compson and many of the other Nevada tourism and elected powers that be. This reputation just wouldn’t bring in the tax dollars that they hoped for despite the fact that some officials were showing numbers associated with the Extraterrestrial Highway in the south. On another sad note, it wasn’t what the Standalls had hoped for when they put up seven figures of their own money to open this entertainment mecca, and they were desperate for Compson and others to make things happen.

But they did nothing to help out. Nevertheless, the Standalls’ pleas did bring in ghost hunters.

American Paranormal was the best fright information show on television since it represented an oft-watched documentary effort to explain in fifteen minutes or so of a one-hour show exactly what left this or any other place as haunted as it was. The story they told of the Standall Brother’s Saloon was incredibly eerie and horrific, but it was in no way as complete or as dark as it actually happened to be when the fear was being implanted live from this stretch of dirt. Nevertheless, it was told well with dramatic music to back it up, so it represented a chance for Tim Hobson to bring his crew the offer to go into the most sought after video experience in town. What’s more, they were going to get this opportunity before the other television ghost teams might have a chance to bag this experience for themselves.

“Guys, this is the big time. We have to do this,” was the e-mail all of them received, so they quickly assembled together with their stuffed suit of a producer to talk about the opportunity.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you cinematic gold,” Tim said.

They stared at him, and he smiled back.

“Welcome to the next level,” he said as the group drowned out his theatrical attempts in lots of local microbrewery IPA and lager.

“It’s going to be a long one,” Steve whispered to Gilly.

“It always is with him,” the Latino man whispered back.

NNNN

“You know that if you don’t take this, both the Those Who Bring Fear to Ghosts team and the Spectral Assassin crew will be up there, and you know they’ve been kicking our ass in the ratings all season.”

“I know, Tim, but you have to admit that this is something we should prep and be ready for,” Sanford stated. “Besides, the Spectral Assassins are only enjoying a bump in the ratings because they’re new. They have no real skills or personality. They’ll be history in a year.”

Lee looked toward Tim, and he echoed Sanford’s hesitance by stating, “We could use more people and at least a few days to be on site during the day to figure out exactly what we’re going in for. This isn’t as easy as the Jones house was when we went in and found the spirit of the woman who had Alzheimer’s disease. All we had to do there was move her to the light and sage the place.”

“Guys. Guys. American Paranormal has done the hard work. They’re going to lend us extra footage that they took. That’s the great thing about being on the same network. We’ll just use better music when we re-edit it and add in some takes of people running out with their tails between their legs,” Tim replied on command.

“But how much footage did they record of the actual site?” Steve asked.

“It doesn’t matter; the Standalls filmed everything and even sent me blueprints and photographs. We’re 100% ready.”

“So tell me. What is the complete story on this? I know bits and pieces, but,” Margaret started to say.

Gilly looked at her and spoke instinctively.

“It’s a long one, Margaret, so you all want to sit back and listen.”

They followed his advice and listened attentively to all of his words as he started from the beginning of the tale.

“In 1878, the Ford Silver Mine was making quite the profit on silver in the area, and then by 1879, it wasn’t. The men at the company couldn’t figure out what was going on to cause this. They were still finding lots of ore with silver in it, but somehow between the smelting and the selling of the end product, there was never as much as there once had been, let alone was expected to be.”

From there, the story left everyone in the room riveted as it played out to a captive audience and a producer who loved the entertainment value and the dollars that it would bring.