I'd Like to Introduce You to Cole Pierce

Who is Cole Pierce?  Well, he’s the protagonist in my new novel, Terminal Restraint.  I think you’ll like him.  He’s you.  He’s me (not really me, although there are a few small similarities).  He’s your average, everyday, normal, working-class guy, trying to excel at his job and plan for his future with his girlfriend.  He has a great group of friends—although they are a little eccentric—and he’s quite content with his life.

What’s so special about him?

He dies.

Yep, there you go.  Major spoiler.  My protagonist dies in my new novel.  But that’s half the fun, as he doesn’t just die.  He becomes something far worse.  Not a zombie, which are a bit over-played in the entertainment industry right now.  Not a vampire, which are REALLY overplayed (sorry, Bill Compton and Eric Northman).  Cole doesn’t even become a ghost.  He transforms into an undead creature who survives by draining the life of the living.  Sentient, yes.  Able-bodied, certainly.  Filled with revenge, you bet!

Intrigued?  Well, let me tell you a little more.  Before this all happens, Cole’s thinking of proposing to his theater actress girlfriend, Malaya, and his life couldn’t be happier.  But life takes a turn for the worse, unfortunately for him, and he finds himself in some hot water with an executive at the company that employs him.  This executive, Roland LaDuc, is an uptight prude with a home life that is beginning to fray—a wife that won’t speak to him and teenage boys that despise him.  A client complains about work that Cole performed—although the complaint is really unfounded—and as a few other incidents occur, Roland unfairly takes his frustrations out on Cole.

Cole’s upset, for sure, because he’s always trying to do his best and please everyone, and he’s incredibly upset by Roland’s harsh criticism.  And who wouldn’t be?

Cole’s best friend, Trev, would never take that kind of abuse from a superior, although he doesn’t have to because he owns his own tattoo shop.  Trev’s wife, Jillian, is a forensic pathologist who performs autopsies.  Oh, and did I mention they are members of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan?  Wait, what?!?

An eccentric group, yes, but along with their friends Becca and Scott, they are all a tight-knit little family.  And they look out for one another, which is why Jillian decides to cast a black magic protection spell on her friends, including a very hesitant Cole.  Only the spell she casts isn’t quite what she thinks it to be, and that’s not good news for our protagonist.  You see, aside from Cole and Roland’s little spat, there are some much darker bad guys on the horizon, and one of them gets the best of poor Cole, killing him in his own basement.

But as I said, Cole is not dead.  Death doesn’t come for everyone, apparently.

What will happen to Cole?  Will he take out his revenge on Roland?  Will he discover the identity of his killer?  Is he really an undead creature?  Are his days on Earth, alive or dead, numbered?

Check out Terminal Restraint here https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/233534.  I’ll soon have it available elsewhere.  Smashwords is currently out of ISBNs, so as soon as they get them in, I’ll get one assigned so that it can be purchased through Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Sony.  I also plan to have it available on the Kindle within a week or two after I have the ISBN.

And if you want a coupon to get it for free on Smashwords, just ask!

And if you like my books, tell your friends!

And if you like Terminal Restraint, check out my other books!

A Blast IN THE FACE From the Past

As I was cleaning up some old personal files, I came across my first finished novel—never published, and written in a style that isn't exactly rated PG.  I think I must have begun to seriously write back in the mid to late nineties, and I started something like fifteen or twenty different books before I actually finished one.  This one, Wrecking Ball, was the first.  Only a handful of people graciously read it, and I received mixed reviews on it.  Some raved about it, but some of the characters are based on real people, and those real people were quick to identify themselves and didn't much care for the way their characters were written.

Anyway, the novel is about a guy who, after years of bullying in high school, decides to become a "bully" himself to all those who have seemingly wronged him, and despite becoming successful in his two rather unorthodox careers, he subsequently spins out of control seeking revenge.  As I said, though, it’s rather crude in some spots, so I've censored the excerpt for my blog.  My writing in the past fifteen years has matured and softened greatly, so don't judge me too much on this.  Wrecking Ball seems to be filled with a lot of angst too, so please don't think I'm crazy.  I know when I was writing it, I wasn't filled with the kind of hatred that the main character, Rick Drexel, seems to have, but I was bullied briefly in high school, and so I did let some of those emotions out.  Still, it's a work of FICTION and should be viewed as such.

Below is an excerpt from the second chapter, which details Rick's first act of vengeance.  If you really like it, let me know and I’ll consider publishing it on Amazon and Smashwords.

An Excerpt from Wrecking Ball:

            So, on this Wednesday before Thanksgiving at about 2:15 PM, i.e., twenty minutes before the school day ended, I drove my bleep brown Plymouth Voyager down to the grocery store.  Yes, I drove a minivan.  Probably another reason kids still picked on me, but I’m sorry that my daddy didn’t buy me a brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse like everyone else’s daddies did.  Anyway, I walked into the store and went straight for the meat department.  Fish, to be exact.  Catfish, to be exact.  I bought four platters of catfish.  Twenty freaking bucks, but it was money well spent.

            I then drove over to the school and watched as everyone left for vacation.  The parking lots cleared quickly, and I just strolled right in without anyone saying a word.  Teachers and administrators didn’t actually lock the doors until 3 PM, so I had plenty of time.  The halls were bare, too.  I passed less than a handful of people.  Bleep school didn’t even have security cameras.  Maybe if they did, they’d have seen all the abuse that some of the students received.  Maybe the administration didn't even care.

            Feeling somewhat like a mafia thug--you know, the guy who places a fish in a newspaper and leaves it somewhere to send a message--I proceeded to the locker of one of my bullies, unwrapped the first tray of catfish, and just dumped it onto his books.  The bleep had one bleep of a messy locker, too, and it already smelled of body odor and pot.  The next locker was a little neater, and it didn’t stink quite as much as the first, but it would soon.  After hitting the last two lockers, I casually walked out of the school to my car and left.

            Did you ever experience catfish after it’s been sitting out for five freaking days?  Don’t.  Trust me.  If the sight of maggots doesn’t get you, the smell certainly will.  You’ll vomit.  Trust me.

            So this is how I became who I am today.  This is how I ended up being some crazy psycho burning things, breaking things, screwing with peoples’ minds, and destroying anything in my path.  Yep, I trace it back to catfish.

            Most people with mental problems can trace their disorder back to some traumatic experience.  A car wreck.  A lover who died.  An abusive father or mother.  I’m sure some people would trace my “mental problems” back to all those years of being bullied.  It’s all just bleep, though.  Nobody really has mental problems.  I knew exactly what I was doing then, and I know exactly what I’m doing now.  The word ‘sanity’ shouldn’t even be in the dictionary.

            Yes, so I was just a pathetic kid who couldn’t handle the tortures inflicted on me by school bullies.  Hurry, call the doctor!  Call him now!  I think I have mental issues!

            No, I’m not running around destroying things today because I’m some psychotic idiot.  I’m not a nutball.  This whole catfish thing just helped me realize that I can strike back.  I’m not helpless.  This was the first time I really stood up for myself, and it felt pretty bleep good.

            When Tuesday rolled around after the Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to go to school a little early.  I walked near the first victim’s locker and could already smell the nauseating odor.  I was actually surprised that the janitors didn’t notice the smell over the holiday, but then I figured that they probably used pine-scented cleaning solutions to mop the floors, and so I doubted they smelled anything.  They probably cleaned Wednesday evening as well, and the smell wouldn’t have been that bad by then.  I smiled as I walked past this jerk’s locker.  People would certainly smell something when the bleep opened their locker doors, and I guarantee it wouldn’t smell like pine trees.

            I took a bleep and then proceeded to my own locker to await the calamity.  My locker was about twenty-five feet down the hall from the third bleep locker.  I saw him walk in with his friends and drop his bag in front of his locker.  He stood there talking to his friends for a few minutes.  I stood there gathering my books for my first few periods and watching him out of the corner of my eye. 

            The kid was such an bleep.  He just looked like an bleep.  When you go to a bar, and you see the guy walking around like he’s the bleep and trying to pick up every woman in the building, you know he’s an bleep.  This kid was an bleep. 

As I stood there watching and waiting in anticipation, Robbie or whatever his name was finally opening the door of his locker.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone shout “What the bleep?” so loud in my life.  The entire hallway just shut up and stared at him.  Then the bleep threw up.  The sight was so bleep amusing; I probably would have bleep myself had I not gone earlier.

            He just stood there gagging for a good ten or fifteen seconds before his breakfast made its return appearance.  Surprise!  Vomit out of thin air!  How could you not laugh?

            I could only imagine the sight of the rotting catfish in his locker.  Maggots crawling in and out through the gray rotting matter.  Other kids were crowding around at a safe distance just to see the gift I’d left him.  Two of them began to gag.  Both vomited.  One homely girl screamed.

            Then the smell hit me.  Catfish sitting out for five days is bad enough.  Picturing the maggots eating away at the rotting fish and the flies buzzing around just made the stench even worse.  Not even the worst outhouse could smell that bad.  Mix that odor with the stench of human bile, and you’ll instantly start gagging.  The odor was beyond vile.  I’m serious, even raw sewage didn’t smell that bad.

            The whole bleep school turned into a puke fest.  I didn’t throw up, but considering that most of the kids had just had breakfast, I’m not sure how I managed not to.  The scene was just disgusting.  It reminded me of that part in Stand by Me where the one kid is telling a story about a pie eating contest.  People puking everywhere.  I never imagined I’d actually see it.

            They made everyone who hadn’t been sick report to the cafeteria, and then they sent everyone home.  The janitors worked non-stop that day cleaning up the halls.  They had to bleach everything.  The school still reeked for almost a month after that.  Although it smelled strongly of disinfectant industrial cleaners, you could still faintly smell the bile and fish odors.

            The four bleep had to throw their books and stuff into the garbage.  The one went home crying.  I went home smiling.

            The following day, they made a special announcement asking that anyone with any information regarding the culprits should please report to the principal’s office, and that those responsible would certainly be caught.  Culprits?  They didn’t believe that one person could do this?  Regardless, I was never caught.  I was a good kid enrolled in honor’s classes.  Even if someone suspected I had done it, which they didn’t, nobody could have proved it was me, and my character alone spoke for me.

            When the final total of the damage came in, I was just stunned.  One thousand dollars in damage counting man-hours for the janitors, new books for the four bleep, their personal items, and cleaning supplies.  I spent twenty bucks and about a half hour of my time, and I managed to cause fifty times that amount in damage.  “Wow” was the only word that came to my mind.

            Those kids didn’t bleep with anyone for a while after that.  I wasn’t the only person they bullied, and I think they were too afraid of what would happen to them next if they picked on anyone else again.  They knew they were targets because of how they treated other kids.  They weren’t dumb; they were just bullies who needed to torment other kids to feel better about themselves.

            After my little stunt, they wouldn’t feel better about themselves for a long time.  The embarrassment alone was enough to insure that.  They became known as the “Fishies”.  They’d be teased about it for years.  Payback is a bleep.

            The one kid even got busted for having a joint in his locker.  He was suspended for a month over that.  He should have been expelled.  Who the bleep is stupid enough to bring marijuana into school, anyway?

Regardless, I had fixed the bleep problem.

            When I finally graduated high school, I was still chuckling over the incident.  I never told my friends or family or anyone that I was the mastermind.  During the graduation ceremony, the valedictorian even mentioned it in her speech.  It was most likely the single biggest event to happen in the high school in a decade.

            So that’s where this all began.  Rick Drexel, the prankster.  The jokester.  The vigilante.  Bleep with me, and I will kill you.  I never thought I’d be doing bleep like that for the rest of my life.  It’s amazing how the course of time leads us down so many twisty paths and through so many forks.  Robert Frost, eat your heart out.

The Terminator Got Him!

So the actor who played John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is missing.  Nick Stahl, who also starred in Sin City, The Thin Red Line, and Disturbing Behavior among countless other films, played an adult John Connor, once again trying to elude the Terminator model T-X with the help of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s inferior T-101 (800 or 850 series for all of you Terminator buffs).  I liked this movie, almost as much as T2, although it didn’t do quite as well at the box office as the first two and was essentially just one big chase scene.  Anyway, apparently Nick Stahl’s estranged wife reported to police that she’d last heard from her husband a week ago, and they believe drugs and/or alcohol may be a factor in his disappearance.

I don’t mean to make light of what could be a very serious and sad situation, but wouldn’t it be just absolutely crazy if Nick Stahl met his demise from an actual Terminator?  I mean, we know NASA and the SETI program (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) are constantly sending radio and video signals into space hoping that intelligent life out there will receive it and communicate back.  Perhaps they sent out Terminator 3, the signal found its way into a wormhole, and it was recovered by intelligent machines on Earth a couple hundred years from now.  Not knowing the movie was a fictional tale, they created a time machine and sent back a Terminator to take Nick Stahl out, thinking he would someday lead a resistance against them.  Highly unlikely, but theoretically possible?  Maybe?

The biggest question is whether or not time travel is possible.  And, surprise, it is!  I’m serious.  It’s been proven.  Einstein theorized it.  You see, as an object’s speed approaches that of light, time dilation occurs.  Time dilation is basically the difference of elapsed time between two objects moving at different speeds.  So if humans could build a spaceship that travelled at the speed of light, and an occupant of that ship and someone else both had a stopwatch, and they both started them at the same exact time, the person’s stopwatch on the ship would be behind the other’s.  Depending on how long that person in the ship travelled, that person could have aged 9 years as opposed to the other's 10.  Likewise, gravity and the mass of objects can affect the speed of time in a similar manner.  In space, time moves more quickly, because there’s nothing of substantial mass slowing it down.  Picture heavy people walking slowly through the mall while skinny people zip around from store to store.  Not really the same scientific principle, at least I don’t think it is, but you get my point.  Maybe that's why bigger folks tend to die earlier--because they age faster.  Just one more reason I need to shed a few pounds!

Seriously though, all of this time travel stuff has been scientifically proven through tests over the past fifty years.  That being said, travelling backwards through time is still up for debate.  Not only could it create time paradoxes, where an effect of an action in time could potentially alter its cause, thereby nullifying itself, but the math and science and theoretic proposals behind it just aren’t really there to substantiate it.  Yet.  I mean, when I consider the instance above, it seems to me that the person in the spaceship has actually traveled backwards in time, because he’s a year younger than the other.  But he didn’t travel backwards in his own time, and perhaps that’s the sticking point.

The thing is, though, there is so much about the cosmos that we have yet to decipher.  We’re still chasing the existence of the Higgs boson, the particle that scientists believe is responsible for mass.  I tend to look at it all as if we are all still cavemen, writing on the walls of our caves with mud and poop and having not the tiniest inclination that the sun is a huge concentration of burning gases or that some day little children will walk around with iPads flinging cartoon birds at pigs in the same way we spear our dinners.  There’s just so much we still have to learn, and that will never change.  As scientists continue to work and study the fundamentals of our existence, all we can really do is sit back, take in all they tell us, and maybe write some crafty stories and scripts like Star Wars, Star Trek, and the Terminator that lean on both the proven and unproven theories.

As I was thinking of new ideas for a novel about a year ago, I read a story about how metamaterials are being used to create cloaking devices.  Metamaterials are man-made materials created by meshing together certain elements in a way that the material itself behaves as a whole rather than as a sum of its parts.  Scientists have found that light travels over the threads of the material entirely rather than through it like it does through a thin cotton T-shirt.  If you cut a hole into the metamaterial, light still travels around it and not even through the hole.  Thus, if you put something into that hole, that object becomes invisible.

Now taking this thought one step further, if light bends around this object, and time moves at the speed of light, could time bend around this object as well?  I’m totally oversimplifying the idea there, but apparently other scientists thought along similar lines and used metamaterials to test the theory.  They found that time still does travel through metamaterials even though photons pass right over and around them.

These results, seemingly disproving time travel, were discovered after I’d already finished the rough draft of my novel, but I was a “sharp tool in the shed” and had included in my novel references to a fictional sub-atomic particle as well that worked in conjunction with metamaterials to make time travel possible.  My novel, Paradox, takes some fictional liberties with all this and relies more on the action to tell the tale, but if you are curious or want to check it out, an excerpt is below.

In the meantime, we can all just wonder, can’t we?  I think that’s one of the things that makes humans so remarkable: our imaginations.  I can’t imagine dogs and cats sitting around contemplating about time and space and how they interact with each other.  My in-laws' dog, Candy, seems more interested in figuring out how he can get into every trash can in the house.

And hopefully Nick Stahl is just hanging out somewhere, playing it cool, safe and sound.  But, if the Terminators did get him, well, I suggest we all better stock up on lots of guns and ammo.  And liquid nitrogen.

An excerpt from my novel, Paradox:

As his mind raced with the implications of being a suspect in a campus bombing, a strange ticking noise began to emanate from near the door.  The sound was odd, like a tap-tick-tap-tick-tap-tap-tap.  It sounded a little like the second hands of several clocks moving out of synchronization, but he looked around the door and didn’t see anything.  In fact, the room was very drab—gray-painted cinder block walls, a thin, high window with steel mesh on the outside of the glass, the large mirror, the table, and the two chairs.

The odd noise continued—quiet and ominous—and Jon stood up and walked the few feet over to the door.  He had no idea if people on the other side of the mirror were watching him, but nobody came rushing in the door, and so maybe they thought he was just stretching and nobody else heard the sound.

Jon listened by the wall, then by the door, then by the edge of the mirror, and he couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly where the sound was coming from.  It’s source seemed to be inside the room—definitely not outside—but each time he moved, the sound seemed to come from somewhere else.  Was his mind playing tricks on him?

As he moved back closer to the table, he noticed that the sound was getting gradually louder.  He also felt a breeze, like a fan, blowing behind him.  The ticking-tapping sounds began to intensify, and Jon realized that the breeze was actually more of a sucking feeling—like a giant invisible vacuum was pulling the air into the middle of the room.

Jon took a few steps back, and as he watched in awe, a tiny orb of light began to appear in the space in front of him, floating in mid-air between the table and the door.  The sound became louder—so loud that anyone outside would have definitely heard it—and the orb began to both grow in size and become brighter—like a tiny little star forming in the middle of the room.

Jon scurried back into a corner, both amazed and terrified at the sight before him.

As the air began to be feverishly sucked into the middle of the room, Jon felt himself begin to be pulled as well.  It wasn’t strong like a tornado, but it still brought his horror to an entirely new level, and he hunched down and stuck both his arms out onto the adjoining walls to support himself.

The orb grew and grew, and it began to shine with such intensity that he was blinded.  The sound became deafening, and Jon closed his eyes and tried to cover his right ear into his shoulder—fearful that if he moved his hands from the walls, he would get sucked in.

When the sound became so loud that he thought his eardrums were going to shatter, it suddenly ended with a dull pop, and the light and vacuum vanished just as quickly as they had appeared.

Jon opened his eyes, unable to see at first because the light had been so blinding, and he blinked them several times before he realized that someone was in the room.  He rubbed at his eyes, and as his vision finally began to return, he shrank back in horror.

Standing in front of him was the gunman in the strange, shiny, grey-black suit.