Indie Chicks:
Compiled by
Cheryl Shireman
Copyright 2011 by Cheryl Shireman
Smashwords Edition
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
The 25 authors in this collection retain and hold their individual and respective rights to their pieces.
Published by Stillwaters Publishing, LLC
Formatted by Heather Adkins
Table of Contents
Paranormal Romance
Shéa MacLeod—Knight In Shining Armor
Latchkey Kid—Heather Marie Adkins
Danielle Blanchard—Write or Die
Lizzy Ford—The Phoenix and the Darkness
Contemporary Fiction
Donna Fasano—Stepping Into the Light
Katherine Owen—One Fictionista’s Literary Bliss
Cheryl Shireman—I Burned My Bra for This?
—Excerpt: Life Is But a Dream: On the Lake
Fantasy
Prue Batten—Mrs. So Got It Wrong Agent
—Excerpt: A Thousand Glass Flowers
Historical Fiction
Sarah Woodbury—Turning Medieval
Mystery
Anne R. Allen—A Kinky Adventure in Anglophilia
Dani Amore—Writing From a Flour Sack
Cheryl Bradshaw—Just Me and James Dean…
Christine DeMaio-Rice—How A Big Yellow Truck Changed My Life
—Excerpt: Dead Is the New Black
Sibel Hodge—From 200 Rejections to Amazon Top 200!
Barbara Silkstone—Have You Ever Lost a Hat?
—Excerpt: The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland Age 42 and Three-Quarters
Romance
Suspense
Melissa Foster—Life’s Little Gifts
Christine Kersey—Never Give Up On Your Dreams
Carol Davis Luce—Self-taught Late Bloomer
Young Adult
Julia Crane—Moving to the Middle East
Talia Jager—Paper, Pen, and Chocolate
Michelle Muto—The Magic Within and The Little Book That Could
—Excerpt: The Book of Lost Souls
Melissa Smith—Write Out of Grief
Afterword
Foreword
Karen McQuestion
My journey was not much different than a lot of the women writers included in this anthology. Pursuing one’s creative passion is always a challenge, but more so when life interferes. As it always does.
When my husband and I started a family it was decided (mostly by me, now that I think back) that I would stay home with the kids and he would be the wage earner. This was not the easy way out for either of us. Greg had the stress of being the sole provider and he also had to come home to a wife eager for adult conversation, just when he wanted to quietly decompress. And I had my own troubles being home with one, then two, then three little kids, all needy, messy little jumping beans, more adorable in photos than I remember them being at the time.
I loved being home with my children, and wouldn’t have had it any other way, but it left little free time for either of us.
Throughout the baby and toddler years, I thought about writing. I thought about it a lot, actually, but I never did it. Not once. It seemed that if I had a child age three or younger in the house I couldn’t write.
Around this time I remember reading that John Grisham used to work his crazy attorney schedule and got up at dawn to write for two hours before work. Later, I read about Stephen King’s writing routine in his book, On Writing. He’s extremely disciplined and writes 2,000 words a day, no matter what. Both John and Steve made me feel like a complete loser. I had more free time than either of them, and yet, I couldn’t manage to do one tenth of what they were doing.
But then I realized that neither of them was doing what I was doing either.
Time, energy, and money. All three are finite resources. Kids are notorious time suckers, and they do a number on their parents’ money and energy too. If you’ve got kids, you don’t need a hobby—you’re covered.
When my youngest was in preschool, I finally made the time to write. I took a non-credit class at the local tech college one night a week, and I also joined a critique group that met two evenings a month at the local community center. It kept me on track with my writing, because I knew I had to bring pages to the next meeting. I still felt a little guilty spending money and taking time away from my family, but I felt, selfishly maybe, that I needed to do this, so I did it anyway.
Later, when I began freelance writing, especially during the time I got regular assignments from the community newspaper, I was able to justify my writing time because I was getting paid. I couldn’t say the same for my novel writing, but I snuck it in anyway—it was my heart’s desire. I’d always thought of myself as a writer, even during those long years when I wasn’t writing a word. Now that I had a chance, I was going to do it every second I could.
I can only speak for myself, a mom of three who was home full time and whose husband worked long hours. Writing under those circumstances was difficult if not impossible. Personally, I need balance in my life to write. And silence. To work on a novel I need to immerse myself in that fictional world and I’m not able to do that if I’m sleep deprived or my kids are in crisis. And when your kids are little that describes most of the time. Seems like someone is always teething, or needs to be quizzed on their multiplication tables, or is sad because they weren’t invited to a birthday party, or whatever. Shoes get misplaced and field trip permission slips vaporize and a person can spend hours trying to get caught up. Added to that, if you’re a writer of fiction, you probably have an acute sense of empathy. Taking on the joys and sorrows of your kids can be both emotionally draining and energizing. And that wreaks havoc on the balance I was talking about earlier.
When I first started writing on this topic, I thought it was going to be about the importance of carving out writing time for yourself. I was going to say that I should have been more selfish in those early years. I should have just told my husband that I just needed every Saturday morning for writing, but you know what? The more I think about it, I’m not sure that’s right. Even if I could go back in time and change my sense of entitlement, my circumstances would have been the same. It wasn’t uncommon for Greg to have to work into the evening or on the weekends. Some years we only had one car. And frankly, by the time the kids went to bed, I was spent. That’s just the way it was.
Even now that my kids are ages 16, 19, and 23, I still have to set time aside for them on occasion. This past spring, my daughter Maria had her wisdom teeth removed. She’s legally an adult and her boyfriend Sam took off work to go with her. In theory, I could have handed her the insurance card, wished her luck, then headed out to the library with my laptop. I never would have done that though. It’s a mom thing. It doesn’t matter how old your babies are, when they’re going through something, especially a medical something, you want to be there.
(It went fine, by the way, and it was nice to have both Sam and me there—afterward he kept Maria propped up by the exit, while I went to get the car. On they way home, through her gauze-filled mouth, she told us, rather loopily, that she hadn’t been to the zoo in a really long time. She was quite sad about it. “The last time I went to the zoo, the bats weren’t there. We couldn’t see the bats at all…” Later, she had no recollection of this conversation, but she did confirm the part about the bats.)
This struggle to find time to write when you’re raising kids is an age-old problem. And if you work outside of the home, it’s far worse. Writer friends who have other, non-writing jobs have the stress of their career on top of everything else.
And don’t even get me started on health problems, either your own, or those of close family members or dear friends.
Sometimes it seems the world is conspiring against you.
But if you wait, it gets better.
Unless it doesn’t because something else happens.
I know, I’m not much help. What I can tell you is that all of these challenges add another emotional layer to your real life, one you can tap into and use in your writing.
I’ve learned that it’s okay to say no to other non-family, non-writing related requests. This may seem obvious, but as a people-pleaser it took me a long time to get to that place. It’s true that if you don’t plan your time, other people will be happy to do it for you. So, take it from me, life gets easier when you just say no! And if that’s too difficult, you can always use my mom’s classic line for taking a pass, “Sorry, that won’t work out for me.”
And most importantly, if you want to write, set aside time to write. But if life truly interferes, don’t beat yourself up for it. Stephen King may write 2000 words a day, no matter what, but his wife, Tabitha, is also a writer and I’m willing to bet she has a different story.
Karen McQuestion
October 2011
Karen McQuestion is the best-selling author of Favorite, Life on Hold, A Scattered Life, Easily Amused, and Celia and the Fairies. Her latest novel is entitled Secrets of the Magic Ring.
Shéa MacLeod
Knight in Shining Armor
It’s strange how long a bruise can last.
Long after the physical evidence is gone, the muscles remember. A raised hand or an angry voice, and the body flinches away. The mind tries to forget, bury the pain deep … but the scars are forever.
It didn’t start that way, of course. He said all the right things. Did all the right things. When I was sick he took care of me. When my car broke down he fixed it. I thought I’d finally found my knight in shining armor.
What I’d found was a nightmare. The minute I was hooked, everything changed. It started with the name calling, the blame, the bouts of rage. As time passed, he turned increasingly violent. It was always my fault. I was useless. I’d never be anything. Do anything. Accomplish anything.
If I tried to fight him, he threatened to destroy everyone I loved. To ruin their lives. Stupidly, I believed him.
He was always sorry after.
You might ask why I didn’t leave. It’s a fair question. But until you’ve been there, until you’ve lived through that, you have no idea how messed up a woman’s head gets when she has to live through that day after day. There is no such thing as confidence, self-esteem. You learn to live with the overwhelming conviction that this is all there is. You have nowhere else to go.
That’s the very worst part of abuse. Beyond the bruises and the emotional scars. The absolute knowledge that this is the way you will live. And most likely the way you will die. You don’t deserve anything else.
In a way, I was lucky. I had something else. A secret weapon, if you will. I just had no idea back then how powerful that weapon was.
I could write.
All through those nightmare years I wrote. Not about what I was living through, but about something else. An imaginary world where I would escape, where I was strong. A place where I kicked bad guy ass. A place where I was my own hero.
Prophetic? Perhaps.
The writing kept a spark of something alive in me. My soul? Hope? Who knows. But one day, that tiny spark of something flared up. I couldn’t take another minute.
I had nothing. No money. Nowhere to go. But I walked out that door and never looked back.
Nobody rode in on a white horse to save me. I saved myself.
It was a very long uphill struggle to get healthy again, but through it all I kept writing. Writing had always been my passion, now it was my salvation, too.
Through writing I regained my sense of self. I grew strong. Stronger than I ever had been before. Words poured from me as my mind and body healed itself. Slowly but surely I recovered.
It’s nine years later and that life seems like a distant nightmare. The woman I was then could never have dreamed of the life I am living today.
The writing has never stopped. It just moved with me, changing zip codes. I now write in a sunny room in a Georgian townhouse in London, England. I have self published two novels and am about to publish the third. My stories, while sometimes holding a dark edge, are still full of hope and my readers love them. I am now selling enough that I can stay at home and write full time. I made my dreams a reality.
Guess what?
You can, too.
The day I walked out of that abusive relationship was the day I became my own hero. That one action changed everything.
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please visit the Hot Peach Pages for a list of agencies all over the world who help women living in domestic violence.
No woman deserves to be abused and mistreated. It’s time to say NO to violence.
It’s time to be your own hero.
About the Chick
Shéa MacLeod writes urban fantasy post-apocalyptic sci-fi paranormal romances with a twist of steampunk. Mostly because she can’t make up her mind which genre she likes best.
After living in Portland, Oregon most of her life, she now makes her home in an Edwardian town house in London just a stone’s throw from the local cemetery. Which probably explains a lot. Fortunately, the neighbors are quiet.
In addition to Dragon Warrior, Shéa is also the author Kissed by Darkness and Kissed by Fire, the first two books in the Sunwalker Saga.
Find Shéa Online!
Dragon Warrior
An Excerpt
One
“It’s coming around for another pass!”
Lieutenant Micah Caine’s voice bellowed through the bunker. Even with his dark hair covered in dust, fatigues bloodied and torn, eyes bloodshot and circled with exhaustion, his charisma was undiminished. It gave them hope, and they needed all the hope they could get. This was the fourth pass and out of sixteen people, there were only three of them left.
The Lieutenant stood in front of the narrow window of the bunker, peering through his night vision binoculars. “All right, ready now.” He raised his arm for a moment then dropped it. “Give ‘em hell Harriet!”
Audrey Harrison had been a civilian back when things were normal. Her only experience with guns had been target shooting with her dad’s hunting rifles. Now she sat behind an enormous rail gun that shot bullets the size of thermos bottles, her pale blonde hair scraped back in a tail, her fingernails chewed to stubs from the stress.
Nothing was normal anymore. Not since the day all hell had broken loose.
Audrey focused through the night scope, trying to ignore the zing of happy hormones thrumming through her system every time Micah got within five feet of her. It just wasn’t going to happen. Not unless they won this war. Maybe not even then. She was pretty sure the attraction was completely one-sided.
The monster came into view. It was a big one. Its wingspan, barely visible against the night sky, must have been thirty-five feet, at least. Fire shot from its mouth, strafing the walls of the bunker. Concrete cracked under the intense heat.
Audrey swiped damp palms against her jeans before wrapping her hands carefully around the grips of the rail gun and squinting through the sights. Her blood ran cold as the creature hovered into view: Dragon. It was a horror beyond belief, a living nightmare. Ever so gently she squeezed the trigger.
Her shot ripped through the air, slamming into the winged creature. The thing screamed as it dipped slightly in the sky, but it was a scream of rage, not pain. The shell hadn’t done a damn thing. She swore slightly and fired again.
Shell after shell tore through the night and shell after shell pulverized to dust against the monster’s impenetrable hide. The lieutenant waved at her to stop.
“Foster! Grenade.”
Foster scrambled toward the lieutenant, grenade launcher cradled against his chest. Audrey wasn’t sure what Foster’s first name was. Like the lieutenant, he was army. Unlike the Lieutenant, Foster had never seen action until the day the monsters got loose. He’d never even graduated from boot camp and now he was fighting for his life against creatures that shouldn’t exist outside a horror film. Audrey would have felt sorry for him, but she had no time to feel sorry for anyone, not even herself.
Foster stumbled over fallen rubble, face pale under streaks of dust and soot. When he nearly dropped the launcher, Micah grabbed it out of his hands and hefted it onto his own shoulder. For just a minute he paused, silhouetted against the night. Then he fired.
The world exploded.
A chunk of concrete slammed into Audrey’s shoulder, knocking her out of her seat. She hit the floor so hard it knocked the breath out of her. When she could breathe again, she almost wished she couldn’t. Her entire body throbbed with pain. She touched her right temple and her hand came away covered in blood.
She turned her head carefully. Foster was gone, buried under a pile of rubble, a single pale hand poking from the debris, clutching at nothing. The ceiling above where he’d stood was now a gaping hole.
“Audrey?”
She barely recognized the hoarse whisper. “I’m here Micah. I can’t … I can’t move.”
“Sorry, Audrey.” His voice was slurred. “I thought … safe. Got the bastard. Got him … dead …” Micah’s voice trailed to a whisper.
“Micah?”
She could hear his breathing, a harsh rattle in the stillness. “Micah? Micah, can you hear me?” She managed to pull herself up, arm clamped tightly to her side, pain screaming through every nerve. There was no way she could stand so she pulled herself along the floor ignoring the thick blood trail she left behind her.
Panting, dizzy with blood loss, she peered around the wreckage.
“No,” it came out a breathy moan. “Oh, no.”
They’d won. The dragon was, indeed, dead. Its smoking hulk lying on the ground outside the bunker blocked out most of the skyline, but it was missing one critical body part: its head. Not even those creatures could come back from that. But at what cost?
Audrey blinked. The room was getting darker. Breath wheezed through her lungs, each inhalation becoming more labored. Her eyes latched on to the unmoving form of Lieutenant Micah Caine lying in the shadow of the dead beast.
The monster was dead, but so was the lieutenant. So were they all. She didn’t have enough strength left to cry.
The last thing Audrey Harrison ever saw was the beautiful face of the man she had secretly loved, his blue eyes staring blindly at a sky just beginning to light with dawn.
***
“This is it.” Rain Mauri squatted at the top of the escarpment, faded map held in front of her. The pastel colors denoting long-vanished borders meant nothing to her, but there were other landmarks to follow. Most of them handwritten decades after the map had left the printer.
Sutter scanned the valley below. “Ain’t nothing much here but dust.”
Rain stood, letting her eyes, hidden behind a beat-up pair of dark glasses, roam over the barren landscape. He was right. The entire valley was one big dust bowl. Not a tree in sight, not even a bush. “There.” She pointed to a heap of gray stones in the distance. “That’s it.”
“Still don’t see it.” Sutter lifted his grimy baseball cap, and scratched his scalp. He’d shaved his head before they left the compound and it was starting to grow back, a black shadow against coffee skin.
“Seriously? You don’t see that giant pile of rocks?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course I see the giant pile of rocks, Rain. Just don’t see what’s so special about that particular pile of rocks. Lots of rock piles closer to Sanctuary if you’re desperate for rocks.”
Rain shrugged and started down the hillside. The path was treacherous with loose stones and crumbling earth and her boots were just this side of worn out, but she didn’t hesitate. Sutter sighed and followed.
When they reached the bottom, Rain realized the valley wasn’t quite as barren as it looked from above. Here and there fragile shoots of grass bravely raised their heads above the ravaged soil. Nature was making a comeback. Or at least trying.
She headed toward the rock pile which began to look less like rocks and more like rubble the closer they got.
“That’s a concrete building.” Sutter’s voice held a hint of surprise. “Or what’s left of it anyway.”
Rain nodded and hitched her rifle a little higher over her shoulder. They were safe enough during daytime, but it never hurt to be prepared. “Old U.S. Army bunker. It was abandoned before the War.”
He shot her a look. “There are scorch marks on some of that rubble. Those beasts don’t attack abandoned buildings.”
Rain smiled. “Ever heard of Caine’s Last Stand?”
“No way! This is it?”
“Yep. This is it.” Her smile widened, flashing dimples.
Caine’s Last Stand was legendary. A tale told around countless campfires, whispered on dark nights. It had grown and changed until it resembled a tale from one of those ancient comic books Sutter thought no one knew about. Most people thought it was just a story made up by the Army during the War to keep up the spirits of the soldiers fighting a losing battle.
Rain knew different. Maybe the details had changed over time, but the story was real. Lieutenant Micah Caine had been real. And so had his sacrifice. She’d discovered the files that proved it and now she’d finally found the place where it had happened.
“Come on.” She led the way across the scattered rubble to what remained of a set of concrete stairs, worn and broken by time and battle. Sutter followed her down into the ruined military bunker.
“Wow, that’s a hell of a gun.” Sutter’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the enormous rail gun, barrel pointed skyward. After decades of exposure to the elements it was impressive, but useless. Not to mention the thing wouldn’t work without electricity. Rain was far more interested in the remains huddled at the foot of the giant gun.
Time and vermin had scattered the bones and rotted the clothing, but she knew who it was. “Audrey Harrison. She was a librarian before the war. By all accounts a pacifist.” Rain had done her homework. Caine’s Last Stand had been an obsession since childhood.
Sutter’s brown eyes widened as he scratched at the three-day growth of beard on his chin. No time to shave and no safe place to do it out here. “What the hell was a pacifist doing handling a weapon like this?”
“It was war, Sutter. They were fighting dragons. If you were human you fought. Or you died. Just like now.”
Nothing much had changed since then, in Rain’s opinion. Except that the humans had gone underground and kept to the daylight while the monsters had multiplied despite their best efforts. Pacifism was no longer an option.
Fury rode her as she stared down at Audrey Harrison’s remains. Even in this shelled-out ruin of a world, the dead were respected. Yet these dead, these heroes, had been left to rot. The excuse, of course, had been that it was wartime. Typical bureaucratic nonsense, as Padre Pedro would say.
She stepped to what had once been a window but was now a gaping hole along one side of the bunker. Her boots left deep impressions in decades of dust and grime. Crumbled pieces of concrete and stone rattled underfoot, but her attention was on the view outside.
The pile of bones hadn’t been scattered, but loomed against the sky, bleached white by the sun. Most of the fragile wing bones were missing and the head was shattered to nothing, but the rest was intact, the ribcage reaching higher than the bunker roof. Or what was left of it.
Sutter let out a low whistle. “Big mother, huh? Wonder what happened to the head.”
Rain nodded. The stories hadn’t exaggerated the size of the monster. Lieutenant Caine had fought one of the biggest dragons on record. He’d fought and he’d won, he and Audrey Harrison and a young solider known only as Foster. But the cost had been high. They’d died along with the thirteen others who’d fled to the abandoned bunker after the nearby military base had fallen, razed by dragon fire.
Rain turned from the window. “Let’s do what we came to do and get out of here.” The place gave her chills with its fire-scarred walls and the hulking ruins of the mighty beast outside.
Sutter gave the rusted hulk of the big gun a frown. “I can’t imagine we’ll find much left, Rain. After all these years …”
“The Lieutenant was rumored to have brought an arsenal with him from the Base. I doubt he left them lying about to rust.” Every Marine she’d met had been meticulous about his guns and armor. It was unlikely the military back then had been any different.
“Unless he used them,” Sutter pointed out.
Which was always a possibility, of course, especially given the state of the dragon’s skull, or lack of skull. Dragon skulls didn’t have a habit of spontaneously combusting. It was highly likely Micah had used some sort of ordinance to cause the damage, which meant there might not be any left. Rain was holding out hope, however. These days there wasn’t much left to the human race but hope.
She and Sutter began shifting through the rubble, no easy task since neither one of them was exactly muscle-bound. Rain herself was of medium height, just over five foot five, but slightly built while Sutter was short and wiry, like most civilian men. Any man that showed promise of being big and muscular was taken by the Marines to fill out their ranks which were constantly decimated by skirmishes with the dragons.
By the time they uncovered the second skeleton, they were both sweaty and covered in dust, a few new rips added to their well-patched clothes. The uniform was nearly rotted away, but the dog tags still circled the cervical spine. Rain carefully lifted one. “Foster.”
Sutter frowned. “Can’t be. He’s not big enough.”
True, the skeletal remains weren’t those of a large man, but of someone well under six feet. And while Rain was no judge, the bones appeared slight. “I guess a man’s size didn’t matter to the Army. After all, things were different back then. They had machines and guns. No dragons, either.” At least, not until the end.
Sutter gave her a wry look. “Brains were more important than muscles?”
She grinned back, “Maybe. Stranger things have happened.”
It was hard to imagine a world where intelligence ruled over brute strength. It was hard to believe. After all, the old military with their guns and bombs had done nearly as much damage to the planet as the enemy they fought. Not exactly a sign of intellect.
“Over here,” Sutter beckoned. In the corner behind more rubble were two green metal boxes. “I think this is it.”
After a bit more digging they had the boxes out. Each of them was big enough to hold a man Sutter’s size and each of them was locked. “Dammit,” Rain snarled.
Sutter grinned. “Not to worry, Rain. I’ve got skills.”
She laughed as he fished a small hand-stitched leather wallet out of the inner pocket of his worn overcoat and began pulling out tools. Within minutes he had the boxes open and they were both staring in awe at the contents.
Rows of gleaming black automatic rifles shone in the sunlight streaming through the broken bunker wall. At either end of the trunk were egg-shaped grenades carefully tucked into foam cradles, and under it all were boxes ammunition sheathed in shining brass.
“Jackpot!” Sutter crowed, his brown eyes sparkling with glee. Such a boy, Sutter.
Rain’s mind had already turned to other things. They had what they’d come for and they’d found the bodies of two of Caine’s people. They’d seen the remains of the dragon he’d killed. The stories were true. And while stories were just stories, a story like this, proven fact, could give hope and strength to people who were quickly losing both.
If she could find the body of Lieutenant Micah Caine, it would give them more than hope. It would give them a talisman: A relic behind which to rally. Rain had read enough to know that relics held powers beyond that of any weapon. The Church, though now a distant memory, had held power for thousands of years due in part to such relics.
Besides which, she wanted to see him.
Oh, she’d seen his likeness in old articles from newspapers saved at the beginning of the war, but she wanted to see the real Micah Caine. Even if all that was left were bones.
Rain left Sutter to examine their find while she began shifting through more of the rubble. In her experience, a true leader didn’t hide in the back out of harm’s way. He, or she, stood at the front, right in the line of fire, urging on the troops. If the stories were right, Micah Caine had been such a leader.
She headed toward the front of the bunker and the broken wall framing the jagged hulk of dragon bones. After a few minutes of searching, she saw a glint of silver buried under some crumbled concrete and debris. Dog tags.
She scooped up the tags. The chain was broken as though it had been caught on something and snapped. She turned the tags over. The metal was partially corroded by time and the elements, but the stamping was still clearly legible: Caine, Micah. U.S. Army.
Rain wrapped her hand around the tags. The tags of a dead hero. Exaltation warred with disappointment. She’d found the legendary bunker. She’d found his tags and his weapons cache. She’d found the remains of his fellow warriors and of the great beast they’d killed. But where were the remains of Lieutenant Micah Caine?
Two
“What’s that?”
Rain glanced at Sutter then followed his pointing finger. She frowned as she swiped sweat off her brow. It was hot and getting hotter. “Don’t see anything.”
“At the base of the cliff over there.” His voice was insistent.
Rain pulled out the binoculars and trained them on the cliff base. She’d radioed in their find before she and Sutter left the site of Caine’s Last Stand. By now the scavenge team would be loading up the ordinance on hand carts and hauling it to the compound. That left her and Sutter to make their way home by a different route in the hopes of finding something else worth scavenging.
She scanned the bottom of the cliff looking for whatever it was that was getting Sutter all worked up. She frowned when she saw a lump the size of a human huddled in the shade. Who would be out this far from any known compound?
“Could be a Wanderer.” She handed the binocs to Sutter. Wanderers were odd ones. They eschewed the company of others, preferring to roam the wastelands alone instead of settling on a compound.
“Whoever it is, he isn’t moving. We should go see if he’s okay.”
Rain frowned at that. “Could be a trap.”
“Or it could be someone needs our help.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll check it. You hang back. If he so much as twitches wrong, shoot him. You got that?”
“When have I ever let you down?”
She smiled at that. Sutter was Rain’s right arm. Without him she’d have been dead a thousand times over.
Leaving Sutter to watch her back, she slowly picked her way over the rocky terrain. The sun beat down, making the back of her neck itch with heat.
The lump at the base of the cliff was definitely a person. A man, and a badly injured one at that. As she drew closer she saw his body was twisted at an odd angle, a broken bone in his arm protruding through skin. She fought back the urge to vomit. Food was precious and throwing it up was a waste. Padre Pedro had drilled that into her.
She scanned the man’s body and then glanced up at the top of the cliff. It was pretty obvious he’d either fallen or jumped from the top. Poor bastard. He was buzzard food now.
And then she heard it. So soft she thought for a moment she was imagining things.
“Help me.”
“Shit. He’s still alive. Sutter!”
Sutter came running, worry etched across his dark face. “What is it?”
“He’s alive, Sut. He’s frigging alive.”
Sutter frowned and leaned over the fallen man, checking over injuries with the ease of years of practice. He glanced up at her, face grim. “Not for long.”
Sutter had been trained as a field medic. Or at least as much of one as anyone could be these days. If he said the man would die, it was fact.
She tugged at her dark-blond pony tail. Crap. She hated shit like this. There was nothing they could do for the man short of putting him out of his misery. From the looks of things, it’d be a mercy.
Rain knelt beside Sutter. “What do you think?” She could tell by the look in his eyes he knew exactly what she was asking.
“Nothing else to do. We can’t leave him. Not like this.”
He was right. Leaving the man to die a slow painful death was cruel in the extreme. Better to end it quick. Her hand drifted toward her knife.
Sutter stopped her. “Let me.” Darkness was in his eyes.
“Damn.”
He shrugged. “It’s what I was trained for.” These days field medics did more than just treat injuries.
Sutter slid his own knife out of its sheath. Gently holding the man’s head still, he laid the blade against bare throat and quietly mumbled a few words under his breath.
Rain crossed herself like she’d seen Padre Pedro do. It meant nothing to her. It was another thing they’d had drilled into them. They honored the dead. Ensured safe passage into the afterlife. Rain hoped that whatever was there waiting in the afterlife, it was better than the here and now.
Sutter’s arm tensed for the killing blow.
“Please …” It was a mere whisper of breath.
“Wait, Sutter.” Rain crawled in close to the man. “I’m sorry, mister. There’s nothing we can do.”
His hand groped weakly for hers. She grabbed it and held on as he struggled to get the next words out. “Don’t let them … My body … don’t …”
“I’m sorry, mister. Don’t let who do what?” She frowned, trying to make sense of his words.
“Don’t … let … Marines take my body. You don’t …“ The man coughed and gasped for breath. “You don’t know … what they do to bodies.” His voice trailed off. “Please,” he whispered, “please don’t …”
Rain glanced at Sutter. His face was grim. “I’ve heard rumors about the Marines taking dead bodies.”
“Why?”
“No idea. Some say they experiment on the bodies. Desecrate them. Who knows?”
Her face turned grim as she leaned back to the dying man. “Don’t worry, mister. We won’t let the Marines take you. I promise.”
The man nodded ever so slightly. “Thank …“ His voice trailed off into a death rattle. Rain felt relief Sutter hadn’t had to end things.
“How we gonna make sure the Marines don’t get his body?”
“Burn it,” Rain said.
“The drags …”
“It’s daylight. By the time the dragons wake we’ll be long gone.”
“Marines then.”
“Screw the fucking Marines,” she snapped. “We’re the best Trackers in the compound. By the time they see the smoke, we’ll be gone and this poor man’s body will be burned to a crisp.” And hopefully useless to anyone wanting to experiment with it.
Sutter nodded.
They were quiet as they built a funeral pyre from the surrounding dry scrub and a small amount of precious alcohol from their packs. But as they watched the body burn Sutter finally spoke. “I don’t care if it’s just rumor. I don’t want to get turned into a fucking zombie. Promise me you’ll never let the Marines take my body either.”
“I promise.”
Rain hoped it was a promise she’d never have to keep.
***
“Gone? What do you mean gone? Dead bodies don’t get up and walk around in the general scheme of things.” Elan’s voice practically dripped with sarcasm. “Maybe the dragons ate him.”
“Don’t be an idiot, El,” Rain snapped back. “You know as well as I do dragons won’t go near their own dead, and that mother was sitting feet from where Caine died. Obviously somebody took his remains. It’s just a question of who and why. You’ve heard the rumors about the Marines taking dead bodies?”
They were sitting in one of the many tiny rooms which made up the warren that was the underground civilian compound of Sanctuary. This particular room was Elan’s own personal lair of sorts. He kept it Spartan, furnished with only a table and chairs, a cupboard where he kept his brew, and a single hurricane lantern. Rain had no idea how El saw anything with only the one candle for light. Frankly, it was sort of depressing.
El rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. What would the Marines want with dead bodies? Somebody probably buried him.” He took a gulp from the cracked mug in his hand. Elan was fond of his home brew. He had his own still hidden deep within the compound. No one knew where and he wasn’t sharing.
“And left his dog tags behind? Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, why wouldn’t they bury the other bodies?”
El laughed at that. “Oh, well. We got what we wanted, right? Guns, ammunition. Something to really fight with.”
Rain felt like growling. She crossed her arms under her breasts and leaned back in her chair. She seriously needed a new bra, but those were hard to come by these days. “You know as well as I do that those guns are useless. Have you seen the armor plating on those damn drags? And the grenades? Maybe if we lob one down a dragon’s throat, but otherwise they’ll do us more damage than they will the drags.”
Her mind stopped there. A grenade down the throat? That would explain the damage to the dragon back at the bunker. But why hadn’t the humans survived? It wasn’t dragon fire that killed Audrey or Foster.
“It’s like you said before, Rain, hope. You and I know the weapons are hardly better than sticks and stones against those monsters, but for everyone else, this is hope.” El took another sip from his mug. “I know you think that finding the body of Micah Caine would accomplish that, and maybe you’re right. Weirder things have happened, but we ain’t got his body. We’ve got guns, and people like guns. Makes them feel safe, even if it’s false safety. And dammit, people need to feel safe.” His face wore a haunted look as he stared at the bottom of his mug.
Rain sighed. He had a point. Guns did make people feel safe, but that would only last until the first time they went up against a dragon and they realized the weapons wouldn’t save them. Then where would their hope be?
“How’s Sutter?” Elan’s voice was soft, his eyes avoiding her face.
“He’s good. Fearless out there. I couldn’t ask for a better partner.”
“Good. That’s good.” He continued to stare at the scarred wooden table that sat between them, fingers toying with the empty mug.
“Come on, El.” Her voice was soft. “You two have got to get over this feud, make things right between you. Life is way too short. You’re brothers, for god’s sake.”
Elan closed his eyes, eyes that were the exact same shade of black coffee as his brother’s, and shook his head slightly. “You know it’s not that easy. He still blames me.”
“It wasn’t your fault, El. Everyone knows that.”
“And yet, she’s still dead.” His voice was bleak.
“Lots of people are dead, El. Blaming each other is a waste of time.” She was tired of this argument. She was tired of stupid people and their stupid anger and hate. Didn’t they have enough going on? The world was overrun with fire-breathing dragons, for crying out loud. Family feuds they did not need.
“He loved her.” Elan got up to pour himself another drink from his stash in the cupboard. “He loved her and I couldn’t save her.”
“You loved her, too,” Rain pointed out. She didn’t mention the fact that the woman in question had played both the brothers. He didn’t need the reminder.
El’s grin was anything but happy. “Yeah, and there lies the problem. She was his wife.” He finished pouring his drink and ambled back to the table. He looked so much like his brother that if it weren’t for the full head of dreadlocks and the ever present mug in his hand, Rain doubted even she’d be able to tell the difference.
They were handsome devils, she’d give them that. They’d made the hearts of more than one woman flutter. They were also the most miserable bastards on the planet. El with his functional alcoholism, that’s what they’d called it back in the old days, and Sutter with his burning rage hidden under a layer of humor.
Where was Dr. Phil when you needed him?
She shook her head at her own whimsical thought. Dr. Phil and his ilk had more than likely been dragon food a long time ago. All that remained were a few tattered paperbacks by the self-help guru which Padre Pedro horded like gold and quoted more often than he quoted the Bible.
“You think it’s important? That his body is missing?” Elan changed back to their original topic.
“I think it’s suspicious. Like I said, his is the only one missing.” Rain leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. She noticed a jagged tear in her sleeve. She wondered if the Padre could repair it. He was good with leather and it was her favorite jacket.
“Scavengers could have dragged the bones off somewhere. Scattered them,” El suggested.
Rain shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I doubt they’d have messed with one body and left the others.”
Elan frowned. “But why would anyone want a bunch of bones?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know. Might not have been bones. Depends when he was taken.”
“Why would anyone want a dead body, then?” Elan got up to fill his mug again. Rain decided that was her cue to get out before he passed out.
“No idea,” she told him as she rose to leave. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Yeah,” he saluted her, “you do that.”
She strode to the door, then turned and gave him a look. “I will.” She closed the door firmly behind her.
***
Rain shrugged out of her jacket and flung it across the bed before sinking down onto the old club chair. On reflection, her own room was nearly as Spartan as El’s.
Oh, she’d tried to make the place comfortable, warm it up a bit, but it still had the hallmarks of a typical room in the compound: Cement walls, steel door, no windows, zero natural light. Even covering one wall with scenic pictures from an old calendar and hiding the ugly gray floor with what Padre Pedro called a “Persian rug” still couldn’t hide the reality that Sanctuary wasn’t really a home, but a fortress.
Rain liked to pick up things on her missions to decorate her quarters, things that spoke of a world she couldn’t remember. She’d only been three years old when the dragons came.
She’d found the calendar still hanging on the wall of an abandoned office building, flipped to the final page: December 2012. The picture had been a gorgeous scene of a giant tree decorated in colored lights surrounded by a sheet of ice where people dressed in bright clothes and happy smiles skated back and forth. Rain envied the simple joy of that picture.
She’d never been happy like that. Never skated before. Hell, she’d never even seen ice before.
Her pride and joy was a small bookshelf leaning haphazardly against the wall next to her chair. The bookshelf was crammed with every book and magazine she’d been able to salvage during her missions. Few had survived the fires that had raged across the world, so those she’d found were more precious than gold. At least to her. And Padre Pedro.
Rain smiled to herself a little as she pulled a small hardback off the shelves. There was a little black scorching along the spine, but the dark green cover was otherwise in pristine condition. She could still read the gold letters spelling out the title Complete Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. The most amazing thing of all was the date listed on the inside page: 1884. Imagine that. A book published over one hundred and fifty years ago.
It wasn’t the book she wanted, it was what lay hidden between its brittle pages. She carefully leafed through until she came to a page marked with a photograph. She tilted the photo to the light, a wistful smile hovering at the corners of her mouth.
She’d found the photo in another bunker hidden in a box under another pile of rubble. This one had held files. Files of long-dead heroes who’d fought in countless other wars. Wars that seemed so trivial and useless, such a waste of human life now that the dragons had come.
Stumbling across his file had been a minor miracle. A sign, Padre Pedro would say, though a sign of what exactly, she had no idea. All she really cared about was the photograph.
It was an official one, with him in his dress uniform against the background of the flag of the old United States of America. His eyes stared straight at the camera, not even a trace of a smile. Still, lack of smile couldn’t hide the delicious fullness of his mouth, the almost too-sharp cheekbones, the blue eyes rimmed in ink-black lashes, or the strong jaw line that barely saved him from being too pretty. Micah Caine had been one hell of a stunning man. Breathtaking, actually.
Rain heaved a sigh. She knew it was incredibly stupid mooning over a dead man. Heck, even if he would have survived the Wars, he’d have been over sixty years old. An old man. These days you were lucky if you made it to forty without turning into drag food.
She tucked the photo carefully between the pages of the book and slid it back on the shelf. Stupid. Stupid. She had wasted so many years of her life mooning over a man who’d been dead nearly as long as she’d been alive, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
She pulled the dog tags out of her jeans pocket and laid them gently on top the bookshelf. They glinted in the soft light from the lantern. Sutter would tease her mercilessly if he ever found out she was being such a sentimental idiot.
She kicked off her boots and propped her feet up on the well worn footrest. She’d found it in a huge building belonging to someone called Ethan All. She didn’t know who Ethan All was, but she figured he wouldn’t mind since the building had obviously been abandoned for years. Not to mention, the man had owned an awful lot of furniture.
Her head told her to forget Micah Caine. The man had been dead over two and a half decades, after all. Her heart was another matter. Or maybe it was the thing Padre Pedro called intuition. Whatever it was called, it was screaming at her that something wasn’t right about the death of Micah Caine. There was more to be discovered.
But how? She couldn’t very well go bang on the door of the local Marine base and demand to know the truth of what happened all those years ago. They probably wouldn’t know anyway. Most of them were younger than she was, and if Rain couldn’t remember anything about Before, how were they supposed to remember? They’d probably lock her up for crazy. Or worse.
Rain frowned. There had to be a way. She’d found his files. By accident, but still. Of course, there was nothing in those files dated after 2012, but the files had survived the War, so why couldn’t there be someone left who remembered Caine?
She sighed and tilted her head back against the chair. Why did she care anyway? Surely there were more important things to worry about than a dead man. Or rather, the missing bones of a dead man.
She almost jumped out of her skin as the shriek of the alarm shattered the quiet of the compound. “Oh, no,” she whispered to herself as she yanked on her boots. “Please, no.”
Find Dragon Warrior at Smashwords
# # #
Heather Marie Adkins
Latchkey Kid
It isn’t easy being the daughter of a police officer, but it’s even more difficult to be the daughter of a female police officer. I would come to understand this early, and often, in my life.
My mom’s career has always been the whirling force of my existence.
She was sworn into the Louisville Police Department on September 10, 1990. I was five years old. For the majority of my developmental years, I bounced through a succession of caretakers—my grandmother, my father and stepmother, and a kind woman I called ‘Mama Lo’—while my mom was forging her way through her early years as a rookie officer.
I remember late nights—my mom in her uniform, her gun belt digging into my side as she bundled me into a blanket to carry me to the car. I remember mornings getting on the school bus, knowing Mom would be coming home from work just in time for me to leave. But when I remember these things, they are snippets: Only bits and pieces of the woman who is my mother. Her job was demanding and sometimes, you just have to sacrifice to make your dreams come true.
When I was ten, Mom aced the Detective test and was granted her first promotion. Suddenly, we were buying a new house in a nice neighborhood. I was in middle school, which was awkward enough, and Mom began working 4 pm to midnight.
Thus began my time as a Latchkey Kid.
I rode the bus home from school and let myself into the house around 4:30 every afternoon. Under Mom’s strict instructions, I would check to make sure all three doors of the house were locked and then I would set the alarm.
Until bedtime, I was on lockdown. No going outside—not even to the backyard. No answering the door, no looking out the windows. Just me and the dog: A tiny Shih-Tzu named Cinnamon.
I was kind of an odd child. I didn’t care much for television, though I did love to play Nintendo. I could rock on some Mario Bros. I also absolutely loved to read, particularly R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and Ann M. Martin’s The Babysitter’s Club.
There is really only so much video gaming and reading a girl can do before she wishes she had another hobby. At least, that’s how it was for me. I was lonely. Monday through Friday, every evening alone…it sucked.
It was around this time that my daddy shared with me a novel he was writing. Daddy is a computer guru who does freelance work, but he writes for fun on the side. “Demigod” was one of the most amazing things I had ever read. Not only was I astounded that my dad had such talent, but for the first time I realized there were people behind the books I liked to read.
Armed with nothing more than spiral-bound notebooks and pencils, I began writing.
Between 10 and 16, I wrote seven full-length novels. Today, I suppose they would be considered Young Adult. Some of them were murder mysteries with strong heroines. Many of them had elements of what today is considered Paranormal Romance. Most of my early influences were from authors I enjoyed: Stine, as well as Richie Tankersley Cusick and Christopher Pike. Somewhere in the midst of all this, my mom bought me a laptop and I transferred everything to digital.
I continued to write during high school, though significantly less once I got my driver’s license. I focused mainly on short stories and built up a vast collection that I ended up losing to the nightmare of an erased floppy disk. I majored in English in high school. Earned a couple college credits. And was told multiple times by various English teachers that I had talent.
After graduation, I went away to college at Western Kentucky University. My mother had married a great man who was also a police officer. Between the two of them, I was able to go away to school and thus started several years of BAD DECISIONS. I kicked it off right, as most first-time college teens do. I drank too much and partied too hard, not making it to class, much less spending my time writing. Two years later, I came home to Louisville with my tail between my legs, no smarter than I was before.
Back at my mother and stepfather’s home, I found the situation to be stifling for the girl who had done what she wanted, when she wanted for so long. I was already rebelling—not phoning, disappearing all night—when a chance encounter on the banks of the Ohio River brought a man into my life who was not right for me in more ways than one.
Jason was an ex-con and felon. I was the daughter of two police officers. Cue ominous music.
Let’s skip the dirty parts and go to the section where I pack my things and flee into the night like a bat out of Hades. My parents change the locks, I cut off all contact, and hole up in a hovel on 3rd Street with my friend, Brent. Oh, and in the meantime, my convict boyfriend ends up back in the Slammer.
I bounced around for some time. To an apartment with my cousin, Ryan. Then to a big, fancy house outside of Nashville, Tennessee with Jason’s family. After severing ties with them, I rented a tiny studio apartment downtown. I moved a couple more times, losing money (and myself) in the process.
Not once in the years I spent chasing something, anything in Tennessee did I sit down to write.
In January 2008, I was in debt and barely hanging on to the apartment I was renting. My good-for-nothing, pot-smoking boyfriend-of-the-moment wasn’t helping with the bills because he couldn’t hold a job. My car was on the verge of repossession. I was going nowhere; the only positive thing I did have was that I was talking with my parents again.
Then the life-shattering, earth-moving event. In North Carolina, January 31st, my cousin Cory—a Marine, a firefighter, one of my best friends—was killed in a car accident. He was 25 years old.
My mom drove from Louisville to Nashville the minute she heard. She told me it was because she didn’t want me to be alone, nor did she want to tell me something so sensitive over the phone. That’s just how she is; no matter how terrible a daughter I could be, she always put me first.
Later that same night after she left, I was alone. My deadhead boyfriend wasn’t home, neither was our equally stoned roommate. I was sitting on our single mattress on the floor, looking around our bare room with its one dresser and a floor strewn with clothes. It hit me.
What are you doing? Really?
Was I just trying to prove I could do it on my own? Because I couldn’t. Obviously.
In a flash of grief and pain, I realized my life had spiraled out of control simply because I was too stubborn to admit my parents were right.
I packed my things. My dog and I climbed in the old Jeep. And we came home to Louisville.
During the upheaval of moving back, I also found something I hadn’t yet realized I had lost—my writing. Whether it was my grief over Cory or simply returning home, I don’t know—but I started writing again.
Even better…I finished the novels I had started years before and I have started (and finished) even more in the time since.
I’ve been through a lot in my life. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as some, maybe it wasn’t as rough…but it shows that a girl can make bad decisions, life-changing mistakes, and still bounce back.
My mom is a Major with the Louisville Metro Police force—the third highest ranking female on the department. She just celebrated her 21st anniversary this month. I am in a stable, committed relationship with a man who will one day be my husband. We live in a small but nice home—I’m a police dispatcher. He’s a police officer.
I was a latchkey kid and because of it, I am now a writer. I am the daughter of a female police officer, and because of that, I’m a stronger, better woman.
About the Chick
Heather Marie Adkins is an independent fiction novelist and avid bibliophile with the library to prove it. She first began publishing her work in June 2011, much to the chagrin of her mother. To date, she has dabbled in numerous genres including chick lit, historical romance, horror, mystery, and various forms of the paranormal. She loves to garden, cook, and travel, and would give anything to live in a cottage in Ireland. Heather is the author of paranormal mystery “The Temple”, as well as paranormal romance “Abigail” and chick lit “Constant State of Disaster”. She is currently working on numerous projects, including a thriller with a ghostly protagonist and the first in a new witchcraft series. She can be found barefoot on her urban Kentucky farm, wrangling chickens and saving field mice from her cats.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-35 show above.)