FREE - All My Ebooks Now FREE on Smashwords!

For those picking up my ebooks to read, Thanks . Enjoy! Been getting emails that they are getting downloaded. All of my ebooks on there are now temporarily FREE until April 20th because of the pandemic. Check it out and then check out their other authors, maybe one of your favorites. Get them while you can! 

From Smashwords to customers:

For one month only, thousands of Smashwords authors and publishers will provide readers deep discounts on ebooks. Discount levels include 30%-off, 60%-off, and FREE.

This sale is a direct result of several Smashwords authors who suggested it. These indie authors want to support readers around the world who face unprecededed anxiety, economic hardship and social isolation as the world community fights to stem the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

More than ever, these ebooks from indie authors and publishers offer readers unlimited hours of low-cost entertainment, distraction, comfort and knowledge during these trying times.

Smashwords is being hammered with downloads. Can't imagine why. But keep trying, they may be up and down with all the requests.

I was just wondering, as all my ebooks are free for a month, which is good (or bad, or bad good?) for pandemic reading?

So I surveyed my available titles. I have a complete other manuscript of new stories as yet unpublished which I've been wanting to get around to, but...not yet.

So...

ANTHOLOGY OF EVIL - a collection of my older writings available in print on Amazon
In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear - Sci Fi / Horror
Gumdrop City - Horror / based on True Crime and my new film
Quantum History - Sci Fi / Humor at MIT
The London Mea Culpa Document - Lead into next story
The Mea Culpa Document - Medieval / Horror
Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer (To A Question He Knever Knew on the knight that the Knight lost all") - Medieval / Horror / Surreal - this comes later from another "Breaking on Cave Island"
Sarah - Horror / Surreal Alzheimer's on Twilight Zone
The Fall - short short Horror that led to an indie industry article written about my writings
Japheth, Ishvi and The Light - Horror / Zombies at a religious commune and ... God
Andrew - novella - Horror / Surreal / Sci Fi the story that led to the next book...

From author and reviewer Michael Brookes: "The book [DEATH OF HEAVEN] starts well and has a Clive Barker, Books of Blood vibe, which really works well. It's in these tales that the author's writing ability shines. He demonstrates a lovely turn of phrase and some of the writing is almost poetic in its beauty."
DEATH OF HEAVEN - epic horror sci fi with standalone stories in it you will understand when you read it. A complex and some have reviewed, a beautifully written book that is hard to describe: Available in print on Amazon
The Conqueror Worm - two 12-year-old boys dig up treasure
Rosebud -beware imposing your mind on your gf
Thirst Divine - terrifying entities from above can be erotic
Harbinger -be good, terrifying entities are watching from above
"Sweet Jane" - be careful who you marry. I wrote this after watching Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians one night back in the 90s when they played on SNL and being inspired.
Marking Time - avoid ghosts in Afghanistan, even if you're special forces. Originally written about my own childhood in the Civil Air Patrol in search and rescue, ported over to adulthood.
Going Home - runaway gets in the wrong car, classic story.
Vaughan’s Theorem - a scary serial murderer story and rather long.
The Mea Culpa Document of London - medieval witch hunter

ALSO other shorts:
EarVu - horror in the lab
Mr. Pakool's Spice - father and 2 young kids in the zombie apocalypse in the back winter woods of Oregon. Originally published in an anthology with other authors.
Expedition of the Arcturus - sci fi on earth's first trans-generational spaceship, originally published in PerihelionSF.com magazine in their second edition ever.. A great hard sci fi mag for free reading.
Xibalba Unleashed - serial murder in a Mayan cave and university campus

Simon’s Beautiful Thought - short sci fi romance I wrote about a guy and his phone's AI, before most or all of the more famous stories like that.

NON FICTION (I have a degree in psychology, thus...)
On Psychology: With Illustration in Psychopathology via Synesthesia and Schizophrenia

Psycho-neurologically Approaching a Field Theory Understanding of Schizophrenia via Research of a Non-normative, Non-pathological Syndrome: Synesthesia, and the need for more information Title Case Recommendation
Unpublished

SO...jump over to Smashwords and look around. Wishing you all the best through this difficult time. But there are options to lose yourself for a time in some great books!

#ebooks #shortstories #smashwords #horror #scifi #sf #novels #free #freebe #freeebook #bookstagram #freebook #ebookgratis #ebooklovers #islamicpost #ebookbestseller #ebookfree #freeebooks #ebookpdf #ebooks #freebie #giveaway #couponcommunity #freestuff

Happy Independence Day ebook giveaway!

Happy Fourth of July! Have a wonderful safe holiday! If you need something new and different to read....

July is the annual Smashwords ebook summer giveaway!

Most of my ebooks on Smashwords are free through July while others are heavily discounted.

All these below and more! Check out my Author page on Smashwords to see other ebooks of mine that are included beyond these below....

Xibalba Unleashed - a short story written for an anthology that was so fun to write I accidentally went 2,000 words over the limit and had to write another story. It is a unique serial killer origin story based on Mayan mythology brought back from an expedition to modern America.

Andrew - Horror novella with paranormal overtones
As I mentioned, "Andrew" led to "Death of Heaven" and was one of my first stories.
Book Video Trailer

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/487748 - Serial Murder Horror
This is also published in The Undead Nation Anthology and is being worked on as a screenplay. It is my one of my brilliant cover artist's favorite stories of mine.
Book Video Trailer

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light - Zombies & Religion
Also published in my Anthology of Evil
Book Video Trailer

In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear - Sci Fi Social Horror and my first published horror sci fi story.. This is a story that in many ways may sound very familiar to our current situation in America.
Book Video Trailer

Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question... - Medieval Surreal Horror
Book Video Trailer

Sarah - Surreal Horror with Geographical overtones based on a true story.
Book Video Trailer

Quantum History - Comedy/Sci Fi of an experiment that went strangely wrong.
Book Video Trailer

These are some of the ebooks I'm giving away or decreasing price on over this month of July on Smashwords.com. Check out my page on Smashwords to find which ones you would be most interested in.

All are fascinatingly weird little short stories.

Andrew is a novella and a of foundation for my book, Death of Heaven (discounted to $2). The novella and the book are very different kinds of animals, with the one having grown up from the alien seed of the other.

Please feel free also to visit my Amazon Author page.

Have a great Holiday!

Cheers!

JZ Murdock

Digital Dilettantes and Their Fundemental Misunderstanding

I was once one of those believers in “Information should be free." That was back at the beginning of the public internet in the 1980s before the web took hold in the 90s. But the issue really wasn’t not paying people for their efforts, their art, their genius. It was about what can be free being free. 

Information, should be free. Information that IS free, should be made free. Old information surely. Public information, absolutely, and so on. Government for one should be supplying citizens with all the information possible. 

An informed citizenry is far more productive for a nation, for the world, than an ignorant citizenry. 

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

The current spate of dilettantes crying for “free information for all” have diluted the original meaning of the original intent of the phrase. To quote, as friend and fellow author Kurt Giambastiani put it in his blog recently, "Talent Just Wants to be Free: The Idiocy of Digital Dilettantes", there is a problem with thinking that all information should be free. Obviously, artists deserve to be rewarded for their talents and efforts.

Please feel free to go check out Kurt's blog that spawned my blog here as well as his comments there on this blog. Kurt always has something interesting on his blog. He offered this as an example of part of the problem with this information should be free issue: Income for US authors falls below federal poverty line – survey.

If information is made freely available to the general public, it will enhance the human experience overall. Certainly Public Domain works should be freely disseminated to the public, world wide. The downside is that some ignorant people will take in some of this information and yet remain ignorant as we have seen so much of lately. 

At that point those people are stumbling into the realm of stupidity in choosing to accept bad information merely to support bad information they already have. However, if we offer as much good and accurate information as possible, eventually the truth tends to win out. 

Supplying information leads into the same issues we see in the services industry. 

Why for instance does a mixed drink cost more at a bar than at home? Because you’re paying for more than the ingredients. You're also paying for the venue, the mixologist’s skills and knowledge, the server serving you so you don’t have to serve yourself, others of the public congregating in the venue, perhaps music or talent that is supplied, and so on.

So it is with supplying information to the public. 

Someone needs to package, store and disseminate it. The infrastructure leading to accessing that information needs to be monitored and maintenanced. Which is why I think the internet is no different than our roads and bridges and should be available to all to utilize them. If the government needs to pay (through us) to have and make information freely available online, then so be it.

Someone has to do it, and it needs to be done.

That is not to say that new information that has a cost. especially for individuals, musicians and artists, people who deserve to eat and live a good life while producing their works, should have their works devalued. Of course their works shouldn't be free and they should be appropriately compensated for the quality of their time and works.

The issue isn’t so much that these digital dilettantes are wrong, as they are misguided and perhaps being cheap bastards too. 

YES, information should be free and freely available to all. IF it’s free to begin with. At some point then down the long road of time it should become free. Free as in public domain. A concept I think we should retain after the death of the artist and perhaps that of their immediate family. As for the succeeding members of their family retaining rights, there are currently laws in place about that as well as their ability to retain those rights and so on.

We do need to push information out to all humans everywhere who want it and it does therefore need to be free. 

There are also other important considerations as has so kindly and eloquently (as always) pointed out by Kurt Giambastiani. 

Still, people need information to live, to eat, to survive. Artists and content producers do need to live and eat and survive. We just need to consider the context and not gloss over the issues like ignorant and greedy dilettantes.

What is, The Unwritten? Find out FREE on Wattpad. Experience, the cliffhanger, as it's being written!

[ My editor said she had trouble finding links to

my story on her iPad, so just to be clear,

here is the STORY LINK referred to below.

This is now a finished book on Amazon & Smashwords.]

New parts posted to Wattpad weekly, or more frequently

This past summer I started playing with a site called, Wattpad. An author I know from Facebook, Louis Shalako, was posting parts of a book he calls, "The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue". I wasn't paying much attention to things till I started to wonder why he was using Wattpad. So I thought I would give it a try.

I posted a few things, getting my toes wet. I posted the popular story, To End All War. A short story I wrote on Wattpad. I posted my short short story, "The Fall" which previously was only available in an ebook of mine as an additional story. This was a story that led to an article on my writings, in Indies Unlimited called, "Gender Bender" by L.A. Lewandowski, about writers writing both male and female characters and making it work. I wrote, Crashing Indulgence, as an experiment that got more than a few reads. But these were all just testing the waters, until something of substance came about.

Then one day, I came across an old quote on my quotes page here on my blog called, Quotes Along The Murdock.

Currently only 12 parts, more coming, trust me.

Whenever I post something somewhere that I find interesting, I post it on that page. I posted one a while back and saved it in there attributing it to, "The Unwritten". Which actually meant to be a kind of joke and essentially something that I hadn't written, it was a quote from nowhere. I write just about everything: non-fiction, fiction, horror, sci fi, screenplays, whatever. I try to stretch my skill set.

The quote goes like this:

"I want to learn to love you best of all," she said, "and that's just easier if you're dead."
From, The Unwritten

It occurred to me that I should write it into something so that when I said it was from, "The Unwritten", it could actually be from SOME thing called, "The Unwritten". I thought about Wattpad and figured, what the Hell, let's see what happens. Wattpad is a place readers can watch writers as they write something. Some writers have even gotten book deals from publishing on Wattpad, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

You can see how writers think as they develop a story. It's a kind of first draft platform for many, both writers and readers. Some polish their work before publishing on there so their works aren't first drafts, but some of us are throwing our first drafts up there, a  pretty scary prospect, really. Especially for those writers who think it's offensive to show a first draft to anyone, as I was taught by one of my university professors.

For some, they really shouldn't publish a first draft. But for those who can kick out a first draft that's readable, especially if you already have readers, it can be fun and rewarding to see how a writer develops their stories. It's also a good experience for a writer. It can change how you work, it can embolden you and beef up your skills. I do have to go back from time to time to clean up parts to fit the new parts, new directions as things develop, but I've found that I really don't have to do that very frequently.

So, as for the quote, it is obviously some kind of a quote from a horror story, so I wrote part "The Unwritten Part I". I wasn't sure if I'd go on beyond that, or where it may lead.

Right after I posted that first part, I was on Facebook, joking around with some people I know from a group on there and to give a guy a hard time, who I was just teasing, I threatened to name a character in a horror story after him. I thought about which one and well, "The Unwritten Part I" became, "The Unwritten Part I - Tom". I'm not so sure he appreciated it, but there it is, the protagonist's name is now, Tom. And Tom has been immortalized in one of my stories. 

A part II came along and then a part III and I realized, there was more to come. At this point there's eleven parts published and two more in draft stage, with no end in sight.

I seemed to be publishing them on Wattpad at a rate of about one a week. Then it escalated. I work on it as I have time. I create one or a few drafts of upcoming parts and work on them if I have an idea where those part should go. I do my note taking in these draft parts and dabble in them, altering them as they develop, then sit down and write through the next part and publish it.

It's led to some research on things. Like Hell and how it's perceived throughout history and in different religions and cultures.

Okay, SPOILERS now -

If you don't want to know anything about the story till you read it, then go read it. It's free.

You can download the Wattpad app for your phone and within seconds of my publishing a new part (or whatever author you decided to follow), you get notified immediately and can read it right then on your phone. Or whatever or however you like. It's kind of a throwback to the old Saturday movie cliffhangers where you just have to wait for a new episode to see what is happening to our here. Or, our antihero, in some cases. 

Here comes a basic description of what you're getting into with this story, The Unwritten.

The story begins with a guy who wakes up in an old cabin in the woods, strapped to an old kitchen table, with a woman standing over him with a knife. She says to him (you'll never guess what):

"I want to learn to love you best of all, and that's just easier if you're dead."

There. Now that quote comes from somewhere and truly is from, "The Unwritten".

Moving along....

With that, she stabs him in the side. Not to kill, but to torture. And, he's not very happy about it. Finally, he finally passes out. When he wakes up, she's gone, he's still tied up and he can't remember anything. Not who he is, where he came from or how he got there. He just knows that he doesn't want to be there or see that woman again since, his host isn't very nice.

One thing leads to another and well, his day just gets worse from then, and then it gets really bad and finally, pretty surreal. Surreal in a way I don't think you've experienced before.

That is to say, things go downhill for him from there; literally and figuratively.

But they also go up.

You see, there is something up there in the cabin, too. Something, is flowing along the ceiling. That's bad enough but where it comes from, is even worse. But that's not all.

There are some others involved. No, they're not there. All three come together in this story in a bizarre exploration of some very disparate things that interact in unforeseen ways. Unforeseen for us, and unforeseen for the characters.

This is a horror story. It's a slasher and torture story. It's traditional and nontraditional. It's a sci fi. A very dark fantasy. Basically, a little bit of everything and, the kitchen sink.

Well, that's all I'm going to tell you. I may at some point in a future post, explain how the parts came to be.

For once, in writing this, I'm just cutting loose and enjoying my writing process. Usually I have a very structured way of going about things. But with this, as Wattpad allows, I can just go for it and see what happens, let my imagination run wild. Which some might say from past writings, I do anyway, but this is different. Maybe it will come out in a similar way to the readers, but for this writer, it's quite a different experience. 

The few people who have read it so far have liked it and have no clue where this story is going. Because honestly, neither do I. I do even more so than usual, write myself into a corner, then try to creatively write myself back out of that corner. If I do a good job in the end is yet to be seen. But so far, I have a pretty good track record in doing that.

One of the cool things about Wattpad, is that readers can make comments, can connect with the writer as the writing is being done. If I were to see a good comment and it changed how the story was going in an interesting way, I just might incorporate it.

I should say that I do have a path in the back of my mind, as to where I'm going. Up to a point. Which is mostly just one to three parts ahead at any one point with an overall thought about where I'm heading, that changes as I come up with a better idea from time to time.

The story is being honed as I write it. It's odd for me since people are reading it before my editor has a chance to do any editing. I should add that she is enjoying the experience and anxiously awaiting my new parts as I post them. So that's a good sign. Because if it sucked, I'd hear about it, I'm sure.

So if you like this kind of thing, please come along for the ride. Because you'll be on a ride that is free, fun, and a touch foolhardy. No, maybe not so much that last one, but it will hopefully keep your attention and be entertaining on several levels.

So, come on down to the dark side! 

Down? Yeah, you'll see what I mean. If you join us for the ride. Experience what the "cliffhanger" is about!

Come join us reading, The Unwritten

New parts posted to Wattpad weekly, or more frequently

Cheers!

Death of Heaven - re-release on my birthday Saturday 8/30/2014

Happy birthday to me! Well, tomorrow actually.

I like giving on my birthday, so in that frame of mind....

I'm letting you know that tomorrow is the official re-release date my book, Death of Heaven (coupon code AE78W ) and I am offering it for free through this weekend. That is the downloadable ebook version; here, is the print version of, Death of Heaven on Amazon. I have also lowered the ebook price on Death of Heaven, from Monday on to $4.99.

Death of Heaven has been put through a rigorous re-editing and was getting good reviews even before that. 

Also starting today through the weekend, you can get ebooks versions of most of my ebooks for free. Check them out, I hope you find something you like.

Also, a short short sci fi story of mine on Wattpad, To End All War.

See also this week's past blog on all this. Enjoy my birthday tomorrow!
And, have a great weekend!

Cheers!

Two free JZ Murdock Horror ebooks through this weekend - Zombies

In creating this for my friends at ZombieFans.com, I thought I'd share with everyone. Here are two for the price of none, my two short Horror ebook stories on zombies in order too make up for their not being an entire novel. Free through Sunday, 11/17/2013.

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light
by JZ Murdock
The zombie apocalypse hits a father and religious commune try to deal with it, God, and the military HAZMAT team who have shown up on their doorstep.

Mr. Pakool's Spice
by JZ Murdock
Originally in the "Hunger Pangs" anthology, a father tries to escape the zombie apocalypse with his two young children through the back winter woods of Oregon.

Also, for more free ebooks this weekend, check out Indies Unlimited page for Freebie Friday!

Cheers!
JZMurdock.com

Happy 4th of July! How About A Horror eBook Giveaway!

Happy Fourth of July, Independence Day Celebration and Holiday weekend (for some of us) eBook Giveaway!

Andrew - Horror novella with paranormal overtones
As I mentioned, "Andrew" led to "Death of Heaven"
Book Video Trailer

Gumdrop City - Serial Murder Horror
This is also published in The Undead Nation Anthology and is being worked on as a screenplay
Book Video Trailer

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light - Zombies & Religion
Also published in my Anthology of Evil
Book Video Trailer

In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear - Sci Fi Social Horror
Book Video Trailer

Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question... - Medieval Surreal Horror
Book Video Trailer

Sarah - Surreal Horror with Geographical overtones
Book Video Trailer

Quantum History - Comedy/Sci Fi
Book Video Trailer

These are the ebooks I'm giving away over the next five days on Amazon.com starting tomorrow for Independence Day (Browncoats, don't cringe....). These will be free through all day Monday.

All are weird little short stories except for Andrew which is a novella and a kind of foundation for my book, Death of Heaven. The novella and the book at least to me, are very different kinds of animals, yet one grew from the other.

Have a great Holiday!
:)
Cheers!

An After Christmas eBook Giveaway!

So, you got all your presents yesterday? Want another?

I'm giving away another ebook today and tomorrow called, "Quantum History".

It's a weird little sci fi comedy of sorts.

How'd you like to wake up to your beloved spouse holding a gun on you and screaming for you to "get in here right now!" When you're already in there? And then when you tell them that, they continue to scream and threaten you with a loaded gun, thinking you aren't you?

This story is also included in my book, "Anthology of Evil", which I will be giving out free on New Year's Day.

Happy Holidays!

Tomrrorw? Another freebie!

Merry Christmas - ebook giveaway

Merry Christmas!

A quick holiday message....

I hope you all have a great Christmas and for you others, wishing you a very pleasant Tuesday. But for all of you, oddly enough I'm putting the ebook version of my book, Death of Heaven up for a Christmas day eGift. Always nice to have some interesting reading during the holidays.

Cheers!

Throughout the whole of Human History many philosophies and religions have attempted to answer that ultimate question: Where did we come from? James and Jimmy, brothers in spirit and tragedy since childhood are about to discover the answer to that ultimate of all questions. They will learn about it in a way that is as amazing as it is unbelievable. They alone will discover that reality is unlike anything that has ever before been considered. They will discover just what it is that nightmares are made of. Friedrich Nietzsche claimed in 1882 that "God is Dead". But that was only a piece of the whole misleading truth. It is now left for two friends alone to experience the whole story, and along with the rest of the Human Race, to experience firsthand the-- Death of Heaven.

Two Free Short Horror JZ Murdock ebooks!

Free November 9th in UK and US. My two newest horror stories are going online as standalone ebooks. Originally only available in my book, Anthology of Evil.

Gumdrop City
Based on a true crime event, a widowed (now drinking) father contemplates the strange neighbor everyone is wary of… as well as his young daughter’s whereabouts. This is a disturbing story first brought to my attention when I was getting my degree in psychology at Western Washington University in a class for abnormal psychology. I took the framework of that story and built a fiction story around it. (Update 2019: I am currently working on a short film production prequel of this story). It is a disturbing story and was a challenge to write it without simply being offensive).

UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gumdrop-City-ebook/dp/B00A1TM7MY/

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light
Unknown to them, plummeting to the Earth as terrifying pillars of light from the skies, is the Zombie Apocalypse as it burns into the grounds around a religious commune’s farm; throw in some devastating confusion; a splitting migraine; a squad of special Decon soldiers; God himself; and well, there you pretty much have the making of let’s say, a religious experience.

UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Japheth-Ishvi-The-Light-ebook/dp/B009Z42DK2

Cover art is by the incredible artist Marvin Hayes. He has been doing some interesting works on the side and chose to work on some of my covers. On RedBubble.com he has been selling well in the area of covers for things like ipods, ipads, and iPhones. 

Marvin also did the cover for my book Anthology of Evil and Death of heaven (no, the word "heaven" isn't capitalized on purpose as it's a sign, a warning, a commentary on the story, disturbing some and breaking some rules, both grammar and Amazon). 

Marvin recently did one for my EarVu story that has been doing well and it's an awesome graphic.

I submitted these to Indies Unlimited for their Freebie Fridays promotion. They didn't pick up my ebooks for this promotional today, this time. 

However, they have been kind enough to do so in the past and have also interviewed me and even wrote an article or two about me on there. Not the first time I've been interviewed. You can get other free ebooks there today, so, I'm promoting them here. Give them a look as there will be other Author's free ebooks available.

Have fun.

Cheers!

Happy Halloween - new short story

Happy Halloween!

Come, enter my sanctum sanctorum....

I'm hoping you are finding this from a safe and secure location, considering the storm Sandy along our east coast. 

Just for today I'm going almost all out. I'm offering several of my works for free, including my latest and popular, EarVu that went up to #6 on Amazon on Monday. But also there is another popular short story of mine, Simon's Beautiful Thought, about a man and his smart phone's AI. Japheth, Ishvi and The Light, is a short Zombie story about a religious commune, a Decon squad of soldiers and the Zombie Apocalypse. I tried last night, but I'm afraid that I didn't get that one published soon enough for a free promotion day on Amazon, so it's available but for 99 cents. However, drop by tomorrow and I'll have it available then.

Andrew, my horror novella about a young child and some horrific and powerful events in his life which leads to, (and finally) my full length horror book (not for the faint of heart), Death of Heaven (see also, DeathOfHeaven.com). Finally, my Anthology of Evil, a collection of some of my more vintage short stories (I'm currently compiling a new, Anthology of Evil II, also). Hey, go nuts!

We've also just sold our first iPod cover available with the Ear Vu cover design on it!

If you are being inconvenienced by that wicked wench Sandy blowing the hell out of your life, and you can access this blog, then perhaps it will offer you some free relief in readings to subvert your attention until things get back to normal in your life. And if you're not going through some horrendous storm, enjoy. Either way, please feel free to share.

All the best to everyone and do avoid the more scary spirits (though some of the liquid ones might just be called for in this weather....)!

For now, here is a short-short story that I won a little award for earlier this year, called....

The Regent's Daughter

_-^-_

She rode in on a steed of excessive grandeur. She came to an abrupt stop, slipping off the beast with no consideration for who was around. An attendant rushed to her and handed her a goblet of Royal mead. She took the cup and the attendant rushed off to alert the Regent, Her Father.

Sipping, she smiled. Who wouldn’t? For what it cost that drink could feed me for an entire week of Sundays. A brace of Men-at-Arms rushed to surround her as all shrunk back. Even to approach her could mean death, were she in a bad mood; be it lunar inspired or elsewise.

She turned, looking around her and taking in the area. The market surrounded the entrance of her Father’s castle while a moat hugged the castle walls below the drawbridge she stood nearby. Between her family’s army and their wealth, no one in the country would ever attempt an attack.

But paranoia, is for the powerful.

I wasn’t paranoid. I had nothing anyone would want. But then my life was worthless. I had no family, belongings, or money. Just, a skill. I could outshoot anyone with bow or blade. Yes, blade. But that was neither here nor there. So, I just stood and stared at her. God, she was incredible. I would give my left arm for one night with such a woman. If she let me, I would….

She snapped her head around and stared directly at me, locking eyes with me as she sipped. The soldiers around her snapped to as if she had exclaimed a warning. But there hadn’t been a word, just a blink of her left eye. I began to sweat. It was hot out but that wasn’t it. Her eyes drilled into and through me. I had heard tales, stories of what had happened to her lovers. I heard she was like a black widow. You tasted her love, then you didn’t live to tell about it.

I backed away and she nodded slightly at me. I froze. She had indeed noticed me. It wasn’t just my imagination. That imagination that had gotten me beaten repeatedly as a child. My father hated inattention. One time I wasn’t paying enough attention to pumping the bellows on his fire as he was heating metal to make a sword and….

She stepped toward me.

My thoughts froze. I took another step back.

“Here,” she said, grinning.

I started to back away but her men started toward me. I stopped. They stopped. I sighed. She smiled. So, I walked forward. Twenty paces later, I stopped directly before her.

“M’Lady,” I said.

“Name?”

“Harcurt,” I replied.

“Harcurt,” she retorted. “What is that you have there?”

I had a bow strung over my back, a quiver over my shoulder. But that was nothing to someone such as, She.

“Nothing, M’Lady,” I said, confused.

“You looked at me,” she said, confidently.

“I-I, yes, M’Lady. I am sorry. I looked, but what man could not behold such beauty when it dismounts right before a man.” I broke further into a sweat. She smiled. It was a horrific smile to behold on such a beautiful face.

“Yesss, I know,” she said, smirking in a fearsome way. “Not to worry,” she said, “here, drink.”

“No, M’Lady, I couldn’t presume, surely. I….”

“Here, drink,” she commanded. No one had ever felt more uncomfortable, ever, I was sure. I took the goblet from her. Nervously, I lifted it to my lips and sipped. It was delicious and it burned my lips, my tongue. I swallowed and I could feel it fluidly seeking my belly. Suddenly, I felt a burst of energy, sexuality and confidence. I smiled and handed it back. She took it and smiled back, knowingly at me.

“You see, it was worth is. Yes?” I smiled at her.

“Yes, M’Lady. ‘Twas in deed,” I said.

“Now, you must pay for it.”

“M’Lady?”

“Your eye.” She nonchalantly snapped her head to a soldier and within seconds, my right eye was looking at my left on the ground. The pain was immense. But I could only think of how I was still alive, and what a story this would make in any public house, anywhere.

Smiling, reading my mind, she nodded and walked off.

###

Some Ladies are just, evil. Know what I mean? Remind you of anyone you know? Here's hoping not.

Once again, hoping all you on the East US coast are safe and comfortable today and that any scares or fears you may have are planned, entertaining, and lacking any true sense of reality.

Wishing you a safe and sane, fun and comfortable, and a very, very Happy Halloween!

Cheers!

Just what is Ear Vu technology?

I just wanted to mention that when I release my new short story, "Ear Vu", here next Monday, it is being released in pieces,  in ten installments, twice a day for five days. It is free and it will hopefully, be intriguing and fun to watch over the week. Of course you can simply jump on here on Friday after 9AM Pacific time and read it all at once, but I think it might be a lot more interesting to check in on it through the week.

Check it out, you might find it entertaining.

Who is this guy in the story, what is going on, where is every body and why is this happening? And what is this "Ear Vu" technology?

Tune in next week to find out....