The Raccoon of Doom

Well... so much for weekly updates! Whoops. I probably shouldn't promise things like that at this point. I'll make a post soon about what I'm working on, but for now, here's a little short story! I wrote it for an anthology that didn't wind up happening.

The Raccoon of Doom 

The end of the world. That’s what my grandfather called it. After months of travel, his family had reached the end of the Western Reach to find a cliff jutting above an endless ocean, salty and flaccid. “Surely we have met our doom,” he said to my grandmother, staring down at waves splashing weakly against the shore.

He was certain he’d led his family to their end. He built a haphazard log cabin and cultivated a beet field. His two great contributions to the world. He died a year later moaning “I am sorry to have led you all to doom!”

Father was far more optimistic. He built an enormous castle here. He never forgot his daddy’s words though, and so it was that the castle came to be called Doom. He left the cabin and the beet field untouched. I’d have been grateful for this later if I didn’t hate beets with the fury of a thousand suns. 

Now I live in the Castle of Doom alone, the only raccoon left in the world. As far as I know, anyway. A terrible sickness swept through my family and friends when I was young, killing everyone shortly after we settled in here. Like most of my kind, we fled to the outskirts of Eldara when the Ursa struck down the Royal Rabbit Army. I haven’t heard from any of my more distant relations in decades, so I figure I’m probably the only one left.

It’s like I always say. Never trust a rabbit to do a raccoon’s job anything. Naturally superior in every way, we raccoons could absolutely definitely have bested the bears in battle had we not been so busy fleeing in terror and running for our lives and whatnot.

A storm curled against the sea, obscuring the horizon. I stood on a knife-narrow tower and watched lightning skitter along the surface of tall, cumulus clouds. It was going to be a heavy storm, the kind that would seep through the ceiling and flood all the ruts in grandfather’s beet garden. 

A good night for magic. 

I’d been experimenting for decades, sifting through ancient spell books that had belonged to a different, less dour grandfather. My mother’s father. He’d been a magician of sorts, self-taught. Every day he’d read through dusty old tomes, searching for something. He never told me what he was after. I had but one clue.  When I was a small child, he’d told me he was searching for a “special kind of travel”. 

He’d read and practiced his spellwork every day, until the stormy night he magicked himself out of existence. Aside from myself, he was the only raccoon I knew of who hadn’t died in the plague. 

After the incident (but well before everyone was gone), Father had locked up the library, looping chains around the door handles and padlocking them together. We’d all been forbidden to go near the books, or talk about Grandpa’s research, or to discuss the foreboding black spot that had appeared in the carpet where Grandpa had cast his spell. 

 I’d obeyed those rules for years, until I was the only one left. Even then, it had taken me a year to work up the courage to break in with a pair of rusty old bolt cutters. 

I didn’t know what he’d been seeking, but I knew what I was after.

Grandpa. 

The only other raccoon I knew who might still be alive. 

Heavy storms— and all the lightning that came with them— would provide vast amounts of magical energy. I could harness them for far more magic than what I could squeeze from my tiny, furry frame, handsome as it might be.  I’d been waiting for a storm like this. Waiting for my moment, and now at last it was here. 

I smiled in the face of the oncoming gale. “Bring your worst!” I yelled to the oncoming storm. “We’ll be ready for you!” 

We.

A slip of the tongue. There had been no “we” for a very, very long time. I turned to walk back down the stairs. They wound downward in a tight spiral, so narrow my elbows brushed either wall. Doom had seven such towers. They were the only way up or down in the castle, built small so that any invading army of bears would struggle to get to us. We’d never pretended it would do anything but irritate and delay. They would just bring the castle down around our ears if we annoyed them enough. 

I walked a broad hallway, a dark, dusty corridor neglected by everyone but the spiders. They’d woven their homes in the corners where the walls met the ceiling. 

My laboratory was waiting for me, an enormous, chilly room dominated by great skylights above and sweeping picture windows lining one wall, offering a commanding view of the sea and the coming maelstrom. The windows often fogged with smoke and ephemera of the craft, but I had taken to scrubbing them every week, taking a break from my experiments to wash all the windows until they were so clean I couldn’t even see them.  

There were old wooden tables everywhere, each one littered with half-spilt glass bottles, moldering half-read books, and half-used candle stubs mired into their votives by melted wax. The center of the room was dominated by Mister Lightning. 

Mister Lightning was the name I had endowed on my creation, a sprawling device that could capture lightning in a bottle and well— hold it there till I figured out what to do with it. The lightning alone wasn’t the only key though. Grandfather was insistent that the big storms, the real barnstormers, were critical. They possessed an energy like nothing else in Eldara. 

I glanced up at the sky. I could just see the purpled edges of the storm beginning to drift over the roof of the castle.  Perfect. Clapping my paws in excitement, I scuttled to the wall and turned the crank to open the skylight above Mister Lightning. Rain began to clatter against the skylights and drizzle into the laboratory through the open window. 

A great crack! of lightning shot across the sky above. A bang sounded from somewhere below. I ignored it and rushed to Mister Lightning. Using a winch built into the hulking device I raised a lightning rod high into the sky. It towered above the enormous glass orb that made up the body of Mister Lightning. 

Another bang. 

“No,” I said. “It’s not a good time for solicitors!” I knew that sound. It was my front door. Bang! Bang! Someone really wanted in. I didn’t get visitors often, the odd squirrel, sometimes wandering deer. We were too far from Ursa Major for bears, thank goodness. 

I glanced up at the long, copper rod wobbling in the wind of the oncoming storm. I turned and left the lab, grabbing a small gunnysack loosely filled with beets. Living in a castle often gives the impression of riches. Most visitors usually wanted food and a warm place to stay. I would supply my visitor with all the beets they could stomach and a bed of straw in Grandfather’s cabin. 

Bang! The sound came again, louder as I descended the stairs. “Yes, yes, I’m coming!” I hollered. “Keep your shirt on!” 

Angry at having my big night interrupted, I swung the door open hard. “Well then! Who’s out here physically assaulting my beleaguered front door?!” 

A brown and white rabbit with drooping ears stood on the front step. Rain hammered the front lawn all around him. He was thoroughly drenched.

I held out the sack of beets. “Help yourself,” I told him. “You can stay in the cabin,” I added, jerking my head in the direction of Grandfather’s house. 

“Wait!” the rabbit shouted when I began to close the door. “Wait just a cotton sniffin’ minute!” He glanced down at the sack in his hands. “Are these beets?”

“What?” I asked. “I’m very busy just now.” 

“Well, can’t I stay inside? Can’t I ‘ave something besides beets? It’s awful rainy out and your cabin has holes in the roof.” 

“Um, no,” I said. I couldn’t think of much else to say. “I’m very busy,” I added weakly, and slid the door another foot closer to sweetly shutting away the outside world. 

“Please? Can I talk to the master of the house?” The rabbit reached into the sack, grabbed a beet, sniffed it, and took a huge bite. 

“I am the master of the house,” I said, then immediately regretted it. 

“Oh, I figured you for the butler,” he said around a mouthful of food. “Terribly sorry sir! Hey that’s not half bad,” he said, taking another bite of beet.

“I don’t have a butler,” I admitted. 

Don’t do it, I told myself. Don’t say it. 

“I live here alone,” I heard myself say. “I suppose you can come in. I really don’t have much to eat besides beets though.” 

NOOOOOOOO! What are you doing? My inner voice wailed. WE HAVE PLANS. 

It was my mother’s fault. I could hear her, even after all these years. “Truly we have nothing if we don’t have a little charity, my sweet son.” When my mother had been alive, no one had passed this way without a place to sleep and a hot meal. What would she say to my making visitors sleep in an old shack? 

“Aw thanks,” the rabbit said from inside the house and down the hall. “Hey, nice fireplace!” 

“How did you get in—” I shook my head. “Ok, you have to stay downstairs,” I told the rabbit. “I’m conducting an important— BZZZZAAAAAP! The sound of lightning striking above drowned out my words. I felt the fur all down my back stand up. 

“Speaking of…” I mumbled, hurrying up the stairs. 

“What in the name of the Turtle King’s pajamas was that?” 

“The… who?” I called over my shoulder, too distracted to process his reference to obscure reptilian royalty. 

“You know, ruler of the Four Seas? We rabbit folk figure his pajamas gotta be mighty—” I lost track of what he was saying as I hurtled up the stairs three, then four at a time. I dashed down the cobwebby hall back into my laboratory. 

The great glass orb was alive with dancing, sparkling, dazzling lightning. I had to shield my eyes from the brilliant glow. 

“It worked!” I cried, throwing my arms into the air in jubilation. 

“Now… what do I do with it?” I mumbled to myself. Rain splattered the stone floor as the storm raged above. More lightning flashed across inky black clouds above, leaping through heaving walls of dark cumulus. 

I knew the spell Grandpa had been working on. It had been a “doorway spell”, which I assumed meant that he had stepped through a magical portal to another part of the world. Perhaps even another continent. There were rumors of undiscovered lands across the sea, whole nations ruled over by enormous, cat-like beasts. 

I refused to believe the other possibility. I refused to admit it to myself most days, but staring at all that leaping, crackling lightning, I had to at least entertain the fact that it might be…

…That my Grandpa had simply obliterated himself. 

I grabbed the spell book, the one that had been open the night of Grandpa’s disappearance. It had still been open and bookmarked when I’d cracked into the library years later. 

The magic called for but two things. A slab of oak wood and a great deal of lightning. There is no lightning rod in the library of course, so I have no idea where Grandpa got the lightning from. My guess was something far smaller than the hulking apparatus that was Mister Lightning. 

This isn’t the way of most magic, of course. Magic being a word we use for energy sitting around in some hidden pocket of the universe waiting to be called up. It usually used the bodies of studious magicians to enter the world. I knew how to make smaller amounts of lightning, but my attempts to recreate Grandpa’s experiment had thus far ended in failure. 

I went to where the trunk of an old oak tree leaned against the far wall. It was ten feet of rough-cut wood, the bark still attached. I had no hope to lift such a monstrosity, so I used a bit of magic to make it floaty, then pushed it into place next to Mr Lightning.

“Watcha doing, Mr. Raccoon?” 

I jumped, and the trunk lost its levity and crashed to the floor with a boom! nearly as loud as the lightning outside. 

“The name is Victor,” I said. 

“Ivan,” the rabbit replied. “Nice to meet ya.” 

“Didn’t I ask you to stay downstairs?” I asked, deciding not to mention my intent had not been introducing myself. 

“Did you?” Ivan asked, taking a big bite out of a fresh beet. 

“Didn’t I?” I scratched at one ear, trying to recall. 

“Did you?” the rabbit asked, shrugging. 

“Did… I don’t know, never mind that! As you can see I’m quite busy here.” 

“Oh carry on, I won’t be a bother! I’d love to watch! Never seen magic before.” Ivan the Rabbit was dripping water onto my carefully swept hardwood floors, which irked me.

“Out of the question!” I replied. Then glancing at the floors, I had a brilliant flash of inspiration. “Unless… you’d care to do a bit of cleaning? Earn your keep, as it were?” 

“Sir, I assure you this laboratorium shall be the cleanest in all of Eldara!” the rabbit shook as he desperately scanned the room— for a cleaning rag, perhaps? I handed him one and he immediately began to scrub the floor. He worked so furiously I felt a —brief— pang of pity for the rabbit. 

“Just… stay away from the tables, will you? Sensitive equipment, eh?” I returned to my experiment.

 The trick was to let a little lightning out and channel it into the wood without you know, vaporizing myself. The whole point of Mister Lightning was not just to catch the lightning but also to dole the extra amperage out to me in a safe measure. 

A thin metal pole stuck out of the big glass orb’s side. It had a knob on the end. I sighed, closed my eyes, and grasped it. All the fur on my body stood on end. Screwing up my courage, I twisted the knob clockwise till it clicked. 

“Hey, whatcha—” Ivan began. I missed the rest of his sentence as lightning flooded my body. It slipped right through me, going around the particles of my body instead of into them, as I’d planned. As I’d planned! It was working! 

I pointed my free hand toward the oak slab and an enormous discharge of lightning struck the wood. There was a brilliant flash, and I felt myself collapse to the floor. My whole body went numb for several seconds. 

I winced inwardly, half expecting to find myself a charred mark on the rug. My spirit would haunt the towers of Doom until the bears conquered the whole world and tore the castle down stone by stone. 

“Hey… you ok buddy?” I heard Ivan call. “I can’t bring myself to look.”

That made two of us.

I decided to risk popping one eye open. 

I was not, fortunately, a stain on the floor. My body was intact. I took in the room with one eye sweeping from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The rain pattering against Mister Lightning, the windows with their seaside vista, Ivan with his ears pulled down to hide his face…

…And the large wooden door that had appeared in the middle of the room. 

Ivan peered around one floppy ear. “Was that ’sposed to happen?” he asked, so meekly I could barely hear him.  

“Going to be honest with you,” I replied, standing up. “I have no clue.” 

I walked toward the door. It was huge, tall and wide enough to admit a bear, perhaps even a bison. It stood in a slim wooden frame made of darker wood. A brass knob— at eye height for me— waited invitingly. I peered around the other side of the door. It was just smooth wood on the other side, no knob.

I returned to the front and reached for the doorknob. “Ain’t you gonna knock?” Ivan asked. 

“No I am not going to knock on the magic door!” I replied, then let my hand fall, hesitant. 

“Grandpa?” I called, then sighed and rapped my knuckles against the wood. 

“It’s only polite,” Ivan said. “My momma would be proud of you—”

“Would you hush!” I hissed, straining to hear what might be on the other side of the door. 

“Where does it lead?” Ivan asked, suddenly standing at my elbow, holding a broom. I jumped, nearly summoning  a bit of lightning to zap him. 

“I don’t know,” I admitted, scratching absently at my ear. 

We spent a long moment in silence, both of us staring at the door, side by side now. 

“Don’t think anyone’s home,” Ivan said, finally breaking the quiet. 

“Alright, I’m going to open it,” I told the rabbit, trying to sound confident. 

Ivan raised the broom as if brandishing a weapon. “Ok, I’m ready,” he said. 

“Open your eyes,” I told him. 

“Oh, sorry,” he said, popping open one eye and keeping the other firmly shut, as if ready to close his eyes again at a moment’s notice. 

I pictured the burn marks on the library rug. Glancing down, I saw similar marks on the floor of the laboratory. We never saw a door down there, I thought, even as I was wrapping my fingers around the knob and twisting it, it occurred to me that this door, like that one, was bound to vanish. 

And then the door was open, and I was face to face with… my laboratory. Immediately I felt like a fool. Where else had I expected a door in the middle of the room to open into? 

“It’s just my lab,” I said. I hovered for a moment between relief and disappointment. 

“No it ain’t,” Ivan said. “Unless your lab got real vine-y while we wasn’t looking.”

I studied more closely and realized he was right. Vines swathed the far wall. What I had taken for one of my squeaky clean picture windows was actually just open air. The sky was the same outside, though. A deep, bruised purple. The door led to a world like ours, but different. 

“You going in?” Ivan asked. 

I glanced between the rabbit and the door, then pictured the burn mark on the floor of the library again. 

“Not without a little preparation,” I told him. 

A few minutes later I cinched the rope tightly around my waist. 

“You sure this’ll work?” Ivan asked, fingering the rope where it wrapped around his own belly. 

“Nope,” I admitted. I had tied the other end of the rope to an old candelabra by the door. Most of the cord lay coiled on the floor, maybe two hundred feet or so. Enough to let us dip our toes into the other world. “You can stay here, but I’m going to try and find my grandpa.” 

“How long did you say it’s been since you saw him?” Ivan asked.

“Twenty-three years,” I said. It felt like longer when I said it aloud. Practically a lifetime. In that twenty-three years I’d grown up, lost my family, and taught myself magic. It was a lifetime, but if Grandpa was trapped in another world, it was my job to rescue him. 

“Oh I’ll come,” he replied. “Way I see it I owe you one for the beets and for not making me sleep in a dirty hole in the ground. But you sure he’s still alive?” 

“No. I wish I could be.” But I’ve come too far and worked too hard not to see this through, I finished in my head. 

I glanced at Ivan, grabbed at the rope around my waist, and stepped inside. There was no obvious change. No flashes of light or wind in my ears, but the world felt different. The air was different in my lungs, thin and oily. I had a hard time catching my breath at first. There was a heavy scent of green in the room, a sleepy, flowery smell. 

The lab on the other side of the door was very like the one we’d left, but… worn. My tables— or at least what I thought were my tables— were there, but most of them were so overgrown with ivy I hardly recognized them. Where Mister Lightning ought to have been, there was just an old rug, rotting and carpeted with moss. 

All the windows were long gone, letting a sea breeze curl through the leaves of the plants that grew everywhere. The ocean stretched endlessly beyond. I thought I saw a large shadow shifting under the waves at the edge of the horizon, but it had to be some trick of the light. 

“Hey, Grandpa!” Ivan cried. I jumped and turned to see the rabbit had cupped his hands around his mouth to yell. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, though it was obvious. 

“I’m calling your grandpa! Thought we was here looking for him.” 

“Well, yeah but he’s not your grandpa.” Until we figured out what was going on with this place, I didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention. 

“He don’t know that! Way I see it, it’s been twenty-three years. How would he know what you sound like? GRAMPS!” he hollered.

“Pipe down, will you?” I cried. “We don’t know who’s in this version of my castle!” 

“Whoa!” Ivan cried, suddenly turning back to me with a ridiculous grin on his face. “Did you hear yourself just now? My castle! I’ve always wanted to talk like that. ‘Oh do be a lamb and come to my castle, we’ll roast my finest carrot.’ How’d it feel coming out?”

“Um, what?” I replied. “Did you hear yourself just now? Because you sounded like a dumb rabbit.”

‘That’s kind of mean, but ok,” Ivan replied, his ears drooping. 

“I hate that castle. I’ve lived in the big, stupid, drafty, blasted thing all alone every day for years. I haven’t seen another raccoon in— wait.” A scrabbling sound echoed through the hallway outside the overgrown version of the lab. 

“Do you hear that?” I asked. 

“Couldn’t miss it,” the rabbit replied, tugging one of his floppy ears. The sound grew louder. Footsteps running over bare stone. 

“Get ready,” I told Ivan. The rabbit hid his eyes behind his ears, held his broom high, then peeked one eye out. 

The sound stopped. 

“Ready for what, exactly?” he asked after a moment. 

“I have no—” A terrible screeching sound cut me off. A shadowy figure stood in the entrance to the laboratory. Lightning flashed, and I stepped back in horror. 

The figure was… me. 

Cast back into darkness, my night vision had been ruined. The otherworldly version of me let out another screech and tore toward us. I couldn’t see anything but a shadow tearing toward us in the dark. 

I fell backward as the Other Me sprang, claws out. I hit the raccoon with a burst of electricity and it flew across the room with a wild yelp, sizzling through the air like a firecracker.

“Why did you attack us?” Ivan asked, eyes wide. 

“Why are you looking at me?” I asked. “How should I know?”

“He’s you, isn’t he?” Ivan asked, tugging on one ear and gesturing wildly with his broom. 

“Not really! He’s some sort of parallel world version of me!” Lighting still crackled along my right palm. I put it out, worried I would shock Ivan or myself by accident. I had practiced some with magically created lightning, but I’d never used it in an actual fight before. 

It was… nauseating. 

I felt certain I could throw up at any minute, and it wasn’t the smell of burnt hair that now permeated the lab. My heart was hammering in my chest, my palms slick with sweat. 

The raccoon hadn’t risen from where it had fallen. I stepped closer, ready to summon another spark should it try to attack again. It sat in a heap, half-leant against the wall like a vagrant slouching under an awning. It let out a feral hiss as I drew near. 

“It’s like a mad version of me,” I said.

“Why ain’t you wearing clothes?” Ivan asked, poking the Mad Me in the foot with the broom. The raccoon shuddered and gave another hiss but seemed too dazed yet to rise. 

“I told you, that’s not me!” I cried. “I’m me!” 

“I know you’re you,” Ivan replied. “But he’s kinda you too. Thought you might know.” 

A musical chiming brought our eyes up to the doorway. A small, golden ball floated in the hallway, bobbing up and down and releasing a pleasant little sound. 

“What’s that?” Ivan asked. 

“You mean besides incredibly creepy?” I replied. “No idea.”

The little golden ball moved up and down a few more times, then suddenly turned a deep orange color and vanished. 

Ivan fingered his rope. It was an absent-minded gesture, but it wasn’t hard to tell what he was thinking.

“I’m not ready to go back yet,” I said. “But you’re more than welcome to.” 

“We’re tied together, sirrah,” the rabbit replied. 

I reached for the knot at my belly button and began to loosen it. 

“Nah,” Ivan said, giving the rope a little tug so it jerked out of my palms. “I’ll stay. Let’s just make it hasty-like.”

That was a suggestion I couldn’t argue with. I stepped out into the hall with the rabbit a few feet behind.

I was immediately attacked by another mad raccoon and sent it flying toward the stairs. 

“Yeeouch!” I cried. “That one bit me!” 

“Wow!” my companion cried. “I think you knocked him down the stairs! By the Emperor’s fuzzy slippers, he’ll be feeling that in the morning!” 

“I wish they’d stop,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt my own people.” 

“Was that a mad version of you?” Ivan asked. 

“I think it was my Aunt Margaret,” I replied hollowly, feeling terrible. I was nauseated again and now bothered by my conscience. “Another mad version of someone from our world.” 

“Maybe everyone is mad here. Mad Eldara!” 

Mad Eldara. 

From then on, that was what we called the other world. 

I leaned down to check the bite on my ankle. It was shallow. Mad Aunt Margaret hadn’t had time to do more than break the skin. 

 “Emperor’s… you think Mhysifus wears fuzzy slippers?” I asked as I straightened. I couldn’t picture the gigantic bear emperor wearing anything over his already furry feet. Bears weren’t one for footwear, even in the dead of winter.

“Don’t all rich folk have fuzzy slippers?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think so.” 

We moved down the stairs. Another dazed raccoon slumped there, but despite being stunned and flung across the castle, it didn’t seem badly hurt. She, I corrected myself. She didn’t seem badly hurt. 

The doors to the Mad Eldara version of my castle hung on their hinges. One of them was tangled about with ivy leaves. I checked the downstairs hall and the coat closet for more crazed relatives, but there was no sign of anyone else. 

I tried to step outside and felt a tug. I looked back at Ivan with a frown, but he shrugged. “We’re out of rope,” he said, twanging the tightened cord like a tuneless guitar string. “Can’t you magic it longer?” 

I shook my head. I knew exactly three spells. Lightning, making wood floaty (and not much else) and the doorway that had brought us here. I had studied loads of theory behind other spells, but had never actually worked any of them out, being self-taught it had been hard enough just to get started. 

“I have an idea,” I said. I untied the rope from around my waist. With the knot loosed, I gained another foot of space. Keeping a tight hold of the cord in one hand, I stepped outside. The rain had softened to a drizzle. The front lawn was a maze of shoulder-height grasses that waved in the wind. I could see what might have been the ruins of Grandfather’s beet farm. In Mad Eldara they were all but devoured by the overgrowth. 

No sign of Grandpa. Of course, it had been so long. It had been a slight hope. 

“What happened to this place?” Ivan asked.

“I was wondering the same thing,” I replied. 

The waving grass began to shudder wildly. “Something’s coming!” I whispered, taking a step backward. 

 Over a dozen raccoons burst out of the nearby underbrush, all of them hissing and screeching. They bounded in on all fours, then stopped and stood, staring at us with blank, black eyes. 

“You gonna zip-zap ‘em?” Ivan asked. 

I swallowed hard, feeling sick again. I didn’t answer aloud, trying to steel my resolve for another fight. 

A distant bolt of lightning lit up the yard. The raccoons all had familiar faces, virtually identical to relatives I’d lost to the plague. Except naked and crazy and living in an unkempt parallel universe. 

As if on some silent signal, every last one of the mad raccoons raced toward me. I let go of the rope, taking a few steps away from the castle entrance. I didn’t want to strike Ivan by mistake. 

When the raccoons were mere inches away I let out a huge burst of lightning in all directions. Raccoons went flying everywhere, some yowling as they flew into the tall grasses. One smacked the wall behind me. Another landed on the roof of Grandfather’s cabin. 

Drained by the exertion, I dropped to one knee, panting hard.  

“That was amazing!” Ivan cried, patting me on the shoulder. 

I stared at his paw. It seemed to move up and down in slow motion, landed with the weight of a thousand pounds each time it descended. I found my eyes moving down to our improvised lifeline. It was still tied around his waist. 

I was about six feet from the door, crouching in a burnt patch of grass. “How are you outside?” I asked. 

Both of the rabbit’s ears shot straight up, his eyes widening with alarm. If the rope was loose now, what happened to the door home? 

“RUN!” I cried. Shaking off my exhaustion, I made a dash for the front door. Ivan was even faster, bounding ahead of me in a brown and white blur. The raccoon I’d knocked into the wall hissed weakly as I hurtled by. 

The small yellow sphere appeared as we entered the antechamber. It chimed as we ran past. The stairs seemed a hundred feet high as we hurtled upward. I tripped on the top step and smacked into the runner so hard I saw stars. 

Ivan stopped at the entrance to the lab, hesitating. 

“Keep going,” I managed to groan. “Check the door.” 

A strong hand grabbed my wrist. Expecting another resident of Mad Eldara, I resisted. Suddenly I was standing in the lab. Going from sprawled on the ground to standing in another room instantaneously was so disorienting I would have lost my balance and fallen immediately were it not for the hand still clamped on my arm like an iron vice.

An elderly raccoon with a graying muzzle smiled at me with twinkly eyes. The portal home was on the far side of the room. The doorway was on fire. Flames danced on the top of the frame, the door blackening with char. In seconds the whole thing would be little more than a puff of ash.

And a black mark on the rug. 

We teleported again— for that was how we’d gotten into the lab so quickly— this time right up to the burning doorframe. The elderly raccoon pushed me through the door, following on my heels. 

“Grandpa!” I shouted as we burst back into the real world. 

The door was burning on this side too. Ivan had found a bucket somewhere and tried splashing the flames with water, but the liquid did nothing. 

“Leave off, rabbit friend,” Grandpa said. “You will not do any good. I found no spell to make the doorway into that awful place permanent, and no spell at all could bring me home.” 

“How did you—” I began. “How? How?” 

“Think you broke him,” Ivan said. 

“I just, I mean—” I tried to articulate my questions, but it was hopeless. The rush of emotion I felt at seeing Grandpa alive after all this time was overwhelming. I threw my arms around him, the last of my family. 

 He returned the hug fiercely. He smelled of the other world. That same heady, flowery scent I’d noticed in the Mad Eldara version of the lab. 

“I’m guessing we’ve both got a story to tell,” Grandpa said. His voice was huskier than I remembered. He looked thinner too. It was as if the other world had dried him out. “Where’s the rest of the family? Are we in the ballroom?” he asked, glancing around.

“Hasn’t been a dance here in a long time,” I said. Tears filled my eyes as I realized he didn’t know everyone was gone. “Ivan, get him a chair,” I said, rubbing hands roughly at my eyes. I’d just ventured into a hostile universe and saved my only living relative. I could get through this, too. 

“That’s… Well, there’s really no word for it,” Grandpa said when I’d told him everything. “Awful, terrible, they’re too small for tragedies.” He stood and clapped a hand on my shoulder, tears brimming in his eyes. “Thank you for rescuing me. That was very brave.” 

He turned to Ivan, who had been surprisingly silent this whole time. “And you are?” Grandpa asked. 

“Ivan Hawthorne,” the rabbit replied. “At your service.”

“Thank you for helping my grandson, Ivan. You’re a good friend.” 

“Oh we’re—” I began, then caught myself. I’d been about to say we weren’t friends. But Ivan had ventured into another world with me, refused to abandon me even when things became truly terrifying. What better friend could I ask for, rabbit or no?

“Yes he is,” I said instead, catching the rabbit’s gaze and smiling. 

“What brought you all the way out here?” Grandpa asked Ivan.

“Them bears are always wanting more land,” Ivan replied. “They took my family’s farm.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Grandpa replied.

“Victor here was gonna set me in up in that old cabin outside,” Ivan said, “but I talked him into letting me stay in here.” 

“Is that awful shack Cornelius built still standing?” Grandpa asked. He stood and began to pace. He studied Mister Lightning, then the mark on the rug where the doorway to Mad Eldara had been. “Clever, using this device to help you channel enough lightning to create a doorway! I suppose it’s my turn,” he said, returning to his chair.

“As you know, I made a doorway to that crazed version of our world—”

“We call it Mad Eldara,” Ivan interrupted. 

I glared at the rabbit, but he seemed oblivious to my gaze. “Don’t interrupt!” 

“Ok,” Grandpa said. “I made a doorway to Mad Eldara. That’s a good name for it, by the way. I didn’t set out to create a portal to another world. I only wanted a way to get around our world faster.”

“Which you found!” I said, before realizing I was doing what I’d just scolded Ivan for. 

“Yes… I had a lot of time to myself over… in Mad Eldara. I taught myself how to teleport. Without the ability we might have gotten trapped over there. Turned out I was barking up the wrong tree. Magical doorways are a far slower way to get around than just using teleportation. Anyway, when I—”

“What’s that?” Ivan asked.

“What?” Grandpa replied. 

“Telly potato… whatever. I don’t know what that means.” 

“Teleportation… instantaneous travel from one place to another. Are we good? Ok, so I went over there. I had no idea the doorway would collapse. I explored for hours with no thought to how I would return home. The Mad Eldara version of the castle was empty. I have no idea who built it over there. I walked the nearby woods. The road to Ursa Major was still there, overgrown but still there. When I came back the door was gone.” 

“So where did you go for twenty-three years?” I asked.

“I kept exploring. For years I just… wandered. The whole planet is abandoned except for feral versions of our friends and family members. At least, as far as I ever found. I set a warning spell in case one of you lot ever crossed over somehow, so I’d know if I could go home.” 

“The creepy music ball!” Ivan cried. 

“I’m so proud of you, teaching yourself magic,” Grandpa said to me. 

“I could use a teacher,” I admitted. 

“And you’ve got one!” Grandpa burst to his feet. “We must get started right away!”

“Started?” I asked. 

“There’s so much to do!” Grandpa cried, waving a hand wildly toward the world outside the castle. “Our relatives, I don’t think they really died of the plague. I think they’re the raccoons of Mad Eldara!” 

“You mean we might be able to save our people?” I asked, refusing to let myself believe it.  

“I think so,” Grandpa replied.

“Wait, there was a Victor over there too,” Ivan pointed out. “How’s that work? He didn’t die of no plague.”

“And… I mean, I buried everyone,” I said. “That doesn’t really make sense, Grandpa.” 

“I don’t fully understand it myself,” Grandpa admitted. “But I think the doorway I made messed with reality. Your re-creation of my experiment probably warped it even further. It’s going to be a lot of work. It could take years to fix things.” 

I shrugged. “I’ve got time.” 

“Excellent, and then when we set things aright we can get back to my previous work.” 

“Which is?” I asked.

“Proper doorways. I’m convinced there are more than just these two worlds, and you and I, we’re going to find them!” 

“You mean the three of us,” I said, putting my arm around Ivan’s shoulders.

“You telling me I can stay?” he asked. 

“Of course you can stay,” I said. “You have a home here as long as you need it,” I told him. “And you don’t have to sleep in the cabin.”

I grinned, filled with hope for the first time in years. All the possibilities ahead were so exciting I could hardly believe it. “I’ll need your help. Grandpa’s right. We’ve got a lot of work to do!” 

A Brief History of Podcasting

Hello there! After much debate and about 30 seconds of googling, I hear that Mondays are the best day to update your blog. Therefore I have decided that we will be updating every Monday from now on.

What forms the weekly update may take will vary, but it'll mostly be stories, since that's what I do. I'll post snippets and previews of things I'm working on both so you can enjoy the writing for its own sake, and so you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the crafting of these crazy novels I write.

FOR THIS WEEK

I did an interview for the podcast I co-host, Coffee Nerds. We chatted a bit about the creation of Portal World, my new book.

I won't plug my podcast too often (I have a different blog for that), but this episode had both worlds intersecting for an Epic Crossover Event that doesn't happen very often, so I thought it would be a lazy awesome way to get started with regular updates.

(Portal World discussion starts at about the 7:30 mark)



As always, I value your feedback. Feel free to drop me a comment. Later llamas!

PORTAL WORLD

Why hello there! Long time no talk I know. Last you heard I was working on EARTHBOUND in the great state of Colorado.

Now I live in Ohio and I have a novel OUT NOW on Amazon.com! It's available on Kindle there. Print is out of stock for a few more weeks. Audio is coming soon!

Don't feel like waiting?? Email me DIRECT: enderauthor@gmail.com

I'll send you a signed copy for the low, low price of $17 (that includes shipping!). I'll even sign it if you like. :D

You can also get an unsigned copy direct from the publisher at crimsonpulsemedia.com. This is a great way to go if you want books by other authors as well. I recommend Portal World's serial brother The Last Runner so you can get caught up in time for the second book, which I believe begins releasing chapters soon. I'm behind myself, but hoping to catch up soon!

I've got a ton going on and will hopefully be able to announce the release of my next book soon! It's going to be a new serial, fantasy this time instead of sci-fi. Chapters are set to release sometime this month if I'm not mistaken.

I'm planning to begin work on the sequel to PW in just a few weeks, and I am super excited for that. It's going to be so much fun to write, I've got a lot of crazy ideas I can't wait to get on paper.

The Last Laugh

For a long time now, I've wanted to write a short prequel from the perspective of Penny, one of the main characters in my new novel, Earthbound. Things finally clicked into place recently and I got it down on paper. Well, the electronic equivalent. This story takes place before the events of my new book. You shouldn't have to have read anything else to enjoy this prequel.

Without further ado, here it is.

The Last Laugh

Laughter is my weapon. 

Laughter is my freedom, for if I can laugh who can call me a slave? Would you dare to a call a woman beaten when she can look you in the eye with a triumphant smile on her face? Born on the orphan world, I have seen little reason to laugh. My people are a wreck. We live in ruins, dressed in rags and shivering against our fires, hoping to eek out another day in the cold and the hunger and the misery. The mines claim new victims every day, and the children are uneducated and confused. 

Laughter is my weapon. It’s how I fight the oppression we live in. It’s how I have tried to enact a change. I have done my best with the kids. I have taught them how to read, and I have tried to make them laugh. Those are the only gifts I have to give. They were gifts given to me by an old woman, a thirty-year old who had suffered through over a decade in the mines before finally succumbing to black lung. In her last days, she had taught me how to read spacer, the language of the stars. She wanted to leave behind a greater legacy than years of service to our masked rulers the warts. 

I still remember her last words to me. “If you can laugh, they don’t own you.” 

“No, Janice, you need to finish your breakfast,” I called, a toddler on my hip. I didn’t know where the boy—Nick— had come from, I just did my best with him. Janice was four years old, and becoming willful. It was warm out today and she wanted to play, but I couldn’t have another child stealing her food. The kid was skinny enough as it was. 

“No Pennappy,” she replied. She couldn’t pronounce Penelope— my full name— yet. “‘M going to play.” I didn’t know why she tried to call me Penelope. Most everyone called me Penny. 

“Oh, are you?” I replied, rising from the rickety table to regard her. The hovel of a room where we lowly humans ate was its usual drafty disaster area. I could see shafts of sunlight shining through the ceiling, and we weren’t even on the top floor. 

“Yes Pennappy,” she said. “You can come too,” the little girl added generously.

“What about the dinosaurs?” I asked, putting Nick down on the floor.

“Dinosaurs?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Mmhmm, the ones that will come and eat your food if you don’t finish it. Remember dinosaurs from the book?” I asked. I’d used a few ratty old books to teach the kids about animals. 

“Long neck dinosaur or sharp tooth dinosaur?” she asked. 

I considered. I didn’t want to scare her. Much. “Long neck.” I raised one my arms in an imitation of a brontosaurus and made my hand flap like a mouth. “He’ll just swoop in”—at this I darted the brontosaurus’s mouth toward her bowl of gruel and pretended he was eating it— “and gobble up your food! Nom nom nom!”

“Ok,” she said flatly, and turned to leave. 

You leave me no choice. Still keeping my brontosaurus arm up, I darted toward her. “Brontosaurus is going to get you!” I cried, picking her up and carrying her back toward the table. She giggled and squealed as I hefted her in the air, carrying her back toward her food. 

“Finish your food, then you can play outside, sweetie.”

“Ok, Pennappy,” she said. She put a little hand on my arm. “I’m glad you’re my mommy,” she said before picking up her battered steel spoon. 

“Oh honey, I’m not-” I began. But I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. For some reason I felt like the illusion should stay. I couldn’t tell if it was for her sake or mine. 

Nick was getting fussy. He was just standing where I’d put him, looking like he was about to cry, though I had no idea what for. I was about to go to him when I heard loud footsteps shaking the mouldering wooden floorboards. 

No, I thought. Please no. It had only been a week or so since our last summons. I glanced around at the few other orphans in the room. There was Jonah, a nervous kid who had a crush on me, and Dante, an older boy due to be sent to the factories or mines any day now. If anyone was likely to be summoned, it was Dante. I didn’t think about the other likely possibility. That at fifteen I was only a year younger…

A wart stepped into the room and glanced around, examining us through the lenses of its gas mask. Somehow they always knew exactly how to find us when the time came for a summoning. Every few weeks a wart would come to the building and hand one of us an envelope, an envelope that contained a very simple message. A note that simply said “Come.” It was a summons that could not be ignored. A few had tried, and they just got dragged off anyway. No one ever came back from a summons. That was the kicker. It was impossible not to consider that little piece of paper a death warrant. 

A moment later, I was holding a dirty, tattered envelope. Nick was crying, and the stomping footsteps were receding. 

Me. 

The summons was for me. 

I held the paper in my outstretched arm for a long time before I slowly let it drop to my side. I’m going to die, I thought, but immediately I clamped down on that kind of thinking. I had children to be brave for. Jonah and Dante were staring at me with concern, Nick was bawling. Janice gaped. Her spoon dangled from one hand, a bit of khaki-colored glop hanging off the edge. 

“Don’t go, Stomper.” I called after the wart. “Stay for tea and cookies.” I looked back at the other orphans. They were still staring at me. Say something clever, I told myself. 

“It must be my birthday,” I said with a forced chuckle, tearing open the envelope. We didn’t know our own birthdays. We couldn’t even keep track of the dates very well. The joke fell flat on its face. The kids kept staring. 

I wanted to say something funny, something that would make them laugh, but my eyes were glued to that word. That deadly word. 

Come.

I didn’t let myself react to the news. I wanted to rage, to scream and cry and toss tables over, but I didn’t do any of those things.

I plastered a big, fake smile on my face and picked up Nick, rocking him gently in my arms. He calmed down pretty quick. The warts weren’t too scary anymore. I’d made up stories about them for the younger kids. We called them silly names like Stomper and Trompy Boots. When your overlord was named Trompy Boots and he was looking for a special flower in a meadow, he wasn’t quite as frightening. 

“Finish your food, Janice! Last time I’m telling you!”

An hour later I was stamping my way through eight inches of snow, the weight of farewells heavy on my mind. Tears stung my eyes every time I thought about the kids. I hadn’t really told them goodbye, and I hadn’t said anything at all to the others. Most of the orphans didn’t even know I’d been summoned. I felt it was best to leave that way. No scene, no fuss. One day I was there watching out for the little ones, next one found me tramping a snowy wasteland toward an uncertain future. 

I could only hope Jonah or Dante or one of the others would step up. Jonah I knew had a fierce soul. He was timid and useless with children, but there was a lion in there waiting to be woken up. I had more hope for him than Dante, who had already given up. Most of us got cynical the closer we got to leaving for a short, brutal life in the mines or the factories.

Or a summons. 

Wart headquarters loomed ahead of me, a tall, rectangular building that could be seen from the orphans’ dwellings. The lobby was warm when I stepped inside, almost uncomfortably so after the long, cold walk. There were two elevators opposite the entrance. One of them opened with a loud “bing!” as I arrived.

I sat down against the glass wall next to the door. Through my thin sweater the surface was cold against my spine. I watched the elevator, wondering what would happen if I just stayed right here. No one had ever done that, not that I’d heard. Some tried to run away, and got caught. Some tried to stay in the tenements, and got dragged off. The rest just admitted defeat and went into the elevator. But, I suppose if they had tried to wait right here I never would have heard of it. And there was the matter of food… I was already hungry. 

With a sigh, I rose to my feet. “They better feed me,” I muttered. When I stepped into the elevator, one of the buttons was already lit. A sideways 8 was printed on the white surface. It glowed with blue light. I was going to the top. After a short, smooth ride, the doors slid open. 

The room beyond was misty. I stepped out of the elevator without hesitation. The doors slid closed behind me with a squeaky rumble. 

“Something wrong with your ventilation?” I called. Shapes emerged from the fog. Six warts stepped forward. One of them was an oddity. Instead of the usual black, his body armor was silver, and his helmet was red. 

“Subject 1-4-9-8 stretch out your arm,” a robotic voice commanded. I couldn’t tell which wart it had come from.

“Can I have a sandwich first? I’m quite famished.” 

“Subject 1-4-9-8 stretch out your arm!” Definitely the wart on the far right. I… didn’t want to. I was still trying to figure out how cooperative I actually had to be. I had come willingly to avoid getting stunned and dragged off in the night. The kids didn’t need to see that. Now that I was here, there was nothing left for them to hold over me, no threat that could scare me.

“Sandwich first.” I replied, folding my arms tight across my chest. 

“Do it,” the silver wart commanded. 

“Sir?” one of the others replied.

“Make her a sandwich.” 

“Really?” I asked in shock. At least two warts expressed their own surprise. 

One of the warts sighed and clomped off, muttering.

“Extra cheese, please!” I called to the being as it retreated into the mist. “And mustard!”

A few minutes later I was chomping on the most delicious sandwich I had ever eaten while a syringe was inserted into a vein on my left forearm. I held my food in my right hand, taking huge bites. The bread was soft and fragrant, and the meat was spiced perfectly. I couldn’t tell what kind of meat it was but that didn’t matter. It was so good! Best of all, I got the mustard and extra cheese. 

My head began to swim. I took another bite, determined to enjoy every morsel of that damn sandwich. 

“Wat you gonna do ta me?” I asked with my mouth full of food. 

“Come this way,” one of the warts commanded. They led me through the fog to a row of glass-walled chambers. Six little rooms with beds and different equipment in each. 

They led me into the chamber on the far left of the room. I was lowered into a bed. One of the warts started to reach for my sandwich, but I shoved its hand away and took one final bite. There was nothing but a crust left. I dropped it to the floor, amused at the prospect of one of the warts having to pick it up in that heavy and very inflexible-looking body armor. 

Another needle went into my arm. This one didn’t come out. I was about to go under. I could feel it, like an avalanche rumbling down a mountain. A bright lamp shone into my eyes as I lay back, pressed down by one of the warts. They surrounded me, glass eyes staring. My mouth suddenly had a metallic taste, like copper. 

I blinked against the light, and forced myself to laugh. It was a choked, pitiable sound, but I knew if I could find humor here, if I could laugh here, I could really win everything. I pictured the wart stomping off to make me a sandwich and let out a loud, clear laugh. 

“What is wrong with her?” one of the warts asked.

“You should see your faces,” I said, chuckling. I was still laughing when a third needle went in, this one into my neck. Then the avalanche claimed me, and everything that made me Penny was buried under a deluge of needles and the whir of a bone saw. 

I got the last laugh. 

This is not the end of Penny’s story… to find out what happens next, read Earthbound, coming soon!

The Silence

Here's a little short story I wrote. Our culture has been pretty into zombies for the last several years, and I've wanted to throw my hat in the proverbial ring, but I have too many other projects on my plate. This short story came to me a few weeks ago... I enjoyed it so much I thought I better post it.

"The Silence" 

The silence would soon become eternal.

I sighed with relief as the fire at last took hold, burning away the kindling and grasping the logs with hands of flame. I’d settled between two dunes to block the wind, but even so my hands weren’t what they used to be, and lighting the blaze had taken time. I could hear the quiet, sliding whispers of the tides not ten yards off. In the distance, insect-song. Silence had already taken this part of the world. All that remained now were the old sounds, the sounds that had been here all along. 

Nearby, the hulking wreck of a ruined tanker leaned at a disconcerting angle. To see something so large from the wrong side, in the wrong position, it was dizzying. I didn’t like to look at the ship. I always avoided ruins, but there was something about the great ships that especially bothered me. A building that had fallen into disrepair could still be restored to use, but a beached boat with a ruined hull would never sail again. 

That was the greater ruin, a body that could never be used again. 

The world was full of ruins. 

Human ruins had once been everywhere. Humans that had once been alive with bright eyes and red blood had become monsters, living corpses that wandered urban wastelands, seeking easy prey. 

I poked the fire with a stick, staring at the flames until my eyes hurt. I didn’t want to look at the world. I just wanted to see the fire. The fire was my kin, in a way. I had wandered the wastelands of Earth for time out of mind, bringing an end to the shambling, skulking monstrosities that roamed, the zombies that had once been human. 

I had inherited their curse. The same disease that had brought down humanity had also made me indestructible. Pulling a chipped and well-used whetstone out of my bag, I began to sharpen my sword. The blade must be kept sharp and ready, lest it catch in the vertebrate of the living dead. 

I did not sleep. I no longer needed sleep. I just rested next to the campfire and I sharpened my weapon. A broadsword with a long, two-handed grip. 

I rose early, the sun casting vivid bands of color across the blues of sea and sky, and made my way North. In the distance, I could see ruins. The dark towers of fallen man skulked in the shadows, overgrown and unruly. My final destination.

Every one of the animated corpses on the planet has an extra sense, a prey-sense that tells when a truly living human is near, a beating heart that can be ripped out and devoured. This too had gone wrong in me. I couldn’t sense humans. I sensed only the roaming monsters. I had been using that ability for decades now. 

The signal was weak. There were almost none of them left. The world would be reclaimed by silence soon enough. I marched on across the beach. Ravaged beach houses lay to my left, all of them like giant tombstones, testaments to a long-gone past. 

I came into the city at dusk. I was weary again, but I was too close now. I had to finish. 

The streets were green. Weeds and creeping vines grew with wild abandon, snidely reclaiming their lost lands from human civilization. The signal was stronger now, but I could tell even more clearly that it was almost over. There was only one of them. 

Not the last. The next to last.

Every one of the skyscrapers rearing above me looked like it was ready to fall. Their shadows made me nervous. Finding it prudent to hurry, I stepped up my pace. I expected to find the last of the living dead in one of the buildings, maybe a basement or a closet, somehow missed the first time I’d been through. But no, the odd sense in my brain led me to Central Park, which now looked for all the world like a forest. 

The vegetation was so thick at the edge of the pavement that I had to slash my way in. I cut a path and found myself in a narrow green tunnel. Displaced stones lay on the ground like a miniature mountain range, rising and falling in peaks and valleys. After a careful walk, I stumbled upon a ruined brick plaza that was slowly being reclaimed by trees. A vine-choked fountain lay not far off. The creature was there. It had fallen into the fountain. 

I walked closer, sword held at the ready. The thing had no legs, and could not seem to find the coordination to haul itself out. Dingy water lay at the bottom of bowl, thick with grit and rotting leaves. The monster itself gave off a powerful stench. Its skin was green with rot, peeling away in thick swatches. This one had once been a woman. I could not tell what she might have looked like. Her face was little more than a grimacing skull. She snarled when she saw me, reaching out with fingers that were missing most of their knuckles. The nubs oozed pus and black blood.

It had come to this. I had killed every zombie in the world. Every zombie save this one, and myself.

I brought my sword down. 

The creature gurgled once, then went still. The battle was over. 

I turned my sword around. I would fall upon it, and the silence would descend. There were no people left, but there also no zombies. The world would be empty. I would have liked to have been able to save the world for humanity, but they had been gone too fast, and most of the immune like myself had worn out over time, their bodies unable to handle the strain of living forever. 

“Wait!” a voice called. I stumbled in shock and nearly fell on my sword regardless. I looked up and saw a young girl with startlingly blond hair was staring at me, one arm held out in supplication. “Wait,” she said again. Her hair was clean and bright like sunlight. Her clothes were rough, knitted by hand and ill-fitting, but they too were clean. She was whole, she was human. She was not a zombie.

“Are you the Wanderer?” she asked. The one who travels the world killing the zombies?” 

“I am,” I said. My voice was rough. I hadn’t spoken in years. I had almost thought I might never speak again. I had been so certain there was no one left to speak to. “There are… more, like you?” I asked.

“Yes, many! We hid in the subway tunnels. We hid for years, but we heard about you…” I saw you walking and I thought… I thought I’d talk to you.” 

"Where are these multitudes?” I asked. 

“Still underground. The old folks are afraid of the upper world.” 

“Are you afraid?” I asked. I stepped forward, and the girl gasped. Though I had taken care of myself, my body was worn. My fingers were smooth, and almost bone-like. My face was little better. The skin was dry and brittle like old leather. I was not meant for this. I didn’t belong in the new world. I was an in-between man. Not a relic of the past, not a piece of the future. I had served my purpose in ending the zombie menace. I had thought the silence was my goal, but I had been wrong. It was this girl. This girl with bright sunlight in her hair.

The girl had not answered my question. She was staring, her hands at her side, clenching and unclenching.

“My time is done,” I added. I waved with my sword. “You should go.” I was tired and ready to die.

“Wait,” the girl said a third time. “Come back with me. You’re a hero. You don’t have to…” Her eyes were averted. She couldn’t look at the sword in my withered hand. 

I shook my head. I couldn’t imagine being around… people again. It had been so long. So much time had passed in quiet solitude. 

The sun-girl reached out her hand. My whole body began to tremble. I looked down at my sword.

I dropped the weapon. 

I reached out, and I took the girl’s slender offering. We walked away together, out of the wilderness and out of humanity’s long dark night. 

Earthbound Chapter One

Earthbound

Chapter One: The Blackout (1500 word version)

The short walk to paradise. 

That was what survivors called the road. The old ones, who had managed to make it to their twenties. I would never turn twenty, wouldn’t even make fourteen. I preferred to think of the walk as an end to misery, better than a decade in the mines. I trundled through nearly a quarter-meter of snow, only a ragged sweater keeping me warm. It was thick, but fraying at the hems. Strings were always hanging off, catching on things. Like I was leaving bits of myself behind everywhere I went. 

We call this place the orphan world. No one has any mother, father, brother or sister. I barely have a concept for grandparents because there are no elderly people here. Only the strongest, toughest and meanest can survive. It’s these that made it into their twenties. Sometimes the old ones helped you, taught you things, sometimes… most times, they didn't. Except for Penny, but she was different. 

There's three things you need to know about the orphan world. First, when you turn fourteen you're going to work in the mines, or the factories. Second, you will die in the mines, or the factories. And third, when they call you to the building with the red elevators, you are never coming back.

I'd been summoned yesterday morning. A being in a gas mask had delivered a crinkled, burned-around-the-edges envelope. He hadn't said a word, just handed me the packet and walked away. Inside was a piece of paper with four words. 

Your Day Has Come.

That was all that was needed. You knew what it meant. You can ignore the summons, yes, but someone's going to show up beside your bed when you're sleeping and pump you full of electricity till you can’t move. You’ll probably pee yourself when it happens. Then they carry you off anyway, twitching and senseless.

Being thirteen years old, I lived in the Lyran Commons with all the children. It wasn't a building meant for living in. The whole planet had been different once long ago, before the warts had taken over. There were ruins everywhere. I was walking in a canyon made by several toppled buildings, towards the one structure the warts had built, a massive building that towered over the land like a boxy mountain.

Wart headquarters.

“Wart” was the name the survivors had given to the rulers of the orphan world. No one knew what was behind the gas masks they always wore, but the story was they looked like toads, with skin covered in warts. As to what the warts called themselves... they seemed to want us to think of them as "the master race". They'd never given a real name to call them, which only added to their mysteriousness.

I wanted to drag out the long walk from Lyran Commons to the headquarters, but it was so cold I couldn't. After half an hour in the cold, I was shivering. Soon I was standing in a massive, echo-y atrium dripping snow onto tiles checkered gold and white. The walls were all windows, but tinted, making the room oppressively dark.

There was nothing in the room except for two elevators set opposite the door. All else was glass, tile, and silence. With a startling "bing!" one of the elevators opened, spilling light into the dimly lit entryway.

True to rumor it was as red as blood. 

Warmer now out of the cold, this was a walk I could make last. And I did. I took several minutes of pacing, hemming and hawing before I stepped inside the red elevator, feeling like I was entering a blood vessel. There was a massive array of buttons next to the doors, but touching them did nothing.

There was one at the very top, a funny looking sideways 8, it was the only one lit. I was going all the way to the top. I gripped the red railing with a shaking hand, trying to steady myself. Every strange rumor, every wild possibility ran through my head in that long ride into the sky. 

A digital counter ticked off the levels in one corner. I stared, watching as the digit representing each floor was passed. I had to fight to stem off panic as my destination grew closer. I hummed the tune to a children's song. I couldn't remember the name or any of the words, just someone singing it to me while they swaddled me in a pale blue blanket. Maybe my mother, maybe not. Whenever I was scared, I had taken to humming it.  

When the doors opened with another "bing!" I couldn't bring myself to move. There was nothing to see beyond the elevators. A mist prevented me from making out even shadows. Little tendrils of fog began to curl towards me. Heat followed, driving out the last of the cold that I'd brought with me from outside.

Some paradise, I thought.

“Disembark!” A harsh, synthetic voice commanded. The voice of a wart inside its suit. Trembling, I stepped forward. If this was my last moment alive, it wouldn’t do much good to spend it quivering against the wall like a coward. 

The elevator closed, leaving me feeling vulnerable. "Remove your overshirt, subject 1-4-9-9 Jonah Griffin." a second, subtly deeper voice ordered. The request was odd, but I was roasting now anyways. I let the ragged thing drop, now wet with moisture.

Shapes emerged from the fog. Figures in bulky metal suits and insectoid masks. Beads of condensation clung to their shiny black goggles as they studied me. One of them had a syringe, the needle tiny in his padded glove.

"Stretch out your arm, subject 1-4-9-9,” he told me. Humming one last bit of my tune, I did so. My arm was still shaking. The wart gripped my elbow roughly in his free hand. I watched with dread as the syringe got close to my skin.

And then things got crazy.

The next I knew, I wasn't in that strange, misty room. I was in a hallway. Alarms were blaring, and my head was fuzzy, like when you wake up from a poor night's sleep, or an unrestful nap. 

And in my left hand, I was holding tight to someone’s hand. A girl named Penny. Everyone loved Penny. She had acted as a mother of sorts for the orphans, looking after us and comforting us when no one else would. I'd had a crush on Penny for years, but never had the courage to tell her. She'd taken little notice of me regardless, being two years older and busy tending younger children.

Mere weeks from being sent to the mines, she'd been summoned a few days before me. Could it be we had escaped? I couldn't make sense of where my memories had gone. It felt like I should be able to remember what happened. Maybe Penny knew. She had an odd expression on her face, a senseless sort of bliss. She  seemed content to stand there while I came to my senses.

"What's going on?" I asked. 

Penny looked at me with unfocused eyes, then giggled. "Johnny," she said, stroking my cheek. "They hurt my brain." She tapped at her forehead awkwardly, as if her motor skills were off. Her dark hair, once thick and beautiful, clung to her skin in lank strands. There were bald spots where they'd shaved patches away.

She attempted to relay her story to me, but it was too vague for me to understand much. She kept going back to needles, in her skin, through her bone. She was terrified of needles.

They'd lobotomized her. 

I looked around, trying to get a grip and figure out my surroundings. We had to escape, that was obvious. Even if we'd managed to evade the warts, I doubted we'd be free for much longer. My sweater was dangling from my right hand. The sweater was an anchor, helping me focus on reality. 

I led Penny towards the first door I found, a supply closet. The second led into an immense hanger. Beyond open doors, a starlit night awaited. The light of worlds beyond our own twinkled invitingly.

Standing before us, in this building, on this planet and within reach, was the most gorgeous, elegant ship I’d ever seen. It was a broad, electric-blue arch with a row of powerful-looking engines slung in a line along the back. I saw my means of escape here, my freedom. I didn't know what had occurred in the minutes since my ride in the Red Elevators, but I knew I'd been given a chance at finding something better, perhaps a real life. The thought of living free of oppression and fear almost seemed impossible, like a bird who has never been let out of its cage. I had to seize this while I could.

We had to steal that starship.

Three Ps to Productive Writing

In the last few years, I’ve managed to churn out over 400,000 words across four novels. I’ve had a few people ask me how I did it. After all, it’s easy to get lost ten or twenty or even a hundred pages into a book and never finish. I used to be no different. Self-analysis has never been my strong suit, but I thought I would try to explore what I’ve been doing successfully in the hopes that it might help others. I’m by no means an expert writer. I’m currently unpublished. But I have gotten quantity figured out, and quantity is where all writers start. It’s only later that you take that rough first draft and refine your words into something more perfect. I divided my advice into three Ps because Ps get degrees. 

Persistence

One of the first steps is to figure out what roadblocks are getting in your way, mentally and physically. For me, I was frequently plagued with self-doubt. I had a hard time with the fact that when I wrote something down, it tended to look and feel a little differently on the page than it had in my mind. Eventually, I realized I had to make peace with the fact that there would always be a little give and take between the two. I had to find a compromise between what I imagined and what I could actually accomplish. This was huge. I think the moment I realized I was crippling myself by trying to get it ‘perfect’ was one of my biggest breakthroughs. My writing wasn’t even bad half the time, it just wasn’t what I’d envisioned. 

One problem I hear about from fellow writers, and I have struggled with myself, is turning off that pesky internal editor. When you’re writing something, you want it to be flawless glory. The drive for perfection is a necessary part of the process, but if you can’t make it ten words without doubting yourself and rewriting every other sentence, you need to find a way to switch off the internal editor. Freewriting can be a big help with this. Write and refuse to let yourself stop until you’ve produced a hefty bit of writing, then go back and edit later.

Don’t be afraid to write scenes out of order. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. Don’t be afraid to be long-winded or to be brief. In general… don’t be afraid! Your first draft is where you can be messy and make mistakes, as long as you fix them all in the editing phase. 

Overcoming physical blocks is important too. You need to find an environment where you are comfortable and able to produce a lot of writing. Experiment if you need to. I have found that sometimes I like to write at a computer, and sometimes I need ink and paper to get a thought out. I always have an ongoing manuscript on my computer, but sometimes I’ll write a random section on paper and then type it up. This has gotten me through hundreds of difficult passages. I don’t know why. Maybe handwriting and typing use slightly different parts of the brain. My notebooks are a bizarre selection of random pieces of prose, but it works for me. Do whatever it takes. I believe some writers have little quirks like these that help. Find yours! 

Perspiration 

Writing also takes a different kind of determination. Writing takes hard work. I write nearly every day, whether I want to or not. I don’t take a day off unless I’m truly exhausted. Five minutes of writing is better than nothing. If you aren’t feeling it, you don’t necessarily have to write for a long time, but you also don’t want to let the day go by with nothing produced at all. This is where taking care of your physical roadblocks will help. You need to figure out what gets you writing and do it. Sometimes when I get restless I pace around and write on my iPad. I specifically bought an iPad so I could write and walk at the same time. 

Many make the mistake of thinking writing is easy. I know I used to. It’s not. I’ve been through fire academy, studied medicine, run races and played plenty of sports. I consider writing harder than all of the above. This “tip" may seem a little circular… I’m basically saying that to write a lot you have to write a lot. But I want to highlight the fact that you aren’t going to produce a novel by accident. You can’t just write when you “feel it”. Jack London once said “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Christmas elves aren’t going to type your book up while you sleep. It’s all on you. A serious, onerous task to be sure, but a rewarding one. There is nothing like holding a finished book in your hands, nothing at all. 

If you have a hard time getting in the right frame of mind, one thing that helps me is, I edit whatever I wrote the day before. Sometimes all I do is skim the last few paragraphs and make minor revisions. I know some writers will tell you not to edit anything, ever, no matter what. I think this is super stupid. If you see a mistake, fix it. If you think of a better turn of phrase, change it before you forget. If you can't get in the frame of mind to write, edit. The trick is to learn how to turn off the editor once you start to flow. 

Planning

You have to know where you’re going in order to get there, right? Having a game plan has proven invaluable to me. Writing a book is a little bit like a journey to the sea. Now, you can head out East and eventually reach your destination. Set out from your house in the right direction and you’ll get to the ocean. But if you want to get to a certain island at a certain time, you take a map. Writing a book is the same. Write with no plan and you will eventually get somewhere, but there is no guarantee it will be the exact place you wanted, or anywhere of use.

For this purpose I recommend an outline. Plot out the whole story and make some decisions. They don’t have to be final decisions. You can change things along the way just like you might your route on a trip. You don’t even have to wind up at the same end point you started with if you don’t want to. The important thing is intentionality. This may sound creatively stifling, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think a plan is necessary for success. The only books I’ve ever failed to finish are the ones I never bothered to write an outline for. I once made it about a hundred pages into a story before I realized I had no idea what I was doing anymore. I had an end point in mind that I really wanted, but I was too lost to ever hope to get there. It was heartbreaking. Even if you don’t physically write an outline, do yourself a favor and do some serious mental planning before you write. I doubt you’ll regret it.

There you have it. Persist, perspire, and plan. I hope my thoughts on the subject are helpful. If you don’t like them, or you totally disagree, leave a comment. Tell me what has worked for you, or what hasn’t worked. There’s no one way to success, this is just what’s worked for me. Some of you may scoff at such paltry performance as 100,000 (ish) words a year. Many writers probably outperform me without breaking a sweat. If you’re among that number, feel free to share your secrets with us. Unless one of them involves not having a regular day job, in which case shut up.