Briane Pagel is here today pimping his new book
Temporary Anne.
I'll have a review of it later in the week (possibly tomorrow?). As I'm writing this, I haven't, yet, finished reading the book, but I fully expect to have finished it by the time this posts. So far, I have nothing but good things that I could say about it, but I have to leave open the possibility that the author could spoil it at the end since I've read more than one book that went along swimmingly (ask Anne) right up until the end, when the book suddenly drowned. Of course, in Anne's case, the swimming happened first, but I'm getting ahead of the story, I think.
Before I hand things over to Briane, I should add that Briane has taken my idea of including stories from other authors and run off with it. In fact, he ran off with one of my stories, a story that I had planned to release all on its own for the same price as Briane's book, so, hey, it's like two stories for the price of one. AND I'm not the only one with a short at the back of Anne. You can also find stories by
PT Dilloway,
Rusty Carl and Nigel Mitchell. So, actually, that's FIVE stories for the price of ONE! What a deal. So go pick up
Temporary Anne for the low, low price of absolutely nothing (because today it is FREE!) and read "The Magic Cookies." I guarantee you that it's not the kind of story you've come to expect from me.
All of that said, here's Briane!
WELCOME!
This is DAY TWO of the release tour for my newest book,
Temporary Anne.
Temporary Anne is a horror story about a woman so desperate to avoid Hell -- the fate for the evil she's done during her life -- that she makes things infinitely worse after her death.
To celebrate the release, I'm doing a blog tour in which I'm writing a short story, LIVE, with your help! At each stop, I'll do an installment of the story and you can suggest where it goes next!
But it was no good, as before I could speak, Stephen King -- the man himself! The legendary author! The guy who once had threatened to punch my lights out in an alleyway, or so I told people back home! -- suddenly shot up out of his seat.
You would be forgiven if you thought I, as a writer, was merely using descriptive language to demonstrate how Stephen King stood up suddenly, perhaps to storm onto stage and announce that he would let me finish but really Dean Koontz should've won this award, but I assure you, I am in no way exaggerating.
As I said "I", Stephen King rose several feet above his seat, lifted in the air and his legs flailing and arms grappling towards his throat but not reaching it, Stephen King levitating above the assembled, dignified-but-suddenly-shocked crowd, a crowd which had figured on simply sitting through boring speeches before cocktails but which now suddenly was treated to a spectacle!
They seemed to enjoy it, for the few seconds that Stephen King was merely writhing above their heads apparently pantomiming being strangled by a being much larger (and meaner! and more claw-ish and fang-having than they were, although they did not know that!) than he, but their enjoyment quickly faded when first Stephen King's left, and then Stephen King's right, eyeball was pulled from his head as if by a vacuum cleaner.
Can you imagine? I, and the Vice President of the United States, and the assembled dignitaries, need not imagine what it looks like, but you may not have read all of the news accounts, many of which were not so graphic, so I'll describe it:
Stephen King's eye -- the left one, first, remember-- begins to bulge out. As though he were a cartoon wolf, looking at a sexy cartoon sheep! It bulges, rounder and rounder and then, if you were looking closely at it, you'd see the lens about to tear off but the optic nerve must break first, and the eyeball -- still whole! Still whole! -- POPS! from the socket, the squishy rip of the nerve pulling off being overshadowed by the sucking sound the orb makes as it disappears into the invisible maw of the beast only I can see.
I can see all of them.
I saw the beast as it walked through the aisle, not betraying its presence by touching anything until it reached the third row. I saw its slimy tentacles stretch above Stephen King, nearly brushing the Vice President's ear, and I saw it lift him up.
"Um..." I said, and covered my surprise with a sip of water from the glass on the podium, putting the glass down as pandemonium broke loose upon Stephen King's unfortunate (for him!) demise.
After the eyes, the head appears to collapse inwards on itself-- only I know that it is one of the three arms of the Beast that has used its claws to puncture the ears on each side before crushing the skull. Only I can see the tentacle then fling Stephen King's lifeless, nearly-headless body, at the now-screaming seats of dignitaries, dignified no longer as they scramble for exits, avoiding the security guards who have rushed in to -- too late!-- to protect Mr. King.
Only I need not fear this Beast, as it turns upon the security guards.
One!
Two!
ThreeFourFiveSixSeven!
Tentacles grasp and pull, guards' guns stop firing, guards hearts burst from the squeezing pressure.
One!
Two!
ThreeFourFiveSixSeven!
From its seven mouths come seven tongues, tongues that are lined with needles, like a cactus, but only if that cactus had been grown in Lucifer's own garden plot, and even then only by a particularly malicious gardener!
Three arms waving, five legs stomping, seven tentacles grabbing, too-many-heads-having, the Beast dispatches the guards. Only a few of the audience have been crushed by it, although some probably will die from having been lit on fire by its breath.
In the melee, I close my eyes, but even then, I can still see the Beast.
It is looking at me.
"YOU!" a voice says.
It is not the voice of the Beast.
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YOU get to help Andrew pick what happens next! I'll leave it wide open and see what you, and Andrew, come up with.
*Promise not valid in the 6th, 14th, and 17th dimensions.
--Briane Pagel
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
So you heard the man. Leave suggestions in the comment section about where the story goes from here. I'll pick what I like best and pass it on to Briane. Part 3 of his story on the run will appear on Laws of Gravity on September 18. Make sure you check it out!
To continue on with the FREE! stuff, today is also the release of "Part Thirty-two: The Gate"! Oh, we're so close to the end, now; can't you taste it? Okay, please don't do that. Seriously, get your tongue off of your monitor. Do you know how dirty that thing is? Yeah, I see that those dried coffee spots where you sloshed your coffee two weeks ago and didn't bother to clean it off. And that other thing... oh, man, I don't even know what that is! Don't you ever clean your monitor? It's not a science experiment!
Anyway...
There you go, twelve FREE! parts, today. And don't forget to grab Anne while you can!
