Video Game Review: The Callisto Protocol

This game was lauded as the spiritual successor to the Dead Space series, and as it was being made, it certainly looked and sounded the part. Some of the people who made Dead Space were even working on it, trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was the original series. 

For one that loved the Dead Space series so much, it took me until the game was free for Playstation Plus members to play it myself. Maybe it was just balking at the cost of $70 - $100 for the game. Maybe it was because the streamers I watch on Youtube never got past more than two episodes of game play. I don't know why I really kept putting off getting it. 

But I'm glad I did. 

This game is beautiful. The environments, the graphics, the sound are all so amazingly well done. The premise, the people working on it, it should have been one of the best horror games ever made. 

It was rushed out unfinished. 

That may confuse some people, as it wasn't plagued with issues like Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man's Sky. It has an ending and the story is pretty coherent. Different areas bring back memories of Dead Space 1, 2, 3, and even The Last of Us. 

No, there is a full game here, and there's lots of parts that are terrifying, require skill, and that are fun. 

Where I started to notice things is a small detail in the first area. A screen that was part of the background with words. In a lot of games, you'll see screens like this that are blurred, or covered with symbols that are otherwise unreadable. However, you expect lore in a game like this, and a screen in English that's readable you expect to give a hint or two about the story going on behind the story. No, this screen was in English, it was readable, and it was gibberish, and not even in a "The guy writing this was panicked and freaking out while writing it." style. It was "The scene in the, the, they, wasn't in charge. Files are ready to transfer as soon as I, I, they, the.". It was either badly AI written, or it was placeholder text that nobody ever got back to finishing.

The next thing I noticed was that there was no system to actually tell you where you were supposed to go. Games that are linear enough can get away with that, but this game has multiple paths at times, and it's very easy to get lost and lose track of where objectives are. In addition to that, the more linear sections tend to lock doors behind you, so if you go down the path, you're very likely to find yourself unable to back track and it's easy to miss things. 

Not that you have enough inventory to collect everything you find anyway. Multiple times early in the game, I was forced to choose between ammo, health, or things to sell for credits to buy upgrades. Off one beaten path I found a room with several items, and I ended up having to leave almost all of them behind, opting instead for the health packs and ammo I was already carrying. At 60% of the game finished, I didn't have a single weapon fully upgraded because money was so hard to save up, and a lot of things to sell were left behind until I was too far along to go back for them when I finally found a store.

Yeah, you'll want health and ammo over money.

Then there's the controls. In addition to shooting and melee attacks, you have a very nifty little dodge ability. Too bad in tight quarters and when you're facing multiple enemies it usually helps you get killed more than it saves you. I died several times because a perfect dodge against one enemy ran me right into another enemy that I couldn't dodge. There's also been a few times a dodge ran me right into a wall and not out of attack range. Hit detection when you or enemies are a few steps above or below is also poor, meaning you miss more often than not while enemies whale away on you. 

Enemies also have a habit of spawning into your blind spots close enough to attack you before you know they're there. There's even an entire type of enemy who's whole purpose is to blindside you as you come around corners from half a room away. (They grab you and then you have to fight them off before they drag you across the room and into a waiting mouth.) 

Finally, there's the bosses. There's the final boss, which is huge, terrifying and worthy of being a final boss. There's also a monster that's just two regular enemies stuck together that you have to fight off four times. That's it. Two bosses. One that you fight four times. The first two times you face him are also so close together that you really don't have a chance to build up your inventory from the first fight before it shows up again. Trust me, I scoured every corner trying to find health and ammo. 

That's a lot of issues, but the game is still playable, and a lot of it is still fun in spite of how frustrating parts can be. What it comes down to is the game clearly needed a few more trips through Quality Assurance. Having finally played through it myself, it's actually really easy to see why what should have been one of the best games of the year ended up being so quickly forgotten. 

Still, if you're looking for an action-horror game without worrying about the lore and love a good challenge ala Dark Souls, you'll probably love this as it is. 

What is the chupacabra?

 If you're expecting a writing post today, I'm afraid you'll be a little disappointed. This post is about a cryptid, and a thought that popped into my head which actually explains it pretty well. I was trying to figure out where to write this little dissertation and I figured this would be as good a spot as any. 

Now, it's worth pointing out there are currently two versions of the Chupacabra running around. The original, reptilian version from Puerto Rico, and the canid version in Mexico and the Southern United States. 

For this blog post, I'm going to be talking about the original Puerto Rican version. And what is this post about? I think I know what it is. 

I think it's an iguana. 

If you're paying attention, you might already see some of the similarities. The red spines certainly stand out, don't they? 

Your first thought might be, "Wouldn't the people of Puerto Rico recognize an iguana though?" 

Actually, no. Iguanas aren't native to Puerto Rico. It's thought they were brought in through the pet trade in the 1970's with some animals escaping or being released into the wild. This actually lines up almost perfectly with the first reports of Chupacabra attacks which began in 1975. 

Iguanas aren't big enough. 

Iguanas can grow to be over six feet long, and early reports of the Chupacabra claim it to only be about three feet tall, so the size is actually pretty close. Now imagine you get home from work late one night and find the biggest lizard you've ever seen for a brief moment on the railing of your deck before it dives off into the bushes or charges up a tree. You'd probably be forgiven for thinking you just saw a monster. 

Iguanas eat fruit, not blood. 

Actually, this is where it starts to get interesting in my opinion. Yes, most people are aware that iguanas like bananas, lettuce, and other fruits and veggies; however they are also known to like eggs, and have even been known to eat baby birds whole. 

It's also worth noting these are an invasive species. The foods they usually like isn't really available, so they have to try new things and see what sustains them. We've seen invasive species actually turn from herbivores to carnivores when they have to find new food. The perfect example of this is the fish called the Pacu. In it's native home, it eats nuts that fall into the water; however, when dropped into the rivers of Papua New Guinea, they started eating anything and everything. They even started attacking people swimming in the water. I'll also point out that another well-known herbivore, the white-tailed deer, has been documented killing and eating birds, so just because something USUALLY doesn't eat meat, doesn't mean it won't. 

Iguanas are also highly territorial, and have no problem attacking animals bigger than themselves if their temper is tested. Iguanas could kill chickens over territory, as opposed to for food. That would explain how the animals don't seem to have any other injuries. Of course, that doesn't explain the deaths of larger animals like mules or cows, but it's not very easy to imagine the stereotypical reptilian Chupacabra killing a cow either. 

As far as the blood goes, while doing my research for this idea, I've come across multiple statements that in many cases, the animals being "drained of blood" was an over-exaggeration, and many of them were never actually given a real necropsy, so it can be hard to say where this part of the story really stands. 

One last point I want to make, while reports of attacks by Chupacabras in Puerto Rico do continue to this day, despite a brief surge in the mid-1990's, they have thinned out considerably since the end of the 1970's. This would correlate very well with people getting used to seeing the iguanas running around and being able to recognize them. 

Is this definitive? Hell no. But it does check quite a few boxes and, most importantly to me, it makes sense. 

Or they could be aliens. 

What do you think?  

Review: Helluva Boss

 Horror fans are a special bunch. We laugh at things that make other people say "What the fuck?" and "Oh My God!" As one might expect, there's not much chance of shows like that making it on prime-time TV, or really even onto a popular streaming service. 

Thank God for YouTube. 

Helluva Boss is a YouTube cartoon series that checks all the boxes for me as a twisted horror fan. It's dark, dirty, hilarious, and at times unbelievably wholesome. 

The series follows a trio of Imps from Hell as they run and work for a business called I.M.P. (Immediate Murder Professionals). The crux of the business is that humans go to Hell, and hire them to go to Earth and extract revenge on the people who killed them, or caused them to be sent there. The characters include the owner of the business, Blitz, happy married couple Millie and Moxie, and Blitz's adopted daughter Loona, a hellhound. 

Of course, we go with them on a few missions, but we also spend a lot of time with Blitz, seeing how he got the ability to go to Earth (which he isn't supposed to do), and we cross paths with demons from his past. 

There is plenty of blood, and no shortage of innuendos and sexual themes (The antagonist of the third episode is a succubus and her crew, taking advantage of spring breakers). Also, these are demons, living in Hell, so there's lot of demonic and satanic iconography. 

The show is so much deeper than a titillating gore-fest though. 

Moxie and Millie are a happily married couple, loving and supportive of each other in a way you would never expect in such a place. Blitz also has relationships, one being the father-daughter relationship he has with Loona, and another being a sexual/semi-romantic relationship with Stolas, a demon prince. A fair part of the show revolves around these relationships, in addition to the one between Blitz and Moxie. 

The show is helped along by great animation, and just as great voice actors. You might recognize Richard Horvitz from Invader Zim voicing Moxie, and Brandon Rogers as Blitz. 

I can't wait until the second season comes out and I can't stop recommending it to all my twisted friends. 

If you haven't seen it, check it out here. That's really all there is left to say. 

Movie Review: Antlers

 I haven't forgotten about this blog. Subjects worth commenting that I haven't already done just seem to be coming in few and far between. That being said, this was a movie I was rather eagerly anticipating and was finally able to catch. 

Spoilers Below!

A Guillermo Del Toro produced horror movie, so you know it's pretty good. In addition (and this isn't a spoiler for anybody who really knows their horror monsters) it's about the Wendigo, which is one of the few creatures that really gets to me. 

The story is pretty straightforward, even if the characters it follows isn't conventional. (Though, Del Toro does have a habit of placing children as the main characters of horror movies. I'm looking at you, Pan's Labyrinth.) A couple junkies have set up a meth lab in an old mine, which ages ago was used to trap a Wendigo spirit. The men delved too greedily and too deep and the monster takes possession of one of them, killing the other and eating him. The man does manage to make it home, where he finds the will to not eat his two kids, locking himself in the attic of their house.  

The story focuses on one of the two kids as he does his best to provide for himself and making sure to keep his dad fed, while still going to school. He doesn't do a very good job (I think the kid is supposed to be 9-ish.) and his teacher is suspicious that the boy is being abused. 

That suspicion leads to people going to check on him at home, becoming a snack for his dad, and allowing the Wendigo to fully transform. All your usual monster shenanigans happens now, with the boy's teacher finally facing the creature and managing to kill it's current host. 

With Del Toro's name, and one of my favorite monsters, I was really hoping for something to blow me away. 

Now, This is a good movie. The cinematography is great, all the acting is good. I would definitely recommend this movie to any horror fan. 

I do have several issues with it though. 

The first thing I want to point out, because it stood out to me from the VERY beginning, and lingered the whole film, is that the movie is set in Oregon. The Wendigo is a creature from the Northern reaches. It's based on cannibalism, so dropping it into a state with mild winters doesn't make a lot of sense. It would be much more common in the territories of Canada, Alaska, or the Northeastern states. It's not even that being in Oregon is central to the story, the setting of the woods, the mountains, the water, the mine, all of that would actually be easier to find in Alaska. A lot of the panoramas even look like Alaska more than Oregon. 

I also want to bring up the young boy's character switch at the end of the movie. Through most of the movie, he's displaying some serious abused / Stockholm syndrome about his father, saying lines like "As long as I feed him, he'll love me." At the end, though, at the last moment he switches sides and is instrumental in defeating the creature. There's nothing in the character throughout the whole movie to justify his sudden change of heart. 

The music wasn't very memorable either, for example, as I sit here, I can't think of a single moment where I was even aware of the music or the sound. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. 

All that being said, altogether, it is a good little horror movie, but it's nothing spectacular. Worth watching while it's streaming to be sure. So turn it on, sit back for a bit, and enjoy. 

New Release! "Burrows" is out in the wild!

 It's been a while since I posted here. I've got a few drafts I've poked on, but nothing to post, but this one is easy. 

I've been talking about Burrows for a little bit, but now I'm letting ya'll know that it's out! My next Cryptid novellette is up on Amazon! 

The Gobi Desert is a treasure trove of dinosaur fossils, giving up some of the most famous and complete skeletons found in the world. Sherene Carter and her team are hoping to uncover the next big skeleton in the dunes and rocks. What they find is a legendary creature that's much less dead than the bones they're looking for. An even better prize to announce to the world, if they can survive it...

Click the cover to go see it on Amazon!

I like how well the Cryptid books do, even as short as they are, so I'm planning to do more. Eventually having a whole series and doing collections. As you can see from the pages on here, Cryptids are one of my interests.  So, I have a lot of material and knowledge to run with. 

So if Cryptids are your thing, too, go grab and check out Burrows, and the Cenote. Then hit me up on Twitter and let me know what creatures you want to see next! 

Start Prepping! NaNoWriMo is coming!

 It's October, and what does that mean? 

Well, yes, ghosts, pumpkins, and other spooky things, but for writers it also means November is coming, which means, NaNoWriMo! I'm going to be making my own attempt at it this year to try and get my creative juices flowing. I haven't been idle this year, but I haven't gotten anywhere near as much done as I want. 

The Class 5 audiobook is out now. 

Hannah and Paths: Three Short Horror Stories are now available on Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo ebook platforms. 

But in the grand scheme of things, that's not much. I haven't released a new work since Hannah in 2016. Now, for success in writing, a good backlog of works is one key, but somewhat regular releases is also another major aspect. I've posted short stories here and there on this blog, but that's not a new release. Also I don't make money from these posts. There are ways to monetize a blog, but I'd rather not clutter up your screen with ads. 

I do have several pieces I've started, the novelette Burrows, as I've mentioned before. I've also started on a new novel tentatively titled "Suckers" about a swarm of Chupacabra's in a casino. I'm aiming for more of a horror-comedy vibe with that one, but we'll have to see how it turns out. I also have dozens of other ideas and starts saved on my computer. 

So. NaNoWriMo is coming up, I have a plethora of ideas and starts to work with. What's the plan? 

Well, the plan is to write. To get up every morning before I go to the day job, and write. It doesn't have to have a specific word count. It doesn't even have to be on the same work as the day before. The point is to get up, and get to work. 

Mood doesn't matter. Tired doesn't matter. This is about writing. Words on a page. Editing and deciding if those words are any good comes later. 

That being said. I do have some goals I want to reach. 

1. 50,000 words down by the end of November. Whether I get any one work done or not, that's the goal. I'm hoping if I can get this down, getting up and getting some writing done will become a habit and something that continues well after the month and the challenge is over. 

2. Finish the first draft of Burrows. Honestly, I'm about 2/3rds of the way through Burrows. You'd think the finale would be pretty easy at this point. Characters are established, along with the setting and the monsters, and now it's just time to throw them all into the blender and see what comes out. Honestly I've been having a hard time with it though. Here's hoping just forcing it out will give me something to work with in the editing process. 

3. Get a solid start on a new novel. I have several ideas and starts already, but I'm talking about getting something like 10,000 - 20,000 words down. Something I can look at and know this will be my next major work to get released. As it's been said, the hardest part of writing is the beginning. The blank page where you don't have anything set. No characters, no setting, no plot. If I can get a good jump on that, maybe I'll be able to make 2021 my year with multiple new releases to pass on. 

That's it for now though. I'll be setting up more, prepping, trying to decide on which pieces to work on and so on and so forth. As long as the world doesn't explode anyway. 

Get started, and good luck! 

~ Shaun

Video Game Review: The Last of Us 2

This game has been a long time coming. Check out my review of the first game to get a good feel for the world this series takes place in. Check it out, then come back. It'll be worth it, and I'll wait. 

Okay, welcome back, but before I get into the review proper, I have to give this warning. 

SPOILERS BELOW THE IMAGE

Now, you've been warned. 

The Last of Us 2 starts almost exactly where the first game ends. Ellie and Joel are living with Joel's brother Tommy, growing up, doing their part in the little community. We meet more people, offering us glimpses into the love life of Ellie and the friends she's made since they returned. 

Of course though, the repercussions of their previous encounters comes back to haunt them. It's really rather typical gang-warfare types of stuff. "They killed our guy, we have to kill their guy in return, then they have to kill our guy in return.." and round and round we go. Not much of a surprise. There are a few plot twists, and point-of-view changes, to enhance the idea that there isn't really a right and a wrong side. I feel like that takes away some of the emotional and mental impact of some scenes though. 

Also, an expertly placed arrow-snipe on an unsuspecting enemy feels a lot worse when you're not sure your current character is a hero or not. And let's not get started on the dogs in the game.

Clickers and infected are back, giving you some enemies that are always fun to dodge and kill, but they seem to be relegated to the background and plot points more than anything. The main thing here is the story though, which doesn't revolve around the plague which has engulfed the entire world. 

For a game that has been so long in the making, almost everything is as good as you would expect. Controls are tight and accurate. Music and sound queues are beautiful and perfectly fit their scenes. Visuals are intense and beautiful as the need arises. 

Now for my most controversial opinion. 

This is not a fun game. 

This isn't a game you come back to, to replay or to collect stuff. It would be more accurate to say this isn't a game, this is an experience. Now, it is an experience worth having. It has a lot to say about the human condition, dealing with the consequences of your actions, and how life can blind-side you. It makes you do things you don't want to do, like kill your opponent's dogs before they can find and attack you. It makes you question whether the character you're playing is the hero or the villain of the story. 

None of these details are bad things, but they don't make for a fun video game experience. To be fair, the first game did tease some things along these lines, but they weren't front and center and you still always felt that you were doing the right thing, even as you stuck an arrow into another scavenger's throat. Some games encourage you to be the villain, or to just do whatever you want like the Grand Theft Auto series. But they're built around those themes so you expect it and can have fun with it. 

Playing through such a meticulously well-crafted and plotted story-based game though, and then finding out you might be the villain, does not make for a very satisfying gamer experience. 

It's disappointing, honestly. That they spent so long and so much work on the game, just to leave players feeling hollow by the end. There were so many directions they could have gone. 

It is still worth playing, just for the experience, but make sure you're prepared for how dark and grim it's going to get. I suppose that makes it a really good example of the Horror genre though. 

For all that, The Last of Us: Part 2, only gets 3 out of 5 stars. 

How goes 2020?

Whew, 

Describing this year, as most people know, would require a string of expletives longer than blogger would probably allow. If a writer took everything that's happened in the past six months, made it into a book and submitted it to a publisher, they would be blasted for a story that made no sense and was completely unrealistic. 

Pandemics, murder hornets, and the most powerful country on Earth falling from grace. Sheesh. 

Quiet now, but I'm betting they reappear for the climax.

Still, the world hasn't stopped turning (yet), and nothing stops the marching of time. 

At the start of the year, I made a blog post announcing my plans for the year, and while the chaos of the past six months has been an interruption, I'm still trying to carry on along those lines. 

Class 5 is being narrated as I write this, by a great and excited voice actor. The deadline to get the entire book recorded is the end of July, so I'm hoping to have a finished product up and available to listen to by mid-August. 

For other older works, I have made the decision to pull my slower sellers PATHS, and Hannah from Kindle Select and to move them over to Draft2Digital once their current runs expire at the end of July. This will allow me to offer them up on such platforms as Kobo and iTunes. Hopefully this will expand my readership a bit more, as not everyone likes Amazon. We'll see how that goes though and I'll make announcements when they should be up and running on those platforms. 

For new works, I've made a lot of progress on "Burrows", but it's still not to the editing stages yet. You'd think with the quarantine we've been under, I would've had a lot of time to devote to writing new stuff and could pump things out faster, but that's just not how things work. I also haven't made much progress on new shorts to make a good collection with. 

Writing has not slipped from my mind though, and I have had a few pokers in other fires. I signed up for a workshop on how to write role-playing adventures, which should give me another outlet to get my name out there, as well as new information on how to promote and other ways to get and use ideas and approaches. 

Should be interesting the next few months, so make sure you're following me on either Twitter or Facebook to keep up on announcements. 

Stay safe out there in this proto-apocalypse! 

~ Shaun

Death of the Author

So, a friend showed me a video on Youtube where there's a woman discussing the phrase "Death of the Author". I honestly didn't know what this was referring to, and I wasn't really sure after watching the video either, so I looked it up on wikipedia.

Death of the Author was an essay by a French literary critic, Roland Barthes, in 1967. In it, Roland argues against the idea that to really understand a work, you had to know about the author's personal life, attitude, and society. The simple layman's terms goes something like this.

What the author wrote: "The curtains were blue."

What critics saw in the text: "The curtains being blue is a representation of the author's sadness and depression at his upbringing and his unhappiness at the lack of progress in society. From this we can infer that he was possibly even feeling suicidal while he wrote this scene, as he specifically points out the blue curtains and this was his way of asking for help."

What Roland thinks the author meant: "The curtains were blue."

Now, the video I saw was very convoluted and bounced around, but she was trying to play devil's advocate, using contemporary examples, fan fics, and interviews with an author friend. She also compared the extreme ends of the spectrum.

That's what I think it is. A spectrum. No two writers write the same way and bits of ourselves do slip into our writing. A scene may come across as more somber than it should because we just weren't feeling ourselves that day. That's one of the things editing is for though, to address voice and try to make sure it fits the narratives and is fairly uniform throughout the book.

Personally, when I write "The curtains were blue." it means the curtains were blue. I don't write in a way that incorporates my mental state, usually, into my descriptions. There have been times when I've written scenes or characters with a specific place or person in mind and I have been somewhat subjective in my descriptions of them.

Now, I'm not going to say there is or isn't a right way to write, or to read these books. Sometimes there is subtext to a scene or a character that has a personal connection to the author. One of the examples the woman in the video used was J.K. Rowling's pronouncement that Dumbledore was gay, calling it a publicity stunt that Rowling did because sales were slowing down.

Most writers, when they really create a character, they go into way more detail than will ever be revealed in the story. They figure out the character's upbringing, job history, likes and dislikes, past relationships, all that just to make sure the character is real enough to write about.

As far as Dumbledore is concerned, as someone who's read the Harry Potter series multiple times, there is never really a point anywhere that his sexual orientation is needed, or is even convenient, to be explained. It has no relevance to most of the story, which is about Harry, not Dumbledore. That doesn't mean Rowling didn't know that detail the whole time she was writing, and then, when someone asked her about it, she finally had the chance to explain it, so she took it. It certainly didn't come across as a publicity stunt or trying to squeeze more sales out. (For God's sake, the woman's a millionaire now.)

Anyway, the point of "Death of the Author" is that the author is irrelevant to the story and doesn't know any more beyond the end than the reader. When you're reading, the writer may as well be dead or have never existed at all. While that's not true, it's also not true that you have to know the author's life story and read into every little detail to appreciate the writing.

Many writers will be happy to discuss their work after the fact, if you want to know what happens to characters after the book ends, feel free to ask. I'm happy to discuss my works. My attitude after a book ends though, is that if there was really more of interest, it would be part of the book, so for the most part, assume a happy ever after, or at least a normal, boring, average life like all of us real people live.

~ Shaun

Short Story: Identity

Just a nice little short story today, inspired by one of the classics. Enjoy. 

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Julie awoke, and the smell was the first thing she knew. Her nose was assaulted with the scent of blood and decay. Awareness of touch returned next, telling her she was bound to a chair, in a cold room.

She held her eyes shut, hoping as long as she didn’t see it, she could be convinced her other senses were lying. The stench continued to grow, creating a knot in her stomach as she tried not to vomit.

The sound of heavy boots coming down creaking, wooden stairs caught her attention, forcing her to open her eyes. There was no holding back the contents of her stomach after that.

She was in a basement, although it looked like someone had tried to convert it into a half-assed butcher’s shop. The wall to her left was lined with box freezers, and in the center of the room was a large wooden table, made of thick planks. Next to her were more chairs, some with fragments of rope still attached to them. Almost everything, from the freezers, to the table, to the floor; were covered with stains, ranging from a dim red, to black.

Bloodstains.

The footsteps descended on her right, and the sight of the man that stepped down the stairs made her tremble. He was over six feet tall, and heavily built, that much was obvious even under the raincoat he was wearing.

“Please don’t struggle too much. I don’t want you to get hurt.” The voice was thick and spoke in a slow, methodical manner, as if every word was carefully examined and measured before it was allowed to leave his lips.

Julie started to cry, if this giant of a man didn’t want her injured, it could only mean things even worse than death. Her eyes squinted shut as she sobbed, doing her best to ignore the sounds of his boots on the floor as he approached her.

Something soft brushed her cheek, and her eyes flew open, her body jerking back from the touch. The giant was kneeling in front of her, a handkerchief in one outstretched hand. He’d wiped away some of her tears. This close, she couldn’t avoid seeing his face.

It was covered with scars, and looked mis-matched. Julie wondered if he’d had a stroke, as one side of his face was so out of place next to the other. Even his eyes didn’t belong together, one was deep brown, while the other was blue.

She looked at the handkerchief, he held in his right hand, which had long feminine fingers attached to a thick, swollen palm. Seeing the twisted thing before her was enough to jolt her out of her sobbing.

“There. There we go. No need to cry now.” He stood up, tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket and turned to the table.

“What…what are you going to do with me?”

“I am sorry for taking you so forcefully last night. You looked like one that could help me.”

“H-help you? With what? Why do you have me tied up like this to help you?”

“You would run away if I didn’t. I just want someone to help me find out who I am.”

He pulled a chair over in front of her, then dragged around an extension cord. The long fingers pulled an electrical plug out from under his raincoat and connected it to the extension. Then he sat down in the chair and looked at her. He pulled the handkerchief out again and gently dabbed at her lips and chin, wiping away the last vestiges of her vomit.

“I would tell you my name, but I honestly don’t have one. Why don’t you tell me yours?”

“J-Julie.”

“That’s a nice name. I bet it suits you very well. Can you tell me about yourself?” What makes you a Julie?”

She started trembling again. If she stayed silent would he hit her? Beat her? If she told him, would he sell her off? Carted out of the country in a box to be some random man’s sex toy?

“I…I’m twenty-six, engaged. My fiancé and I…were trying to get…pregnant.” Julie lied, trying to come up with some kind of story, something that he might take pity on and let her go.

The man just nodded. “I see. You must love your fiancé very much to say yes to marriage and to have a baby with him. So, you’re straight, then? Or maybe bi?”

“I…I’m…bi. I like women, but I love my fiancé too.” Maybe she could get sold to a woman, she couldn’t imagine that wouldn’t be preferable to being owned by some strange, rich, man.

“I see. What about your hobbies? Your job? Do you like animals?”

The questions were starting to throw her off now. Being sold into the sex trade didn’t seem like the kind of people who cared about the things you enjoyed.

“I like animals. I used to volunteer at an animal rescue group. We took in stray dogs and cats, cleaned them up and then found them good homes.”

He smiled a little bit, his face twisting unnaturally around the scars. “I like that. I don’t know much about myself, but I know I like animals. At least, most of me likes animals.”

“Are you…looking for people who share your interests? There’s websites to meet and talk to people and groups at the library, or you could take classes at college or…”

He held up his other hand, a gesture that was obviously meant to stop her rambling. Like the rest of him, this hand didn’t match either. Instead of long, slender fingers, this hand, his left, had fingers that were short and pudgy. The two middle fingers and thumb were shades of purple, like they were heavily bruised, or even broken. He suddenly seemed to notice that she was staring at his fingers and quickly withdrew his hand back under the raincoat.

“Sorry about that. My left hand is unpleasant to look at right now.”

“I’ve told you about me, like you asked. Tell me something about you now. It’s only fair.”

Julie still had no idea what he wanted her for. This wasn’t adding up to a kidnapping, and he certainly wasn’t acting like he planned to kill her. There was no way she could ignore all the dried blood around the room though…

“Well, I suppose. I like you enough now. I think you’ll fit in. I don’t know who I am. I’m trying to find myself. It’s hard when everyone is so different though. I see little pieces of myself in other people, but then in other ways we couldn’t be more different. I don’t understand how that works.”

He slowly stood up and walked over to the table, the extension cord following him. The giant stood there a moment, then grabbed the raincoat and pulled it over his head and off. His back was a mass of scars, along with a rainbow of different skin tones and bruises. There was a fresh incision around his right side that still had sutures holding it closed, even as a thin line of pus flowed down his back from it. The plug that he had stuck into the extension cord was clearly visible now, the wires running up his back and disappearing under his skin.

The slender fingers of his right hand reached back and pointed to a patch of skin that seemed to stretch from just under his shoulder to down below the waistband of his sweatpants.

“This was John Harmon. He liked animals too. He was forty-two and worked as a bartender. He also had a daughter, and two grandsons.”

Julie’s eyes widened as she noticed the scars on his back made a circle around the skin the giant was pointing at. He turned, and she saw his entire body was a patchwork of different skins. The left side of his chest was muscular and covered with dark hair, while the right had a breast that sagged heavily. The swollen left hand pointed at the breast next.

“This was Sarena. She wouldn’t tell me her last name, but she did like animals. She was lazy though. No schooling, no work, she only wanted to marry a rich man.”

He walked over to the freezers now as he talked, the extension cord following him, staying plugged into the cord coming out of his back. He dug through the freezer on the end, eventually holding up a bag of blood.

“Do you happen to know your blood type, Julie? It’s okay if you don’t. Seems like most people don’t.”

He pulled out a different bag and set it on the table, before going over to a cabinet in the corner and rummaging through it.

“But yes, most of me likes animals a lot, so I think you’ll fit in pretty well. That really seems to be the thing that brings most of me together.”

“What the fuck are you?” Julie’s voice trembled as she watched him walk around the room, collecting various tools and setting them on the table.

“What am I? That I can answer. I am a product of the people around me. When I was first born, I was only made up of 4 men. But some parts didn’t fit, or didn’t feel right, so I’ve been trying to find the right mix of people to create the real ‘me’. Since I was born, I’ve tried adding in parts from a hundred-seventy-three people. Men. Women. The oldest was sixty-four. The youngest was sixteen. Straight, bi, gay. If I’m going to be honest, that’s probably the easiest part of me to describe. I’m probably bi, because why limit yourself to one side or the other?”

He laid out the tools on the table.

“Unfortunately, most of the parts don’t last. You saw my left hand. That was Samuel Carter. He was twenty-eight, gay, liked dogs, but not cats, overweight. He was a hematologist, but had been out of work for the last three years.”

The giant stood at the table again, his back to Julie. He lifted a large cleaver, and slammed it onto the table. When he turned around again, the part of his left hand which had been Samuel Carter was gone, cut clean off. A mix of blood, pus, and thick, brown sludge oozed from the wound. Then he was approaching her with the cleaver and a rubber strap. The slender fingers of his right hand grabbed her arm, and Julie felt how cold his touch was, like he wasn’t a living thing.

He pulled out her left arm, tying the rubber strap tightly around the bicep. Then he grabbed her hand, spreading the fingers in the middle. In a move that was as smooth as could be, he lifted the cleaver and brought it down on her hand, severing the top half with her thumb and first two fingers.

Julie screamed as the pain flooded through her body, the strap slowing the bleeding, but still letting enough through to spurt in time with her heartbeat. He grabbed the strap and tightened it down even more before taking the severed hand and returning to the table.

Julie bit down on her lip, trying to do everything she could to not go into shock. Already she was getting light-headed, and the room was starting to spin. Then searing pain shot up her left arm again and she went limp.

The first thing she noticed when she woke up was the throbbing headache she had. Slowly, Julie opened her eyes, praying the last time she opened them had just been a doozy of a nightmare after a long, rough night of drinking. The throbbing in her left hand told her otherwise. Something was also poking into her right arm. She turned to look and saw a catheter had been inserted, and was attached to a bag of blood that hung from the wall. Reluctantly, she turned to look at her left hand. All that was left was the pinky and ring finger, the rest was gone, and the huge wound it had left behind was charred and burned like someone had tried to cauterize it.

She screamed.

The giant came down the stairs.

“You’re awake. That’s good. I was hoping I got the blood stopped soon enough.” He smiled, and held up his left hand. The swollen, purple fingers of Samuel Carter were gone, in their place were tan, slender, familiar fingers, held in place with a mixture of staples and sutures. Blood and pus oozed out along the seam, but somehow the fingers and thumb flexed and moved. “Looks like we get along well, after all.”

Julie wanted to scream; but a knot had formed in her throat, making her gag. Her body convulsed, twisting in the chair. The giant came over, looking concerned. He reached out for her, and Julie tried to twist away from his disgusting, jigsaw-puzzle hand even as a new wave of convulsions started in her guts. The combination sent the chair over to one side with a crunch, the extra distance ripping the catheter out of her arm and adding a new spray of blood to the floor.

Then the giant’s hands were on her, strong but gentle and firm; and cold as ice. He righted the chair, and set about stopping the blood that was oozing from her arm. She just sat there, gasping for breath.

“Please don’t panic, I need your help. I need you to tell me who I am. Who we are.”

Julie couldn’t answer if she wanted to, she just sat there and let the giant move her arm, wrapping it up in gauze.

“Just rest for now. I want to talk to you more, and I’ll bring down some food later if you think you can handle it.”

Her head hung limp as she sat there, and with what little breath she had recovered, she sobbed. The giant stood there a minute, then slowly went back upstairs, leaving Julie alone.

She knew her life was over. The giant was going to take her apart, piece by piece, and replace his own slowly rotting parts. The best she could hope for was that she could die with the next piece he took. Maybe an arm, or a leg, something where she could quickly bleed out before he could stop it.

Her weight shifted to the right, settling into the chair. It creaked. She glanced over, not willing to believe the sound was anything but an old piece of furniture groaning at even her meager weight.

The chair’s arm was split and cracked. It wasn’t broken, but the fall had definitely damaged it. Julie wiggled, her arm throbbing where the catheter had torn out. The chair’s arm wiggled with her. She stared at it, trying to figure out what she could do to break the arm enough to get free. Another hard fall might do it, but it would bring the giant back, and if it cracked further but didn’t break, he might notice it. Even if it broke, she would need time to get free from the rest of the ropes.

Part of her wanted to just give in to despair, settle into the chair and accept her fate; but there was a small ball of heat in her chest, a smoldering rage at the indignity of having her hand stolen, that wouldn’t let her.

Before she even realized it, Julie shifted her weight to the left, then threw herself back to the right as hard as she could, pulling the chair over and smashing onto the floor. The chair hit with a crunch.

Julie wiggled her arm, testing the chair. The arm had broken off and was in her hand. She could already hear steps on the floor above her, but excitement flooded through her now. One hand being free gave her enough space to wiggle around the rope which tied her to the back of the chair. She could easily get free if she just had enough time.

The heavy steps were coming down the stairs.

She let herself go limp, hoping he wouldn’t notice the broken arm right away or how loose the rope around her chest was. She heard him sigh as he saw her.

She felt him lift her up and set the chair back on its feet. “Oh, look what you did…” He was leaning down and inspecting the broken arm of the chair. Julie was almost too scared to move, but as he leaned in, she took the broken arm in her hand and jammed it into his face.

The giant fell back, clutching at his face, and Julie was suddenly in a frenzy, worming her way out of the rope which held her to the chair and clawing at the large knots that held her other hand and feet. Free, she moved towards the stairs, but felt the giant grab one of her ankles.

“I wish you hadn’t done that, now I have to replace that eye.”

The grip on her ankle was the slender feminine fingers of his right hand, but the grip was impossibly strong. She looked down and the piece of the chair was jutting out of his face, pus and blood leaking out around it and running down the twisted flesh. She spun around and stomped on his forearm, over and over trying to get him to release his hold.

“Let. Me. GO!”

She kicked out at his face next. He was a mountain of a man, but he was on the ground while she was on her feet; she connected with the piece of wood sticking out of his right eye, jarring it and pushing it deeper, finally getting a grunt out of him.

“I can’t let you go, Julie. You are a part of me now, I need you to stay.”

He looked up at her with his one eye, his face expressionless under the scars and the fluids that covered half of it. Julie was a mix of disgust, rage, and fear at the complete lack of anger and the matter-of-factness in his voice, even with the piece of wood still sticking out of his face.

Julie grabbed the cleaver off the table, swinging it as hard as she could in one hand, hacking at the hand that still clutched her ankle. Nothing spurted, he didn’t howl in pain, just more of the disgusting mixture flowing from the wounds, pooling on the floor as Julie swung over and over. She started screaming as all her emotions broke free. Then she could finally pull her leg away, the severed hand still clutching her.

“Julie, please, you are a part of me. Help me understand us…”

“Understand this, you Frankenstein freak!” Julie continued screaming as she stepped back in reach of the giant as he reached for her with his other hand, swinging the cleaver and hacking at his face. He just looked up at her with his one eye, expressionless as she sliced up his face and head. He was pushing himself up with the oozing stump of his right hand as he reached for her with his left, almost unfazed by her hacking at him. Julie grabbed his left hand by the wrist and slammed it against the top of the table.

“And give me back my fucking hand!”

The cleaver plowed through the giant’s wrist, separating his left hand cleanly. She grabbed the hand and ran back and up the stairs, leaving him on the floor.

Upstairs was an old house, badly neglected and empty, but she quickly found the front door and dashed outside, the sun blinding her.

For the first time, she noticed how clear and clean the air smelled, and when she could see, she recognized where she was. It was an old housing project which the development had fallen through. A few other houses stood around in partial states of completion, but the road led out to a main street.

Julie paused to pry off the hand which still hung onto her ankle, and hobbled down the road, clutching the hand that had her own fingers and thumb stapled to it. She wondered if they could still be reattached.

Plans for 2020

A new year, and a new decade is coming up right quick, and it would be a shame if I let the momentum I've built up this year die down. For my fans though, fear not, because I have plans to continue pumping out stuff in 2020. Now, of course, as much as I wish otherwise, my writing is on the back burner to the day job and life, so I'll add the caveat that everything here is subject to change. Stuff may get pushed back by months or years, or get canceled entirely. These are the things I'm currently working on though, with an eye to finishing sooner rather than later. 

Cryptids

Cenote was always meant to be the first of a series based around cryptids. Creatures like Bigfoot, the Kraken, and other monsters reported to be true but always just out of sight. I'm writing this blog while taking a break from a piece tentatively titled "Burrows", which will be my second Cryptid novelette/novella. I'm working towards getting the first draft done before the new year, with editing and cover art finished in the first couple months. If everything lines up, "Burrows" should be out by March.

Audiobooks

PATHS does alright, but Cenote continues to do well, with the audiobook version of my first Cryptid work now up to 22 ratings and holding an average of 4 out of 5 stars. What I'm working on next is turning my most popular novel, Class 5 into an audiobook. This is a much more daunting task, since it'll be a 4 - 5 hour piece, and covers multiple characters. Right now I'm trying to pull out adequate parts to make an audition that will give narrators an idea of what they're in for, while letting me hear how they approach different situations and characters. I'm also expecting this to be available by the end of the first quarter of the year, so hopefully by April.

Likewise, if "Burrows" lines up and gets release in the timeline I'm hoping, expect the audiobook version to be available a month or two after the ebook. 

Short Stories

Short story collections are generally not a big seller, especially shorter collections. PATHS was always meant to only be a sampler, to introduce people to my writing style and approaches. It's also always been the weakest of my published works. So, while I'm not expecting it to be a big seller, I'm working on compiling a lot of the short stories I've released over the years into another collection. Most of them you can find here on my blog, but there's just something nice about having all of them, and possibly new stories, in one place. This isn't a priority though, despite how little work it would actually take, so if it comes to fruition, expect it probably around the summer. 

Novels

This is the one that's the most unlikely for the year. I'm working on a couple different pieces, but with everything else going on, getting them finished, edited, cover art, beta'd, and re-edited will probably take more time than I'll be able to allocate this year. Still, things change, and for those who are interested, I want to give you a little idea of everything I'm working on. The first will be another story set in the Class 5 world, titled Class 5: Hybrid. Expect to see a few characters return, and a deeper look into what's going on in the background of this world.

The other work is another Cryptid-based piece titled "Shivers". As you can probably guess, expect something cold. This may work out to be another novella-sized piece eventually, but right now with its plot written out, I think it'll be a full-sized novel. We'll see as work continues on it though.

As you can see, I have more than a couple irons in the fire, and here's hoping 2020 turns out to be as great a year as 2019 turned out to be. That's the thing about being a writer, it's about the long-haul and constantly expanding the backlist. A $100,000 advance would certainly be nice, but the odds of that have more zero's than the check would have, so it's best to keep plugging away at it, which is exactly what I plan on doing.

With that, have a happy and safe holiday season, and we'll see you next decade!

~ Shaun

2019 Wrap-up

Whew. It's been a bit of a tumultuous year for my writing. A few downs, but quite a few more ups. So, let's get into the review of 2019.

After a long time coming (around a year and a half between submission and publication), my first real short story sale saw print in the voluminous book TRANSCENDENT by Transmundane Press. Now, to be sure, this wasn't a big payout, and turnout for it has been muted. But this is a good collection of short stories by a quality publisher. I am happy to report that I did see a brief, uptick in sales of my other works after it's release. So that was a good way to start the year, even if technically the book was released in 2018. (December 26th, to be precise.)

After that, I also got a bit busier here on the blog. I managed three posts in all of 2018, and this year I managed quite a few more. While it wasn't up to the level of once a week like I did several years ago, it's been nice to get somewhat back into the swing of things and let my thoughts out a bit. Whether the blog helps with sales or not has been up for debate since I started it, but it's not a bad idea regardless.

So, after the year started off well, and then slowly rolled into more of the same, I decided it was time to try something different. An author friend of mine had seen some success turning his stories into audiobooks, so I thought I would give it a try. First up was PATHS: Three Short Horror Stories. The expense wasn't too much, and the returns were decent, if not significant. Enough so that I decided to do the same for my other short work, Cenote.

Cenote blew up. While I honestly wasn't expecting much from it when I made the decision of who to narrate the story, I chose someone that was a Youtube book blogger with a following of over 50,000 people. And she told people when the book was available. In the months since its release, Cenote went from 9 ratings on Goodreads.com to 78! With all the accompanying sales that you would expect from that. Cenote is currently the only one of my works to come close to paying for itself. It's recouped the editing costs, and is over halfway to recouping audiobook costs. Things have slowed down, but sales still continue, and I'm hopeful that it'll be in the black next year.

There was one big let-down this year, which I wrote about last week so I won't go into too much here. But to put it simply, I didn't do my research on a publisher that accepted a short story I wrote for their anthology, and I lost first edition rights to a story I'm honestly pretty proud of, to an anthology I'm not excited to tell people about. 

Not a major year, by any means, one short story, and audiobook editions of older works. But that doesn't mean I've been idle. I've posted several new short stories here on the blog this year, and I've got a few different works in progress heading into 2020. I'll delve more into that next week though.

I was planning to put the 2019 wrap-up and plans for 2020 in one post, but this is getting a little long, so check back next time when I go over what I'm planning for next year and what you all have to look forward to from me.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and I'll catch you all later.

~ Shaun