Little Miss Hannibal…

Monsters in small packages, The Killing is dead, a new Tim Greaton release, and Fat Duck - a new routine….

Evil wears a pink dress: It’s no secret that I consider myself to be one of the most fortunate fathers on the planet. I have three wonderful children who are all growing up to be equally wonderful and talented adults. My oldest is now twenty-one and recently moved into her first apartment; I’m happy to say that her landlord does not allow pets. So, why is that good?

‎My wife and I didn’t realize what a precious little monster we were raising until my daughter was about three years old. As a pretty serious bodybuilder at the time, I would get up each morning at about 4:30am to drink my protein powder and egg mix before heading out to the gym. Imagine my surprise when I opened the refrigerator to find our new tiny kitten shivering in a bowl of soup. I’m guessing the soup had probably been warm when the little creature first sat there.

And my daughter got worse from there, enough so that I would leap out of bed at the slightest hint of her maniacal laugh. One morning, I heard her cackle and bounded out of bed to find the kitten drenched on the opposite side of the bathroom from the still-flushing toilet. If my crime scene reconstruction is correct, she must have dropped the kitten into the bowl and flushed. That poor thing must have made one giant leap clean across to the other side of the bathroom—no small feat for a tiny kitten :-(

Then there was the time she dropped the same cat from a second floor window....

But it was one morning when I woke hearing her talking to someone that truly terrified me.

“Go ahead, touch it,” I heard her say to her little brother.

Terrified, I kicked free of my blankets—but it was too late! Already, my toddler son had exploded into tears. I burst into the living room to see him plopped diaper-first on the floor, holding his finger up to me, a giant wasp between his legs.

His hysterical crying was only matched in volume by my daughter’s gleeful laugh.

Fortunately, she grew out of it.

Now all grown up, my daughter recently said, "A policeman stopped me for an expired registration today, Dad." Then like a hand model she pointed toward her smile. "But he couldn't resist this face and let me go."

I remember loaning her the money to get her car registered only to have her show up a few days later with only about half the money she owned. Before I can say, “Where’s the rest?” she says, “You know you're impressed, Dad; that's the most I've ever paid back."

Then she saunters off with that smile.

Come to think of it, maybe she’s still a monster J.

Fat Duck’s my outdoor son: Last week I said I’d like to see Fatty reach a new pinnacle of success. And, now, we can safely say that it has happened. Fat Duck has a new routine that leads him ultimately up onto the porch each night at between 7 and 8pm. Here’s how his day goes…

Fatty rests easy all night in the safety of his pen on the porch. During this time he enjoys one or two full bowls of clean water and at least three slices of bread. Come morning, he expects me to open his cage and feed him another two or three slices of bread before he wanders off the porch (sometimes with a little encouragement and sometimes after leaving me with several “gifts”). Of course, the rest of the day is spent either in the shade by the pond or on his hay bale acting as our lawn ornament.

Then at about 5pm he starts to wander the hundred feet or so back along the side of the house. His wandering always seems to end somewhere between the house and barn. Then for the next couple of hours, he looks completely confused as he walks back and forth, constantly glancing up at the porch. I’m convinced this is when he thinks, “I really want to go up there, but they’ll kick me off if I’m too early.”

Then finally just about the time twilight hits, he migrates to the stairs, hops up one at a time, and sits next to his pen.

That’s about the time my wife or children see him out the kitchen window and say, “Your son is ready for you.”

My Review of The Killing (season finale) AMC television show starring Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman and Billy Campbell.

My rating ¶¶¶¶ ¶ (zero out of five stars)

The last episode I will ever watch..., 29 June 2011

It’s probably important to say that I saw every one of the thirteen episodes of Season One. Like many reviewers, I thought the first couple of episodes were great with strong performances and quirky characters. The mystery was convincing, as were the personal problems that seemed to be cropping up for everyone from the cops to the suspects.

But then something terrible started to happen. Actually a number of terrible things started to happen. First, the characters started to fluctuate from good to bad. Some viewers would have called it human, but I called it intentional misdirection. The writers wanted us to assume everyone on screen could possibly have been Rosie Larson’s murderer.

So, let’s say that we’re comfortable with the constantly stirring pot and the incredible panoply of red herrings the writers used to make us believe virtually anyone, maybe even the murdered girl herself, could have done it, all in the name of keeping the viewers uncertain and guessing. Maybe this is exactly what a real murder investigation is like, but to me it felt like cheating…not unlike when the writers of Lost swore their island wasn’t a dream or a vision of purgatory, but then it turned out to be exactly that. No, for me the writers of The Killing were jerking my chain just a little too much. I might have given up on this show sooner, but I had been waiting the entire 12 episodes to learn who the killer was. So, I figured it was worth seeing it through to the end. Besides, maybe once I understood the mystery, I would feel better about all the misdirection.

And then comes episode number thirteen…unlucky number thirteen, it turns out. So what happened? That’s easy: NOTHING HAPPENED…at least nothing in the way of a murder being solved.

This burns me in so many different ways, not the least of which was regretting the thirteen hours I had invested in this charlatan of a television show? The unwritten contract was that I would watch and would ultimately learn the identity of the killer. What makes it even worse for me is that AMC waited until the last minute to renew the series. What would the producers have done if they didn’t get renewed? My guess is that we, the viewers, would have been screwed.

But the joke is now on them. I believe many of us have learned our lesson. Those producers can’t be trusted, therefore when I learn the identity of Rosie Larson’s killer, it will be from Yahoo news or someone discussing it within earshot. Because one thing is absolutely for certain: I will never watch another episode of The Killing.

Bones in the Tree, update: As I promised, I finished the first draft of this story. It’s in editing stage now. At last count it runs about 36 pages but will likely be trimmed back by ten to twenty percent. The story will be posted for free on Smashwords and a few other sites by Tuesday 5 July 2011. It will also be available for 99 cents on Amazon and Barnes and Noble the same day.

If you read it and like it, please leave a review. If you don’t like it…well, silence is golden J.

Thanks, Mark Reeder, for your amazing comments regarding The Santa Shop (Paperback)

His review…

««««« (five out of five stars)

Simple Truths and Powerful Themes, May 12, 2011

From the very beginning the idea of a Santa Shop caught my imagination, but what kept me reading were the believable characters, simple truths and powerful themes wrapped up in a delightful package of iridescent prose. Tim Greaton is not just a writer, he's a consummate storyteller. His books should be on everyone's short list of must reads.

My Thanks: I once dreamt of writing for a living. Though a lot of my time is spent writing for nonprofit corporations and charities around the country, work that is incredibly fulfilling and that I will continue to do long after it is required on my end, each and every day more of my income comes directly from readers of my books. Please know that I couldn’t be more sincere in my appreciation.

THANK YOU ALL FOR GRANTING ME THIS LIFE, THE LIFE OF A WRITER!

A Boy Turns into A Dragon…

I didn’t mean to invent a religion, the Fonz has feathers, GM wins big, aggravation IS ME, Tennessee Pennsylvania and Maine pipe in…

Bones in the Tree: I’m so aggravated with myself to report I still haven’t finished the Bones in the Tree first draft. I have, however, decided that as soon as the blog is complete tonight, I will rectify that one way or another. I have only a few pages left to go in the story, and even though my project list is stacked from here to Heaven (including my publisher’s request to hurry with the next book in the Zachary Pill series before the first one is even out!) I will finish Bones… tonight.

Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End: Amazing news! When I settled down to open the ridiculous scrolling list of emails tonight, the first edits for Zachary Pill… were in my box. As soon as Bones in the Tree is complete (first draft tonight, edits Monday and TuesdayJ), I will be settling into some serious fantasy edits. It’s funny, when I finished my final draft of Zachary Pill … (after something like five years) I never wanted to see that story again. Now, after a couple of months of Ripped… edits, I’m anxious to visit my dragon wizard boy again.

By the way, the buzz about this book is really rising. I get as many emails and request for updates on Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End as I do on all my other projects combinedJ. It is definitely moving forward and will be available to all of you soon (I’m going to post another tiny excerpt just because I canJ.

Here it is…

Zachary stomped on his captor’s boot and scrambled to get his feet beneath him. Somehow he managed to yank one arm free. Before the orc could grab him again, Zachary’s hand closed around the ice-cold wizard’s amulet. Though fear mixed freely with dragon rage in his veins, Zachary took one last look at Robin’s brother—then jerked on the disc. The cord dug into his neck but did not break. Ignoring the pain, Zachary twisted and yanked again, this time splitting the heavy string.

Like a roaring locomotive, pressure rushed into his head and pushed against his skull. A prickling sensation raced across his shoulders and sent goose bumps down his arms. Feeling an inexplicable sense of freedom, Zachary flung his medallion across the room where it struck a tapestry and fell to the floor.  A primal scream passed his lips as joints erupted in pain. He could feel his limbs contorting and stretching. From the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head, bones shifted and made cracking noises as they grew and bent at odd angles. Both arms shot out and the flesh around them swelled with dense muscle and newly formed scales. His joints burned in agony, and his fingers grew long and curled with knife-like claws sprouting from the ends. He saw his skin harden into a golden red crust. He knew he was screaming as his clothing tore and fell into shreds onto the floor. His neck pitched forward and his cheeks grew wide and long. His gums ached as rows of pointed teeth erupted from his upper and lower jaws. He felt thick slabs of muscle filling in the area around his cheeks and sensed he had enough power to chew through stone. Zachary tried to run his tongue over the new teeth, but it flicked out beyond the end of his snout and forked into two snakelike ends. His knees were forced into a crouch by flesh that thickened like tree trunks around his thighs. When he moved, the claws on his toes scraped the floor.

Just when the pain of morphing began to fade, a fiery itch erupted from behind. It felt like something was trying to crawl out of his back as two additional limbs sprouted and unfurled like huge kites behind his shoulder blades. Within moments, a pair of golden red wings thickened into layers of muscle that rippled like eels beneath his scales. He stretched the new limbs and felt a glorious sense of power. For the first time, Zachary realized that the orc no longer held him. He could see its legs pumping toward one of the exits.

“What’s this!” Gefarg roared.

Zachary snapped his neck around and hit his snout on the railing of the first balcony. Up until then, he hadn’t realized how tall he had become….

Fat Duck is Fonzie Cool: As you all know, Fat Duck isn’t fearless but sometimes it’s hard to tell, especially if you’re expecting him to run (or fly) for the hills when a little thing like a dog or a lawnmower goes charging his way.

This week we have about twenty Canadian Mallards hanging out with Original Duck in the pond and along the shore of the brook (they’re eating about four loaves of bread a day, tooJ). And over the weekend whenever I am working on projects around the house Patsy our dog gets to run free outside as long as I’m out there. Well, as you can imagine, she bolts out the door and flies off the porch like a superhero—and those poor ducks are her villains. She barks and pursues every last one of them into the water…except Fat Duck.

Fat Duck just doesn’t move quickly, not for me, not for my kids, and certainly not for a foolish dog. Oh, Patsy tries. She charges his way, possibly hoping that he’ll finally see the light and realize he’s supposed to be afraid of her, but ultimately the dog veers off rather than winding up in an in inevitable poultry pile-up with Fatty.

As I was mowing around Fat Duck’s hay bale earlier with my very large, very noisy lawn tractor, he did step off his bale, but only slowly and only as though it was entirely his choice. As I got closer and closer, he sauntered over toward the pond where he could sun himself near the shore. Then, once I finished mowing his area, he sauntered back. If someone had been watching, they might have thought it was me who was waiting for him to move so I could mow.

With his cool, all Fatty lacks is a leather jacket and a motorcycle.

My week: My week can best be described as frenetic but productive.

I completed a ton of great charitable projects, got a ton of writing related projects done (and as many of you know, Carrie Rourke is Focus House’s publicist and she’s like an orphanage taskmaster from a Dickens’ novel), and this weekend I got my windmill renovations finished–though I’ve now decided to add another story to the upper sectionJ), I got most of my lawn tractor parts installed, and I even had a dry enough day today to get my lawn mowed.

Huge bonus! My sister-in-law who is absolutely amazing with landscaping and planting showed up at our house this morning with a car full of plants. She spent several hours adding flowers to our grounds everywhere. Now if only we can keep them aliveJ.

Other than having a sunburn, this past week definitely gets goes to the success column.

Another blistering to-do lists starts off this week, so I’m hoping to get a good start in the morning (which means Bones in the Tree needs to go quickly tonight…pleaseJ)

News – The Chevy Volt: Does This Change Everything? I have to admit that I have not yet tried the new Chevy Volt. As a matter of fact, no city in Maine was included among the early release regions. But I am exceedingly curious and expecting it will be a car I’ll want to own. The real question, however, is how many other people will want to own it?

I’m inclined to believe A LOT!

General Motors along with several other companies has flirted with electric cars in the past. We’ll bypass the hopes and wishes of antique and collectible prototypes that all crashed and burned at the shores of battery woe and focus on GM’s first real attempt at mass-producing an electric car. The EV1 was a lease-only trial program that lasted from 1996 to 1999. Hundreds of EV1 vehicles hit the road. But the cost of the program was high and the customer satisfaction was low. Battery technology was insufficient at that time and the public lacked interest for the most part. But battery technology has improved (though still isn’t truly economical yet) and public interest in alternatively-fueled cars has skyrocketed recently, especially with gas prices edging toward four dollars per gallon every few months.

Recently, a number of the OPEC nations made public statements that they needed more money to manage their economies and therefore oil supplies should be limited so that prices could rise to fund their needs. Saudi Arabia’s response was swift and definitive: they told the other OPEC countries that the world economy couldn’t afford higher fuel costs and that they would unilaterally increase their oil production by any amount needed to offset any artificial production shortfalls. The reason Saudi Arabia did this, I believe, is because they know that consumers in the industrial nations are already teetering on the edge of changing to fossil-fuel alternatives, and one more season of notably high fuel prices might send us all scurrying toward electric car for good. What would all the OPEC companies do if we stopped buying the tar below their feet? But if Saudi Arabia isn’t going to allow prices to rise in the near future, and if GM has already failed with the EV1, what makes me think that this time will be any different?

First, I have to say that this opinion didn’t originate with me. I’ve read about it in several news articles in the last year or so, but most recently I read a New York Times’ Op-Ed piece by JOE NOCERA. And ultimately he based his opinion on information on the over-arching lesson that GM learned with their EV1 program: what consumers want even more than a gas/diesel alternative is RANGE. We want to know that if we get in our car and go anywhere, we’re not going to run out of juice and be stranded.

That’s why he and I and dozens of other technophiles believe GM is going to succeed this time. They’re going to blow past Nissan, Tesla, and every other company that markets any electric vehicle that can’t drive 300+ miles on a single charge. It’s true that the Volt cheats a little to extend its range by actually using gas when there is no more electricity, but it does it with an attractive MPG rate and only after all the electricity has been used up.

So I’ll wait for the new Volt to hit Maine, and I’ll likely wait for the first wave or two of engineering flaws to be fixed, but I will definitely be among the up and coming consumer mass that will definitely choose GM Volt over gas vehicles in the very near future.

Why is my From My Cold Young Fingers’ Under-Heaven different from Purgatory and other more accepted versions of Heaven? When I first plotted out my fictional heavenly setting, it never even occurred to me that anyone would have a problem with it. After all, it’s fiction. I hadn’t set out to invent a religion or even seriously toy with spirituality. I was really just trying to tell a story about a fictional boy and what happened after his fictional death.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from a woman in Tennessee shortly after the book came out. She had read The Santa Shop and loved it, so when she saw From My Cold Young Fingers available, she immediately purchased it and started reading.

But after Chapter Two, she stopped!

As she explained to me, at Chapter Two she realized this wasn’t a story about her Heaven, didn’t reflect her religious beliefs and it sure as heck wouldn’t have gone over big at Sunday School. It took her several weeks of staring at that book on her mantel before she could pick it up again. After all that time, she finally came to realize that my novel was just that, a story. And once she did read it, she felt the need to email me about how silly she felt and how From My Cold Young Fingers has now become one of her favorite novels of all time.

A charitable Christian group I work with also questioned this book. Somehow my story’s variation on the standard beliefs came up in discussions. No one was mad, but the fact that they felt the need to mention it to me caught me completely by surprise. Does this mean that every time Stephen King writes a novel, he has to explain that he doesn’t really believe in werewolves, witches, etc… (though maybe he does, and maybe one day he’ll be the one everyone calls “Maine’s Other Author”J).

So, the answer to why my fictional heavenly place is different than other views of Heaven is simple: it’s not real. It was intended as entertainment only. Sure, I’m flattered by people who say they hope my Under-Heaven does exist. But, all religious beliefs aside, I’ll be happy if Nate, Aunt Alice and Grandma Clara become your fictional friends the same way they have become mine.

Thanks so much, NookgirlPA, for your pleasant review of From My Cold Young Fingers.

Her review…

««««« (5 out of 5 stars) April 1, 2011 at Barnes and Noble 

Great Book!

I just finished reading this book. Unfortunately it had to end. It was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I would recommend this book to anyone. It definitely makes you think about your own beliefs and even believe a little deeper after reading it. You will not be disappointed!! Loved it!

In the next blog (Wednesday June 29nd): a girl abuses cats and a baby, my review of The Killing’s season finale on AMC, a definite release date for Bones in the Tree and more….

Thanks for spending another few minutes with me. I remain your most loyal friendJ!

Corpses Wrapped in Dirty Sheets…

An infestation of bats, toilet paper down river, a wizard’s battle sneak peek, Fat Duck - a genius, Falling Skies might fall, Island Gal talks Santa, and more…

Poverty makes for interesting housing: Of all the emails I receive, the most surprising to me are the ones commenting about my childhood experiences. It seems that people enjoy hearing about true stories, especially when they show what an unusual childhood I lived.

My dad never made it past the eighth grade, which meant that in the world’s eyes he wasn’t qualified for a decent paying job. In Maine, in the 1960s, junk cars and broken machinery could often be found beside the road and in fields next to every other home. My father spent his days tracking down the land owners, getting permission to pick up these old iron hulks he would then sell to a salvage yard for barely enough money to support his family, which included my four-year-old self and two young sisters.

We lived in an old, dilapidated farmhouse with no heating system, only cold water and an outhouse. The electricity didn’t work much of the time, sometimes because the bill wasn’t paid and other times because the rural lines were down. One winter, when a predicted three-inch snowstorm turned into an angry four-foot nor’easter, the snow drifted so high we could only see outside from the second floor windows. My dad had to dig a tunnel just to get out the front door. This particular storm coincided exactly with my younger brother’s due date, which meant for four days my mother lived knowing that if she went into labor, there would be no medical help.  

Fortunately, nature—or my brother—held off for another few weeks.

Knowing that we couldn’t live like that any longer, my dad did the best he could and arranged the purchase of a rundown building in the city. It stood on a corner lot, sandwiched between a huge warehouse and a railroad track. Riddled with issues that ranged from dangerously steep stairways, to numerous past fires to an infestation of bats, it wasn’t the greatest place to raise a family.

Only a few thousand feet from the Androscoggin River, which was a literal open sewer at that time, our neighborhood often smelled bad enough to make visitors gag. I remember many days sitting on the river bank and watching clumps of toilet paper and brown foam churn over the falls and bob downriver like corpses wrapped in dirty sheets.

Our new home wasn’t all bad, though; by the time my youngest brother and sister were born (there were six of us then), I had made a few friends and had found that life in the city at least offered a nearby park and a library. Unfortunately, the fighting between my parents had grown worse. In an attempt to escape the insane screaming and sometimes physical battles, my older sister and I moved upstairs into the two ancient rooms on either side of the open attic where bats and lord knew what else resided. Several mysterious and dark crawl spaces also haunted our imaginations.

I remember waking one particular night in my room on the railroad side of the building. I had long since grown used to sleeping through the vibration and noise of the passing freight trains, but when I woke and jumped bolt upright in bed, I knew something was wrong. A cold breeze whipped through my room. Confused, I looked around and realized that my entire window was gone. The passing train must have shaken it loose from its frame. I poked my head out to see thousands of glass shards strewn across the sidewalk four stories below me.

Tired and cold, I sat down on the floor, pulled my blankets around me, and stared out past the railroad bridge at the distant moonlit rooftops.

It was a beautiful night.

Fat Duck’s perfect day: Every few blogs, I find myself wanting to report that Fatty has reached some new pinnacle of success, that he has somehow exceeded the expectations of not just myself but of his growing legion of fans. Well, yesterday was that day.

I went out onto the porch at the usual time of around eight in the morning and opened his cage. I then tossed him several fresh slices of bread to eat in peace before I flung the rest of the loaf out to Original Duck and his twenty or so Canadian visitors. Too impatient to wait for Fat Duck to finish breakfast, I went inside and immediately got caught in a string of phone calls.

An hour and a half later, I reemerged on the porch to see Fatty had waddled about forty feet from the side porch to the front porch where he was now resting comfortably next to the front door. Confused, I retraced my steps and realized there wasn’t a single duck poop anywhere along his trail.

Odd.

Knowing for sure he was sitting on a mess, I returned to the front and gently urged him to fly down into the yard with the rest of the outdoor children. For once, he didn’t balk and instead gracefully flew over to his hay bale to begin his day’s work as our lawn ornament.

I hardly noticed, however, because there wasn’t even one mistake anywhere on the porch. Fat Duck had been on the porch for nearly two hours and hadn’t made a single mess.

I knew he was special and almost certainly a genius of his species!

This morning, I let Fat Duck out of his cage and went inside to answer some emails while he finished breakfast.  Half an hour later, I returned to the porch to see not one, not two, but five separate poops leading like breadcrumbs around the corner of the porch. And, there, sitting proudly by the front door was my little white friend perched on top of yet his sixth present of the morning.

He’s special alright.

My Review of Falling Skies, (2-hour pilot episode) TNT television show starring Noah Wyle, produced by Stephen Spielberg.

My rating ««¶¶ ¶ (two out of five stars)

On the cusp of being mediocre or worse..., 23 June 2011

I should first say that I’ve been working some ridiculous hours, almost to the point of unmanageable, so when I sat down to watch this show the first time, I fell asleep within the first twenty minutes. Fortunately, a kind soul recently invented the DVR so all was not lost. I successfully finished the show the next night and thought it was okay but definitely just that.

Noah Wyle stars as Tom Mason, the father of three boys, who have all survived the first wave of alien invaders here on Earth (Massachusetts, to be exact). Sometime before the show opens, one of Tom’s sons has been kidnapped and enslaved by an alien “collar” that looks like nothing so much as a giant cockroach pressed against his spine and neck. With much of the population dead, Tom finds himself and his remaining teen son pressed into service in a last ditch human military resistance. His youngest boy seems to have been tossed into a few scenes as a failed attempt at emotionally hooking the audience.  

I’d like to tell you that something amazing beyond the typical post-apocalyptic fare happens, but I’m sorry to say that the ragtag group of 100 freedom fighters lead 200 civilians through the typical landscape of abandoned cars and burnt-out buildings. The acting seems for the most part to be half-hearted and the costumes and overall cast appearance can best be described as disheveled and uninspired. The casting of Will Patton as the tough-as-nails military leader is especially notable for its lack of originality. Patton is effectively playing an alter-ego of the similar but villainous military group leader he played in Kevin Costner’s post-apocalyptic movie The Postman (1997).  

Effectively this show represents Stephen Spielberg’s War of the Worlds for TV minus a major network budget. I would have been forced to rate this lower, but summer is always slow for supernatural or alien shows and Noah Wyle has done some incredible TV in the past, so I’m holding out hope that he and the producers can somehow rise above the obvious budget limitations and deliver something more than what has started out to be moderately watchable drivel.  

Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End, update: I fear you may all be disappointed that I don’t have the exciting news I was hoping for. I learned this morning that edits are still incomplete and likely won’t be available to me for at least another few days to maybe two weeks. I also have not received the next round of edits for Ripped From My Cold Young Fingers, which gives me at least another few days to finish up my Bones in the Tree story. With some luck, it will be available sometime next week. I’ll update you in Sunday’s blogJ.

I did want to leave you with a small excerpt from Zachary Pill, The Dragon at Station End however. Here it is…

“Zach, hurry!” Though his father hollered, his voice could barely be heard over the harsh sounds all around them. Surprisingly strong for a small man, his father nearly ripped his good arm out of its socket as he pulled him through the doorway.

“Get into the bathroom!”

Zachary hurried to do as asked and ducked as a bat with blood red eyes hurtled past his head. It made a sickening splatter as it struck someplace in the bedroom behind him.

“Enough!” Zachary’s father shouted in a voice so loud it made Zachary’s ears hurt. Another bat bounced off the hallway wall and hurtled toward them, but his father chanted something and a bolt of blue light burst out of the wand and struck it in mid-flight. Blinded from the flash, Zachary heard the bat fall in wet thump on the hallway floor not far from him. The air was filled with the sickly smell of charred flesh. He felt his father’s hands thrust him into the bathroom and he heard the door pulled shut.

“Lock it!” his father ordered.

Ashamed to leave his father alone with the bats but too terrified to do anything but obey, Zachary groped along the door and forced his trembling fingers to turn the lock. Then, he backed away until his cast struck the towel rack on the back. Pain vibrated through his arm like a hammer struck cymbal. He fought the need to scream, but couldn’t stop the breath that came and went in great gasps. Needing to hear what was going on, he clamped his good hand over his mouth and tried to block the sound of his own sobs.

“Krage, I’m done with this!” his father bellowed.

Simultaneously, a flash framed the bathroom door with a blinding blue stripe. Then everything went black again. Something heavy thumped into the door. Zachary feared for the worst.

“Dad?” he whispered. Then more loudly, “Dad!”

There was an explosion of glass, from the living room maybe, and loud crashing and banging sounds reverberated from all over the apartment. Suddenly, another flash of blue light left spots of blue light swimming in Zachary’s eyes after everything went dark again. Something was different this time, though; the darkness was accompanied by silence. No crashing, no wind, nothing. Zachary could hear his own heart beating in his ears.

“Dad?”

The knob jiggled.

“Get away from there!” his father hollered from somewhere in the kitchen.

Blue light flashed again revealing dark curls of smoke, and something like a heavy boot struck the bathroom door. Zachary coughed and grabbed for a towel to cover his nose and mouth from the smoke that was making it hard to breathe. He heard feet run past the bathroom door.

“Tell Krage I’m coming for him!” his father yelled. “Tell him I’m coming!”

Thanks, Island Gal, for your positive review of The Santa Shop (Paperback)

Her review…

««««« (five out of five stars)

Poignant and uplifting, June 15, 2011

Tim Greaton has written an incredible book. It takes the reader on a journey through twelve months with a man whose life takes a tragic turn on Christmas Eve. His self-imposed guilt, surrounding that evening, weighs him down until he decides to take his own life. What happens at that moment shows us how we are magically tied together as humans. How every thoughtful thing we do, or say, to each other, can help lift another person up from the depths of depression. Can inspire them to do something positive with their life. And may save their life.

The Santa Shop is a truly inspirational book. J.

My Thanks: I once dreamt of writing for a living. Though a lot of my time is spent writing for nonprofit corporations and charities around the country, work that is incredibly fulfilling and that I will continue to do long after it is required on my end, each and every day more of my income comes directly from readers of my books. Please know that I couldn’t be more sincere in my appreciation.

THANK YOU ALL FOR GRANTING ME THIS LIFE, THE LIFE OF A WRITER!