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    Books & Films

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer,  Shadows in the Garden, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Shadows in the Garden (film)

    dvd | stream | ebook | paperback

    A shadow has come to the coastal town of Cthulhu Gardens, a butcher who leaves decapitated corpses in his wake -- including, it is feared, the town's beloved sheriff. Yet there are whispers of a new shadow, a monstrous Other, a thing sharing the garden's own likeness ....

     

    BUY THE DVD: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBXQC

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Comes a Ferryman: Book One of the Ferryman Pentalogy, Spokane authors

    Comes a Ferryman: Book One of the Ferryman Pentalogy

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "The ferryman turned to face her and she quickly looked away—as if an owl had suddenly focused on her in the dark. Now that they’d reached the trunk of the river, he had relaxed the intensity of his rowing to a more casual pace, and was allowing the current to do most the work. (She didn’t dare risk activating the ring now!) Instead she looked at the floorboards, and after a few moments, remembered the book lying next to her. She reached toward it habitually—but froze when the raven cawed loudly and its red beam fell upon the back of her hand.

    A tense moment followed in which she looked from the ferryman to the raven then back again as her fingertips wavered over the golden cover. Then the ferryman motioned with his head, and the raven’s light swung away and switched off. She picked up the book slowly and placed it on her lap."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, The Tempter and the Taker: Book Two in the Ferryman Pentalogy, Spokane authors

    The Tempter and the Taker: Book Two of the Ferryman Pentalogy

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "Shekalane looked at him with something akin to pity. 'You speak as if Ursathrax were a person. A lover, perhaps.'

    Jamais laughed. 'I suppose that’s true. It is the hallmark of lonely people, to anthropomorphize. They do it to their pets quite frequently. But that is just one of her secrets … for while not a person same as you or I, she is, I believe, sentient. She is self-aware. Surely you have felt it, on those days when the leaves of the trees rustle even though there is no wind? She is alive … she has her moods and her trespasses, like every living thing. And also like every living thing, she is mortal. By which I mean she has a beginning, a middle, and an end, as do all things … and that, after five-hundred years, she is nearing her end.'

    There was another long pause, and Shekalane looked at Dravidian, who said, 'No. That is not possible. The Lucitor would not have created something so frail and temporal …'

    Jamais studied him for a beat. 'And yet the sky is falling, is it not?'"

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, The Pierced Veil: Book Three of the Ferryman Pentalogy, Spokane authors

    The Pierced Veil: Book Three of the Ferryman Pentalogy

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "He picked up one of the fur coats and helped her into it, then stroked the hair next to her temple, laying his head slowly back against the pillows. He gazed up at the gondola’s steel ferro (which loomed above them for the ship was right behind him and the flat-bottomed boat’s prow rested well above the waterline), and said, 'Take hold of my ship’s ferro, Shekalane. And hold on tightly.'

    She looked at the great black and gold ferro, which pointed like a scimitar at the ceiling of the cavern, and its comb of seven tines, six pointing forward and one back, then back at Dravidian, whom she kissed before pushing herself up by her arms and, with the assistance of Dravidian’s big hands on her waist, gripped the topmost tines, the forward of which was etched with the word ‘Jaskir’ and the backward of which was etched ‘Novum Venum.’

    She looked down at him as he hiked her frayed dress up along her dirty thighs and realized she was breathing far too heavy and fast, and tried to calm herself by observing the grotto around them, the piled treasure, the phantasmagoria of mushrooms. But then his cheek grazed the inside of her thigh and he began kissing her leg softly, and she surrendered all pretense to being in any sort of control."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Black Hole, White Fountain: Book Four of the Ferryman Pentalogy, Spokane authors

    Black Hole, White Fountain: Book Four of the Ferryman Pentalogy

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "The hologram faded away and a silence fell over the glade as Dravidian reseated himself upon the rock. Sthulhu remained respectfully silent. In his mind's eye Dravidian saw Pepperlung on the deck of their great dragger, The Vorpal Gladio, saw him glance over his shoulder at the prefect as his tone became grave: 'Beware, Dravidian. The bride is just sightseeing but Asmodeus is here for you. You are the only ferryman up for elevation this year. Watch yourself. There will be a test, surely.'

    The ground trembled suddenly and the remnants of the cage rattled as a minor Ursaquake shook the glade, and the sun orb went from gold to orange. A horse whinnied in the distance and Dravidian looked out across Parvus’ homestead to see a great steed leap up in its corral. The slightest push against the dilapidated boards would have freed it—but the creature either did not know or did not care. The horse, however mighty, knew its place. It knew in its primitive yet tamed wiring what Dravidian, in his advanced and now liberated own, did not: that nothing lay beyond its cage that did not already exist in abundance within."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, To the End of Ursathrax: Book Five of the Ferryman Pentalogy, Spokane authors

    To the End of Ursathrax: Book Five of the Ferryman Pentalogy

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "He refocused on Blotto just as the smile faded from the man’s lips and his mouth drew tightly closed, as if he were desperately trying to stifle a belch. His eyes shown suddenly wide and intense, yet their expression had not changed so much as become frozen in stasis. His shapeless body jerked once, his flesh seemed to roll as does water in a boat’s wake, and then his fat lips were parted by what first seemed his tongue, but was revealed to be a budding red rose, which emerged into the fire-light and blossomed its pedals, spilling blood onto the gangplank and filling the air with scent. Glancing to the hand with which the man gripped Rosethorn, Dravidian saw that she’d sprouted thorn-studded rose stems, which had penetrated Blotto’s beefy wrist and chewed their way through his body.

    His heel lifted off the wood and his ankle seemed to lock with paralysis, and then his body listed to the right and he began to fall. The rose imploded as if growing in reverse, retracting into his mouth which fell shut with the clacking of teeth, and an instant later Rosethorn fell to the plank and Dravidian stooped to snatch her up. Blotto’s body fell into the void."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, X-Ray Rider:  Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End - 1, Spokane authors

    X-Ray Rider: Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End - 1

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    Jonesing for a drive-in theater and a hotrod El Camino?

    It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming…as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan.

    Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world.

    Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth.

    Want to go for a ride?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, X-Ray Rider:  Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End - 2, Spokane authors

    X-Ray Rider: Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End - 2

    ebook | paperback

    Jonesing for a drive-in theater and a hotrod El Camino?

    It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming…as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan.

    Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world.

    Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth.

    Want to go for a ride?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, X-Ray Rider:  Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End - 3, Spokane authors

    X-Ray Rider: Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End - 3

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    Jonesing for a drive-in theater and a hotrod El Camino?

    It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming…as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan.

    Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world.

    Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth.

    Want to go for a ride?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" - A Scriptment, Spokane authors

    Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" - A Scriptment

    ebook | paperback

    "We've stepped out of a safe line somewhere ..."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Flashback, Spokane authors

    Flashback

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    Roadkill ... A funny thing happened to Roger and Savanna Aldiss on the Interstate--they hit a dinosaur. But that's nothing compared to what awaits them down the road. For something is at work to reverse time itself, something which makes the clouds boil, glowing with strange lights, and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Roger, Savanna, a motorcycle gang, and others will make their final stand. Prehistory lives as ferocious dinosaurs run amok! Science-fiction and horror fans (and especially B-movie lovers) will enjoy this gory, action-packed thriller in the tradition of Roger Corman and George Romero.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Napoleon, Spokane authors

    Napoleon

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "She was in the habitat—actually in it, not seated at her workstation on the other side of the glass. She was standing before Napoleon in her white lab coat, which, inexplicably, she unzipped and shirked from her shoulders, allowing it to slide to the marshy floor. She didn’t know how she had gotten there or how time had rewound so that the habitat and its great glass window were still intact … she only knew she was there to take the experiment to the next level. And as Napoleon looked down at her with eyes that had become strangely human, she knew that he knew why she was there as well …

    And then she was awake as fast as she’d gone out, and she was standing, slowly, amongst the trees again … wondering why she would dream such a thing. And wondering, too, about the hidden obsessions each and every human being might harbor in the darkest recesses of their subconscious. And then she scanned the trees, realizing, suddenly, that they were swaying—even though there was no wind—and saw Napoleon glaring back at her."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Behind a Pale Mask: The New Ferryman Novel, Spokane authors

    Behind a Pale Mask: The New Ferryman Novel

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "'You know me to be a ferryman,' I said, pushing the circlet up and over my forehead. 'How?

    "Why, by taking one look at you, that’s how! You've no mask, that much is true, nor have you a scythe, as I’ve said … you’ve the cloak, all right, but that can be purchased at even the lowliest of costume shops; I’ve one just like it in my wagon here, in fact. No, this is something in the face itself. It’s an aura." He paused, appraising me coldly. "You’ve the heart of a ferryman."

    After a moment I replied, "I knew a woman once who said the very opposite."

    "A woman, eh? She must have feared you very much."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Lean Season, Spokane authors

    Lean Season

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    Lonny hesitated, trembling. "Y-you mean it's just trying to scare us?"

    Handlebar tweaked his nose. "That's right."

    The fire returned to the young man's eyes—almost. He looked around the shattered dock, at the riddled corpse and the oily, bloody water, at the spitting power lines and the dead lights, the peeling boardwalk on the shore.

    He shook his head. "No, it's not. It—it doesn't pretend, like you. It's gonna kill us, that's all." He stepped closer. "Can’t you see that? You posing hillbilly? The spill's given it a—a lean season. It's sick, and it's hungry, and …"

    He glanced at the corpse. "And we probably just killed its mate."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Killer in the Looking Glass, Spokane authors

    Killer in the Looking Glass

    ebook

    "I stare at her through the rain. Somewhere a siren is wailing. From the streets below, angry words rendered unintelligible by distance are being exchanged. Gunshots follow. Then screaming. Car horns are being honked impatiently. Somewhere a baby is crying. The Hard Mask seems to fit much looser than before. In fact, it doesn't seem to want to stay on at all."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Red Marillion, Spokane authors

    Red Marillion

    ebook

    "You're gonna smoke it with me, aren't you, Vic?" he asked, following me.

    I stopped in the living room and kicked off my hiking boots.

    "Huh, Vic? How about it?" He walked around me and plopped himself down on the couch, which was even greasier than the carpet, if that was possible. "It'll be just like old times."

    A towering, purple bong sat at his feet, ready to go. I sat down in the easy chair across from him, rubbing my temples.

    It's coming.

    "Sure," I said, finally. "Just like old times."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Flying the Fog Roads of Cascadia: Grover Krantz on the Trail of Bigfoot, Spokane authors

    Flying the Fog Roads of Cascadia: Grover Krantz on the Trail of Bigfoot

    ebook

    Dr. Krantz served as a full professor of anthropology at Washington State University from 1968 until 1998. Though he was a popular teacher with an almost cult-like following and highly regarded for his work on Homo Erectus, it was his pioneering exploration of the Sasquatch phenomenon which won him praise as well as condemnation from the scientific community.

    Though the ultimate veracity of Dr. Krantz' Bigfoot hypothesis may never be known, the fact that he captured the popular imagination has never been disputed. Indeed, due to his numerous appearances on national television and in motion pictures, as well as his published articles, essays, and books, Krantz may be said to have joined the likes of Carl Sagan and Joseph Campbell as a "popularizer" of scientific and/or mythological enquiry. In doing so he has helped bridge the gulf between serious scientific debate and worldwide popular culture, and drawn the attention of thousands to the greater Pacific Northwest.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Coffin Road, Spokane authors

    Coffin Road

    ebook

    Three went out in search of the Sound—Seeker, Teller, and Winder (though they weren't called that then). Only Teller returned, living long enough, just, to tell the Tale.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, How About a Coke and Some Fries?, Spokane authors

    How About a Coke and Some Fries?

    ebook

    I had a dream. In the dream I was running, I and a thousand others, through the Nevada desert. It’s open range out there: no fences impeded us, but the cows scattering before us slowed our passage, tripping us up. They mooed in terror even as we cried out, but they weren’t afraid of us so much as the Shadow behind us all.

    That shadow was an army, led by Ronald McDonald. He was grinning, leering even, blood-red lips frozen in a rictus. At his side was Jack, fell head bouncing. Little Wendy squeezed between them, screaming like a Valkyrie, braided red locks flying. They were a Calvary; they were riding Rainbeer. Their hooves churned up the dust through which burst a million antenna balls, cackling, bouncing, leaping …

    Behind them marched a sea of corporate shock troops, wave after wave, briefcases in hand. Trumpets sounded, like something from The Lord of the Rings, heralding the return of the Burger King—

    Ahead of us the cows starting vanishing, dropping from the face of the world. “It’s a stampede!” someone cried, terrified. There were screams that fell away sharply.

    We had come to a sheer drop-off—a few of us having realized too late. There was nowhere left to run. Above us, like vultures, attack helicopters circled. Turning to meet my doom, I saw that Ronald McDonald had become former President Ronald Reagan.

    “Well,” he said. “How about it?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part One: "Naaygi," Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part One: "Naaygi"

    ebook | paperback

    “Jesus, Corbin, your window!” shrieked Charlotte—too late—as one of the beasts’ heads darted deep into the cab and began thrashing about violently. The Jeep careened against the shelves as Red lost control, first to the left, then to the right, causing groceries to cascade down the windshield and to roll off the hood, as Charlotte slid the pistol from her holster and opened fire on the velociraptor, which bucked and leapt, banging its head against the ceiling, before reversing itself back through the window and falling away.

    Corbin cranked up his window and looked at her over his shoulder as Red regained control, and said, albeit begrudgingly, “Thank you.”

    But Charlotte was no longer looking at his face; instead she had focused on his shoulder—which had been laid open by the raptor’s flashing teeth and now bled profusely over his policeman’s uniform and down the side of his seat, causing Red to reach behind himself awkwardly and fish around for something even as he accelerated for the front doors of the supermarket.

    “There’s a First-Aid kit behind my seat,” he said, and Charlotte quickly joined in the search even as Red added, “It’s right here,” and took his eyes off the wheel just long enough for Corbin to shout, “Red!”

    He’d scarcely had time to refocus on the wheel before he noticed a lithe figure awash in the headlights, a figure shorter than the average person and swathed in what appeared to be animal hides, holding a spear, who turned its head to face them and regarded them briefly as its—her—eyes flashed with terror and the Jeeps push bar collided with her body.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, That Thing We Killed, Spokane authors

    That Thing We Killed

    ebook

    A young man's "blooding" can haunt him for the rest of his life.

    Especially when he's not even sure what he killed.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Wet Bark, Spokane authors

    Wet Bark

    ebook

    "A vignette of dream shimmers briefly in my mind. I remember I was crouched in a dark yard, this yard—staring at that same clothesline. I was cold, so cold, and frightened, and I didn't know why. It was far too dark to see anything clearly. I could tell only that there was something hung from the line. Approaching it, I saw how it swung back and forth in the night-wind heavily. It wasn't until I was close enough almost to touch it that I realized what it was.

    It was the pale woman's head.

    … but I don't want to think about that. It is a dream best forgotten."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Two: "The Devil's Shambhala," Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Two: "The Devil's Shambhala"

    ebook | paperback

    Corbin snatched the rifle off his shoulder in a flash and everyone ducked—but he was pointing it at the ceiling, not the Chairman. “Shhh,” he said, and cocked his head. “Just listen.”

    Charlotte did so, her ears still ringing. Slowly it became manifest: the sound of cavern raptors barking amidst the catacombs, barking and seeming to answer themselves, and something else, which answered them all. The Cat. The smilodon. The saber-toothed tiger which bore little in common with any of its modern-day ancestors nor any of its prehistoric ones, for it was the size of a small bus. And beyond that … another. Something closer in tone to the raptors and yet altogether different. Something bigger, more robust. Something none of them had ever heard before.

    “You all need to understand something,” he said finally, slowly re-slinging his gun, “and that is that before I found this place I was precinct commander of an entire police force dedicated to combating these … things. And if there’s one thing we learned …” He paused, smiling a little to himself. “‘We.’ He seemed to dismiss the thought. “If there’s one thing we learned before our unit was torn to pieces … one thing they learned, my men, before being bitten in half, beheaded, slit open by sickle-claws so that their intestines unspooled across the city streets like sausage links … is that these things are not animals.” He smiled to himself again as though reliving a lifetime’s worth of humbling nightmares. “No, an animal is something comprehensible, even relatable. An animal is something flesh and blood same as you or me, with the same needs, the same hunger, the same will to survive. But these things, these so-called dinosaurs and prehistoric cats, they’re not animals, not the way we understand them. They’re weapons. They have purpose. Intent. They’ve been infused with it somehow. Someone, something, has weaponized them against us.” He nodded slowly, distantly. “Those lights in the sky, I think. And I can promise you this … they will not go away.” The haunting smile returned as he shook his head. “They won’t give up, you understand. And they won’t stop until every man, woman, and child in this compound has been torn apart and devoured.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Three: "The Red-Eye Shift," Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Three: "The Red-Eye Shift"

    ebook | paperback

    He hadn’t run far when he came across the first body, as well as the first raptor (the body laying slit open from throat to crotch while the raptor devoured its unspooled intestines), and Red squeezed off a round, blowing a hole in its head which shot a stream of dark blood no less than six feet before the beast dropped like a sandbag and Red circled around to find the others—but mostly to find Charlotte.

    He heard her shout above the engine of one of the rides. “Red! I’m over here! The Scrambler!”

    He scanned the amusements quickly and saw her long, brown hair blowing from one of the ride’s carriages: she had activated the thing and sought refuge on it, and was now being swung and whipped about dizzyingly even as a trio of cavern raptors tried to attack. He ran to the fence which encircled the attraction and quickly chambered a round, but found it difficult to target any animals as they scrambled to dodge the carriages, darting this way and that with frantic precision even as they persisted in the assault.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Enter the Witch Doctor, Part One of the Witch Doctor Trilogy, Spokane authors

    Enter the Witch Doctor | Part One of the Witch Doctor Trilogy

    ebook | paperback

    They were the kind of musical notes men and woman once swayed to—even worshiped to—or so Jasper had told him, ground from an instrument called an “organ”—which had once been common, or so he’d said, but had vanished from the face of the world. So, too, were there cymbals, which echoed throughout the crew compartment of the War Wagon like tinsel—if tinsel could be said to have a sound—and mingled with the steely whispers of their muskets and tanks and other gear as the truck rocked and their harnesses held them fast.

    “When a maaan loves a woman,” sang a hearty and soulful voice both inside and outside the compartment, and Jeremiah knew they were close, else the driver wouldn’t have cued the music, and when he scanned the other Witch Doctors, strapped in six to a bench in the wagon’s cramped confines, he knew that they knew it too. What was more, he knew that, however fearsome they looked in their black jumpsuits and white flame-retardant vests, their goggled respirators, their buckled hats—they were frightened, too.

    But then the wagon ground to a halt and there was no time to be feel anything, much less fear, as Jeremiah unbuckled and piled out with the others. And yet, as he paused momentarily to take in the building—a ramshackle six-story brownstone which looked as though it had been built before the Betrayal, much less the Pogrom—a strange thing happened. He thought he heard a voice; not from without but entirely from within—a woman’s voice, a witch’s voice. And it said to him, as faintly as the cymbals at the start of the music, Why have you come for us, Witch-Doctor? And he found himself scanning the illuminated windows of the brownstone as if someone had perhaps shouted to him (rather than reaching directly into his mind), and saw behind one of the uppermost panes a figure so small and motionless that he might have thought it a piece of furniture, a lamp, perhaps, had it not slid to one side and vanished.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Faraway, Nearby

    ebook | audiobook | paperback

    "Now that the smoke had cleared, she saw that the bulge had burst open, and was hollow. Reams of tree sap dribbled from its fracture. She stared at it as piano music tiptoed up the hall—Maggie's radio, no doubt—resonating eerily amidst the sterile walls. Thinking she heard the ghost-voice of Karen Carpenter—what were recordings if not the voices of ghosts?—she noticed something different about the willow tree. Something other than the weird bulge, now split open.

    It was an odd configuration of branches, some thick as a person’s arms, others thick as legs. Had those been there before? She was pretty sure they hadn’t. She noticed there were unusual masses of vegetation growing from them; in addition to strands of weeping willow leaves, there were flowers, ferns, lilies, mushroom stools—she knew they hadn’t been there. Taken together, the branches almost formed a human shape—with shaggy shoulders and a mane of green hair—in profile. But since when did trees grow—

    Suddenly the shape turned its face to her, opening its eyes, and Tika shrieked."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Four: "Charlotte"

    ebook | paperback

    She supposed it was what they—or at least Sting of The Police—would have called synchronicity: that twangy guitar and soft-pedaled keyboard emanating so clearly from the RV’s speakers as she ascended the vehicle’s aluminum ladder. All she knew was that the song matched her mood perfectly, absurdly, as Karen Carpenter sang, Such a feeling’s comin’ over me / There is wonder in most everything I see …

    She gained the RV’s roof and looked around: at the motor homes being corralled in the parking lot of Bluebeard’s Cove, at the velociraptors gathered like spectators outside the fence, at the brontosaurus mulling its cypress leaves nearby and the pterodactyls circling in the blood-red sky and the volcano spewing lava not thirty miles away. Not a cloud in the sky / Got the sun in my eyes / And I / Won’t be surprised if it’s a dream …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Five: "The Children's Reich"

    ebook | paperback

    The camera whipped back to focus on Dieter, behind whom the strange sky-lights moved, bleeding in and out of each other, like globs of wax in a lava lamp. “Alas, even our master race can, at times, produce … aberrations. A man or woman of perfect Aryan descent who, nonetheless … fails to display the proper traits.” He gestured with his hand as if to say, Bring him, quickly. “And such a man will be offered in homage today, my friends; to placate the beasts that are the sub-masters of this new world, and to introduce our new allies to how it is that we—the new Nephilim—do things.” He nodded slowly as a man was forced writhing and struggling up to the main gate. “How it is that we have survived, even thrived, amidst a world that has killed so many. And the level of cruelty we expect from any and all who would join us.”

    Jesus, gods, he’s talking about a sacrifice, thought Charlotte, even as another movement caught the corner of her eye. She focused on where she’d noticed it and saw what appeared to be a tail—like a great, green dagger—before it disappeared behind a stand of cypress trees. So, too, did something move on the opposite side of the lot, causing the trees to sway. It’s like we’re being triangulated, she thought—even as the man was thrown to the muddy ground outside the fence and the gate swung quickly shut.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn (A Serialized Novel), Part Six: "Throw Wide the Gates of Hell"

    ebook | paperback

    Naaygi found them waiting for her—as she somehow knew they would be—as the cage doors opened, their forward-facing eyes glinting the same hue as the lights in the sky and their dark, storm-colored bodies held absolutely still (even as another animal joined them and brought their number to four). She even knew somehow what they were; that they were a breed of carnosaur the “evolved” humans had called nanotyrannosaurs, the “Pygmy Tyrants,” and that one of them, the one with the brand upon its tail, the leader, even had a name—Napoleon, for he had been bounced forward and back in time via another alien species well before the Flashback and still bore the scars of his sojourn among the humans. She didn’t know how she knew these things, no more than she knew just where, within herself, Naaygi ended—and they, the lights in the sky, began. She just did; just as she knew that the Nano-Ts represented a queer offshoot of the dinosaur population that was altogether fleeter and deadlier and cannier than anything that had come before it.

    And thus she bowed to them, her avengers, her killers—their killers, the lights in the sky—the rain running in rivulets down her body as she dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the pavement, a pavement which ran red with blood and was strewn with the dismembered, disemboweled corpses of at least fifty men and women.

    And then she whispered to them in a language older than words, Follow me.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Dagger and the Chalise | Part Two of the Witch Doctor Trilogy

    ebook | paperback

    He went into the kitchen and poured her a glass of water. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

    “I’m not hungry,” she said. She seated herself slowly, tentatively. “Two, maybe three days. Ever since Sister Samain wrested control of the coven from the Council. Thank you …” She took the glass from Jeremiah, still looking at the paintings. “They’re all done by the same hand, aren’t they?”

    He took off his wide-brimmed hat and studied them. “The same eye. Sometimes Jasper’s hand shakes uncontrollably and I have to steady it with my own. Other times I am his hand, and he tells me what to do.” He laughed a little. “He says that I am an artist, just as he. But even I know it’s the eye that sees, not the hands.”

    She continued staring at them. “No, I don’t think that’s true. These pictures have lines of grace … look, see how the fingers are elongated, and tend to curve up or down depending on the position of the body. They dance upon the canvas … surely you can see that. I think you paint them together, Jeremiah.”

    He swung the strap of the respirator over his head and set it on a mantle. “I’m just his hands.” He moved to leave the room again.

    “Just? But hands are for feeling,” she said.

    He paused at the entrance to the hall. “And they’re for killing, too.” Then he disappeared into the dark.

    And she thought, It’s the heart that kills, Jeremiah. The hard one by slaying others … and the soft by slaying itself. Then she pushed it from her mind.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Shadow, The Siren, and the Sage | Part Three of the Witch Doctor Trilogy

    ebook | paperback

    It was a night for dreaming and for murder too, a night that would live in infamy or be celebrated for a thousand years, a night which lay over the Witch Doctor’s complex like a crisp, black linen. It was also a night for destruction, and for the holding down of triggers, for the flames to flow like water over everything he had ever known and the past to blacken and curl upon itself like so much burning paper. It was, in short, a night for monumental change—and for everything to stay the same—depending on the actions (and the fortune) of a few; a night in which the fates of many would hang in the balance, while the fates of five would be sealed—Chairman Kill-sin and Sister Samain, Jasper, Jeremiah, Satyena—a night that would decide everything from whether the Witch Doctors or the witches (but preferably neither) would at last be dominant to whether there would even be another generation to tell the tale.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Complete X-Ray Rider: Mileposts on the Road to Childhood's End

    ebook | paperback

    Jonesing for a drive-in theater and a hotrod El Camino?

    It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming…as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan.

    Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world.

    Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth.

    Want to go for a ride?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Complete Witch-Doctor: The Collected Stories

    ebook | paperback

    He straightened his respirator and picked up his wide-brimmed hat, yet did not move further, remaining still instead, weighing the hat in his gloved hands, rubbing a blotch of tissue from its great, gold buckle. It was difficult to see clearly with the blood drying on his goggles; he took off a glove and wiped them clean, noticing as he did so that his hand was shaking—worse, that his entire body had begun to tremble. He looked around the corridor in a daze, first at the headless witch who was now an inanimate corpse, then through the door from which he’d exited, where blood and brains had begun to dry on the wallpaper, which was beginning to warp and to catch fire. That’s when he noticed something else, a crude sign on the fallen door--a sign which, when he moved forward to examine it, turned out to be a simple plea: ‘Please don’t kill the bird.’

     

    Her name was Miriam, and the bird was her only friend. And during her life she was ostracized by everyone, because she was like me, neither fully witch nor fully woman. When the High Sisters came with their judgements and their sentences, it was she who spoke in my defenseonly she who would still speak the truth as she saw it.

     

    The birdcage came into view as he rounded the corner to the kitchenette, for he had been moving through the flaming apartment without being consciously aware of it. “Six minutes until dust-off,” squawked his headset. “Doctors Oceanus and Damaris KIA. Mind your thoughts … there is a Whisperer at work.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Seven Tales of Blood and Beauty

    ebook | paperback

    "Take the fatal shot," said Horseshoe. He must have laid down his rifle because I remember him helping to steady my own. "Easy now, you'll own this forever—" I stared the thing in the eye and squeezed the trigger.

     

    It threw back its head, rising up. It gasped for breath, spitting more blood. It barked at the sky. Then it fell, head thumping against the deck. Its serpentine neck slumped. The rest of its blood spread over the boards and rolled around our boots and flowed between the planks.

     

    I was the first to step forward, looking down at the thing through drifting smoke.

     

    Its remaining eye seemed to look right back. I got down on my knees to look closer. The thing exhaled, causing the breathing holes at the top of its head, behind its eyes, to bubble. I waited for it to inhale, staring into its eye—I could see myself there as well as the others, could see the sky and the scattered clouds. The whole world seemed contained in that moist little ball. Then the eye rolled around white—it shrunk, drying, and the thing's neck constricted. And it died.

     

    Horseshoe slapped my back, massaged my neck. "How's it feel, little buddy?"

     

    But I didn't know what I felt. I could only stare at the eye, now empty.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Complete Ferryman | The Entire Ferryman Saga in One Place

    ebook | paperback

    His rowing slowed as he weighed her words. At last he stopped completely and said, “Then we will outwait them. Sthulhu will have transmitted images of the attack by now, and reinforcements are surely on their way. We have only to stay near the door. Time is on our side.”

     

    Shekalane looked at him forlornly. “Is it, Dravidian?”

     

    Something rustled and chirped above them and they both froze.

     

    “What was that?”

     

    Dravidian lifted his oar and, utilizing a specialized hook on its shaft, took hold of the aft lantern. He raised it slowly.

     

    The ceiling of the chamber was covered with inverted bat—things, for they couldn’t be called bats, surely, as each was half the size of a man, and they seemed more like small people, monkeys, perhaps, than any flying creature Shekalane had ever seen.

     

    “That settles it, then,” she said. “Time is definitely not on our side."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn | The Complete Series (Illustrated)

    ebook | paperback | audiobook

    “You all need to understand something,” he said finally, slowly re-slinging his gun, “and that is before I found this place I was precinct commander of an entire police force dedicated to combating these … things. And if there’s one thing we learned …” He paused, smiling a little to himself. “‘We.’ He seemed to dismiss the thought. “If there’s one thing we learned before our unit was torn to pieces … one thing they learned, my men, before being bitten in half, beheaded, slit open by sickle-claws so that their intestines unspooled across the city streets like sausage links … is that these things are not animals.” He smiled to himself again as though reliving a lifetime’s worth of humbling nightmares. “No, an animal is something comprehensible, even relatable. An animal is something flesh and blood same as you or me, with the same needs, the same hunger, the same will to survive. But these things, these so-called dinosaurs and prehistoric cats, they’re not animals, not the way we understand them. They’re weapons. They have purpose. Intent. They’ve been infused with it somehow. Someone, something, has weaponized them against us.” He nodded slowly, distantly. “Those lights in the sky, I think. And I can promise you this … they will not go away.” The haunting smile returned as he shook his head. “They won’t give up, you understand. And they won’t stop until every man, woman, and child in this compound has been torn apart and devoured.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn

    ebook | paperback

    She focused straight forward and saw that the gate to the parking lot was hanging wide open.

     

    Donny. He’d forgotten to latch it.

     

    She sat bolt upright, every nerve in her body suddenly on end, and was about to leap from her chair when Donny appeared at the edge of the windshield and waved back at her, as if to say, My bad, sorry. I got it.

     

    Then she collapsed back against the headrest, exhaling, as he pushed the gate closed and latched it, and relief flooded through her like so much cool water even as the saber-toothed cat’s huge head appeared outside her window and its whiskers brushed the glass and its black lips pulled back from its teeth and its eyes focused intently on Donny in the split second before it leapt.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Dawn: A Free Teaser

    ebook | paperback

    Charlotte popped the hatch and grabbed a couple baskets, began filling them with tuna. A cry sounded from somewhere near the back of the store which Red recognized instantly. Charlotte and he exchanged glances. “You hear that, Corbin?” he shouted.

     

    Corbin was but a tiny figure at the end of the aisle. “Yeah, asshole. I heard it. Let’s go.”

     

    “What’s the matter, Supercop? Afraid of something that might fight you back? Give her a minute.”

     

    Charlotte exchanged her baskets for empty ones and rushed down the aisle.

     

    The call sounded again and yet another responded, this one from the front of the store. “Those are fucking raptors, Michelangelo. She’s got about sixty seconds before I come down there and take that Jeep with or without you.”

     

    “Where did they come from?” said Charlotte, piling cans into her baskets.

     

    “Probably filed in after us,” said Red, or slipped through a back door we missed.”

     

    “They can appear out of nowhere, asshole,” hollered Corbin. “I’ve seen one materialize right where a man was standing.” Another call echoed throughout the store and he aimed his rifle into the dark. “Want to know what happened?”

     

    “No!” shouted Charlotte. She scrambled for the Jeep with her baskets laden with cans.

     

    Corbin began backing toward them. “It fused with the poor bastard—became sort of a man-dinosaur hybrid, just a jumbled mess of flesh with eyeballs in all the wrong places and their organs mixed together, like a casserole. Fortunately, it didn’t live very—”

     

    There was a tumult of cascading cans and jars which clattered and broke against the floor as a velociraptor leapt atop the shelves between them, and he instantly raised his gun and opened fire.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tales from the Flashback: "Thunder Lizard Road"

    ebook | paperback

    “Wow,” said Annie, her arms tightening around his waist. “Are you feeling it too?”

     

    He focused on a dark shape hovering just above the wheat—several dark shapes—like hummingbirds, but big. Something glinted blue-black in the sun. “What do you mean?”

     

    “The mescaline … I’m still tripping, baby.” Her inner thighs constricted against his hips and he thought of the fantastic shag they’d shared in California—while standing doggie-style amidst the Vasquez Rocks, the famed location of so many westerns—and found the fact that she was hallucinating also reassuring, even if it did mean they were barreling down the Interstate at 74 mph while still under the influence. “Yeah. Me too. I’m going to pull over at the next rest stop until it passes.”

     

    “DJ is expecting us at five. And it isn’t polite to keep the head of a motorcycle gang waiting. They’re my friends, Sammi. This is important to me.”

     

    “God forbid, we miss a party. We’ll make it.”

     

    “Not if we take too long at the rest stop … Jesus, I’m seeing dinosaurs back here. What the hell did Jackie give us?”


    Her voice had dropped a couple octaves and the wind and engine noise were making it difficult to hear her. Not gave, he thought, a little resentfully. Sold. And the money’s starting to run out. “Say again?”

     

    “Dude, I’m literally seeing dinosaurs. There’s, like, a T-Rex back there. Trying to eat a tractor.” She laughed.

     

    He turned and looked over his shoulder, saw the tyrannosaur brushing its massive head against the cab of the combine, attempting to roll it over. There’s no way we can be seeing the same thing. There’s just no way except—

     

    “Baby …!”

     

    He spun around in time to see a blue-black thing, an insect, a dragonfly, which was at least as long as his forearm, hovering directly in their path—before it smashed against the windshield like a rock and splattered like a cantaloupe, hurling watery green blood and guts everywhere, some of which landed in Sammi’s mouth. And then they were careening out of control in the general direction of the gravel shoulder, and while he didn’t experience anything so dramatic as his life flashing before him, he did revisit, in a kind of time-out from time itself, the months since he’d received the Lotto payout and met Annie—a fast-living spitfire who was 29 to his 39 and whom he had nothing in common with beyond how well they got on sexually—and recognized in himself an increasing dissatisfaction with, well, all of it—the gambling, the drugs, the sex—everything. But then the time-out was over and they were laying on their side near the edge of the road—yet still in it—as the 18-wheeler bore down upon them, close enough so that Sammi could see the driver’s face, and thus knew the man had noticed them too late.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Men | A Tale of Alien Terror (Part One)

    ebook | paperback

    Dusk, in the middle of nowhere. Beth pulls into a rest area and shuts off the engine. Helicopters can be heard in the distance; Frodo whimpers and whines. There is a drone of crickets as Beth leans against the wheel. The place is abandoned save for a single pickup and camper.

     

    She sits back after a moment, stroking the dog’s neck, and rolls her head to look at the truck. It sits silently in the twilight about a hundred feet away: quiet as a tomb, with no sign of a driver. She experiences a wave of nausea—which sends her hurrying toward the restrooms—as the sound of the choppers rushes closer.

     

    She collapses over the toilet, vomiting repeatedly, as the helicopters thunder overhead. The pounding of the rotors diminishes as she spits and wipes her mouth. At last she reaches up with trembling fingers and flushes the bowl, and the water swirls down, gurgling. She slowly catches her breath. The crickets drone and Frodo barks. She sits on the floor with her back against the cold cinderblocks—notices a shoe covered in green plastic just outside the stall.

     

    She looks up. An eye is visible between the doorjamb and the wall. It blinks as she shrieks and suddenly disappears.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tales from the Flashback: "Raptors on a Plane"

    ebook | paperback

    Just … don’t move, she told herself, understanding that if she moved even a little the thing would apprehend her at once, then virtually held her breath as the velociraptor—yes, velociraptor, just like in Jurassic Park, only this one was blue-black and had a mohawk of oil slick-colored feathers—cocked its head at the screen. At last it lowered its head and she dropped to the carpeted floor, but waited before drawing so much as a breath.

     

    The cabin was quiet except for the drone of the engines and the wet, gristly eating sound—even the TVs had fallen back into static—and she inhaled slowly. Then, just as slowly, she began crawling forward, toward the closed curtain of business class ... and the cockpit.

     

    Scarcely a moment had passed before she heard labored breathing and saw another raptor lying on its side between the seats, foaming at the mouth, dying. Something went drip … drip … drip nearby.

     

    It was headless man, his body draped over a seat like so much dirty laundry, his blood falling in droplets to the floor. And there, in the middle of the stained carpet, lay a gun. A revolver. A big one.

     

    An air marshal, she thought, and reached for the weapon. Yes, there. And there. Gold rings and bullet noses, just visible inside the chamber. But how many? She found the latch and popped open the gun—she was fortunate to know something about revolvers, having spent much of her youth target shooting with her father—and was disappointed to find only two bullets left. It would have to do. Then she crept forward along the carpet … until creeping forward more would expose her to the raptors, and peeked around the edge of a seat slowly.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Men | A Tale of Alien Terror (Part Two)

    ebook | paperback

    Everything becomes like a dream—it is the injection, of course—and she is dimly aware of getting into the pickup behind her and putting it into neutral. Then she is back in her car and reversing, pushing the truck clear, before peeling away from the scene with one of the green men riding the hood—like TJ Hooker. She swerves about the road like a mad woman until he falls off, then slams on the breaks and backs over him, just to be sure.

     

    She zooms back the way she came, careening against the guardrail, dialing Dr. Lairman, leaving a message telling him that she is coming back. When she passes the truck stop from earlier she notices that it’s gone completely dark.

     

    The motel, she thinks, incoherently. The old woman. Andy. They’ll help.

     

    That’s when she sees the Shape again. Sees it through the shattered passenger window—silhouetted against a flash of lightning, approaching over the desert hills, maneuvering impossibly.

     

    "No …" she whimpers, as Frodo barks and howls.

     

    Then a horn sounds and she faces forward—in time to avoid a head-on collision by mere seconds.

     

    By the time she skids to a stop on the shoulder of the road, a man is running up to her, apologetic, out of breath, asking if she is okay. She gets out, shrieking and gesturing with her arms, completely hysterical.

     

    "Did you see it? Did you see it?"

     

    He catches her wrists in his hands and holds them—an overly intimate gesture she could be offended by, but isn’t.


    "I saw a jet," he says, staring into her eyes, continuing to hold her hands. "A jet—they’re everywhere out here today. They must be doing maneuvers or something. It’s okay, all right? You’re okay."

     

    She begins to calm down at last, however slightly. There’s something about him, something about his mild eyes and soft but firm hands, his shock of dark hair, his soothing voice. She senses something and looks up, sees a fighter jet flying right over the top of them—low enough that she can make out the rivets in its fuselage. It is there and gone before its sharp-edged whine even cuts the air.

     

    "See?" he says, releasing her hands. "Just a jet."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tales from the Flashback: "The Drive-in That Time Forgot"

    ebook | paperback

    He begins trembling violently, turning this way and that, knowing he cannot find the truck, knowing that if he did it would not make any difference, it would not stop the ground from rolling or the terrorists from coming or Tiangong-1 falling or Mt. Kilauea from erupting. It would not stop the transmission from bleeding or the windshield from cracking. It would not stop the projector from burning out, from leaving them all in blackness, to shiver and die alone. It would not stop time, either from marching forward or “flashing back”—nor the T. Rex and triceratops from appearing amongst the parked cars and continuing a fight begun 65-million years ago. It would not stop the strange storm front from rolling across the sky, or the mysterious lights within it—nothing could.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tales from the Flashback: "The Ank Williams Story"

    ebook | paperback

    "Ha! The flu. You should see ‘em: pale and black-eyed as serpents, just lying there in the Rio Grande like zombies.” She leaned toward him over the bar again and he caught a whiff of her fragrance, and there was a stirring in his groin he hadn’t felt since, well, since he couldn’t remember.


    “What do you mean, like zombies?”


    “I mean like zombies, like men who are dead but still walking, or lying there staring at the ceiling. See, something attacked us only a few weeks after the Flashback … something … new. At first everyone just assumed it was a rogue raptor, because it didn’t have a pack—that was the first thing. But then it started talking, like a parrot, I suppose, saying things like ‘Pig’ and ‘Eggsucker,’” She laughed her contagious laugh. “Can you imagine? A raptor calling you names as it attacked you? Deputies Creebald and Teller put up one hell of a fight, you can be sure, and they did eventually kill it, with Rimshaw’s help, but all of them were wounded in the fight, and the deputies worst of all. After that, things started changing around here. At first it was just Creebald and Teller acting strangely, abusing their power, you might say, telling me not to forget to paint on my mole, or insisting Doc Allen wear that ridiculous little vest. But then Marshal Rimshaw started getting into the act, as well, and before any of us knew it we were living in a kind of police state. Decker was the only one who didn’t pile on, which is funny, because he was the only one not wounded in the fight with the raptor. It all came to a head when Deputy Teller had his way with one of the saloon girls—Molly, was her name—after which there was a full-blown shootout between the Marshal and his deputies—not Decker, he tried to maintain the peace—and the rest of the town.” She unscrewed the cap from a bottle of beer and took a swig, then concealed it behind the bar. “You didn’t see that. Anyway, the town didn’t fair so well, and now there’s a row of graves out by Serpent’s Butte.” She paused, locking her beautiful brown eyes up in his own. “They were good men, Williams. The best I’ve ever known. And now they’re just as dead as that raptor.” She snapped the bar towel in her hands and then wiped the counter. “And that’s why we all talk and dress this way.” She indicated his empty glass. “You want another?”


    “Sure,” he said.


    She pulled one from the wall and unscrewed its cap, sat it down in front of him.


    At last she said, “So what about you? What’s your story? And how did you come to be travelling with an armored dinosaur?”
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tales from the Flashback: "The Ank Williams Story"

    ebook | paperback

    Erik peered out the window at the corpse, noticing how the falling snow was beginning to cover it, as it had his forgotten toys, and noticing, too, that the monsters, the velociraptors, which bore nothing in common with the plush toys he had in his bedroom, were nowhere to be seen. Nor were the lights of his father’s car—or anything, for that matter; there was just the corpse (one hand of which seemed to reach for the sky like a twisted, dead tree branch) and the snow, which had whited out everything, rendered the world void.

     

    “… this speaks for the most troubling aspect of what scientists are calling ‘the Flashback’: the sudden disappearance of people all over the world, including entire families …”

     

    He looked at the sky, at the ceiling of snow clouds, amidst which the lights mentioned on the TV pulsed and glowed, bleeding in and out of each other, shifting colors, none of which he recognized, and knew in that instant—the instant before the raptor came crashing through the glass with its splayed feet first—that nothing would ever be the same; that he would never see his father and sister again and would never return to school and would never, ever be a boy, not even for an instant. And then the raptor did come, and he was knocked backward against the floor with a violence he could not have imagined, and after a moment there was a flurry of gunshots which blew the back of the animal’s head apart so that its full weight fell upon him and he was spattered with blood and brains. And the last thing he saw before blacking out completely was the monster’s dying eye, which stared into his own, an eye which contained in it the same colors as the lights in the sky--until they, too, faded and became as the dead.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part One: "Radio Free Montana"

    ebook | paperback

    “Those I can hear,” said Luna—and began retreating up the stairs again. “They only talk when they’re about to attack.”

     

    Williams, meanwhile, had focused on Ank. “Jesus … it called me by name.”

     

    Ank stared at him from beneath his brow. <A survivor of Devil’s Gorge, maybe?>

     

    Williams nodded slowly. “But how in God’s name? The only one who knew our names was … Unless—”

     

    <Unless the town was attacked by another pack of were-raptors after we left. Which would mean those outside could be anyone—Sheriff Decker, Katrina …>

     

    Williams misted up as he thought of the saloon girl who had shown him such affection. “I won’t shoot them, then.”

     

    <Now listen, Will. Don’t let your personal feelings—>

     

    “I said I won’t shoot them,” he snapped, and turned toward Luna, who was cowering at the top of the stairs. “We’ll have to find another way.” To Luna he said: “It’s all right, sweetie. Everything’s going to be all right.”

     

    <Dammit, Will, I can’t handle an entire pack on my own, and you know it. Now are we serious about making it to Tanelorn, or at least Barley’s, or not? Or have all our plans changed because a saloon girl threw a leg up on you in a town we will never see again?>

     

    “Meh,” Williams sighed angrily and moved toward the building’s front windows, which Ank had blocked with pinball machines and video games, with only partial success.

     

    <Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you, dammit!> He lumbered after him, the tiled floor cracking beneath his elephantine feet. <We made a pact. And what about the girl? Would you see her torn to pieces by those things while you simply watched?>

     

    “Go away!” Williams hissed. He peeked around one of the machines and saw the raptors lined up in the gathering dark, waiting to make their move, waiting to rush the snack bar and overwhelm them, waiting to kill them or, worse, to turn them into creatures like themselves.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Two: "Into the Badlands"

    ebook | paperback

    “You talk to yourself a lot, don’t you?” said Luna.

     

    Williams looked at her and finally smiled in spite of himself. “Or it just may be that he’s really talking to me, and you just can’t hear it.” He tweaked her nose. “Yet. Either way, you need to eat something and get some sleep. We all do. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

     

    “Why a big day?”

     

    “Ank, camping gear,” he said, and the dinosaur folded his front legs with a groan. “Because we’re going to head out for Barley’s in the morning.” He loosed his bedroll from the supplies strapped to Ank’s back and tossed it to her. “The place where the sounds on your radio come from. We’ve--we’re searching for something. A place we call Tanelorn. And we think that might be it.”

     

    “Tanelorn,” she repeated. “What’s that?”

     

    Williams rested his arms on the bundles of supplies, thinking about it. “I don’t know, exactly. I reckon it’s just a place someone feels drawn to … even if they don’t know why. A place where the homeless can find a home, maybe.” He looked at the lights in the sky, the Alien Borealis, as Ank called it, and wondered. “But it may be that it’s something else—a kind of Omega Point. A place where all the colors of the spectrum meet, like a prism. And become focused into a single, burning light. Maybe that’s what people mean when they talk about the power and the glory.” He tugged on a rope, releasing a waterfall of pots and pans. “Meh. It’s just something to keep us going.”

     

    “Like a magnifying glass,” she said, ignoring his last statement.

     

    He paused, thinking about it. “Like a magnifying glass,” he agreed. Then he added, “Now, what’ll it be? Beans or beans?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Three: "The Beast in the Iron Mask"

    ebook | paperback

    “As for what it proves beyond that is anyone’s guess,” said the woman, sounding suddenly tired. “That they’re experimenting on us as well as exterminating us? We don’t even know who they are, much less what their relationship to the Flashback is. We don’t even know if ‘they’ applies; or if they’re just a force of nature, like the weather.” She pulled down her mask. “It just feels so pointless sometimes, this whole operation.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll be all right, I just …”

     

    The man reached out to her and touched her shoulder. “It’s been a long day, Maggie. Why don’t we just … retire to the Tiki Tent.” He tried to sound optimistic. “There’s still enough vegetables for Bloody Marys—I’ll be the bartender.” He looked at her hopefully.

     

    “Please, God,” said the younger woman. “I’m dying here.”

     

    Maggie looked back and forth between them and then at him, at Ank. She stroked the side of his snout gently. “So we know now that you’re thinking … we just don’t know what. Nor what to do with you.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Four: "Blues for a Drifter"

    ebook | paperback

    “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”

     

    Williams didn’t turn around. “Yeah. I guess I am.” He exhaled cigar smoke. “It’s not like him to be so …”

     

    “Morose?”

     

    “Yeah. I guess that’s it. You know, he’s been at that pond almost since we got here … just drinking and staring … completely oblivious. Remember how I told you that neither of us could recall our previous lives? Well, maybe he’s recalling …” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “A different state of being. A different incarnation. I think he was a man once. A man who lived for a very long time.”

     

    “A lonely man, then …”

     

    “Yes. Sort of a last man standing. And I think when we met … he rediscovered something he’d been missing for a long time.”

     

    “Friendship. Someone to talk to,” she said.

     

    “More than that. A reason to live. I—I’ve felt it myself. All those weeks, months, spent walking alone. I told you about Tanelorn. Well that was what we called our reason to live … our reason for putting one foot in front of the other. Because without that …”

     

    “‘Gazelle Theory,’” she said.

     

    “What?”

     

    She laughed a little. “Something my husband used to say. It means, ‘move or die.’”

     

    He laughed a little himself. “That’s good. ‘Move or die.’ Whether it’s a physical death or an emotional one.” He stared at Ank in the gloaming before another hand touched him, this time Luna. “Is Ank all right?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Five: "The Enemy Comes in Dream"

    ebook | paperback

    “This is who we are,” said the man in the bandana, who stood next to him on the grassy hill. “And this, fellow paladin, is what we do. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

     

    Williams watched as the steeples of a church burned and collapsed, then focused on a woman carrying a child from the wreckage.

     

    The stranger continued: “Don’t look to us for the method of carnage--fire is of the Other’s design. We only use it as a means to an end. But watch now as I show you what will happen when we descend upon your Barley—and what mercy to expect from us when we finally do. And tell me if it would not be better to simply turn around now, while you still can, and ignore the Call completely."

     

    Williams squinted through the smoke as a motorcycle burst into view and bore down upon the woman, its headlight creating a halo, its rider brandishing a sword. Then, before he could so much as cry out a warning, the rider struck, beheading the woman in one fell swoop before continuing on with a rumble and leaving the child abandoned in her arms.

     

    And then Williams was turning to the mysterious figure with the intent of killing him with his bare hands, but froze when he saw that the man was no longer there: that he had been replaced with something else, something about 9-feet-tall and covered with kinky hair, with a goat’s head and six golden eyes, which vanished as he blinked—awakening with a start—and heard Sheila say, with desperation in her voice: “Will, It’s Ank. And he’s gone.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Six: "A Lament for the Dead"

    ebook | paperback

    All eyes turned toward Williams as the river raged and the sun continued to sink. At length he set down his rifle and eased the backpack from his shoulders. “Just one,” he said, retaking up his weapon. “Something I was planning on doing when we reached Barley, anyway.” He looked at Sheila, knowing that if anyone tried to stop him it would be her. “See, a mistake was made when we left Ank behind—a mistake I’ve been trying to reconcile ever since Lonepine. I don’t know, but it’s like—it’s like I had a lapse in faith … a lapse in brotherly love, something; one we’re paying for even now.” He paced back and forth with his rifle, trying to figure it out, trying to find the right words. “I read the tea leaves wrong—misinterpreted the entrails—whatever. But the fact is,” He looked at them one by one. “Ank was meant to be with us now. He was meant to ford us across that river. And the only reason he isn’t … is because I failed our friendship.” He paused as drop of rain flecked his nose and the clouds rumbled gently overhead. “Surely you can feel it, just as I do. The feeling that … we’re being tested. That the Flashback was not just an apocalypse in the physical sense. It was an apocalypse in the spiritual sense. That there’s more at play here than dinosaurs and strange lights in the sky—aliens, whatever—that the battle has now been joined by something else entirely. Something, I don’t know–”

     

    “Dear God, he’s going to say it,” protested Peter.

     

    “Yes, yes, I am,” said Williams rapidly, and added: “Something divine. And I guess what I’m trying to tell you all now, especially you, Sheila, and you, Luna, is that … well, I’m being called to go find Ank.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Seven: "The Prairie and the Darkness"

    ebook | paperback

    He listened as the scratching at the metal door ceased, but took no heart from it: they’d only refocused their efforts on finding another way in, of that he was certain. Nor could he bear the thought of what would happen when they finally broke through—not the terror and pain of them gutting him like a fish, for Katrina would only wound him, he knew, but the inconceivable horror of walking the earth like them. Like a zombie. Like a dead man walking a dead planet.

     

    So, too, would they know then, having added his consciousness to theirs. They would know that Barley Hot Springs lay just beyond the Santiago River, which he suspected they could swim, and that nothing in the others’ experience would have prepared them for an attack from the rear. No, no, he couldn’t under any circumstances allow that—it alone was enough to justify what he couldn’t help but see as a surrender under cowardice, a spitting in God’s eye.

     

    For there was no God, otherwise the Flashback could never have happened. There was no light to counter the dark, no paladin to counter the Bandana Man, no magnifying glass to focus the sun. There was only the lights in the sky and a world gone mad, only death and pain and suffering without end--and time itself, which had been scrambled like eggs.

     

    He repositioned the rifle so that it pressed against his forehead then slipped his thumb across its trigger.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Eight: "The Slim Hand of the Past"

    ebook | paperback

    She focused on her breathing, trying indeed not to hyperventilate, but feeling as though her heart might punch through her chest at any moment. The spot where he had touched her seemed to burn and freeze at the same time.

     

    “You don’t remember … do you?” His brown eyes suddenly twinkled and he shook his head. “No? You don’t remember calling on me in the depths of those first awful nights, when you were at your most exposed, when you were at your most vulnerable?” He stroked her long, brown hair with an almost impossible gentleness; it was as though a cool-warm breeze rifled it rather than his fingers. “When it was just you and the boy … alone, scared. Cold. Hungry?”

     

    She began to shake her head almost violently, her breathing and heart rate accelerating once again.

     

    “Oh, yes,” he said, squinting, smiling. “You did. All the world did. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You called on many during that time, in those hours and days and weeks after the Flashback--you wouldn’t have been aware of it. And you cursed the One who had brought it upon you … who had taken your husband and your daughter; who had taken so many husbands and daughters. It’s okay. We—we don’t judge. Not like them,” He looked at the hazy sky and the alien-colored lights, at the sun itself which was a white disk in the smoke. “Not like Him.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Nine: "The Demon and the Avatar"

    ebook | paperback

    They both felt it at the same time, even as the train lurched forward and the cars jolted thunderously—a tremor in the very fabric of things, like a ripple in a foam of potentiality which contained in it the threads of all their possible futures. Something, somewhere, had just happened--something directly related to their current endeavor of delivering the bomb to Barley and detonating it amidst the Enemy.

     

    <An attack, you think, maybe an ambush? So soon?> communicated Ank, still smarting from his struggle to climb onto the flatcar with the added weight of the weapon.

     

    “You felt it too? Like one door closed and another had opened, but with disastrous consequences, for us all …” Williams looked at him, rattled and bewildered. “Ank, how could we know that?”

     

    <It’s possible that whatever this—this thing is, this event horizon, this convergence of power dynamics … it’s speeding up as we get closer, growing stronger. Meaning that the psychological link between us could be expanding to incorporate others. Regardless, it also means that our window for getting there has narrowed still further, possibly to the point of impossi—>

     

    “Ank, don’t.”

     

    <It’s something we need to prepare ourselves for, Will. At any rate, I’d suggest just now that you encourage our friendly engineer to step on the gas a little, or a lot.>

     

    Williams leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. “Our friendly engineer, in case you haven’t noticed, is clearly insane!”

     

    <All the more reason to give it a shot. Just do it, Will. He may actually listen.>

     

    And then Williams was leaning over the side using one of Ank’s spikes for a handhold while simultaneously yelling at the engineer, who poked his head out the engine’s side window, his long, gray hair flying, and shouted, “You want speed, you got it, ha-ha! The world, she’s a comin’ back, yesiree!” He sounded the horn suddenly and Williams covered an ear, even as his hat blew off and fluttered away behind them. “The New World Special is back in service--and it’s taking its passengers to the Promised Land! Ha-ha!”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), Part Ten: "The Hammer of El Shaddai"

    ebook | paperback

    They streamed out from the tree line in a veritable blitzkrieg, the guns of the tanks rotating and firing, the foot soldiers alternately taking cover behind vehicles and squeezing off bursts, the raptors and triceratops and stegosaurs charging—as Red and Charlotte and Roger and Savanna continued shooting and the children ran ammo and Bella lit the gasoline trenches, as Gojira and the clerk prepared shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. As hundreds of others joined the battle belatedly and began to kill and to be killed.

     

    And then they were there; they were at the gates, and the triceratops and stegosaurs had waded into the burning trenches and begun serving as bridges—sacrificing themselves so that the raptors and the foot soldiers could cross—even as a column of bulldozers fanned out along the perimeter and prepared to break the lines for good: dropping their blades—which rattled and clinked against the hail of gunfire—revving their engines, spewing black smoke.

     

    “Bayonets!” cried Red as the raptors fell upon them, thrusting his own so that it skewered one of the dinosaurs like a shish kabob even before he used its own weight and momentum to swing it over and behind himself.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tales from the Flashback: An Anthology

    ebook | paperback

    Five new tales from the Flashback, from its initial outbreak to its effects months after. Featuring characters and situations that will feature prominently later in the series, Tales is both a prologue and supplement to Flashback Twilight. Essential reading for fans of the saga!

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback Twilight

    ebook | paperback

    They streamed out from the tree line in a veritable blitzkrieg, the guns of the tanks rotating and firing, the foot soldiers alternately taking cover behind vehicles and squeezing off bursts, the raptors and triceratops and stegosaurs charging—as Red and Charlotte and Roger and Savanna continued shooting and the children ran ammo and Bella lit the gasoline trenches, as Gojira and the clerk prepared shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. As hundreds of others joined the battle belatedly and began to kill and to be killed.

     

    And then they were there; they were at the gates, and the triceratops and stegosaurs had waded into the burning trenches and begun serving as bridges—sacrificing themselves so that the raptors and the foot soldiers could cross—even as a column of bulldozers fanned out along the perimeter and prepared to break the lines for good: dropping their blades—which rattled and clinked against the hail of gunfire—revving their engines, spewing black smoke.

     

    “Bayonets!” cried Red as the raptors fell upon them, thrusting his own so that it skewered one of the dinosaurs like a shish kabob even before he used its own weight and momentum to swing it over and behind himself.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Complete Ank and Williams

    ebook | paperback

    “Those I can hear,” said Luna—and began retreating up the stairs again. “They only talk when they’re about to attack.”

     

    Williams, meanwhile, had focused on Ank. “Jesus … it called me by name.”

     

    Ank stared at him from beneath his brow. <A survivor of Devil’s Gorge, maybe?>

     

    Williams nodded slowly. “But how in God’s name? The only one who knew our names was … Unless—”

     

    <Unless the town was attacked by another pack of were-raptors after we left. Which would mean those outside could be anyone—Sheriff Decker, Katrina …>

     

    Williams misted up as he thought of the saloon girl who had shown him such affection. “I won’t shoot them, then.”

     

    <Now listen, Will. Don’t let your personal feelings—>

     

    “I said I won’t shoot them,” he snapped, and turned toward Luna, who was cowering at the top of the stairs. “We’ll have to find another way.” To Luna he said: “It’s all right, sweetie. Everything’s going to be all right.”

     

    <Dammit, Will, I can’t handle an entire pack on my own, and you know it. Now are we serious about making it to Tanelorn, or at least Barley’s, or not? Or have all our plans changed because a saloon girl threw a leg up on you in a town we will never see again?>

     

    “Meh,” Williams sighed angrily and moved toward the building’s front windows, which Ank had blocked with pinball machines and video games, with only partial success.

     

    <Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you, dammit!> Ank lumbered after him, the tiled floor cracking beneath his elephantine feet. <We made a pact. And what about the girl? Would you see her torn to pieces by those things while you simply watched?>

     

    “Go away!” Williams hissed. He peeked around one of the machines and saw the raptors lined up in the gathering dark, waiting to make their move, waiting to rush the snack bar and overwhelm them, waiting to kill them or, worse, to turn them into creatures like themselves.

     

    “Are you talking to me?” whined the girl, her voice seeming to bleed as if cut by invisible knives. “Why would you want me to go away all of a sudden?”

     

    “No—that’s not what I meant—I …”

     

    <I can’t do it, Will. They’ll swarm in beneath my armor and … they’ll tear me to pieces.>

     

    Williams held up his rifle—pressed his forehead against it.

     

    <We need your magic with that gun, Will. I need it. And if you don’t step up I’m going to have to … and, I won’t make it. Not this time.>

     

    “Come out, Williams!”

     

    “Yes, my love, come out!” A new voice. Her voice. Katrina.

     

    Williams squeezed his eyes shut.

     

    And then they were coming, he could hear their growls and the tapping of their awful sickle-claws against the cracked and broken pavement, and Ank was charging past him, breaking through the windows and walls, roaring defiantly, and when Williams looked up he saw the dinosaurs collide like thunderheads, heard Luna scream her piercing, drill bit scream, and knew they’d never make it to Barley, to say nothing of Tanelorn.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Complete Flashback Saga

    ebook | paperback

    They streamed out from the tree line in a veritable blitzkrieg, the guns of the tanks rotating and firing, the foot soldiers alternately taking cover behind vehicles and squeezing off bursts, the raptors and triceratops and stegosaurs charging—as Red and Charlotte and Roger and Savanna continued shooting and the children ran ammo and Bella lit the gasoline trenches, as Gojira and the clerk prepared shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. As hundreds of others joined the battle belatedly and began to kill and to be killed.

     

    And then they were there; they were at the gates, and the triceratops and stegosaurs had waded into the burning trenches and begun serving as bridges—sacrificing themselves so that the raptors and the foot soldiers could cross—even as a column of bulldozers fanned out along the perimeter and prepared to break the lines for good: dropping their blades—which rattled and clinked against the hail of gunfire—revving their engines, spewing black smoke.

     

    “Bayonets!” cried Red as the raptors fell upon them, thrusting his own so that it skewered one of the dinosaurs like a shish kabob even before he used its own weight and momentum to swing it over and behind himself.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Complete Flashback Saga

    ebook | paperback

    "Looks like the gang’s all here," says Lairman, adding, "I trust security can manage to keep any errant fucking farmers away this time." There’s some muted laughter until at last he addresses Beth directly: "It’s okay … let it come. Let it come so that they may come."

     

    But they have come, she realizes, as a shadow falls over them all. They are above them right now. And everything happens at once as she convulses violently and something slips between her legs—something about a foot long and covered in blood, something shaped like a gigantic maggot—which sprouts arms and legs amidst the jumble of hay and opens its black, oval eyes …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Napoleon: A Horror Novel

    ebook | paperback

    Lightning flashed above them, and thunder cracked. It was a sharp, ragged sound—like the crunch of a busting tree trunk. The man flinched, and Napoleon turned to face him. The two of them stared at each other through the rain and the steel mesh.

    “So, we meet again,” the man joked. He expected the sound of his voice would set the animal off.

    But nothing happened.

    The man swallowed.

    “I know you can see me,” he said at last, and found he had to holler just to pierce the storm’s din. “I know you can see me—because I can see you!”

    The Nano-T didn’t move.

    The man laughed brusquely, and shook his head. “What’s the matter—forget about last night?”

    Rain pounded on metal and roared down the gutter. The T remained still.

    Why wasn’t it attacking? Was it wary of the shock prod? Was it sick? He readied his thumb over the prod’s switch. There was only one way to find out …

    The Nano-T dipped its head to the ground suddenly, sniffing the mud, and the man hesitated. He withdrew the prod and shuffled forward, peering through the mesh …

    It wasn’t mud the animal was sniffing. It was its own—

    Something wet and foul hit the fence, splattering, and the man jerked away. The T’s narrow muzzle darted between the bars—and slammed to a stop. Its teeth gnashed; the fence shook. Its eyes stared out at him from its wide head, their golden coronas close to the mesh.

    The man fumed; it had flung its shit at him! He hit the LADDER DOORS plunger and the PADDOCK plunger simultaneously.

    Steel pulleys whirred, and iron doors slammed into the mud. Napoleon pulled back from the mesh, bleeding. He looked at the closed gates, owlish eyes blinking, and brushed at his lacerated snout with a fore-claw.

    The man closed the control box and jabbed him in the hip with the prod. The Nano-T jumped, squealing, and banged its head on a crossbeam. Hot orange sparks rained down in the mud. The man laughed, his mouth hung wide, and struck the animal again.

    Napoleon howled at the sky.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dinosaur Apocalypse

    ebook | paperback

    Roadkill ... A funny thing happened to Roger and Savanna Aldiss on the Interstate--they hit a dinosaur. But that's nothing compared to what awaits them down the road. For something is at work to reverse time itself, something which makes the clouds boil, glowing with strange lights, and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Roger, Savanna, a motorcycle gang, and others will make their final stand. Prehistory lives as ferocious dinosaurs run amok! Science-fiction and horror fans (and especially B-movie lovers) will enjoy this gory, action-packed thriller in the tradition of Roger Corman and George Romero.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dinosaur Rampage

    ebook | paperback

    And that’s when she stepped into the premium economy section and realized that it was empty too. No. No, it wasn’t. Something was moving. Several somethings, actually—dark, scaly, feathery, almost, swaying and curling above the seats, like huge cat tails.

     

    She froze, looking at them, unable to process just what it was she was seeing, or hearing, for that matter, for it sounded as though something were being eaten. That’s when the TVS, including the projection screen at the front of the cabin, snapped to life, and she saw the CNN logo below images of New York City (Times Square, to be exact), where people were running for cover as police lights flashed and colored smoke billowed—Jesus, oh Jesus, it is terrorists … they’re striking again just like 911 and they’re on this plane right--before what appeared for all the world to be a Tyrannosaurus rex entered the frame and the cameraman began running. And then something lifted its head amidst the swaying tails and she focused on it—even as it focused on the projection TV—and she realized she was looking at a living, breathing velociraptor, right there on Flight 33 bound for Houston.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Demonosaur: A Tale of Blood, the Sea, and Revenge

    ebook | paperback

    Handlebar stared at his own boots, which were soaked in blood. He seemed to be having some sort of internal crisis. He reached up with a trembling hand and twisted his mustache repeatedly. He came out of it suddenly and looked at Lonny.

     

    "Hey. Kid. Listen." He walked toward him, changing clips. "You're taking all this too seriously. It's toying with us, that’s all."

     

    He held out his shotgun to him. "Here. The goo--Chin—he's right. It's still beneath the dock. Probably scared. Why don't you do the honors?"

     

    Lonny hesitated, trembling. "Y-you mean it's just trying to scare us?"

     

    Handlebar tweaked his nose. "That's right."

     

    The fire returned to the young man's eyes—almost. He looked around the shattered dock, at the riddled corpse and the oily, bloody water, at the spitting power lines and the dead lights, the peeling boardwalk on the shore.

     

    He shook his head. "No, it's not. It—it doesn't pretend, like you. It's gonna kill us, that's all." He stepped closer. "Can’t you see that? You posing hillbilly? The spill's given it a—a lean season. It's sick, and it' s hungry, and ..."

     

    He glanced at the corpse. "We probably just killed its mate."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dark World: An Epic Fantasy

    ebook | paperback

    It was the first night of the Sacrificium, a night of sacrifice and death, a night when the black coins tendered in the Lottery would be tendered back. It was also the Hora Mille Semitis, the Hour of a Thousand paths—for that is the day the Sacrificium had fallen on this year—the hour when best friends might become enemies, when lovers of longstanding might betray oaths, the hour in which anything and everything was possible. And the alignment was felt: from the upper echelons of the capitol to the poorest quarters of the downriver provinces. For the message of Valdus’ rebellion had spread—whether it was a tract nailed to a door before quickly being torn down or a blast in the night that caused the power to fail in entire regions. It was a night for dreaming and for huddled collusions, for the breeze to course through rustling leaves, for long dead hearts to awaken and start pumping blood. The Sacrificium had once more come to Ursathrax, but so had the Hour of a Thousand Paths, and Valdus’ Revolution, and something else, something elusive but impossible to ignore, nebulous, but as real as the River Dire, which seemed to have stolen into the world on the wind itself.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Get It Out of Me: A Horror Novel

    ebook | paperback

    A two-way radio seated in a battery-charger on the counter suddenly squawks to life, and Beth jumps. She catches bits and pieces of a broken transmission--something about having "secured grid 12" and "Zebra Base confirms I.A.C. entering grid 7"—before an old woman snatches it up, turning it off, and apologizes for the noise.

     

    The two women quickly warm to each other as Beth pays for a room and is given a key. The old clerk encourages her to use the pool before "Andy" closes it for the night. Beth says she will, indeed.

     

    As she leaves, the woman asks, "How's it feel?"

     

    Beth just looks at her. "I'm sorry?"

     

    "Your bundle of joy, there. How's it feel?"

     

    Beth is taken aback. "But I'm not even showing!"

     

    The old woman smiles. "It shows in your eyes. Your face."

     

    "It's terrifying," Beth says at last. "Being an expectant mother … isn't at all like what I expected."

     

    The woman seems to think about this. "Nothing ever is. And nothing's ever easy, or cheap. But make no mistake: that's a gift from above you got there."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Boy Who Fell to Earth: A Novel about Coming of Age

    ebook | paperback

    It’s the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World’s Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming … as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan.

    Enter ‘The Kid,’ a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car’s deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid’s curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn’t want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper—a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs—and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin—to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world.

    Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana—drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books—Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, ‘The Kid’ is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life—a cinematized “reboot” of what Stephen King calls the “fogged out landscape” of youth.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    'R' is for Revenge: A Dark Fantasy about the Ferryman Dravidian and his sword Rosethorn

    ebook | paperback

    "Ah, yes, indeed. I see now why little Joyung was so frightened …"

     

    The voice had come from the wagon. Instinctively, I cocked my head back as to peer beneath the visor, and saw a man older than myself yet young nonetheless leaning against the rear of the coach, his head only inches from the wine-skin, and his arms folded in front of him. There was an exquisite black cane wedged between his arms and his chest, just below the handle of which shown a single cut ruby which blinked in the dark like a cat's eye in shadow. He was a tall, well-dressed man sporting a neatly-trimmed black beard and a high-hat of the same color.

     

    The thought was but a fleeting one, but it struck me as odd that the monkey had not followed him out of the wagon.

     

    "Death has come to claim its own," the sharp-dressed man nearly whispered, and strode forward with a gleam in his eye, twirling the cane as he walked. "What'll it be, ferryman? A few trinkets for the children? Some finery for the lady, perhaps?"

     

    I looked to him with sour surprise. Then, feigning insult, said, "Who would call me a ferryman?" My hand had come to rest on Rosethorn's pommel.

     

    The stranger emerged from half-light and shadow into the multi-hued glow of the lanterns.

     

    "You may call me Fenris-Wolf." He smiled disarmingly, and his teeth gleamed white and perfect in the lamplight. "… for now."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Paladins | A Post-apocalyptic Western: A novel about a gunslinger, his telepathic dinosaur, undead were-raptors, and the second end of the world 

    ebook | paperback

    Williams misted up as he thought of the saloon girl who had shown him such affection. “I won’t shoot them, then.”

     

    (Now listen, Will. Don’t let your personal feelings—)

     

    “I said I won’t shoot them,” he snapped, and turned toward Luna, who was cowering at the top of the stairs. “We’ll have to find another way.” To Luna he said: “It’s all right, sweetie. Everything’s going to be all right.”

     

    (Dammit, Will, I can’t handle an entire pack on my own, and you know it. Now are we serious about making it to Tanelorn, or at least Barley’s, or not? Or have all our plans changed because a saloon girl threw a leg up on you in a town we will never see again?)

     

    “Meh,” Williams sighed angrily and moved toward the building’s front windows, which Ank had blocked with pinball machines and video games, with only partial success.

     

    (Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you, dammit!) Ank lumbered after him, the tiled floor cracking beneath his elephantine feet. (We made a pact. And what about the girl? Would you see her torn to pieces by those things while you simply watched?)

     

    “Go away!” Williams hissed. He peeked around one of the machines and saw the raptors lined up in the gathering dark, waiting to make their move, waiting to rush the snack bar and overwhelm them, waiting to kill them or, worse, to turn them into creatures like themselves.

     

    “Are you talking to me?” whined the girl, her voice seeming to bleed as if cut by invisible knives. “Why would you want me to go away all of a sudden?”

     

    “No—that’s not what I meant—I …”

     

    (I can’t do it, Will. They’ll swarm in beneath my armor and … they’ll tear me to pieces.)

     

    Williams held up his rifle—pressed his forehead against it.

     

    (We need your magic with that gun, Will. I need it. And if you don’t step up I’m going to have to … and, I won’t make it. Not this time.)

     

    “Come out, Williams!”

     

    “Yes, my love, come out!” A new voice. Her voice. Katrina.

     

    Williams squeezed his eyes shut.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Quick and the Jurassic Undead

    ebook | paperback

    A story about a man and his dinosaur and the post-apocalyptic wild west. And were-raptors.

     

    He fell silent and doubled over as someone punched him in the stomach, then toppled completely as someone else shoved him. And then, suddenly, there was a cry—a cry that sounded as though it had come from Ank and yet utterly different from any Williams had ever heard. A warbling, frightened, pitiful cry—the kind an animal might make if it were sinking into tar while surrounded by predators.

     

    “Marshal?” said someone. “That came from the Lonestar Corral.”

     

    “Then that means we’ve got ‘im cornered,” said Rimshaw, and shouted, “Johnson! Let ‘em into the armory! Let ‘em all in!” And to everyone else he said: “Get your weapons and meet me at the corral. And someone fetch Creebald and Teller. I don’t care how sick they are. I want them by my side.”

     

    “But, Marshal, I just came from there,” said Johnson, pausing. “And they’re plumb gone.”

     

    “What do mean, gone?” snapped Rimshaw.

     

    “I mean they ain’t there. They’re not at the Rio Grande. No one’s at the Rio Grande.”

     

    Williams craned his neck on the ground to observe Rimshaw’s reaction, and what he saw sent a chill up his spine, for it all but confirmed what he’d begun to suspect. For as Rimshaw stared at the man coldly, his eyes black as coals and his face pale as the dead, his tongue slipped between his lips like a snake’s and was just as quickly sucked back in.
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Death Scene | Stories That Take Place at the Moment of Death: Extreme Horror Tales from the Edge ... Minus the Boring Parts

    ebook | paperback

    And then he was sliding down, down, leveling off briefly, then down again, and he couldn’t help but notice that the people he had planned to rule were fleeing now, and that the Nano-T had broken off its engagement with the tiger long enough to snap at them and give chase, and that in its absence the great feline had turned its mighty head to face the bottom of the slide and opened its maw, which was mottled pink and black, and that he was helpless to do anything but continue sliding toward it—until his kicking feet and legs were trapped between its terrible, curved fangs and its central incisors bit mercilessly into his abdomen (which crunched and splattered and was ripped in two as his bowels exploded outward and his heart and lungs and spleen steamed on contact with the air) and blood erupted from his mouth only to gurgle back inside and choke him. And then the darkness engulfed him completely and he felt himself slithering between its throat muscles and down its gullet—into the burning blackness of its stomach, where he saw by a brief and inexplicable light the dead face of the man the cat had eaten earlier in the day, and knew at last that he walked the earth no more.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dead World: A Heroic Dark Fantasy Epic in the Horror/Macabre Tradition

    ebook | paperback

    After breaking their sworn oaths in a fit of forbidden passion, a sacrificial bride (Shekalane) and her fearsome escort (the ferryman Dravidian) find themselves alone and on the run in the subterranean river-world of Ursathrax.

     

    “Do you know what it is?” he said at last.

     

    She studied it, nodding slowly. “I think so. It’s a doorway, of sorts. It’s what awaits on the other side of death.”

     

    Dravidian nodded. “It is what Montair speaks of. Not death—but transition. For what winks out in one place winks on in another, always.” He stared at the fountain, his eyes seeming to dream. “If I were to step through that door ...” He turned to face her. “Would you come with me?”

     

    She looked at him longingly—at his fearsome mask—but hesitated. She trusted him, and yet, was this not how death would come? As a whispering seduction?

    “I don’t know yet,” she said.

     

    There was a soft hiss as he depressed the pad at his temple and swung the mask around to his back, then moved his lips to within a few centimeters of her own and paused, breathing slowly, seeming to draw her own breaths from her. “But you would consider it …”

     

    “But, Dravidian, where would we go? How would we survive?”

     

    He cupped her face in his hands. And though he was too close for her to see his face clearly, his beautiful eyes with their golden irises and Stygian pupils drew her in inexorably, like black holes with golden linings, if such a thing were even possible, and she whispered, “I would step through it ...”

     

    He took her in his arms and drew her slowly against him. “And would you find the strength within yourself to persevere even when the world turns its cold face against us?”

     

    “Yes,” she rasped.

     

    “Then run with me, Shekalane. To the end of Ursathrax and beyond …” And he gently but firmly locked his lips with her own.
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Man/Woman War | A Dystopian Science-fiction Novel

    ebook | paperback

    In a future time and place ... a gender war reaches its terrifying zenith. A dark fantasy fable for the "Me Too" era.

     

    As for Jasper, he had proven to be an erudite and charming host in spite of his great age, and had regaled her with tales from before the Pogrom and before what men called the Betrayal throughout dinner, until music was heard outside and they looked out the cracked window to see a black War Wagon zoom past with its red lights flashing and its belly (presumably) full of Witch Doctors, after which a silence settled over the room and his tone became more somber. “You want to know what happened … how women became witches and men became Witch Doctors. And how the sexes became so estranged that they would kill each other on sight rather than suffer another Betrayal or Pogrom. Don’t you?”

     

    She nodded slowly.

     

    He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin and sat back. “Well, I told you how things were, how men and women were. That there weren’t any Witch Doctors except the kind you saw on TV, and there weren’t—” He paused, noticing how they both looked confused. “TV—television—the boob tube, squawk box, the glass teat. Nevermind. It’s not important. The thing is, men and women liked each other. Sure, they got to squabbling once in a while—hell, some might say that was half the fun of it. But they didn’t fear and mistrust each other to the extent that, that—okay, well, some did—they’d kill each other. The point I’m trying to make is: they were bumper cars that enjoyed … bumping.”

     

    Satyena and Jeremiah looked at each other.

     

    “They danced,” said Jasper. “And when they danced it was something to see. But over time that dance began to sour, mainly because, outside the dance hall, only one side seemed to have all the power. Now, whether that was true or not depends on your point of view, but having read all about it and lived through some of it, I’d say the case could be made. And if you’re wondering,” He looked at Satyena. “It was your ancestors that felt they didn’t have any power. So, steps were taken to even the balance, just as they were with my own ancestors, and I think most would say that those steps were successful.”

     

    Again there was the sound of music, and again a War Wagon blew past with its lights flashing.

     

    “The problem with human nature is, it doesn’t know when to stop. Eventually, every apparatus designed to right a wrong just becomes a new one—it has to, you see, because once created, its focus becomes its own survival. That’s when the ideologues come—like saviors, some would say, while others would say like vampires—who feed off everyone’s fear, stoking it and fanning the flames. Our Chairman Kill-sin is a man like that. Perhaps you’ve a counterpart among the witches …”

     

    Satyena nodded.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Hunter and Hunted | Horror Stories of Predators and Prey: Scary tales to tell around the campfire

    ebook | paperback

    "Take the fatal shot," said Horseshoe. He must have laid down his rifle because I remember him helping to steady my own. "Easy now, you'll own this forever—" I stared the thing in the eye and squeezed the trigger.

     

    It threw back its head, rising up. It gasped for breath, spitting more blood. It barked at the sky. Then it fell, head thumping against the deck. Its serpentine neck slumped. The rest of its blood spread over the boards and rolled around our boots and flowed between the planks.

     

    I was the first to step forward, looking down at the thing through drifting smoke.

    Its remaining eye seemed to look right back. I got down on my knees to look closer. The thing exhaled, causing the breathing holes at the top of its head, behind its eyes, to bubble. I waited for it to inhale, staring into its eye—I could see myself there as well as the others, could see the sky and the scattered clouds. The whole world seemed contained in that moist little ball. Then the eye rolled around white—it shrunk, drying, and the thing's neck constricted. And it died.

     

    Horseshoe slapped my back, massaged my neck. "How's it feel, little buddy?"

     

    But I didn't know what I felt. I could only stare at the eye, now empty.
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Girl in Room 22: A Book About Disability, Hope, Friendship ... and a monster

    ebook | paperback

    When she awakened, there was a fly buzzing about her Jell-O and the ice-cream had melted. The storm was still on, but seemed farther away — so much so that she could hear the solemn ticking of the wall-clock. And something more: a squeaking sound, like the protests of a wheelchair too long neglected. It was coming from outside her room. It was coming up the hall.

     

    She looked at the doorway.

     

    Sure enough, an old woman in a wheelchair muscled her way past, skinny, ashen elbows working. It was a comical sight, frankly. Slow down, you old bag, Tika wanted to call out — and almost did. Then the squeaking stopped, abruptly, and the old woman backed slowly into view again. She looked at Tika.

     

    The younger woman looked back. Between them, up on the wall, the old IBM clock ticked.

     

    The resemblance was uncanny. Both women had long hair, though the younger’s was blonde and flowing, like lemon molasses, and the older’s was thin, platinum, flyaway. Both were skinny. Both had blue eyes, fine features, were gaunt as castaways, and —

     

    Suddenly, the crone was rolling, charging, Buchenwald elbows pumping rust-spotted wheels, a hand like a dead tree branch reaching out, groping, flailing, batting away Tika’s I.V., tumbling her saline bottle which shattered against the blood-red tiles …
     

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Reigndeer: A Horror Story

    ebook | paperback

    We’d walked about two miles when Tucker jogged to catch up with us.

     

    “Twenty dollars says I can get back here before you do,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

     

    “That’s fine,” said Danny. “Fish and game will have your info.”

     

    “And that means your old man’s van down by the river as well as your mamma’s single-wide,” said Billy.

     

    I was laughing when I noticed a handful of deer stepping onto the road ahead of us—which were quickly joined by others until they spanned nearly the entire width of the pavement. It’s funny because I don’t remember feeling scared, only curious. It was comical, frankly, like something from a Far Side cartoon.

     

    “If you’re going to shoot an elephant, Mr. Schneider, you better be prepared to finish the job,” I joked, but no one got it, only gazed off down the road at the line of deer.

     

    “Okay, that is damn weird,” said Danny, and seemed to grip his rifle tighter. “Anybody else think that’s weird?”

     

    “That’s definitely weird,” said Billy.

     

    Tucker raised his rifle slowly.

     

    “What are you doing?” snapped Danny.

     

    “Chill out, Pussy Galore,” he said. He squinted through his telescope. “Just doing a little reconnaissance.” He tracked his barrel back and forth slowly. “Yeah … they’ve got the white eyes, just like the others.” He paused and held steady. “And the red markings. I don’t know, looks almost like a—”

     

    There was a crack! as he squeezed his trigger, and I looked up in time to see blood jet from the back of one of the bucks’ heads. Then the life ran from its legs and it collapsed, right there in the middle of the road, as the others scattered and disappeared back into the tree line.

     

    No one said anything for several moments.

     

    “Boo,” said Tucker suddenly, spinning on Danny, and to his smug satisfaction the younger man jumped.

     

    Tucker just laughed and slapped his gun barrel against his palm. “Everyone relax. I’ve cleared the threat—”

     

    “Right now,” hissed Danny, throwing down his gun and darting at him.

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Magnificent Bastards

    ebook | paperback

    There was a single, sharp tap of the drums followed by a rapid succession of beats as the crushed velvet curtains spread and the audience gasped: for Tran had taken her position in the box and was even now being secured as Williams struck a gunfighter pose and his hand hovered next to his weapon.

     

    “Ladies and gentlemen, I think it goes without saying,” said the announcer over the speaker system, “Do not try this at home.”

     

    Williams relaxed his entire body even as his mind cycled through the calculations—altitude, the breeze, humidity, temperature, the curvature of the earth, the spinning of the earth … It was, like music, a largely mathematical proposition; a cold equation he’d had a gift for ever since he could remember, ever since he was a boy with a Daisy BB gun in the backyard of their southern California home.

     

    He focused on the knife blade as the balloons to each side of it warbled in the breeze. It was a funny thing, sharpshooting, so utterly unlike music, in that each time he did it he felt like he was doing it for the first time, felt like he was starting over from scratch. With music his fingers just automatically found the frets, just instantly knew where to begin and where to end; he never felt as though he were lost in a vortex of potentialities, never doubted his ability to perform. But sharpshooting was a different beast altogether. With sharpshooting he had to call on something outside of himself as well as from within—something which was not his to control. Something which either kissed him with its ghostly lips or turned away with perfect indifference—like love itself, he supposed. Or God.

     

    And then the drum taps stopped and he was alone with the breeze, and it was time to make the intuitive leap which would set the bullet in motion. And as he breathed out and drew his revolver and squeezed its trigger softer than he would a daisy, he knew, even before the crack! and the ka-chink! and the pop of the balloons, that the projectile had found its target. That it had found the slim blade and split like an atom—becoming two loaves rather than one—two soft but lethal slugs, which had spread like shrapnel in the Fresno heat and ruptured the red balloons—releasing their air in a vacuum-like rush and causing the audience to gasp and to cheer.

     

    And then his wife was there, having loosed her mock bonds and scrambled out of the tall wooden box (with its crushed velvet curtains and bulletproof glass), and she’d bowed to the audience before embracing him like the wind, and he had kissed her as he always did after completing their final act—when air raid sirens sounded and he looked at the sky, which had darkened with a storm front as fast-moving as it was inexplicable ...
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Clouds: An SF/Horror Story

    ebook | paperback

    In retrospect, I wish I’d continued recording, for what I saw in that instant is difficult to describe, even now. Suffice it to say that it had a body like that of a manta ray—upon who’s tail the balloonist had been impaled—or a manta ray combined with a bat, albeit huge, and that it was covered with a kind of camouflage which reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Jupiter--just a roil of purples and pinks and browns. I suppose that was when it first hit me: the possibility that there might be a connection between this thing and the Jupiter 6 probe. That the probe might have brought something back, even if it had just been a sprinkling of microbes on its surface.

     

    And then there was an explosion somewhere above us, the concussion of which rocked our balloon, and we all looked up to see Gas Monkey—my God, it was like the sun!—on fire; and yet that wasn’t all we saw, for as it dropped it became evident that there were more of the bat/manta ray things attached, suckling it as it fell, crawling upon it like flies. Then it passed us like some kind of great meteor—its occupants shrieking and calling out—and was gone below, the heat of it still painting our faces, its awful smell, which was the smell of rotten eggs, filling our nostrils.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Equinox: A Horror Romance

    ebook | paperback

    It was a moment that would stretch indefinitely until they lay naked and depleted in the over-cab bedroom of his fifth-wheeler, which was parked in the diner’s back lot, at which time she whispered, even while edging toward sleep, “Your ring. It glowed as we danced, did you know that?”

     

    His body stiffened immediately. “It what?”

     

    “Your hard-to-explain ring,” she said, and giggled a little. “Itit lit up. Where on earth did you get that thing? I’ve never seen anything like

     

    He sat up with a start, everything about him seeming suddenly electrified, suddenly rigid. “What color was it?”

     

    She tittered hesitantly. “And that matters because …?”

     

    He grabbed her by the throatnot particularly hard, but enough to hurt. “What color was it?”

     

    Her mind reeled. Hasn't it always been just a matter of when? “Green. It was green. You’reyou’re hurting me.”

     

    He released her suddenly and looked out the window. “Green … by the gods. What shade?” He looked at her abruptly. “What shade, Sarah?”

     

    She began to inch away from him slowly. “Just just green. Dark green, I think. Itit only did it for

     

    And then she was scramblingdisentangling herself from the sheets, tumbling dangerously down the thickly-carpeted stairs, climbing to her bare feet.

     

    A gunshot rang out as she reached for the door and wood chips exploded from the cabinets above her. “Open that door and we die—do you understand?”

     

    She looked to see him crouched at the top of the stairs, pistol in hand. “The best we can hope for now is to remain still … and pray they don’t find us. Now step away from the doordo it!”

     

    She stared at him for several breaths, her heart hammering in her chest, wondering if he would really shootif he was really that crazy.

     

    “Dark green, by the gods. Thazgul ...”

     

    Yes, she could see now that he was. Could see it just as clear as day. Could see that he’d always been crazy and had always looked it: she’d just been too stupid to see--too needy, too agreeable. Hasn’t it always been just a matter of when?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Sadie

    ebook | paperback

    He looked up at his apartment window after he’d gotten out of his truck, he didn’t know why, and saw Sadie sitting in the sill, staring down at him, it seemed. Hey, you little psychopath, he thought, as the snow fluttered down and clung to his face. Have you been a good girl?

     

    He was relieved to find, a few minutes later, that she had: for nothing appeared amiss either in the kitchen or the living room. The bedroom, too, seemed in perfectly good order—although Sadie was no longer at the window, which did beg the question: Where on earth was she, exactly? He began calling out her name as he moved toward the bathroom, and was surprised by how little his voice sounded, how nervous.

     

    “Sadie? Saaadie?”

     

    He felt a wave of apprehension as he entered the bathroom, he wasn’t sure why, but was pleased to find it normal in every respect—there wasn’t even any discernible cat box odor. He laughed a little at his own paranoia. What had he expected? ‘REDRUM’ scrawled across the mirror in cat shit?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    American Monsters: Horror Stories

    ebook | paperback

    He’d stepped on the gas considerably—all that adrenaline from feuding with Tucker, I suppose—and no one noticed the buck standing in the middle of the road except me until—

     

    “Jesus, look out!”

     

    —until it struck the grill like an oncoming vehicle and tumbled up against the windshield, breaking it into a thousand spidery rings, and smearing it with blood as the truck careened wildly about the road and finally came to a rest in the ditch.

     

    It didn’t take long to access the damage, and the short of it was: we weren’t going anywhere—other than on foot. The old Ford had a crushed radiator, and, somehow, a flat tire.

     

    I’d never see Danny quite so upset, quite that livid, and I guess I never will again. As for Tucker, he seemed more bemused by the situation than anything, and volunteered to stay with the truck—but really just the kills—while the rest of us hoofed it into town—to fetch a tow truck, I suppose.

     

    It was Billy who first noticed the thing’s eyes, and called us all over. Sure enough, the buck was a dead ringer for the one I’d missed in the clearing, right down to the red diamond above its snout. It even had 13 tines.

     

    After checking the doe in the payload by holding open its eye, Danny said, “Some kind of disease, maybe?”

     

    “I ain’t never seen a disease that turns eyes white,” said Billy.

     

    “Yeah. Me neither,” said Danny. He exhaled sharply, looking down at the thing. “Okay, that settles it.”

     

    “What do you mean,” said Tucker.

     

    “What do you think I mean? I mean it can’t be eaten. We don’t even dare butcher it until someone from fish and game has a look. So guard your prize, asshole. But I wouldn’t get too attached if I was you.”

     

    “Is that so?”

     

    “Yeah. That’s so.” He turned to the rest of us as if to say, Ready?

     

    We were.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Place: A Scriptment

    ebook | paperback

    ABE:

    (looks around nervously)

    Swede…?

     

    He looks for SWEDEN again, and again sees only the tops of the bushes, roaring in the wind. A beat later there is another crack! Another splash! ABE whips around. He sees, a few feet out, what at first appears to be a human arm reaching up from a gurgling eddy—deaden spidery fingers groping. He focuses his eyes upon it: the pressure stops cold as we see it is merely a gnarled branch. ABE exhales. Then, as driftwood is proving scarce on the island, he breaks off some willow stems and tries to fish the branch closer. The current dislodges it as he looks on and it floats down stream, bobbing and turning on the waves. ABE watches it go; it looks rather like a hand again; gesturing to him, summon-ing. A real hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. He spins around. It is SWEDEN; he is shining a Coleman lantern directly into his eyes.

     

    SWEDEN:

    It’s gone now. There was a sound. Like….

     

    ABE squints in the glare, which obscures SWEDEN’S face.

     

    ABE:

    (breathes hard, listens)

    It’s this awful wind. It roars such

    that I didn’t even hear you approach!

     

    SWEDEN hands ABE a flashlight.

     

    SWEDEN:

    Here.

     

    ABE:

    Where were they?

     

    SWEDEN:

    In the stern. Under the ballast.

     

    ABE:

    (exhales)

    I wish this wind would go down….

     

    SWEDEN doesn’t say anything. There’s clearly something very wrong.

     

    ABE:

    What?

     

    SWEDEN:

    We’re not alone here.

     

    ACT 2, SCENE 12

     

    EXT. THE FAR BANK. TWILIGHT.

     

    SWEDEN is standing with his back to us, facing the river. ABE approaches—he has taken the long way around the willows. SWEDEN turns slowly; the men look at each other. It is nearly dark.

     

    ABE:

    Sweden…?

     

    SWEDEN steps aside as the camera dollies past him and in on A CORPSE, a real one. It is caught up in the roots of the willows, several feet from the crumbling bank, chest-deep in the water, vertically positioned, bobbing up and down in a violent whirlpool. The corpse is wearing an Army-green or dark blue nylon parka, slick from the river, with a sopping fur-lined hood. The hood droops, obscuring the face from the top of the mouth up, the mouth which is stretched, contorted, whose chin is far too long. The whole body is stiff like a statue, its flesh an ashen gray-blue. Its hands are twisted and groping, like tree branches—willow branches. One is frozen with Rigor Mortis in such a way that it appears to be reaching out, its fingers gnarled, misshapen; they are too-long, really, to seem entirely human. The bony, branch-like index finger seems almost to be pointing, indicting the sky.

     

    ABE:

    My God, Sweden….

    (turns to his friend)

    What happened here?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Place: A Scriptment

    ebook | paperback

    ABE:

    (looks around nervously)

    Swede…?

     

    He looks for SWEDEN again, and again sees only the tops of the bushes, roaring in the wind. A beat later there is another crack! Another splash! ABE whips around. He sees, a few feet out, what at first appears to be a human arm reaching up from a gurgling eddy—deaden spidery fingers groping. He focuses his eyes upon it: the pressure stops cold as we see it is merely a gnarled branch. ABE exhales. Then, as driftwood is proving scarce on the island, he breaks off some willow stems and tries to fish the branch closer. The current dislodges it as he looks on and it floats down stream, bobbing and turning on the waves. ABE watches it go; it looks rather like a hand again; gesturing to him, summon-ing. A real hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. He spins around. It is SWEDEN; he is shining a Coleman lantern directly into his eyes.

     

    SWEDEN:

    It’s gone now. There was a sound. Like….

     

    ABE squints in the glare, which obscures SWEDEN’S face.

     

    ABE:

    (breathes hard, listens)

    It’s this awful wind. It roars such

    that I didn’t even hear you approach!

     

    SWEDEN hands ABE a flashlight.

     

    SWEDEN:

    Here.

     

    ABE:

    Where were they?

     

    SWEDEN:

    In the stern. Under the ballast.

     

    ABE:

    (exhales)

    I wish this wind would go down….

     

    SWEDEN doesn’t say anything. There’s clearly something very wrong.

     

    ABE:

    What?

     

    SWEDEN:

    We’re not alone here.

     

    ACT 2, SCENE 12

     

    EXT. THE FAR BANK. TWILIGHT.

     

    SWEDEN is standing with his back to us, facing the river. ABE approaches—he has taken the long way around the willows. SWEDEN turns slowly; the men look at each other. It is nearly dark.

     

    ABE:

    Sweden…?

     

    SWEDEN steps aside as the camera dollies past him and in on A CORPSE, a real one. It is caught up in the roots of the willows, several feet from the crumbling bank, chest-deep in the water, vertically positioned, bobbing up and down in a violent whirlpool. The corpse is wearing an Army-green or dark blue nylon parka, slick from the river, with a sopping fur-lined hood. The hood droops, obscuring the face from the top of the mouth up, the mouth which is stretched, contorted, whose chin is far too long. The whole body is stiff like a statue, its flesh an ashen gray-blue. Its hands are twisted and groping, like tree branches—willow branches. One is frozen with Rigor Mortis in such a way that it appears to be reaching out, its fingers gnarled, misshapen; they are too-long, really, to seem entirely human. The bony, branch-like index finger seems almost to be pointing, indicting the sky.

     

    ABE:

    My God, Sweden….

    (turns to his friend)

    What happened here?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Tooth and Claw: A Bestiary

    ebook | paperback

    Bloodthirsty reindeer, velociraptors on a red-eye flight to Houston, a demonic house-cat, bat creatures from the clouds of Jupiter, a town besieged by carnosaurs, an inhuman defender, a ring of unimaginable power, a mother and her son on the run from prehistoric terror, a murdered thing whose memory will not die--these are just some of the forces you'll encounter in this compendium of the monstrous. But beware: The natural (and the supernatural) world are red in tooth in claw ...

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Country Roads: A Tale of Rural Terror

    ebook | paperback

    When a comedian from New York offends an audience in rural Kentucky, he quickly finds himself on a highway to Hell ...

     

    I let off the gas immediately and slowed down before veering into the lane behind them, even as the operator asked calmly, “Are you able to see the license number? If so, read it to me—as carefully as you can. Are they Kentucky plates?”

     

    I was distracted by the men in the payload, who appeared to be lifting something heavy, but quickly focused on the plate. “Yes. Kentucky 527 CXS, Franklin County.” I squinted in the fog. The lettering didn’t look right. “I—I think it’s been altered. I’m following as close as I dare, and it looks like—”

     

    “You are behind them?”

     

    “Yes. One of them was—”

     

    “Sir, be advised that units are on the way and that you are not to pursue. Repeat, do not pursue. Pull over immediately and wait for officers to arrive. What is the make and model of your vehicle?”

     

    “I—it’s a blue Toyota—a Camry. 2004, I think. I’m—I’m slowing down. But so are they. There’s men in the payload. It, it almost …”

     

    I was about to say that it looked like they were lifting, well, a trough, to be frank, one of those big aluminum vats used to water horses, when the men heave-hoed the thing twice … and sent its contents hurling toward my windshield. At which point the thick, viscous stuff hit the glass like a hammer—exploding everywhere—and turned the world black.

     

    Black and blood red.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Golem

    ebook | paperback

    I watched as Aaron approached one of the workbenches and fetched an intricately-crafted gold box.

     

    “Ah, yes. The shem, you see, is what gives the golem its power—thank you, son, a sheynem dank. It is what gives it the ability to move and become animated.”

     

    I glanced at Aaron, who only looked back at me uncertainly, as his father approached the golem and opened the box, the gold plating of which gleamed like a fire before the candelabrums. “This one consists of only one word—one of the Names of God, which is too sacred to be uttered here.” He withdrew a slip of paper and placed it into the golem’s mouth. “I shall only say emet, which means ‘truth’ … and have done with it. And so it is finished. Tetelestai.” He turned and looked directly at me, I have no idea why. “The debt will be paid in full.”

     

    Nobody said anything for a long time, even as the birds tweeted outside and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. We just stood there and stared at his creation.

     

    At last I said, “So are you going to enter in the Fair, Mr. Moss, or what? How will you even move it?”

     

    At which Old Man Moss only smiled, ruffling my hair, and said, “No—it is only for this moment. That is the nature of Art. Tsaytvaylik. Tomorrow it will be gone. Now run along and finish your lawn. I’ve involved you enough.”

     

    And the next day it was gone, at least according to Aaron, and both of us, I think, promptly forgot about it. At least until the first of the Benton Boys turned up dead, Sheriff Donner directing the recovery while his ashen-blue body bobbed listlessly against the Benedict A. Saltweather Dam.

     

    It was June.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Crash Dive

    ebook | paperback

    Elton John once sang, “And all this science, I don’t understand. It’s just my job five days a week.” That’s how it is when you’re a Crash Diver: you don’t need to understand blue holes or how they differ from wormholes and black holes or what a mobius mirror does—only that it must work, every time—because, at the end of the day, that isn’t your job. Your job is to be a guinea pig: to be shot into the vortex at near light speed and experience what effect blue hole-assisted mirror travel has on the human body and psyche. Your job is to penetrate to whatever depth they’ve set the mirror—and, if you’re lucky, to enter that mirror and get bounced back.

     

    It hasn’t always been like this. Before there was Zebra Station—with its luxurious gravity centrifuge and its row of black and yellow delta divers hanging like bats from the launch jib—there was Blue One, a sparsely-manned outpost which had sent the first human souls into the maw of the blue hole, men who had come back white-haired and emaciated, debilitated—mentally and physically—mad.

     

    The Crash Diver Program changed all that. From now on only specially-trained pilots would be sent into the Hole, pilots who had the benefit of the first men’s experiences as well as spacecraft designed specifically for the task. A lot was learned in a very short time—one of these things was that men who entered the vortex experienced a series of hallucinations, or Dive Visions, in which they briefly felt they had become someone or something else: a soldier in the Holy Roman Army, say, or a person of the opposite sex. Some even purported to have become animals or alien lifeforms—it was the latter which had apparently driven the men of Blue One clinically insane.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Aluka: A Tale of the Witch Doctors

    ebook | paperback

    She looks at me incredulously, disbelievingly, then, suddenly, rushes to within several feet of me, where she pauses. “You’re … But—your voice, your eyes. How could a woman have clear—”

     

    I only shake my head.

     

    Slowly, it dawns on her, spilling across her face like the sun, illuminating her eyes. “Oh, my God.” She sways as though she might fall upon the floor; then, recovering, begins pacing back and forth. “I mean, what are the odds …”

     

    “You begin to see my interest,” I say, even as my finger tightens against the trigger. “Now—again. Your life for information. What is all this about?”

     

    She stops pacing suddenly, her face a riot of emotions, as though she is experiencing some kind of epiphany. “But, don’t you see?” She gestures at the tanks and jars. “You’re what all this is about. Facial reconstruction, breast reduction, eye normalization—all attempts to place spies amongst your ranks; to infiltrate you, as you have infiltrated us.”

     

    She steps to within a few feet of me. “The Power—do you have it? How about identity? Orientation? Do they know—the men, that is—do they accept it?”

     

    I hesitate, questioning my own motives. At last I say, “No, they do not—know, that is. I came to them before puberty. As for acceptance, they accept that I am a man with androgen insensitivity syndrome; a man who’s face resembles a woman’s. That is all. As for having the Power … my eyes have begun to change, at night, but clearing as the day goes on—if that’s what you mean. Now … please. Details.”

     

    She looks at me as though having achieved a minor victory. “That’s how you found me, by accessing the hive mind, though you wouldn’t have been aware of it. So, you’ve stayed among them and killed for them in order to survive, but now all that’s changing. Isn’t it?”

     

    I don’t say anything, only continue to stare at her.

     

    “And it is changing—make no mistake. That’s how M24 progresses. Your eyes will remain white longer with each passing day—until the transformation is at last complete.” She scans my face as though attempting to read my thoughts. “Tell me, Witch Doctor. What will you do when that day arrives?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    4 Wicked Winds: Four New Tales of Terror and Wonder

    ebook | paperback

    By July, the body of a second Benton Boy had been discovered--my very own buddy, Colton.

     

    They’d found him in a stone quarry about fifteen miles from town—the Eureka Tile Company, as I recall—his limbs broken and bent back on themselves (“like some discarded Raggedy Ann,” wrote the local paper) and his head completely gone—which caused a real sensation amongst the townsfolk as each attempted to solve the riddle and at least one woman reported having seen it: “Just floating down the river, like a pale, blue ball.”

     

    But it wasn’t until Rusty was killed that things reached a fever pitch, with Sheriff Donner under attack for failing to solve the case and neighbor turning against neighbor in a kind of collective paranoia—for by this point no one could be trusted, not in such a small town, and the killer or killers might be anyone, even your spouse or best friend.

     

    It was against this backdrop that I was able to break from my lawn duties—which had exploded like gangbusters over the summer—long enough to visit the Mosses: which would have been the day before Independence Day, 1979. A Tuesday, as I recall. It’s funny I should remember that. Aaron’s mother was working in her vegetable garden—just bent over her radishes like an emaciated old crone—when I arrived, and didn’t even look up when I asked if Aaron was around. “He’s in his room—done sick with the flu. Best put on a mask before you go.” She added: “You’ll find some in the kitchen.”

     

    I think I just looked at her—at her curved spine and thin ankles, her tied up hair which had gone gray as a golem. Then I went into the house and made my way toward Aaron’s room, passing his parents’ quarters—upon which had been hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and a Star of David—on the way. I didn’t bother fetching a mask; I’m not sure why—maybe it was because I was already convinced that whatever Aaron had, I had too. Maybe it was because I was already convinced that by participating in the ritual we’d somehow brought a curse upon us—a curse upon Benton—that it had never been just ‘art’ and that it could never be atoned for, not by Aaron or myself or Old Man Moss or anybody. That we’d blasphemed the Name of the Lord and would now have to pay, just as Jack had paid, just as Colton had paid. Just as Rusty had paid when they’d found him with his intestines wrapped around his throat and his eyeballs gouged out.

     

    “Shut the door, please. Quickly,” said Aaron as I stepped into his room—immediately noticing how dark it was, and that the windows had been completely blacked out (with the same sheets from the garage, I presumed). He added: “The light ... It—it’s like it eats my eyes.”

     

    Christ—I know. But that’s what he said: Like it ate his eyes.

     

    I stumbled into a stool in the dark—it was right next to his bed—and sat down. Nor were the black sheets thick enough to completely choke the light, so that as I looked at him he began to manifest into something with an approximate shape: something I dare say was not entirely human—a thing thick and rounded and gray as the dead, like a huge misshapen rock, perhaps, or a mass of potter’s clay, but with eyes. Then again it was dark enough so that I may only have imagined it—who’s to say after forty years?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Devil Drives a '66

    ebook | paperback

    It was all too much—the car that had been buried for 52 years yet started right up, the flashback to the 1960s and the ghostly girl, the bugs the size of dogs whose stench filled the cab and caused me to wretch. I gripped the door handle instantly—even as the little chrome knob dropped, locking me in. Then we were accelerating—abruptly, powerfully—whipping around the cars in front of us and blasting through the intersection: the girl vanishing, just winking out of existence, the bugs making a sound like crickets but magnified a hundred fold—the V-8 (or whatever it was) roaring.

    Yes—yes, James. Want this, we do …

    Want it! Want it!

    Right there, James. The infestation. Do it!


    But I wasn’t driving—

    No, I could see that wasn’t true: my foot was on the peddle just as sure as my hands were on the wheel. And that foot dipped suddenly even as the skateboarder came into view—his eyes widening, his free leg kicking—so that he disappeared into an alley even as we exploded past—fishtailing to a halt in the middle of the road, where the high-compression engine sputtered and the glass packs rumbled—before my foot once again hit the gas and we tore after him, burning rubber.

    And then we were bearing down upon the kid, as he kicked and kicked furiously and glanced at us over his shoulder. As I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the bug-things leaning forward (as though in anticipation). As I fought whatever impulse had taken oven my limbs and partially succeeded—too late.

    There was a thud-crunch! as he vanished beneath the hood—and the car bucked violently, as though I’d driven over a curb. I ground the brakes, glancing in the mirror—saw him tumble after us like a bag of litter. Only then, after I’d come to a complete stop, did it occur to me: I could see out the back window. The bugs were gone. The kid, meanwhile, was still alive—good God!—and thus it wasn’t too late; I could still help him, still save him.

    Yes, yes, James. Save him.

    We’re not finished yet, James.

    Finish, finish!


    I felt the gearshift in my hand—saw that I’d already put it in reverse and was stepping on the gas, letting out the clutch. And then the car launched backward—reversing straight as an arrow ...

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dinosaur War

    ebook | paperback

    Sheila waited until the Cessna was well out of sight before reemerging into the glade, still feeling the ground vibrate—which she had first noticed upon crouching so near to it in the bushes—still sensing that something was coming, and still only half aware of where she was or how she’d gotten there.It was, in a sense, as if she still dreamed (certainly the air was still choked with smoke as it had been in her vision of Bozeman), and yet, beyond that, the clearing had about it a slumberous quality all its own, one she could only liken to a cathedral or other place of worship, at least until the M1-A1 Abrams tank appeared at its opposite end and began rattling toward her.

     

    Holy Mother of God, she thought, as it was joined by another … and another … and yet another still; nor did they travel alone but were accompanied by foot soldiers, themselves armed with flamethrowers. And that was just the first tier. For behind them lumbered a collection of dinosaurs—a triceratops and stegosaurus were easy enough to spot—less obvious were the legions of velociraptors which flitted between the trees like wraiths. And behind all of it strode an allosaur such as those they’d encountered at the Santiago—except this one was mottled red and black and bore a kind of saddle—upon which the Bandana Man sat, perched.

     

    Like a king, she thought. Or a bizarro-verse paladin … who raised a hand, and, without so much as a word, somehow caused the tanks and the animals to stop.

     

    And then there she was, alone against an array of idling tanks and grumbling animals, as the Bandana Man trotted his steed around to the front and simply stared at her, his gaze such that it seemed she was being penetrated rather than merely looked upon, and penetrated by not just two eyes but many, as though the man were not a single being at all but legion. And she found she wanted to run more than anything in the world but couldn’t. Wanted to turn and dash for Barley and the arms of Sammy and Erik but was paralyzed. And it was at that moment that the man in the bandana swung a leg over the saddle and glided—yes, glided—to the earth, where he touched down like a fog, and she wanted to scream, tried to scream, but couldn’t—and not because her body had become paralyzed but for the simple reason that she no longer had a mouth to do so.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Portrait of the Witch Doctor as a Young Man

    ebook | paperback

    He pauses, looking at the glass tubes, at the embryos floating in fluid. “Are you telling me that … those are all my daughters?”

     

    Again she just smiles. “What else? Yes, of course, every single one. Not just clones, mind you, but daughters, each with their own genetic makeup and individual traits—which will in time give rise to language and syntax, to dance and to art, to rhyme and verse and expression in a thousand forms. Indeed, they are, all of them, in a very real sense, our children. An entirely new generation born of both witch and Witch-Doctor, perchance to evolve into something neither of us could have imagined. Think of it, Patrobus! In the end that is all I ask of you; all that I ask in return for your life. Think of it … and sleep.”

     

    And then he does sleep, and it is good, at least until he awakens near New Salem and finds himself stumbling into it like a ghost; where he is greeted by civilian men and assisted to the Station House, and told by the few Doctors present that everyone else to a man has joined the raiding party, and that it is on its way to rescue him right now.

     

    On its way to something called Blair Coven.

     

    Where they will kill everything in sight.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Burning Cathedral of Summer: Stories of Darkness and Youth

    ebook | paperback

    I wish I could say that when Benson and his gang showed up we drew on some previously unknown strength and kicked their Rich Kid asses; that we chased them all the way back to their fancy cars and tucked and rolled seats and kicked in their doors and fenders; although we really would do that later, not to them personally but to guys like them, in those dog days immediately after high school—when Orley had yet to join the Army and I’d yet to lose my mother, and L.A. was just a twinkle in Kevin’s eye.

     

    Instead they caught us completely by surprise, knocking the tent over and rolling us up in it—like a giant snowball—after which they proceeded to kick and punch us mercilessly—before dragging us out by our feet and gloating over us in the sun: Like trolls, I remember thinking. Or Tolkien’s fucking orcs.

     

    “Well now look at this,” said Benson, and paused to hawk up phlegm. “If it isn’t our little faggots—just cozied up like lemmings.” He pursed his lips and spat, causing green slime to splatter my cheek. “Our thievin’ little douche-flutes, just letting their freak flags fly.”

     

    “And sitting on the rest of our gas money,” said Mickelson. “I can guarantee it.”

     

    “Oh?” Benson raised his brow, as if he hadn’t thought of that. “You’re kind of the leader, Orley. Is that true?”

     

    Orley just looked at him, his mouth bleeding, his cheek scuffed and bruised. At last he said, “We used it to pay your mother. She said that’s what triple-penetration costs.”

     

    A couple of them laughed—Mickelson and Spelvin, I think—and Benson shot them a look. At length he said, “Funny—as always.” He paused, cocking his head. “You look thirsty. Buckey. Give me your cup.”

     

    He held out his hand without looking and Buckey placed in it a large container, one of those 32-ounce super tankards you get at Zip Trip or 7-11, minus its lid. “The stink bugs are terrible this year, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Buckey here left this out in the sun too long,” He smelled the cup’s contents, wrinkling his nose—then motioned to Spelvin and Mickelson, who snatched Orley up by his arms and held him, even as two others grappled his head and began prying his mouth open. “These will probably tickle a little as they go down. A lot of them are still alive …”

     

    Then he tipped the cup and its contents poured out onto Orley’s face, into his mouth—the soda spattering his cheeks, the little bugs scrambling helter-skelter over his lips—before he chocked once, suddenly, violently, and began chewing, jerking his head free of their hands, smiling like a lunatic.

     

    “Protein!” he exclaimed, and spit something out, a shell, maybe, or a leg. “Thank you, sir! May I have another!”

     

    And then there was a commotion which sent a ripple through their ranks and caused them to stand apart—staring toward the lake, into the sun, where a lone figure stood slight as a wraith, its hair sopping wet, clinging to its face, its skinny arms held straight at its sides.
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Heat Wave: A Dinosaur Apocalypse Prequel

    ebook | paperback

    “There’s no footprints,” said Tess, examining the ground. She looked up at him as though she felt suddenly ill. “Nothing leading away. Just ours and his walking to and from …” She paused, her lower lip trembling. “How is that possible, Coup? And not just him but—where is everybody else? Where are the other cars? How in …”

     

    And then she just broke suddenly and rushed into his arms, and they remained like that for several minutes, during which time he scanned the sky, and, to his deep relief, spied a passenger jet arching glimmeringly across the sky, its contrail just as white and reassuring as angel dust.

     

    “Look, there, see,” He released her abruptly and spun her around. “We’re not in the Twilight Zone, after all. Hey, yo, Freedom Bird! We’re down here!” He waved his arms back and forth. “Give us a lift! Albuquerque or bust!”

     

    Yet there was something odd about the plane’s trajectory he hadn’t initially noticed—or had he? For it truly was arching, which is to say it wasn’t crossing the sky so much as it was … falling from it. Yes, yes, he could see now that was true, as he disengaged from Tess and paced through the scrub, tracking the jet as it curved gracefully in the sun—to finally plummet straight into the far hills, where it vanished like a specter in a plume of fiery smoke.

     

    And then he was gripping the shotgun and trying to wrest it from its rack; but, finding it locked, had to search the car for a key: upon which, realizing there were none that would fit, he located a small button just beneath the seat and depressed it—freeing the weapon.

     

    “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Tess as she tailed him back to the Mustang, but he ignored her until they were again seated inside, after which he turned to her and said, briskly, “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but I’m doing it, okay?”

     

     

    And it was on the tip of her lips to respond when they heard the sound: a kind of muffled whimper—something between a chirp and a meow—coming from outside. Coming from beneath the car.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Every Blade of Grass: An Existential Parable

    ebook | paperback

    Three futuristic landscapers battle nature, fatigue, and each other on a terraformed Mars ...

     

    The medical rocket is wasted—its consoles smashed, its stores emptied—to the extent that we have collapsed outside its open hatch in total exhaustion and despair. Worse, the air is filled with the roar of machinery—a roar with a band-saw edge—one we know all too well for it is the sound of Cap’s Big Track coming closer every second.

     

    And then he has arrived, riding his tractor like a chariot, goading it forward into the clearing, motoring directly toward us until Taylor jumps up in a panic and sprints for the next bridge—his dark skin shining, his heels kicking up sod—as the Captain veers toward him suddenly and seems to gun the engine.

     

    And then I am running, shouting at him to stop, as Taylor vanishes beneath the blades and the Big Track jounces, once, twice, the Captain laughing and throwing back his head, the iron tracks seeming to catch—until blood begins spewing like grass clippings from the mulch-vents and all I can hear is my friend screaming—gargling—dying beneath the Cap’s iron beast.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Devil's Dictionary

    ebook | paperback

    It is raining. That’s the first thing I notice, the first thing that tells me I am no longer in the cockpit. The second is that I’m bleeding—bleeding from the leg, which is making it difficult to press the attack. The third is that I’m dying—as is my opponent—dying beneath a blood red sky.

     

    “It is finished,” he says, stumbling forward and back—his blood flowing freely, his hair matted in sweat. “Look at you! Your broadsword is shattered. Your armor is compromised. Why is it you continue?”

     

    But I do not know why I continue—only that I was a Crash Diver once and will be so again, and so must face the vision, endure its consequences. Endure them so that future generations may bridge the gulf of galaxies!

     

    At last I say: “Are you better off? We die together, Sir Aglovere. Surely you—”

     

    But I am baffled by my own voice, so familiar and yet strange, and by my own words, which have materialized from nowhere.

     

    And then he is charging, hacking at me wildly, and I am forced back along the hedgerow: until I lose my footing over a protruding root and topple headlong into the mud and bramble—whereupon my opponent falls on what’s left of my sword and is promptly run through, his entrails unspooling like loops of linked sausage and his eyes turning to empty glass.

     

    At length he says, “We kill ourselves,” and laughs, even as I push him off me.

     

    And then we just lay there, staring at the sky, neither of us saying anything, as our blood pools together and spirals down the slope. As the clouds continue to rumble—pouring rain into our dying eyes.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Heat Wave 2: A Prequel

    ebook | paperback

    “Is that really a good idea?” asked Coup, which at last caused her to turn around.

     

    “I don’t know, is it?” she said, and slung the purse over her shoulder. “Why don’t you ask him?” She indicated Long. “He seems to know everything.”

     

    “He’s right,” said Rory. “It’s not a good idea.”

     

    “It’s the only idea,” she snapped determinedly. She patted her purse warningly. “And don’t even think about …”

     

    But they were no longer looking at her—gazing instead at something which had swooped into view outside, something which seemed for an instant almost to hover—its muscles and ligaments twitching, making a thousand adjustments, its stretched membranes undulating, its talons outstretched—before it smashed against the glass like some great, dark kite (cracking it three different ways) and hit the ground violently, scrambling and flapping, leaping and taking wing again, disappearing from sight. All of which happened so fast that the woman in the red dress, having leapt away suddenly, didn’t appear to have even seen it, much less identified it, and only said, finally, “What was that?” And then laughed. “Are we under attack by wild turkeys, for fuck’s sake?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Heat Wave 3: A Prequel

    ebook | paperback

    “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, all of it, believe me,” the President was saying, gesturing as he spoke—his large frame swaying slightly—just like on TV. “And we’re going to win it. It might take time … but we’re going to win it. Believe me. We always win.”

     

    He paused for a moment as the lead Secret Service agent—Halverson was his name, Agent Halverson—handed him a cup of water. “For one, we’ve got something the animals don’t have. Which is our incredible men and women of law enforcement.” He gestured at the surviving State Trooper and then at the soldiers. “Not to mention our armed forces, some of whom are with us right now.” Everyone clapped—albeit briefly. “It’s hard. So hard. What has happened is so terrible. So many people have disappeared—while others have fallen victim to these—these animals. People are saying they’re dinosaurs. I don’t know. I think they’re dinosaurs. And they’re horrible, so horrible. They’re eating people alive. I’ve seen this, and I’ve sort of witnessed it—in fact, in two cases I have actually witnessed it.”

     

    He continued as Coup and Tess exchanged nervous glances. “You know it’s funny because they say—the scientists—they say human beings and dinosaurs didn’t exist at the same time. And yet here we are … right? Here we are. We’re existing at the same time. That I can tell you. But we’re going to take care of it. We’re going to make America safe again.” He paused and took a drink of water, appearing conflicted. “Some people are saying, or they were before the TVs went out, some people were saying, not everyone, just some people, they were saying this hasn’t happened anywhere else. That it’s only happening here—in the U.S.” He shrugged as if he couldn’t possibly know. “Not Mexico. Not China. Not Puerto Rico. Just us. We’re the only ones who have, how’d they say it? Flashed back. That’s just what I heard. I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t think it is, to be perfectly honest.”

     

    Tess glanced at the soldiers, who were whispering amongst themselves.

     

    “Even if it is, I’m a big believer in a little thing called ‘fluctuation,’” He emphasized the word with his thumbs and forefingers, “—just like with the markets. Or with co-called climate change. You cannot just have a standard. You cannot just say that we have a blanket standard all over the world … you can’t have a blanket standard. You may say … it sounds nice to say, ‘I have a blanket standard; here’s what it is’ … But you know … it won’t be a blanket standard.”

     

    Tess looked at Coup—who just looked back and shrugged.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Sister Knives: And Other Tales from the Man/Woman War

    coming soon

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Heat Wave 4: A Flashback Prequel

    ebook | paperback

    Still he continued: “The wall was necessary. It was necessary, okay? Look, we had to. We had to. People say the money could have been better spent—that it didn’t need the spikes, say, or the gangway for the guards, or the mote. But I play into people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. In the case of my wall, it is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular—I mean, have you seen it? Beautiful. Beautiful. Wouldn’t you say, Coup?”

    Coup looked around as people started to wake up. “Well, I—I guess as far as walls go—it’s a monster, that’s for sure. Makes for some great shade. About 50-billion dollars’ worth.”

    Nobody said anything.

    “I take it you don’t agree,” said the President.

    “I’d say your instinct on that is flawless,” said Coup. He looked the man squarely in the face. “As always.”

    Tucker just looked back—his large eyes puffy and purple, his brow furrowed. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t used to being challenged—on anything. “What’s not coming through anymore, Coup?”

    Abbie yawned and tried to intervene woozily. “Has anyone eaten anything? I’m starving …”

    “No, no, no. What’s not coming through anymore?”

    Coup pinched the bridge of his nose, already tired with the conversation. “Look, how about we just leave it—”

    “Murderers, Coup. Drug runners. Human traffickers. Bing bing, bong bong, bing bing. You name it. Rapists …”

    “Murderers and rapists …”

    “Well, someone was doing the raping, Coup! I mean, somebody was doing it. Who was doing the raping? Who was doing the raping?"

    “Jesus, I was doing raping, can we drop it, si?” said Johnny from Tuscan, and stood, leaving the group.

    Tucker and Coup looked at each other as Briggs straightened in his chair.

    “Going to I.D. him, Chief?” said Coup, his eyes still locked with the President.

    And then something thumped against the window and everyone jumped, and when they all focused on it they saw an enormous tri-clawed hand pressed open-palmed against the glass; a hand which moved downward as they watched so that the tips of its claws scraped like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then it was gone, retreating into the gloom—within which Coup saw a massive shape shift and move forward, even as another massive shape crossed opposite it, so that it was clear to him that whatever had touched the window was not alone.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Heat Wave 5: A Flashback Prequel

    ebook | paperback

    “There isn’t going to be a door when that lava gets here!”

     

    “There’s going to be a door because that lava is going to cool—okay?” He leaned against the counter—his Presidential podium—as though he were exasperated. “I mean, that’s what lava does—it cools. It cools and eventually stops. Halverson and I have already discussed it.” He turned to address everyone, not just Tess. “Now I know some of you—Crazy Coup, I bet, for sure—have probably thought, ‘Why don’t we just make a run for it?’” He raised his arms as if to repeat the sentiment: ‘Why?’ “For the border, I mean. After all, it’s right there, isn’t it? It’s right there. We’re practically sitting on it. But I’m not going to do that. And, as your Commander in Chief, I’m not going to let you do it, either.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, adjusted his tie. “For one, Americans don’t run. That’s just not what made us great. It sure as hell ain't what made us great again, that I can tell you. We may withdraw on occasion, as I directed us to in Syria, but we don’t run, and we sure as hell don’t crawl hat in hand to some shit-hole like Mexico—especially when they’re no more capable of dealing with this than is the greatest nation on earth—I mean, am I right, folks?”

     

    And to Tess’ utter astonishment, people began to clap--Carson, of course, but also Ashley and Abbie and Cameron’s activist friends, not to mention the State Trooper and the two Secret Service agents.

     

    “It’s true. It’s true. Let me hear it if you think I’m right!”

     

    And they did, continuing to clap and to nod their heads, saying ‘Right on’ and slapping each other on the back, pumping their fists. During which time Tess met eyes with the good-looking dark-skinned kid—he couldn’t have been more than 19—Johnny, from Tuscan, and knew, based on his expression (and the fact that he wasn’t clapping), that he was the only sane person left.

     

    And then they were moving, both of them, toward each other and toward the door, making a beeline as everyone clapped and the volcanoes spewed molten rock; as several shadows flitted across the window, like kites, like pterodactyls, after which the soldiers on the roof promptly opened fire.

     

    “Oh, and Miss,” said Tucker, halting on a dime, turning to Tess and Johnny. “It’s only fair to tell you that if you take one more step toward that door … I’ll have you shot.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Heat Wave 6: A Flashback Prequel

    coming soon

    And that’s when she saw something she would never forget, three somethings, actually, one no more incredible than the next. The first was that the marsupial lion had engaged with the much-larger therapods in a full-on melee, right there between the store and the gas pumps—an entire row of which were wiped out as she watched with just the swish of a tail. The second was the enormous fireball that resulted, which all but flattened the station and rose curling upon itself like a mushroom cloud, hiding the animals from view (if indeed they survived at all). And the third was the President’s black limo (Cadillac One, she knew it was called, or “The Beast”) barreling toward them across the desert—its tinted windows glinting, its fender flags on fire, and driven, it seemed likely (considering most everyone else was dead), by the President himself.

     

    “Well that’s something you don’t see every day,” she said, and looked at Coup, who only shrugged.

     

    “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” he said. “He went.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Reign of Thunder

    ebook | paperback

    “Is that really a good idea?” asked Coup, which at last caused her to turn around.

     

    “I don’t know, is it?” she said, and slung the purse over her shoulder. “Why don’t you ask him?” She indicated Long. “He seems to know everything.”

     

    “He’s right,” said Rory. “It’s not a good idea.”

     

    “It’s the only idea,” she snapped determinedly. She patted her purse warningly. “And don’t even think about …”

     

    But they were no longer looking at her— gazing instead at something which had swooped into view outside, something which seemed for an instant almost to hover--its muscles and ligaments twitching, making a thousand adjustments, its stretched membranes undulating, its talons outstretched—before it smashed against the glass like some great, dark kite (cracking it three different ways) and hit the ground violently, scrambling and flapping, leaping and taking wing again, disappearing from sight. All of which happened so fast that the woman in the red dress, having leapt away suddenly, didn’t appear to have even seen it, much less identified it, and only said, finally, “What was that?” And then laughed. “Are we under attack by wild turkeys, for fuck’s sake?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The River Dire

    ebook | paperback

    She looked forward at Dravidian, who was also a mere shape in the night, and her heart pounded as she watched him draw upon his oar. Beautiful, undead stranger, who bid you welcome into my heart and made me feel for you almost as a lover? Will you not still deliver me to your Lucitor if you survive? Will you not use your key again to open the gates of hell at the processing terminal only to row away from me forever with your humane, dreaming eyes and your thoughts and quotes of Montair? Who are you to me, ferryman, and who am I to you? Is it selfish of me to want to live even if that means you will surely die? And are you not doing the same? Life is selfish, only a fool believes otherwise; passion is selfish, and above all, love is selfish!

     

    She looked toward Valdus and saw that he was close enough to make eye contact with, and she did so lingeringly, seeing in his face something she had never seen there before, something eager and pure and almost innocent; he was as a child to her in that instant, and yet he was also as a stranger, like something from another life altogether, whereas Dravidian somehow shared her time and space and interiority, had done so, somehow, even before she had met him, and as she turned away from them both to ponder the extra oar she wondered how the word “love” had even come into her mind.

     

    You try so hard just to make do and to get by, she thought, You try and you try and you try. And some days, you succeed! But then comes a black coin to first your husband’s palm and then your son’s, and finally your own, and everything you thought you knew is suddenly up for reinterpretation. Then comes a lover who is obsessed for all the right reasons but still obsessed, then comes war and rebellion and the Hour of a Thousand Paths in which anything and everything is possible. And then, just when you think you can peaceably say goodbye to it all, when the numbness finally becomes libation instead of pain, then ...

     

    Comes a ferryman.

     

    And it was at that moment and none before that she realized precisely what she had to do.
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes

    ebook | paperback

    He has decided, at last, that there is no death and thus nothing to fear. That there is only combustion and respiration. That all creation is alive and that what we think of as birth and death is only the universe itself breathing. And he has decided that, this being the case, his mother shall never truly die…nor he grow into an adult.

     

    For he is—and will remain—the X-Ray Rider. And now that school is out he is running—running like a little boy—for home; even as lightning flashes in the blue-black sky and splinters it into a thousand shards, until at last he sees the back of their house about a half-mile north—and, seeking a shortcut, swerves into someone’s yard.

     

    There is a narrow concrete path along the side of this house, its surface soaking wet so that it reflects track lights embedded in the eaves. Its perimeter is guarded by an iron rail. He vaults over the rail—More than human! More than divine! X-Ray Rider! X-Ray Runner!—but there is no concrete, no reflection. He is falling, arms swinging….

     

    HE IS LYING AT THE BOTTOM of a stairwell. There is broken glass everywhere as if he has fallen through a window, which he has, or at least the glass portion of a basement door, which stands ajar, creaking. He vaguely recalls hearing sheets of paper swish-swishing down, scattering around him. He is bleeding from his palms, his head, his nose, his arms—one of which is numb, sleeping. He feels himself all over with his good hand, expecting brains to be oozing out, bones protruding. But nothing seems to be broken, although his left leg is splayed uncomfortably. Glass grates as he grips his ankle, pulling it toward him, dragging papers along, and folds it beneath him. He tries to stand but there is nothing to grip, only the door pane which is spiked with glass. His head swims dizzily. How could he be so stupid? Falling for such an obvious illusion—mistaking the shining wet stairwell and the light above its door for a reflection. The thought of it shames him.

     

    He hears something pattering against the wind- breaker—blood from his nose, blotting the powder-blue nylon with splotches of maroon.

     

    He looks at the top of the well, a concrete rectangle with the dimensions of a tomb, sees darkened eaves, hazily, and beyond them, storm clouds, drifting across the sky. He places his good hand against the wall and climbs to his knees, not wanting to remain in the stairwell another instant, wanting to run home as fast as he can, to his mother and bedroom and plastic model kits, to beige-colored carpets and warm air blowing from heat registers. The concrete wall of the well presses bitter cold against his palm.

     

    He crawls upon his knees through the broken glass, gathering up pages, smearing them with blood. When he gets them back into the folder he staggers out of the stairwell, one landing at a time, his injured leg resisting, but feels a wave of nausea as he reaches the top—and pivots, so that he is leaning against the rail, staring into the well, breathing heavily.

     

    The broken door below sways and creaks. The rain drones against the world.

    This is what it will actually be like, he thinks, when they lower her into the vault. As he and his brothers—pallbearers, if episodes of Night Gallery are any indication—stand brooding. As his father stands off to one side looking like the widows in movies, only minus the veil—glassy-eyed, untouchable, waltzing with ghosts. As the minister takes a handful of earth and shakes it onto the casket, saying, ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…’ Until the caretakers come and begin shoveling dirt into her eyes. And she will begin sobbing because it is cold down there and she is so alone, abandoned by everyone. Because she was a good wife and a good mother and it all ends like this, with shovelfuls of earth in her eyes and hair.

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Witch Hunt: Skirmishes in the Man/Woman War

    ebook | paperback

    They were the kind of musical notes men and woman once swayed to—even worshiped to--or so Jasper had told him, ground from an instrument called an “organ”—which had once been common, or so he’d said, but had vanished from the face of the world. So, too, were there cymbals, which echoed throughout the crew compartment of the War Wagon like tinsel—if tinsel could be said to have a sound--and mingled with the steely whispers of their muskets and tanks and other gear as the truck rocked and their harnesses held them fast.

    “When a maaan loves a woman,” sang a hearty and soulful voice both inside and outside the compartment, and Jeremiah knew they were close, else the driver wouldn’t have cued the music, and when he scanned the other Witch Doctors, strapped in six to a bench in the wagon’s cramped confines, he knew that they knew it too. What was more, he knew that, however fearsome they looked in their black jumpsuits and white flame-retardant vests, their goggled respirators, their buckled hats—they were frightened, too.

     

    But then the wagon ground to a halt and there was no time to be feel anything, much less fear, as Jeremiah unbuckled and piled out with the others. And yet, as he paused momentarily to take in the building—a ramshackle six-story brownstone which looked as though it had been built before the Betrayal, much less the Pogrom--a strange thing happened. He thought he heard a voice; not from without but entirely from within—a woman’s voice, a witch’s voice. And it said to him, as faintly as the cymbals at the start of the music, Why have you come for us, Witch-Doctor? And he found himself scanning the illuminated windows of the brownstone as if someone had perhaps shouted to him (rather than reaching directly into his mind), and saw behind one of the uppermost panes a figure so small and motionless that he might have thought it a piece of furniture, a lamp, perhaps, had it not slid to one side and vanished.

     

    Then he was activating his musket, which was connected to the tank on his back and shot not just explosive balls but streams of incinerating fire, and charging into the foyer—where a handful of witches already lay, writhing and smoldering. Fifteen minutes. That’s what they had before the Flyer lowered from the vespertine gloom and received them on the roof.

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Staked Fences

    ebook | paperback

    It’s funny--because the first thing I noticed upon stepping into the garage wasn’t the fact that Old Man Moss was holding what appeared to be massive gray arm in his hands. Nor was it the fact that in the middle of the room stood an 8-foot-tall giant—a giant which appeared to have been fashioned from solid clay and resembled not so much a man but a hulking, naked ape. Nor was it even the thing’s frightful visage or stoic, lifeless, out-sized eyes.

     

    No, it was the fact that the room was illuminated by candles and candelabrums—as opposed to bulbs or work lights or sun seeping through windows (all of which had been covered with what appeared to be black sheets). It was the fact that the garage didn’t look like a garage. It looked—for all intents and purposes--like a temple.

     

    “Ah, Thomas, by boy! Vus machs da! You are just in time.”

     

    It was on the tips of my lips to ask him what for when he handed me the arm, which was surprisingly heavy. “I’ll need you and Aaron to hold this while I sculpt. Can you do that?”

     

    The clay was tacky and moist beneath my fingers. I looked at Aaron, who looked back at me as if to say, Just go with it. Humor him.

     

    “Sure, Mr. Moss. But--” I followed Aaron’s lead as he positioned the arm against the mock brute’s shoulder. “What on earth is it?”

     

    His face beamed with pride as he worked the leaden clay. “Why, this is Yossele—but you may call him Josef. And he is what the rabbis of Chelm and Prague called a golem—a being created from inanimate matter. This one is devoted to tzedakah, or justice.”

     

    At last he stepped back and appeared to scrutinize his work. “And justice is precisely what he will bring—once he is finished. Once the shem has been placed in his mouth.” He took a deep breath and exhaled, tentatively. “Okay, boys … you can let go. Slowly.”

     

    I didn’t know what justice had to do with art, but we did so—the clammy clay wanting to stick to our fingers, its moist touch seeming hesitant to break contact.

     

    “Aaron, won’t you be a good boychick and bring me the shem. Easy does it, now. Don’t drop it.”

     

    I watched as Aaron approached one of the workbenches and fetched an intricately-crafted gold box.

     

    “Ah, yes. The shem, you see, is what gives the golem its power—thank you, son, a sheynem dank. It is what gives it the ability to move and become animated.”

     

    I glanced at Aaron, who only looked back at me uncertainly, as his father approached the golem and opened the box, the gold plating of which gleamed like a fire before the candelabrums. “This one consists of only one word—one of the Names of God, which is too sacred to be uttered here.” He withdrew a slip of paper and placed it into the golem’s mouth. “I shall only say emet, which means ‘truth’ … and have done with it. And so it is finished. Tetelestai.” He turned and looked directly at me, I have no idea why. “The debt will be paid in full.”

     

    Nobody said anything for a long time, even as the birds tweeted outside and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. We just stood there and stared at his creation.

     

    At last I said, “So are you going to enter in the Fair, Mr. Moss, or what? How will you even move it?”

     

    At which Old Man Moss only smiled, ruffling my hair, and said, “No--it is only for this moment. That is the nature of Art. Tsaytvaylik. Tomorrow it will be gone. Now run along and finish your lawn. I’ve involved you enough.”

     

    And the next day it was gone, at least according to Aaron, and both of us, I think, promptly forgot about it. At least until the first of the Benton Boys turned up dead, Sheriff Donner directing the recovery while his ashen-blue body bobbed listlessly against the Benedict A. Saltweather Dam.

     

    It was June.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    13 Thorns

    ebook | paperback

    I glanced at our sticks only several feet away, canted in the sand, their shafts crude but straight— then at the thing, which was nearly to its ship. And the truth of it is I was running before I’d even made a conscious decision to do so, running with the friends I’d had since 4th grade at Broadway Elementary, both of whom beat me to the pikes. Nor did we stop to think about it as we chased the thing down like chieftains and Orley delivered the first blow, lancing its back decisively and pinning it to the earth as I slid mine into what would have been its rib-cage and Kevin impaled its neck, all of which caused the thing to struggle furiously even as it tried to scream—this most assuredly—but found it had no mouth; as it melted away from our sticks like butter and reconstituted itself on the go, finally closing to within a few feet of its ship before Orley ran it through its back yet again and smashed it to the ground, stopping it in its tracks—even as Kevin and I stabbed it repeatedly—the sun filtering through the pines as it shuddered and bled, its ship beginning to falter, growing cool amidst the shadows.

     

    And yet we kept stabbing as though infected with blood-lust: exhilarated by each blow, hot for the kill, while nonetheless feeling as though we had lost something with each strike. Something of who we were and might have become. Something which felt good and bad at the same time. Like romantic love, I suppose, which we had yet to experience. Or the bite of cigarette smoke into the throat and lungs.

     

    Until at last the ship lie dormant and the Thing from Another World was dead, if it had ever lived at all, at least in the way we understood it. And then we just stood there for a time amongst the shafts of light and brooded in our youth and vigor and passion; there in July of 1980 in the sweltering heat and humidity of the day. There in the forest by the lake, which was shot through with orange and gold, in the brief, burning cathedral of summer.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Dinosaur in the Cage

    ebook | paperback

    Napoleon napped as rain spotted the habitat’s skylight (foreshadowing the storm which was moving east toward the Institute). He stood on one leg like some monstrous flamingo, head and neck pulled back and up, chin tucked against his breast. His long tapered tail stabbed straight out behind him, balancing him perfectly even in repose, and his forelimbs were bent as if held up in prayer. Tonight as any other, he’d fallen asleep listening to the footfalls of spiders.

     

    But now his super-keen ears detected something else--something more than rain ticking off glass. It was a faint squeaking noise, like chittering rats. His eyelids parted moistly, revealing yellow crescents which shined in the dark, and he blinked several times, awakening.

     

    The sound was that of his nemesis. Drawing closer.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Burning: Two Tales of the Witch Doctors

    ebook | paperback

    “Well, now we are getting somewhere,” says Sula, glancing him up and down, appearing victorious. “But she was not a witch like me, else she would not have done what she did. For that is exactly what happened, isn’t it? Jadis became infected by M24 and slew her own son, and your son too. And then you spent the next year and a half wandering a world you no longer recognized, a world where the dead were stacked on every street corner and the bonfires burned day and night, until you stumbled into a beer hall one night because they were offering free bread and heard a powerful orator talking about male superiority and cleansing the world; and you listened, at first just because it felt good to have something in your stomach, but later because you were swayed, and that orator’s name was Kill-sin, who would go on to found New Salem and rule it with an iron fist. Am I warm, Witch Doctor?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Phantom Road: Tales of Travel & Terror

    ebook | paperback

    There were six of them in total, more than had been present in the bar (not that it mattered, they would have rounded up others, I was sure). The important thing is that it was them—the MAGA crew—of that I had little doubt. Three of them were crowded into the cab while three others rode in the payload—all of them wearing crudely-stitched burlap hoods—and each brandishing some form of weapon, whether that meant a pistol or a rifle or a rusty pitchfork. The truck, meanwhile, was right out of central casting—I’d seen others like it in the red states I’d already passed through. You’ve seen them too: those jacked-up tanks with the huge tires and pig-ear smokestacks (their way of saying “fuck you” to the environmentalists), and the twin flags crackling in their payloads—usually an American and a “Don’t Tread on Me,” but sometimes a bona fide Confederate Southern cross, which is what this one had, along with one I couldn’t clearly see. All I can say for certain is that the men in the back put down their weapons as I watched and appeared to fiddle with something in the payload—I really couldn’t say because I had to look away in order to focus on the road.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Boy and His Dinosaur

    ebook | paperback

    When a recently orphaned boy befriends a juvenile T-rex, complications quickly arise--leading to a fateful, impossible decision ...

     

    He just looked at me, his little fore-claws opening and closing—a kind of prehistoric hand-wringing, I supposed. And it occurred to me—not for the first time—that, at least in the short-term, I might be his only means of survival; that, indeed, if I didn’t feed him he might very well starve.

     

    What did not occur to me, at least until he began sniffing the air between us and slowly moving toward me, is that I myself might be in danger—that, in lieu of more fish or perhaps even a big dragonfly, he might try kid. Might try lying little turd-wad who was going to start 7th grade next year. Might try Denial Boy who was still convinced his parents were marooned on a desert isle and would turn up any day.

     

    Which is when, having begun backing away, I tripped over an above-ground root and fell, sprawling, onto my back, at which instant the animal’s snout darted for my head and I screamed—only to find, seconds later, that it had not attacked me at all … but begun licking me; yes, licking me, sliding its great, pebbly tongue up and down my face, slathering my cold cheeks in gooey spit, breathing into my nostrils—filling the world with dinosaur. Filling it with heat and musk and stench.

     

    And filling it, too, with something else, something I’d been missing since the last time I’d seen my mother; a thing frowned upon in Grandma’s house (where the nape of the rugs always lay left to right and the plastic floor runners always gleamed and the books in their glass-faced cabinets always stood so silent, to be viewed and not read).

     

    Mere touch. Mere contact. Mere things coming into contact with other things. Like what I felt for Jenny or even my favorite T-shirt and wool blanket—the one with the U.S.S. Enterprise on it—like what I felt for my plastic model kits and comic books and beat-up fishing pole (even though I never used it).

     

    Something familiar, something secret. Something, I supposed, like love. Or what a boy could know of it.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Death Grader

    ebook | paperback

    When a black road grader begins stalking the streets of Schenectady, NY, its residents soon find that the road to Hell is paved with blood.

     

    Detective Rowe: Let’s go back now—to when you first saw it move. Is that all right?

     

    Westbrook: Sure. Like I said, I’d just woken up from the dream when I heard it, just rumbling across the field where they’d been working on the road—

     

    Detective Rowe: The I-890–North Schenectady Corridor.

     

    Westbrook: Sure, I guess. So I went to my window—you know, to see what was going on, and saw it sputtering to a stop near the office trailers and other equipment—which were all covered in snow—just shutting down with a rattle, like it had been running for a long time. That’s when I first noticed it, how clean it was—there was no snow on it at all. Like—

     

    Detective Rowe: But it was there when you went to sleep, isn’t that correct?

     

    Westbrook: Yes, of course. Covered in snow. It hadn’t moved since December, when they had that accident—you know, where the worker was killed.

     

    Detective Rowe: Clarke. The foreman. I seem to recall they had several accidents; including when they rammed into that layer of concrete.

     

    Westbrook: (inaudible)

     

    Detective Rowe: What?

     

    Westbrook: The Meyers. James and Mia. That’s where the concrete was at. I used to talk with them sometimes, before the accid—

     

    Detective Rowe: You knew them?

     

    Westbrook: Before the traffic accident. The one with the semi. Last summer.

     

    Detective Rowe: Yes, I seem to recall that too. Something about them accelerating out of control—

     

    Westbrook: I think they did it.

     

    Detective Rowe: I’m sorry?

     

    Westbrook: The bugs.

     

    Detective Rowe: The … bugs.

     

    Westbrook: (inaudible): In the concrete. Where the Meyers buried them. At least, until the road grader came along.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Taste for Terror: 23 Tales of the Monstrous and the Macabre

    ebook | paperback

    May became June, which became July, which became August, and I didn’t see Ghost … although I left him something every day, something which was always gone when I returned, at least at first. By September, however, he’d stopped taking what I left him completely—nor would he appear when called—and I began to worry. That would have been about the time I started getting serious with Jenny—holding hands at the indoor skating rink, kissing for the first time in the balcony at The Muppet Movie—as well as my first growth spurt, all in the legs, which made me feel gangly and insecure but also made me taller than Jen, which I liked, and which she liked, too.

     

    It was also around the time the murders started happening, and what become known as the Comet’s Tail Mangler—at first just in the local paper but soon the national ones as well and finally the NBC Nightly News—started making waves across the country. Nor was that the only national news story to touch me; for my parents’ missing flight was back in the spotlight also—primarily because the business tycoon who had resumed the search (after the Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration abandoned it) had now given up, too.

     

    For Shad and my grandma, it was case closed—again. For me, it was the beginning of a season of denial that would last clear through September and into the school year; a season in which I became more convinced than ever that my parents were still alive. “Denial can be a powerful thing,” my mother had once said (I believe it was in the context of someone’s rumored drug and/or alcohol addiction), but for me, in that fear-addled fall of 1979, it became something more; something akin to an obsession or even a psychosis; something which rendered me deaf, dumb, and blind—to the news of wreckage having been spotted by a private flight out of Honolulu in the wee hours of Christmas morning; to the reports of the victims of the Mangler having been mauled as if by an animal—mauled, and partially eaten. Indeed, I had even begun looking forward to introducing them to Jenny (when they were finally picked up from Gilligan’s Island, which is how I imaged their circumstances), had even selected a date: New Years, 1980—the day the call would come. The day the news would be announced that survivors had been found and that they were in good health; the day we would drive to the airport in Grandma’s black GTO and watch my parents descend the steps like soldiers returning from Vietnam, their faces tanned from the South Pacific, their necks adorned with leis.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The War of the Worlds

    ebook | paperback

    No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Food of the Gods

    ebook | paperback

    You know that intermittent drowsing as one sits, the drooping of the head, the nodding to the rhythm of the wheels then chin upon the breast, and at once the sudden start up again.

    Pitter, litter, patter.

    “What was that?”

    It seemed to the doctor he had heard a thin shrill squeal close at hand. For a moment he was quite awake. He said a word or two of undeserved rebuke to his horse, and looked about him. He tried to persuade himself that he had heard the distant squeal of a fox—or perhaps a young rabbit gripped by a ferret.

    Swish, swish, swish, pitter, patter, swish—...

    What was that?

    He felt he was getting fanciful. He shook his shoulders and told his horse to get on. He listened, and heard nothing.

    Or was it nothing?

    He had the queerest impression that something had just peeped over the hedge at him, a queer big head. With round ears! He peered hard, but he could see nothing.

    “Nonsense,” said he.

    He sat up with an idea that he had dropped into a nightmare, gave his horse the slightest touch of the whip, spoke to it and peered again over the hedge. The glare of his lamp, however, together with the mist, rendered things indistinct, and he could distinguish nothing. It came into his head, he says, that there could be nothing there, because if there was his horse would have shied at it. Yet for all that his senses remained nervously awake.

    Then he heard quite distinctly a soft pattering of feet in pursuit along the road.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Peck

    ebook | paperback

    I entered the building—which, despite its name, was just another steel barn—from the east, taking out my Maglite and turning it on. The chickens were there; sleeping (I presumed), although it was hard to tell with animals who routinely slept with one eye open (as they had often done on my grandfather’s farm, an evolutionary adaptation, he’d explained, that allowed them to rest while also watching for predators). I suppose that’s when I first noticed it, the fact that the chickens seemed bigger (I mean, bigger even than earlier in the day), more robust, and that their combs seemed more colorful—not brighter, per say, but deeper, redder, more fearsome, somehow. Yes, I decided, sweeping the Maglite’s beam across them, stirring them not at all, they were definitely sleeping. I swiveled to inspect the other pen, the one on the other side of the walkway—and promptly froze. For there was a chicken—a great, golden rooster—staring back at me through the mesh. Just staring, his amber yet bloodshot eyes gleaming. And so startling and unexpected was this that I recoiled virtually immediately and gripped the Maglite tighter—ready, on pure instinct, to use it as a bludgeon—before turning and exiting the structure, wondering why I had been so compelled to go there in the first place and why too I had napped and dreamed of chicken shopping in the hours right before work; a dream in which I’d reached for a package of breasts and realized that what was pressing against the clear plastic was not chicken at all but a human face.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Empire of the Ants

    ebook | paperback

    "Dey are a new sort of ant," he said. "We have got to be—what do you call it?—entomologie? Big. Five centimetres! Some bigger! It is ridiculous. We are like the monkeys—-sent to pick insects... But dey are eating up the country." He burst out indignantly. "Suppose—suddenly, there are complications with Europe. Here am I—soon we shall be above the Rio Negro—and my gun, useless!"

    He nursed his knee and mused.

    "Dose people who were dere at de dancing place, dey 'ave come down. Dey 'ave lost all they got. De ants come to deir house one afternoon. Everyone run out. You know when de ants come one must—everyone runs out and they go over the house. If you stayed they'd eat you. See? Well, presently dey go back; dey say, 'The ants 'ave gone.' ... De ants 'aven't gone. Dey try to go in—de son, 'e goes in. De ants fight."

    "Swarm over him?"

    "Bite 'im. Presently he comes out again—screaming and running. He runs past them to the river. See? He gets into de water and drowns de ants— yes." Gerilleau paused, brought his liquid eyes close to Holroyd's face, tapped Holroyd's knee with his knuckle. "That night he dies, just as if he was stung by a snake."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Island of Doctor Moreau

    ebook | paperback

    “The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe—I have thought since—I could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us. But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion, blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot of the house in the stone wall.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Mysterious Island

    ebook | paperback

    “This done, they entered the grotto, of which the floor was strewn with bones, the guns were carefully loaded, in case of a sudden attack, they had supper, and then just before they lay down to rest, the heap of wood piled at the entrance was set fire to. Immediately, a regular explosion, or rather a series of reports, broke the silence! The noise was caused by the bamboos, which, as the flames reached them, exploded like fireworks. The noise was enough to terrify even the boldest of wild beasts.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    At the Earth's Core

    ebook | paperback

    “But when I saw these sleek, shiny carcasses shimmering in the sunlight as they emerged from the ocean, shaking their giant heads; when I saw the waters roll from their sinuous bodies in miniature waterfalls as they glided hither and thither, now upon the surface, now half submerged; as I saw them meet, open-mouthed, hissing and snorting, in their titanic and interminable warring I realized how futile is man’s poor, week imagination by comparison with Nature’s incredible genius.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Vorpal

    ebook | paperback

    ... What on earth did you plan to do?

    Dunn: Well, the only thing we could do, which was to right the boat and continue on—while doing our best to bail, of course. And that’s when I first noticed it: way up there beyond the ridge; something moving, swinging, like the tip of a giant sword—only black against the sun—something which, after we’d scaled a nearby rockfall, turned out to be the blades of an industrial wind turbine—just one out of what seemed an endless array, spread out across the scrublands for as far as the eye could see, casting long shadows, like Cyclopean sentinels.

    Detective Shaw: Cyclop—cyclopean—what is that? Is that Latin?

    Dunn: Huge, Detective. Massive.

    Detective Shaw: Right. And then, what? You returned to your boat?

    Dunn: You know we didn’t return to the boat.

    Detective Shaw: Yes, I understand that, just as I understood they found a spiraled hole exactly one inch in diameter in the bottom of your canoe. But it’s better for the record if I pretend I know nothing, okay?

    Dunn: Okay. No, then we began walking, because we’d figured out where we were at—the Pyreridge Wind Farm just north of Edgerton, as you said. And we knew, also, that they gave tours there and even had a visitor’s center; a center which might still be staffed even though it was extremely late in the day, and which would have a telephone.

    Detective Shaw: A wise move.

    Dunn: Yes, it was as good as any. Or so it seemed—until we came to the wind turbine with the white service truck parked at its base; and saw … where we saw …

    Detective Shaw: Yes?

    Dunn: You’ve seen the pictures, Detective.

    Detective Shaw: But I need to pretend I have not. And I need to hear what you, personally, saw with your very own eyes. For the record, Dr. Dunn. Please.

    Dunn: Where we saw a man, a service technician, by his clothes, hung by his neck from his own safety line … from the back of the wind turbine’s nacelle. Just … just sort of swaying there, in the wind. A man who was missing one shoe. And who …

    Detective Shaw: Go on …

    Dunn: And who had no discernible face. Okay? (inaudible) He had no face. Isn’t that good enough?

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    4 (More) Wicked Winds

    ebook | paperback

    One wind is for Ghost, a juvenile tyrannosaur who befriends a boy ... until he develops a taste for human flesh. Another wind is for 'Black Betty,' a road grader possessed by demonic aliens. Still another is for Patrobus, Captain of the Witch Doctors in a war between men and women. Yet one more is for the haunted wind turbines which stand like sentinels outside a town near you ...

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Shadows in the Garden (and Other Stories)

    ebook | paperback

    The original story upon which the film Shadows in the Garden is based ... and 7 other tales.

     

    A vignette of dream shimmers briefly in my mind. I remember I was crouched in a dark yard, this yard—staring at that same clothesline. I was cold, so cold, and frightened, and I didn't know why. It was far too dark to see anything clearly. I could tell only that there was something hung from the line. Approaching it, I saw how it swung back and forth in the night-wind heavily. It wasn't until I was close enough almost to touch it that I realized what it was.

     

    It was the pale woman's head …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Wendigo

    ebook | paperback

    “For nothing could explain away the livid terror that had dropped over his face while he stood there sniffing the air. And nothing — no amount of blazing fire, or chatting on ordinary subjects — could make that camp exactly as it had been before. The shadow of an unknown horror, naked if unguessed, that had flashed for an instant in the face and gestures of the guide, had also communicated itself, vaguely and therefore more potently, to his companion.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Shadows in the Garden (film)

    stream | DVD

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dagon

    ebook | paperback

    “I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Carmilla

    Coming Soon

    “...and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to mind with ambiguous alterations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Weird Zone (1985)

    stream

    From the author of the Flashback Trilogy and the creator of the cult TV show Dead of Night ... comes a mind-bending journey into the heart of the unknown. Shot on Betamax. In the 1980s. In his bedroom.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Body Politic: Stories of Politics and Fear

    ebook | paperback

    “What I’m telling you is, this is temporary. Okay? Believe me. I may not be a scientist but I can tell you that. It’s temporary. In the meantime we got the best armed forces and police responders in the world keeping us safe. These guys, right here,” He indicated the soldiers. “Aren’t they great? Great guys.”

    “But, sir?” Elliott appeared starstruck as he stepped forward. “I mean, Mr. President. Isn’t it true that CNN was reporting that most of our military had simply disappeared? How do you account for that?”

    “Fake news,” said Tucker, and pointed at Carson, who had taken off his MAGA hat and raised his hand. “You. Your hat was fine, by the way.”

    Laughter.

    “Sir, I just wanted to know what you intend to do next; and what your thoughts are on the situation right here. Right now. We’ve got dead needing to be buried, for one—or at least moved to where those things can’t, well, you know, scavenge off—”

    “Like the head laying against the limo’s front tire,” said Rory.

    They all glanced out the windows—and at the little girl standing in front of them, who was looking out at the thing. She must have saw their reflections because she turned to face them as they watched.

    “It keeps staring at me,” she said—prompting Tess to hurry toward her, cajoling her, before quickly ushering her away.

    Everyone just looked at each other. “I’ll, ah—I’ll sit down and take your answer,” said Carson.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The End: Stories

    Coming Soon

    Coup dreamed: of angry, orange sunlight and piano music and road markings which disappeared beneath the Mustang’s dirty hood; of driving alone along State Route 87—which vanished in the distance like a Möbius Strip undone and laid flat—and the sun sinking below a dark horizon. Nor did the dream remain static but promptly moved on, as Henry Becker had moved on, as the world had moved on, for a hitchhiker had appeared at the side of the road: one who was not Tess, as had been the case in real life, but rather a kind of zombie; an animate corpse; a thing who’s head had borne a horrific wound and who’s intestines were being held in by its free hand (for its other was busy thumbing a ride).

     

    A thing which gave up its enigma as Coup pulled alongside and opened the passenger door; for it was none other than Henry Becker himself—alone, mortally wounded, but appearing oddly chipper, oddly spry, as he opened the hatch and climbed in—swinging it shut behind him, holding in his guts.

     

    “Hey,” he said, as his entrails shifted and squelched, threatening to squeeze out between his fingers, threatening to fill the car with 28-feet of membrane.

     

    “Hey,” said Coup. He reached into the cooler in back, twisting in his seat, and handed him a can of soda. “Since I’m obviously dreaming … you must be dehydrated. Diet Pepsi?”

     

    “No, thanks.” He reached up and pulled down the sun visor, examining himself in the mirror. “It didn’t exactly swallow me whole, did it? Jesus. Look at these teeth marks.”

     

    “Look, Henry,”

     

    “No. I do the talking. I’ve got things to tell you.” He paused, fingering the hole in his head, which was about three inches in diameter. “This one, right here,” He swished his finger around the cavity. “That hurt.”

     

    “Dammit, Henry …”

     

    “I told you …” He came up with a piece of brain tissue and paused to examine it, then rolled it—like a booger—between his thumb and forefinger. “One of its canines—it got my eye.” He discarded it out the window. “I guess they’re all canines in the mouth of a T. Rex, eh?” Blood gurgled from the corners of his mouth. “Amirite?”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lurking Fear

    ebook | paperback

    “Shreiking, slithering, torrential shadows of red viscous madness chasing one another through endless, ensanguinated condors of purple fulgurous sky... formless phantasms and kalaidoscopic mutations of a ghoulish, remembered scene; forests of monstrous over-nourished oaks with serpent roots twisting and sucking unnamable juices from an earth verminous with millions of cannibal devils; mound-like tentacles groping from underground nuclei of polypous perversion... insane lightning over malignant ivied walls and demon arcades choked with fungous vegetation...”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Frankenstein

    ebook | paperback

    “Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Robert E. Howard's Red Nails

    ebook | paperback

    -- Collector's Edition cover with one-of-a-kind art by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

    -- Interior illustrations

     

    The last and greatest adventure of Conan the Barbarian ...

     

    "Suppose with their aid we destroy Xotalanc," he said. "What then, Xatmec?"

     

    "Why," returned Xatmex, "we will drive red nails for them all. The captives we will burn and flay and quarter."

     

    "But afterward?" pursued the other. "After we have slain them all? Will it not seem strange, to have no foes to fight? All my life I have fought and hated the Xotalancas. With the feud ended, what is left?"

     

    Xatmec shrugged his shoulders. His thoughts had never gone beyond the destruction of their foes. They could not go beyond that.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Conan: Queen of the Black Coast

    ebook | paperback

    -- Collector's Edition cover with one-of-a-kind art by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

    -- Interior illustrations

     

    "There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of Cimmeria"—she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish embrace—"my love is stronger than any death! I have lain in your arms, panting with the violence of our love; you have held and crushed and conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with the fierceness of your bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart, my soul is part of your soul! Were I still in death and you fighting for life, I would come back to the abyss to aid you—aye, whether my spirit floated with the purple sails on the crystal sea of paradise, or writhed in the molten flames of hell! I am yours, and all the gods and all their eternities shall not sever us!"

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Conan: Hour of the Dragon

    ebook | paperback

    -- Collector's Edition cover with one-of-a-kind art by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

    -- Interior illustrations

     

    "It is an ill thing to meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode One: "Urban Decay"

    ebook | paperback

    “Drop ‘em, now!” came a voice, even as we spun in its direction and raised our weapons—and quickly realized there was nothing to shoot at. Nothing visible, at any rate. What there was, however, were tiny red dots—on our foreheads, over our hearts.

     

    “You see them. Good,” said the voice, just as cool as iced tea—the perfect accompaniment to the clatter of shifting firearms. “And now you’re going to bend down … slowly … and lay all your weapons at your feet. All right? Nooo one has to get hurt. Just do as I say … and then we can have a nice conversation. About who you are, for example. And where you’re from. And what you’re doing being dropped off by a helicopter in the middle of disputed territory. Our territory. Okay?”

     

    “Okay,” I said, and nodded at the others—and at Lazaro twice; we’d been in this situation before and he always wanted to play chicken.

     

    Slowly everyone did it—the red dots never wavering, the rain starting to rattle against the gate.

     

    “Is that a weed wacker?” said the voice, and was followed by laughter. “Damn.”

     

    I heard the tapping of what turned out to be an axe head against concrete before I realized he’d stepped into a shaft of gray light. “Don’t let their laughter get to you—people used to laugh at us too.”

     

    We watched, paralyzed, as the bearded silhouette seemed to yawn and stretch. “What can I say? All this rain—it makes me sleepy. I’ll tell you, I could really go for a Flat White about now. Two ristretto espresso shots, some whole milk steamed to perfection, a little ephemeral latte art right in the center. Sounds good, doesn’t it?” He cocked his head in the near perfect silence. “No? What you want then, a bronson? At this hour? A good, earthy black IPA, perhaps? I could go for that. Something with a nice malty backbone—good for the old ticker.” He laughed, seeming to think about it. “I know. Too conventional, right?” He shook his head. “Momma always said: she said, ‘Atticus, all your taste is in your mouth.’”

     

    There was a thin chuckle and a few clanks of the axe. “Kind of mean, don’t you think? Anyway. That’s what she said.”

     

    He began walking toward us—slowly, deliberately—dragging the handle, dragging its blade along the pavement.

     

    “Look,” I said. “We didn’t come here looking for any …”

     

    “Any what?” He stopped about four feet in front of me, close enough at last for us to have a good look at him, and what we saw seemed utterly incongruous with what Roman had told us—except, of course, for the multitude of tattoos (mostly triangles), and even more so the washboarded scar, which ran from somewhere on his scalp and through an eye (over which one lens of his dark, plastic-framed glasses had been painted black) clear to his left shoulder. That much, at least, fit. What didn’t fit was the slicked-back pompadour and long, full, meticulously-trimmed beard—Jesus, there was even product in it—nor, for that matter, the flannel lumberjack shirt and skinny jeans, not to mention the Converse sneakers. What didn’t fit, as the similarly attired men holding laser-guided rifles emerged from behind overgrown automobiles and support columns, was that the feared and formidable Skidders were, when exposed to the light of day (and not to put too fine a point on it), hipsters.

     

    “Well doesn’t this just take the cake,” said Lazaro, and spit.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Two: "Howl"

    ebook | paperback

    I looked to see Nigel and Ewan entering the shop from the left, the latter seeming like an utterly new man—his hair no longer mussed; his clothes no longer a catastrophic mess.

    “Apologies, apologies, a thousand apologies,” he said, before pausing to admire Gargantua. “But a maiden voyage such as this requires a fresh change of clothes.” He looked on a moment longer and then dropped to one knee—began ruffling through his over-packed bags. “Ah, yes, here it is. It’s—I opened it with Nigel.” He withdrew a corked bottle—which glinted darkly in the light from a high window. “Voila! One of eight bottles of Dom Perignon Rose champagne, Vintage 1959, served in Persepolis in 1971 by the then-Shaw of Iran.”

    He looked at us with a face flushed with excitement, and we looked back.

    “To—to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire ... by Cyrus the Great.” Disappointment stole over his face like a shadow. “It’s—it’s to break over the bow, as it were. To christen Gargantua.” Nobody said anything. “Yeah—well. Waste of liquor, anyway. Especially when I’ve got so much celebrating to do. I’ll, ah—I’ll just get the door. Over there.”

    He moved up the ramp toward the garage door.

    That’s when I thought of Lazaro’s admonition, I don’t know why: You heard Roman—carnotauruses, heading this way.

    “Wait, Ewan,” I said.

    But he was already there, triggering the great door with his fist, turning to look at us as it rattled upward, pulling the cork from the champagne. “Life is for the living,” he said, and toasted us with the bottle. “And this stuff …” He poured champagne into his mouth and down the sides, soaking his clean, white shirt, splattering the floor with foam. “This is for howl—”

    But then the door was open and they were there, the carnotauruses, and one closed its jaws about his scalp while another laid wide his abdomen (and another took up his legs) so that, howling, he was opened like a pizza being groped by eager hands. And then they themselves howled and piled over his body, and all we could do was to run—everyone save Nigel, who had his trimmer, which he started with a sputter—because our weapons were already in the rover.
     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Three: "Ride"

    ebook | paperback

    Atticus, meanwhile, had been counting down. “Three … two … one.” He sighed and lowered the megaphone—then lifted it to his mouth again. “The problem with you, Jaime, is that you just—don’t—listen. Now I just explained to you what was going to happen if I reached ‘one’ and you hadn’t come out, and goddamned if you didn’t come out. So. What’s going to happen now is that we’re going to kill one of these people for every 30 seconds you remain inside the vehicle—starting immediately.” He directed the bullhorn at the upper floors of one of the buildings. “Hershel? You awake up there?”

    “Get ready,” I said.

    “I’m awake,” came a voice, though it was impossible to tell exactly where from.

    “Fine,” said Atticus. “Hershel, in 30 seconds, I want you to place your site on the head of … that little girl, right there.” He gestured at a storefront on our right side—Simply Seattle. “Green coat, last one on the end, right next to the display window. Copy that there, Chief?”

    The man didn’t hesitate. “Twenty-nine! 28! 27 …”

    I toggled the loudspeaker myself. “We’re coming out,” I said, suddenly, and glanced at Sam. “We’re trying to figure out how.”

    There was a silence as Atticus seemed to think about this.

    At last he said, “Well, how complicated could it be? Just open the door. Hershel, keep counting ...”

    “Twenty-three, 22, 21 …”

    “It’s not that simple,” I hurried to say, “It’s, like, pressurized or something.” To the others I said, “On my mark, okay? Get ready.”

    “We’re at 18 seconds and counting, James,” said Atticus. “Best clean your glasses and get with it.”

    “Seventeen, 16, 15 …”

    “Okay! Okay. We’re depressurizing. Right … now.”

    And then Sam was toggling the smoke as I gripped the joystick tightly and Nigel took over the loudspeaker and Lazaro opened the side door, after which we cursed loudly and bent to our tasks, and, together, threw wide the gates of Hell.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Four: "Burn"

    ebook | paperback

    “I’m not a killer, if that’s what you mean,” he retorted, then turned away and watched the fire, hands on his hips. “Nor will I let any of us be. I mean, if I’ve said it once I’ll say it again: this isn’t about bloodshed. It’s not even about rebellion. It’s more about …” He paused—as though saying anything else could only lead to regret.

    “I thought it was about nothing,” said Fiona, softly. “That that was its beauty—it was wildness for the sake of wildness. Passion for the sake of passion. Isn’t that what you said?” She laughed with surprising bitterness. “Different context, I guess.”

    “It was about filling the nothing,” he said, still facing away. “And letting go. Until … But then—you haven’t had to think about any of that … have you? No one’s made you king.”

    “And cue the Messiah Complex,” fumed Fiona, which I took as my cue to leave; to give them space—to let them hash it out, whatever it was—after which I wandered over to one of the kegs and filled a cup, reckoning that next to a roaring fire wasn’t the best place to keep beer—because it tasted like piss, literally. Nor did I stop at one but downed three in rapid succession, wondering what Calvin had meant by ‘filling the nothing’ and ‘letting go,’ and about being king—not to mention starting a sentence with ‘until’ … but never finishing it.

    And I guess I must have stood there for a while, because I distinctly recall watching the same group of teens—their arms laden with destruction—moving back and forth between the fire and the White House—the fucking White House!—to the point that I began feeling shitty about what we’d done; and even a little sick to my stomach. But then Fiona returned jingling Calvin’s keys and we were firing up his Mustang convertible, and the next thing I remember she was piloting us down 14th Street NW past buildings with Doric columns (now choked in prehistoric ivy) and a pair of grazing stegosaurs and at least one giant millipede; all the way to Constitution Avenue and the National Museum; which I took special note of only because I was trying not to look at her body—something she noticed, I’m sure, but didn’t seem to mind—because she just glanced at me beneath the blood red sky and smiled—toothily. Carnivorously.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Five: "Elegy"

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    By the time I’d established a camp in the covered breezeway of the Luxor obelisk—“Cleopatra’s Needle” it was called, at least according to a bronze placard on its wall—and bound her hands and feet, the sun had set and a slight rain had started to fall; something I fully welcomed after so much time in the desert. As to whether the girl welcomed it also, who could say. For even though I set her near the opening (as well as the fire) and provided her my own bedroll to sit on, she only continued to glare—probably due to us eating in front of her; for I had decided, though you might think it cruel, that I would starve her into speaking, if necessary. Which, of course, she finally did—speak, that is—although only after a considerable time, saying, hoarsely, yet clearly, assertively, “Is this some kind of torture? I mean, don’t you have to feed prisoners before killing them? Isn’t that what the Geneva Convention says?”

     

    I looked at her through the flames, saying nothing, even as Kesabe snarled.

     

    At length I carved a piece of meat from the spit and dropped it on a paper plate, which I carried around to her—but didn’t hand over. Instead, I knelt and sliced off a single bite-sized morsel—then held it close to her nose.

     

    “Trade,” I said, matter-of-factly. “One bite per something about you. It can be your name. Where you’re from. How you’ve survived ... Just talk.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dinosaur Carnage

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    “It—it’s not what I expected,” said Essie over my shoulder, as Blucifer whinnied and Kesabe pissed on the nearest tree; as the overgrown rancher sat—its nearly flat roof baking in the sun … its slat fence partially collapsed.

     

    “It’s not a teepee; if that’s what you mean,” I said, and dismounted.

     

    “I didn’t expect a teepee,” said Essie, as I helped her down. “It’s just that--it’s so white. Like Wally and the Beav are gonna come running out any minute.”

     

    “My father didn’t believe in reservations,” I said, leading Blucifer to a bush, abandoning the reins. “He thought they were museums full of defeated people; just so many relics, withering in the sun. He wouldn’t even take us there to visit our grandparents; they had to come to us.”

     

    “That must have sucked.”

     

    “No, actually—it really didn’t,” I gripped the doorknob and paused, wondering if I was really up to it; if I was fully prepared for what I might find. “It taught us—my brother and I—to see ourselves as individuals, not a collective—and a defeated one at that. Maybe that’s why neither of us wound up pickled in Thunderbird.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Six: "The Low Rumble of Distant Thunder"

    ebook | paperback

    “And here they go! They’re on their way down the stretch. The break was good; every animal got a clean shot out of the gate. And as they come down here to the eighth pole, it is Mesozoic Nights and Caligula …”

    I peered at the announcer’s booth, wondering once again what they were using for power, and so much of it—the stadium lights alone would have overwhelmed most generators. But then Maria nudged me and I focused on the action—seeing, to my horror, that Bromtide had already fallen behind; Bromtide, whom we had unanimously voted to support.

    “Caligula is trying to force his way to the front and doing a good job of it as they pass the stands. Here on the outside comes Lovely Bones, in a good position. And as they go by me it is Caligula on the lead by one length. Caligula has the lead and then comes Mesozoic Nights in second place right along beside him. Going into the first turn is Caligula by a length. Mesozoic Nights is second and on the outside of him is Lovely Bones. Far back in the crowd, on the inside, in about fourth place, is Bromtide. They’re going into the stretch; they’ve gone about half a mile …”

    “Jesus,” I said, even as something like thunder rumbled and a flash of light illuminated the stadium. “What’s wrong with him, you think?”

    “Might be the T. rex piss,” said Luther, leaning in, and chuckled. “Had to spray him down with it—otherwise the allos would be all over him. Guess we forgot to tell you that.”

    I glared at him before shifting my gaze to Maria and Caleb and finally to De Santo, at the very end, who looked like a kid on Christmas. “Oh, Caligula!” he cried, and clasped his hands above his head. “Beautiful! Beautiful!”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dark Horses: Nine Writers of the Fantastical You've Probably Never Read ... but Should

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    dark horse

    /ˈdärk ˈˌhôrs/

    noun

    1. a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds.

    "a dark-horse candidate"

     

    Join editor Robert Weller for a curated tour of nine writers who always give as good as they get. From hard science-fiction (James C. Glass’ Singularity for Hire) to dark and brutal prehistoric apocalypses (Wayne Kyle Spitzer’s A Survivor’s Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse), from Lovecraftian horror (Bill Link’s Torchlight Parade) to zombies and horror comedy (Andy Kumpon’s Seeds of the Dead); from farcical romps near foggy moors (Ron Ford’s Dr. Jekyll in Love) to lyric and whimsical interludes (M. Kari Barr’s A Father’s Legacy). Indeed, even from absurd capers (Kevin M. Penelerick’s Brother Bob) to tales of unlikely compassion (Erik Schubach’s Scythe), you’ll be sure to find it here. So grab a seat before the starting gun fires, poor yourself a glass of strange wine, and get ready for the running of the dark horses …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Seven: "'Dog' is a Palindrome"

    ebook | paperback

    Welcome to the Big Empty, the world after the Flashback ... a world in which most the population has vanished and where dinosaurs roam freely. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same--for this is a world whose very purpose is to change you: for better or for worse. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood ... and beauty. Do it today ... before the apocalypse comes.

     

    * * *

     

    “You’re a fool, Nick Callahan. A fool. But I suppose you already knew that.”

     

    I allowed my hand to drop before plunking down in the fir needles and just staring into space. “There was nothing. I saw nothing. It—it was like he didn’t even exist.”

     

    She sat down next to me and exhaled, tiredly.

     

    “He’s an animal—what did you expect?” She picked up my glove and offered it to me, but I didn’t take it. “You said it yourself; it’s like they see memories. The eyes. I don’t imagine a dog has a particularly long one. Do you?”

     

     

    I sighed. All I knew for certain was that I felt numb and more than a little tired. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I expected. Or what I was looking for. An incident, maybe. Some kind of clue.”

     

    She laid her head on my shoulder and stared at nothing, same as me. “What kind? A clue to what?”

     

    “That’s just it—I don’t know. A clue to what might wake him up, I guess. Something I could say. Something that was important to him.”

     

    “His butt was important to him,” she said. “A source of endless fascination.”

     

    I had to smile.

     

    That’s when it happened. That’s when he yelped, ever so slightly, and his paw twitched.

     

    I looked at Lisa and she looked back. And then my hand was on him and we were running—Puck and I—down cobblestone lanes lined with streetlamps and through pools of foggy light; through tides of rusted Maple leaves, which leapt and swirled as we passed.

     

    “What is it?” I heard Lisa say, her voice growing smaller, more distant. “What do you see?”

     

    I turned to look at Puck as we ran and saw his tongue loll and his eyes shift—as though he wanted to look behind himself—behind us—but didn’t dare.

     

    “Fear,” I said. “Confusion.” An image entered my mind of a dug passage beneath the rear wall of the T.J. Maxx; of the turkey-like thing crawling through it with Puck hot on its heels. “He escaped from beneath the wall and now he’s lost somewhere in the fog. And he’s terrified … but of what I don’t know. It’s almost like—wait a minute. Wait a minute.” I looked behind him—having heard something huffing and snorting—and saw a fully-grown therapod dinosaur (colored orange and black, like a Gila monster) bounding after us in the dark, gaining rapidly. “There’s something coming—some kind of predator. An allosaur, I think. Whatever it is, it’s closing, and I mean fast.”

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Eight: "'The Elephant Slayer"

    ebook | paperback

    Welcome to the Big Empty, the world after the Flashback ... a world in which most the population has vanished and where dinosaurs roam freely. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same--for this is a world whose very purpose is to change you: for better or for worse. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood ... and beauty. Do it today ... before the apocalypse comes.

     

    * * *

     

    I looked at the nearest mount, a triceratops head with a broken horn (and a frightful visage), wondering what the circumstances of its death had been. Had it been charging—with the Flashback in its eyes, perhaps—and thus aware that it had an opponent? Or had it been unaware, just mulling its soft grasses, until the bullet entered its brain?

     

    “No,” I said, finally, turning my attention back to him. “Can’t exactly say as I am. It—it’s never seemed like a fair contest to me.” I jerked my leg against the chain—twice—to make a point. “Does it to you?”

     

    Pshaw,” he protested. “You speak as if we’re enemies. As though this were some contest between you and I, personally. On the contrary, Mr. Hayes. It’s a collaboration.”

     

    I’m afraid I just stared at him.

     

    At last I said: “Okay—why not. I’ll bite. What are you talking about?”

     

    “I am talking, Mr. Hayes …” He stood and began pacing the length of the table. “--about legend. About myth and memory—and the securing of one’s place in the natural order of things.” He withdrew something from his housecoat as he walked--a pipe; but didn’t light it. “Posterity is what I’m talking about. A place at the table of the gods. That, and endings. Inevitabilities.”

     

    He paused and struck a match. “One last and penultimate hunt.”

     

    He lit the pipe and waved out the match, then turned, slowly, regarding me through a cloud of smoke. “Atatilla, is what I’m talking about. Queen of the Mammoths. The, ah, Leviathan of the Steppes, as they say. I intend to kill her. And you, my lost and wayward friend, are going to help me. By acting as my driver.”

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Skry: A Crystal Ball Full of Tales

    ebook | paperback

    Dunn: There—there was a large glass case in the center of the foyer … it … it contained a miniature of the wind farm, as you know. And it—someone had written something on top of it. Some kind of a message. In blood.

    Detective Shaw: I see. Thank you. Now tell me: what did this message say?

    Dunn: It … I don’t remember exactly. It was mostly gibberish. Something about ‘the Wind’ and ‘the Way,’ and going in to ‘Them.’ Something about how ‘They’ had attached themselves to the turbines—whatever ‘They’ were. And finally just a long scrawl, followed by a warning, all in caps, GET OUT OF HERE AS FAST AS YOU CAN.

    Detective Shaw: I see. And I guess it needs to be asked: Did you? Or did you continue to field the 911 operator’s questions?

    Dunn: No. I dropped the phone as fast as I could and ran out the side door, the one Bobby had went out. And the first thing I saw was Bobby’s pale-blue windbreaker, just thrown aside in the dirt, and further out, his T-shirt, white against the sage.

    Detective Shaw: It’s like he was burning up. Was it hot out? What was the temperature, you think?

    Dunn: It was cold! No, like I said, it was if the clothes were suffocating him, cutting off his circulation. All I know it that when I reached the T-shirt I saw his belt further out, and beyond that, his shoes, just lying amidst the cheat-grass. That’s when I knew something truly terrible had happened, was happening, and that if I didn’t find him quickly he might genuinely hurt himself; though I’d scarcely had the thought when I noticed someone crumpled face down in the sage—not Bobby, this man was fully dressed—and ran to him.

    Detective Shaw: The other turbine technician.

    Dunn: Oh, are we done with the ignorant act?

    Detective Shaw: It was a slip; I’m starting to think about lunch. Okay, and, seeing this, what did you do?

    Dunn: He wasn’t breathing and so I rolled him over. And …

    Detective Shaw: Yes? And what?

    Dunn: Jesus, gods, you know what!

    Detective Shaw: What did you see when you rolled him over, Dr. Dunn?

    Dunn: I saw that he had no face. That it … that it had just spiraled in, like the hole in the boat. That there was a gaping funnel where his eyes and nose and upper lip should have been—mottled red and black, pink and gray—just twisted cartilage and brain tissue. And then his body spasmed, as though by a reflex, and the funnel seemed to burp, spitting up blood.

    Detective Shaw: Jesus.

    Dunn: After which, dear God, I can’t say, because I was running away as fast as I could; past Bobby’s shoes and toward the wind turbine (the one with the truck parked at its base), as well as past a few dozen new funnels in the ground—which grew in size as I approached from an inch or two across to ones the size of manhole covers. Until I came to the turbine and—and stopped dead in my tracks. Because there was Bobby kneeling prone in the dirt, like a Muslim, I suppose, or a Buddhist, but completely nude—bowing before the turbine, the hatch of which was open, seeming almost to pray.

    Detective Shaw: But … but all right, in spite of his behavior.

    Dunn: No, Mr. Shaw, not ‘all right.’ Because when he sat up again I saw that his back was … It was riddled with those same spiral funnels. There were even some in his arms. But—but that wasn’t all. Because, after he’d stood with some difficulty and turned to face me (he must have sensed my presence; that or saw my shadow), I realized something else. And that was that his eyes had gone completely white—rather they had rolled back in his skull enough so that only the whites were visible—at which moment he spoke and said, calmly, “The turbines, don’t look at them. They eat your eyes.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country

    ebook | paperback

     

    Welcome to the Big Empty, the world after the Flashback ... a world in which most the population has vanished and where dinosaurs roam freely. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to change you: for better or for worse.

     

    It is a world where a group of travelers will find themselves trapped in a service station with an unravelling President of the United States as the prehistoric horrors close in …

     

    Where a band of survivors must face roving packs of monsters and men in post-apocalyptic Seattle to retrieve a prize of incalculable worth …

     

    Where rioting teenagers must face deadly predators as well as their own demons while ransacking the nation’s capital …

     

    Where a Native-American warrior will seek to bury his past and offer an elegy for all the world in what remains of Las Vegas …

     

    Where a gambling park which races dinosaurs instead of horses will rise up against a tyrannical despot …

     

    Where a dog separated from his owners will undergo a terrifying journey and a great trophy hunter will meet his ultimate fate.

     

    In short, it is a world where anything can and does happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood ... and beauty. Do it today ... before the apocalypse comes.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Escape From Seattle

    ebook | paperback

    Carnosaurs … gangs of killer hipsters … post-apocalypse Seattle is to die for.

     

    Welcome to the Big Empty, the world after the Flashback ... a world in which most the population has vanished and where dinosaurs roam freely. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to change you: for better or for worse.

     

    It is a world where a band of survivors will brave roving packs of monsters and men in post-apocalyptic Seattle to retrieve a prize of incalculable worth, and where a group of travelers will find themselves trapped in a service station with an unravelling President of the United States as prehistoric horror closes in …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Episode Nine: "Return"

    ebook | paperback

    He hesitated before peeling off a wedge and placing it in his mouth, at which he closed his eyes and seemed to melt, hanging back his head, working his jaw in a circular motion, reopening his eyes--pausing suddenly.

     

    “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

     

    He tilted his head, peering into the branches. “Isn’t that strange?”

     

    I followed his gaze into the tree but, alas, saw nothing. Which, of course, was precisely the problem; there was nothing—no oranges, no leaves, no uppermost branches, it was as though someone or something had picked the treetop clean.

     

    “Someone has a helluva reach,” said Maldano.

     

    I looked around the lot: at the lichen-covered Public Market and the Jersey Mike’s Subs with the Prius in its window, at the Vietnamese Nail Salon and the El Buzo Peruvian Restaurant. “We should split up, canvas the area. Make sure—there’s nothing else.”

     

    “Yeah,” said Maldano. “I think you’re right.”

     

    I headed for the Public Market. “Make a sweep of the strip mall. I’m going to check out that grocery store.”

     

    He laughed a little at that—which caused me to pause.

     

    “Orders--Hooper?”

     

    I half-turned, but didn’t make eye contact. “Sorry?”

     

    “I mean, in all this? This Big Empty? This ‘world tenanted by willows … and the souls of willows?’”

     

    There was something in his voice. Something subtle, something contentious.

     

    “Call it what you like,” I said, and continued toward the market.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Ultimate Flashback: The Dinosaur Apocalypse

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

     

    Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you: for better or for worse.

     

    It is a world where frightened commuters will do battle with murderous bikers even as primordial monsters close in, and others will take refuge in an underground theme park only to find their worst enemy is themselves. Where ordinary people—ne’er-do-wells on a cross-country motorcycle trip, a woman on a redeye flight to Hell, a sensitive boy stricken with visions of what’s to come--will find themselves in extraordinary situations, and a gunslinger and his telekinetic ankylosaurus will embark on a dangerous quest. A world where travelers will be trapped with an unravelling President of the United States and a band of survivors will face roving packs of monsters and men in post-apocalyptic Seattle; where rioting teenagers will face deadly predators (as well as their own demons) while ransacking the nation’s capital; where a Native-American warrior will seek to bury his past--and offer an elegy for all the Earth--in what remains of Las Vegas.

     

    In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country, Episode One: "The Big Empty"

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

     

    Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you: for better or for worse.

     

    In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

     

    “Jesus. Just—Jesus,” said Amelia, staring at the decomposing body. “How long do you think it’s been here?”

     

    I examined it where it was sprawled on the back porch, facing the ocean, its skin blackened and clinging to the bones—like it had been vacuum sealed—its wispy hair fluttering. "Hard to say. Few weeks. Maybe a month.” I batted away the flies. “Long enough for the organs to liquify.”

     

    “How—how do you know?”

     

    I studied the holes in its head, a smaller one which was about the size of a dime and a larger, more cavernous one—the exit wound. “Because, otherwise, there’d be brains all over.” I stepped over it and picked up the gun, checked its chamber. “There’s still bullets in it.”

     

    She stared at me tentatively as I closed the chamber and gripped the weapon in both hands—neither of us saying anything. At last I nodded to the back door—the screen of which banged back and forth in the wind—and tried to brace myself. “You ready?”

     

    She shook her head.

     

    “Okay. Let’s go,” I said.

     

    And then she was holding the screen as I inched forward and gripped the knob—turning it slowly, carefully, easing the door open. Stepping into a room which was dark as pitch; which reeked of cat piss and despair.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country, Episode Two: "The Dreaming City"

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the Dinosaur Apocalypse …

     

    How did it all begin? Well, that depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather--which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.

     

    Welcome to the Lost Country.

     

     

    From “The Dreaming City”:

     

    It was at once garish and sublime, hipster and gauche, a burnt-orange relic of a bygone era with a tip of the hat to Frank Lloyd Wright and a debt to Googie architecture--a thing as righteous as it was ridiculous, which sat amongst its desert like an outsider, an intruder, as out of place as the transplanted palms and piped-in water, as artificial as L.A. itself.

     

    “They weren’t kidding when they called it the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars,” I said, as Rusty fidgeted and nickered, and shook flies from his ears. “But what’s with all the high fencing and concertina wire—only to leave the entire front-perimeter open? There’s just a hedgerow. No fence at all.”

     

    Nigel sat up in his saddle and looked on, the sweat beading along his forehead. “Be damned if I know; it wasn’t like that before.” He looked around the area—skittishly, I thought. “Maybe he had it removed when they took out the road. He was like that, you know. All about the visual.” He pointed at the house itself. “Wouldn’t have been a problem, though, even if it were there—there’s a man door in the fence just beyond that breezeway.”

     

    I held out my arm as everyone started to move. “I—hold up. I—ah, I don’t like this.”

     

    I scanned the overgrown yard and the cosmetically-placed boulders (some of which were the size of moving vans); looking for traps, looking for threats. “It doesn’t feel right.”

     

    Lazaro got off his horse and approached the hedgerow—then turned to face us, splaying his arms. “What? You heard Jamaica; dude was all about the visual. Probably figured there was no need—once the road was taken out. For a front fence, I mean.” He let his arms slap to his sides. “Now are we going to go check it out, or what? Or are you all just going to sit there all day?”

     

    And there was a growling noise, a deep-throated snarl, which sounded from behind one of the rocks even as a shadow fell across the knee-high grass—at which a great cat padded out which was easily the size of a pickup, and hissed at us: its huge pallet showing pink and pale, its black lips stretching, its whiskers and curved fangs—which were like tusks—gleaming in the sun.

        

    “Lazaro, don’t!”

     

    But it was too late; he’d already drawn his pistol and squeezed off a few rounds--which went pop, pop, pop in the late afternoon sun and echoed along the hills; which reverberated across the valley like the sound of a car backfiring …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Sex War

    ebook | paperback

    In a future time and place … a Gender War reaches its terrifying zenith.

     

    Welcome to the future, where women have been infected with a virus that turns them into witches and men have formed a militarized cult to exterminate them—the Witch Doctors. You can survive here, if you’re lucky; but only if you swear to one of the dominant practices—Puritanism or witchcraft—and are willing to check your humanity at the door in the process. Because in the future, being a man means donning black and white and carrying a fire-breathing musket—the better to incinerate witches by—while being a woman means to live as the undead or a white-eyed practitioner of the black arts. Either way, humanity is doomed. That is, unless a single man or woman can resist—and in so doing, find the courage to cooperate, even love, again.

     

    Will it be Satyena, the beautiful young witch prone to kindness and compassion? Patrobus, the salty platoon sergeant with a secret past? How about Aluka, the intersex witch-doctor caught between worlds? Dive into these tales of the Sex War to find out—tales told in the dystopian tradition of Fahrenheit 451 and Logan’s Run—stories at once brutal and beatific, halting and surreal. Do it today, before the future they portend becomes reality …

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country, Episode Three: "The Primeval World"

    ebook | paperback

    I stood abruptly and raised the back of my hand—but was restrained by Linda, who had inserted herself between us. “That’s enough! Please—Chris. Enough. She’s not going to tell us.” She backed me away from the girl. “But I have an idea … if you want to hear it.”

     

    I yanked away from her and began pacing, furious at the stranger but really angry with myself—for losing my cool in front of my crush, whom I’d liked since the moment we’d met (at the Coke machine in the Community Room, about a month before the Flashback). And for sending them—Penny and Fred—to the food mart in the first place, ostensibly to save time but really just so I could be with Linda.

     

    “I—I’m sorry. Jesus. It’s just that—”

     

    She came to me and put a finger to my lips. “Shhh. Forget it. All right?” I tried to look away but she forced me to look at her. “All right? Listen. We know which direction they went. So … why don’t we just—take Valerie here—and go looking for them?”

     

    She turned to face the young woman. “She’ll point us in the right direction—won’t you, Little Miss Sunshine?” She glared at her menacingly. “If she ever wants to see home again.”

     

    And she was right, of course; I knew it and the girl knew it.

     

    And so I reconfigured her bonds so she could travel and we doused ourselves in rex urine--including Valerie (for who knew how far we’d have to go or how long we’d be exposed to potential predators), and we headed out; walking up South Union Avenue toward the capitol even as Compies watched from the undergrowth and I thought I saw a face: simian yet strangely human, animal, and yet somehow not—peeking at us briefly from between two fronds. Staring at us, passively, almost meditatively, like a great ape behind glass; or a manatee through green, hazy water.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country, Episode Four: "The Devil's Triangle"

    ebook | paperback

    There were six of them, as I said—all of whom rushed us the instant our feet touched the ground. All of whom snarled and charged us like wolverines as we raised our weapons and fired—the flare gun cracking and hissing, blanching the scarlet haze (for the sun had painted everything red and gold), its projectile punching through one of the raptors’ chests and lighting it up so that its ribs were backlit briefly and I could see, if only for an instant, its burning, beating heart.

     

    Yet still they came, another one leaping at me even as I dropped the gun—which clattered against the planks—as I dropped it and grabbed the thing by its neck—then brought the knife down with my other hand and stabbed it between the eyes.

     

    “Run!” I shouted, even as Amanda shot another—her second—and then bolted toward the shore, drawing the others so that I was able to snatch up the flare gun and quickly reload it; so that I was able to pursue them and to shoot one in the back—while Amanda turned and took out the last of them (shooting it in the head so that the back of its skull exploded like a spaghetti dinner thrown against the wall; so that it collapsed, writhing, about 10 feet in front of her--whereupon she quickly approached it and shot it again, just to be sure).

     

    And then she looked at me (as the dead and dying animals lay all around us) and I looked back: our chests heaving; our faces covered in sweat, our worn clothes bloody and disheveled, and I knew that she knew—which was that today we were the predators, the thing needing to be feared—the killers. And that neither of us needed to worry; not about food or other predators or mysterious lights in the sky or anything. Because we were the masters of our fate, we and no one else, not even God. And we were the master of the world’s fate, too.

     

    At which she ran to me and we collided and I held her fast, there on the long jetty in the Atlantic Ocean (in the Bermuda Triangle), there beneath a day moon and the blood-red sky, in an instant in which it was good, so very good, not to be afraid, not to be alone. And as to what may or may not have happened in those breaths, those pulse points between that moment and the next--the next day, the next search, the next milestone; as to that, I offer only a quote from Gandhi: “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Love in the Age of Reptiles

    ebook | paperback

    And then I did look at her picture; at her round, youthful face (although we were both precisely the same age), and her large, straight teeth. At the big brown eyes I’d often joked would eventually outgrow their sockets (to just dangle from their stalks, I’d said), and her ability to smile for the camera even after a terrifying ride in Miami (with a drunken boat captain) had almost ended our vacation—and our lives. At the girl from Bình Du’o’ng Province, South Vietnam, whom I’d married 7 years prior and experienced the initial Flashback with—as well as the meteor-caused tsunami which had happened immediately after—but who had then vanished without a trace on a trip to get purple yams. And chia seeds.


    I laughed a little at that in the warm, bitter darkness, wondering if she’d ever found them.

     

    “I bet you did,” I said, my faculties beginning to fade, the wine beginning to kick my ass, before reaching out and laying the picture face-down on the table.

     
    And then I slept, and eventually dreamed; of the island as seen from the heavens and of floating through a kind of limbo, a kind of purgatory. Of passing over Alice Town and Bailey Town and on to the open sea, which was infinite. Of being joined by another so close that our wings brushed, and flying—not like Icarus, not like Daedalus—but purposefully, fearlessly, without regret, into the ancient, seething, fire-pit cauldron of the sun.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Once and Future Kings

    ebook | paperback

    And then we waited, watching the trucks with their billowing flags slowly move along the ridge, watching them go.

    Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show / With some smart-ass New York Jew / The Jew laughed at Lester Maddox / And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too …

    I heard gunshots—nothing major, just some idiot in the Tucker train shooting at the sky.

    So I went to the park and I took some paper along / And that’s where I made this song …

    And then it started, the Apache firing two Hellfire missiles which hit a group of pickups at the start of the train and instantly blew them to pieces, glass and shrapnel flying, a body tumbling in the air.

    We talk real funny down here / We drink too much, we laugh too loud / We’re too dumb to make it in no northern town …

    Two more missiles fired, this time at the other end of the train, blowing pickups and blue flags into the air, sending a cab higher than anything else—like the turrets of those Iraqi tanks in the first Gulf War—hurling a Rugged Terrain tire along the ridge, which eventually rolled down the hill.

    We’re keeping the niggers down …

    More missiles, like scaled-up bottle rockets: hitting the column like hammers, making fireballs of King Cabs and beds of people; spitting from the chopper’s hardpoints like fireworks, like flairs, incinerating skin and catching hair on fire, I knew, and didn’t care, obliterating pennants and banners.

    We’re rednecks, we’re rednecks / We don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground …

    Until he’d finally fired everything: Hellfires and Hydras, Stingers and Spikes, all of them hissing and screaming, finding their targets; all of them lighting the ridge up like the Fourth of July, or maybe the volcano at The Mirage, in Las Vegas, each making our world safer and saner and more secure—more righteous, more lost.

    Each bringing smoke and silence and peace—like the lights in the sky themselves—to the war-torn hills of Earth.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country, Episode Five: "Mesozoic Knights"

    ebook | paperback

    I unsheathed Blood Zephyr and gave her a heft—relishing the touch and feel of her (even if it was steel on steel); appreciating her weight and balance. “No, Black Duncan. It is not possible. The Quest must not be surrendered—not for you or for anyone. You know that.”

     

    “And again, I ask: Why? Why, when everything a man could possibly want exists right here, now, and in such great plentitude? Bah. This shard and purity nonsense … it’s just that—nonsense. Why pursue it?”

     

    I watched as Mortigen drew his own blade and paused to admire it, as I had done. “What would you prefer?” I snapped. “To live as prisoners? To wither away in this very cell but for the chance at some sexual gratification?”

     

    Black Duncan guffawed. “They’re not going to keep us here. Eve told me herself. It’s only until they get to know us. Regardless, I think I should tell you, that, that …” He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders, as though having made up his mind at last. “That I’m staying. That, indeed, I did lay with my progen—my progen—”

     

    “Your progenitrix,” I said, curtly.

     

    “His hooker, he means,” quipped Mortigen.

     

    Black Duncan shot him a glance--one I wouldn’t want directed at me. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. No; she was skilled in the art of love, it’s true—but she was no prostitute. None of them are. What happened between us was genuine. It was real.” He looked at me almost pleadingly. “Don’t you see, Galaren, it was real. It wasn’t like Ambergard—or Craxis—or the way we talk—or any of this other faux bullshit we’ve immersed ourselves in. No. This was nature, this was truth—real nature, not some phantasmagoria dreamed up by—by Them,” He nodded toward the ceiling and the sky. “Like the bees we saw coming in. They are trying to build something here, Galaren; something based on reality, not fantasy. Something authentic. And I’m not simply going to walk away from that. I mean, surely you can understand—”

     

    “What I understand is that we’re getting out of here,” I said. “And that the test of virtue will be met. And what I suggest just now is that you—”

     

    “Your test of virtue, Galaren. Your test. I’m not leaving. I’ll help you escape, but I’m not going to—”

     

    “Shh,” said Mortigen. “Someone’s coming.”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Primordial Garden: Stories and Novellas of the Dinosaur Apocalypse

    ebook | paperback

    Includes every Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse tale ever written, from 1993 to the present, including some that have been collected nowhere else.

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.

    Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you: for better or for worse.

    It is a world where frightened commuters will do battle with murderous bikers even as primordial monsters close in, and others will take refuge in an underground theme park only to find their worst enemy is themselves. Where ordinary people—ne’er-do-wells on a cross-country motorcycle trip, a woman on a redeye flight to Hell, a sensitive boy stricken with visions of what’s to come--will find themselves in extraordinary situations, and a gunslinger and his telekinetic ankylosaurus will embark on a dangerous quest. A world where travelers will be trapped with an unravelling President of the United States and a band of survivors will face roving packs of monsters and men in post-apocalyptic Seattle; where rioting teenagers will face deadly predators (as well as their own demons) while ransacking the nation’s capital; where a Native-American warrior will seek to bury his past--and offer an elegy for all the Earth--in what remains of Las Vegas.

    In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Thunder Road (Kindle Vella series for young adults set in the Flashback universe)

    Kindle Vella Series

    In a world beyond imagination, they would stand by each other no matter what ... After a devastating time-storm called the Flashback eliminates most the population and recolonizes the world with prehistoric flora and fauna, three boys bearing a powerful talisman set out on an impossible quest. An all-new post-apocalyptic adventure for mature young adults set in the same world as Flashback, A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Ank and Williams, A Reign of Thunder and The Lost Country.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dead of Night (Wayne's TV series from the '90s!)

    Coming Soon from Black Vvideo

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Travels With Gargantua: A Post-apocalyptic Road Trip

    ebook | paperback

    How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.

     

    These are the stories of a group of experienced survivors and their incredible machine, Gargantua: How they came to possess it, and what they did with it after. This is the recounting of a heist in Seattle in which they barely escaped with their lives ... and a journey to Lost Angeles to find their forever home--which just happened to be occupied when they got there. These are their Travels With Gargantua ...

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Look for Wayne in the July issue of Metastellar, which will feature "The Devil's Triangle"

    July 9

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Thunder Road: Every Journey Has A Beginning ...

    ebook | paperback

    In a world beyond imagination, they would stand by each other no matter what ... After a devastating time-storm called the Flashback eliminates most the population and recolonizes the world with prehistoric flora and fauna, three boys bearing a powerful talisman set out on an impossible quest. An all-new post-apocalyptic adventure for mature young adults set in the same world as Flashback, A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse, Ank and Williams, A Reign of Thunder and The Lost Country.

    From Thunder Road:

    “Jesse! Quint! Long-fuses!” I rolled the 50-pound bag off the Talon. “And remember: Straight for the bikes!” (I was referring, of course, to the special fuses we’d made; which—it was hoped—would provide cover after we left.)

    “That’s a negative, hombre,” shouted Quint. “I’m fresh out of lighter fluid over here.” He quickly added: “Jesse! Get over here!”

    “No!” I barked. “Belay that order! Keep up your barrage ...”

    And I was on my way, bounding for Quint and holding up my lighter, shaking it, impatiently, as he turned and just stared at it—disoriented, shell-shocked. (Some of my rockets had—after ricocheting about wildly—blown up right next to him.)

    “Take it!” I snapped—even as a ghost-white snout lunged at him through the window, lunged at him and crashed to a halt—snarling, gnashing its teeth; at which Quint spun upon it and clocked it in the nose, hard, and just kept clocking—until it yelped and beat a retreat.

    “Okay,” I said, “go, go, go!” And he took the lighter.

    And then I could only return to the Talon and snatch it up off the floor, noting its fading color, its waning strength, before swinging it around my head and barking, “There’s never going to be a better time. How much more?”

    “Just about,” said Jesse, and continued: “Just—okay! Okay, I’m clear!”

    I looked at Quint, who was still lighting. “All right, forget it, let ‘em go …”

    He moved the lighter from one fuse to the next. “Hold on,” he said, “just hold on …”

    At which we could only watch, rocking on our feet, hopping up and down, until he lit the last fuse and jumped down from the bucket.

    And then we were hustling—double-timing it, as they say—up the stairs and out of the diner, where not a single predator could be seen. Then we were scrambling for our bikes; our pinto horses of plastic and steel; which gleamed like salvation even as the long-fused rockets began to explode and the Nano-As, active but in hiding, began to whimper and howl.

    That’s when I knew it; when I could feel it in my bones. That we’d passed our first test; survived our baptism by fire. That’s when I knew that our journey would be complete—as we sat on our bikes with our spears canted at our backs (like the bows of Indian braves, I fancied) and, having returned the Talon to its canister, watched the last of the fireworks as they burst and boomed above. Watched, brooding, as they turned the sky first white then green then blue, and finally, a deep, lingering red, after which, taking a cue from our fellow animals, we began to howl ourselves.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Thunder Road II: Every Journey Has A Middle ...

    Coming Soon

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Strange Season: The Flashback Cycle | Book One

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Lost Country: The Flashback Cycle | Book Two

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Big Empty: The Flashback Cycle | Book Three

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Primeval World: The Flashback Cycle | Book Four

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Primordial Garden: The Flashback Cycle | Book Five

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Lean Season: Contemporary Tales of Primordial Terror

    ebook | paperback

    "Shut up, " said Handlebar. He wiped his lip. "Listen."

    The floorboards were shifting beneath their feet.

    Carl looked around. "What is it?"

    "Is it under the dock?" said Ned.

    Handlebar ignored them, listening. The planks of the pier flexed and fell like piano keys.

    Lonny retreated still further. "Maybe we should get back inside."

    "You gonna swim for it?" said Stanley. "We're cut off."

    Lonny looked at the cedar pole laying across the deck, and the downed lines which popped and frizzled. His lower lip started to tremble.

    Suddenly, starting at the apex of the dock, the floorboards jumped—rifling and breaking and splintering in a line. The men clambered off Chin, scattering as something split the dock up the middle, like a torpedo. Chin turned, saw a wave of busting boards rushing at him. He scrambled to his feet and dove out of the way, landed at the edge where he saw a dark shape sweep past just below the surface. A tail—long as the first creature's entire body.

    Everything stopped, and there was a silence.

    "Stay alert," shouted Chin. He scrambled away from the edge. "It hasn't gone. It's still under the dock."

    Everyone looked at each other as wood creaked and water lapped. Even Handlebar seemed frightened and disheveled.

    "Screw this shit, man," said Lonny. He backed toward the cafe, toward the spitting electrical cables. His eyes were bugged out and his flesh had gone white as bird shit. He dropped his rifle.

    Handlebar stared at his own boots, which were soaked in blood. He seemed to be having some sort of internal crisis. He reached up with a trembling hand and twisted his mustache repeatedly. He came out of it suddenly and looked at Lonny.
    "Hey. Kid. Listen." He walked toward him, changing clips. "You're taking all this too seriously. It's toying with us, that’s all."

    He held out his shotgun to him. "Here. The goo—Chin—he's right. It's still beneath the dock. Probably scared. Why don't you do the honors?"

    Lonny hesitated, trembling. "Y-you mean it's just trying to scare us?"

    Handlebar tweaked his nose. "That's right."

    The fire returned to the young man's eyes—almost. He looked around the shattered dock, at the riddled corpse and the oily, bloody water, at the spitting power lines and the dead lights, the peeling boardwalk on the shore.

    He shook his head. "No, it's not. It—it doesn't pretend, like you. It's gonna kill us, that's all." He stepped closer. "Can’t you see that? You posing hillbilly? The spill's given it a—a lean season. It's sick, and it' s hungry, and …"

    He glanced at the corpse. "We probably just killed its mate."

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Flashback (28th Anniversary Edition)

    ebook | paperback

    Roadkill ...

     

    A funny thing happened to Roger and Savanna Aldiss on the Interstate. They hit a dinosaur. But that's nothing compared to what awaits them down the road ... for something is at work to reverse time itself, something which makes the clouds boil, glowing with strange lights, and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Roger, Savanna, and a handful of others will make their final stand.

     

    From Flashback:

     

    The cop was just standing there, staring at the trees. And staring at the rex, too—though he clearly didn't know it.

     

    “My God,” Savanna pleaded. “You can't just let him be ripped to pieces …”

     

    Omar raised an eyebrow. “No?” He slid off the table and approached her. “And why not?”

     

    She hesitated. His face hovered in her own like some foam-latex Halloween mask—Uncle Pervis, perhaps, or Baby Stinky. “You, you just can’t,” she stammered.

     

    He cocked his head to one side and smiled broadly, wickedly. “You ever been to prison, sugar-muffin?”

     

    His teeth seemed covered with a yellow, pussy substance which reminded Savanna of that gummy liquid SPAM was packed in.

     

    She shook her head.

     

    “That's too bad …. they'd like you there.” He stepped closer and Savanna felt his coat pressing against her breasts, the reek of liquor-sweat and pitted-out leather seeming to radiate off him in waves. “You ever heard stories about what goes on inside?”

     

    Again, she shook her head. The glass of the window was cold against her back, as if it had frosted on the inside.

     

    “They stick you in a little room to rot,” he said, and with the word rot came an invisible cloud of stale barley which made her eyes water and her throat want to close in on itself. “But the trick is, they don't put you in there alone. No, they always put you in there with some shifty-eyed S.O.B. who's crazier even then you are …” His voice had become a quavering hiss, like sparks running along a fuse. “They put you in there with some poetry-writing faggot, or some jittering crackpot who's so hard-up for a cigarette he picks butts out of the toilet, or some darkie …”

     

    He glanced sidelong at the cashier and menaced him with molten eyes, but the stout black man was unmoved. “… who's built like Mike Tyson and wants you to be his joy-boy. And if that's what he wants, that's what he'll get … because you're not going anywhere. And don't think the guards will help you, sister. Because they won’t. They’ll just walk right by whistling and swinging their keys. You're helpless, just like you’re helpless now …”

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Napoleon (Silver Edition)

    ebook | paperback

    The steel mesh started to break: first one joint, then another. Napoleon stood sideways on the fence like a parrot, his splay toes gripping the bars. He braced himself with his legs and pulled at the grid with his teeth. The muscles of his neck rippled; his growl was a steady trill. Metal squealed as he peeled a section back.

    Lightning flashed nearby, followed by a crack-kaboom! In the wash of light, the man saw the dinosaur looking at him. Glaring at him. Its color had gone blood red.

    He dropped the shock prod and swallowed, tasting bile. His head was swimming; he felt nauseated. The game had gone far enough, he realized. He had to end it—he had to end it now. He stepped back over to the control box and flipped it open, sought out the RUN ELECTRIFICATION button. He punched it with the bottom of his fist.

    The air seemed to vibrate, and sparks exploded beneath Napoleon's hands and feet. The dinosaur was knocked off the fence instantly. It crashed into the mud with a tremendous splash, and writhed violently. Then it struggled to its feet and latched onto the fence again. Sparks popped and spit; there was the smell of burnt flesh. Napoleon backed off, cocking his head. His foreclaws opened and closed. He sniffed at the electrically charged air, and at the ground. His left foot was smoking. He didn't approach the fence again.

    The man stepped closer and peered through the mesh. “You’re learning, aren't you?” he said, and scooped up the shock prod from the mud. He wiped it on his lab coat. “You’re learning not to mess with me, aren't you?”

    Napoleon looked at him, then shifted his neck to the side oddly. He was looking at something behind the man, something low to the ground.

    The man turned around. There was nothing there but the steel hatch to the feeding shaft, set into concrete like an oversized manhole cover. It was dotted with dried blood and padlocked heavily. He turned back to Napoleon, dismissing the behavior, and found the dinosaur craning to look behind itself. Its head was cocked as though listening to something.

    The man exhaled; he was tired of playing dino-games. “Well,” he began, preparing to prod it a final time, “here 's one for the road ...”

    A pair of headlights suddenly appeared in the distance, from the direction the T was looking. They were moving through the blackness out beyond the perimeter, winking in and out between trees. The man glimpsed the car as it passed beneath a street light: it was a sleek white Saturn, the kind employed by Atrax Security. Its bluish spotlight scanned the area.

    S.O. Trevor was making his nightly perimeter check.

    The man’s pulse quickened. He glanced at his watch, but had to swipe a palm across it to read it clearly. It was 11:19. Damn ... Now what? His heart pounded: Get out of here. He triggered the run doors, and they rattled up out of the way.

    Napoleon swung his head around and peered down the shaft. His little hands opened and closed; his tail moved back and forth. He strode from the run abruptly, descending the “ladder” into his habitat. The man shut the doors. Then he took the flap of bent mesh in both hands and tried to straighten it.

    It was no use, he decided at length. The stuff was stronger than it looked. He gave up and headed for the stairs.

    Levi burst into the shop. Trevor was already coming up the hallway, his spit-polished shoes clicking over the tile, his keys jingling in perfect sync. Damn, Levi thought. The bastard’s log would put him on Blue Level at 11:20—a full 10 minutes behind schedule.

    He took up his mop and started mopping.

    A moment later Trevor stepped into the room. “Hey Levi.”

    Levi looked up as if startled. “Trevor! How goes it?”

    The guard shrugged. “Same as always. How are ...” He paused, looking down. “Forget your hip-waders or something?”

     

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Wine Dark Earth

    ebook | paperback

    From The Wine Dark Earth:

     

    What is it? I sign, gripping the M14’s handguard (which has become slick with sweat); locking eyes with Beth.

     

    Will thinks he heard something; something in one of the shops. Something big—heavy. He says to check our flanks.

     

    I just stare at her, bewildered. But I don’t want to check my flank, I think. Because if I do, I might see something; something I won’t be able to unsee. Something I’ll have to react to. And I’m not ready for that.

     

    But then, of course, I do—check my flank, that is. Then I look into the dusty, broken window of Swanberg’s and, seeing only handcrafts and crystals and strings of fine beads, begin to exhale—deeply; wondering what it was I was so afraid of (for it is only the dogs, I am certain; the stringy, pitiable creatures we saw in the street; the slim, spare scavengers whom, having now inherited the earth, have simply followed us up from the pier). Then I just stare at the crystals; the prisms—the lovely, pure, many-faceted gems—which manage to glimmer even though there is so very little light.

     

    At which, strangely, something seems almost to blink—to shutter and reopen. At which something does blink; just as surely as I am standing there. Something blue; ovoid, which glitters like a gem. Something which is encompassed by dark, tapered brow ridges and cruelly-curved hornlets; and bright-yellow markings—like a witch-doctor or a cannibal. Something I glimpse only briefly, fleetingly, in semi-profile—before it flits back into darkness and is gone.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Best of the Flashback Almanac

    ebook | paperback

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the dinosaur apocalypse.

    How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.

    Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere, all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you, for better or for worse.

    In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Fields Tinged with Red

    ebook | paperback

    From The Fields Tinged with Red:

     

    “Mm.” He spat for the first time that morning and looked out over the green fields. “Any sign of our friend?”

     

    “Not hide nor sickle-claw.”

     

    But Teddy had focused on something; something out by the freshly painted barn (which nonetheless leaned precariously; a result of the hurricane-like winds that had attended the Flashback, no doubt), and frowned. “You sure about that?”

     

    “What do you mean?” Nick followed his gaze but saw nothing, only a rusted-out van and some equally rusted drums, and something he hadn’t noticed before (probably because they hadn’t been there, he was sure of it): a stand of hoary cycad bushes. Literally—cycad bushes. In rolling wheat country. In Eastern Washington. After a bitter winter.

     

    “I’m afraid I don’t—”

     

    But there was something; something partially obscured by the van and the cycad bushes; something brown and tan and red and mottled green; a thing which didn’t move, didn’t breathe, which didn’t even seem to be alive—until it adjusted its head slightly and he could no longer miss it, no longer even look away.

     

    “Oh, he’s a ninja, that one,” said Selena, having joined them at the railing. “A real cucumber. Silent Jim; that’s his name.”

     

    “Shhh,” whispered Teddy.

     

    “I don’t get it,” said Nick. “I mean, is he just curious, or is he afraid, is he stalking us, wh—”

     

    “Jesus, gods, would you be quiet?” Teddy appeared taught as a whip. “And bring me that damn rifle. Hurry.”

     

    He mumbled as Selena fetched it: “How you too are ever going to survive a dinosaur freaking apocalypse is beyond me.” He reached for the weapon as she approached but she hesitated before handing it over. “What? What is it?” he grumbled.

     

    “Nothing, it’s nothing,” she said, and handed him the gun. “It’s just that, maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

     

    He braced his elbow on the railing and aimed even as Nick looked at her sharply. “What are you talking about?”

     

    “I mean, what if it’s the wrong thing? What if it turns out we need those bullets more than we’ll need that beef? Or what if it’s some kind of ambush, or—”

     

    “Shut her up or I will,” growled Teddy, even as he eyed the scope and fingered the trigger. “We’ve got one shot at—”

     

    She took a step closer. “Wait—”

     

    And there was a crack! and a recoil and the shot echoed along the hills, even as Nick looked and saw the animal darting into the brush and zigzagging through the tall grass—before tripping once (but just as quickly recovering) and vanishing into a stand of trees.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    In the Forests of the Night

    ebook | paperback

     From In the Forests of the Night:

     

    And she passed me the bottle, after which I took a swig and poured the rest into her glass, then went to the cellar for more—returning with a Woodbridge Mondavi Red Blend to find her swaying to “Upside Down” by Diana Ross (playing from a battered little CD player I hadn’t even noticed she had) and letting a white strap of her halter slip—like a linguini, I thought, and sat down.

     

    “Don’t thing I haven’t noticed it,” she said, slurring slightly, and added, “I see the way you look at me.”

     

    I uncorked the bottle and filled my glass. “You’re a very beautiful woman,” I said—and sat the bottle between us—too hard, I think. “And a talented one. What would you expect?” I watched as she shimmied and did a little pirouette. “And I’m enjoying the conversation—more than you could know. You move beautifully, by the way. Like a cat.”

     

    And then she attempted to spin again but only stumbled suddenly and fell smack into my arms; at which we just looked at each other, she with her boozy, breezy smile and me with an apparent moral dilemma: i.e., should I make a pass at her, like I wanted to, or should I just put her into bed and tuck her away safe (as though she were a simpleton, perhaps, or even a child) like, say, John-Boy Walton might. A dilemma I answered by taking her head in my hands and kissing her—heatedly, hot-bloodedly, restlessly—what a friend of mine used to call a “come fuck me” kiss; because she was no child. And I was no John-Boy.

     

    And then we went to her room and lay together; drunkenly, sloppily, unspectacularly, and after a while, I dreamed: of lightning permeating everything and rain pounding the roof like nails, like hail; of wives and friends and girlfriends and my father—most of whom I hadn’t seen in years; of small, predatory dinosaurs, deinonychuses, with dark skin and wet backs—who held vigil around our bed like cultists, like priests, and who trilled, softly, faintly, as though they were meditating. As though they were communing.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The King in Yellow (Illustrated)

    ebook | paperback

    “I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.”
                                                                     ― Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Concrete Veldt

    ebook | paperback

    I couldn’t help but to notice that she was looking at the clock; and followed her gaze. We were over-time.

     

    I got up and put on my trousers—peered between the curtains at Clinton, who was outside smoking a cigarette (he’d finished early and was waiting for me). “Yeah—well. I doubt it’s even legitimate. They’re probably, like, fucking cannibals—or something.” I yanked on my T-shirt. “Ain’t no one thriving in this.”

     

    She laughed at that as I turned to go. “No, I don’t suppose.” She sat up and gave me the Look—even while letting the sheets fall. “See you next time? Lucas?”

     

    I paused in the compartment’s doorway—remembering the pact, remembering what it was we were going to do. “If I’ve anything to trade—of course.” I looked her straight in the eye. “But then—no one’s thriving in this. Lana.”

     

    And I left—quickly, abruptly--having said something I’d always wanted to say (even though it was a complete and total distortion). Because, in actual fact, there really was someone who was thriving—the Girl on the Dinosaur. The Girl in the Custom Saddle.

     

    If, that is, she even existed. If I hadn’t just made her up out of whole cloth.

     

    If I hadn’t gone stark-raving mad--like the world, like Time itself.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Riders on the Storm

    ebook | paperback

    Includes every Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse story through 2021, in the order in which they were written.

     

    First came the time-storm, which erased half the population. Then came the Riders on the Storm.

     

    How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth. Nor for the stories, some long and others short, some from before the maelstrom (and resulting societal collapse) and others after, to be recorded.

     

    Welcome to the world of the Flashback, a world in which man’s cities have become overgrown jungles and extinct animals wander the ruins. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere, all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this is a world whose very purpose is to challenge you, for better or for worse.

     

    It is a world where frightened commuters will do battle with murderous bikers even as primordial monsters close in, and others will take refuge in an underground theme park only to find their worst enemy is themselves. Where ordinary people—ne’er-do-wells on a cross-country motorcycle trip, a woman on a redeye flight to Hell, a sensitive boy stricken with visions of what’s to come--will find themselves in extraordinary situations, and a gunslinger and his telekinetic ankylosaurus will embark on a dangerous quest. A world where travelers will be trapped with an unravelling President of the United States and a band of survivors will face roving packs of monsters and men in post-apocalyptic Seattle; where rioting teenagers will face deadly predators (as well as their own demons) while ransacking the nation’s capital; where a Native-American warrior will seek to bury his past--and offer an elegy for all the Earth--in what remains of Las Vegas.

     

    In short, it is a world where anything can and will happen. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    A Reign of Thunder

    ebook | paperback

    Cooper "Coup" Black--yes, yes, just like the font--has a couple problems. Well, who doesn't? For one, his book deal has fallen through, leading him to do something, well, unfortunate. To his publisher. Two, he's picked up a hitchhiker--a hot, young (too young; as in half his age) available hitchhiker, whom he doesn't really know what to do with. And three, he's in the wrong place at the wrong time--as in a truck-stop on the Mexican border ... surrounded by shadowy predators. More, it soon becomes evident that something is at work to reverse time itself; something which makes people vanish--seemingly at random--and ancient trees to appear out of nowhere. Something against which Coup, Tess, an unravelling President of the United States, and others, will make their final stand.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    The Midnight Country

    ebook | paperback

    In retrospect, I wish I’d continued recording, for what I saw in that instant is difficult to describe, even now. Suffice it to say that it had a body like that of a manta ray—upon who’s tail the balloonist had been impaled—or a manta ray combined with a bat, albeit huge, and that it was covered with a kind of camouflage which reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Jupiter—just a roil of purples and pinks and browns. I suppose that was when it first hit me: the possibility that there might be a connection between this thing and the Jupiter 6 probe. That the probe might have brought something back, even if it had just been a sprinkling of microbes on its surface.

     

    And then there was an explosion somewhere above us, the concussion of which rocked our balloon, and we all looked up to see Gas Monkey—my God, it was like the sun!—on fire; and yet that wasn’t all we saw, for as it dropped it became evident that there were more of the bat/manta ray things attached, suckling it as it fell, crawling upon it like flies. Then it passed us like some kind of great meteor—its occupants shrieking and calling out—and was gone below, the heat of it still painting our faces, its awful smell, which was the smell of rotten eggs, filling our nostrils.

     

    And then we were just drifting, all of us crouched low in the basket … and the only sounds were those of Karen sobbing and my own pounding heart.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Urban Decay

    ebook | paperback

    Blood-thirsty carnosaurs ... gangs of hipsters .... post-apocalypse Seattle and Los Angeles are to die for.

     

    How did it all begin? That depends on where you were and who you ask. In some places it started with the weather—which quickly became unstable and began behaving in impossible ways. In still others it started with the lights in the sky, which shifted and pulsed and could not be explained. Elsewhere it started with the disappearances: one here, a few there, but increasing in occurrence until fully three quarters of the population had vanished. Either way, there is one thing on which everyone agrees—it didn’t take long for the prehistoric flora and fauna to start showing up (often appearing right where someone was standing, in which case the two were fused, spliced, amalgamated). It didn’t take long for the great Time-displacement called the Flashback—which was brief but had aftershocks, like an earthquake—to change the face of the earth.

     

    These are the stories of a group of experienced survivors and their incredible machine, Gargantua: How they came to possess it, and what they did with it after. This is the recounting of a heist in Seattle in which they barely escaped with their lives and a journey to Lost Angeles to find their forever home--which just happened to be occupied when they got there.

     

    Welcome to the Flashback.

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer, Faraway, Nearby, Spokane authors

    Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction | Jan-Feb | 2022 | No. 1

    ebook | paperback

    dark horse
    /ˈdärk ˈˌhôrs/
    noun
    1. a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds.
    "a dark-horse candidate"

    Join us for a bi-monthly tour of writers who give as good as they get. From hard science-fiction to stark, melancholic apocalypses; from Lovecraftian horror to zombies and horror comedy; from whimsical interludes to tales of unlikely compassion--whatever it is, if it's weird, it's here. So grab a seat before the starting gun fires, pour yourself a glass of strange wine, and get ready for the running of the dark horses.

    In this issue:

    "The Burning Cathedral of Summer" by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

    "The Hornet Priest" by Kurt Newton

    "The Silhouette Shop" by M. Kari Barr

    "Growing Season" by Davin Ireland

    "A Whisperer Among the Graves" by Bill Link

  • About Wayne

    Wayne in 2011

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer (born July 15, 1966) is an American author and low-budget horror filmmaker from Spokane, Washington. He is the writer/director of the short horror film, Shadows in the Garden, as well as the author of Flashback, an SF/horror novel published in 1993. Spitzer's non-genre writing has appeared in subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History. His recent fiction includes The Ferryman Pentalogy, consisting of Comes a Ferryman, The Tempter and the Taker, The Pierced Veil, Black Hole, White Fountain, and To the End of Ursathrax, as well as The X-Ray Rider Trilogy and a screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows.

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    Wayne hard at work, Spokane, Washington, 2018

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    Wayne and his wife, Trinh (2017)

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    2021

  • Find Wayne's Books at These Fine Retailers

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  • The Blog

    Thoughts, musings, and ruminations.