Fiction and More

I write a mix of action and intricate character studies at fictionandmore.com

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Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 8

Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 8

Always Looking for Roads In One thing about hiking with CMT: you have to do a long hike in short bursts.  That means I’m always scanning maps for back roads that touch the trail. According to Google Maps, our future path would touch city streets at Mora Road and, another mile along, Ravensbury Road (a name which I’ll totally put into a fantasy story some day).  Last week from the water tank I’d…

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Hiking With Shark Tooth Part 7

Hiking With Shark Tooth Part 7

Through the Crowded Parts of Rancho San Antonio The Only Section I Hiked Alone It’s sweet to share a big hiking project with a beloved who accepts and enjoys my quirks.  (Like when I say, “Let’s start this hike by putting our feet exactly where we left off last hike,” and Geri smiles in delight.) But I wound up hiking this section through Rancho San Antonio alone.  Geri wasn’t free on weekdays…

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Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 6

Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 6

To Rancho San Antonio and Real Trails at Last A Secret Back Entrance? Rancho San Antonio Open Space is a beautiful park with hillside trails, quiet glades and hikes of all levels of challenge. Geri and I hardly ever dare to go there. The place is so damn crowded.  There are three huge parking lots and by midday they’re crammed full and cars cruise every row; to get a spot you either block…

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Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 5

Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 5

A Simple Walk It was Saturday and Geri and I had just a few hours.  Just time to finish last week’s walk to Heritage Oaks Park and maybe go a few blocks further. So we planted our feet across from the painted mailbox and started on along Altamead.  It was one of those streets that turns 90 degrees to the left and changes its name all while staying the same street: there’s no other way to go.…

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Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 4

Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 4

A Hike Which Changed My Life Park to Park In an ideal world, each section of our Hike to the Ridge would start and end at a city park until we reached the hills and real trails. Today, we planned to walk from Cooper Park to Heritage Oaks Park but CMT means always being ready for things to take longer than they should. I’m going to intersperse today’s hike with memories of a hike a few years…

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Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 3

Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 3

(Dodging Cars and Smelling Roses in Time of Plague) Cuteness Explosion

“Shall we put our feet where they were last time?” Geri asked, smiling.

“You bet.”

We stood hand in hand in Cuesta Park, where we’d first had our view of distant hills which it was hard to believe we’d reach.

To our right was a section of the park where Google Maps showed a tangle of dog-walking trails.  (Here’s…

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Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 2

Hiking with Shark Tooth Part 2

(Memories of the Tooth’s First Bite) Calling in the Past, Hiking On

There was something I hadn’t told Geri yet as we stood together in Bubb Park a week after our first hike.

“So there’s something I always do,” I smiled sheepishly, “when I start the next section of a big hike.  I like to put my feet right where I left off last time and, kind of, join with last week’s self?  So it feels…

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Escape Chapter 9

She shoved that hideously cold wet mouth away, close enough to feel the teeth scratch across her skin. Escape Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Deadly “Stop it, stop it, you’re Lavinia!” Sally screamed. Lavinia’s cold lips slid on her soft white skin, the mouth snapped open to bite.  For one instant Sally nearly went under and allowed it.  They would be vampires together, just like she’d wanted.  But this new information changed everything (and nothing): just being inside a church, even one a thousand years old, had turned…

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Escape Chapter 8

"The longer you keep silent about something, the harder it becomes to speak at all..." Escape Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Not Knowing Anymore Jesse was watching his sleeping husband when the shock wave of bullets reached his ears. He knew Walter sensed something wrong.  Since Sally and Lavinia left, Walter had avoided any intimate moment with him. At first Jesse had been relieved not to dread questions he couldn’t answer.  And when Walter had climbed into bed last night with a breezy “G’night, booboo,”…

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Escape Chapter 7

"The wooden bullet has to stay in the heart. If it just blasts through they’ll keep coming." Escape Chapter 7

Chapter 7: One Moment of Fierce Triumph Charla Thorpe didn’t know much about guns but at least one good thing about the vampire plague, you could just walk into a store and buy one now.  No license, no waiting period, none of those things that would have infringed her right to bear a felching vampire killer. She waited in the doorway of Jesse and Walter’s house for the sunset.  Tomás stood beside…

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Escape Chapter 6

"One angry word from you and I’ll probably be swept into the ocean a thousand feet down.”" Escape Chapter 6

Chapter 6: White Cross The cross was as primitive as a cross could be. It was simply part of the stonework of the building: five or six of the stones must have been deliberately chosen because they were white as salt and they made a crude upright and a set of wavy arms above the stone doorway.  There was nothing else, no dark form emerging from that rectangular black mouth, no hooded shadow…

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Escape Chapter 5: Garbage

Five vampires hissed on the crowded front stoop, their careless feet on the bristly woven-hemp welcome mat Escape Chapter 5: Garbage

Chapter 5: Garbage “Where’s your girlfriend?” Roseanne Paxton asked her son with what she intended to be perceptive kindness. She had seen his red eyes as he came out of his room to go to the bathroom and was trying to draw him to talk about it as a mother should. With five years of practice, Jeremy could usually control his feelings around his parents.  He wouldn’t have come out of his bedroom…

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Escape Chapter 4: The Island

Escape Chapter 4: The Island--who could have built that fairy-tale staircase on such a desolate, windy and small island?

Chapter 4: The Island Sally smelled heather and fog, not salt spray. Under her back was firm ground, wet grass. Her eyes fluttered open. Lavinia, naked body slick with mist in the evening light, sat looking off at nothing. “I’m back,” Sally said. “I’m sorry I crapped out on you.” Lavinia said vaguely, “It’s alright, just glad you didn’t crap on me.” The wind pushed wet strands of fog over them…

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Escape Chapter 3: Mend Her Broken Heart

Speaking to God now, he begged, “Bring her back, give me another chance!" Escape Chapter 3: Mend Her Broken Heart

Chapter 3: Mend Her Broken Heart “This is my girlfriend.”  Jeremy faced his parents defiantly. Their eyebrows raised in shock. “Her name’s KerriAnne.”  He put his arm more tightly around her shoulders and looked at her tenderly.  He’d let her in at his window a few minutes ago and persuaded her to put on one of his old sweatshirts.  Underneath she still wore the gold lamé skirt and the skimpy…

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Escape Chapter 2: Flying There

They floated above cloud tops like solid cream puffs...Escape Chapter 2: Flying There

Chapter 2: Flying There At that moment, like the deep voice of the mother goddess came the gruff sound of her beloved, gasping “Wh-what’s, huh, what’s wrong, tiger?” Lavinia had noticed!  Even through all the distraction she had pulled herself out of ecstasy to comfort Sally. Sally tried to talk but could only cry helplessly.  God, she hated this! “Hey baby, hey baby, ‘s okay, ‘s okay.  We’ll go…

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Escape Chapter 1: Rainbow's Curio Shoppe

V5, Ch1 of my #epic #vampire #novel now live. "Sometime in the next few days, I'm going to face evil..."

Sally came out of her daze and risked a peep downward. They were over purple blue ripples, painted with a gold streak as the sun neared the western horizon.  Lavinia’s wild shrieks were loud in the ear pressed against Lavinia’s chest but with her exposed ear, all she could hear was the wind’s roar. Lavinia, still crazed with pleasure, was unavailable and Sally didn’t want to beat on her chest to…

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Escape Prelude: Aunt Chatty

I'm finally putting up Safe as Houses Volume 5! "At his question, 'You coming?' Charity blushed."

Charity’s little blue Honda Civic chugged up Highway 12 through the Sonoma Valley.  Tommy in the back seat sang, “To day yis, da day I, go fwine!” Beside her in the passenger’s seat, the male vampire (who had given his name as Peter) was strapped tightly in, paralyzed by the day.  Every time a wing of sunshine drifted across his right arm, he moaned and his pants visibly tented in a raw sexuality…

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