Friday, December 16, 2011
New free Ebooks are available! PRICE BREAKS AND HEARTACHES VOLUME 2 and PRECIOUS ARTIFACTS
Download my stories to your computer, tablet or eReader!
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NOVELS
To all outward appearances John Sig is just an old man living a quietly in an empty old house. His one pleasure is when he heads down to the local diner and visits with his favorite waitress. When she disappears, John sets out to find her. For an ordinary old man that might seem like a foolish idea but John Sig isn’t human...
Isobel Talbot's life was a monotony, even her heartbreaks were predictable; but a chance encounter leaves her running for her life from the most terrible and impossible things. And worse yet, she's fallen in love...
The Outpost was a squat stone structure that was ringed on all sides by high thick walls that were honeycombed with stairways, arrow loops and topped with crenellations festooned with ancient barbed wire. There were dozens of Outposts scattered along the Verge, marking the point of demarcation between the nurturing safety of the Protectorate and the madness of the Barrens. Each Outpost was similar in design but always ended up being different in execution...
THE NICK OF TIME
The war between two bloodthirsty wizards spills over into a crowded shopping center. Is this more than mall security can handle?
The man called Dr. Flesh has been called to the city of Olathoe to perform an assassination but soon finds himself being followed by cats...
An amnesiac man, a robot girl and a dying world. What does all this have to do with Jason Magwier?
Lorelei was born into a world of mystery and betrayal. At eighteen she is sent to the legendary city of Olathoe to learn the ways of magic but she already thinks she's ready for anything. But when she meets the man called Jason Magwier everything changes...
What could be worse than being late for an important job interview? How about blundering into another dimension and finding yourself running for your life?
Jason Magwier and his friends are always on the lookout for strange treasures, blasphemous manuscripts and impossible devices. But in a world tainted by mad gods and alien minds sometimes they find the wrong thing at the exactly the wrong time...
ANTHOLOGIES
This collection of 13 stories transports you to a world where both dreams and monsters lurk in the shadows, where love and forgotten rituals fight for control of the human heart, and where the madness of eternity can be glimpsed in a single segmented eye...
The stories in this collection will bring you into a world of uneasy laughter and ridiculous nightmares, a world where horror and humor collide...
Halloween Prayers, features the following stories of faith and fright- 'Deus Ex Machina', 'In The Pit', 'Little Ophelia', 'Sugar-Coated Sacraments' and 'The Man That Ate Newborns'...
When I was young I was prone to fevers and nightmares, something that my doctors and my parents alike put down to a weak constitution and an overactive imagination. Even I grew older and stronger nightmares continued to plague me, nightmares that no drug could keep at bay, nightmares that frequently had me lashing out violently as I awoke...
THE LOCAL HEROES
None of the big time super teams bother with River City - it’s not even flyover territory anymore but that doesn’t mean there aren’t villains aplenty so the Local Heroes fight crime with a league of their own...
Apocalypse Jones And The Race Against Time
Annabelle Jones was just an ordinary cop patrolling the streets of River City but that was before the world became trapped in the 1970's and monsters began to roam the streets. Can she and a rag-tag group of superheroes save the world when time has already run out?
FUNNY BUSINESS
Presenting tasteless tales of role-playing madness, completely unedited and, for reasons even I do not understand, presented in screenplay format...
What are these two hundred totally twitterable tales? Are they jokes? Are they super-small stories for people on the go? You decide!
What are these two hundred totally twitterable tales? Are they jokes? Are they super-small stories for people on the go? You decide!
What are these two hundred totally twitterable tales? Are they jokes? Are they super-small stories for people on the go? You decide!
What are these two hundred totally twitterable tales? Are they jokes? Are they super-small stories for people on the go? You decide!
The somewhat true story of how I barely lost my virginity, almost missed out on true love and nearly lost my mind!
The continuing somewhat true story of how I barely lost my virginity, almost missed out on true love and nearly lost my mind!
Corpse Wars 1: The Fandom Menaced
Of all the times for the dead to rise from their graves to feast on the living why did it have to happen right before the premere of George Lucas’ new Star Wars movie?
Corpse Wars 2: Attack Of The Crones
Star Wars Fans vs Zombies! No matter who wins, we all lose!
Executive Support (An excerpt from the serial novel Fully Vested)
(An excerpt from the serial novel Fully Vested)
by
Al Bruno III
The call center was subdued at night, the noise of a roomful of people all talking at once was replaced by the murmurs of just a few. Occasionally Mike would hear the rumble of the trucks that came and went from the loading docks at all hours. Semis and vans were queued up sometimes three deep to drop off and pick up materials from the research and deployment center. Mike had never seen the labs but Cosmos had told him that they were three levels below the first floor. He wasn’t sure he believed her because none of the stairwells or elevators seemed to have any access to a sub basement level.
Mike’s phone bleeped, his computer screen filled with data, he knew instantly this was the accounting department for a hospital in Los Angeles, “Thank you for calling Trinity Advance Corporation, I am Michael your Sales and Billing Technologist. How may I be of service to you today?”
“Hi Michael, my account number is eight one nine six nine six eight eight one five. I have a little question about this bill we received.”
“Of course sir. Let me look over that information now.” Usually Mike never got calls from the West coast but the overnight team’s job was to handle any overflow of calls the Seattle call center might be experiencing.
There was an LED readout screen suspended on each corner of the call center, it gave workers a constant tally of the number of calls holding and for how long. It also had the time on the East coast and West coast. It was almost eleven o’clock.
One hour and I can go home, he thought as he explained the bill to his caller. Five hours of overtime had seemed like a good way to replenish his savings after paying several hundred dollars to replace the front end suspension of his car. Now he was starting to feel worn out, he couldn’t wait to get home and get to sleep.
And then get up in seven hours to start the whole thing over again.
Well it’s not like I have anyone waiting for me at home. He thought glumly as he concluded the call and moved on to the next one. The whole Christine thing hadn’t worked out. She had made three dates with him and stood him up each time. The first time Mike had assumed it was a mix up, the second time he was bemused but by the third time he’d been too angry to see straight. If she didn’t want to go out with him why didn’t she just say so? Rejection he could handle, being made to feel like an inept junior high school kid he couldn’t.
Mike wrapped up another billing call and waited for the next call to come through. He heard the familiar warning beep on his phone but his computer screen stayed blank, “Thank you for calling Trinity Advance Corporation, I am Mike your Sales and Billing Technologist. How may I be of service to you today?”
“Hi Mike. Are you in the Seattle call center?”
“Uh, no.” Mike checked his phone, sure enough it read EXECUTIVE SUPPORT, “This is the Schenectady call center.”
“Is it Walpurgis night there? Can you tell?”
“I don’t… I’m sorry I don’t know. This is the wrong department. I can’t really help you.” Mike explained.
“Ah. Well these things happen. I’ll try to call back.”
Mike heard the phone clatter down but his caller neglected to actually hang up. Mike heard muffled voices talking, “That was a waste of time. Now hold still, the orifice is weeping in anticipation...”
The Hell? Mike thought as he disconnected the call himself. Another call came hot on the heels of that one, once again his computer’s screen failed to show any data and his phone read EXECUTIVE SUPPORT.
“Thank you for calling Trinity Advance Corporation, I am Mike your Sales and Billing Technologist. How may I be of service to you today?”
The line was alive with squawking and howls. Mike waited for someone to say something and when they didn’t he repeated his greeting. A fresh chorus of piercing cries, growls and the occasional wet slopping sound was the only reply he got.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said, “you’re going to have to call back.”
He disconnected the call and another one beeped through, “Thank you for calling Trinity Advance Corporation, I am Mike your sales Technologist. How may I be of service to you today?”
“Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!”
Oh Lord…
Mike stood up and peered over to the other cubicles and found he wasn’t the only person in his department looking around helplessly. The evening supervisor was shaking his head and talking on the phone to someone. The stats on the call board had been reduced to a nonsense of letters and numbers that flicked and fluttered.
“I’m sorry,” Mike said, “but you have the wrong department. Please call back sir.”
Another call came in, Mike repeated his standard greeting. His screen stayed empty, his phone still read EXECUTIVE SUPPORT.
“Please,” the voice was desperate and furtive, “which fork is the salad fork?”
Mike rolled his eyes.
The rest of his final hour was one bizarre call after another. At midnight he logged out of the SIGIL system got on his coat.
He decided to make a quick pit stop before he headed out to his car. The main bathroom was elegant and sterile looking but no amount of air freshener could ever really conceal that strange sulfurous odor.
There was a man passed out on the bathroom floor, he was scrawny with his long dark coat wrapped around him like a cocoon, his face twitched as he dreamed. His mouth hung open revealing a chipped tooth and flecks of vomit. Mike recognized him. It was Raymond from the Executive Support team...
(Insane News) How much would you pay for a pendant that will expel demons from your poodle?
Are your children misbehaving at school? Are your loved ones suffering from medical ailments? Is your home infested with bedbugs?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, you'll be happy to know that there's a simple reason you are experiencing these seemingly unrelated misfortunes: Your dog is possessed by a demon.
And, thankfully, there's a simple solution: A $197 pendant sold by a woman who claims her poodle was inhabited by a demonic spirit.
But wait, there's more!
New York artist Olga Horvat started designing demon-deterring accessories after she adopted Princess, a pure-bred toy poodle that she credits -- or blames -- for literally tearing her life into pieces.
Horvat claims that soon after Princess arrived in her home, bad luck befell the family, including a bedbug infestation that led to $7,000 in exterminator fees from her co-op as well as legal fees to fight an eviction.
In addition, her husband was in a serious car accident and came down with a rare autoimmune disease called Churg-Strauss Syndrome. Then Horvat's daughter was almost expelled from second grade for offending classmates with an action that was perceived to be bigoted when she put on a rubber glove then grabbed the bare hand of a Muslim friend -- an action the child blames on a strange voice she heard in her head.
Meanwhile, Princess herself suffered a broken leg that did not respond well to treatment.
Horvat says her family's misfortunes are all linked to the tiny white pooch that just happened to be possessed.
To be fair, it's not Princess' fault that a demonic spirit attached itself to her -- or so Horvat wrote in her book Paranormal Pooch (Omega Publications), where she presents the theory that some kind of evil presence infiltrated her dog...
click here to read the rest of the story
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
And now Wonder Woman giving herself a breast exam...
An artist in Mozambique has drawn four superheroines -- Wonder Woman (above), She-Hulk, Storm and Catwoman -- giving themselves breast exams to check for breast cancer. While they were commissioned by the DDB Mozambique advertising agency, I don't believe these are official...
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Thirteen
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Twelve
Sir Robert hadn't meant to nod off while wearing his armor but it turned out he got a good knight's sleep.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Eleven
By 2015 USB compatible butt-plugs were pulled from the market because of end-user problems.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Ten
No one noticed the high number of deaths at the Ouija Board tech support line because they looked like highly improbable accidents.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Nine
Amazing Ed would have gotten to the crime scene a Hell of a lot sooner if he hadn't locked his keys in the Edmobile
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Eight
Lorelei had dealt with rhyming demons and singing demons But a demon that only spoke in quotes from Monty Python? “Oh Hell no.”
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Seven
There are all kinds of electronic books these days but only the dictionaries are in high definition.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Which of 2011's #FridayFlash stories did you like best?
The list is below, click the links to re-read any of the stories you like.
The Man That Ate Newborns
Little Ophelia
In the Pit
Deus Ex Machina
Apocalypse Jones And The Race Against Time (Serial Story)
Jason Magwier Winds Up In Cleveland
The Piglet Of Tybaldt
Abner Deggent’s Christmas Hits
A Penny Earned
An Invitation To Disaster
Infant Terrible
Trochildae
A Son's Duty
The Sultan's Challenge
Waiting For Zachary
Holding For A Hero
Single Celled Vigilante
Good Knight Claire
Smack My Witch Up
Everything Must Go
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Six
Returning from the far future tends to make most time travelers very moody, or in other words past tense.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Five
Abner Deggent was proud survive the death-orgy of the Amazons, he was less proud that several of the Amazons had died of boredom.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Four
Some marriages might have been strained by having a child in a manger but Joesph and Mary had a fairly stable relationship.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Three
It was only after he returned from the funeral that Dr. Bob admitted his patient was in grave condition.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and Two
She made a lot of money selling t-shirts for chubby chasers that read “Know Fat Chicks”.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand and One
Mr. Nice Guy tried to teach the local hoodlums about sharing and it worked. They took turns beating him.
5 Second Fiction Two Thousand
Temperatures, much like the TV Weatherman's age, continued to hover around fifty.
5 Second Fiction One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine
If there was one thing Captain Hero knew for sure, it was that putting mad scientists under house arrest was a recipe for disaster.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Remaindered, Rejected And Irreconcilable part ten
Price Breaks And Heartaches
A journal of retail and failed romance
Chapter Eight
Remaindered, Rejected And Irreconcilable
part ten
It didn’t take long for me to fall right back into all my old habits- making mix tapes, watching Doctor Who reruns and masturbating.
But not all at the same time. I’m not that screwed up people.
It had been a week since I lowered the boom on Tallulah and I was miserable. I had even called her a few times but her family always told me she wasn’t home. I wondered if she’d already found someone else, if she had goaded me into breaking up with her so she could move on to her new guy without feeling guilty.
I spent a lot of time hating her that week. There wasn’t anyone I could talk to about what I was feeling. If I told any of my friends about the breakup they would waste no time trying to catch her on the rebound. If I tried to talk to any of the men in my family I would be mocked over my whininess. Trust me folks, you haven’t lived until you’ve had a parent call you a pussy.
Yes, I wanted to cry but I wouldn’t let myself. I thought that if I did it would just another sign of how big a failure I was.
Imagine how surprised I was to find Tallulah at the door to my room that day.
“Making mix tapes?” she asked. There was a trace of that old smile on her face.
“I’m feeling kind of inspired right now,” I said.
At this moment I was sure that I had won whatever power struggle that had been going on for the last month or so. Within seconds my brain was telling me that my girl was back and she was back to stay. I was already making plans for us to be buried in adjacent graves when I got to my feet and tried to take her in my arms.
She stepped back and handed me a gaily wrapped package, “I got you a Christmas present a few weeks ago, I thought you might still want it.”
“Oh thanks!” I tore the wrapping open and found myself holding a novelization of the Doctor Who story the Twin Dilemma. Of course I already had a copy but I sure as Hell wasn’t going to tell her that. I only wished I hadn’t returned her gifts and used the money to buy blank cassette tapes.
“Do you want to go out for a bite to eat?” I asked, “Maybe we could just talk...”
“No. No. This isn...” she couldn’t look at me, “This isn’t going to work out.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
She nodded, “Goodbye.”
“No.” I fell to my knees. Honest to God I fell to my knees and groveled, “Don’t do this. Don’t.”
She was already heading for the door, “It’s over Al.”
“Why? Why did you do this? Where you playing games with me all along?”
“I wanted to see…” Tallulah said, “I wanted to see what it would take for you to act like a man.”
That left me speechless. I watched her walk away. I listened to the sound of the front door slamming and the roar of her car’s engine as she backed out of the driveway.
When I found my voice again I spoke to an empty room, “I would have loved you forever.”
*
And just like that our wild ride was over.
The End