Foreword

‘Canada’s Foremost Offbeat Author’. My moniker, my branding. It just seems to fit, as most my stories are indeed offbeat, with twisty endings. You never know where I might take you.

Whilst most writers will just strive to write that novel, the one that is apparently in all of us, I interrupted my novel-writing self to switch to short stories (sometimes). Many were either contest winners, or at least short-listed, or published. Some were written to enter unique, challenging contests; yes, I do enjoy having my muse challenged.

Some of my earlier works wax rather lyrically with romantic tastes. The romance genres appealed to me, only to realize that woman rarely read romance written by males.

That hit home when I went to my first romance convention in Calgary. I arrived late, and the main speaker had already started. I ran up to the check-in desk, out of breath and sweating a bit, and gave my name. The one girl looked down the list of over two hundred authors and the other nudged her. “He’s the other guy registered.” True story.

Some wonder why I have written a (so far) three volume urban fantasy series based on a Haida Shaman and oral legends of the BC First Nations. It was the voices. In the Victoria Provincial Museum. Quietly contemplating the many totems in the dark, quiet room, some from Haida Gwaii, I swore they were talking to me. I’m not crazy (honest) and I’ve never heard them before or since, so for those of medical minds don’t call the doctors. Not yet, anyway!

The cutting down of the Golden Spruce in 1997 awoke one of those voices. A white man, ironically in protest of logging, cuts down a rare tree. A tree venerated by the Haida people. My pencil began to fill pages with words and later ‘Raven’s Lament’ was born.

Tom Patterson, a First Nations person of high artistic ability, told me they were a very oral culture and still look for those with the muse to hear them and tell their story. Perhaps that was the message coming from the totems? Who knows?

A fair few of my short stories morphed into novels. I originally entered a writing contest by the Vancouver Sun, where you had to write a new chapter every week based on the one published by another author the week before. I loved that challenge. Starting with their first chapter, writers wrote their version of the second. One was chosen, and then you wrote the third to follow the second. If you get my drift. (Keep up at the back, there!). I got an award for entering every week of the contest and a couple of times was the runner up. I wrote a scene based on the opening where a detective was on stake out in Stanley Park, in Vancouver. I wrote the appearance of a crazy shaman into that scene where he knows what has happened and vanishes leaving our female detective Carol Ainsworth wondering what just happened only he left clues as to the fact he knew what he was talking about. This scene morphed into a short story, ‘A Guitar Cries In The Night’ that has been published several times and  it along with  another short story, ‘Kelsey’s Bar and Grill’ became the basis for ‘The Lure: Book Two in the Stillwaters Runs Deep Series’. It is still my favorite novel I’ve written blending the mythos of Pauline Johnson, an evil transformer succubus witch, The Lure, which is based on First Nations legend of a witch transformed into a rock in Stanley Park. Along with the idea, based on modern urban mythology that you go out drinking, not remember a thing, but your friends say you did some crazy stuff. This happens in a pub beside Stanley Park, where spirits hang out and take over your body until you sober up. Think about that for a moment. What if one of those was a Hell’s Angels type of spirit that has come back for revenge against the club that murdered him and his family? I’ve included the first chapter of both novels as teasers. You wonder why? Didn’t I mention I’m a little offbeat?  So on with the stories.

 

 

 

Pack Light And Don’t Feed The Aliens

My shadow, projected from a lamp beside me, fills the far wall, and me with unease. What is happening to me?

It is late and I am alone as for the last hour a weird procession of uncontrolled, jumbled memories flood my mind.

My chubby cheeks flood with remembrance of Jim Turner’s betrayal. Stealing my girlfriend; hands grip the chair in rage. Teeth grind until my jaws ache. Sally, my first love. I wanted to kill the bastard at the time. The memory fades, funny now, I can’t even remember her last name.

Except for a brief jab of pain in my head I don’t recall anything unusual happening to me.

Images of a jungle paradise, Hawaii, spring to life. Exotic fragrances of Lei flowers, mixing with humid air flood the senses as my wife Gail and I step off the airplane. That night, as surf crashed gently in the moonlight, we made love on the beach. My back tinges in rawness, her mounting me on the sand. Eternal memories of us holding each other after gazing into each other’s eyes and the stars blinking back in embarrassment at our lewdness.

Flickering of the TV draws me back. My head throbs as the scent of oily hot-buttered popcorn fills the air.

Something is dreadfully wrong. Memories, my first Saturday matinee, sitting on the cold gymnasium floor watching Tarzan dangling from a vine on the large screen. The giddiness, the awe of seeing a world unknown the…

A subtle shift. I felt something just then move.

Left leg kicks out, my head swings to the right and eyes begin to blink spasmodically. What the hell is going on, a seizure. Was I going mental? My legs begin to do the French Jig I learned in high school.

I’ve heard people’s lives flash before their eyes in moments before death, but they certainly didn’t do the jig.

Words spew out of my mouth, not of my own violation.

“See. See Jane. See Tom and Jane play. See Tom use condoms for water balloons. See Jane pregnant.”

What was happening? The weird realization, was it possible something was in my head? But what?

I tried to holler, “stop it,” but had no access to my vocal cords. Something was blocking me from using my voice. I decided the only thing to do is to relax and let go as arms twitched and words, sentences, in no coherent sense, sprang free. It was as if something was trying to learn my vocabulary.

Suddenly the rapid-fire succession of phrases ended and from inside my head a voice spoke.

“Good evening, human called Joe Dancing.”

“What the…”

“Please be not afraid, harm none I mean.”

What I hadn’t expected was an alien presence stuck inside my head, one that hadn’t caught all of my vocabulary nuances, sounding like a poor man’s Yoda.

“Many cautioned me to stay away from this sector of the quadrant.”

“What is this, some kind of bizarre stunt? I don’t understand. You mean others, as in races, know of Earth?” I was conversing with an alien thingamajig in my head while the last news played on TV. If I was watching something stranger, like The Late, Late show with James Corden, I could understand.

Don’t ask me why, perhaps because I wasn’t about to die or have a Grand Mal Seizure and have to live the rest of my life strapped into a wheelchair, but this began to seem suddenly utterly ridiculous.

I cringed, hoping it wasn’t about to say something insipid like, “ET phone home.”

“Ah, begin to understand your lingo. They say bad-ass construction blocked my usual holiday route. Real sicko pervs live on this world. Nice place you have here, human called Joe Dancing. I like the wallpaper, could use more plants to detox the air though. If this world quarantined, do they mean your kind, human called Joe Dancing.”

“My kind? How the hell do I know? I’m just a salesman for Trans-Advertising. We do bus ads, billboards and I’m having a conversation with an alien in my head. Who’s the weird one here? Shouldn’t you be talking to the big-wigs? The Prime Minister, the Pope or the commissioner of Hockey? Oh, and can the “human called” crap, it’s just Joe.”

“Status unknown of these “bigwigs” as you call them, It’s-Just-Joe. I meant to detour to see the Hemo-globes of Antares. Great place, rotten food I’m told. Excitement I crave, so somehow I ended up here. Rest I, later we speak. Learning your complex language has tired me.”

Just like that it was asleep, or, hopefully gone. I had an alien sleeping in my head. Christ, I knew eating kiwi flambé with shrimp salad was a bad idea. Alien indeed! Hadn’t I read recently in National Enquirer that certain foods mixed in the right combinations can produce hallucinogenic effects?

Weak from my earlier contortions I got up and waddled over to the fridge. I patted my stomach. Gail would occasionally harass me to do jogging or aerobics.

Damn, just the thought of working out made me hungry. After all, she did say she liked me overweight, cherubic looking. Which was good since I’d long ago told her I’d never have muscles tighter than hemorrhoids on a weasel’s ass.

Stoned on kiwi and shrimp, I wonder what National Enquirer would pay to… nah, better to keep this to myself. Might need a little pick-me-up some day.

Back in the office the next day, after a big meeting with one of our top clients. The alien had popped into the client’s head and found out what he wanted most from our services.

Candace, my secretary came in behind me, looking tired. “How’d the meeting go?”

“It went fantastically. You okay? You look rather pale,” I asked as my alien friend popped out of my head into hers and back again.

As I found out earlier, they had the ability to dive into heads, back and forth. Some kind of perverse thrill they got when dealing with other species.

“I was up late with a sick relative.”

“She spent the night with her boyfriend,” it told me. “Do all humans require the use of thin leather straps and battery-operated devices when copulating?”

Candace? I’d never have thought.

As she bent over to retrieve her shoes I noticed the tight confines of her dress slide up over her hips and what looked like slight bruising; whip marks? God, if only that was me. Crap I hope he hadn’t read my mind just then.

Candace turned around, let her writing pad fall, and began to unbutton her blouse.

“Ah lady! This really isn’t the place for this sort of thing.”

“I can’t stop myself, Joe. It’s as if I’m possessed.” She continued to unbutton the blouse. Yup, he’d read my mind alright and I knew he liked to cause trouble. I did the only thing I could think of and left the room as her black lace bra sprang into view.

I’d regret this tomorrow, I just knew it.

“Ah, no fun, Joe Dancing.”

“Look, there’s some stuff you just can’t do. It is morally incorrect.”

“But you said you wanted to see her naked form.”

“No, I desired to see her naked form. There is a difference there.

In our world we do things by mutual consent.” “Consent? That’s no fun.”

“Look, never mind. Just promise me that you’ll not pop into anyone else’s head unless I say so.”

“Boring.”

Why did I get stuck with an alien that had a sense of mischief? “Say, alien entity called ‘I don’t know because my mammalian tongue is unable to pronounce it’, let’s take you to lunch at McDonald’s.”

“You mean Rotten Ronnies?”

This wasn’t possible, was it?

“You’ve eaten there?”

“Yes, on Andromeda six and a small planet near Betelgeuse. Thirty-two trillion served. Great Quunzzot burgers; it’s what made them famous.”

“What the hell is a Quunzzot burger?” I asked, as I walked past a blushing Candace.

“A thin green worm that dissolves into a delicious frothy paste when added to Whenzel juice.”

“Thanks, maybe I’ll just settle for coffee.” And, as we left the office, I mused that I really didn’t want to know what Whenzel juice was either.

“Mixed from the droppings of the SSwaway bird and phlegm of decomposing Vivard lizards. But what I find really abhorrent, do you really consume a drink made from the crushed seeds of a member of the Vitis family of plants?”

“Yes, we even have been known to suck back the juice of the odd fermented rye seed.”

“EEEK!”

Later, sitting on the veranda of my house, I wondered about his world; how strange to think his race could take their souls and journey across the stars on a holiday jaunt and plunk themselves into another being’s head.

It was the alien who found it bizarre that our soul’s essence left us only in death, never to return. He asked where we went after that and I hadn’t the heart to get into it.

This being’s experiences could make a best-selling science fiction novel, while all I ever wanted was a wife, a mortgage, golf every Saturday and two-point-four kids. I never believed in life out there or anything paranormal.

Was there a side of me that wanted anything beyond golf? Events of today had given more fun and adventure than I’ve had in my entire life. As for the alien, needless to say he was totally bored. He told me he was ready to move on but I couldn’t let him go yet.

What could I do to keep him here a little longer? “Bored, eh? Come with me, I’ll show you something you damn will-o’-the-wisp, something so uniquely human, an act of passion that’ll tingle every nerve ending in your body.” That is if it had any nerves? God, didn’t even know if he had a real body back home, let alone nerves.

Musky aromas of our lovemaking hung in the air as Gail slept beside me. Perhaps knowing there was someone else there watching me and feeling the same emotions as I did had made it so erotically enjoyable. What was I saying; an alien comes along and I turn into a bleeding pervert?

“This act of intercourse is most satisfying, Joe.”

Somehow, I could picture it lying back, cigarette dangling from its mouth or whatever it might have for a breathing orifice. “Most satisfying? The act of love between humans is the most pleasurable experience we can perform.”

“It that is your life’s greatest pleasure, all I can say is pity.”

“Pity.”

It was the most emotional outburst I’d gotten from it.

“Pity.”

The nerve, it had the nerve to say that. “Then tell me, being-of-no-name-I-can-pronounce, what is there that can derive greater pleasure?”

“How narrow your eyesight, human called Joe Dancing. Tell you, no, will show. Close your eyes and allow me let you experience my memories. As they say here, grab hold, and hang on for the ride.”

“What?” was the only response I had time for, before everything went black and I felt myself being pulled from my body. “Nothing will harm us in this state. Now open your eyes and view the heart of your star.”

Fingers of magma lifted heavenward, like great whips, exploding millions of kilometers away as we swam into the sun’s fury. We danced among the inferno’s flames, occasionally riding one like a bucking bronco, out into the heavens. Leaping and diving with liquid fingers of plasma, our partners in a pantomime of operatic dance. The absurdity.

“Enough,” he whispered, as we followed a bluish streak across the dark sky whizzing past a comet. I envisioned puzzlement on its rocky face, unable to keep pace with us.

“How fast can we go?” I queried.

“How fast is thought?”

We entered the blue orb of Uranus’ orbit. Rivers of hydrogen coursed across the planets sky. Below, vivid colors of blues, melding greens, gases all frozen in place. Time standing still, waiting, and how long shall the wait be before release?

Circling overhead, thin rings wreathed in black, protecting the stillborn world. A watcher among the gardens, frozen glints of heaven circling a freeze-dried paradise.

“Have you seen enough?”

“No! Show me more,” I begged, realizing how someone like him could be bored on Earth.

In the flutter of an eyelash we floated on a blue planet’s breezes. Not Earth, not our solar system, but a world similar of warm life-giving green. Every niche, every crevice breathing with the stuff of life.

Below us a herd of large mammalian-type creatures grazed, four curved horns adorning their heads, similar to our mammoths. They looked nervously about, wary of hidden dangers from the forest’s edges.

“Watch,” he whispered.

Several large reptiles, very much like our Allosaurs, skins in iridescent colors, burst from the trees, thumping silently towards the herd. One mammoth-like being blew its long snout and quickly the others formed a protective circle around the young.

The Allosaurs roared loudly, teeth bared and ran forward on their two powerful hind legs. The battle began, dinosaurs thrusting forward trying to break the circle. Horns stabbed one Allosaur, as another ducked under the thrust and crunched on a front leg. The Carnosaurs swarmed the one elephant being and dragged it free from the rest.

The rest of the herd, knowing it was doomed began a hasty retreat as the frenzied feast began.

“Unbelievable.”

“On this world mammals and reptiles live at the same time. But come see this.”

He pulled us into a meadow nearby, a bi-pedal creature in labour moaned in agony. Her chameleon eyes circled in pain as something brown-skinned pushed free from her bulging stomach. I couldn’t tell if it was reptile or mammal.

Blood and membrane adorned it as she licked it free. A miniature version of the mother, except a different color. I couldn’t understand why the alien brought me here until I saw the eyes. Intelligence stared back as it watched us watching it. Perception of its surroundings, this was the first thinking being of its kind. The start of a whole new race.

I bid farewell to the alien as we returned home. He told me he’d come back one day. Most likely a being like him wouldn’t ever return, probably forgot about me already.

I fell asleep to the vision of that newborn’s eyes haunting me. The first link on a strange world between animal and the long crawl towards sentient life. What marvels it would experience.

Rolling over I snuggled against Gail. My hands tingled, tracing circles over her skin, sending shivers through her.

She moaned.

“Want to make love again?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she responded. I had a lot I wanted to do in my life, my diet would start tomorrow and I knew one day I could look forward to a far more incredible journey.

After all I hear they travel light on Antares.