Killing Off Mom

My love of books comes directly from my mom. She refused to allow dyslexia to keep me from reading and searched until she found the solution. She then spent many hours working with me daily and giving me the ability to turn meaningless images called letters into words. She was a single mother with three children and this was in the late sixties. Her willingness to allow me to read anything and everything even when it was not appropriate at the time is the reason I am a book lover and writer today.

Our reading tastes differ but we both love morbid, strange, and weird humor found in the odd book here and there. One of our favorite Stephen King short stories is Survivor Type where the main character systematically eats himself. When we discover one of these gems we can’t wait to share with each other. We both read and love romance but when not in the mood we like a good story where the ending is not happily ever after. A dead hero just makes the story better.

Two years ago, I entered several short fiction contests and the common theme was a woman named Carol or a derivative of the name. In all the stories Carol dies in some gruesome manner. She was actually the best evil character in each story so alas, she had to be extinguished.

Fang Chronicles: Emily’s Story is being released on August 24, 2012. Emily’s mother’s name is Carolynn. She’s my wonderful wicked character who dies in the first chapter. Don’t worry no spoilers here, I released chapter one at the end of Amy’s Story and you can read it below. Now don’t get me wrong, my mother gave me a wonderful childhood, fed my need for unusual pets, and cultivated a curiosity that might have killed a normal child. She nurtured my imagination endlessly.

I give her thanks and show my love by repeatedly killing her off. She always comes back so I can do it again in the next story. None of my short works won any awards but my mom and I laugh about every personality she plays. She understands my humor because it’s passed down from her own. I’m already thinking of ways to dispose of her again. When you read my books, keep your eyes open for Carol, Carolynn, Carrie, etc. She will probably die some ghastly death but will rise again and again.

Fang Chronicles: Emily’s Story July 24^th, 2012

Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and AllRomanceEbooks.com

Chapter I

Nineteen years ago…

The rain beat gently against the rooftop but it did not mask the sound of breaking glass coming from the first floor of Carolynn’s home. Living in a rural community was usually peaceful. She’d heard of wild animals jumping through windows but crime itself was virtually nonexistent. She grabbed the Glock from the nightstand drawer. Like many country hardened women Carolynn knew how to shoot. She would have preferred the shotgun but it was downstairs in the gun cabinet. The 9mm would do.

She didn’t hear another sound but knew she would never go back to sleep if she didn’t check the house. Slowly, she made her way downstairs, peering into the dark and wondering if she should turn on a light. Her female intuition told her no.

The porch light from outside, cast a soft glow into the front room as Carolynn turned toward the kitchen. A soft noise made her spin back toward the sound.

A naked man was standing ten feet away, mostly concealed by the dark shadows of the room. Before panic set in, she took a short breath and lifted the gun in one swift movement. But, before she could fire, the man did the oddest thing, he smiled. The explosion sounded at the same time his body slammed into hers. Her back made sudden impact with the floor, causing unbearable pain. The gun went flying from her hand.

Carolynn fought through the agony, her arms and legs kicking, her fingers gouging. She never had a chance. Her pleas did not change the course of events over the next hour.

The stranger never said a word. He walked out the front door when he was satisfied; a bloody trail caused by the bullet wound in his arm left dark smudges on the floor and on her skin. Despite the shock to her mind and body, his smell was the one thing Carolynn would never forget. It was the pungent scent of a wet dog.

Carolynn cried at the injustice as she scrubbed herself raw under the scalding spray of the shower. She wasn’t young or beautiful. Until tonight, she had only been with one man in her life. Her husband Dale had been dead for three years. She was too young to be widowed and she thought, too old to be savagely raped.

That night became her tormented secret. She stopped going to church and refused to speak more than clipped sentences to the women in her congregation. They finally left her alone.

She and Dale never had a baby. It was three months before she knew her body held the horror of what happened that night. Thoughts of killing herself and the child almost drove her crazy. Her hatred blossomed as the tiny being fluttered within her stomach. Suicide was a mortal sin but she welcomed eternity in hell over giving birth to the monster’s seed.

When the first cramps of labor began, she decided she would drown the hell spawn before its first breath. Her screams were heard by no one. Seven hours later, the small body slipped from her womb as Carolynn lay on the bathroom floor. The bathtub was filled with water waiting to close around the infant who would never know more than a few seconds of life.

Carolynn was barely able to stand and scoop up the bloody wet newborn. The baby was not moving but it was doing one amazing thing. Stark blue eyes, just like hers, gazed back. They would not release their hold. She collapsed to the floor, tears rolling off her cheeks, as she brought the softness to her breast.

Emily was given life. Carolynn’s grace lasted two weeks. Then, her child became a monster more real than her rapist. Carolynn caged her child for nineteen years. The cage was Emily’s entire world until the day she killed Carolynn, the day Emily killed her mother.