Snowybrook Inn: Book Two

Just published Snowybrook Inn: Book Two for Kindle.



Book Notes: Demonspawn

I'm going to start writing notes on each of my books. This first post is on my novel Demonspawn, which I think is one of my better novels.

• I wrote Demonspawn waaaay back in 1998. It took me about nine months total to write, working at a lazy pace, taking a few days and sometimes even weeks or months off at a time.
• At the time I was writing it, I was really into “The Book of Words” series by J.V. Jones. In Demonspawn, I think I actually was trying to sort of match Jones’s writing style. It’s been a long time since I wrote the book, but as I recall, Jones’s series heavily inspired my own book.
• The character of Nisiter was inspired by Jones’s own character Baralis.
• The two guards in Demonspawn, Carl and Dale, were inspired by Bodger and Grift, two similar characters in Jones’s series. I originally meant them to be just two generic background characters, but they sort of took on a life of their own whenever they showed up in the book. I liked their comic interplay so much that they became my two favorite characters in the book.
• By the time I finished writing Demonspawn, I had intentions to write a sequel featuring the characters of Carl and Kala, the Shazaran slave girl. In Demonspawn, they’re last seen heading south together, and the sequel would have followed their adventures in the south. But I never got around to writing the sequel.
• I was having a hard time coming up with a name for the character of Nisiter. I finally settled on “Nisiter,” as a play on the word “sinister.” I wanted the character to come across mainly as a sinister man, so I finally just twisted the word around and came up with Nisiter. 
• My favorite scene in the book is when Captain Thasus is castrated, and his men take him to the hideous old witch woman Druza, who cauterizes his wound, equips him with a makeshift catheter, and demands that his men sleep with her as payment. This was an unforeseen development that just came to me as I was writing, but which became a major turning point in the story arc of Thasus.

Joke

Yes, that last blog entry, "Awesome Space Adventures," was a joke, in case anyone wasn't sure.

Awesome Space Adventures: (Read this one first since its part one)

Inspired by Moon People, reviewed on The Huffington Post, I have begun work on a new series. Here is the first installment.

AWESOME SPACE ADVENTURES: (Read this one first since its part one) by Scott Reeves

            Because I decided to write a new short story, so here it is. It has gotten a really cool space battle near the end, so you should stay tuned. There’s aliens too.

            She said she had wanted to go to the store, so he took her. Afterwards, she put her panties back on and they went down to Wal-Mart. They had gotten a stain on them, so she decided she needed a new pair. So she tried them on in the dressing room while he went down the aisles an d brought the groceries from the list she had given to him.

            When they got back home she tried the panties on and he told her he liked them. He had always liked Oreo cookies. That’s why he had brought them, even though they hadn’t been on her list.

            Now this is where the alien comes in. Apparently it had made it’s home in a bag of beans that Darrel had brought. Cheryl found him when she was making dinner. Or found it, I should say. Because it didn’t have sex. It looked like a bean, but it was an alien, about the size of a grapefruit, and purple like unto a grape. That’s why it had taken a hiding place into the bag of beans. It couldn’t be seen by people or it might get taken away and desiccated by the government, so it had hidden inside the bean bag. To avoid capture by the men in black.

            At least that’s what it told her while she was fixing the evening vittles for her husband. I need to get home. Will you help me get home? I was trapped in that Wal-mart for so long, thank God you found me and brought me home.

            Yes, I’ll help you get home, Cheryl told the bean alien. Where is home by the way? she questioned it. And do aliens believe in God? Since you said thank god, I just wondered.

            It’s far, far from here, where all the other aliens live. We’re at war, so we’ll have to be careful or they’ll shoot us before we get back. They will recognize my ship, and if we don’t get passed their line of battle, they’ll shoot us and my ship will blow up.

            She told him she wouldn’t want that, and then her husband Darrel walked in looking for some. He was hungry, and squeezed her pert rear end affectionately before taking the bowl of ham and beans over to their dining table. That’s when he noticed the alien, right before he almost ate into it before realizing the bean on his spoon was alive.

            And so she told him the story, right up until the part I just told you. Darrel said he to would help the alien back home.

            It’s just like that TV show, he said with laughter. Its Okay Alf, your as good as home, he told the bean and they all had a big laugh. Beans don’t laugh like persons do, especially when their aliens, they kind of make a high pitched noise that’s a little annoying if you hear it for too long. But they all new what he was doing anyway, so they laughed along with it.

            When the sun came up in the east the next morning, they went back to Wal-mart, where they located the alien space ship out back around the dumpster where Wal-Mart throws out its trash.

            While she was bending over to open the little hatch, the alien bean tried to probe her. Not one of the weird types of probes, just the anal one. But still, that was the type of stuff only a husband or boyfriend should do to her. The husband didn’t like it, so Darrel decided to smash the alien. When it was just a smear on the palm of his hand, he told his wife to pull her pants back up and told her also that now the alien was dead, they might as well take it’s spaceship for a little ride. It was only fair, after what it had done to her.

            You could of just told it no, she cried, you shouldn’t have kilt it.

            He smiled at her. It will be all right, he told her. Now let’s get in the ship and take off.

            That’s when the Wal-Mart guy almost came out and told them to stop digging around in the dumpster. But they were in the ship and shooting up toward the clouds before he was able to yell at them.

            That’s how their adventure started. That’s how they got their spaceship and were soon flying toward the alien battle fleet that made a giant ring around the enemy star system. On they’re way there they wanted to test how sex in zero G felt. It was okay, but the stuff floated around in the air afterward, like raindrops that wouldn’t fall to the ground but was instead just sort of hung there and splatted against whoever came near. But it was good.

            Then they were near the alien battle fleet, the ones who the bean alien had said were his enemies. The other aliens must have known they were coming, since they broke free and flew out to meet their new spaceship.

            Darrel thought that someone might be trying to hail them, but he didn’t know the language the aliens were using, so he couldn’t identify himself and let them know he came in peace.

            So the alien ship opened fire, and Darrel had to swerve to the side. It happened really quick, so he realized their ship could move really quick, and so it made invasive maneuvering easy. They dodged anything the aliens threw at them, and then they made it past the ring and into the solar system.

            Where should we go now that we made it to the alien’s home? Sharon asked.

            He put his arm around her in a characteristic display of the love he had for her. “Anywhere you want, baby,” he said. The sky is the limit. This whole galaxy is ours, now that we have this ship.

            And they flew from one star to another, having a lot of adventures that I’m going to write about in the sequal to this opening story. I’ve got a lot planned, so you’ll want to stay tuned and look out for more stories in the future. Maybe even a novel. I’m working on one soon, so I’ll let you know. I should have an exclusive blog up pretty quick, so you can tell how far I’ve got left to write on each story and novel. I’ll put in the link when its ready.

 Copyright 2012 by Scott Reeves

Very early short story - Mickey and the Thing Under His Bed

This is a really short story that I haven't published anywhere else before today. I wrote it in 1985, when I was 17.

MICKEY AND THE THING UNDER HIS BED

“Mom! Dad!” Mickey Charles sat up in his bed screaming. He clutched his covers close about him. “Come quick! There’s a thing under my bed!”

His bedroom door flew open and his parents came rushing in.

“Hush!” yelled his father. “Quiet down!”

Mickey shut up, but he didn’t stop shaking. He was scared to death.

“Now what’s all this about, young man?” his dad asked. He wasn’t too happy about being awakened in the middle of the night.

“Th-th-th-there’s something under my bed! It’s huge and scaly and smelly, and it has horns—”

“Oh come on, Mickey,” his father interrupted his frightened son.

“You’re thirteen years old, and that’s entirely too old for you to still believe in things under your bed! Now go to sleep!” Dad stalked out the door.

Mickey gave his morn a pleading look. “Honest, Mom. There’s something under there!”

Mom bent over and peered beneath the bed. “Well it’s gone now.”

Mickey got out of bed and looked for himself.

“But....”

His Mom got up and walked to the door. “Go back to sleep now, Mickey. It’s all right, you’re safe. Goodnight.”

She was out the door.

“But...” Mickey repeated.

There had been something there just minutes ago. It had laughed at him in a deep, rumbling voice. Then it had screamed foul words at him, its fetid breath oozing over him, making his skin crawl. It had swiped its claws at him. That’s when he had begun screaming. The thing had retreated back beneath his bed. Mickey slowly climbed back under the covers. He shivered, though not from the cold in the room. Some supernatural terror lurked under his bed.

It was out to get him. But no one believed him.

He didn’t sleep a wink the rest of that long, unusually cold night.

The next morning, his brothers and sisters laughed at him when they heard of last night’s incident. Mickey sniffed. No one believed him! He was beset by a monster from Hell, and no one would help him!

That night, Mickey once again lay in his bed. But he wasn’t asleep.

It was nearly midnight. That was when the creature had awakened him last night.

He burrowed deeper into the safety of his covers.

Suddenly a breeze was blowing through the room, bringing a deep chill and an unholy stench with it. Mickey pulled the covers over his head.

Now a heavy breathing sounded. A sharp yank, and the blankets no longer covered Mickey. A ten-foot, reeking horror lowered over him. A twisted, fur-covered face curved horns protruding from the forehead glared down at him.

It smiled a totally evil smile.

“I’ve come for you, horse dung,” it croaked. What awful breath!

Mickey closed his eyes tight and screamed as loud as he could.

Footsteps sounded out in the hallway.

In a moment of bravery, he opened his eyes and looked around. The thing was gone. He looked over the edge of the bed and screamed when he saw a barbed tail disappearing beneath his bed.

The door opened. Mickey’s dad walked into the room.

“What is it, Mickey?”

With a trembling finger, he pointed beneath the bed.

His dad threw his hands in the air and sighed. He stared at Mickey, then turned and left.

Once again, Mickey didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

******

Mrs. Charles was really worried about her son. It didn’t seem normal for a person to have the same nightmare two nights in a row. Her husband didn’t see any reason to worry. But, she thought, that’s a man for you.

She would keep an eye on Mickey. If he had any more nightmares like the last two, she would take him to a psychiatrist.

******

For the third night in a row, Mrs. Charles was awakened by her son’s screams. She tapped her husband’s shoulder.

“Huh?” he said sleepily.

“Go check on Mickey. He’s screaming again.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’ll quiet down soon.” Mr. Charles promptly went back to sleep.

“Oh, I’ll do it myself!” She got up and donned her nightgown.

She stopped outside Mickey’s door. The screams had stopped. Maybe he had gone back to sleep. Should she disturb him? She shrugged. Better safe than sorry.

She opened the door—

And her jaw fell open in terror. She tried to scream, but could make no sound. Then she tried to run, but found herself rooted In place. All she could do was gape.

The thing sitting on Mickey’s bed grated out, “Hello Mrs. Charles,” and burped loudly. Then it got up and began advancing on her. “Now it’s your turn! I sure am hungry tonight!”