Mark Tufo's Blog

BACON-MAS TIMEPart 1The forest was quiet except for the creak of trees groaning under the weight of ice they wore like a clinging lover. The large black cat strode purposefully through the dusting of snow; he was angry he’d been sent on this fool’s errand.“I’m a Gate Guardian, not a bloody babysitter,” Sebastian hissed. He had just become Azile’s familiar; it was strange that one of such importance as himself would be relegated to what amounted to indenture, but, the powers that be had been determined it likely she could become one of the very strongest to wield the craft.It was important that she should have a wise and powerful guide beside her. Puh, Sebastian thought. “Wise and powerful my whiskers; it’s wasted on her. She’s a young girl pining away for a man she can’t have and a family that’s already forgotten about her. How long must I stand watch over these commoners?” He looked at the seemingly daunting wall to the compound and casually licked a paw before dematerializing and materializing inside. “Not as safe as you think, humans.” He walked to the home he’d been watching for the past two weeks.  He was sitting still as death, in a hedgerow, hidden from all but the most adept and diligent searcher.“Hey, you!” Ben-Ben yipped.Sebastian hissed, startled he smacked the top of his head on a low hanging branch. He spun quickly to glare at the little dog. The Yorkshire Terrier was all mouth and wagging tail.“You a cat?”Before Sebastian could answer the animal, asked if he had any bacon. Then he launched into a rapid succession of questions that became more and more inane. Sebastian's whiskers could grow no tighter. “Shut up,” he commanded quietly as he smacked his paw across Ben-Ben’s face.“Patches does that, but she usually uses her claws! Do you know Patches? She’s a cat, too!”“Not all cats know each other, lowly creature. Dog, right? Well? Do you know every dog?”“Every dog I need to," he answered proudly. “We’re done here,” Sebastian said as he winked out, landing himself once again in the peace and quiet of the forest that surrounded the base. He returned the next day, careful to find a new spot to watch from. He’d just settled in when he was once again set upon.“Did you know it’s Bacon Eve tomorrow?” “How are you doing this!?” Sebastian queried. “You smell like charcoal and charcoal means cooking meat and I’m very, very, very crazy about cooking meats.” Long lines of drool were dripping from his mouth and pooling on the ground as his thoughts swept him away.“I do not smell like charcoal!” Sebastian answered indignantly. “Just like it,” Ben-Ben said as he sniffed the cat’s tail.“I will rip your face off, puny creature!”“Patches says the same thing! You sure you don’t know her?”“I don’t, but she seems wise, and perhaps I should confer with her. Maybe she knows how to get rid of you.” “Rid of? We’re best friends! Well besides Riley, Henry, Chloe, Holly, Tracy, Michael, Justin, Travis, Nicole, Wesley, BT….”“I get it, I get it.” “But she’s the one that told me about Santa Claws and how he hides bacon all over the place on Bacon Eve. Bacon is glorious!”“Bacon Eve?”“It’s the day before the two-leggers celebrate Christmas Eve. I miss my Winke Santa.” Ben-Ben’s head sagged. “He died.”“Got a secret for you, dog.”“Ben-Ben.”“Whatever. All of you are mortal and quite capable of dying. It’s easy, in fact.”Ben-Ben tilted his head. “I know that, cat.”“Sebastian.”Ben-Ben sighed. “Whatever. I realize that our lives are but a fleeting moment, therefore, I will do all in my power to enjoy each and every moment I am granted on this most wonderful of planes. And that, my feline friend, involves eating as much bacon as I can possibly find.”Sebastian’s head tilted at an answer he hadn’t been expecting. “Strange to see a canine with more than three working brain cells. Well, as you can see, there is no bacon or cooking meat here, so I will need you to leave, preferably never to return.”“Stop smelling like charcoal then.”Sebastian got angry. “I do not smell like…forget it.” An idea dawned in his mind to get rid of the pest, if only for a little while. “I know of where this hidden bacon is.”Ben-Ben eyed him suspiciously. “You’re willing to share?”“I’m a vegetarian,” Sebastian lied. “The place where they poke you with needles?” Ben-Ben shuddered. “They never have bacon there; it always smells like fear and urine.”“Apologies; I misspoke when I said you had a working mind. Come with me.”Sebastian led the smaller dog to the wall.“You going to go over and bring it back? Ben-Ben was craning his neck to look up. “I could probably jump over it…but I don’t know what’s on the other side.”“Really?You can jump twenty feet?” “Twenty, what now?”“Just reach out with your paw and touch my back.”“This a trick?”“Sort of.”“It doesn’t involve your claws because I touched you, does it? Because Patches is very particular about being touched, especially when she’s sleeping, and I’ll tell you what, she sleeps a LOT! Like, so much I eat her food most of the time. Tastes horrible! But I get worried about it going to waste. Usually get a stomachache then throw up on the soft inside floor, sometimes it’s better if I get to eat it again before the two-leggers shoo me away and pick it up. Did you know they throw it away!? Makes me sick even thinking about it.” “You have problems, dog.”“Ben-Ben. Did you know I’m a rescue dog?”“Makes sense someone would try to get rid of you.” “What?”“Rescue dog. That means someone tossed you out with the garbage and another human foolishly brought you back inside, along with all your issues.”
PART 2
“That’s not what Riley says. She says I rescued our family who took me away from the cold-cages.”“Just touch me so I can drop you off.”“With the bacon.”“With the bacon,” Sebastian added. Ben-Ben placed his paw on Sebastian’s hindquarter. The cat immediately took them outside before the dog could move away.“I told you I could jump it!” Ben-Ben did a small circle and yipped excitedly.“Yes, you did it. Congrats. Now, if you look straight ahead, you’ll see one tree that is much larger than the rest.”“Oh, I see it. I must mark that to show how mighty I am!”“You do that. But be careful of the bacon; it is close to the base.”“Bacon-topia!” Ben-Ben was off and running.“Powerful witch or not, this is ridiculous. I will let her know exactly how I feel about this.” Sebastian headed back over the wall to the house, convinced he would not be bothered again. He summarily fell asleep, awakening as the first of the snowflakes fell upon his nose. “None of this cold nonsense where I’m from.” He shook his head and stood. He did not think at all of the dog he’d led outside as he trudged through the burgeoning snow to his shelter, where he could get warm.
TALBOT HOUSEHOLD
“Hey Holly, have you seen Ben-Ben?” Riley asked. “I have checked around the entire dwelling but I cannot find him.” “He was looking for bacon the last I saw.” Holly stood and stretched her front legs.“He’s always looking for bacon; that doesn’t help.”Riley went over to Michael, who was sleeping on the floor, his head propped against the couch and a book on his lap. She barked directly into his ear. “Need you to get up!” she told him.“Holy shit!” He sent the book flying as he sat up. “What’s going on, girl?” Riley was peering at him from less than a foot away. “I’m thinking she wants to play.” Tracy had come into the room to see what was going on.“Naw, that’s not it,” he told his wife. “She looks serious.”“When did you become the dog whisperer?”“Don’t need to be one with a dog this smart; she’s a people whisperer. What’s going on, pup?” he asked, gently grabbing both sides of her face. Riley pulled away and barked a command. Holly nudged Chloe and they both came further into the room and sat down next to Riley. Henry replied from the kitchen where he had been dining on the scraps of a salad Tracy was preparing. Patches padded silently into the room. “What’s all the noise about?” she asked. Mike looked around the room in bewilderment. “I wish I knew what this….wait, where’s Ben-Ben?”Riley barked at that. Mike’s attention snapped to her. “That’s it, right?”“Seriously, Mike? Who are you? Dr. Doolittle?” Tracy laughed.“Again, it’s Riley that’s the smart one; I’m just trying to figure it out.”“Not going to argue with you there.”“Have you seen the little monster?” Mike asked her.“Funny…no, and I was just thinking about how quiet the house was. He sure does make a lot of noise for such a small dog. Probably locked himself in a closet again.”Without saying another word, they separated and began searching throughout the house, calling his name repeatedly.“Shit.” Mike was back in the living room, running his hand through his hair. He opened the front door and was looking at a particularly nasty snowstorm. “He can’t be outside; I didn’t let him out.”“Any luck?” Tracy asked as she came from her rounds. “Did you let him out and forget?” “No, I took them all out earlier, and you know how he is when he comes back in. Fifteen-pound dog pushing to the front to get his good-boy cookie. I even laughed more than usual because he sent Chloe skidding headfirst into the wall.” He absently rubbed the wronged dog’s head. Riley turned to Patches.“What?” “Patches.” “He wouldn’t leave me alone! I just wanted to take a nap. I told him about Santa Claws and how he leaves bacon around for all the good little dogs.”“Leaves bacon all around, where?”“Outside, of course! How could I be expected to get enough sleep if he was overturning furniture looking for something that wasn’t there?”“And how did he get out?” Riley asked. “I don’t like your tone,” Patches turned away and began grooming herself.“You’ll like a lot less about me if you don’t tell me.” Patches sighed loudly. “There’s a window in the basement that opens up if you push against it.” “It’s too high up.” Riley was suspicious.“We may have moved a few things around so he could reach.” Patches said, moving deftly to a higher perch, should Riley want to express her disapproval in a more physical manner. “If anything has happened to him, Patches…” She left the rest unsaid.“You should all be thanking me. Tell me, have any of you slept that well recently?” Riley had turned back to Michael. She barked and stood, heading very deliberately for the basement door.“Oh good...is he down there, girl?” Mike opened the door, expecting to be greeted by a small dog whose entire rear end would be swinging back and forth in merriment. His countenance slipped when that wasn’t the case. “Ben-Ben?” he called out as he turned the light on and descended the stairs. “Shit, why is it so cold down here?” He immediately spotted the reason. Snow was pouring in through an open window, and even more troubling was the makeshift ladder comprised of boxes and a table that led to the opening. He stuck his head out and called. When he heard nothing in return, he quickly dashed upstairs and began to dress for the weather.“What’s going on?” Tracy asked.“He got outside, crawled through a basement window.”“Ben-Ben did? Are you sure? That’s not something he’d do.”
PART 3
“Not unless someone told him to,” Riley growled, looking at Patches, who was now slouched into a small, humped furball. “It doesn’t, but he’s not in the house and there was an open window. It’s snowing pretty hard out. We need to search outside; I’m going to scold the hell out of him when I find him.”“As if. You’re going to give him cookies until his belly drags on the floor.”“True," he answered as he pulled his boots on. Riley was nearly attached to his hip as he went for the door. “I take it you want to go?” Now he was looking at the entire pack. The dogs generally listened to him, but not always, and he was already looking for one lost pup. “Sorry, girls, just Riley.” Henry let out a savage bark. Mike got on one knee to hold the large dog’s head in his hands. “You sure? It’s cold out there.” Henry barked again. “Good enough. Hon, Riley and Henry are coming with me.”“I’ll call the squad to keep a lookout,” she replied from the transition between the kitchen and living room. Mike and the dogs slogged through the snow, looking for some signs.“I’ve got a faint scent of him,” Riley told Henry.“And something else,” Henry added as he was next to her.“I don’t see anything,” Mike said as he watched the two dogs investigate a nearby hedgerow.“Something was just here; see where the ground is disturbed?” Riley stated. Henry was looking at the pushed away snow, but was confused when he saw no prints leading away. “Bird?” Riley asked. Henry shook his head. “It would still have to hop out from underneath before it flew,” he told her. Riley put her nose to the ground and followed Ben-Ben’s scent. “You got something, sweetie?” Mike stayed close behind.Riley stopped at the wall and looked up before whining. She did a few circles, trying to locate another trail but was unsuccessful. “He was here, right here.”“And so was that other scent,” Henry said suspiciously. “Did a two-legger take him?” she asked.  “This is different; I’ve never smelled anything like this.” Henry looked up as well.“What’s going on guys?” Mike asked; both dogs were staring at the top of the wall. “There’s no way he went up there.” Riley went over and placed her paw on the barricade. “Are you sure?” Mike asked. Henry barked in response. Mike hurriedly headed back to the house. If he was going outside the gate, he was going to need a hummer and his rifle. “Nothing?” Tracy looked distressed as Mike came in and shook off the excess snow. “I think, well, the dogs think he’s outside the gate.”“They tell you that?” “Pretty much, yeah.” “What are you going to do?”Mike merely looked at her.“Not even sure why I asked. This is supposed to be a nasty storm, Mike—it’s not safe out there.”“Even more reason to go now. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve; how am I possibly going to enjoy myself if I know he’s all alone in the cold?” Tracy bit her tongue; she knew how much Mike loved his dogs. He’d no sooner leave one of them to fend for themselves than he would his family, friends or squad.“Want me to tell, BT?” she asked.Mike was surrounded by the dogs. Chloe and Holly were not going to let him out without them this time. “I think all the seats are going to be taken.”“Are you coming?” Riley asked Patches.“You’re the ones with the big noses; what could I possibly do besides get wet?”“You could help look for your friend.” “Friend? Fine. Stop looking at me that way. My eyesight is better than all of yours; I’ll look from inside the vehicle.” Patches leapt gracefully down from her loft. “You, too?” Mike asked as Patches padded for the door. Mike helped Henry up into the passenger’s seat; the rest piled in the back. Chloe and Holly were giving Patches as wide a berth as possible, given the confines of the vehicle. “Captain Talbot? Umm, strange day to head out to the dog park.” Sergeant Ventz had bent down and was eyeballing all the occupants. “I know. I’ve got my reasons.”“I’m going to have to radio this in.”“Can you give me an hour? One of my pups has gone missing; I’m just trying to find him.”“How many you have?”“It’s been an adoption process.”“You seriously think the dog is outside? In this shit storm?”“I do.”“And this isn’t just one of your crazy ass ideas or something?”“It isn’t.”“One hour, Captain, and then I’m going to have to notify the boss. Don’t go getting your ass killed while you’re out there or I’m going to get in trouble.”“Nice to know you care.”“Oh, I care, sir. I care about that 12-year-old bottle of Scotch you’re going to get me on your next run.”“Deal.”“And sir, bring your dog back safely.”Mike nodded before speeding off as the gate opened. He immediately went to the place in the wall where Ben-Ben had disappeared. He noticed when he stepped out, that the snow completely covered his foot. “Riley, you going to be able to smell anything?” He opened the back door. “I don’t see anything,” Patches was peering through the snow.“Henry, he was here,” Riley barked, waiting for Mike to help the other out. “And so was the other thing. Could it have flown him over?”“His trail leads away.” Henry was doing his best to peer through the burgeoning blizzard.The fur on Patches neck bristled. She turned quickly to see what had caused it; she immediately froze when she saw it. “Uh, oh.” She was looking at a huge black cat, peering at the group. “Riiiiiiley!” she meowed, hoping the dog could hear her through the closed door.Riley wanted to ignore the cat; she was still mad at her for letting Ben-Ben out, but when she looked up and saw the fear in her eyes, she knew she needed to check it out. Once Patches got her attention, she looked to where Sebastian had been, but the strange cat was gone, leaving Riley to question what had got her riled up.
PART 4
BEN-BEN
Ben-Ben ran off in happy search of his holiday prize. His tail moved quicker the closer he got to the tree, and faster still as he circled the trunk. It was only on his third loop that he began to slow his wag. “I don’t smell anything.” He looked up and then back to the cat, who was no longer there. “It’s got to be around here; that’s two cats that told me I could find bacon. What are the chances they’d both be lying?” And he wholly believed his thoughts. “Maybe he meant that tree!” He padded off quickly, his tail picking up steam. He was on his ninth tree when he looked around and realized he had absolutely no clue where he was. It was then that the snow, which had been threatening, began to fly and Ben-Ben suddenly found himself chilly. “I need to get home, snuggle with Riley for a while!” He yipped excitedly and then whined; he had no clue how to get home. He should have been able to pick his own scent up and work his way back, but he began to panic when he figured out he was alone and beyond the gate. The wind had picked up significantly, and he was having difficulty seeing through the thickness of the snow falling.
SEBASTIAN
Meanwhile, Sebastian had entered into the dream world seamlessly, the blackness enshrouding him, quickly evolving into a scene more to his liking. An endless field unfolded before him, resplendent with tall grasses and his favorite flowers.“Catnip, my dear Sebastian? How quaint,” Azile laughed as she walked toward him, dragging her fingertips across the tops of the bright green perennial. “There’s a problem.”The smile quickly faded. “Is Michael all right?”“Yes, yes, the half-vampire you adore for some misaligned reason is fine, as is his wife, should that be of some concern to you.” “I wish none of them ill-will. Don’t start, Sebastian. Tell me why you are here and what the problem is.”“I lost his dog.”“What? You lost Henry?” “Not the oaf; the noisy one. Len-Len or something.”“Lost him? How? Forget it. Just get him back.” “Oh yes, you are correct. Now why didn’t I think of that?” “You can’t find him.”“I can see your wisdom is beginning to catch up with your skills.” “‘Get a familiar,’ they said. ‘They’ll guide you and watch out for you,’ they said. Not once did they say they’d cause you sarcastic grief, which I didn’t think was a thing until I met you. How did you lose the dog?”“I don’t see how that is relevant.”“It’s relevant, Sebastian, because maybe if I know how you lost him, I might be able to help you figure out where to find him.”“He would not leave me alone.”“Tell me you did not send him to the underworld.”Sebastian hesitated as he thought upon that. “It would have been easier had I done that, but no. I merely led him away so he would stop bothering me.”“Sebastian!”“Fine. They are living within a walled community now, which I don’t think will hold up against a sustained attack, by the way.” He noticed the scowl Azile was giving him. “Oh, for purgatory’s sake. I brought the dog outside to look for bacon, of all things. He followed, like a daft dog is apt to when food is involved. Nearly as bad as human men being led by their…”Azile waved away the catnip. In its place was a lava field. Sebastian was now perched upon a small outcropping; all around him, thick flows lapped against the edges.“I can almost feel the heat,” he stated, staring passively.“It’s real. Or real enough.”Sebastian, who was about to test the illusion, wisely thought better of it. “Oh, alright. When I realized your Michael was frantically looking for the smelly beast, I decided it would be for the best if I brought it back. Except when I went to get him, he was gone, something had grabbed him.”“A person? A zombie? A wolf? What grabbed him?”“That’s the thing, I don’t know what it was; I have never smelled it before. There was some familiarity, a mixture of many things, perhaps, but nothing I could identify.”“One thing, Sebastian, I asked you to do one thing.” Azile was looking off into the distance, the lava field faded away to a purplish sunset. She left without saying another word.
BEN-BEN
Ben-Ben had begun to shake in earnest, his teeth clacking together. “Need shelter, then maybe bacon.” He began to look frantically for something that could be used to keep the worst of the weather away. With his sight limited to ten feet, he wasn’t having much in the way of luck. The snowfall was accumulating quickly, the powder already scraping the bottom of his belly, making the onset of hypothermia quicken. He spun in a circle, clearing the precipitation away until he was staring at the frozen ground consisting of pine needles and dirt. Instinctually, he knew his only chance lay in using the snow as a cold thermal blanket between himself and the howling wind. He let out a long sigh as he curled up, covering his face as best he could under a paw and tucking his snout into his shoulder. “So…cold.” He couldn’t stop shivering as the snow began to pile atop him, coming up over his sides. “R…R….Riley…where are you?”
PART 5
MIKE
“Shit!” Mike stuttered. “It’s cold out here. How are you guys doing?” he asked his pack of dogs.“I’ve got a scent!” Chloe’s nose was coated in snow as she lifted her head from the ground. She shoved her face back down and was following the trail. Sometimes she had to backtrack to pick it back up before heading off in a new direction. “You hanging in there?” Mike petted Henry’s head. “Not a fan of the snow,” Henry barked back. Riley made sure she could see Mike and Henry behind her while also keeping an eye on Chloe. “Not too far!” she warned the young dogs. Holly was keeping a lookout for her sister, like she’d been doing their entire lives. She nosed the others’ hindquarters to let her know to stay close. “I’ve got him!” Chloe barked much too loudly, not realizing her volume because of her lack of hearing.“Inner head voice, Chloe,” Holly told her. Chloe’s tongue was lolling as she happily sought out the funny little dog. “Getting closer!” She sniffed hard, shooting snow out of her mouth. She made a large loop before settling back to an empty depression. “Right here, Holly, he was right here.” She had her head up and was looking around. “And now?” Holly asked.“Just gone. He was lying down here—I’m sure of it.”Riley got to the two dogs first, then Mike and Henry caught up. “I can see where he was laying low, but there are no paw steps leading away. They’d still be visible, if this depression is. Where you at, pup?” Mike placed his hand on the disturbed snow before standing. His gaze was pulled to what looked like two, human-sized footprints, but they were alone in a sea of pristine snowfall. “What the hell is going on?” Mike grabbed his rifle off his shoulder. He looked to the trees around him. Other than a helo rescue, not much of this made sense. “Riley?” She looked and whined; that was all the answer he needed. “We can’t stay out here much longer; I didn’t realize it was going to be this bad. Shit. Where are you at, Ben-Ben? We’ll never find him in this mess, and I can’t risk losing you guys, too.” Mike was weighing his options. He knew he would have stayed until he couldn’t take it anymore, but this wasn’t like being out with his squad; he couldn’t order the dogs to go home. He would bring them back and strike out again. “I was just about to report this," the sergeant said as he waved Mike in. “Any luck?”“No.”“I’m truly sorry, sir.”“I’m dropping them off and heading back.”“Not going to happen, sir, the base is on lockdown.” “Maybe we can do the same deal?”“Sorry, sir. It’s a shitty thing to lose a dog, but I’m not going to compound it by having you get lost or me getting caught breaking the curfew. Military food is bad enough; I’m not going to start eating jail food.”“There a less conspicuous way for me to get outside?”“You could get a ladder, but are you going to start walking around in this? You’d get turned around in twenty feet.”“Dammit.” Mike pounded the steering wheel.“Go home, sir, get warm. Tomorrow when this blows over, I’ll get half the base to join you to look for him. He’s probably fine.” “I hope so," he said before reluctantly heading back empty-handed. Tracy was standing at the window as the Hummer pulled up; she didn’t have to ask how it had gone. The defeated body language of each of them as they exited told her everything she needed to know.Mike opened the door, gently letting Patches jump from his arms as the dogs padded in. “Anything at all?” she asked, hopefully.“We saw where he had been, but it’s like he vanished.” She didn’t press him on it. “Why don’t you get your wet clothes off, get warm.”Mike went to do as his wife suggested.“Okay, out with it,” Riley said to Patches. “Yeah, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Henry added.“I always see spirits; that’s nothing new. This was different, though.”“We’re listening,” Riley told her.“I think it was a Gate Guardian.”“A what?” Holly asked. “Ethereal beings that are tasked with watching the gates between realms.” Patches shivered. She looked like she wanted to crawl up into a dark hole and hide for a while. “What’s it doing here?” Chloe asked.“More importantly, did it have something more to do with Ben-Ben’s disappearance?” Riley’s tone let Patches know she was still angry about the cat’s part in all of this. “How could I know any of that?” “I smelled something funny when I found Ben-Ben’s bed and the Mike saw something, too.”“Just, Mike.” Riley corrected.“Just Mike or The Mike?” Chloe asked. “Forget it,” Riley said. “The Mike saw footprints like a two-legger.”“That your guardian?” Riley asked of Patches.“It’s not my guardian, and no, they appear as cats in this realm.” “Something strange is going on. A small dog somehow got over a huge barrier and then left a spot without leaving any paw prints. None of this makes sense,” Henry said gruffly. Mike came down a few minutes later wearing sweatpants, heavy socks, and a hoodie, yet none of that could keep the chill from his heart. He stopped short when he saw all the animals in a circle. “I’m so sorry," he told them. “I thought we’d find him.” He sat down next to Henry and gripped the big dog before burying his face into his fur. “We just haven’t found him yet,” Henry offered as his Mike softly cried.
BEN-BEN
“Well, what do we have here?” Ben-Ben was surprised he’d heard anything, with how violently he was shivering. He shook the snow off his head to look at a large pair of black boots that transitioned into a red camouflage-patterned pair of pants. He had to crane his neck even further to look up at the ruddy face peering down at him. “You look cold, little fellah. What’s a good doggo like you doing out in a storm like this?” Ben-Ben lapsed into unconsciousness just as an impossibly-sized pair of white gloves reached down and picked him up. He didn’t remember much beyond the sensation of floating; he thought this perhaps was the feeling one got just before they went to the Forever Field.
PART 6
TALBOT HOUSEHOLD
“Come and eat some dinner,” Tracy called from the kitchen. Mike was about to decline the offer, but he figured he was going to be out all day tomorrow and would need all the strength he could get. He reluctantly stood and went to the table. One by one, the animals followed, partly to comfort their human and partly because he was generous when it came to handing out treats under the table, even though the alpha female scolded him for the action.Mike’s sleep was fitful.His legs twitched in anticipation of getting back to the search. Riley stood a silent sentinel by the living room window, waiting, watching, hoping her friend would come back. Mike arose early; to say he “awoke” would imply he’d slept. He quietly grabbed his clothes and headed out of the bedroom. The sun was sparkling brightly atop the new coating of white. Riley was at the door waiting for him. Mike hesitated. “All right, just you and me.” Mike scribbled a quick note letting Tracy know he’d taken her. He was outside and was now realizing how much snow had accumulated. “Got to be over a foot.” He didn’t think Ben-Ben would be able to walk in it to get anywhere safe, he didn’t voice his fear, as Riley was adept at picking up verbal cues. “Ready?” He opened the passenger door and she hopped in, her eyes staring straight out the front windshield as if to tell him to get moving. Mike was glad for the heavy-duty diesel engine and the four-wheel drive; he was going to need all of it to cut a path through the unplowed roads. “Heading out again?” Sergeant Ventz asked.“I am.”“Want me to get some help?”Mike shook his head.“Good luck, sir.”“Appreciate it,” he said through tight lips.Mike drove as close as he dared to the last known place of Ben-Ben. He would have kept driving around,hunting for some sign of the small dog, but he was afraid he might drive right over him. Looking out, his mood soured, thinking this might turn out to be more of a recovery than a rescue. Riley didn’t wait for him to come around, jumping instead through the driver’s side and landing next to him, the snow nearly covering her hips. Four hours later, Mike was convinced he was going to lose some toes to frostbite. He’d put a reluctant Riley back in the Hummer with the heat on an hour ago when she’d begun to limp. “FUUUUCK! Where are you, Ben-Ben?” he yelled before heading back. Riley’s tail was wagging as she saw him coming, but it quickly ceased when she realized nobody was with him. “I’m so sorry, Riley.” His eyes wet with the news. He pressed his head against the steering wheel for a few moments before composing himself enough to drive, and even then, he was unwilling to move forward. Once he left, he would be admitting to himself that they’d most likely lost Ben-Ben forever.Sergeant Ventz, having seen the captain’s face, wisely said nothing as he saluted and let the Hummer in. Henry barked to let Tracy know she should open the door. The mood in the household immediately changed, from hopefully optimistic, to sullen. Even the apathetic Patches seemed affected. “You’re freezing,” Tracy told her husband as she hugged him. “Inside and out,” he replied. “I’m so sorry, Mike. We’re all going to miss him.”“I know, I know.” He couldn’t stop the flow of tears that fell. “I just, I’m going to get myself composed before the kids come home.” It was Christmas Eve, and Mike had never felt less like celebrating. It seemed the day was a cursed one for the dogs in his family. Hethought sourly on the heroic loss of Bear, who had sacrificed himself so that they all might live, on a not-so-distant Christmas Eve. Mike sobbed until his head ached, then cried some more, his skull feeling like it had been filled with expanding concrete. By the time he was done, night had settled and he made his way downstairs. His kids were all home and helping Tracy prepare the traditional Christmas feast. It wasn’t quite the spread they’d had in the past, but it was appreciated more. No mention was made of Ben-Ben in the hopes that they could delay the topic, at least, until after the Holiday. Mike smiled at all the appropriate times and did a reasonable facsimile of a happy man, but every time he looked over to the dogs and the glaring omission of the loudest among them, his mood quickly sank. Patches had, at some point, padded down to the basement and her secret way out.
PATCHES
“Get him back!” Patches hissed. Sebastian jumped, his tail puffed huge. For the first time in a very long time, he’d been scared. “How do you all keep finding me?” He was annoyed that she’d seen him startled. “Get him back!” she repeated.“Is this about guilt for your part in his disappearance, or do you really want him back?”“He is an obnoxious dullard, who, for the life of him, cannot be quiet for more than five minutes. Yet, he has saved my life, and I love him for that and because he is an obnoxious dullard who cannot be quiet for five minutes. So, to answer your question, yes. I want him back, and you’re going to do that or so help me.”“So help you what, feline? You know what I am, do you believe yourself capable of making good on your threat? Yet…that you would even dare to challenge me so lends believability to your claim. I would gladly bring him back, for I, also, in part, am responsible for him going missing, but I cannot. Some…thing has taken him, and I do not know to where or for what reasons.”“It wasn’t you?”“It was not.”“Why are you watching this family?”“A favor for a friend.”“You are not doing a good job of it then,” Patches said before turning tail and leaving.“You would be correct,” Sebastian said quietly, “and for that, I am sorry.”

As a surprise to fans Sean Runnette read a portion of Zombie Fallout live at the Scares That Cares Convention July 2016

https://youtu.be/gbKVb1-X6ZU

SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER


IH6
Prologue 1
What a strange planet we live on. We act like there are these huge differences between us, the color of our skin, the religions we believe in, the sex between our legs, the politics we vote for, the patch of land we call home. When in reality we are the largest, most dysfunctional family in the cosmos. And we act like it, we will beat each other mercilessly, unfortunately many times we even kill one another, in the name of God, of Allah, of insert deity’s name here. For things you have that we don’t, for example, oil, gold, land, water. Talk about not sharing on a global level. But like any family, Whoa unto thee that comes over from outside and smacks your baby brother upside the head or calls your sister a slut. Retribution is swift and oftentimes harsh. I mean in this case we got our ass kicked,the ruling Genogerians came down with their Progerian fighters and basically beat us up and down the sidewalk. Not at first, I suppose, no I got sucked up into a life or death cage match with an entire venue of concert goers and somehow came out on top and was given the moniker of Earth Champion for whatever the hell that meant. We caused some damage on that mothership, but it was like stubbing the toe of a giant. They leveled cities and destroyed vast swaths of the human population. If not for some sympathizers and militia groups we’d already be under the iron yoke of the ruling class, fighting their wars and feeding their soldiers.. and by feeding, I mean we’d be on their diet. We’re apparently very tasty with a light alfredo cream sauce. From the brink we fought back, landing some effectual punches putting the aggressor on the ropes and actually wresting control back from our potential enslavers. All was partially good. With our bell still sufficiently rung we knew we weren’t out of the woods just yet. Our infrastructure and government were a thing of the past and we were under the gun. Their ship the Julipion had sent off a distress call, it would only be a matter of time until someone came to investigate. Those three years on earth were among the most civil, well-behaved of our entire history. We had a much larger and more dangerous enemy than ourselves to contend with and it was going to take all of us that remained to pull together if we even wanted a chance. If not for the threat of complete extinction one might even be able to use the word idyllic. Sure there was still your normal human drama, Beth was still alive and I guess she just liked to continually stir the pot. Hard to fathom that I killed people in the hopes to get her back, now I’d kill them to make sure that never happened. Something snapped in that fragile mind housed inside that beautiful face. I felt bad for Paul, my best friend and pretty much leader of the world. He had all he didn’t want and could not have what he so desperately needed. Beth had married him as a way to stay close to me and I think she thought it was going to drive me into fits of jealousy. Oh it drove me into fits but not for any of the traditional reasons. She was a pain in the ass and an extremely dangerous one at that for she had the ear and the bed of the most powerful man on the planet.  For three years we pooled all of our resources into making our planet one giant united weapon, we had Genogerians and some Progerians on our side. We produced massive plants to reverse engineer and create our own space fighters, we didn’t have the time or the materials to build planet busters, we could only work on the Julipion which we retrofitted and renamed the Guardian. It was our flagship and really our only ship. She was our first and only means of any type of defense, sure we could harangue occupation troops but we learned they would only suffer that for so long before they’d make the planet uninhabitable. Something they had done to another species that had decided it did not want to be under Progerian rule. The Stryvers became our ally, would have been a lot more helpful if they looked like fuzzy koala bears and not the living, breathing, nightmare that they were. They supplied us with weapons and some technology, though this felt very much like a robbing Peter to pay Paul type of scenario. We’d figured out soon enough that the Stryvers weren’t really here so much to help us as they were to help themselves. In their perfect world we would be wiped out at the same time as the Progerians or worst case scenario the victor would be so completely and thoroughly weakened that the Stryvers could come in and claim the victory for themselves. They were a race without a planet and it looked like Earth would suit their needs. We could not fight on two fronts  but it was no fun fighting forwards with one eye to our rear. When the Progerian reinforcements came, we punched them square in the nose, though we busted up our hand, shattered our forearm and threw out our shoulder in the effort. We’d won a major battle that might have cost us the war. Yeah, try and figure out the math on that one. I’d come across another unlikely ally in the form of a Los Angeles gang member and together with my tough as nails Marine wife we did what we could to save all that was precious to us. The world and more importantly what my world revolved around, my infant son. The same son I had entrusted the safety of to a Genogerian by the name of Drababan.
He was enormous, eight feet and somewhere in the six hundred pound range, as mean looking as a black mamba with rabies yet I loved him like a brother and I trusted him implicitly. It was my goal, no that’s not forceful enough, it was with every fiber of my being that I was going to get back to him and my son. We had a war to fight, a war to win and I would keep doing all of that until the end came. Not sure what that end would entail and honestly I couldn’t think that far ahead and so we continue… 

Sorry, still feeling the after-effects of a 3 day concert on this vid! 

So I've got this big old blog and I do so damn little with it! I suppose I could do some bitching about some injustices in the world but that gets so old. Screw it, I'll let the haters spew on their own sites. Where the hell am I going with this? Oh yeah! I'm finally going to post something LOOOOONG overdue. Padraig Skelly a reader and fan came up with this book tree that shows how all of the books diverge from a central theme. I hope this helps folks that are looking to figure out how they all interweave!

Dystance got a facelift thanks to Dane@ebooklaunch.   http://amzn.to/1RnbPgB

Dystance got a facelift thanks to Dane@ebooklaunch.   http://amzn.to/1RnbPgB

No words. Hope this gives you some chills.
https://youtu.be/FUQEUWy-v5o

Today I'm honored to have on a friend of mine that I actually got to meet this year at the World Horror Con - Without further ado - Jaime Johnesee!


Thanks for having me on your blog today, I really appreciate it. I promise I'll try to keep everything right where you left it. Except the bratwurst. I have to be honest and tell you right up front, I ate the bratwurst out of your fridge and for that, I am sorry. There, I feel better now that I've confessed so I think I'll go ahead and move on to the less delicious topic at hand, zombies. I love zombies. They are such versatile monsters and so intrinsically linked with our fear of death and what lies beyond in the afterlife. Zombies represent the possibility that there is no peace and that is something that makes more than a few people uncomfortable and it also explains why zombies are such a great subgenre.
The history of zombies in American literature and film all begins in the Carribean. Haiti, to be exact. The lore says that Bokors practicing voodoo would essentially shanghai people by using a powdered mixture that caused paralysis and mimicked death. The victim was thought to be dead and was buried while in an unconscious state. The kidnapper would then come back under cover of darkness, dig up the grave, and wake the confused soul within. The zombi had no memory of who they were or what had happened. These folks were then said to have been sold to plantation owners, or kept by the Bokor themselves to be used as slaves.
In time, zombi mythos migrated to the Americaswhere, in the swamps and forests of the southern half of North America, it thrived and grew. These stories morphed from the zombi being sold into slavery to them becoming aware and attacking the slave masters. As more time passed the word morphed from zombi to zombie and the creature itself began to change. This time they weren't merely humans who had their memory erased, now they were the dead brought back to life seeking vengeance.  As the decades passed the stories, and the creature itself, changed and morphed throughout all mediums.
In 1932 the film "White Zombie", and its star Bela Lugosi, brought the zombie into the public theaters for the first time. This paved the way for other films like 1944's "Voodoo Man" These zombies were of the hypnotized/drugged variety and the mainstay in these stories is that the zombie themselves was not evil, but whomever turned them into a zombie was.
Other movies, like "I Walked With a Zombie" from 1943 showed the creatures to be magical and under the total power of a voodoo priest/priestess. Then came the undead. In the thirties, forties, and early fifties zombies start casually shifting from victims to monsters. By the time the man we refer to as the grandfather of the modern zombie, George A Romero, came around these beings were no longer something to pity. Gone were the days of the human robot being controlled by another through words, spells, or drugs.

The monsters Romero envisioned are the ones you read about most often today. The term 'Romero zombie' is actually used when describing a vicious, flesh eating, nearly indestructible terror out to spread the virus it carries in any way it can while feasting on the flesh and viscera of humans.
These beasts are still changing, still evolving, today. There is the more widely known zom-poc (zombie apocalypse) category but there are also other subspecies of zombie tale. Some, like Jeffrey Kosh's "Revenant", bring us back to the deep South and illustrate the lush voodoo tales of old, highlighting an undead creature's desire for revenge. Then there is the funny and entertaining world of zombie comedy --zom-com for short. Jeff Strand's "A Bad Day For Voodoo" being one of my personal favorites. These types of books and films poke fun at the thought of undeath. They seek to make this underlying fear of death --intrinsic to humans-- become something more light hearted and fun. When done properly, as Strand did, these books can be just as fun and thrilling as their survival type counterparts.
Whatever form the zombie has taken, wherever the story is set, and what the zombie itself is capable of doing changes based on the author/filmmaker. Zombies have been around for a long time and I honestly don't think they're going to disappear anytime soon. Some brush aside zombie fiction as being too mainstream, and to them I say; wade a little deeper into other areas of that pool, you just might find something you like after all.
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The stench of frozen rotted meat is in the air! Welcome to the Winter of Zombie Blog Tour 2014, with 10 of the best zombie authors spreading the disease in the month of November.
Stop by the event page on Facebook so you don't miss an interview, guest post or teaser… and pick up some great swag as well! Giveaways galore from most of the authors as well as interaction with them! #WinterZombie2014
https://www.facebook.com/events/15248...
AND so you don't miss any of the posts in November, here's the complete list, updated daily:
http://armandrosamilia.com/2014/11/01...

What does the FluffyRedFox say??: Hallowed Horror Collection: What a fantastic collection this book is, some amazing authors who have supplied some huge novels and brilliant novellas. Everyone sh...