Joe Duggan turned toward her with a confused gaze, his mouth open. He seemed to look right through her, not surprised or alarmed to see her, only vaguely aware that someone had entered the room. She fought for breath as she spied on her brother, Lou’s crumpled body laying against the bathroom door. Her brother Ben sat in a chair, face down on the table in a pool of blood. None of them moved. She kept her feet, even as she felt her knees weaken with violent trembling. Gripped by horror, she couldn’t think to run. Home had always been the safest place for her in all the world.

“Billy?” Her father’s face scrunched as if expecting a response. “What happened?  Why did he–?”

“Billy’s not here.” Tirsa heard herself sob, remembering her brother who’d died in infancy. Her frustration and confusion about what he had to do with this macabre scene came out in her voice. “Billy died a long time ago, Papa.” She waited desperately for her father to make sense of this nightmare. And the blood. It was everywhere.

 Why was he acting this way? Like she wasn’t there. Her response about Billy awakened her father from his stupor.

Her father scowled and narrowed his eyes. She shook and took a step back from his brewing anger. The dog wouldn’t stop barking.

“Ruff!” Joe hollered. “Shut up, dog!” He aimed the gun at the dining room door.

“No! Papa!” Tirsa squealed.

Bang! The barking ceased with a whine and then silence. She shrieked, her hands flying to her face, fingernails digging into her cheeks.

“Papa, please…”

Her father aimed the gun at her. “Shut your mouth! Don’t you get it? They’re all gone!”

She wailed, “Papa, it’s me, Tirsa!”

“You. Are you one of them?”

Tirsa gaped in silence, shaking her head. “One of who?”

“The ones with Lou!” His head jerked toward her brother, sprawled against the bathroom door. Papa’s eyes clouded. “Don’t you see…” His head shook and trembled, “…what he’s done?”

“Oh, Papa.” Tirsa sobbed. Her vision blurred as she stared down the barrel of the gun.

Joe’s finger closed on the trigger as Tirsa shut her eyes.

Scribophile Review

Scribophile. People who love to scribble. It’s more than that. Scribophile Review.

This site is a community of writers where I have received and given feedback that has made me a publishable writer. In the years since joining I have come to lead a group of writers who critique each other’s work.

Don’t be lonely. Don’t write in an echo chamber. Get the constructive criticism you need to be better.

You won’t find everyone agrees with you or that you like everyone. You will find that rare thing in our current culture: the opportunity to discuss differences in a civil atmosphere.

What Goes Around…

Philo lapsed into daydreaming and taking in the beautiful countryside.  About three miles into the journey he did a double-take at a strange sight.  A young man was slumped against a tree a little ways into the forest in a pile of leaves.

At first Philo thought he might be dead, the victim of robbers, rare on this well-traveled road to be sure, but always a threat, even during the Pax Romana, the era of peace that Augustus claimed would last a thousand years.  Philo shook his head, himself the recent victim of petty crime.

The Caledonian, Calgacus reportedly had said the Romans hypocritically ”Made a desert and called it peace.”  Certainly, the Romans had made travel safe and easy, brought water to cities with their aqueducts, fed its citizens with grain and olive oil and fish, but Philo was all too aware of the stories his father had told him of the ruthless violence, rape and destruction the Romans had used to subjugate his forefathers, before enslaving them.

He dismounted and cautiously approached the young man, seeing his chest move and deciding he was only sleeping.  He was shaved like a Roman, but wore the strangest clothing: rough blue trousers and a bright colored shirt with some sort of weaved design he didn’t recognize.  His shoes, sticking out from under the pile of leaves, also had writing on them and seemed to be made out of some odd burlap or strong cloth.  Philo’s curiosity was piqued and he decided to wake the man to find out where he was from.

What goes around… The new novel for 2024

Noah is a student who cares little for history (these are not hard to find) travels back to ancient Rome. His rudimentary Latin and lack of means is mitigated by the beautiful slave girl, Diana, who mistakes his identity for a foreign spy from the country she loves.

Noah is surprised by both differences and similarities to his own time, which he is desperate to return to, only that it means either leaving Diana, or better yet, taking her with him.

Domitian

Diana

Deconstruction

The new novel for 2023.

Deconstruction is a spiritual story about a man looking past his earthly troubles to tell the truth about life and death. Jeremiah Christopher loses his wife, his father and his career in quick succession, prompting a soul searching journey into the desert, where he finds answers not only for himself, but for all of humankind.

Jeremy joins up with a group of home rehabbers to earn a living, earning just enough to spend the majority of his time telling truth in the public square. Unfortunately, though he finds believers, the majority of the public is either indifferent or fickle, and a powerful group comes together to stop him from preaching his countercultural ideas.

My 2020 Nano Novel

This November I’m writing “It All Comes Down to This,” a sequel to my novel, “Distraction.” I intend to follow the adventures of Professor Tirsa Duggan, who keeps escaping death and close relationships. This time around Tirsa will be contending with cancel culture in her mission to understand the psychology of family violence. The backlash in university culture can be brutal if one does not tow the politically correct line.

New Satire Novel Needs a Name

I’m writing a satire using a couple of characters from my previous two novels.  I can’t seem to come up with a name for it.  I’m following ideas to their logical conclusions ad absurdum.  Tirsa Duggan has concluded spiritual/supernatural causes are behind the evil that has beset her most of her life.  The world does not agree.  The powers that be are extremely antagonistic to that notion.

Distraction

Yes, I’m starting a new novel!

What happens when what seems like love goes horribly wrong?  Family love ends in murder and disaster for teen Tirsa Benz as her father guns down her mom and siblings before turning the weapon on himself.  Tirsa spends the next ten years running away from her pain, seeking someone with whom she can share her deepest, darkest secrets.  Danny seems a kindred spirit until the signs of his dark obsession begin to awaken long buried fears for Tirsa.  Running away may not be possible this time as a stalking troll threatens to take everything away from Tirsa and threaten her life.

I’ll be distributing copies of my novel, So Much For That to my Beta Readers soon.  If you are interested in reading and commenting on it, please drop me a line!

When will you be done?

I’m reading this book, a gift from my wife.  The most persistent question I get as a novel writer is, “When will I see your finished book?” or  “Is your novel done yet?” or another closely related question.

Acuff’s thesis is that it is our perfectionism that often prevents us from reaching our goals, not our lack of effort.  True, sometimes we set impossible goals rather than working at attainable ones, one step at a time.

My goal is finish my current novel’s draft by the end of this year.  At that point I will submit it to an editor, get comments and corrections, implement many of those and then try to get an agent to run it past publishers.  If this does not yield results in a certain amount of time, I will self-publish it.

This time, I’m gonna get done.

Distraction

 

You’ve read the horror stories.  You’ve seen the dystopian movies.  You’ve laughed at silly depictions of devil costumes.  But do you ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes in the real world of demons?  What is Satan’s strategy?  I mean globally and locally.  That is, what does he hope to accomplish in the world and in your life?

My next novel, to begin in November as part of National Novel Writing Month, explores the damning possibilities.  Inspired by C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, I look at the unseen world through a conversation among high ranking demons.

The way these demons distract, distort and dissemble is no laughing matter.  Mordecai Davis wishes he knew what the problem was.  He never seems able to succeed at anything in life without it causing problems elsewhere.

Stay tuned this November for Distraction.  Unless something gets in the way and you forget.