"100 LIGHTNINGS" UPDATE

Stephen Studach has asked me to spread the word: he is now looking for previously unpublished flash pieces for his 100 Lightnings anthology (Paroxysm Press). He will be accepting submissions until the end of June. Any collection of stories bearing Stephen's stamp of approval is bound to be full of nasty things. So get typing because this is the last call!

For those who'd like further details, here is a link to Paroxysm Press's webpage: http://www.paroxysmpress.com/

EASTER BUNNY: WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE!

I almost feel bad about putting this post up. I'm not sure that I would want my kids to read it, which makes it a good thing that they don't know how to read yet. I hate to put a damper on Easter, but let's face it: you don't come here because of my good looks. You come here so that I can unsettle you a little, perhaps even put a little chill down your spine, so that when you turn the computer off and go back to the real world you'll take nothing for granted. Isn't that why we all come here? To quench our thirst from the same communal watering hole?

Most of us are aware of the religious meaning behind this great holiday; being a good Christian myself, I wish to take nothing away from that. But since I am also a connoisseur of the macabre and bizzare -- like you, my drinking buddy -- I feel duty bound to share with you some Easter trivia about our furry friend the Easter Bunny, the kind that you won't normally hear about while watching those innocent, wholesome cartoons on Easter Sunday morning.

Consider this while you're nibbling away at those chocolate ears:

The origins of the Easter Bunny are pre-Christian and date back to the pagan holiday of "Ostara", which celebrated the re-birth of nature and fertility; the rabbit has been revered as a symbol of fertility since ancient times.

90 million chocolate Easter bunnies are reportedly produced each year. In 2000 Americans spent nearly $1.9 billion on Easter candy while Halloween sales were nearly $2 billion, Christmas $1.4 billion and Valentines Day just over $1 billion.

The world record for the largest chocolate bunny appears to have been set in South Africa by artist Harry Johnson. The bunny was 3.82 metres tall (12 feet, 5 inches) and weighed more than 3 tons (2,721 Kilos).

The record for the oldest living rabbit is apparently held by a bunny called Heather who is believed to be between 15 and 16 years old.

The lugholes of Nipper's Geronimo, said to be the rabbit with the world's longest ears, measured in at 79 cm (31.125 inches).

An early pregnancy test developed in 1927 was called "the Rabbit test". Rabbits would be injected with a woman's urine. The rabbit's ovaries would then be examined a few days later for any hormonal changes. This gave rise to the phrase "the Rabbit died" as a referrence to a positive pregnancy test. However, the reality was that all rabbits died during this test because they had to be surgically opened during the examination of their ovaries. In 1978 a motion picture was released called "Rabbit Test". It was a comedy starring Billy Crystal about the world's first pregnant man.

Rabbits are not native to Australia. The first rabbits were introduced down under by Thomas Austin in 1859 for sporting hunters. Farmers have been cursing his name ever since. Rabbits have increased to plague proportions in many parts of the Great Southern Land. They're considered vermin, and have had a devastating affect on the local ecology, including being responsible for erosion and the loss of some native plant species. Every attempt is made to cull these illegal aliens. The government has even gone to the extent of waging biological warefare against this proliferate enemy by releasing diseases specifically engineered by scientists to wipe them out (the rabbits, not the scientists), with moderate success.

Millions of Rabbits are tortured and killed each year in laboratories in animal testing and experimentation by scientific institutions, the military, private sector companies, and agricultural organizations.

The killing of rabbits for their fur is the fastest growing part of the global fur trade with an estimated 50 million animals slaughtered worldwide each year.

In many countries rabbits are hunted and farmed for food as a staple part of the local diet.

Rabbits have been known to cannibalize their young.

So there you have it. Thanks for joining me for a slurp. Here, let me wipe your chin. You're welcome back any time, as long as you don't mind sharing this watering hole with the sniggering hyenas and the other creatures that crawl to the water's edge on their fat swollen bellies at sun down to fill them up. And remember: the drinks are always on me!

Hope I haven't ruined your perception of the Easter Bunny too much.

Now go to bed, and maybe, if you've been a good boy or girl, you might feel the Easter Bunny's whiskers tickling your wam cheeks in the middle of the night when it comes to bring you a basket of goodies.

It's still a cute, fluffy critter with buck teeth and pink eyes.

VERY pink eyes!

"KING OF TIDES" SERIES BY EUGENE GRAMELIS

PART 2: "STRANGE FIRE"

"I don't think I can go any further."

Luke gazed over his shoulder and saw that Renaldo had come to a dead stop about fifteen feet behind him; the girl had fallen asleep on Renaldo's shoulders. Their conjoined silhouettes resembled that of a tall, humanoid squid monster emerging from the haze that seemed to ouze from the sky and trickle down the walls of the Earth like an eerie, dark-purple drape.

"Here, I'll take her," Luke offered.

"It's not that," Renaldo said, his voice thinned out by the wind. "I can't go any further." He had threatened to stop before, but this time there seemed to be an air of finality in the tone of his voice.

Luke raised an arm to shield his eyes from the flying grit and ash. This wind had teeth, and they were snapping at his face. The screen on his wrist watch was cracked. It wasn't working. Hadn't since the accident. And Renaldo didn't wear one.

It felt like they'd been trudging through this quagmire for something like five or six hours. That would put the time somewhere between 8 and 9 p.m. No wonder his legs were turning to jello. And to top things off, he was wet, cold to the bone and hungry. Really hungry. This was as far as they would be going for now.

Fighting the sludge, Luke ambled back to where Renaldo was standing; he took long deliberate strides as if he were wearing snow shoes instead of Nikes. Renaldo had gone from star pitcher of the East Boston Catholic Boys sophomore baseball team to a haggard old man in the space of a few hours.

Luke shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and allowed it to fall to the ground then reached up and gently took the girl from her perch. They didn't know her name. She hadn't spoken since they'd found her. Grey ash powdered her wet golden hair, like snow on the hood of a car. The girl awoke at Luke's touch and blinked her strange lilac eyes. She looked around her for a moment as if hopeful that she had woken up to a bad dream and that whatever she had been dreaming about moments earlier was the true reality. The girl went willingly into Luke's arms.

An instant look of relief washed over Renaldo as he fell to his knees.

Luke sat the girl on the backpack. "Stay here for a bit," he said. She was reluctant at first, and it took more than one attempt to get her to unlace her small hands from around his neck. "I'm going to have a quick look around," Luke said to Renaldo.

Panic flared in Renaldo's eyes. "In this visibility? You'll get lost!"

"I won't go far. Just up to that dune. If we lose sight of each other, call out. I'll follow your voice back. See? All those years of boy scouts are finally paying off. My dad would be proud." The thought of his dad brought a painful twang to his stomach. He was probably dead, too. He quickly pushed the thought away.

Renaldo nodded. A bruise had developed on his brow where his head had struck the seat in front of him when the bus had flipped. As Luke trudged off Renaldo lay down, his body making a snow angel in the wet ash.

***

From his vantage point atop of the dune Luke made a mental note of what he could make out of the topography. Thanks to the perpetual darkness and ash-blizzard, that wasn't much. It was the same story in every direction. Except for the ribbon of smoke, which stood out as a curly black smear against the magenta-coloured horizon. It seemed a little closer now but sill hopelessly out of reach. On his way back, Luke almost fell over a long rusty sheet of corrugated iron roofing, half-burried in sand and ash. It was too heavy for Luke to carry on his own, so he pulled it out and poked it into the ground like a post, where it flapped in the wind and made a sound not unlike a traditional country instrument Luke had once heard accompanied by a banjo. That would make it easier to spot.

***

When Luke got back to Renaldo and the girl he told them about a natural trench-like depression he had come across at the foot of the dune. They managed to find it again, thanks to Luke's musical sign post, and used the sheet of corrugated iron to hole themselves up for the night. The sheet had a fair-sized hole in one end, and their makshift shelter was open on two sides, but it held the wind at bay and kept most of the horrid ash-rain out.

***

They passed around the last of Luke's Gatorade and the half packet of Memento Mints Luke found at the bottom of his backpack then huddled together, sharing body heat. They listened to each other's breathing and to the low whine of the wind outside the trench. No one spoke about what they would do come morning. Maybe because they were too exhausted. Maybe because they didn't have a clue. Luke's eyelids began to sag. His bones ached. He had never felt this tired and this hungry before in all his life. He wanted to sleep. He wanted the weirdness to go away. He wanted his old life back. He wanted to wake up in his warm bed, to see the jasmine vines growing along his bedroom window instead of the starless, oily plum of a canopy that was visible through the rusty hole in the iron sheet.

Ronaldo was snoring now. The girl had curled up into a ball between them and had fallen asleep with her thumb in her mouth. Luke was also starting to drift off when a burst of green light erupted overhead.

Suddenly, the night sky was alight with strange fire.

(c) Copyright Eugene Gramelis, 2011

***

Hope you enjoyed the long-awaited second instalment of my "King of Tides" series. I apologies to my readers for taking so long to put it up. Hope it was worth the wait, and I will do my best to make sure Part 3 doesn't take as long. Feedback and comments are appreciated.

HALLOWEEN: SURVIVAL TIPS!

Whoever came up with the idea of mixing candy with ghouls was a genius -- what a great combo! Actually, some people think it was the Celts who came up with the idea. But most cultures around the world seem to have a day where they pay tribute to their departed, usually in an attempt to fend off any mischievous spirits with scores to settle. In Europe this is called All Saints Day or All Hallows Day.

These days, it all seems to be in good fun, and with each year Halloween appears to be gaining in popularity in Australia. Sadly, though, like most good things, this festive occasion is being usurped by corporations -- yes, these are the same stores and supermarket malls that start lining their shelves with Christmas decorations in July. What can you do? You can't really complain too much because if it weren't for the commercial side of it, we'd be hanging home-made decorations off our doors, probably something made from woven reeds and coconuts. It is what it is, my friend.

So on this eve of All Hallows Day, I thought you might be interested in some trivia about the occasion; I trawled the net and this is what I was able to come up with:

Fact 1: The reason why most historians attribute Halloween to the Celts is because the Celts believed that the barrier between the living and the dead grew thin as the New Year approached, which for them was around October, and so they lit giant bonfires in order to appease the gods and any wandering dead (I say what's the use of having a reputation as a big, tough, savage warrior if you're going to turn into a blubbering mess on New Year's eve?)

Fact 2: There really are such things as Vampire bats (but they don't look anything like Edward Cullen from Twilight) They terrorise farmers in South America and drink the blood of their livestock.

Fact 3: Rumour has it that William Shatner's face was used to make the mould for the mask worn in the classic horror film Halloween (The Shat is a legend; when I grow up I want to be just like him!)

Fact 4: In case you're wondering why all the fuss at your local K-mart or Wal-Mart: Halloween candy sales supposedly average around $2 billion each year in the US alone (My tummy's hurting already -- so is my wallet!)

Now, here are some tips from me on how to have a safe and incident-free Halloween:

Tip 1: If you live in Brazil, don't go trick or treating dressed as a cow or a sheep. It might seem like a good idea when no one in your street is able to recognise you, but, Dude, you won't be looking so smart when that Vampire bat is CHOMPING on your butt!

Tip 2: If you're about to walk up someone's driveway to do a bit of trick or treating and the name on the letterbox is Charlie Manson or Josef Fritzl -- RUN, Dude! Those aren't Halloween sound effects coming from inside his house.

Tip 3: If you ring the doorbell and the guy who answers isn't wearing any clothes -- RUN, Dude! Chances are that's not some kind of ultra-thin, skin-coloured, closest-thing-to-being-naked Halloween costume he's wearing. And, Dude, even if it is, does it really make the situation any better? Think about it.

Tip 4: If you happen to run into some guy with a strange, shambling walk while you're trick or treating, and he asks you to pull his finger as part of a Halloween prank, but the skin peels off in your hands (and it turns out to be real) -- Don't bother running, Dude. You're SCREWED!

With those happy thoughts in mind, I wish you all a very pleasant Halloween.

Whaaa ha ha ha!

WOW! IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

In 1977 the Ohio State University picked up what has become known as the "Wow!" signal. The signal was detected by Dr Ehman using the University's "Big Ear" Radio telescope. Dr Ehman had been working on the SETI project at the time. The mission of the project was to search the universe for evidence that we are not alone. The duration of the signal was 72 seconds. Dr Ehman circled the signal on the printout and wrote "Wow!" in the margin, which is how the signal got its name. Dr Ehman searched for it again, but was never able to find it.

Why am I telling you this? Because recently I discovered that this blog has a "stats" feature. This feature allows me to see where my "hits" are coming from; it tells me in which countries I have the largest audience, which sites are directing traffic to my blog, and what search terms are commonly used to find my site. When I first printed and viewed these stats I felt a little like Dr Ehman must have felt when he detected his famous signal. I definitely wanted to scribble "Wow!" in the margin.

The stats indicate, for example, that over the last couple of months my blog has been viewed by people from Australia (my home country), the United States, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, South Korea, South Africa, Ukraine, Philippines, Italy, Latvia, Peru, Russia and the Netherlands. My biggest audience seems to be the United States (cheers folks!) followed by Australia, which comes a close second (come on Aussies -- where the bloody hell are ya?). Interestingly, more Pakistanis and South Koreans have viewed my blog than Brits.

I always knew that readers were visiting my site because the digits on the hits counter were steadily on the rise. But I must confess that the revelation that people from all over the world are reading my work made me quite emotional. And I thank each and every one of you for giving me the motivation to keep churning 'em out. I welcome you all and sincerely hope that you have enjoyed kicking around my literary playground; feel free to return any time.

But there is one thing that perplexes me a little: with all this traffic and activity going on, why are only a few of you leaving comments? Writers are needy people, if you haven't noticed. We write for the same reason that actors get up on stage: to please our audience. If you don't let us know that you're there, we can't tell if we've done our job right. So register as a follower of the blog. Or just leave a comment. Tell me where you're from; what's happening in your neck of the woods; what you think of my stories; the "King of Tides" Series; the blog site in general. Tell me about the things you'd like to read about. Heck, tell me about the weather! Just make some noise!

Commence transmitting the Wow! Signal now ... Big Ear is listening.

WHERE DO I BEGIN?

What a whirlwind of literary activity the last few months have been.

The first gusts of the maelstrom hit around July when my short story "2109" earned an Honourable Mention in the flash fiction category of this year's AHWA Shorty Story Comp. It sure does feel great to have placed two years in a row. Congrats are due to Christopher Green and Jason Fischer who took out the comp this year and to all the very talented AHWA writers who participated.

June saw "The Last Roast" making it into print for the third time. It was published as a reprint by Twisted Tongue in issue 16. There's something about that story that I can't quite place my finger on. But whatever the secret ingredient is, it's turned it into a damn good yarn. I just wish I could distil that "something" and use it to drizzle over some of my other work.

In July I continued to delve into the world of micro fiction with "Bad Blood" making its debut in Flashes in the Dark. Writing micro fiction is hard work. It's a bit like trying to pen haiku on a grain of rice.

Also in July my ghost story "I came Back" hit unsuspecting household computer screens when it saw the back-lit light of day at House of Horror.

The cyclonic activity continued in August when The New Flesh informed me that "Mangeni's Lullaby" had been selected for inclusion in their Year One Anthology, which is now available on their website.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, the legendary Stephen Studach confirmed that "Dirty Laundry" (probably the best work I've ever produced) had been accepted for publication in an anthology edited by Stephen called 100 Lightnings. The anthlogy is being published by Paroxysm Press. I have a great deal of respect for Stephen. I know that he sets the bar very high, and that means that his anthology is promising to be of mind-blowing quality. I can't wait to see the final product.

The publication credits continued to tumble in during September with "In this Life or the Next" making it into Issue 14 of Sex and Murder Magazine. This story can also be downloaded from their website.

"Playing with Knives", a story with a bit of sting in its tale (excuse the pun), is available for your reading pleasure in the Autumn/Fall edition of Midnight in Hell, which is out now.

More recently "Happy as Larry", which is my attempt at an Australian-flavoured horror tale with a twist of sci-fi, seemed to cause quite a stir at Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers. Also during this month "Natural Selection" has made its debut appearance on TKnC. You can read this story on their website right now. It's set in South Africa, and it's about a safari tour that turns out to be no walk in the park. If you get the chance, check it out and let us know what you think.

And now for the big news: my novelette "Digging for Dandelions" is due to be released as a chap book. The publisher has yet to set the release date, but it's currently expected to hit the market later this year. So keep an eye out for it.

Phewww! That about sums it up. I sincerely apologise to those who frequent this blog for not having posted updates sooner. As you can see, I have had my hands full of late.

I especially regret not having had the time to post the second instalment of the "King of Tides" series. You can rest assured, however, that I'm on to it; I hope to have instalment 2 up in the next week or so.

Mmmm, I wonder what Luke and his friends will find when (or should I say "if") they arrive at the mysterious column of smoke. I bet you think you know the answer. But I'm also prepared to wager that you're dead wrong. I wonder.

"KING OF TIDES" SERIES BY EUGENE GRAMELIS

CHAPTER 1

***

"The heart of a man to the heart of a maid,

Light of my tents be fleet,

Morning awaits at the end of the world,

And the world is all at our feet."

-Rudyard Kipling (1885-1936)

***

PART 1: "TOWARDS THE PLUME"

Luke lifted his heavy sneaker out of the muddy sand and sunk it back into the bog in front of the other. With every step the sludge held onto his foot tightly, releasing it only after a game of tug-of-war. It had been like that for hours (thwump! as he pulled his waterlogged boot out and shlump! as he stuck it back in). He'd lost all feeling in his toes. And now his legs felt like they were dragging boulders.

The letters spelling out Luke's last name--Wakefield--on the back of his baseball jersey were barely visible through the grime and layers of ash. He wore his backpack over his front torso to shield him from the oncoming rush of wind. His sneakers had been blue once. They were Nikes. Top of the range. His Mom had given them to him on his sixteenth birthday, last April. The boots would have set her back about four hundred bucks. Luke was pretty sure she'd be dead -- or gone -- like the rest of them. He wanted to cry, but his face was too numb.

A sharp, stinging gust tugged at his wet hair and clothes. He was surrounded by a nightmare. No skyline. No buildings. No people. Nothing. Just a ghostly darkness and soggy, blackened earth shrouded in a grey-purple haze as far as the eye could see. And looming in the distance, barely visible, was their only beacon of hope, the only discernible landmark: a long, black plume of smoke extending high into the bleak stratosphere like the funnel of a tornado.

A mixture of cold rain and powdery ash sheeted from the sky. It was everywhere: in his hair, on his clothes, up his nostrils. Something caught Luke's attention. He kneeled and pulled an object out of the ash. It was a brown beer bottle. When he tipped it, sand, gravel and green sludge dripped out. He let the bottle fall back to the ground.

They had been making their way towards the plume since it had happened. But the darn thing never seemed to get any closer.

Renaldo thought this was a bad idea, but was too claustrophic to stay in the tunnel. Luke wasn't exactly sure this was a good idea, either, but right now there seemed to be a shortage of good ideas.

The game had been called in the seventh inning thanks to the mercy rule, sending the team back to the awaiting busses early.

It had been just before noon when all hell broke loose.

After they had forced open the back window of the wrecked bus, their only other option had been to stay at the scene with their team mates until help arrived. They had waited for about two hours, but there hadn't been any sirens or flashing lights. Not even an automated emergency broadcast over the PA system. No one seemed interested -- or able -- to come to their rescue. Luke had felt like a trapped rat in that tunnel and hadn't been keen on staying holed up in that tomb any longer than he had to. The Coach had warned them not to go, but his leg had been broken, and there wasn't much he could do to stop them. That was when the realisation had set in that he would have to resort to self help if he wanted to see daylight again; Luke had been prepared to take his chances with whatever awaited him on the outside.

When they had crawled out of the escape hatch leading from the tunnel they'd been met by a fierce wind and an otherwordly darkness. There had been so much dust in the air that they could scarcely take a breath. Then the dreaded ash-rain had started to fall.

They had found the little girl in the Boston Tunnel while they were searching for a way out. She had been alone in the dark, sitting on the blacktop beside an abandoned Chrysler. They had heard her soft whimpering. Luke, Renaldo and Gerald -- who was also affectionately known among the team as the Fat Kid -- had been taking turns giving the girl piggy-backs since they'd crawled out of the manhole. But now it was just Renaldo and Luke doing the carrying (currently it was Renaldo's turn) because the Fat Kid had given up. They had left him laying in the mud about eight or nine miles back. They had refused to leave him behind at first, and they'd dragged him by the feet while he pleaded with them to just let him be. So, reluctantly, they had left him behind, promising to send someone to get him when they found help. If they found help, Luke now thought. The Fat Kid's whining was still buzzing in Luke's ear: My shoe's stuck! My back hurts! I have a stitch! I'm hungry! I'm dizzy! I'm going to faint! That was all they'd heard since finding their way out of the tunnel, and Luke was horrified to find that a part of him was glad for the relief. Luke knew that the odds were the Fat Kid wasn't going to make it, but would their own fate be all that different?

Now Luke, Renaldo and the girl settled back into silence. And Luke welcomed it; mostly because he was afraid to talk. Conversations led to questions. Questions with no answers were frightening--especially the one weighing most heavily on his mind:

Where in God's sweet name had the world gone?!

So instead of talking Luke continued to trudge through the mud, his sole focus: putting one foot in front of the other.

Thwump! and shlump!

Perhaps they had made a mistake leaving the bus. But he needed to know what was going on. The world he had known had disappeared. And so had the people who had been living in it. They had all simply... vaporized. Bafflingly, the sun, too, had vanished, plunging them into an unnatural gloom. Boston was gone, the great city and its suburbs replaced by the charred wasteland that now encircled them.

The mysterious column of smoke was still an unfathomable distance away.

Each step was bringing them closer to answers.

Thwump! and shlump!

Each step was probably also bringing them closer to death. But Luke figured they were dead anyway if they stayed here in the freezing mud. So they might as well keep moving.

Here there was nothing, but towards the plume there was fire.

And where there is fire, Luke reasoned, there is something for it to consume.

(c) Copyright Eugene Gramelis, 2010

***

I hope you enjoyed the first instalment of "King of Tides". This is a work-in-progress. New posts will appear periodically. So please feel free to let me know what you think of each piece as I put it up.Your comments are highly valued and much appreciated.