Tag Archives: short stories

Vampire Justice

Culture, Writing, , ,

If you watch The Rookie: Feds, you’ll have finally caught a glimpse of character Brendon Acres playing Vampire Cop. This was the titular character of a defunct TV show in which he starred prior to joining the FBI.

We all want more.

Sadly, I can’t give you more, but it turns out that in my short story, “Don’t Ever Change”, there is a similar story within a story. It concerns actor Alan Fitts playing the justice-dealing vampire Charles Wardell.

Here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

#

A slow knock at the door. Angelika Labelle’s eyes widen. She is seated upon a divan in front of the hearth, her face illuminated by the blazing fire within. The camera pulls back, and we see that the apartment is lit with candles, yielding areas of light and shadow. This is accentuated by the stark black-and-white photography. Decorations include antique cabinets and clocks, a hand-woven Turkish carpet, an intricately carved coffee table, and small Renaissance-era oil paintings. Another knock and she stands, adjusts her close-fitting dress, and sashays to the door. 

She opens the door slowly. There is a man standing in the corridor, hands folded behind him. He wears a black suit with a dark-grey shirt and a grey-and-black-striped tie. The corridor light is garishly bright, causing the woman to blink and raise her hand over her eyes.

A smile comes to Angelika’s face. She lowers her head slightly and looks up at the visitor, eyes half lidded. “Well this is a welcome surprise.”

“May I come in?” says Charles Bardell. 

Angelika steps back and waves her arm. Charles enters, and she closes the door behind him.

Stepping in front of the hearth, Charles regards the flames; the light dances in his dark eyes. 

“Wine?” asks Angelika, moving to the buffet. She reaches for a decanter filled with red liquid. 

“No,” says Charles. “No, I’m here on business.”

“Business,” says Angelika, as she moves towards Charles. “Well now I am intrigued.”

Charles turns rapidly and grasps Angelika by the forearm. 

“Charles!” Angelika’s eyes widen. “What are you doing?”

“You killed them. Those men. Why?”

Angelika blinks and her mouth opens slightly. Then, composing herself, she looks away. “I’m sure I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You seduced Doctor Boreanaz and blackmailed him. He provided you with the insulin and syringes you needed.”

“My, you are fanciful. Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

“They uncovered the truth about your past. As have I.”

Charles lets go of her then, and Angelika backs away, eyebrows raised. “What are you going to do?”

“Deliver justice.”

Angelika laughs. Moving to the buffet again, she pours a glass of wine, giving away a slight tremor in her hand, and takes a sip. “So,” she says, “you’re a policeman now?”

“I’m no policeman.” His words sound like a low growl. Approaching her once again, his face is dark with both anger and sadness. And something else. Hunger?

Angelika tries to back away but bumps into the buffet. Setting down her glass, she rests her shaking hands on the surface behind her. Charles approaches and bends so that he is very close to her neck. The camera closes in, showing the pores of her skin and his open mouth with its white teeth. 

“Charles, this is hardly the time,” Angelika says weakly, her body trembling.

“This is the only time,” Charles whispers.

His canines grow, and when they reach full length, Charles bites down on her carotid and drinks deeply. The camera moves to his eyes. They’re alight with energy. The camera pulls away and focuses on the roaring fire in the hearth. 

#

In “Don’t Ever Change,” people are inexplicably dying after meeting Alan Fitts, and someone starts to wonder if he mightn’t actually be some kind of vampire. You can find the story in my collection, Something Special, available at Amazon.

A Sneak Peak at “Happy Enough”

Writing, , ,

We met Will Fallon in the short story “Remember Me?” in my collection Something Special. Will encounters a woman named Susan Follows who can travel between worlds and who has come looking for his cat, Sam. Sam, it turns out, isn’t from around here. And in the world from which she came, she can talk. Will and Sam travel with Susan to many worlds until they end up back home, and Susan continues her travels on her own.

“Happy Enough”, a sequel to this story, appears in my new collection , The Woman in Red. In this excerpt, Will Fallons encounters someone who shouldn’t exist–a fictional character of his own making.

The second incident happened on Tuesday of the following week while Della was away at a conference. I was to meet some friends at a nearby Irish pub that evening. Being the first to arrive, I scanned the patio for a free table. They were all occupied and I was about to head indoors when a woman rose and walked towards the exit in my direction. I was about to thank her when I realized it was the dinosaur-dress woman from my story, “Under the Sand.” She was Black, her hair arranged in ringlets falling to her shoulders, and she wore a close-fitting cotton dress decorated with dinosaurs. I was stunned. Recovering a moment later, I decided what to say.

“Hi,” I said, when she was closer. “I was going to thank you for the table, but I think I know you.”

The woman said nothing, and instead raised a skeptical eyebrow. Interesting, I thought. If this is a show for my benefit, why does she look like I’ve just given her a lame pickup line?

“You work at FLIR, don’t you?” I continued. “I saw you speak at a defence conference.”

The skepticism on her face was quickly replaced by surprise.

“I’m Will Fallon. I used to work as a technical writer. You’re … Briana?”

“Briana Davison,” she said with a smile.

And that’s when the blood drained from my face. I hadn’t used her last name in the story, something that I’d kicked myself for. But that was the surname I’d chosen as part of her backstory, as was the defence conference. I had to force myself not to sway on my feet.

“Nice to meet you,” she continued. “You live in Kingston?”

“Um, yes. Are you here on business or sightseeing?”

“Bit of both. I’m collaborating with a professor at the Royal Military College. Well, I must get on. Nice to meet you, Will,” and she extended her hand.

“Same,” I mumbled, and we shook. Watching her leave, I whispered, “Stay clear of San Diego.” Then I took a seat at the empty table and ordered a large whiskey.

It was earlier than planned when I got home. Despite my best efforts, I’d only paid half-hearted attention to my friends, and when they noticed, I pleaded lack of sleep. Sam was waiting for me just inside the door. That was unusual. She went out most nights through a second-floor window that I keep open, leaping from the window ledge to the maple tree and returning home the same way.

Sam came up to me and rubbed her head against my leg. Kneeling down, I scratched behind her ears and looked into her eyes.

“You know, don’t you?” I said. “That something’s wrong. You always know.”

The Woman in Red is available from the Amazon bookstore.

Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Red-Selim-Ulug/dp/B0BMJGLF5N/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669407114&sr=8-3

Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Woman-Red-Selim-Ulug/dp/B0BMJGLF5N/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669407156&sr=8-1

Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-Red-Selim-Ulug/dp/B0BMJGLF5N/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669407189&sr=8-1

A Christmas Sneak Peak at “The Tinselator”

Writing, ,

What follows is a brief excerpt from “The Tinselator”, a story included in my latest collection, The Woman in Red. Here, Kaylee encounters a second visitor to her home on Christmas Eve.

After noticing that the sounds on the roof had stopped, Kaylee felt rather than heard something soft and heavy landing on the floor somewhere in the house.

Once again, she peered out the bedroom door, considered waking her mother, and instead crept towards the living room. It hadn’t changed very much since she was five. Her mother had bought some new curtains. Or rather, she’d bought some material and had fashioned curtains from them. They were still thin, though, and she could easily see the contents of the room from the streetlights shining in.

All was as it should be: sofa, chair, coffee table, the TV and the plant stand. It’s just that there was something there that didn’t belong:  a man, dressed in red, with snow white hair and beard, and wearing white gloves. Next to him on the floor was an enormous, bulging sack, standing about five feet high, tied-off at the top with rope.

The man was snuffling and scratching his head as he looked at a long piece of paper.

“You’re not Santa Claus,” Kaylee pronounced.

The man started, dropped the paper, and stood up. “I’m not?” he said.

“No. You’re not Santa Claus because there’s no such person.” Kaylee said as she crossed her arms.

The man looked down, scratched his head again, and said, “That’s funny. That’s very funny. Because I’m quite sure that I was Santa Claus when I left the North Pole. Yes, I definitely remember Mrs. Claus fastening the top button of my coat before I left. She said, ‘Now then Santa, you’ll be just fine without me. After all, you’ve been doing this for over 2,000 years.’ So, you see, I must be Santa Claus. The problem is, even though I have been doing this a very long time, things always change. People move around, new children are born, other children grow too old for my toys, it all becomes such a muddle.”

His eyes began to tear up and he withdrew a handkerchief and gave his nose a loud blow.

Finding that she was starting to feel sad for the man, Kaylee spoke in a softer voice. “But how do I know that you’re Santa? You could be anyone in a red suit with a big sack.”

Now the man’s eyes began to twinkle. “Oh, but this isn’t just any old sack. Come here and I’ll give you a peek inside.”

The Woman in Red is available from the Amazon bookstore.

Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Red-Selim-Ulug/dp/B0BMJGLF5N/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669407114&sr=8-3

Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Woman-Red-Selim-Ulug/dp/B0BMJGLF5N/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669407156&sr=8-1

Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-Red-Selim-Ulug/dp/B0BMJGLF5N/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1669407189&sr=8-1

Excerpt from “Remember Me?

Culture, Writing, , , ,

My collection of short stories, Something Special, was released last week. It includes tales of fantasy, horror and mystery, and it’s available at the Kindle store in ebook form. A paperback version is forthcoming.

The “Peek Inside” feature lets you read the first story, “Lizzy and Me”, and a good chunk of the next story, “Don’t Ever Change.” The cover is based on a scene from another story called “Remember Me?” What follows is the introduction and a brief excerpt from a few pages in. Hope you enjoy it.

#

The way in which Will meets Sam (the cat) is similar to something that happened to me. I was walking by the waterfront in Kingston and a cat came out of the darkness. It walked alongside of me, slowing when I slowed, picking up the pace when I did. Finally, I knelt down and said to the cat, “I can’t take you home with me.” Which I couldn’t. The cat’s eyes widened, and then it turned and disappeared into the darkness.

…

“Oh, this is good,” you said, sipping your dark roast. I’d chosen my favourite, an Americano, which was an indulgence, but it seemed like that kind of day.

As usual, the shop was bustling with patrons coming and going, and the tables were jammed with people talking or working on laptops. Throughout the space, the delicious smell of coffee mingled with the sweet odour of chocolate.

“You said you were looking for someone,” I reminded you.

“Right. Yes, I am. And you’re the link, but I’m not sure how.”

I was probably looking at you expectantly, waiting for you to say more. After taking a couple more sips of coffee, you did.

“Have you heard of the multiverse theory?”

I smiled. I was getting the sense that keeping you fixed on one topic at a time was going to be a challenge.

“Changing the subject?”

“Not really, no. Have you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Great. So somewhere out there, there are other places, other realities, reflecting different choices, different events, and even different laws of physics.”

“Okay, sure.”

“And sometimes, there are cracks between the realities. And sometimes, people can fall into them.”

You seemed quite serious, so I went along. “So, people literally fall through the cracks. From one reality to another?”

“Exactly! Well done. The person I’m looking for has done just that. I’m here to help them get back to their own reality.”

“And you think I can help?” I said.

“I’m fairly sure, yes.”

“So what happened, exactly?” I said, deciding to suspend my disbelief for the moment. “How did you end up here?”

“I came upon a crack in reality. It was closing. And the way it was humming, I could tell that somebody had passed through. The only way that I’d be able to help bring them back was to follow them before the crack closed, so that’s what I did, and I barely made it. Half a minute later and it would have been too late.”

“So that’s why you said ‘that was close’ earlier.”

You nodded. “Sometimes, the crack, the doorway, whatever you want to call it, it takes me right to the person who crossed over. Other times, not so much, and some detective work is called for. I’ve done this enough times now that I’m turning into a regular Sexton Blake.”

“Sorry, who?”

“Ah. Never mind. Just me showing my age.”

We were both quiet for a time. “Well,” I said, resting my head on my hand, “I’m not sure what to say to all that.”

#

End of excerpt.

Introducing Something Special

Writing, , , ,

My collection of short fiction, Something Special, is now available on the Kindle store. A print copy will be available in the near future. Once, that is, when I’ve worked out how to make that happen… The book includes 14 short stories and one flash fiction tale, in the fantasy, horror, and mystery genres. From the introduction to the book…

I wrote the oldest of these stories, “Where the Dragons Sleep,” in 2002, back when my plan was to focus on children’s stories. Plans change. Using the pseudonym selimpensfiction, I began to write fan fiction in 2011 and continued to do so through 2016. Along the way came “The Right Time” (2014) and “Protagonist Purgatory” (2015). Thank goodness for fan fiction, as it gave me the opportunity to grow as a writer in a friendly, encouraging environment. By the time I posted my last fan fiction story, I felt ready to take the next step in my writing journey.

In 2017, my Doctor Who story “Landbound” was selected by Big Finish Productions as the year’s Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip. It’s available for free if you care to give it a listen. Big Finish released my second Doctor Who story, “Battle Scars,” in 2019.

The stories in this collection are my original works. The fantasies are mostly of the urban variety, set in our world, except for “Protagonist Purgatory” and “Where the Dragons Sleep.” Of the horror stories, “Too Close” and “Under the Sand” are Lovecraftian; the others are not. Then there are the mystery yarns, or “weird mystery,” by which I mean mysteries that may or may not contain an element of fantasy, depending upon your interpretation. However, “A Question of Judgment” has nothing weird, with the possible exception of the detective.

A few stories are sequels to or are set in the same world as previous stories. Sometimes I’m just not ready to leave characters behind. The following stories are pairs: “Laura Wilcox” and “Truth to Power,” “Too Close” and “Under the Sand”, and “The Right Time” and “Protagonist Purgatory.”

The collection is not organized by genre, but if you prefer to focus on one genre at a time, you can make use of the list below.

Horror
Don’t Ever Change
Something Special
The Knife
Too Close
Under the Sand

Fantasy
Lizzy and Me
Remember Me?
Protagonist Purgatory
Laura Wilcox
Truth to Power
The Right Time
Where the Dragons Sleep

Weird Mystery
A Voice
A Question of Judgment
Unfinished Business: A White Rose Mystery

If you’re in the mood for something light-hearted, try “A Question of Judgment” and “Protagonist Purgatory.”

I hope you enjoy reading these stories. If you do, look me up on Twitter @selimpensfctn and let me know.

How Do You Write?

Writing, , ,

I first learned about discovery writing from the podcast, Writing Excuses. This is a technique whereby you create a setting, populate it with some characters, then make things difficult for them. Depending on the genre in which you’re writing, you might blow stuff up, let the monsters out, create a love triangle, or kill someone. Maybe all of the above. Then you sit back and see what happens. Even the writer doesn’t know what comes next.

That’s not what I do. Maybe its my career in computing science, where I didn’t start to build something until I had some concept of the end result, but discovery writing scares the hell out of me. It’s taken the writing of a dozen or so short stories, feeling my way in the dark, to understand how it is I do go about writing.

First, there’s THE IDEA, the flash of insight that becomes the basis of the story.

If prolonged exposure to the time vortex can cause human DNA to resemble Time Lord DNA, then… (“Fate of the Earth”).

Suppose we took the characters from Castle and set them in the old west (“Western Castle”).

You get the idea. So that’s the start. Next comes the end state. In other words, before I start writing, I always know how I want the story to end. After that it’s just a question of how to get there from here.

Some writers blast through a story, never looking back until the first draft is complete. Then they make a second draft, and so on, until they’re satisfied that everything works. Not everyone does that. I’ve found that I’m a revise-as-you-go writer. I tend to write in chunks. Usually, a chunk equals one scene. I revise constantly. When I start to write on a given day, I look over the previous scene, and revise as required. This, I find, serves two purposes: it puts me back into the story, and gets my juices flowing so the words start to flow for today’s scene.

In practice, I rarely spend more than two hours a day writing, and many days it’s less than that. It’s slow but steady work, but extremely satisfying. Without that creative outlet, I find myself increasingly restless as the day goes by. I need that writing fix.

I’ve used a beta reader at least a couple of times now (hi, Twisha). It’s helped in ways I didn’t expect, pushing me to become better at world building, fleshing out characters, and making situations believable. In fanfiction, where there’s no editor to review your work, a second set of eyes can be very helpful.

I’ve added a new step recently. When the story seems to be all there, I get my computer to speak it aloud. It’s both entertaining and instructive. Detecting awkward sentences is easier when you hear them spoken.

As for tools, I’ve settled into the habit of using Google Docs for my fanfiction and Apple’s Pages for original fiction, just because I just like to be familiar with more than one editing program. They’re both excellent. Google has a slight edge in that it keeps dozens of versions of your document in the cloud. Pages has the advantage of existing as both a cloud service and a stand-alone, local program. While Microsoft’s docx file format is a lingua-franca for exchanging documents, you don’t need to use Word to create those files. I have Microsoft Office installed on my MacBook, but honestly, I rarely use it.

And that’s about it. At least, for short stories. I have a concept for a novel, but just a few pages written, so it remains to be seen whether this approach will scale up. But I’m looking forward to finding out.

So, how do you go about writing?