Patrick Whitehurst's Blog, page 23

REVIEW: A Portal in Time swings romance through the ages

Cover for 'A Portal in Time' by Claire Fullerton,
Vinspire Publishing, 2013, 172 pages.There’s something about simple stories with a natural element of fantasy interwoven in the narrative. When written as such, these stories make magical elements something almost believable. Actually, it’s easy to believe in magic under the right circumstances. “A Portal in Time” creates just that effect – rather like Steinbeck ghostwriting a Diana Gabaldon novel.
Claire Fullerton’s novel, which tells the story of Anna and Valeria (two women from distinctly different points in time) and how they came to fall in love with the respective men in their lives, is set in California’s beautiful Carmel-By-The-Sea, a town known for its rolling waves, misty mornings and quaint cottages. For those who have visited the charming community, Fullerton’s short novel will whisk you back to those memories in a comfortable narrative befitting a cozy town. Her tone and pace find a rhythm quite close to the soul of the artistic colony itself.
Fullerton’s novel, like Gabaldon’s “Outlander” or Janeen O’Kerry’s “Queen of the Sun,” explores the wonder of time travel through romantic eyes, but Fullerton spends less time on the “portal” and more on the lives of these two women and the men they love.
A great read for those looking for something short and fun, for fiction by authors who reside in the Monterey Peninsula, or something a bit romantic to read over the weekend.

For more information on Fullerton, visit her website here!

MANTULA Part Twenty-Five: Halfway There

Doug begins to think his curse is worse
than King Tut's Curse, which some believe
affected Howard Carter.How does a person cure themselves of a curse? That was the question that lingered on my mind. There had to be a way to reverse it. If there was a way to make it happen, which was painfully and obviously possible, then fixing it was also possible.
I felt like that poor sap Howard Carter who discovered King Tut's tomb and suffered the wrath of the Egyptian pharaohs. Or maybe I'd end up like Lon Chaney Jr. in “The Wolfman,” cursed to die trapped in a horrific body, dead before he got to get naked with the gypsy girl.
“You wouldn't happen to know why I would be unchanged? Or of anything your grandmother might have said that could be used to reverse the curse?” I typed.
Diana leaned forward to read my note on the screen. She'd been doing it so much her breasts were now dangerously close to spilling over the top of her wet towel. Not that I minded. I doubt Glenn would be bummed to get another peek at the beautiful CEO either. Being a tarantula, she wouldn't be able to catch me looking, so I did. Her skin looked smooth and unblemished, not to mention warm and inviting, curvy in all the right places. And her face, as she read the two sentences and sat back, was soft and glowing. I could picture her across from me at a dinner table, perhaps over a bottle of the house red at some high-priced hipster restaurant. Only I couldn't be a tarantula for that to happen. And really? Did I really want that to happen whether I was a spider or not?
“That's something I would ask those two saints she cursed in the first place. You are all just pawns to frustrate them. No offense, Doug. No offense, Glenn.”
It may have been designed for them, I thought, but it's us who got screwed. And why was I unchanged? I wasn't addicted to anything that I know of. Depressed. Sure. But not addicted to anything.
“There's nothing that can be done, that I can do, to fix this?” I wrote.
“I've thought about this for a while. All I can think of are the basics, the simple stuff you would find in any old Google search. Do you have white vinegar wherever it is your staying? If not I have some here. You should bathe in it. Leave some around you. It soaks up negative energy, which is what curses are made of.”
Glenn chimed in. “That's a new one on me.”
I agreed. “Not heard of it either, but it's worth a shot. I have some back at the apartment. Not sure what in the hell vinegar has to do with curses, but Diana seems pretty convinced it can help.”
Diana leaned forward, narrowing her gaze at me, as if she hoped to discern my beady black eyes from the rest of my hairy, ugly body. I let my eyes wander to her round chest again.
“There's one more thing. A big part of all this has to do with my grandmother and her pain. Her soul went into death unhappy. That's what we're facing. Her spirit needs to be put to rest, only I'm not sure how to do that,” Diana said. “Here's what I suggest. Talk to your saint friends and get them to help. If they're worth their salt as saints, they should know how to put a soul to rest.”
That was a big if, I thought. But it was worth a shot. I could see the news made Glenn pretty excited. We were well on our way to figuring this out. I started typing on Diana's keyboard.
“They're not our friends. We never asked for this to happen to us.”
After reading my note, Diana sighed and got to her feet. “Listen, as nice as it's been having you over I have company coming over and can't talk now. Can you guys come back some time? I'll be home tomorrow after six. How about you talk to your saints, tell them what we've discussed, and see what they have to say?”
I went back to the keyboard, not happy to be getting the boot. After everything we'd just talked about, the ghost of her grandmother in the hallway, she still wanted to keep her date? “Don't tell anyone about us. Don't share this information with anyone. Do we have a deal?” I typed.
Tightening her towel, Diana nodded and made her way to the front door. “I don't know many people in Cottonwood to talk to anyway. Don't worry. I'm not sure how you guys got in here, but how about you leave through the front door this time?”
Doug and Glenn learn a thing or two about vinegar.I hesitated at the keyboard. It would only take a moment to tell her about the reporter for the Sedona Daily Reader. If she really wanted to help us, then I should tell her about him, about how he used to be Glenn's dealer. I wanted to tell her not to trust him, but she stopped me before I could get my leg over the keyboard.
“Please, that's enough for one night, alright? No more typing. The door's right here, guys.”
Glenn fluttered at the edge of the coffee table. “I think we've overstayed our welcome. Are you ready to hit the rain again.”
Without another word, I popped onto ManQuail's back and we trotted to the door. Diana watched us leave peacefully. An odd smirk passed her face as we went by. “I still can't believe this is all happening.” She muttered to herself.
She quietly shut the door behind us, leaving Glenn and I in the rain once again.
“I don't know about you, man,” Glenn laughed. “But I will be glad when monsoon season is over!”
“Hold on a second, Glenn.” I bounced off his back near the concrete landing at Diana's front door. “Why don't you go on back? I can make my own way back this time.”
“What? In this weather? Doug...”
I interrupted him. “I really need a little time to be by myself.” When he started to talk again, I held up a leg to stop him. “Really. I need some time to think.”
It took a few minutes, but I finally got ManQuail to head home. He muttered something about finding my vinegar bottle in the kitchen. I watched the little black blob atop his head disappear into the storm. After I was sure he'd gone, I vanished into some of the wet shrubs surrounding Diana's home. I didn't really want time alone, but I also didn't want to leave Diana alone with Kip Mooney.
Don't ask me why.

Mantula will return.

MANTULA Part Twenty-five: Halfway there

Doug begins to think his curse is worse
than King Tut's Curse, which some believe
affected Howard Carter.How does a person cure themselves of a curse? That was the question that lingered on my mind. There had to be a way to reverse it. If there was a way to make it happen, which was painfully and obviously possible, then fixing it was also possible.
I felt like that poor sap Howard Carter who discovered King Tut's tomb and suffered the wrath of the Egyptian pharaohs. Or maybe I'd end up like Lon Chaney Jr. in “The Wolfman,” cursed to die trapped in a horrific body, dead before he got to get naked with the gypsy girl.
“You wouldn't happen to know why I would be unchanged? Or of anything your grandmother might have said that could be used to reverse the curse?” I typed.
Diana leaned forward to read my note on the screen. She'd been doing it so much her breasts were now dangerously close to spilling over the top of her wet towel. Not that I minded. I doubt Glenn would be bummed to get another peek at the beautiful CEO either. Being a tarantula, she wouldn't be able to catch me looking, so I did. Her skin looked smooth and unblemished, not to mention warm and inviting, curvy in all the right places. And her face, as she read the two sentences and sat back, was soft and glowing. I could picture her across from me at a dinner table, perhaps over a bottle of the house red at some high-priced hipster restaurant. Only I couldn't be a tarantula for that to happen. And really? Did I really want that to happen whether I was a spider or not?
“That's something I would ask those two saints she cursed in the first place. You are all just pawns to frustrate them. No offense, Doug. No offense, Glenn.”
It may have been designed for them, I thought, but it's us who got screwed. And why was I unchanged? I wasn't addicted to anything that I know of. Depressed. Sure. But not addicted to anything.
“There's nothing that can be done, that I can do, to fix this?” I wrote.
“I've thought about this for a while. All I can think of are the basics, the simple stuff you would find in any old Google search. Do you have white vinegar wherever it is your staying? If not I have some here. You should bathe in it. Leave some around you. It soaks up negative energy, which is what curses are made of.”
Glenn chimed in. “That's a new one on me.”
I agreed. “Not heard of it either, but it's worth a shot. I have some back at the apartment. Not sure what in the hell vinegar has to do with curses, but Diana seems pretty convinced it can help.”
Diana leaned forward, narrowing her gaze at me, as if she hoped to discern my beady black eyes from the rest of my hairy, ugly body. I let my eyes wander to her round chest again.
“There's one more thing. A big part of all this has to do with my grandmother and her pain. Her soul went into death unhappy. That's what we're facing. Her spirit needs to be put to rest, only I'm not sure how to do that,” Diana said. “Here's what I suggest. Talk to your saint friends and get them to help. If they're worth their salt as saints, they should know how to put a soul to rest.”
That was a big if, I thought. But it was worth a shot. I could see the news made Glenn pretty excited. We were well on our way to figuring this out. I started typing on Diana's keyboard.
“They're not our friends. We never asked for this to happen to us.”
After reading my note, Diana sighed and got to her feet. “Listen, as nice as it's been having you over I have company coming over and can't talk now. Can you guys come back some time? I'll be home tomorrow after six. How about you talk to your saints, tell them what we've discussed, and see what they have to say?”
I went back to the keyboard, not happy to be getting the boot. After everything we'd just talked about, the ghost of her grandmother in the hallway, she still wanted to keep her date? “Don't tell anyone about us. Don't share this information with anyone. Do we have a deal?” I typed.
Tightening her towel, Diana nodded and made her way to the front door. “I don't know many people in Cottonwood to talk to anyway. Don't worry. I'm not sure how you guys got in here, but how about you leave through the front door this time?”
Doug and Glenn learn a thing or two about vinegar.I hesitated at the keyboard. It would only take a moment to tell her about the reporter for the Sedona Daily Reader. If she really wanted to help us, then I should tell her about him, about how he used to be Glenn's dealer. I wanted to tell her not to trust him, but she stopped me before I could get my leg over the keyboard.
“Please, that's enough for one night, alright? No more typing. The door's right here, guys.”
Glenn fluttered at the edge of the coffee table. “I think we've overstayed our welcome. Are you ready to hit the rain again.”
Without another word, I popped onto ManQuail's back and we trotted to the door. Diana watched us leave peacefully. An odd smirk passed her face as we went by. “I still can't believe this is all happening.” She muttered to herself.
She quietly shut the door behind us, leaving Glenn and I in the rain once again.
“I don't know about you, man,” Glenn laughed. “But I will be glad when monsoon season is over!”
“Hold on a second, Glenn.” I bounced off his back near the concrete landing at Diana's front door. “Why don't you go on back? I can make my own way back this time.”
“What? In this weather? Doug...”
I interrupted him. “I really need a little time to be by myself.” When he started to talk again, I held up a leg to stop him. “Really. I need some time to think.”
It took a few minutes, but I finally got ManQuail to head home. He muttered something about finding my vinegar bottle in the kitchen. I watched the little black blob atop his head disappear into the storm. After I was sure he'd gone, I vanished into some of the wet shrubs surrounding Diana's home. I didn't really want time alone, but I also didn't want to leave Diana alone with Kip Mooney.
Don't ask me why.

Mantula will return.

MANTULA Part Twenty-Four: Jacki Sturgis and the Pain

ManQuail meme!Jacki Sturgis was never a particularly imaginative woman, her granddaughter explained. She went to Catholic school as a child in Monterey, California, and married into an Italian fishing family at eighteen-years-old. She was a tiny woman, not even five-feet in height, and skinny as a rail. While most of her Polish family members came off bulky and stout, she couldn't put on a pound to save her life. She was also a fierce little thing and not someone to cross.
“She outlived two husbands, my mom, and every one of her sisters,” Diana Sturgis told us. "Her life was simple and rather meaningless, but she made the most of it by surviving everyone."
“It's like I always say. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” Glenn chimed in.
I sighed. “You know she can't hear you, right?”
“There wasn't anything real remarkable about her, which is mean to admit about your own grandmother I know, but it's true. She watched television, but had no real favorite shows. She liked the old television show channel, the one that shows Gunsmoke and Bonanza all the time, but would really watch anything put in front of her. To be honest, I'm not sure what my grandfather saw in her. I suppose she was an attractive little thing, so that must be it.
“Jacki had two children, my uncle and my mom. My mom died ten years ago thanksto a drunk driver in San Jose. My uncle is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean thanks to a heart attack or something that caused him to fall off the edge of a fishing boat. They never found his body. My grandfather died in the 90s from a bad case of the flu. Being a chain smoker, he wasn't prepared for how ill prepared his lungs were for a bad virus.

Doug and Glenn learn of the curse.“Smoking was a big thing in our family. I'm the only one who doesn't smoke actually. My grandmother was a chain smoker like my grandfather, so it came as no surprise that she got diagnosed with cancer around 2009 when she was in her seventies. At that time she was already well into her fixation on Catholic saints, especially Junipero Serra. When he was beatified in 1988, she was there looking on, near his grave site at the Carmel Mission. She started praying to them, but didn't seem so crazy about it until her diagnosis. At that time she turned her attention to Saint Kolbe, patron saint of addictions, and asked him to clear her heart and soul of all desire to smoke. She even had a coin with his face on it. She clung to that thing every day. Of course when her prayers went unanswered she fell into a severe depression. She would tell me about her disappointment in him when we talked on the phone. I wasn't surprised her addiction to smoking didn't clear up. Her anger about took me back, however. She was always a strong woman, very black and white, but even she knew how fickle faith could be. At least I thought so. It could be the older she got the more she wanted to believe in a higher power. Maybe she thought she deserved a little help after living such an ordinary life. In either event, she began to spend every minute of her time researching saints. That's when things got pretty weird.
“My grandmother started reading a lot of metaphysical books that held saints came back to the land of the living when they died. To become a saint, she told me once, meant immortality. She read a ton of books on the subjects, while undergoing chemo treatments, and became convinced she could reach a living, breathing Catholic Saint.”
I couldn't help but agree. “She wasn't that far off the mark, was she, Glenn?”
“It sounds like Kolbe never answered any of her emails though,” ManQuail replied.
“When she got in touch with some of the authors of these books, she learned that most hold the saints lived in Sedona. Something to do with vortexes, magnetic energies, and metaphysical power – all of which manifest themselves in red rock country – if you believe that sort of thing. Right now, telling all of this two a quail and a big spider, I'm inclined to believe in damn near anything.”
I typed on her laptop, allowing Diana a moment to read the question.
“How does the curse factor into all of this?” I asked.

“I'm getting to that... uh...”
“Doug,” I reminded her. It hurt a little she didn't remember my name the first time around.
Jacki Sturgis burned images of Kolbe."Her craziness about the saints really got the best of her, Doug. She up and moved out here in order to find the saints herself. She had money, so getting a little place in Cottonwood wasn't an issue for her. In fact, she stills own the family home on Spaghetti Hill in Monterey, or I do I suppose, since she left everything to me. I moved from San Francisco here with her when her health deteriorated. I was able to move my business without losing any contracts, so it wasn't difficult. She tried so hard to find Kolbe, and was so convinced he lived in Sedona, that she was devastated when nothing changed in her life. She grew despondent and eventually started praying to other saints, including Dymphna, who she said is the patron saint of the mentally ill. Again nothing. No response. No help. She got in a bad way.
“I was busy setting up Flight Services at the time, so it took a week or two for me to notice how ill she'd become. She hid it from me mostly. But one day she collapsed, just dropped, here in the living room after making dinner. Within half a week she was on hospice care. Nurses came in daily, I stayed home for the most part, and while I sat with her, she would tell me of her disappointment. Often, I'd hear her mumbling something she said came from her Polish ancestry, something called 'spoiling,' which is essentially putting a curse on someone. In her case, she cursed both Dymphna and Kolbe to be beset with those they could not help – people who suffered like her. She burned tokens with their likenesses, spit as she said their name, and chanted a nursery rhyme she learned from her mother, my great grandmother, long ago.
“Bugs and birds. Reptiles and rodents. Despicable. Deplorable. All hated moments.Bugs. birds.Will never quit.Reptiles. Rodents.They die in the pit.
“Somehow that turned into all of this. Doug, I can't tell you how she did it exactly. I'm not even sure I believe all of it, but look at you two. Look at what's happened. Somehow it's all true. It wasn't long after she died I started to see her ghost here at the house. She's always horrible looking, cackling like a monster, but she's my grandmother. I knew she didn't want to do me harm. Half the time I didn't even believe what my eyes were showing. I thought I was losing it. Instead of being terrified I started talking to her, hoping she would go to heaven, or become 'at rest,' but she keeps showing up.”
ManQuail chirped excitedly. “That's what the ghost was whispering when she was coming after us!”“Bug and birds, like you and I. Reptiles and rodents, if we're suffering from addiction, must suffer from depression, all of them,” I said. “But the question is, how do we fix this?” I started typing again for Diana's benefit and asked that very same question.
She read the question and, after a moment, shrugged.
“Hell if I know.”
Mantula will return!

Notes on MANTULA: an unedited, raw story

'MANTULA: have some discord' is scheduled for
publication some time in 2015.While the MANTULA story has been plotted for some time, I didn't know where the tale would lead when I began writing it last year. Since starting Doug's journey, I've moved from Sedona Arizona, and my job as reporter with Prescott's daily newspaper, to my birth territory in California's Monterey Peninsula and a wonderful new job at the local natural history museum. This change in circumstance may show in the pages of the story, but the story itself continues.
What many don't realize is that MANTULA is an effort in free-form writing. It's an urban fantasy, full of curses and situations beyond the realm of mortal men. Every drop in the bucket creates a great sea, furthering the story, from the comics to the news articles (the memes not so much, but they're awesome); each make a link in the literary chain. It's an unedited, raw story, posted online as each part is written. For MANTULA, I edit once as I write, then it's thrown online. Further editing will be found, including rewrites, prior to self-publishing the final, finished novella.
For me it's been an exercise in bare story-telling, in producing a story anyone can read, free of charge, in a writing environment where the emphasis seems misplaced. The story itself, the fun and excitement of imagination, seems lost in a world of marketing, sales, and Twitter followers. For this project at least, my hope is to do something where those cares are erased and unnecessary. MANTULA is for me, for my family, and for fun.
Besides asking my son to contribute to the story via drawn images, the spark of creativity has also been stimulated in our shared MANTULA projects, such as the creation of YouTube videos featuring our spidery main character. It's been a fun year of creation so far, and will undoubtedly continue when MANTULA is a project of the past.
That's if I leave him alone.

MANTULA Part Twenty-Three: The Sturgis Connection

Doug comes face to face with a witch. Portions of the
cover created by Ben Whitehurst.It's always easier to offer advice when one is not in the situation. Removed, distanced; the issues are easier to solve in a logical manner. I've often watched movies and thought, “why didn't he simply call the cops?” Horror films are a great case in point. “Just run away. Don't stop to look behind you. Keep running. And don't just run into the deserted building next door, run the hell away from that county.”
I would have pegged myself as a smarter person in a dire situation. The sort who would make the right call. But I froze instead. When the wormy green witch made her way down the hall, I said nothing. ManQuail must have been in as much shock as me. He didn't run away. He didn't yell in terror. We both just stood there in shock like a couple of dumbasses.
And she knew we were there. She crept so slowly down the hall. Her black eyes, face crawling with worms, stared right at us. I could almost picture the Wicked Witch of the West in that hallway, only this one didn't wear the black clothing and pointed hat. She was naked and crawling in filth and decay. Even her spirit emanated a stench of dead fish. Nor did she carry a wooden broom around with her like the character Margaret Hamilton made famous back in 1939. When I was a kid, the Wicked Witch gave me nightmares. This thing heading toward us today, however, made me never want to sleep again.
What could a spirit do to harm us? That question began to bubble in my head. I'd seen enough movies as a kid in the 80's to know they could do quite a bit. Mentally, they could toss ManQuail around like a softball while I hung on for deal life to his feathered back, smashing us both against the wall. They can bleed a psychic sense from their ephemeral bodies that creates dread and fear. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what this wormy witch had going on. I could do nothing but watch her approach.
Only it didn't last that long. When the door to the bathroom swung open, the ghastly apparition wasn't yet close enough to touch us, but very nearly. We could hear her cackling laugh as if she were whispering into our ears. That all changed when Diana Sturgis, wearing nothing but a towel, stepped into the dark hallway.
“Grandma? Get out of here!” The CEO of Flight Services shouted. She waved her arms in front of her, fearless of the spirit before her. Her towel loosened around her breasts, threatening to slip off, and I found my eyes had averted from the witch to a much more pleasant sight. Odd how the allure of a beautiful woman can shake even the terrors of the dead. “I need space, Grandma. I can't deal with this!” The towel didn't fall, unfortunately. She tucked it back into place as she stepped further toward the ghost. Her grandmother, as nasty and repulsive as she was, faded silently and sullenly into nothingness.
“Thank God,” ManQuail sighed, finally talking. “She's gone.” Mantula has visions of Margaret Hamilton, AKA
The Wicked Witch of the West, in his spidery head.
That's when Diana noticed the two of us. I wasn't sure if she would burst into screams or chase after us at the sight. Instead, she stuck one slender leg out like a hitchhiker trying to get a ride. It glistened from the candlelight. Beads of water trickled down her inner thigh.
“You two. I should have known that was why she appeared today. See something you like?”
Shaking the dregs of fear from my system, I bounced from ManQuail and landed somewhere between Diana and my companion. A flash of white lightning lit the place up for a split second. Glenn warned me to be careful as I approached the woman. She looked at me quizzically. Who knew what went though her head? Were I in her shoes, or towel, I'd be wondering what the hell a tarantula would possibly be doing back in my house. I held up one of my long legs and waved it around slowly, signaling to her that I needed something. She watched my leg twirl for a moment or two. A look of disbelief nestled firmly over her eyes. I kept at it until she spoke.
“Do you understand what I am saying?” she asked.
I stopped twirling. Instead I bobbed my leg up and down, mimicking a nod as best I could. Concern creased her brows then. She took a deep breath.
“Did you... were you once a person? Both of you?”
Now I knew for certain she knew a thing or two about our predicament. I bobbed my leg up and down once again. ManQuail moved closer behind me.
“She knows, man! She knows who we are!” Glenn shouted excitedly.
Diana Sturgis put her hands on her hips defiantly. “Both of you are probably men? I would guess as much seeing as how you watched me the other day. Or maybe you're women into women?”
I needed something to write with, so I motioned for her to follow, and wandered into the rest of the dark house.
I noticed a glowing screen on the glass coffee table in her living room, near the spot where she'd nearly killed me with the painting of her grandma. She'd long since cleaned up after that episode, but I could still feel the presence of the painting in the room, thanks in a large part to her grandma's ghost. I ran to the computer with speed not normally attributed to arachnids and settled in front of the laptop.
Her email was up. I saw she'd just responded to an email from Kip Mooney, the reporter. I took a moment to glance at the reply.
“Looking forward to seeing you tonight. Bring the wine!” She wrote only a couple of sentences, but the words stirred a well of jealousy in me. I looked over at the woman as she set herself on the couch. ManQuail approached the area furtively, as if not entirely trusting the woman not to burst into violence. I opened a new email and started typing. I very nearly asked her about Mooney, whether she knew he was a drug dealer, but decided to stick to the business at hand.
“My name is Doug. The quail is Glenn. We were both turned into what you see now. Can you help us?”
Diana leaned in to read the email, a look of shock crossing over her face. “Oh my God, it's true. I suspected, I really did. She was so serious! But I was never, could never, believe it actually happened!”
“We've been seeing visions of that ghost and connected her to you,” I continued to type. “Somehow this is connected to a couple of Catholic saints...”
“Dymphna and Kolbe,” Sturgis finished. “Patron saints of addiction and depression, right? Are they real?”
I bobbed my leg again, which was faster than typing. “What do you know?” I asked her.
Diana gulped, nervous. “I know plenty, but I just never believed it one hundred percent. How could I? It wasn't until I saw you on the drone footage that something clicked. I started to really wonder whether or not it was really happening.”
“What is?” I persisted.
“The curse,” Diana said. “My grandma cursed them. She put a curse on Dymphna and Kolbe when she died last year.”
“A curse?” ManQuail asked in my head.
A curse. That's just wonderful.


Mantula will return.

MANTULA Part Twenty-Two: No Grandma No

Mantula and ManQuail seek answers to the mystery
of the old wormy witch.Large raindrops splattered all around us as we searched for a way back inside the home of Diana Sturgis. I began to feel a slight chill the longer we remained outside, not that the weather affected me much. But any creature, if you keep it outside long enough, will start to feel the effects of the elements. Even tarantulas. ManQuail, however, seemed even sturdier than me. He didn’t bitch at all. It could be I provided a decent break from the rain on his back. Or the little black flop atop his head helped keep moisture at bay.
“There,” he whispered, as if worried Diana would overhear our mental conversation. “I see a window cracked open over there. She must be letting some of the cooler air circulate in the house like we do.”
I looked up, eyeballing the entrance. Sure enough, it wouldn’t be a problem at all for us to get inside. I hoped we would get away undetected for a few minutes, just long enough for me to figure out a way to communicate with the woman somehow. With luck I’d find a pen and writing pad, or even a computer that I could type a quick note with.
It hadn’t been that long since we snuck a ride from Sedona to Cottonwood with the woman, then got carried into her home in time to watch her take her clothes off, so she might be a little pissed about that still. Nonetheless, she was also very curious about me, and I about her, so I kept my fingers crossed there wouldn’t be an attack.
“Let’s get in there,” I said to Glenn. “As soon as we’re inside, head for cover.” Doug and Glenn sneak into
a Cottonwood home.
ManQuail sprang from the mud surrounding the property and darted into the home. As we flew I glanced about as best I could to see if we were going to drop in her lap. Not that I would have minded that, but it wouldn’t make introductions easy. Luckily we landed right in the middle of her bathroom.
Upon touching down, Glenn darted to the cracked-open door and hid us in the shadows. Beneath the window I saw a claw-foot, deep bathtub full of steaming hot water and bubble bath. Lit candles were visible on a small table nearby. Obvisouly Diana Sturgis planned to take a nice relaxing bath. We were about to ruin that for her just like we ruined her day the last time. Another inch or two off on his landing, I realized, and ManQuail and I would have been dunked in that tub.
We stayed put for a moment, making sure the coast was clear, before finding better cover. I heard no footsteps or any sounds whatsoever. Glenn inched out slightly and we found ourselves peering down a dark hallway. By the glow of the candles in the bathroom, we snuck along the wall until it opened into what appeared to be a guest bedroom. Seeing no one inside, we crept in. Just as we did so, I heard footsteps in the hallway. Humming, Diana Sturgis made her way toward the bathroom wearing a blue plaid robe and carrying a mug of tea. Her humming continued into the candle-lit room. A moment later we heard the door close.

ManQuail breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s perfect. She’ll in there for a while. That gives us time to look around!”
“Let’s just find something to write with. We’ll leave her a note and find a place to hide until we know she’ll talk to us,” I said. “If she goes nuts, we’ll have to get the hell out of here fast.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
ManQuail backed into the hallway, but stopped in mid-turn. He sucked in his breath, his body trembling suddenly. I turned to see what had brought us to a halt. The image at the end of the hallway jarred me. It was the old hag, dripping with worms and covered in green skin and olive-colored scabs. Maggots and filth dripped from her body as she swaggered toward us.
The woman held her arms out as if she hoped to catch us in a bear hug. “It’s her,” ManQuail panted. I could hear the panic in his voice. I was on the verge of an attack myself. Little worms and other bugs fell from her extended finger tips. They vanished before they hit the carpet. The old woman glowed as she staggered forward. It was a dull light, greenish in hue, but it lit the dark hallway just enough to make out her dark hollow eyes and the craggy slit of her puckered mouth.
She hissed and ambled in our direction. “Bugs and birds. Reptiles and rodents. Despicable. Deplorable. All hated moments.”
I prayed she would fall over into a pile of dust, vanish into thin air; something. But she didn’t. The witchy kept coming at us.
Mantula will return

Mantula Part Twenty-One: The Big New Year's Recap

I rode atop Glenn as he made his way through the muggy Arizona weather. The fast-moving man-turned-quail moved deftly through the bushes and assorted trash strewn at the edge of the road. Large rain bombs fell from the gray skies overhead, exploding like water balloons all around us, but a full-blown storm had yet to begin.
I made a sorry attempt to remember my life prior to becoming a nasty little tarantula. Only I couldn't remember it. My life had changed so much in the last few weeks that everything else began to blur. Not the big things. Not my son. Not the image of him. Not the sound of his laughter. Not the way I felt when he sat in my lap and we read comics. All of those things burned in a hole in the center of my chest that sucked all happiness from my soul. What I could remember, with full clarity, was how I woke up in this body, how confused I felt. I remembered trying to kill myself by leaping from Coffee Pot Rock. Obviously that didn't work out in my favor. From there I got filmed free-falling by a drone, nearly caused a car wreck, and ended up meeting Glenn under a bush. I also happened to find that $100 bill I just gave away.
It didn't take long for Glenn and I to learn how to speak to each other with our minds, as if just being reborn into birds and bugs wasn't weird enough, we were able to communicate easily. Luckily I've since learned how to switch it on and off so ManQuail can't pick up on my every bad mood and every dirty thought. We ended up sneaking a ride into Cottonwood with Diana Sturgis, who also happens to be the owner of Flight Services L.L.C. It seems she was investigating the area where we were filmed by the drone, still not sure why. We ended up in her apartment and got a bonus strip show on top of the free ride. She wasn't too thrilled to see us there of course. In fact, she was pretty damn un-thrilled. Anger can bring out the worst in people. Her anger made her throw an old painting at me and Doug. We made it to my apartment eventually, our little haven in the shit hole that is Cottonwood, Arizona, but not until after we caused a car crash on State Route 89A that ended up making the news.
Once we got back, that's when I realized I wasn't anything like the others who found themselves reborn in the bodies of bugs and birds, all of them addicted to one thing or another too. I was different. I had super strength in a sense. For as small as I was I possessed the strength of an adult man.
Not long after that Sturgis came sniffing around near the apartment, where she hooked up with this reporter Kip Mooney (also sniffing around hoping to see this weird news-making tarantula), they started talking about yours truly. At the time I had no idea why the lady was so into me, but after a few bad dreams starring this nasty old witch, I realized the green, slimy monster was the same old woman I saw in the painting Sturgis chucked at me and ManQuail. She has more to do with all this than I know, which is why ManQuail and I are making our way back to her house.
At around the same time Sturgis and Mooney were sneaking around my apartment complex, I finally decided to check my email. First off, to be totally honest, I was stalking Diana online. I wanted to know a little more about the woman. But that's neither her nor there. It seems a real, honest-to-God Catholic Saint, Maximilian 'Raymund' Kolbe, had been trying to reach me for some time. Thanks to him, ManQuail and I learned that people suffering from addictions, apparently only those of us in this immediate area, were being reborn into bugs and birds. People with depression issues were being reborn into rodents and reptiles I found out. Kolbe informed me the reborn tended to forget their human pasts for the most part, and really immersed themselves in their new life. At least to a degree. ManQuail retained a lot of his humanity, which led him to leave pens and notepads all over his territory in Sedona so he could communicate better. In fact, it seems Glenn ManQuail was becoming more and more like his old self the more he hung out with me – due apparently to the fact that turning into a tarantula did nothing to change me at all. I stayed exactly, one hundred percent the same inside, which somehow set me apart from all the other converts. The whole problem with all this is Kolbe had no clue why it was happening. And he's kind of a jerk. Doug takes a look at how he got into all this craziness.
He did send Glenn and I out on a few “missions” - tests of good will to see if the simple acts would revert us back into our human bodies. They didn't work, but I did use my human-sized strength to punch out the wife-beater in the apartment below ours. Of course it also made local news, being that a tarantula decking a human isn't something you see every day. I was glad to help the poor woman, and it made me feel pretty good about myself for about five seconds, but nothing changed about my miserable predicament. The other good deeds were a bust, too, but I did manage to give away my one hundred dollar bill. It was while we were on the latter errand I found out Glenn was having the same dreams of an old witch as me. And now we're heading to Diana's house once again to see if we can find out more.
As we approached the place, under the cover of the heavy monsoon storm, I realized I had no plan at all. Leaving, getting there, these things consumed me. Getting my questions answered and seeing the beautiful Ms. Sturgis again were forefront in my head, but the how was something else.
ManQuail slowed his stroll just as her house came into view. Through the rainy gloom I could see light in one of the rooms. The rest of the place looked dark. Moments later I saw a shadowy form pass in front of a window. Someone was home, more than likely the woman I wanted to talk with.
“So what do we do?” ManQuail asked.
“I have no clue,” I replied. “Go inside I guess.”
“Maybe she'll be naked again.”
“Or maybe she'll try to kill us again.”
“Fun for us either way, man.”
ManQuail flapped his wings and flew us up and over the chain link fence surrounding her property. We landed, wet and silent, outside her window. Now to get inside.
Click here to read Mantula Part Twenty!
Mantula will return!

Mantula: The Christmas Special

It’s like I always say. God bless us, everyone. Even Mantula.
After all, Doug made Christmas pretty fun for a little Ukrainian girl named Anichka. He may seem like a grumpy dude who doesn’t like much in this world, but he’s actually pretty cool once you get to know him. I’m his best friend, whether he likes it or not, so I should know. They call me ManQuail, which is a way better name than Glenn. Back to Doug, Mantula, though. Who wouldn’t be grumpy about waking up in the body of a hairy old tarantula? It wasn’t so bad for yours truly. I woke up in the body of a quail. No one screams in terror at the sight of a quail, even one who used to have a meth habit.
It turns out some little girls are less afraid of big old ugly spiders than others. Anichka was one of them. She loved spiders to death. Not in the sense that she wanted to hug them and crush them like that sicko in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, but she loved what they represented. Get this, in the Ukraine they’re hung as ornaments on Christmas trees. Here in America, spiders are only Halloween. Christmas is spider-free in the U.S. of A. Only that’s where Anichka ended up with her grandparents.
I found out later her name means grace in Hebrew. Only she wasn’t showing any of that the night we passed by. It was close to Christmas Eve, I remember that, but I’m not sure what day exactly. Everything was cold as hell and twinkling red, gold and green lights blinked on and off in the windows of nearly every house. Cottonwood, Arizona, doesn’t get a lot of snow, but they were that night. It was coming down like dandruff off an avalanche.We were out on our usual patrol. I called it that anyway. Doug just thought it would be fun to get out of our crappy little apartment for a spell. He wanted to look at the Christmas lights along the street. I'm sure it had something to do with the family he once had, because he got very quiet, brooding almost, once we hit the road. We didn't mind the chill really, and it was nice to see the twinkling colors in the snowstorm. It reminded me of my own childhood in Camp Verde. I never got a lot for Christmas, but my pop sure loved those lights. He hung them everywhere, even on the broken-down Mazda in the front yard. I couldn't tell you about Mantula's Christmas past. He never mentioned his past often.
We'd gotten about two blocks down Twelfth Street, with Doug riding on my back as usual, when we heard a little girl sobbing. I slowed a little, peering sideways through the falling snow to identify the source of the sound. To our right sat a small single-wide trailer. Like many of the crappy homes on the block, Christmas lights blinked on and off all over it, adding cheer to the poverty. The storm kept the streets clear and quiet. Cottonwood folk aren't used to big storms, so they were settled inside, near their fireplaces with cocoa more than likely. This stillness in the air made it all the easier to hear the sobbing sounds.
“Should we check it out?” I mentally asked Mantula. I could tell he was interested in the source, so I didn't wait for an answer. With a quick flap, I got us up and over the chain link fence in the front yard.
Mantula cocked his head to the left. “It's coming from that partially-opened window at the far side of the building.”
I sprang to the edge of the window. The sill wasn't very large, and I had to cling to it like a fly, but we were able to peer inside the room. There we could see a little girl in a red sweater and pajama pants sobbing on a small couch. In front it was one of the biggest Christmas trees I had seen in years. A giant crystal snowflake topped the giant, which was so tall I would think they'd need the abominable snowman's help. Besides the sobbing girl, the place appeared quiet.
At that moment, however, a blonde woman came into the room. She wore a green plaid robe and held a cell phone to her head. As she talked she brushed some of her tangled hair out of her face and looked worriedly at the little girl.
“She speaks so little English, Brian,” The woman said. “It's hard for me to know. I'm sure she misses her parents and the other members of her family killed in Kiev. My Hungarian is terrible, so I'm not sure what it is exactly. She keeps saying sok szerencsét, something about luck and pointing at the tree. I don't know what to do and it's breaking my heart. Anichka? Sweety? Is there anything I can do? She's not even replying to me, Brian.”
“Poor kid,” I said. “Did you hear what that woman said. Her parents were killed it sounds like.”
Mantula looked around the sill, as if eye-balling a way to get inside. “In the Ukraine's recent civil war. You might not remember it since you've been transformed longer than me. Pretty brutal.”
“And she wants good luck now that she's here in the states?”
“Something like that,” Doug replied. “It's funny. I think I know exactly what she wants.”
The adult wandered into another part of the house still talking on the phone. As soon as she departed, my friend jumped from my back, through the opened window, and smack into the living room of the trailer home. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I always trusted in my friend, so I came in silently behind him. I'd barely gotten to my feet before he made his way onto the Christmas tree. Seeing that I had no idea what he was up to, I just watched.
The tree looked beautiful in that small little place. Strings of plastic candy canes circled the full, green branches. Gold-colored garland surrounded it, and stained glass ornaments, mostly of Santa and Rudolph and the rest of the Christmas character hung everywhere. Presents filled the area at the base. Many of them were for the little girl named Anichka. Looking up, I finally saw what Mantula had in mind.
In just a few seconds, he'd covered a good portion of the tree in silky, shimmering cobwebs. I could still see the ornaments and garland through the webbing, but still. Why in the hell?
I cried out mentally. “What are you doing, Doug? You're ruining the tree!” I could hear the woman chatting on the phone in the other room. Her conversation didn't get any closer, so I assumed she was sitting down somewhere in there. We had a little time. Anichka's sobs grew quieter, but she remained on the couch with her back to us.
“Trust me, Glenn.”
“Trust you? You're covering their Christmas tree in webs!”
Mantula kept up his work. He sprang from branch to branch, spraying a fine webby mist as he went, and soon had the tree nearly covered. Seconds later, with his work nearly completed, he asked me to head over to the little girl. Count to twenty, he told me, and then get her to turn around.
I'd given up trying to argue with the crazy tarantula at that point, so I made my way to the sad little thing. At the count of twenty, I gently pecked at her heels. She stirred slightly, then turned her face to me. For a moment her petite features were blank, kind of like the face I make when I'm just waking up from sleeping all day, but then she grew surprised to see me. Who wouldn't be a little surprised. She brushed the dark hair from her face, wet with her tears, and sat up. I flapped my wings back to the floor near the window in case I'd need a quick escape route. But then she noticed the tree and gasped in surprise.
A very webby tree.Dangling from the highest branches came Mantula. He dropped slowly along the center of the Christmas tree, suspended from a single strand of web. At the bottom of the tree, he dropped to the floor. Anichka watched in wonder, hardly moving, as Doug waved one of his legs in a form of greeting. Surprisingly, the girl waved back, sheepishly, but happily too. She stared at the tree, a smile forming on her cute little face, while Mantula climbed onto my back.
I was shocked. “She likes it. I can't believe it!”
“We'd better go,” Doug answered. At that moment, the little girl began to clap her hands and shout. Mantula was right. The adult probably wouldn't be as excited about what we'd done as the girl. I glided to the window sill with Doug on my back and we both dropped into the dark snowstorm.
“Köszönöm! Köszönöm!” Anichka shouted after us. I'm hoping that was “thanks” in Hungarian. By the time the adult came back into the room, we were already back on the sidewalk. I doubted she would find the webbed up Christmas tree as attractive as the little Ukrainian girl, but I also doubted Anichka would let her remove even a strand of the stuff.
“My son had to study Christmas traditions in school once. He chose the Ukraine for his report. Spiders are important there during the holidays,” Doug explained. “There's folktales about them helping the poor. One particular story is about a woman who cleaned her house so well in preparation for Christmas that the spiders themselves had nowhere to hide. Wanting to see the arrival of the Christ child (part of the holiday tradition there), the spiders hid out in the Christmas tree itself. But they got wild and covered the tree in webs. When the Christ child arrived on Christmas morning, he turned the webs into sparkling treasures to disappoint the woman who worked so hard to make everything perfect. Many believe this tale, of the spider and the Christ child, led to the modern-day tradition of hanging tinsel on the tree. Webs and spider ornaments on the tree are thought to be a sign of good luck.”
I shrugged. “I liked the stained-glass Santa head myself.”
Mantula was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “She seemed happy, didn't she?”

I nodded. “Are you ready to go back on patrol?”
“We're not on patrol, Doug. We're looking at Christmas lights.”
“We're looking at Christmas lights while on patrol.”
“Whatever.”
So it's like I said at the beginning. Merry Christmas, everyone. Even Mantula.
MANTULA WILL RETURN

Whitehurst's Top 5 Reads of 2014

Reading is a thing. But it's not an easy thing to keep up. Over the last two years I've tried to make it a thing that comes as easily as sleeping, but it isn't that easy. I love to sleep. I love to read. But finding the time for one thing is nowhere near as easy as the other thing.
Despite things getting in the way (long commutes and a big ass move to the California coast), I got my hands on, and chewed through, twenty-eight books in 2014. From a chunk of Executioner novels to "Catcher in the Rye," there was a grand attempt to love pulpy stuff and classic stuff as one. I picked out five of them as my top picks for the year. I'm not going to review them, just mention how they stuck with me after closing the book. Like always I make no apologies for loving books others might consider drivel, books discriminated against for one bias or another, or books some think are beneath their literary class. 
Classism has no place in the written word.
First are the classics. I finally got through, and cannot forget certain passages, of “Tropic of Cancer” by Henry Miller. The style of prose, the images of Paris and partying, are like tighter versions of The Rum Diary in a way, and of course Miller came first, about thirty years before Hunter S. Thompson got there. The mood created by Cancer became something I looked forward to feeling each and every night.
In part because I grew up in, and once again live, in the land of John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men” came into my hands at the perfect time. The short novella is so simple its brilliant. And like so many of his shorter works it packs a punch. Who cares what scholars and drama-geeks think of it, who cares how literary the perception is, read it for the killer story.
“Rightful Place” by Amy Hale Auker makes my top five for 2014 not because I felt it should be a staple of my literary diet, but because the collection of short stories set me far from my literary kick-back zone. I don't read westerns often, and when I do they're the sort with gunfights, brothels and no mention of vehicles. Her beautifully written stories, however, are set firmly in the modern age, country music and pickup trucks, and sing a song of western love, for big sky, cold landscapes and the harsh truth of a cowboy's life.
Then there are contemporary, new novels. Whether hated, loved, or simply blown off, these two books stuck in my head long after I put them down, so they too made the list. First is “Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children” by Ransom Riggs. Billed as a young adult novel (where some of the best reading can be found), the book focuses on children with some measure of special talents rather like mutants from the X-Men comics. In fact, Miss Peregrine's is like Harry Potter set in World War II, with an X-Men twist. And it was lots of fun!

Lastly there's Daniel H. Wilson's sweet “Robopocalypse.” Like Miss Peregrine's this book has also recently born a sequel, not to mention talk of film adaptions to both novels. Wilson's book has elements of other tales, both in print and in film (Terminator for instance), but it sets a fabulous tone, rich in imagery, and unleashes plot in spurts – from the point of view of multiple players. For those who like their hard science fiction, their robots and human resistance, pick up this book.