Kevin A. Ranson's Blog, page 16
January 31, 2013
Everything Old Made New Again (an excerpt from The Matriarch)
Halfway down the corridor were two recreational rooms, one on either side. Unlike the solid condo doors, these rooms had glass door fronts. The one on the left had shades drawn, but the room on the right was full of elderly folks, including two she immediately recognized. Louisa stepped aside and held the door to allow Janiss to enter first.
“Mr. Fisher! Vivian!” Janiss could hardly believe it. They looked great, and Mr. Fisher was out of bed. How was he standing up on his own when he couldn’t walk before?
“Just call me John, my dear,” Mr. Fisher replied. “It’s good to see you again.”
Janiss gave both her old acquaintances quick hugs, then noticed how everyone was looking at her. It was as if she was the most important person in the room, or possibly the one that something terrible was about to happen to. It all seemed too well and good, as though something sinister lurked beneath the surface of the situation.
Then it dawned on her: it was their movement. None of them were doddering or shuffling about. Their actions were quick and deliberate, like a younger person’s movement. Janiss imagined that people half their age might have been wearing the masks of the people they had become. What was happening? Janiss looked back toward Louisa, who was conferring again with her thin assistant.
“Questions?” Louisa asked, looking toward her potential new employee.
“What’s happened to everyone?”
The group chuckled together, a few even patting Janiss on the back or arm in reassurance, exactly the way an older person does when they believe someone doesn’t understand something that they clearly do. Afterward, they looked to Louisa silently for her to answer the question for Janiss.
“It’s a specialized treatment, one we’re pioneering here at Cedarcrest. Not everyone is a candidate, but everyone you see here has responded positively to it. Ruth is our most recent patient to be accepted into the program. This is all still experimental, hence the need for secrecy.”
Janiss nodded cautiously, but dared to be a bit optimistic. “Is this some kind of stem cell research?”
Louisa shook her head slightly. “It’s organic, but not stem cell related. The source is very precious, almost unique, something akin to a supplement. It has restorative properties, cognitive and physical. Years of research will be required to determine the long-term effects, but it looks promising.”
“Is it anti-aging? Does it extend their lives?”
“All in due time, Janiss. Perhaps you would prefer to know exactly what I hired you for?”
Louisa looked over at Vivian.
“I want to follow my grandchildren online. What social networks should I use?”
Janiss smiled pleasantly. “Wouldn’t you rather just talk to them?”
Vivian shrugged. “They don’t talk anymore. They just peck away at their phones when I see them at all.”
There were periodic bursts of laughter, some even boisterous, as side conversations spontaneously erupted about kids these days, how no one called, and other things that weren’t like they used to be. The remarks overall, however, were positive; these people wanted to learn new things. There was passion in the room, an exuberance that could only be called youthful.
It was wonderful, but it wasn’t right.
Read more about the upcoming novel, The Matriarch…
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian Tagged: 2013, excerpt, march, novel, the matriarch, vampire
January 27, 2013
What to do, what to do…?
On November 1st, 2012, I suspended work on my current Spooky Chronicles book and spent the month cracking out a brandy-new, completely from scratch version of an old book I tried to write in college. It was an itch I had to scratch, you know? I found the original notes and two full drafts of the story, neither one I was happy with. Two and a half months later, The Matriarch is nearly complete and a publishing date is just around the corner. Now I find myself with something of a dilemma… what to work on next.
I may do a sequel to this book and have outlined a strategy and a few chapters. I could also finish the Spooky book I have half done, or I could finally start working on my other long-shelved project, a first draft of my Kindling Moon fantasy story. Zombie kids, West Virginia vampires, or world-shattering sorcerers?
I’m leaning toward the magic-users, just to let you know.
You can keep a secret, right? I trust you completely.
Filed under: Creativity, Existentialism, Literarian Tagged: Kindling Moon, new book
January 25, 2013
Clean and Professional (an excerpt from The Matriarch)
It was getting close to sunset, but there was no sun to be seen; the sky was fading from gray to black. The driver of a black Cadillac Escalade parked off the side of Route 5 took notice of a red Kia Soul as it passed him heading toward Glenville. He casually started his vehicle, checked for other traffic, and followed.
The Kia turned into a shopping center just before the merge onto Route 33 up to the college. It was the only chain grocery store in Glenville, so either it or the sandwich shop next door was the most likely destination. The Escalade’s driver turned into the other side of the lot and inched along for a moment, waiting to get a better look at the Kia’s owner. He noted the Glenville State College parking sticker.
The woman who emerged was young, taller than average but on the thin side, and pleasant-looking enough. Her clothes looked more expensive than how most locals were dressed and certainly nothing a young lady would wear for visiting a prison. He had seen enough, at least enough to ask her a carefully worded question. With luck, the answer would be all the confirmation he’d need.
It just wouldn’t be so lucky for her.
The driver surveyed the parking lot; the fewer witnesses the better, and he certainly didn’t want to see any authorities. The young woman seemed to be looking for something in her purse, so the opportunity presented itself.
He loved this part, the first meeting. It was such a simple thing for him, practiced to perfection. No one ever saw him coming nor was ever prepared for him. This was the moment he savored, before something new would be his.
After circling the outside of the lot, the driver pulled up across from the young woman at a non-threatening distance, the better for her to trust and approach him on her own. It wasn’t like he was driving a windowless van or that he looked inbred. Everything about the way he presented himself was clean and professional with the air of success. Why wouldn’t anyone trust him?
The driver adjusted his Wayfarer sunglasses and lowered his window.
“Excuse me? Young lady?”
She looked up, enticed by his voice. For a moment, he watched her eyes as she sized up both driver and vehicle, and he could tell that she instantly trusted him. The poor girl couldn’t have made it easier.
Shouldering her purse as she walked up to the driver’s window, she seemed eager to help. “Are you lost?”
The driver picked up his computer tablet from the passenger’s seat, a prop for the ruse. “I’m looking for a place called Cedarcrest Sanctum. It’s a nursing home, and I have an appointment with the administrator there….”
“Louisa?” the girl foolishly confirmed.
“Is that what she’s calling herself these days?”
The driver pulled his sunglasses down to look the young lady directly in the eyes. He could see her demeanor changing as it struck her that she had already said too much, suspecting the danger she was in. He delighted in being recognized for the predator he was, but he still needed to close the trap to give himself the time he needed to work.
“Get into my vehicle,” he commanded her.
Her will dissolved as the words reached her ears coupled with the compulsion of his gaze. She had become his, a plaything that would obey and indulge his every whim. She absently walked around to the passenger’s side door, opened it, seated herself, and closed the door.
Read more about the upcoming novel, The Matriarch…
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian Tagged: 2013, excerpt, march, novel, the matriarch, vampire
January 22, 2013
He Said He Was the Devil (an excerpt from The Matriarch)
It was unusually cold for the first Sunday of November. The sky was clear and the moon was full.
Just after midnight, an old man placed two rusty gas cans next to a plastic fuel container, all of them full, into the bed of his 1965 Ford pickup. The truck’s red paint was scratched and faded. He kept the vehicle patched together with duct tape and coat hangers, but it still ran all right.
After locking up his trailer, he drove to the top of the hill and parked his truck just off the two-lane highway. Across the road was a one-room church next to a cemetery. No one used the church anymore, but headstones kept popping up next to it as the tiny West Virginia community continued to die.
With his good hand, he was able to carry the two cans together and still manage the plastic one in his weak one. He carried them to the other side of the road and looked up at the door to the old church.
It terrified him.
There was something inside, he’d been told. Something he wasn’t supposed to look at and was sure he didn’t want to see, but there was no one else around that could do what he needed to.
No one seemed to know who had the key anymore, so a carpenter’s pry bar would serve instead. A piece of the crumbling door frame broke free of the latch holding the padlock, allowing the door to swing open. He left the plastic fuel container outside and carried the cans in with him. It was so dark inside the room that he could barely make out where the pews were, and that suited him just fine.
Keeping his head down so he could only see his feet, he shuffled toward the front of the church and set one of the cans down to open the other. He poured it out onto the floor in a wide half circle, cringing at the acrid gasoline vapors. It gurgled at first as it emptied, then poured smoothly at the end. After he dropped the first can and went back for the second, he made a mistake, seeing something he meant not to.
Closer to the center isle than he would have liked, there were feet dangling off the front end of the pew, as if someone were sitting and waiting patiently for him to complete his work.
He knew not to look up. He didn’t want to see who it was or in what state they were in.
Read more about the upcoming novel, The Matriarch…
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian Tagged: 2013, excerpt, march, novel, the matriarch, vampire
January 18, 2013
An Awakening In the Cellar (an excerpt from The Matriarch)
Janiss opened her eyes.
Was it still dark? How early was it?
The bed felt wonderful, like waking up the first morning after getting over being sick. She closed her eyes again. The smell of freshly turned soil made her remember helping her Grampa work in the garden.
Soil?
Her eyes snapped open. She was laying on her stomach with one arm behind her and the other against the bed, only it wasn’t a bed. She clawed at the imagined sheets only to dig her fingers into earth.
Sitting up with a start, there was a hint of light coming through a small opening very high up on the wall. It looked familiar. Her mind raced; where had she seen that light?
The cellar. She was in the cellar?!
Her eyes adjusted. She was peeking over the edge of the cellar floor into a pile of rubble stacked against a brick wall. How was she looking up over the floor unless she was beneath it? She could make the edge of the inner cellar door looming in the dim light over her shallow grave.
Janiss knew she was in danger. How did she get there? Did someone try to bury her alive?
Hold it together, she told herself. She could worry about what had happened and what had been done to her when she was safe.
She drew her feet up into a crouched position and then stood up. The hole was no more than two feet deep and easily escaped. Moving carefully to the door, she checked to see if she had anything in her pockets, but there were no pockets. She wasn’t wearing any clothes at all!
Panic welled up again. She trembled at the thought she might have been raped, and her eyes teared up with despair.
No, she thought. She wasn’t dead, but she might as well be if she gave into this. She didn’t know what was happening, but if she could get to someone, anyone, it would be okay. No one except her parents knew the farmhouse and property as well as she did. She could get away.
Read more about the upcoming novel, The Matriarch…
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian Tagged: 2013, excerpt, march, novel, the matriarch, vampire
January 16, 2013
Vampires Don’t Believe In Ghosts
Every October, the freshmen at Glenville State College are told stories about Sis Linn, the local ghost who haunts Clark Hall and the graveyard where she’s buried. Murdered in 1919, she was beaten beyond recognition, the target of a brutal killer who was never caught.
The stories are wrong.
After present-day college student Janiss Connelly finds herself in the cross-hairs of the immortal who murdered Sis Linn, her only chance to stop the killing after her own murder rests with the killer himself.
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian, Paranormal Tagged: Matriarch, Sis Linn
December 2, 2012
New Synopsis for The Matriarch
Every October, the freshmen at Glenville State College are told stories about Sis Linn, the local ghost who haunts Clark Hall and the graveyard where she’s buried. Murdered in 1919, she was beaten beyond recognition, the target of a brutal killer who was never caught.
The stories are wrong.
After present-day college student Janiss Connelly finds herself in the cross-hairs of the immortal who murdered Sis Linn, her only chance to stop the killing after her own murder rests with the killer himself.
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian, Paranormal Tagged: Matriarch, Sis Linn
New Synopsis for The Mariarch
Every October, the freshmen at Glenville State College are told stories about Sis Linn, the local ghost who haunts Clark Hall and the graveyard where she’s buried. Murdered in 1919, she was beaten beyond recognition, the target of a brutal killer who was never caught.
The stories are wrong.
After present-day college student Janiss Connelly finds herself in the cross-hairs of the immortal who murdered Sis Linn, her only chance to stop the killing after her own murder rests with the killer himself.
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian, Paranormal Tagged: Matriarch, Sis Linn
November 28, 2012
Matriarch Update: First Draft Complete!
Thanks to NaNoWriMo, one of the first ideas I ever had for becoming a writer is finally getting the attention it deserves. At over 50,000 words and climbing, the first draft is complete and getting its first edit. Hope to have it out and about before too long!
“On the outskirts of a college town in rural West Virginia, a young woman finds herself the target of two immortals hell-bent on bringing an end to their century-long blood feud.”
Back in my college days, I had an idea about a supernatural happening in the rural backwoods of West Virginia, specifically located in and around the college I went to school. A “suitcase college” is what they called it then, where no one stayed on weekends and the campus became a ghost town (it was literally forty miles in any of three directions to the nearest McD’s).
This is the kind of place that not everyone knows about (or wants to), where communication is limited and things can happen that don’t reach the public stage of awareness. Away from the wifi-connected bright lights and cell-towered big city, this is where modern monsters and the misunderstood might retreat to, a place where they could be left alone or, in those rare cases, operate uninhibited. It’s not backwards, just behind, where what most people accept as “today” has to be trucked in. It’s a wild, wonderful place to set something sinister in.
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian, Paranormal Tagged: Matriarch
October 21, 2012
My Spooky Empire 2012 Panel Schedule
Going to Spooky Empire in Orlando, Florida this weekend, October 26th-28th? Come and meet me at a few of my panels!
Friday – October 26th, 2012
6:00PM WHAT SCARES US
Vincent Courtney, Kevin Ranson, Owl Goingback, Gary Roen (M)
Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, horror movies, Justin Beiber – What scares the authors that write the things that scare mere mortals?
Location: ORANGE C
7:00PM ATTACK OF THE REMAKES
Kevin Ranson, Vince Courtney, Alisha Sams, Brent Monahan, Rob Fox (M)
Remake, Reboot, from Halloween to Hellraiser, what are the good ones, what are the bad ones, and are they even needed?
Location: ORANGE C
Saturday – October 27th, 2012
4:00PM YOUNG ADULT/KIDS HORROR
R.L. Stine, Heather Brewer, Kevin Ranson, Scott Clements, Marley Gibson (M)
This ones for the kids! Our panelists have all spent their careers trying to scare the little ones.
Location: ORANGE C
7:00PM ULTIMATE OCCULT SHOWDOWN
Kevin A. Ranson, Brett Link
Champion and condemn supernatural and ghoulish characters from film and television; audience participation is mandatory!
Location: ORANGE C
Sunday – October 28th, 2012
11:00AM BOOKS TO FILM
Hugh Howey, Kevin Ranson, Rob Fox, Gary Roen (M)
You wrote the book, got it published, now someone wants to make it into a movie! How do you do it? What happens?
Location: ORANGE C
2:00PM LETS DO IT AGAIN (SEQUELS)
Kevin Ranson, Marley Gibson, Rob Fox, Robert Shuster (M)
What does it take to make a good sequel? Does it even be done? Come discuss your favorite sequels.
Location: ORANGE C
Filed under: Creativity, Literarian, Paranormal Tagged: 2012, Orlando Florida, Spooky Empire 
