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WANNA TAKE A RIDE? 4 Twisted Tales From The Files Of The Second Chance Limousine Service
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"WANNA TAKE A RIDE?" - 4 Twisted Tales from the Files of the Second Chance Limousine Service
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The concept is simple: Someone gets a second chance to right a wrong. The consequences of the second chance, however, are anything but simple. In each story, a person experiences some traumatic event. Let's say, for example, you are this person. The traumatic event might be something you did to someone or it might be something someone did to you. At some point after the traumatic event occurs, a mysterious, classic, black, 1959 Cadillac limousine arrives at a late hour. The driver entices you into the back seat and the car rolls off into the night.
The next thing you know, you're suddenly back at a point in time just prior to the traumatic event with no idea how you got there. You find a business card in your pocket (or on the table, or on the nightstand next to your bed). A "Second Chance Limousine" logo is on the front of the card. The card has the numbers 1 through 12 printed across the top and the numbers 13 through 24 along the bottom. You notice one of those numbers has a hole punched through it. You flip the card over and read this:
••• This Second Chance has a time limit. The numbers represent hours. The number punched on this card is the amount of time you have to make things right. Your time will begin automatically the moment you finish reading this. This card is programmed to monitor your success or failure to complete your task. This Second Chance will expire if the task is not completed within the allotted time frame. Should that happen, you will immediately find yourself back in the moment of time and in the exact situation in which you were engaged just before the driver appeared at the scene. Good luck. Your time starts Now. •••
Suddenly, it all comes back to you. At first you're puzzled. This isn't possible, and yet here you are. Somehow, by some strange twist of fate, you've been given what everyone wishes for at some point in their life. Now, the rest is up to you. Will you succeed? Or will you fail? You won't know until you try. And by the way, you'd better get a move on. Your time starts..... Now.
The four "Twisted Tales" in this volume are:
• ATONEMENT (novelette, 11,500 words) - A wealthy computer software entrepreneur is filled with remorse for having his wife murdered by a killer-for-hire.
Charlie Harper
Had a wife.
He hired a killer
To take her life.
Remorseful now
And all alone
To save his soul
He must atone.
To his surprise
In a drunken trance
Charlie is offered
A Second Chance.
Will he succeed?
Or will he fail?
You'll have to read
This twisted tale.
Wanna take a ride?
• A BITE OUT OF TIME (novelette, 7,500 words) - Vince Blaylock, an up and coming rock star, finds himself smitten and bitten and not at all pleased to discover he's now a vampire. One hundred years later, to the day, his Second Chance becomes a tale of revenge with an ending you won't see coming.
• 1ST AVENUE ANNIE (novelette, 10,000 words) - A wanna-be actress, with a life full of baggage, finally gets a shot at the big time. The stage is set, the curtain is about to go up, the audience is buzzing with anticipation. What could possibly go wrong?
To be an actress
Was her desire
But her life was stuck
in muck and mire.
Then one day
By chance or fate
She got the call
And none too late.
Now after all
These days and nights
At last her name
Was up in lights.
Then envy raised
Its ugly head
And Annie's dream
Was all but dead.
Now she's out
On darkened streets
Turning tricks
On dirty sheets.
But a second chance
Could reverse her role
And light up her dark
And defeated soul.
Will she succeed?
Or will she fail?
It's all revealed
In this twisted tale.
Wanna take a ride?
THE GOOD LIBRARIAN (novella, 21,500 words) - The tiny, rural town of Higginsville has a rather unusual library. Perhaps even more unusual than the library is the head librarian, Ms. Beatrice Busby:
Beatrice Busby,
Prim and proper,
Would save the world
And who could stop her?
With God Almighty
By her side,
That ever faithful
Loving Guide.
But a Gypsy woman
Rings her bell
And Beatrice fears
She’s come from Hell.
One book, two books,
No, not three,
Could save the world
And set us free.
Or so the Gypsy
Woman claims,
But will it all
Go up in flames?
A second chance
This fateful night
Is what Beatrice needs
To make things right.
Will she succeed?
Or will she fail?
You’ll have to read
This twisted tale.
Wanna take a ride?
In addition to these four tales, the reader will also be treated to the first 12 chapters of the author's full-length novel, "Ash: Return Of The Beast", a modern-day paranormal crime chiller inspired by the mysterious 1947 disappearance of the urn containing the ashes of history's most notorious occultist, Aleister Crowley, a.k.a. the "Beast".
KINDLE U.S. http://amzn.com/B00F07YZQS
KINDLE U.K. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00F07YZQS