Serpentarius Magazine has come back from the dead…or the hacking. Their site is now functional, and they’re accepting new stories, according to Ralen’s. They’ve posted my story, Streetwalker, on the website. The PDF version of the magazine is also available.

They’ve accepted my short story, In Dark Places, and it’s supposed to be in their Sept issue. Hopefully, they don’t get hacked again before the next issue comes out.

I was teaching electronics and working on a new computer network installation in Thailand. The company had me staying in what can only be classified as a mansion, next door to the ex-Prime Minister’s estate. They had a young lady who did the cleaning and such, but I did my own cooking.
 

Before I could cook, I needed some food. I went out to catch a cab to one of the farang (foreigner) catering stores. They had mostly British foodstocks, but some items looked familiar.
 

I am a coffee-holic. I snagged a tin of ground coffee, some non-dairy creamer, and started looking for the sugar. Try as I might, I could not locate it. They seemed to stock the grocery in a random fashion so the workers can laugh at the silly foreigners. I happened upon a stack of what appeared to be sugar … it certainly looked like it, it was even in a bag that was amazingly similar to the brand I always bought back in the ’states. Unfortunately, it was in Thai, and I read Thai as well as I can read backwards phonetic Martian. So, I assumed it was sugar and selected 2 bags.
 

I should’ve thought twice when I started getting weird looks from the cashier. Since she only knew “Thank you” in English, I couldn’t ask. I caught a taxi back to Pholyothin Road and put the food away.
 

Next morning I forgot about my doubts. I popped some grounds into the French press coffeemaker, boiled some water and got the cup ready. I poured the steaming bitter coffee into my cup, tossed in a jigger of creamer, then heaped in five teaspoons of sugar.
 

Well, it turns out it was not sugar, but crystallized MSG. Yup, monosodium glutamate, the stuff they used to put in Chinese food. Let me tell you, it was the foulest taste I had ever experienced. I’ve had a salted 7-Up before, and that was bad, but this was unbearable. I spewed what I didn’t swallow all over the kitchen floor. What I swallowed followed soon thereafter, along with the bacon and eggs I had eaten earlier. I rinsed my mouth out over and over, but it seemed to have attached itself to my salivary glands. As my mouth watered I’d start gagging anew. Even to this day my stomach does a flip or two when I remember it.
 

Moral of the story: They were right when they said never assume. If you don’t know what it is, ask. If they don't speak your language, find a customer that does. This new philosophy helped me avoid several other things that would have made it onto a list of what not to eat, like ground mealworm paste, dog kabobs and BBQ’d praying mantis on a stick.

I saw the travelling Moebius Stripper show in New York.

The crowd throbbed with apprehension as the very attractive stripper appeared on the stage, clad in a clingy outfit with a big zipper down the front, continuing between her thighs all the way around up her back. She teased the audience with her undulations and mysterious ways, and then started to unzip herself while the crowd chanted and moved closer, expectant and thrilled, entranced by the zipper moving a little bit at a time, prolonging the pregnant air of sweaty anticipation.

Groans and sharp inhalations punctuated the click-click of the zipper as it slowly unlocked its teeth, exposing what was sure to be a delightful vision, to be treasured with eyes closed during future lovemaking with wives and girlfriends. As the zipper passed between her thighs and over her pubic bone, she reached back with her other hand, grasping the tab and pulling slightly faster; the click-click becoming a solid drone as she accelerated while the crowd pushed further towards the stage, their collective breath held for one infinite moment.

The Moebius Stripper was still clothed at the end of her unzipping, and although she was twice as tall as before, the crowd exhaled, then hooted and cheered for her curving figure and her manager’s twisted mind.
First appeared in 6 Sentences, Dec 2007.

She aged as fast as the home they had bought when they were newlyweds, thirty years ago. The cold slate roof matched her hair, the once-straight eaves dropping to a wavering, sagging curve, and the cracks in the cast iron boiler echoed the lines on her once beautiful face. She and the house were one, it seemed. They were both needing maintenance at a rapidly increasing pace, and his wallet was beginning to lag behind.

He stayed out later and later, excuses multiplied and became more urgent. His bar tab began to grow as quickly as his waistline. The women he hit upon looked at his bulk with pity or disgust. During the weekends he dutifully ignored the list of “Honey Do’s” his wife would repeat to him.

One Saturday, he woke up to an empty bed; another list of chores to ignore perched on her pillow. Bleary-eyed, he read the familiar list until he reached the new entry appended on the end: “Repair Fence. Find new wife that will forgive you for ignoring her.”

He spent the weekend repairing the fence, but she never saw it. He never replaced her and she never returned, for she had her own to-do list that didn’t include him.

I picked up a copy of Cemetery Dance a week ago, and I finally got around to pulling it out of my backpack. This is a market I’ve tried to break into, and after reading the short stories in this issue, I can understand why I’ve been unsuccessful.

If you read an editor’s guidelines, there’s usually a line about picking up an issue to see what they like. Most folks ignore this suggestion, but this is one market I would make it a point to find an issue to break down. The vast majority of work is exceptional, and even the ‘bad’ stories are ones that are well-written, but just don’t click with me. There are no filler stories in CD, especially in issue 58.

This issue is a tribute to Charles L. Grant, a legend who passed on recently. What tribute would be complete without a sampling of work, and CD pulls out one of his best short stories, This Old Man. I always enjoyed the way Mr. Grant could take an average group of people and make them believable and interesting, then toss in some odd shift of reality. Not many could accomplish this without jarring the reader from their suspension of disbelief. The tributes to Charles are poignant and touching, and it is easy to understand how one writer impacted many people from around the globe.

The short stories are worth the price of admission to this issue.

The first short I read, The Inner City by Karen Heuler, was a clever take on big-city life. As a native New Yawker, I could feel and understand the emotions Lena had during her self-assigned ‘job interview’. The foreshadowing was worth a good chuckle, and the explanations of how strange coincidences and bad timing plague the common man will make any city folk nod their heads in understanding. The ending was unexpected, and the tension ramped up smoothly. I can personally vouch for the perfect parking spots getting snagged mere fermtoseconds before I could pull in.

The strongest piece in this issue, Bones, by JG Faherty, is on my list of stories to nominate for a Stoker. JG’s pen crafts a well-sculpted couple in some backwoods southern town, and actually takes the time to provide logic as to why these close cousins married. Imagine that! This pushed the story from a typical uneducated ’yup, them’s folks are inbred‘ short to a clever take on southern life and mysticism. This story features top-tier character development, and a creepy monster (with some semblance of humanity) lurking in the woods. I would recommend new/unpublished writers read this one, as JG makes every word count. No fluff, all good stuff. Believable, and yet out there — a tough balance to maintain.

Two other notable stories, Inheritor by Ian Rogers, and Cut, by Dena M. Martin, provide creepy gothic-esque chills and psychotic terror, respectively. More proof I need to work on my characterization to break into this market.

I’ll end this with a tip of my hat and a prayer to Richard Chizmar’s father, who is fighting a battle with cancer. Spend a minute and read his touching commentary on page three.

Here’s a scam that targets day-traders and people looking for good stock tips. Here’s a spam pump-and-dump (p+d) email I received today:

**BIG NEWS COMMING OUT FROM THIS COMPANY, FOR SURE TO BE A GROUND SHAKER.** So Who Is EXMT? Exchange Mobile Tele Co PK Sym: EXMT Closed At Last: AUG 06 $0.21 Date OF Action? - AUG Tuesday 07, 2007 Over the last 6 years, Exchange Mobile has been intensely involved in the wireless messaging and internet communications market. It has developed and implemented independent platforms to provide internet users and mobile subscribers an instantaneous form of communication. Founded in 2000, EXCHANGE MOBILE Telecommunications Corp. is an innovator in developing customized applications leveraging leading-edge wireless technology, capturing the imagination of the wireless market while fueling consumer demand. In the early part of 2002, EXCHANGE MOBILE developed wireless applications that offered SMS (Short Messaging Services) based value-added services to mobile users. EXCHANGE MOBILE has spent the early stages of its corporate existence building and developing a powerful and dynamic platform based on current SMS, WAP, and other emerging wireless protocols. EXMT A HIGH PERFORMANCE STOCK? WE THINK SO AND PLAN TO SEE HUGE THINGS AUGUST 07 (Tuesday) 2007. ^EXMT^

Here’s how a pump-and-dump works: A scammer looks for penny stocks to invest in. In this case, it’s a company called EXMT. They invest a lot of their money in a stock trade, usually picking up thousands of shares for (literally) pennies. They blast out an email to their potential targets. A p+d email will extoll how wonderful the stock is, and how a smart invester can make a fortune. If they send this spam out to fifty million email accounts with a .01 percent sucker rate, that’s 5,000 people who fall for it. It’s all in the numbers — the more investors, the better the scammers will do. This is the pump portion of the scam. When the marks start investing, they’ll actually see the stock creeping up a few cents, which makes them happy. It appears the stock tip was correct. After 48 hours have passed, the scammers pull their massive investment out and cash in. If they had ten million shares that went up by a mere three cents, they made $300,000US. This is the dump portion of the scam. After the huge investment is cashed in, the stock tanks, sending the share price down to erase any gains, or even making the price per share lower than when the mark invested. This scam hits the occasional traders hardest, since they typically don’t have the research skills to see if it’s a good investment. As per all Internet scams, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Nobody would send hot stock tips to a complete stranger. They’d have their friends and relatives invest to make a fortune. Don’t fall for the p+d scam. If you’re an investor, invest wisely.

The premiere issue of Necrotic Tissue is out, and the folks there did a wonderful job of publishing a cohesive pack of horror stories. One of my micros is in there, titled Home. It’s a free issue with some fine, creepy reading. Visit NecroticTissue.com to download the PDF.

The second issue of Literary Fever is out, which contains a short story of mine. This is an open-genre, literary-type magazine. The good news is it’s also a freebie, and it has a lot of reading material. The theme was The Road is Life. Pick up your PDF at LiteraryFever.com.

I hope your New Year is wonderful and prosperous. May editors fight over your stories and poems, may your bank account overflow with publication revenue, and may you enjoy a safe and peaceful year to come.

Well, December is winding down, and I’ve had a good year. I’m hoping to extend that next year. My goals are to publish over $500US worth of short stories, to qualify for the SFWA, and to get something submitted to Writers of the Future, if I still qualify.

I hope your new year brings the best fortune, and you accomplish many goals.

– Guy

When an emergency arises, most folks panic. One way to prevent this is to be prepared. Knowing what to do will help keep you focused on helping someone who is seriously injured.
Most folks just think that they dial Emergency Services and help magically appears. When they are asked questions, they begin to panic; you can hear it every time they play a 911 tape on the news.
This is what you should do if you need to call for Emergency Services:

1. Above all, remain calm.
2. Dial the emergency number (911 in most US areas).
3. Speak slowly, loudly and clearly.
4. They will ask your name and phone number. Be prepared to provide this information. Some cell phones cannot be tracked or triangulated, usually in rural areas. Providing your phone number prevents fake calls for help, and also allows them to call you back if you are disconnected.
5. They will ask for the location of the victim. Give as much detail as possible - address, names of crossroads, landmarks, and specific area of the location. 1313 Mockingbird Lane, in the basement on the left side as you come down the stairs.
6. They will ask what happened. State the nature of the emergency. Herman Munster fell through the floor into the basement coal bin again.
7. Tell them the number of persons who are injured and any special conditions. There are three alligators crawling down in the basement near the body.
8. They will ask the condition of the victim and any first aid you have provided. Herman’s head is bleeding profusely, and I have placed a tourniquet on his neck. (Note: Never put a tourniquet on someone’s neck!)

DO NOT HANG UP! They will tell you if you are going to be disconnected. They may need additional information or your assistance if the emergency personnel cannot find your location.
 A Real-Life Example:

On December 2006, I was driving home at 12:30am. I saw a couple of bonfires off to one side of the road. As I continued driving, I realized someone's winter hay stockpile was on fire. I pulled over and attempted to call the fire department.

I was in a bad spot for cell phones. It took four tries before I got through, and I had to stand outside in the freezing wind to complete the call.

I explained the nature of the emergency, and gave them the location as best as I could. The problem was the road I was traveling on had few landmarks. I told them to head up Highway 15 until they saw my truck.
Twenty minutes later, a deputy sheriff arrived. He asked why I was sitting on the side of the road. I pointed out the rather large fire, and he hopped back in his cruiser to investigate.

Five minutes after that, the volunteer fire department arrived. They put out the fire quickly, and saved most of the hay.

I started driving the rest of the way to my house when my cell rang. The emergency services dispatcher asked if the fire department was on the scene. I told them yes, and also noted a sheriff was there too. He thanked me, and I continued home.

   *   *   *I would recommend you teach these steps to your older children. One day, you may be the victim of an accident, and you'll be glad someone knows what to do.

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Originally posted on FanStory.com

 

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