by J. R. Rain
One day while Ben was busy serving a troop of road-weary soldiers, a great general asked the humble baker the secret to his success.
With a twinkle in his eye—there was always a twinkle in Benjamin’s eye—the baker looked up from his tray of delights and smiled. “The secret to my success can be summed up in two words.”
The customer looked pleased; the other tired soldiers leaned forward to hear the two words.
“Please, Benjamin,” said the great general, “won’t you tell us the two words?”
Benjamin smiled kindly. “The secret to my success is summed up in two words: More sugar.”
“More sugar?” said the general, disappointed.
“Is that not what you wanted to hear?” asked Benjamin the Baker, curious.
“It doesn’t exactly apply to my life now, does it?” said the warrior. “I’m a general. I conquer lands, armies, people. More sugar does little for me.”
“Aye,” said one of his soldiers, a gruff man with a thick mustache. “What does more sugar do for us in the field of battle?”
“Tell me,” said Ben, as he limped over to his old wood-fired oven to check the progress of some sweet breads, “What does more sugar do?”
“It makes your desserts, well, tastier,” said the general.
“Sweeter,” chimed in a young soldier.
“And better,” said an old woman who had been listening to this conversation from the back of the bakery.
Ben nodded, pleased. “You see, I add even more sugar than the other bakers in town.”
“Ah,” said an older, battle-scarred fighter. “Is the lesson here, that you try harder?”
Ben shook his head. “Sugar is expensive. Because of that, the others are fearful of using more of it.”
“But you are not fearful,” said the young soldier.
“So the secret of your success,” said the guard, “is that you live without fear.”
“The secret to my success,” said Benjamin, “is that I add more sugar.”
And he winked and smiled and helped the next customer, a young beggar boy...
The End
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Red Riding Hood
A Poem by J.R. Rain
There once was a wolf who lived in the woods.
He loved young maidens in riding hoods.
Sometimes he waited all day and night,
To pounce upon them and take a bite.
He loved when they squealed or ran in horror.
He liked to give chase and let out a roar.
Now, was no different as he hid and did wait.
Upon the trail was the perfect bait.
A small kitten mewed and purred and played.
Never a better plan had been laid.
As the wolf waited behind the oak tree,
A fair maiden appeared and exclaimed with glee:
“Why, there’s a little kitten all alone...
You’re too small and not fully grown.”
And as she reached for the cute little critter,
Her red riding hood did go a-flitter.
The big bad wolf was about to pounce,
But paused when he saw the red hood bounce.
After all, there were legends of the girl in red,
Who made grown wolves quiver with dread.
And so the fierce wolf did hide in fear,
And let red riding hood pass in good cheer.
The End
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Vampire Moon
Deleted Scene
Author’s Note: Sometimes authors delete whole scenes for reasons similar to movie makers. In fact, exactly as movie makers. Sometimes a scene just doesn’t work or isn’t consistent with character or motivation. I had a few problems with the scene below. Mostly, I felt it showed a very calculating and very dark side to Samantha. Perhaps too dark and calculating and, well, murderous. But I still liked it, and I want to share it with you now. I do hope you enjoy it. —J.R.
* * *
I landed on the hospital roof.
A moment later, closing my eyes and seeing myself in my human form, I found myself standing naked, high above the prison below. As usual, I didn’t feel myself transform. It just happened, and it happened instantly and painlessly. A true metamorphosis.
Feeling vulnerable—being naked does that to you—I trotted over to a door, the roof’s access point. The doorknob was locked, so locked that it didn’t even jiggle. I gripped the knob again and turned with a little added strength. With a groan, the mechanisms in the lock snapped apart and I pulled the door open.
The dark stairwell was lit by only a dusty, mesh-covered light bulb. I moved quickly down the metal staircase, padding lightly on bare feet, careful not touch anything.
I paused at the third floor, the prison hospital’s ICU. Although I hadn’t worked long as a federal agent for HUD, I had certainly worked long enough to get acquainted with most of the local prisons. More than a few times, I interviewed prisoners. And one or two times, I had even interviewed prisoners in this very hospital.
Granted, I had never done so stark naked in the middle of the night.
Tonight, though, it wasn’t going to be an interview.
The door onto the floor wasn’t locked. As is the case for many prison hospitals, the building wasn’t quite as tight as the prison itself, which accounted for why most prison break-outs occurred here, in the hospitals.
It was late, and the hospital should be quiet. There would be plenty of guards, certainly, at least one in each room, and definitely a few on each floor. There would also be plenty of cameras, too.
Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about cameras.
I stood behind the metal door, away from the glass window, and listened. A few seconds of this later, and I was certain there was no one outside the door, or anywhere close, for that matter. Not to mention, my sixth sense would have alerted me to danger. I think. I hoped so, at least.
Anyway, all of my senses, both physical and non-physical, were telling me the coast was clear. So I used my middle knuckle to gently push down on the lever, and used my shoulder to push open the door. I may be a vampire, but I still had prints.
I peeked out into the hallway.
* * *
You want surreal? Try standing in a prison hospital hallway naked.
Above me, yes, was a camera. I knew from experience that I would not show up on film, either digital or celluloid. But I did very much show up live and in person and so I kept an eye out for anything living. So far, I was alone. To either side of me were elevators. To my left was a sort of cage that I think might have been the pharmacy. To my right was a long corridor that led to some activity and brighter lights.
I slipped down the hall, as naked as the day I was born.
There was what appeared to be a nurse’s station at the far end of the hallway. I could see a security guard leaning against the wall directly ahead of me. If he would look to his left, he would see a very naked vampire.
I did my best to keep to the shadows and that was when I found what I was looking for. It was a storage room. The door was locked. I took care of that with a quick twist of my wrist. I slipped inside and flicked on the light. It was, in fact, a big storage room, filled with shelves of everything from cleaning agents to nursing smocks. It was the smocks that I was after.
In a blink, I was wearing one. A baggy one, granted, but it would do the trick. I also grabbed a rag which I sprayed with disinfectant. Vampires could still leave fingerprints, unfortunately.
I exited the storage room and looked for my next target.
I found it easily enough.
It was a fire alarm near a door a few yards away. With my hand wrapped in the rag, I yanked down on it hard, and the building erupted nicely into chaos.
* * *
Most of the armed guards had stepped out of the room and were conferring with each other. Many were on radios. The alarm screamed, rattling the old building
. Doctors and nurses were running to and fro.
One nurse wasn’t running. One nurse was methodically checking each of the rooms until she found the one she wanted. No one noticed me or cared. I was just another nurse checking on her precious wards. Except this nurse had anything but benediction on her mind.
Ira Levin had a room to himself. It even looked like he had a view. Granted, it wasn’t much of a view. More of a dirty, mesh-covered window set high on the wall, barely big enough to shoot arrows from had this been a medieval fortress instead. Still, the small window would have afforded sunlight, and when one is on Death Row, even sunlight is a rare luxury.
Ira was awake and looking around, blinking. No doubt he had been asleep just moments earlier. His face, I saw, was still mostly bandaged. Even from here, looking through the door, I could see the dozens of dark stitches that criss-crossed the sections of his face that weren’t covered in bandages.
The guard barely looked at me. He was a big guy with a heavily muscled chest. At least, it was heavily muscled in my imagination. I slipped inside and he barely looked at me.
I kept my face turned away from Ira as I walked around his head, pretending to examine some equipment.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “What’s going on? We got some kind of fire.”
“Something like that,” I said. I was next to his bed, looking away, running my hands over some tubes. I could feel his eyes on me.
“You guys gonna get me out of here or something?”
“Or something,” I said. My heart, which generally beat slowly and deliberately, pushing my supernatural blood throughout my undead body, had picked up. I heard it pounding in my ears.
I would love to tell you that my heart picked up because I was nervous. Because I was about to do something I had never done before. I would like to tell you that what I was about to do caused me so much guilt and regret that I nearly turned back.
I would like to. But I can’t.
The truth is, I was more excited than I had been in a long, long time. Something was coming over me. Something raw and primal, something alive and dark. And it pushed me forward recklessly.
I could see the guard clearly through the window. He was supposed to stand in the prisoner’s room at all times. However, apparently, that all changed when the fire alarm sounded. Now he was out in the hall, hand on his weapon, apparently waiting for orders. He glanced inside at me and I made sure to look busy. He looked away again as his walkie-talkie crackled. As he unclipped it and spoke into it, I turned around quickly and faced Ira Levin.
He had been looking out the window, at the guard, but now he looked back at me. His face was heavily bruised and misshapen. He looked very little like the man who had taunted me a week earlier. His eyes seemed slightly glazed. No doubt he was on a lot of painkillers, not to mention he had just been roused no doubt from a deep sleep.
He seemed about to ask me something pedestrian—perhaps if I could get him some water, or help him relieve his bowels—but then something crossed his damaged and battered face. More accurately, it crossed his eyes. That something was recognition.
“You!” he started to say.
I don’t think he even finished the word. I lunged forward and clapped my hand over his mouth, careful not to let him bite me. Next, I pulled the pillow out from behind his head, and in one swift motion, replaced my hand with the pillow, covering his face completely.
I looked out the window. The guard was still on the walkie-talkie. A nurse ran by. Another guard ran by. The sirens continued to wail.
Ira kicked and fought me. I put my weight on him, binding his arms to his side, careful that nothing flailing could scratch me and inadvertently collect any evidence.
My head was pounding. My own blood was veritably surging through me. I had an image of a lioness pinning down a gazelle, her ferocious jaws clamped around her prey’s throat, catching her breath even while she waited for her meal to perish.
My stomach growled ridiculously loud. I fought an overwhelming desire to rip out his throat and drink his foul blood. I fought and fought and fought the feeling. A dozen different times, I nearly gave in. A dozen different times I reminded myself that Ira absolutely must appear to have died naturally.
Finally, the kicking stopped. His body convulsed beneath me a half dozen times. As it did so, I watched the guard. He was still talking heatedly into the walkie-talkie, glancing left and right, but never in the room.
I lay on Ira’s body as his life left him. In the moment that it did, it sort of sagged and deflated and the energy in the room instantly dissipated. I was clearly alone with a corpse.
In the moment, his various life-monitoring machines went nuts. There was a lot blaring and beeping, and I quickly tucked the pillow back under his head, relieved that his eyes hadn’t bulged out. As they were, he was staring at me blankly. I glanced inside his open mouth. He bit his tongue, but not too badly. A random heart attack could result in a similar injury. I wasn’t worried. The blaring of the various monitors did not at first get the guard’s attention, as they were mostly lost in the screeching sounds of the fire alarm.
But he must have caught my movement, because he was now in the room asking what happened. I brushed past him and told him I had to find a doctor, ASAP.
He nodded and let me go.
I went down the hallway, made a right, passed a half-dozen sprinting nurses going in the opposite direction, and then made a beeline to the storage room.
Once inside, I removed all clothing, folded them nicely where I found them, and emerged from the room naked once more. I was at the far end of the hallway, away from the commotion. I peeked out and I kept peeking out until the coast appeared clear. When it was, I dashed down the hall as fast as I possibly could. It must have been pretty fast. Perhaps that was something else I should look into.
Just how fast could I run?
In a blink, I was at the stairway door. I used my knuckle to depress the lever, and the back of my thumb to open it. Once through the door, I flew up the stairs faster than I had ever run up any stairs in all my life. Never did my legs tire. I could have run up a thousand flights.
Maybe. I didn’t know.
On the roof, I used gravel and dirt and debris to rub my fingerprints off the broken doorknob. With any luck, no one would check the doorknob for many days to come, or perhaps even months. After all, it was just a false fire alarm, and Ira’s death would hopefully be ruled natural.
The only question was: would they report a mysterious dark-haired nurse that night? Undoubtedly. There were a lot of nurses on duty tonight. I could fit the description of any number of them.
Sure, there might be an investigation. Then again, Ira was a slimeball. I know cops. They don’t work very hard investigating curious deaths to slimeballs, even if there were unusual circumstances involved.
Cops let slimeballs disappear into oblivion.
On the roof, with the sound of the alarm still blaring around me, as a multitude of emergency vehicles descended upon the prison hospital, I held in my thoughts the image of the beast in the flame. The dark creature seemed to study me back, even tilting its head curiously at me.
And when I opened my eyes again, I was transformed and standing on the corner of the prison hospital roof, my thick talons curled over. I was a living gargoyle.
I leaped high into the air and caught a draft. I flapped my wings hard, gaining altitude, higher and higher, into the night sky.
Finis
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Mrs. Night/Moon Dance
Rap Sheet
Author’s Note: Recently, I came across the rap sheet I wrote in 2004 for Mrs. Night. Yes, that was my agent’s preferred title to Moon Dance. A rap sheet is the sales pitch an agent uses to entice Hollywood executives. If an executive likes the rap sheet, they’ll request the complete screenplay or novel. If they like the screenplay or novel, they’ll request a meeting. Many meetings, in fact. And if you’re lucky—really, really lucky—you might
get a movie deal out of it. But it all begins with the rap sheet. —J.R.
Mrs. Night
A murder mystery with bite
By J.R. Rain
LOGLINE: After being hired to investigate a horrific shooting, a wife and mother struggles to maintain control of her family and the creature she has become.
TONE: Humorous, heartbreaking and shocking.
SYNOPSIS: Six years ago federal agent SAMANTHA MOON was the perfect wife and mother, your typical soccer mom with the minivan and suburban home. Then the unthinkable happens, an attack that changes her life forever. And forever is a very long time for a vampire.
Now the world at large thinks Samantha has developed a rare skin disease, a disease which forces her to quit her day job and stay out of the light of the sun. Working the night shift as a private investigator, Samantha is hired by Kingsley Fulcrum to investigate the murder attempt on his life, a horrific attempt captured on TV and seen around the country. But as the case unfolds, Samantha discovers Kingsley is not exactly what he appears to be, for there is a reason why he survived five shots to the head. It takes more than that to kill a werewolf.
Samantha is fairly certain her marriage is on the rocks. Her one-time loving husband DANNY, a man who knows her dirty secret, is coming home now later and later. They rarely touch or kiss, and when they do he seems repulsed. So, being an ace detective, she follows him and confirms her worst fear: he’s having an affair. When she confronts him, she learns the depths of her husband’s loathing. He’s tired of her cold flesh, sickened by the thought of her drinking cow blood delivered from a local butchery, fears for his life and the life of his children. He wants a divorce, and he wants the kids, and that’s when Samantha’s world comes tumbling down around her.