Don't Cross This Line

by Michael Anderle

  She was looking outside when she heard some scrapping from above and to the left. She was in time to see her husband half leaning out of the window, trying to grab something.

  She yelled, hoping her voice would reach upstairs, "Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

  "One second, snippet!" He called out, apparently not aware she was watching him.

  "Stop leaning out like that! You are going to..."

  Too late! She closed her eyes when he reached one little bit too far and she heard an "Oh fuuuu..." and a 'badoomp' and finally "dgge".

  Opening her eyes, fearing the worst, she noticed her husband holding up a piece of paper in the air, waving it like it was a flag of surrender in the middle of a huge pile of leaves, only his arms and one foot visible.

  "Snippet," his muffled voice said.

  She sighed and walked to the back door, "I'm going to kill that man."

  By now, I’m being pushed ahead on the tsunami of emotions the fans have for the Author’s Wife. I tell my sweet dear heart all about the fans loving The Author’s Wife character and she just rolls her eyes.

  It’s like she doesn’t believe me all the time, or something. I keep telling her I’m going to do “I heart Author’s Wife.” T-shirts or something and she doesn’t believe me.

  Finally, it’s time to come up with another idea and I think, “What would my wife do if I had just fallen out of a second story window but need to get another snippet out?”

  The IMMEDIATE internal response (you know, the kind that comes to you from the second voice in your head?) Is “she would drug me.”

  FML…Once more!

  Now, we go to Snippet #08:

  The author was fidgeting with his food. The dinner his wife cooked was amazing, it was his favorite Italian meal.

  Perhaps a little carb heavy (it was making him sleepy) but other than that?

  Delicious.

  Now, if he could just execute on his plan to get the snippet out of his pocket and over the fence, he would be golden.

  "Sweetheart, why don't you have a little more tea?" she poured him a refill.

  "Thank you my love," he replied, but looked at her funny as he took a drink. She was being too easy going this evening. Did she know he was planning on making a run for the fence tonight?

  Naaahhh. She didn't keep up with his schedule, or exactly what he did with the books.

  He took another bite of the lasagna, his eyes drooped.

  "Here sweetheart, let me grab your plate." She took the fork out of his hand.

  He turned, trying to figure out why she had grabbed his fork. He had lasagna still on his plate, didn't he?

  Was it desert time, already? Wow, desert sounded like a good idea before trying to brave the thirty-five feet of well manicured 3" tall grass all the way to the fence. Then, chunking the two sheets of paper over that damned insurmountable bastion.

  His vision screwed up. He saw his wife coming towards him, smiling in pity, but with a pillow, not a piece of chocolate cake.

  Because, DAMN! Chocolate cake after Italian food would be the ultimate way to screw up his courage to get this done.

  He just needed to blink this damned sleep...this damned...

  The Author's wife slid the pillow where his plate had been sitting a few moments ago. The author's head nodded twice before landing square in the center of the pillow. His soft, sleepy breathing confirming the sedative she put in his drink was working as planned.

  She reached into his back pocket and took out the snippet. Then, she reached behind him and grabbed a small blanket from where she had stashed it earlier.

  Placing it around his shoulders, she turned down the light in the dining room.

  "Sorry sweetheart," she patted him on his head. "There is no way I'm risking whatever brainless idea you had to get this over the fence this evening."

  She walked to the back door and turned to see his baby face resting on the pillow. "You will wake up in twenty minutes, and then I'll give you that chocolate cake you wanted."

  She turned the doorknob and stepped out, "I'm sure I'll have a suitable story about how brave you were by that time, as well."

  The door closed softly behind her as she made her way to the fence.

  By now, this whole snippet thing is going CRAZY - You have to read the responses in the snippet posts because fans (I think Earl started this) are writing small STORIES to go w/ the intro stories that are supposed to introduce the snippets… I mean, we are so meta at the moment, I’ve lost all control of this situation.

  Not that I ever had control…but still.

  Now, before I release Snippet 09, my beloved wife (in real life) goes on a business trip to California. Which leaves me as the only parental unit in the house. We have three children (one lives out of the house, two are still in high school). The two high schoolers (Seniors) join in the snippets…Not that they had a clue at the time I wrote this, they found out later.

  Intro to Snippet #09:

  “Dad, does Mom know what you are wanting to do?” The Author’s youngest twin asked. He and his two sons were sitting in front of a huge … contraption.

  The Author waved both hands towards his two teenage sons, “Now, let’s not bother Mom’s delicate psyche with this idea. She’s traveling for work and it wouldn’t be good for her to have to deal with this while she is so far away from home.”

  “Really?” the older of the twins asked, “Because I remember her warning us about your efforts to put your snippets over the fence.”

  “They aren’t … efforts… exactly,” the Author says.

  “Right,” the younger twin agreed, “Mom describes them as P.E.R.F.E.C.T.”

  The Author’s Eye light up in delight, “See! She completely gets me! The ability to overcome the physical and mental challenges that snippets represent…” The older twin interrupts.

  He eyes his father, “Dad, it stands for Pitiful Efforts Real Females Eventually Can’t Take.”

  The Author waits for a moment for his brain to realize it was an acronym. then makes a face of disgust.

  “That’s because she doesn’t understand the difficult and challenging profession of writing. Of taking my blood, sweat and tears…”

  “Dad,” the older interrupts again, “Mom says she has lots of tears from your snippet efforts.”

  “Really?” The Author replies, confused.

  “Oh yes,” the younger agrees, “she cries in frustration every time you hurt yourself doing something, uh…uh…,” the brother looks over to his older twin. “A little help?”

  He nods his head then shrugs, “Insane?”

  “Not…helping,” his brother replies.

  “Look you two,” the Author points to the large contraption put together from old tinker-toys found in the attack and duct tape, “This is bound to get the snippet over the walls of rejection to the ravenous hordes on the other side.”

  “You mean, the nice people over the normal wooden fence having a bit of Coke together out there?” the oldest asks, confusion evident on his face.

  “And the dog,” the younger agrees, “don’t forget the dog.”

  “Yes!” the eyes of the Author light up, “Cerberus himself is out there!”

  The two teenagers look to each other, communicating as somehow twins can do and both turn towards their father. “So,” the older one starts, “let’s see this snippet,” he asks as he holds his hand out, eyeing the contraption behind the Author.

  “I’ll see if the coast is clear,” the younger stands up.

  Caught by surprise with the sudden acceptance and obvious understanding for the need of Herculean strength and the mental effort to dig deep to bring up the latent heroic desire in all men to …

  The older twin snags the snippet out of his hand and tosses it to his brother, who was already streaking for the back door! The Author watches in horror as the beloved snippet flips end over end, past his contraption to be snagged out of the air by the second son with his teenager reflexes.

>   The Author, not quite so fast as his son heaves his aging body to one side, then the other to get momentum so he can try to stand up, but too late! The younger is already out the back door as the

  Author tries to stand up, his legs not quite enough and find’s out he miscalculated. He falls backwards right into his contraption.

  The older twin winces and closes his eyes, the tinker-toys falling down like a James Cameron scene, bouncing everywhere with his Dad underneath, his hands covering his eyes.

  By the time their Dad finally moves, the younger twin is coming back in the back door, “You know? That dog was really nice. He likes to get scratched behind his ears.”

  “C’mon, let’s get Dad out from underneath this mess,” his older brother tells him.

  The younger pulls out his iPhone, “Not before we get evidence.” He snaps a picture.

  From beneath the tinker-toy mess, their father moans, “YouTube?”

  “No,” they both respond, “Mom!”

  The younger finishes, “We get ten bucks if we save you from disaster…”

  So, that time, I figured I would pull The Author’s Wife out of the snippets, and her rocketing fame will decrease…Not so, she hires two snitch’s to tell on me and now both The Author’s Wife AND The Author’s Son’s are now fan favorites.

  The Author never catches a break.

  FINE!

  The Author decides to make his next effort without ANYONE at home. That will teach them all a lesson…

  So, The Author waits until the kids are at school, and his lovely wife is still out of town to effectuate his next effort to get the snippet over the fence to the fans on the other side.

  By now, these damned intro’s are the size of small book scenes! LOL, fans are telling me that they don’t want me too spend too much time writing the intro’s, but they love them so much, they don’t want to tell me to stop. I guess that is a passive aggressive way to tell me to grab a bunch of No-Doz and get my ass typing.

  Intro to Snippet #10:

  The author listened to the beautiful simplicity of his empty house. He was sitting at the counter, on a bar stool, eyeing the long distance from his backdoor to the back fence.

  He licked his parched lips.

  This time, there was no wife to drug him, no teenagers to trick him. It was just him, the snippet laying in front of him, and hell’s half acre.

  The Author reached up and wiped imaginary sweat off of his eyebrows. He chewed on his upper lip and turned back to eye the three shot glasses in front of him.

  Two contained the Elixir of life… one contained Pepsi. He had two shots to make it to the fence or it was guaranteed if he failed three times, he was going to have to drink the big ‘P’.

  He considered how that sounded and decided to change that to ‘have to drink the big ‘PC’.

  Well, shit. Now it sounded like he was going to drink a personal computer. That wasn't going to work either.

  Screw it. He hitched up his pants and walked to the back door. He grabbed the handle and started rocking on his legs.

  “One, Two..” He screamed the last number, “three!” Yanking open the door, the Author ran like a man chased by a baby with a dirty diaper to the back fence.

  It was, he counted, at least thirty-two steps of torturous danger. Coming up on the fence at full speed he put on the brakes, eyeing the top of the fence as he reached into his back pocket.

  SHIT! He turned to look at the back door in dismay, he had left the snippet on the countertop!

  Dammit. He started chugging his middle-aged body back towards the back door, looking out for any nefarious insects that could be trying to ambush him.

  Making it to the back porch he went inside. Breathing hard, he grabbed the first shot glass and tossed it back, the carbonation burning the back of his throat.

  He set the glass aside and grabbed the snippet this time, sticking it in his pocket. He looked over his shoulder and the fence easily moved back another thirty steps.

  He set his shoulders and turned back. Grabbing the second Coke, he drank it quickly and then pushed off the counter top, racing back across the back yard, dodging the zombie disease carrying mosquitos when he arrived at the fence. Reaching into his pocket, his hands clasped on the snippet.

  Throwing the snippet over the fence, it rebounded off the fence a foot from his face and came back to hit him in his left eye, “Diddly Sock Puppet!” he screamed, grabbing his eye with his left hand. Looking around, one eye down, he finally discovered the snippet and hastily tried to grab it. Three times was the charm and he flung it back over the fence.

  It disappeared into the clouds.

  Running back to the house, he tried to look for any traps along the way, the sweat was real this time.

  Tripping on the step up onto the back porch, our intrepid Author made it to the back door and stepped inside, slamming the door behind him. Leaning back against the door, his chest heaving due to exertion,

  The Author smiled and put up his hand in VICTORY!

  “Woohoo!” he shouted for today he had beaten the evil hell’s half acre and come back alive. Perhaps wounded (he wondered if he should get a medal for his valorous efforts) he took the three steps and dropped into his chair.

  In a stupor, smile on his face and one eye still closed our beloved author reached out and grabbed the second Coke and downed it.

  Fifteen minutes later, the sons of the author came in through the garage door from school. Calling out, they didn’t hear dad reply.

  They found him on the kitchen floor, Pepsi dribbling down his shirt.

  “That…” he whispered to the first son to ask him what happened, “wasn’t…Coke…”

  So, ended Don’t Cross This Line’s pre-snippet, snippets.

  The following are the confirmed Authors who are writing in The Kurtherian Gambit Universe with me. Our first collaboration books are releasing either in December or January 2017

  Check them out ;-)

  CRAIG MARTELLE - Terry Henry “TH” Walton Chronicles

  Craig is the Author of the the best selling End Times Alaska Series, The Free Trader Series and the new Cygnus Rising series.

  He is a retired Marine, lawyer (not holding that against him) and consultant. He is taking over the science fiction and miltiary fiction genres.

  Craig is letting loose in The Kurtherian Universe with language not used in his writing since…Well, he heard it in the Marines.

  Here is the first blurb about Terry Henry.

  The Terry Henry “TH” Walton Chronicles starts with Nomad Found (January 2017)

  After the fall, strength was power, then electrical power became a force unto itself. The strong built their empires, only because of people like Terry Henry Walton. He showed a small town boss there are no limits if you planned well and built slowly.

  You just have to stay smart to be one step ahead of the next strongman.

  In a world where mechanics and engineers are the most valuable people, Terry committed to protect them with his life. Little did he know he lived because others allowed it. Little did they know, he doesn’t give a fuck what they allow.