by CP Bialois
Whenever the conversation came up around him, Jay would politely excuse himself. No one paid him any attention as people preferred to hear the story from one of the town’s renowned tellers of tall tales. He figured he’d let them have their fun instead of telling them about the man that’d been enslaved by a curse.
Epilogue
Every year on the date of the man’s death, Jay made it a point to return to the mine shaft and the grave of the man he killed. He remained the only one that knew what had happened to the famed Winter Creek Beast. Since the beast’s disappearance, professional and amateur Cryptozoologists visited Winter Creek year-round in an effort to locate the mysterious bigfoot monster. While he didn’t have much of a use for them himself, they did help the local economy. Still, the weight of what he did remained.
The guilt of killing someone threatened to overwhelm him at first, but in the end, the only thing for him to do was accept he did what he had to. It didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful for the opportunity to defend the people of his small town, it just required a little getting used to.
As he knelt next to the grave, Jay set a small bundle of flowers on top of the stones and let out a deep breath. The man’s final words had been to thank Jay for ending his torment. It wasn’t lost on the Sheriff that he probably owed a debt of thanks to the man himself. With that thought fresh in his mind, Jay pulled a metal flask from the inside of his jacket pocket and saluted the burial site.
“To strangers becoming friends, and friends becoming strangers.”
He took a swig of the whiskey and stared at the pile of stones. As was his habit every year, he allowed his mind to wander in the hope he’d somehow discover who the man really was.
About the Author
CP Bialois’ love of words began as a small child when his father bought a stack of comics to teach him the reading skills he wasn’t mastering in class. Before long, he was reading at an advanced level and teachers were shaking their heads over the unconventional method.
Growing up in the ‘80s, Bialois was exposed to even further inspiration through the popular cartoons of the day. Transformers, in particular, sparked his imagination and led to him put his first stories on paper. After a decades-long break, Bialois began getting back into the world of writing by joining some role-playing groups. These groups taught him about fleshing out characters and building worlds that stuck with him as he began writing short stories for fun.
To his surprise, Bialois would end up completing his first full-length novel, Call of Poseidon, in 2007. Armed with a finished product, Bialois began working on another book, The Sword and the Flame, unsure of what he would ultimately be doing with either. As with many others in the later part of the first decade of the 2000’s, he found himself out of work and looking into new options. Over the next two years, he would spend most days at the library, completing an additional half-dozen works.
Six books later, Bialois is planning for the release of many more and enjoying the feedback he receives. The up-and-coming author takes inspiration from favorites such as Steven King, Tom Clancy and Sue Grafton. His love of history, fantasy and old monster movies has also served as a muse.
When he’s not busy writing or chatting on his social networks, Bialois enjoys watching hockey and football as well as Metallica DVDs. He currently lives with his wife- a fellow writer- and their fur children. CP Bialois is also active in several South Florida writing groups, as well as the online writer community, and the Florida Writers Association.
You can find CP through his website at cpbialois.webs.com.