The Man In 14C

By K. J. Gillenwater

First Kindle Edition, October 2017

Copyright 2017 by K. J. Gillenwater

Cover art design by K. J. Gillenwater

Photograph by Victor Zastol’skiy/Adobe Stock

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

This book is the second in a series of science fiction short story collections. All three stories in this collection were written following guidelines for various contests, the details of which are included before each story.

Encounter. Two crew members must deal with a hull breach on a hauling vessel bound for a distant earth colony. Alone and desperate, they make a choice that might alter their lives forever.

Lucinda. A tv star in a dystopian America reveals her downfall from highly paid news anchor to a low-life host of a television reality show featuring everyday people being evicted from their homes during the worst financial crisis in U.S. history.

The Man in 14C. A cancer patient on a flight back from Tokyo passes through a wormhole and experiences time travel that transports him 20 years into the future. His life destroyed, he must reconnect with family and discover how he fits into an unfamiliar world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Encounter

Lucinda

The Man in 14C

About the Author

Encounter

Contest: Written for @LayethTheSmackDown "Epic Tales From a Beautiful Mind" Challenge on Wattpad. It was included in the First Contact group of stories. K.J. had to write about a first encounter with an alien species and had to include certain items in the story: a reference to a fictitious brand of cigarettes, a reference to a graphic novel series, a reference to Star Wars (at least one), a picture of a dinosaur in someone’s backyard, and at least two sentences of dialogue used word for word.

An alarm sounded on the control panel. Our water hold had sprung a leak. Must’ve been that asteroid storm we passed through when Carlos accidentally turned us off course while I was asleep.

My training at the Academy kicked in. I flicked my fingers over the flashing alarm icon to read the rate of loss.

Hundreds of gallons leaked into space in less than a minute.

“Shit.”

I ran the numbers through my head. Our next resupply station was a several light years from our location. More than two month’s travel time. We’d left Earth with plenty of water for our mission.

I needed more hands on deck to stem the flow. A spacewalk would be in order to survey the damage, patch the hole. Hopefully, it was small enough to be patched with the meager emergency supplies we had on board or we were in serious trouble.

I waved my hand at the comms screen. Carlos slept buried under blankets in our quarters. “Wake up. We’ve got a massive water leak. I need you out there now.”

Carlos had dozens of hours of experience suiting up and working on the exterior hull of hauling vessels like The Gemini. His job as co-pilot was to act as relief captain, but he also pulled double-duty as the chief engineer aboard our two-person hauler. Well, two persons and a very aged ‘robotic assistant,’ as the company liked to call them.

“Carlos.” My voice grew sharper. “Get up. Now.”

The blankets stirred. Carlos sat up and hit his head on the upper berth – my berth – and swore.

The camera automatically shifted its focus to his face and zoomed in for the perfect shot of his red-rimmed eyes and messed up hair. He’d only gotten off his 12-hour shift a few hours ago. I wasn’t surprised he had been difficult to wake.

“What’s going on?” Carlos rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Water leak. Big one. You gotta get out there. The airlock’s prepped. All you need to do is run down there and suit up.”

The Gemini was equipped with a lot of automated systems that could be run from the main deck with the wave of a hand over the right control. The automation allowed for a skeleton crew, which made space shipments much cheaper than 20 years ago. But some of the equipment had seen better days. The risks had grown greater each year the company decided to keep the same haulers working, rather than replace them with newer, more reliable models.

“Got it.” Carlos looked fully awake now. Aware of the seriousness of the alarm. He picked up his tool bag hanging by the berths.

The three things you needed to have in space: air, water, food. Without them, you were screwed. Carlos didn’t need to be reminded.

The cameras seeded throughout the ship followed his path. Out of the sleeping berths, down a stark white hallway, past the storage chambers full of equipment for Colony 427. Equipment to replace that which had been damaged by a magnetic pulse from a nearby pulsar. The colony builders had forgotten to move everything into a shielded bunker before a storm and had been laid up for months waiting for our delivery.

Didn’t bode well for the future of this colony if they could be so easily ruined through a bit of forgetfulness. But the company had plans. Big plans. Part of those plans was to extend its reaches further and further into space. Creating new outposts. Discovering new things including sources of energy, minerals and other necessary items for the ever-hungry Earth dwellers.

“Water stores depleting rapidly. Get out there, Carlos. Now.”

I waved my hand over another screen to my left. I immediately adjusted the water allocated per shower to one-third and daily totals to less than a quarter of what we considered ‘normal use’ in a given space flight. The regulated plumbing system would slow down our usage, but the calculations about how far we could travel before we ran out of water was still unknown.

Carlos would have to move quickly to keep us from ending up in a dire scenario.

The cameras tracked Carlos’s movements. Another hundred yards and he’d arrive at the air lock. His boots clunked heavily on the corridor floor. I wished he’d move faster.

The alarm increased its rhythm. I turned my attention back to the water levels. The pressure was looking bad. Very very bad.

“Shit.”

Carlos slipped into the air lock.

A loud boom echoed through the entire ship. Louder than anything I’d heard before.

Carlos shifted his gaze into the camera lens. “Did we lose it?”

The fear I saw in them was palpable.

The screen flashed at me. I read the news, “Total blow out. The hole must’ve been small. Pierced both hulls. All that pressure…”

“Mary Mother of God.” Carlos crossed himself.

The screens surrounding me, flashing their messages and streaming the camera signals from all parts of the vessel, disappeared. Tunnel vision set in.

We. Were. Screwed.

Carlos unbuttoned his chest pocket and pulled out a box of Ecrivain’s Specials. He fumbled for a lighter.

“Hey, we can’t smoke on board. That’s a code violation.”

He pinched a cigarette between his lips, flicked the lighter and touched the flame to it. “Screw the code.” He sucked long and deep. Smoke billowed out of his nostrils and into the closed air lock.

***

The computer systems on board analyzed our situation. The blowout had also caused a suction effect on our pipe system. The only water that remained was a gallon of drinking water in the storage tank under the galley sink and the brown water used in the shower system. Our filters would burn out before we’d get to Colony 427. I set aside my fear and waved my hand over the star map, touched our location – a flashing blue blip – and expanded the view so that I could see the possibilities that surrounded us.

Carlos entered the piloting deck. It had been built for one person to operate, so it was cramped. Screens surrounded me. Each one allowed a view of a different system: the cargo hold, the video projection, the map, the ship’s systems, the space view. I spun in my seat to face my partner.

Carlos had the cigarette between his lips. “You can rat me out if you want to, Lissa, but I’m not signing my own death warrant.”

“You mean the asteroid storm?” Carlos hadn’t been my best partner, but I’d never divulge to the company that his sloppy piloting may have doomed us. “We gotta find some water first before I worry about what the company thinks about the damage to the ship.”

He puffed on his banned cigarette, “As Han Solo said to Chewbacca, ‘it’s not my fault.’ Something went wrong with the display. I was given the all clear. You think I’d pilot us through an asteroid storm on purpose?”

I wanted to tell him no, but I knew better. A man didn’t choose this kind of job. He took it because he was desperate. I knew Carlos’s situation better than he realized. I’d heard scuttlebutt back at the launch zone. Other hauler pilots black balled him, didn’t want to work with him. He had a reputation for looking out only for himself, and on a long haul like this one, with only 2 crew members, you had to rely on each other, trust each other.

I thought about the picture my sister, Zara, had handed to me before I’d left on this trip. It was a silly thing, a drawing of a dinosaur standing in a 20th century neighborhood. So out of place. So ridiculous. She knew it made me laugh. And this was the kind of job where you needed to find moments to laugh. I had pasted it next to my berth.

I felt just like the dinosaur at that moment, as if I were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could’ve chosen a different route. I could’ve been millions of miles away from this situation. But I’d selected the job for the money. I wasn’t planning on doing another long haul. I’d promised Aaron that much. He hadn’t been happy when I’d given him the flight plan details. I’d be gone for almost a year.

I was the dinosaur who’d found himself sandwiched between a neat row of houses and a backyard fence in old-fashioned suburbia. But instead of a neighborhood, I was stranded in an unfamiliar solar system that had nothing in common with the world I’d come from.

No point in arguing with Carlos about how the damage had occurred. We were in the situation, and we had to deal with it. I turned back to my screens and focused on the star map once more. “We’ve got to be able to find somewhere that has potable water, even ice.” I selected in the resource we needed. Every company ship was outfitted with an emergency resource locator. Didn’t always help, but it came standard ever since the Nexus accident decades ago. “And put out that cigarette, I don’t want to get docked any pay for breaking the rules.”

Carlos sniffed. “If we even make it back for our pay.”

Clearly a pessimist. Just my luck.

A flashing green light appeared on the star map. “Here.” I waved my hand over the light to expand the view and get more detail about what the computer had found. “Only a day or two away. Looks like a decent-sized moon around one of the Super-Earths in this system. Says it’s likely to have a large amount of ice, possibly some running water depending on where we land.”

Relief coursed through me in a cool wave. This would work. If we sealed off the hole in the double hull, we could replenish our water resources. The lander could be used as a scouting vehicle and was equipped for a certain amount of storage.

“I’ll work the helm.” Carlos assigned himself the less risky duty.

One of us would have to stay behind on the ship to control the departure and reentry of the lander from the docking bay. Although the ship was mostly automated when it came to handling cargo and working the basic life support systems, the emergency workings generally were controlled by the human components, just in case there was a breakdown of the automation.

I nodded.

He must’ve felt a curtness in that nod. “You’re a better pilot.”

I wasn’t surprised Carlos wanted to remain on board. There would be a lot of unknowns with this mission. Although the moon contained what we needed, it didn’t mean I could just land, suck up some water and zip back to the ship in an hour or two. We could encounter any number of problems ranging from atmospheric dangers, gravity problems, unstable topography. But at least the computer assured us no life existed on this moon, so the possibly of First Contact was crossed of the list of dangers.

It had been known to happen – First Contact. And mostly not with good results. The Earth Government had cobbled together a protocol plan after the first encounter with alien life more than fifty years ago. The attitude the company had about First Contact was: not our problem, not our mission. In other words, avoid putting yourself into a position where the First Contact Protocol may come into play. Not only was it dangerous for the crew, it was costly for the company.

“That’s fine. One of us has to go. Might as well be me.” I waved my hand over the monitor that displayed the moon to drill down further into the information available. “Looks like temperatures are within a decent range: -30 degrees Celsius to 40 degrees Celsius. Depending on the position in the system.”

“Lemme get some sleep. Can we discuss this at the next shift? I’m beat.”

I’d forgotten that Carlos had been dead asleep when the emergency had occurred. I nodded. “We can figure out a repair plan for the water hold and I’ll give you the lowdown on the approach for water recovery.”

“Sounds good.” Carlos turned to leave the cramped space. “Oh, hey, do you have Fray #7? I left it in the bathroom a couple of days ago. Haven’t seen it since.”

Carlos’s dopey vampire comic. Did he really think I went for that kind of reading? “No, I never touched your comic book.” I remembered the cover – a huge snake-like monster, its mouth full of teeth, on the verge of chomping down on some futuristic character. Why Carlos insisted on packing a stack of these comics in his gear for the trip was beyond me. We had everything available in the electronic library at the swipe of a hand. “Not my kind of stuff.”

“Well, let me know if you see it. I could’ve sworn I left it in there.”

By the look in his dark gaze, I knew he didn’t believe me. The last thing I needed was Carlos going nuts over a comic book right before I hopped in the lander for our mission. We needed to trust each other not get distracted by petty problems. “I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for it when I do my rounds.”

That seemed to satisfy him. Treat the comic book as a serious problem, and he was happy. Treat it like the dumb piece of trashy writing that it was, get retribution. I was not in the mood, nor could I risk retribution.

He nodded, gave a grim smile and left the piloting deck. “See you at 1800 hours.”

I glanced at the clock to my right. Eight hours from now. I had a lot of research to work on in the meantime.

***

The flight suit restricted my movements more than I liked. It was pressurized to mimic the Earth’s atmosphere, but the odd feeling of floating inside the slightly-loose fitting suit was unnerving. I’d never gotten used to it. When I moved my hand forward, instead of feeling the end of my suit mitts, my hand sort of floated inside the suit. A constant pressure of air kept my body from touching any part of the suit. This also kept me protected from extreme temperatures when on the surface. The suit could withstand a certain level of temperatures without affecting the wearer.

I ignored the sensation as best I could and reached out to manipulate the landing controls. The lander didn’t have the same swipe screens as the cargo ship. With a hand encased in triple thick fabric and shielding, the swiping didn’t work. When on a mission such as this, the pilot had to go back to old fashioned buttons and levers to operate the lander.

“You are within range of the landing zone.” Carlos’s voice came through my headset as a tinny distant noise. The suits were built for surviving unknown conditions, not for perfect sound quality. The video image of Carlos projected on my helmet face shield was clear, however. “You should be able to see the sharp ridge on one side of you and the pools on the other.”

The lander came down out of thick layer of ice clouds, and the ridge appeared right in front of me. The pools of still, clear water stretched out in the distance. Plenty to fill our tanks. “Roger. I see the zone. All clear.” I conducted the landing sequence and slowed my approach. Dust kicked up from the flat spot we’d selected from the computer’s rudimentary map on board the ship.

“I’m receiving the lander’s scans now. Looks like we can recover 2,000 gallons without a problem. That should be more than enough.”

“Agreed.” I set the lander down softly on the hard soil of the mystery moon. My lander’s tank could hold 500 gallons, so I’d have to make several trips to fill up our on-board tank. It would put us a few days’ behind schedule, which the company wouldn’t like, but it couldn’t be helped. “Headed out now to hook up the pump.”

“Lissa,” Carlos’s voice crackled in my headset. “Be careful.”

“You got it.” I waited for the lander to equalize with the moon’s atmosphere. I knew Carlos cared more about the water than my safe return, but I appreciated the sentiment. I pulled the lever to open the door and let the steps down. Although protected in my flight suit, I could sense the heat emanating off of the yellow surface beneath my feet.

I looked at the readout on my wrist. 129 degrees.

Hot.

Thank god my suit shielded me from the worst of it. As I looked out at the pools of still water several dozen feet in front of me, I marveled that they had not evaporated under the intense heat. However, after the research I’d done about this moon, I knew the hottest part of the day lasted only a few hours, at night, the cold swept in and froze most everything in its path. It took most of the daytime hours to thaw out the water. Underneath the surface the computer had detected a subterranean ocean of fresh water. Salinity levels could be detected through density scans.

I dragged the heavy suction hose to the closest pond and switched on the power. The drone of the pump soothed me. The water would quickly fill the holding tank, and I could return to our vessel. The quicker we finished this refill, the better. I shivered at the view in front of me. Beyond the pools rose a stark, dry mountain. Although it was daylight, the star that provided heat in this system penetrated easily through the thin atmosphere. The emptiness of space hovered above me. A dark weight.

I’d never felt this way about outer space before. I’d been all over the traveled parts of space in my job from colony to colony, moon to moon, from distant and near planets and back to Earth again. I enjoyed the feeling of soaring through space and the amazing beauty to be found beyond the obscuring skies at home. I had seen the glow of other galaxies, distant collapsing and birthing stars in all of their colors and wonder, and the vast black between that I could never describe to my sister when I returned home.

But here on this moon, the darkness terrified me. I felt isolated, alone, distant and lost. I wanted to leave this place. This desolate moon saved us and scared me all at the same time. Life-giving water on a dead planet. It saddened me.

The pump cut off.

The tank was full.

I trudged back to the lander and took my booty back to the ship. One trip complete. Three more to go.

***

My eyes were tired and dry. It had been a long shift of multiple trips back and forth from the moon. I was on my final trip.

Carlos’s voice crackled in my helmet, and the video kicked on. “Bet you could use some more coffee.” Carlos held up a steaming mug to the camera.

We’d been refraining from using the water to save what little we’d had left. But with our tanks almost refilled with fresh water from the moon, we’d made a pot of celebratory coffee after my last docking.

“Ah, now that’s good stuff.” Carlos took a gulp. “Better hurry back, Lissa, the pot’ll be empty soon.” He flashed a smile.

I quoted General Puckett’s famous lines from the last World War, “’Retreat. Regroup. Return. Revenge.’ You’d better make a second pot. I expect a hot mug in my hand the minute I dock.” If he could’ve seen me, I would’ve shaken my fist in fury, just like the General had, to emphasize my threat.

The water we’d picked up tasted 100 times better than what we’d been drinking from our closed water loop system on The Gemini. The coffee I’d had when I returned to the ship had been divine.

“Gotcha. Cream, right?”

“Right. And none of that manufactured stuff from the rations.” I dragged the hose back out to the clear, quiet pool. “Break out the real thing.”

Carlos gave me a salute and then cut out.

I set the hose deep into the pool. The deep blue color mesmerized me. Reflecting some of the thin atmosphere, but also picking up the dark of space beyond. Tired, I took a seat on a boulder near the edge and waited for the tank to fill.

After 30 minutes or so my mind felt hazy. I had a headache. I needed to sleep. How many hours had I been awake?

A ripple echoed across the water’s surface. Concentric circles from a center point about 5 yards out. Not lunar winds.

My heart leaped in my chest.

The scans of the moon had shown no life. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. The ripple died.

“Carlos.” I pressed the communication button on my wrist with a clumsy, padded finger.

A pencil-thin, snake-like creature skated across the water’s surface toward me.

I focused my gaze on it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Carlos.” I could hear my voice grow reedy.

The video inside my helmet switched on.

The alien creature swirled and dipped in the water, keeping its distance. Its white body lithe in the clear water.

“Did you run the water through the filtration system?” Fear coursed through me. We’d done the scans. We’d followed the protocol. The computer had detected nothing. The moon was supposed to be devoid of life. The water pristine and uncontaminated.

Carlos sat in the command chair, expressionless.

“Can you hear me?”

The alien danced across the surface, swirling closer to my position at the pool’s edge, then twisting away. It had no eyes, no visible mouth. No identifiable features.

Carlos stared into the camera. His mouth slack.

“Carlos! Talk to me. There’s alien life down here.” The slender, white thing twisted into a ball and then flung itself backward, diving deep into the pool. I switched off the pump, yanked the hose out of the pool, and scrambled backward with the heavy hose in my hands. “Tell me you sent the water through the filtration unit. Please.”

My partner wouldn’t respond. His body jerked.

The headache that had been a dull pain when I arrived earlier, grew into something much worse. My legs grew weak. I fell to the moon’s surface. “Carlos!”

My partner’s face grew pale, as white as the alien swirling in the water. He gurgled. Blood dripped from his nose.

The pain in my head exploded.

I thought of my sister back on Earth. When she’d handed me that silly picture of the dinosaur in someone’s backyard. A creature out of place. A creature in a world where he didn’t belong.

My eyesight faded. I stared up at the emptiness of space and marveled at the innumerable dots of light and wondered which one was Earth. My home.

Lucinda

Contest prompt: This is K.J.’s entry for the #HeartGoesLastFic contest on Wattpad. She had to create a backstory for a secondary character in Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Heart Goes Last." She chose Lucinda Quant as her character: A reality TV star who interviews people being evicted from their homes in the near-future after a societal collapse. What led to her dismissal as a big TV news anchor?

Lucinda Quantillo-Hermosa knew she’d have to change her name. No one in the TV business had any interest in hiring a news anchor with such a name. News anchors needed to be stereotypes – blonde and ballsy. She might not be blonde, but she sure had balls.

Lucinda had fought her way out of the poor and dumpy neighborhood she’d been born into on the outskirts of the city. Always within eyesight of the more glamorous life of the rich and powerful. They passed by her apartment block in their Town Cars and limousines as they made their way from the airport to their penthouses tucked safely inside the high rent district.

Their kids went to the ‘good’ schools. Not the public schools that doled out education like castor oil—only one small spoonful a day. No, the rich and famous would never subject their precious progeny to likes of P.S. Number 155 – Lucinda’s alma mater.

Lucinda knew from an early age that she didn’t belong with the poor and downtrodden. The slack-jawed, glassy-eyed children of drug users and alcoholics surrounded her with their pathetic life goals. Demonte wanted to be the first in his family to graduate from high school. Teresa wanted to make it to eighteen without getting pregnant like her three older sisters.

Lucinda had much bigger goals.

In high school, she’d muscled her way into the role of Student Editor for their pathetic school paper. A four-page, stapled-together crapfest that most students dumped into the trash on their way out of English class. Since the advisor for the paper had no interest in guiding a bunch of losers on the finer points of journalism, Lucinda had her run of the place. She’d reassigned student reporters to stories she knew would grab the attention of P.S. Number 155. No longer did they cover the Friday night football games and the weekly cafeteria menu. Instead, under her direction, students followed stories about widespread cheating on the annual state exam, rumors of an affair between the principal and the janitor, and drug busts off-campus that involved anyone with a connection to their school.

In one year’s time the student paper went from being an automatic dump in the recycle bin to the hottest thing since a transgendered girl joined the cheerleading squad.

Lucinda knew that journalism and manipulating the feckless reader was her talent in life. As one of the few who’d paid attention in English class, she learned the value of vocabulary and used it to her advantage. She took this knowledge to secure herself a college scholarship. Her passionate essay and accompanying awards for her work on the school paper, plus her absent father’s Hispanic heritage made her a shoe-in for financial aid.

Although her father’s family had emigrated a century earlier, she spoke of a Quinceañera celebration that never happened, the traditional Mexican dishes her German-Irish mother never made, and her hopes for uplifting the Hispanic community which she’d never embraced.

She received numerous full-ride scholarships and accepted one at the best university in the country for journalism. The day she left for college she shook off the dirt of her inner-city upbringing and never looked back. She spent the next four years honing her skills and dreaming big. She’d lost interest in newspaper journalism and latched onto the glamour and recognition only a career in television news could bring.

By the time she started interviewing for jobs her senior year, she’d molded herself into the perfect TV news anchor. She shortened her too-Hispanic last name from “Quantillo-Hermosa” to “Quant.” Her long, dark locks were dyed and primped into a stiff, blonde coif that mimicked every successful female news anchor Lucinda had studied. Her accent grew clipped and non-regional with rounded vowels and distinct consonants at the end of every word. Any trace of Lucinda Quantillo-Hermosa was erased and replaced with a molded, perfected, new-and-improved version.

National News Today, the leading morning news program on television, won her over with their generous offer: early morning co-lead anchor with shared dressing room. From 5 am to 7 am Lucinda would be front and center, reading the news of the day, interviewing guests, and chatting it up with Gil Gilderson.

Gil Gilderson had been on National News Today for decades. He’d anchored the evening news on the most popular program in the country. He had been bumped down to early morning co-lead anchor five years ago when his personal life spilled over into the news. A cheating husband with a secret love child could not be a serious news anchor. He’d lost his trustworthiness. Women were switching the channel to watch Jane Allred on their competitor’s channel.

Although Gil had lost his shine with the general public, he still drew viewers during the early morning hours. Lucinda knew this was a huge opportunity for her. Who wouldn’t like a perky, young, adorable co-anchor from fly-over territory (or so her official bio read for her page on the channel’s website)?

Lucinda leapt into her role with gusto. She gritted her teeth every morning, rising at 3 am to find time for a workout, a carbohydrate-free, organic, anti-GMO breakfast and two glasses of pristine bottled water from the south of France, and still made it to the studio by 4:35 for her hair and makeup. On the air by 5, non-stop smiling and pleasantness for two hours until 7 o’clock rolled around and the ‘main’ news team took over.

Lucinda knew, at first, her audience was small. Not many movers and shakers watched her during the early morning hours. But the opportunities were there. She’d grown up with the dirt, the scum of the earth. Her former classmates had turned into junkies, whores and prison inmates. But not Lucinda. She would never be one of them. Those days were long past her. The blonde hair, the heavy tv makeup, the designer wardrobe…even if she’d run into one of her former classmates on the streets, they never would’ve recognized her.

Lucinda who? They’d say. We didn’t have any Lucinda Quant at our high school. No way would P.S. Number 155 produce someone as pretty and polished as she.

Lucinda never visited home. Never wrote her mother. Once she’d left for college, she pretended she’d sprung from the fields. A mysterious girl from nowhere. And when she’d gotten her six-figure job on National News Today, she’d made a point of cutting all ties. After college she’d left no forwarding address, no phone number, no way to contact her. Her mother and younger siblings would only siphon off her hard-gained wealth. They didn’t earn it. They didn’t help her. They’d actually dragged her down all these years with their low ways and appalling lack of intellect.

Lucinda had achieved everything on her own by sheer force of will, through determination and effort. She’d climbed hurdles and broken through walls all on her own, and she was dead set on enjoying her success alone. Without interference. Without guilt.

In five years she’d clawed her way onto the main news program – 7 to 9. Morning prime time. They’d booted Missy Blaise from the top spot and ‘transitioned’ her into a mid-day snoozefest talk show for women with midlife crises called “Ladies Lunch.”  Lucinda knew the truth – aging, blonde, female reporters did not last long at the news desk, and Missy’s stiff, blonde bob had faded from vibrant yellow to curdled cream.

Jim Dasher, Lucinda’s new partner from 7 to 9, had been on the program as many years as Missy, but his gray sideburns and faded blue eyes made him more likeable in the eyes of the audience. Lucinda and the other women on TV knew the game. Men had a much longer career in news than women.

For thirteen years Lucinda ruled the morning news desk at National News Today. She interviewed heads of state, business tycoons and entertainment icons. The ruthlessness she’d honed during her turbulent high school days and competitive college years had kept her firmly entrenched in her job. Younger, prettier reporters had tried their best to loosen her grip, but none had succeeded--until Lucinda hit forty.

The economy had the worst timing ever. The same day as her fortieth birthday, Lucinda’s boss, Cranston Ford, had called her into his office. She thought he was going to take her out to lunch. He’d taken her out for lunch every single one of her birthdays since her first day on the job with National News Today. She’d even already picked out her favorite Japanese-Italian fusion place downtown. Not cheap. But Cranston Ford could afford it. Television news mogul. Billionaire. Laying out two hundred bucks on lunch was chump change for someone like him.

Instead of offering her lunch, however, he fired her. It hit like a punch to her gut. Eighteen years of loyalty gone in a split second. Ford had claimed the economic crash had forced them to tighten their belts. Advertisers were barely spending any more. The morning news desk was top heavy and cuts needed to be made. Jim Dasher, of course, pushing sixty, would stay. The country trusted him and trust was most needed in such uncertain times.

When Lucinda had asked about the weather girl, Susie, a straight-from-university amateur who could barely read much less understand a meteorological report, Ford informed Lucinda that Susie would be taking over at the news desk. They had two women on the morning show and only could afford one. Lucinda wasn’t surprised that she, the senior of the two, would be leaving.

If she were in Ford’s shoes, she probably would’ve done the same. But she wasn’t going to break down in front of her boss. No, she was tougher than that. She’d learned over the years that tears only meant weakness.

After Ford had fired her and had security escort her out of the building, Lucinda Quant kept her chin high and her face blank of any emotion. She wasn’t going to give up on her career so easily. Who cared what the news world thought? She’d persevere. She’d find a way. She’d made a name for herself in news and wasn’t about to let that slip away.

Six months later, she knew this was no ordinary economic crash. She’d sent a video of her work to every news station in the city. Not a peep. Some of the stations went belly-up. Their news trucks and camera equipment sold off to the highest bidder. She’d even heard her old boss, Cranston Ford, had fallen on hard times when most of his investments went sour.

Lucinda hoarded her savings as best she could, but her penthouse wasn’t cheap. She slowly sold off her jewelry, designer clothes, expensive collectibles. To give up her penthouse meant she was no better than Lucinda Quantillo-Hermosa who grew up on the other side of the tracks. She wasn’t going back there. No way. No way in hell. She’d fight until she couldn’t fight anymore.

After a year of looking for work and trying to keep her head above water, she’d gotten a call from a reality tv producer. He’d asked her a few questions. How did she feel about live, on-camera interviews? What did she think about expose journalism? Did she have a problem with asking difficult questions? How well did she handle emotional topics?

The producer had no idea how desperate Lucinda’s situation had become. Her power had been shut off weeks ago. She showered under cold water in her travertine tile shower, kept her naturally dark hair as blonde as possible using cheap peroxide, and ate Ramen noodles heated up on a propane camping stove in her kitchen. The owner of her building had gone bankrupt, so luckily she didn’t have to pay rent anymore, but scavengers had started to take over some of the abandoned apartments on the lower floors. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was better than most.

The only connection she had to her old life was her cell phone. She kept it charged using a solar charger she’d bought for emergency purposes years ago. On a good day she could get a full charge with eight hours of sunlight. Without that phone, she might never have connected with the producer. She thanked God she’d kept it.

She didn’t hesitate when the reality TV producer asked his questions. She answered all of them in the affirmative and spoke of her commitment to ‘gritty’ journalism.

The producer must have liked her answers, not only did she get the job, but he wanted to add her name to the title: The Home Front with Lucinda Quant. She thought it had a nice ring to it. Some of her old fans might actually tune in to watch, which is probably what the producer had been banking on. In this day and age, TV shows were difficult to produce. Advertisers were slim. Dollars were tight. She wondered if she were the first out-of-work reporter he’d called.

Not until the first day of work, however, did she find out what she’d signed on for. An old news van showed up at her building. She’d been told that wardrobe was up to her. Their budget didn’t allow for wardrobe. She’d kept a handful of nicer things in her expansive walk-in closet. They’d have to work.

A teenage girl greeted her as they zoomed across the city to their first assignment. The girl read off the particulars of that day’s work. The show entailed focusing on a single family who were about to lose their home. Lucinda would interview the family, wring out every sob story possible about their old life before the crash and how they’d ended up destitute. After taking a tour of their home, pawing through their personal belongings and taking some shots of the family outside their house, Lucinda was supposed to turn to the audience and ask for viewers to help the downtrodden family with their plight. A hotline number would appear on screen and donations were taken.

Lucinda, not one to care about ethics or decency, dove into the work. She’d faked sincerity for so long, it came naturally to her. In the early seasons of her new job, she’d garnered quite a following. The audience watching The Home Front remembered her from National News Today. She received quite a few pieces of fan mail. People loved to be snoops and watch someone in a worse situation than themselves. The show took off quickly. There was no end to the supply of forlorn families in dire straits. The show was cheap to produce, emotionally over-the-top and played on everyone’s fear that they would be next to have Lucinda Quant show up at their front door.

One day, the van drove her to a familiar part of the city. Her old neighborhood. Most of the people who lived here were already dirt poor before the financial meltdown. Lucinda wondered about the selection for today’s show. The audience seemed to respond best to episodes about the once-well-to-do and their descent into the poor house. Watching former vice presidents of big companies or plastic surgeons with a sliced-and-diced trophy wife going belly up was infinitely more satisfying to her viewers than watching one of their own.

Lucinda wondered what the crew would think of her if they had any idea she came from one of these very same rundown brownstones with the boarded up windows and broken steps.

The van stopped. Her teen girl assistant slid open the door. The girl mumbled something about how ‘gross’ it was and how she hoped they’d be done with this shoot early.

Lucinda stepped out of the van and caught sight of a familiar face – her mother sitting on the stoop, boxes piled around her, Lucinda’s siblings wailing and crying.

Lucinda’s gaze met her mother’s. Lucinda plastered a smile on her face, grabbed the mike and nodded at the cameraman to start filming. Without missing a beat, she stepped right up to her mother – a woman she hadn’t seen or spoken to since she graduated from high school – and asked her the first question she always asked the families on her show: “So, tell me about your life, Mrs. Quantillo-Hermosa. How did you end up here? Our audience would really like to know.”

The Man in 14C

Contest: This was K.J.’s entry for the XPrize Short Story contest using the following prompt: At 4:58am on June 28th, 2017, the passengers on board ANA Flight 008, en route from Tokyo to San Francisco, are cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet, approximately 1,500 nautical miles off the West Coast of the United States. A small bump, otherwise noted as a barely perceptible bout of turbulence, passes Flight 008 through a temporary wrinkle in the local region of space-time. What these passengers will soon find out as they descend into SFO is that the wrinkle has transported them 20 years in the future, and the year is now 2037.

Write your own story from the perspective of the passenger in Seat 14C.

Additional rules stated that it must be a positive story that includes a lot of ideas about what technology and advancements will be around 20 years into the future.

My mind burned. A muddled mess of stray thoughts, worries, and images. I'd heard the term before: chemo brain. My doctor in Tokyo didn't understand. I didn't know if such a term existed in Japanese.

I had looked up the word 'fog' on my phone and used it: "Kiri." I'd tapped my head.

He'd nodded slowly, dawning recognition on his face. A grim set to his mouth.

The treatment I'd sought out in Japan - against the wishes of my wife, Judith - had been a failure. Most experimental treatments were iffy at best. But this one had better odds, fewer side effects. Plus, I'd always wanted to visit Japan.

When I needed my mind the most, it failed me. I couldn't put the pieces together. Our plane sat on the runway in San Francisco in the mid-morning light. I wanted to comprehend what had happened during our flight. The odd turbulence, the flash of light, and now no one's phone could pick up a signal. Our devices were dead. My seat companion, an older Japanese gentleman in a suit and tie, stared out the window. A woman seated across the aisle from me cried.

I wanted Judith there to explain. Her calm, cool words. Her soothing hands on my arm. A light squeeze to bring me back, straighten out my thoughts. She'd turned our house in the Berkeley Hills into a sanctuary of lavender-scented candles and 'clean' foods that were supposed to either cure my pancreatic cancer or slow its progress. I couldn't remember which.

Although I'd wanted to give up (Would one more Peanut Butter Pomegranate Smoothie really do the trick?), Judith wouldn't let me. She had a combination of femininity and toughness I admired, loved, cherished. The perfect wife for the last eighteen years.

A flight attendant made an announcement over the speaker. "San Francisco authorities have directed us to Concourse X..." Uncertainty clear in her voice, a tremble, a whisper in her co-worker's ear. "All passengers please remain seated. Thank you."

A din arose in the cabin. Something wasn't right. The rumble from my fellow passengers grew. Most were Japanese. I was one of the few American passengers scattered throughout the cabin. I couldn't understand most of the conversations around me.

I was reminded of the University of Tokyo Hospital. Doctors, nurses, patients everywhere, but my ears tuned out the language as gibberish. They'd had to call my name three times before I'd recognized it.

The Japanese man in the window seat said something and pointed. He tapped his finger on the glass. His words had a tone of excitement - or fear. I looked out the window at the runway. Instead of seeing airplanes lined up along the concourse, I saw sleek, elongated 'planes' with no windows and low-profile wings that hugged close to the fuselages. On these 'planes' were logos I'd never heard of before: Galactic Air, Aero-Blue, SpaceJet.

My mouth gaped. On the ground beneath them I saw strange cars loaded with luggage. Robotic arms grabbed each suitcase and bag, gently and quickly stowing them into a cargo hold. When complete, the cars floated away. I saw no wheels and no mechanism to move them, only a foot or so of empty air beneath.

"We have arrived at the gate." The flight attendant announced. A different voice this time. This woman sounded more grounded in her words, more solid in relaying the news. "The authorities will be boarding the plane. We ask for your patience at this time. They have asked to address all passengers before disembarking."

Silence fell over the cabin. Although I and the other passengers had seen impossible things outside the plane, none of use could reconcile it with our brains. Maybe I didn't have chemo brain after all. Maybe what I'd experienced since we passed through that rough patch of air turbulence had been something more serious.

I glanced at the 'car' floating away outside. My stomach dropped.

What was going on?

***

The San Francisco Airport authorities had herded us into an airport lounge that morning, usually reserved for club members who bought first class seats and had money to spare. Some of my fellow passengers had headed straight for the bar. Some of us had sat in the cushy chairs scattered around the room. When we'd run out of chairs, someone had brought in padded folding chairs.

Two nights ago they'd swapped out the chairs for cots. We'd been trapped in the lounge ever since, as if we'd survived a natural disaster and were riding it out at a FEMA camp. News had been sporadic. Reactions mixed.

One wall of the lounge was a giant, paper thin screen. The only 'television' like device in the room. It came on automatically when we entered. A gorgeous image of Mount Fuji at sunset with clouds scudding by in the background filled the whole screen. The setting sun turned the mountain red, which reflected in the waters of Lake Yamanakako. The waters rippled slightly, and the picture was so clear, so rich, I wanted to reach out and dip my finger in the water. The scent of lavender filled the air.

Or did I imagine it?

The scent so familiar, so soothing made me long to see my wife, be back in my home.

I was still in shock, like the rest of the passengers. We didn't know if we were being made fools of or if the authorities had told us the truth - the year was 2037. We'd traveled twenty years into the future. The air turbulence had not been a storm. We had passed through some kind of portal that had launched us through time.

My thoughts trickled over the meaning of what happened. Where was my family? My parents? My wife? My daughter? What would they be thinking today as they heard the news? I'm sure our hosts here at the airport - correction: spaceport - wanted to keep us in the dark because they were worried we couldn't handle the truth, the loss of twenty years' time and the confusion and panic that came with it.

I had no such fears. After the failure of treatment in Tokyo, I knew my life span would be short. Maybe six or nine months at most. Pancreatic cancer was a swift and deadly one. I did not expect to experience much of 2018. But here I was, a time traveler transported to a future earth. Perhaps a future earth where cancer no longer existed, where treatments and survivability had turned the corner. Maybe the impossible was already possible.

"Mr. Anthony Pasquale, Seat 14C, please come to the front." A slim woman dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and a glossy gold blouse called me forward. She held a thin sheet of what looked like metal, the size of a notepad. Thin as a piece of paper.

I carefully made my way through the crowd. They'd only called a few other names before mine. I'd watched as each passenger was led away through the door we'd entered. Other Americans. The Japanese likely would have a bit more difficulty being reunited with their loved ones. A different process, perhaps.

"I'm Anthony Pasquale." I smiled at the pretty blonde. Her hair was twisted into a fantastic cloud of braids and fine pieces that floated around her head, defying gravity.

She looked up from her metal sheet. I could see that it was actually a screen, but instead of the bright backlit smart phones of two decades past, the image on the screen wasn't harsh at all. Fine 3-D images popped up from its surface. "Judith Pasquale and her husband are here to pick you up. James will escort you." The blonde splayed her fingers through the images, they swelled, sank, and reformed into some new 3-D image.

I couldn't grasp the technology nor the information she accessed. I wanted to find something familiar in this future world, but was having difficulty. At forty-two, I'd felt very comfortable in the technology of my era. I considered myself knowledgeable. Already I could see catching up would be difficult.

James, a well-muscled Asian man, taller than most, waited for me near the entrance door we'd passed through earlier. "Mr. Pasquale? Come with me."

I left the blonde and her mysterious metal plate behind. I processed the words she'd said - Judith Pasquale and her husband. Judith had remarried. My heart sank. I reassessed the facts of the matter. I'd gone missing for twenty years, most likely thought dead. Did I really expect Judith to remain alone for long? Our child had started in high school, only a few years more, and she would've been by herself.

I followed James down the concourse. It seemed the spaceport - rumor flew around the waiting area that airports had fallen out of fashion and near-space and space flights were the thing - had been closed for our strange arrival. Once again, they probably did not want us to be frightened by the news, exposed too rapidly to change.

I wanted to ask James a million questions, now that I had him all to myself, but I resisted. My physical condition was weak. I probably looked it. Gaunt, pale of face, clearly ill in some way. Meeting Judith would be enough of a jolt to my deteriorating system. Did I really need to find out everything all at once? Slow and a little bit at a time seemed best.

"Mrs. Pasquale is through this door." James stopped at a door labeled Medical Testing Station. "She has been briefed on the details of your arrival. We have prepared guidelines to help reintroduce you into society. Please take precautions and welcome to 2037."

He opened the door, handed me a pamphlet, and I walked through.

***

"Tony, is it really you?" Judith rose from the chair she'd been sitting in.  She came at me in a wave of fruity perfume and well-tailored clothes - a pair of linen trousers and a shiny blouse, like the blonde, but hers in  a pale pink. Her face had aged, as was to be expected, but not as much as I would've feared. Her figure remained trimmer than one would think for a woman of sixty-one.

"Judith..." I embraced her. "I'm so glad you're here." Over her shoulder I saw myself seated in a chair. Twenty pounds heavier, older, but with more hair.

Was my chemo brain giving me hallucinations?

She released me, and then awkwardly glanced from me to the man in the chair. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought Anthony."

"Anthony?" I couldn't take my eyes off of him. "I don't understand."

Judith urged me to sit in a chair opposite the two of them on the other side of a small table. Physical distance meant emotional distance. I could sense it.

"Anthony is my husband. A clone. I   had him made five years ago." Her beautiful brown eyes welled up with tears. "I missed you so, Tony." She reached across the table to grab my   hand. "And they said they could make him just like you - but without, well, the problems."

I knew what she meant - without the cancer.

"Mandy? Was she okay with this?" I thought of my only child. I'd flown to Tokyo the day before my daughter's thirteenth birthday. Twenty years had passed, and now she probably had a life of her own. Although my heart hurt at the years I'd missed, with my illness I hadn't expected to experience her arrival to adulthood.

"Of course." Judith seemed surprised by the question. "She was actually the one who suggested it. I'd been so lonely, Tony. So lonely. Mandy couldn't stand to see me like that." She sat back and laid her hand on Anthony's arm. "Anthony, this is Tony."

Anthony, who'd wisely only watched the interaction between us, spoke for the first time. "Glad to finally meet you."

We shook hands.

I shivered at the feel of my own hand. Bizarre and troubling.

"Is this normal? Clones, I mean. Is this what people do now?" I'd had questions before I'd come into the room, but these were not the questions I'd imagined I'd be asking.

"A few." Anthony answered in a rich voice that wasn't the one I heard in my own head.

Is this what I sounded like when I talked?

My heart raced. I couldn't grasp had happened. I was twenty years in the future, my wife had married my clone, and my daughter - well, my daughter had gone along with the plan. I didn't know where I would fit in to such a family, such a future.

My wife had started over with an older, but better, version of me. "No one has really explained to me what happens now. Am I your responsibility? Am I going home with you? Or am I some ward of the state?"

"The treatment, in Tokyo, I know it didn't work." Judith leaned forward, calmly changing the subject. "They didn't know what happened to the plane, but the doctors were able to tell me that much."

"No, it didn't work. We both knew it was a long-shot."

"Treatments are much more advanced now. Your type of cancer has been long wiped out through gene manipulation and Med-i-Drones." She touched Anthony's arm. "They fixed his DNA, Tony, and they can do the same for you, too."

"Judith was able to order corrections during the clone process." Anthony spoke as if this were distantly related to him. "I'm sure you noticed there are a few differences between us." He raked his hand across his thicker, fuller hairline and cracked a smile.

"I noticed." I guess if I had been given the chance to create a Judith clone, I would've tweaked a few things myself.

Judith blushed. "We've arranged everything for you. We should be able to get to the clinic in just a few minutes. The authorities have kept the press at bay for the moment. "

"So they haven't figured out a way to fix that, eh?" My cancer-weakened body hadn't affected my sarcasm one bit, nor had time travel, apparently.

Judith sighed. She didn't view me as her spouse any longer, but more like an   irritating kid brother. Although my memories of our marriage were fresh, and my love for her deep and unshifting, I knew it was not the same for her. Anthony was her husband now, and I was, well, a complication.

"There's a genetic treatment center in San Francisco. Mandy will meet us there." She set one of the flat metal things the flight attendant had been using on the table between us and swept her fingers over its paper-thin surface. A three-dimensional image appeared of a young couple. It was as if miniaturized people stood on the table in front of me.

"That's Mandy with her husband, Joe."

My daughter.

I sucked in a breath of air. My thirteen-year-old daughter was now a woman in her mid 30s. Striking. Tall. Her long brown hair twisted into tendrils and braids. Miniature Mandy picked up a toddler from the ground and settled him on her hip.

"Oh, and that's Noah. He's older now. Your grandson. This picture isn't that recent."

I was a grandfather at forty-two.

Judith flicked her fingers as if she were turning a Rolodex. The image of Mandy disappeared.

"Oh." I wanted more time with the miniature version of my daughter. I tried   to imagine the years that had passed, what had happened to her? How had she handled the 'death' of her father? Did she go to college? What did she do for work? How had she met her husband? So many questions to be answered.

Judith showed me several more 'pops' - short for pop-up pictures - of my grandchild. I wished we had more time for a full pictorial review of my daughter from the time I'd disappeared until I'd reappeared in this new modern place.

"We'll miss our appointment if we don't leave soon." Anthony tapped at his wrist.

I didn't see a watch, but Judith looked at her empty wrist as well. "Oh my. Anthony's right."

I noticed a faint red flashing dot of light on her arm, underneath the skin. She tapped it with a finger, and the light went off.

Subdermal implants? What next?

***

The genetic treatment center was full of babies and young children robed in shiny, silk-like gowns that floated around them like gossamer butterfly wings. I saw no one in the treatment area over the age of four or five. The nurse had no gown for me to wear, so she ushered me into a treatment room and told me to wait.

A doctor, younger than me, entered the room. He held another of the thin metallic things, but this one was larger, about the size of a clipboard. "You are an unusual case, Mr. Pasquale." He looked up from the 3-D image of DNA twisting on the clipboard. "We haven't used clone DNA before to craft a course of treatment."

"Anthony's DNA is my DNA, isn't it?" I knew we weren't identical, but I assumed my DNA had been the building blocks for the Anthony who replaced me.

"Yes. During the cloning process, your wife made a few requests and one of them was to ensure your clone would be cancer free." The doctor brought up a new 3-D image that showed two strands of DNA one labeled 'Pasquale, Anthony' and the other 'Pasquale clone.' "So, although your DNA was used as the base for creating the clone, his DNA is slightly different from yours. However, the simulations we've been running since your wife contacted us show that we should be able to cure your cancer. It might take a few treatments, since your original pancreatic cancer seems to have spread, but it shouldn't pose much of a problem."

"That's it?" I couldn't believe my ears. "You give me some injections, and it's over?"

"It's over." The doctor smiled.

A nurse entered the room with tray. "Your patch is all ready, Mr. Pasquale. Could you roll up your sleeve please?" She put on a pair of gloves.

"A patch?" I had imagined an IV drip or at least a serious-looking needle.

She removed the patch from its petri dish container using a pair of tweezers. "Yes, a patch." She placed the damp patch on my upper arm and smoothed it out until it stuck firmly to my skin. "You can shower in this and do everything you normally would do. The patch will fall off on its own once the treatment has been delivered. Usually a few days." She pressed the patch a few more times. "The doctor will schedule your next appointment with us and explain the side effects."

"Thank you, Pamela." The doctor pressed a button on the wall, and what once was a bare white wall transformed into a screen, much like the screen back at the spaceport displaying the picture of Mount Fuji. An appointment calendar appeared with highlighted dates and times. "We are looking at you returning to us in about a month's time. What days work best for you?"

I touched the patch on my upper arm and marveled at the simple treatment for such a deadly disease. When I'd flown to Tokyo, it had been a last ditch effort. I was months from death. My cancer had metastasized. It had been a shot in the dark. No one had any real help for me. Chemo had done nothing except extend my life by a few months. And now I was to believe everything was over? I no longer needed to think about the number of days I had left, but could think in terms of years and decades.

I agreed to a date and a time, not knowing what I'd be doing. But I didn't care. Did it matter that I didn't know how I was going to make a living? That my daughter had grown up without me? That my wife had married my clone? All of these changes paled in comparison to the gift of life I'd received. The world around me had changed, and now I had the luxury of playing catch up. A life I never thought I'd lead. A future I never thought I'd see.

The doctor led me back to the waiting room. My wife, Judith, turned from the conversation she was having with a tall, pretty lady with brown hair.

"Mandy, go give your dad a hug."

Mandy, tears in her eyes, ran to me, folded her arms around me. I took in the smell of her hair, her skin, her clothes - sweet and fruity. My daughter had grown up into a lovely young woman. I hugged her tight. The same hug I used to give her every day before I left for work.

"Daddy, is it really you?" she whispered in my ear.

"Yes," I whispered back. Although my child had changed, my paternal instincts instantly felt the connection.

A young boy of about eight or nine stepped shyly toward me.

Mandy let me go and welcomed the boy into our tight circle. "This is Noah, your grandson."

2037 was a land of marvels. Technology and medical science had moved ahead leaps and bounds, but what hadn't changed in all that time was the importance of family, the bonds of love, and the meaning of fatherhood.

I'd made it home.

About the Author

K. J. Gillenwater survived life as a military linguist and a technical writer before pursuing her dreams to become the novelist she’d wanted to be since grade school. She writes what she loves: suspense, romance and science fiction. When she isn’t writing, K. J. loves to watch way too much T.V., bake, hang out with her family and enjoy the view from her front porch.

If you enjoyed this book, K. J. Gillenwater is the author of three paranormal suspense books, one romance, and three additional anthologies which are available in print and in ebook format through Amazon. Please visit her website for more information about her and her books: http://kjgillenwater.com

The Ninth Curse

His blood for a cure. It’s a cruel and deadly bargain…

Nine curses. Nine weeks to live. Joel Hatcher has inherited more than a family legacy. It’s a time bomb that’s ticking down to the inevitable: his own death. But the curse won’t die with him. Unless he can find a way to break the cycle, his younger brother becomes the next victim.

In the throes of the third curse, the Painful Pox, Joel makes a last-ditch decision to seek the help of a young spiritualist.

One look into Joel’s suffering eyes, and “Madame Eugenie” finds herself torn between doing the right thing and fulfilling her most secret wish—bring her husband Adam back from the dead. Joel’s cursed blood is the missing ingredient in her resurrection rituals, and Adam’s spirit whispers seductively that there’s only one way to get it: steal it.

As Gen and Joel unearth his family’s past to track down a cure, they come closer to each other, and to a horrible truth. To live, Joel must lose everything. Up to and including the woman he has grown to love.

Warning: This book contains curses, sacrifices, a ghostly husband, a crazy cat and a love that defies all odds.

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yawslrst

The Little Black Box

After the suspicious suicides of several student test subjects, Paula Crenshaw, research assistant and budding telekinetic in Paranormal Sciences at Blackridge University, suspects they may be connected to a little black box designed to read auras. Professor Jonas Pritchard, the head of the department, doesn't believe his precious experiment could be causing students to drop like flies. But when her best friend almost dies after her encounter with the black box, Paula is certain there is a connection. She pulls her cute, but sloppy, office buddy, Will Littlejohn, into the mystery, and they get closer to the truth behind who might be financially backing the project and why. Haunted by memories of a childhood accident, which she believes she caused with her untamed psychic abilities, Paula finds herself lured to the black box and its mysteries.

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c2zb938

Blood Moon

Werewolves are roaming Northeast High, and Savannah Black is determined to hunt them down.

When Savannah's academic rival mysteriously disappears, she enlists the aid of her two best friends, Dina and Nick, to solve the mystery. Football players with glowing eyes and razor sharp canine teeth may have fooled the faculty, but not Savannah and her friends. These brave students are determined to eradicate a clan of deadly werewolves who threaten to take over their school.

When Dina disappears right before the big Homecoming Dance, Savannah and Nick must act quickly to save her from the werewolf's curse. But will a straight-A student be able to master knives and silver bullets as easily as chemistry and calculus?

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/owbhn42

Acapulco Nights

ACAPULCO NIGHTS was a Write Affair finalist (Kensington Books) on Wattpad as an "Editor's Pick."

Suzie's fiancé, James, is pressuring her to pick a day for their wedding. She's cancelled three dates, and he's starting to wonder if she really wants to get married. But how does she go about telling her fiancé that she's already married to a man in Mexico? She needs a divorce, and she needs one fast. Her interracial marriage has been a secret from her best friend, Janice, her fiancé, even her own mother, and she wants to keep it that way.

When Janice asks her to come along on an all-girl international vacation to Acapulco, Suzie leaps at the chance. A search on the Internet gives Suzie all the information she needs to track down her husband, Joaquin, while out of the country and finally get that divorce.

Unfortunately, Joaquin sees this as a second chance and won't give her up so easily.

When James appears in Acapulco unexpectedly, all hell breaks loose with a love triangle, and Suzie stands to lose everything she's ever loved.

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/y9hoatrr

Skyfall

A science fiction short story collection of three flash fiction works, which contains both a WattPad #SciFriday First Place Winner as well as a WattPad #SciFriday Honorable Mention Winner.

Skyfall. A miner confronts a devastating future related to colonization. (#SciFriday Honorable Mention Award)

Time Travel. A failed engineer tinkers with a matter-energy transporter, which he plans to step into for a metaphysical experiment. (#SciFriday First Place Award)

Torch. A man attempts to escape from a futuristic starship prison.

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ydd6odmk

Nemesis

All of the stories included in this science fiction anthology used the same prompt: Write a short story between 4,000 and 5,000 words using the word ‘nemesis’ as your inspiration. A collection of 10 short stories by 10 different authors. K.J.’s contribution is entitled Star Log: Stranded on a desolate planet far outside the interstellar starship lanes, a solitary man struggles to survive and to overcome the disturbing memories that haunt him.

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yabpqkzy

Undeath by Chocolate

Have you ever met a necromancer with dreams of being a mariachi player? Have you ever mixed a potion with dragonfly tears, or made a deadly wish on a cake and had it come true? Did you ever visit a voodoo shop that only opens after midnight or kissed a corpse to life? Come and join ten specially selected authors for a sweet combination of paranormal and horror stories--tales which have both the undead and chocolate as their special ingredients.

K.J.’s contribution is entitled Charlie & the Zombie Factory: A horror re-imagining of the celebrated children’s book, Charlies & the Chocolate Factory. A chocolate salesman finds himself pitted against the top salespeople in his company for a chance to win ‘Salesman of the Year.’ But everything isn’t what it seems, and before the chocolate factory tour is over, Charlie must fight for his life…and his job.

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yabgvroo