Category: novels

rabbit tears – run rabbit run


Chapter one: How do I love thee, let me count thy bruises.

He stood in front of her rubbing the knuckles on his right hand staring down at her where she sat on a wooden chair in front of him. He growled as she reached up to where blood trickled from the bruised flesh below her right eye. Touched it, saw the blood, then lowering her arms clasped her hands in front of her on her lap. Slowly she looked up at him with tears racing down to her chin. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he voice trembled. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

The year was 1926. She was just 19 and he was 27.

He slapped her hard jerking her head to the left. She slowly recovered. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“So, my mother and sister are liars?” Blood stood against the vows of marriage. Sometimes blood is stronger, and in this case it was. “They saw you at the theater”

“No,” her voice wavered, “no they, if anyone it was Virginia and all I did was acknowledge an old school friend.”

“Who you then went into the movies with.”

“He had his girlfriend with him”

“You sat with him.”

“I sat with them, not with him,” she said her face hurting her badly. Her tongue slipped sideways and found a tooth had been dislodged.

**********************

TWISTED: 2


2:
It was just an hour before dawn when a lone figure slowly picked a path through a field of boulders that lay at the base of what was called by some to be the South Tower of The Castle Ur. As the figure went slowly walking there approaching the outer wall of the tower, a second slipped out of the dark and approached the first.

“Nadine?” the second quietly spoke, almost in a whisper. The voice was deep and rumbled like the sound coming from the distance thunder storms that never seemed to leave the land all around the mountain upon which sat the castle itself.

“Nadine?”

The first stopped walking and from beneath the hood hiding the facial features of the person there within a higher pitched voice answered simply and quietly, “Yes, Great King Mont, it is me.”

Mont flipped back the heavy dark hood exposing his rounded and bearded face. “Nadine,” his voice took on a degree of excitement. “Nadine, my sweet and dearest friend, how I have longed to see you these passing months.” He opened his arms and took several steps to close the distance between himself and Nadine.

“As have I.” the other answered softly and raised arms beckoning the first openly to be embraced. “Come to me and hug me like we have in the days past. Show you still care for me and rub my back to relieve the pain from the slow climb from below to here.”

Mont stumbled on the loose footing of gravel and stone but recovered and began to close the distance when he suddenly caught the glimpse of a steel blade concealed in the other’s hand. He stumbled again but came to a stop less than five feet from the other there in the slowing ebbing darkness as the Sun was coming up bring dawn and announcing a new day.

“Nadine, what?….”

Nadine stepped forward and thrust the blade deep into Mont’s body as the man looked down in shock and then up as the assassin pushed back the hood to reveal their face.

“Talia!”

Mont stepped forward and grabbed the shoulders of the other party as she pulled out the knife and reinserted it back into Mont’s body again and again and again until he dropped to his knees and then fell over quite dead.

TWISTED: FAIRY TALES FROM A DARKWOOD (not your typical childhood book)


TWISTED: FAIRY TALES FROM A DARK WOOD
(This isn’t your basic children’s book so beware.)

The land of Darkwood was bathed in a constant drizzle. It had been so for over a hundred years. Once the island had been a place of beauty, but then….the terror came. It arrived in the middle of the night and when it did it came as a destroyer, touching all that was beautiful with an angry curse. There was nothing that could be done, or so it seemed, for anyone who even looked as being opposed to the rule of Talia was imprisoned or executed immediately upon her request. How strange it seemed, she had been the most loved Princess in the land and then the change took place and she went from being good to being the most evil woman ever known. There were sections of The Castle Ur that reeked of the smell of blood; some said she bathed in the blood of young women believing it was good for her skin. There was always a parade of girls coming but never leaving. Even the Seven Dwarfs that were always by her side seemed a bit, er, put out about the whole issue but they too risked their lives if any insolence was determined to have occurred. As it was the King of the Dwarves was a prisoner in the South Tower and had been there for six months. But on this day he was allowed to go for a walk…..alone.

 

INTERVIEW WITH CLAIRE-HARRIS PERKINS


What a wonderful idea, I thought, to actually be interviewed by someone who was professional and knowledgeable about my writing. What a treat. And so, when asked, I answered with a loud, “Yes.” How could I not and I found the experience most entertaining and educational at the same time.

First off, I am not the brightest person when it comes to computers and anything electronic hates me from the first handshake. That held true with trying to get Skype to work. It kept rejecting my passwords and then went nuts when I tried to reload with another email address. So, there I was panicking a full hour before the interview and poor Claire who resides in the UK was wrong on the time difference between there and here. She said 10 AM and it was 9:40 when I wrote on Skype asking if we were connected. She wrote back that she had just come home from shopping and that the time for our conversation was 10 and we had an hour to go. I told her it was coming up on 10 and then she realized the time difference was 4 and not 5 hours. So she set off to get the interview going.

She is incredibly professional.  She  sent me her list of questions and she followed that list perfectly. I was thankful that she had done that because I knew where we were going and there were no surprises.

I am attaching the link to the interview.

https://www.booktalkradio.info/gordon-kuhn

Please go and enjoy it and write back and tell me what you think. Claire can be reached at her site http://www.booktalkradio.info she can also be found at her page on Facebook:

Claire Harris-Perkins

So, if you are an author and independently publish you own works contact her. She is easy to talk with and lots of fun.

 

PREDATOR: The Man Who Didn’t Exist; Book One; Do You Know How To Fly?


Do You Know How to Fly? is now on Kindle.

This is a true crime book. It took me six years to write this book. Book number two will be out soon in paperback and on Kindle through Amazon.

The book is about a man on death row in Florida. He is a career criminal whose life in crime started as a youth. His first conviction occurred when only 14 for the rape of a woman who was in her 30s at a car wash. He would have murdered his victim but she managed to get away. He later was arrested as an adult at age 18 for home invasion robbery and spent another 18 months in jail.

After that he was arrested for bank robbery and spent 15 1/2 years in prison. Following being married to a woman he had never met, he was granted parole and he came to Florida and continued his life in crime here. He assaulted mainly older women who lived alone. He is a suspect in one murder in Sarasota County and was convicted in another in Manatee County. I spent six years working on two books. The first book is Do You Know How to Fly. The second will be titled: The Woman in a Pink Top.

These books will be available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all other book stores. But, Do You Know how to Fly is the first and you can now download through Kindle for $3.00. You can order paperback copies through the locations listed above or by contacting me for an autographed copy.

You may also get an eAutograph on Kindle by requesting it.

I hope you enjoy my books as much as I enjoyed writing them for you.

Best to you,

Gordon Kuhn

 

 

 

TWISTED Section Four Chapter Two


CHAPTER TWO

The three dwarfs found themselves stumbling through a heavy fog on the slopes of Desperation.

“I don’t suppose it matters to any of you but,” began a voice tinged with a bit of sarcasm.

“Are you complaining about the mist again?” another spoke from somewhere in the moist film that surrounded them on the mountain trail.

“Well, yes. I can’t see a bloody thing. Can either of you?” The voice had turned angry.

“Well, get on with it, Grumpy. What exactly is the problem? You always seem to have more than one problem,” a third voice joined as its owner tramped forward stumbling over a small bush not seen by the speaker.

“Well, to begin with, my feet hurt. And, and my ankles are tired of being twisted this way and that by the unevenness of the path, not to mention the gravel that is everywhere along through here.”

“Be grateful for the gravel,” a third voice replied, coming up from behind the first two, “if you don’t hear it beneath your boots then you will know you have strayed off the trail and that, my dwarf friends, would be bad I think.”

“Well, I am tired of the whole thing and I want to sit and rest, maybe eat a cake or two. Anybody got any coffee left in their thermos? How about you Doc? Got any coffee left? And, for God’s sake, Sleepy, did you have to take a dump so close behind us with the wind at your butt?”

“When a dwarf has to shit, a dwarf has to shit,” Sleepy replied and cinched up his belt.

“Did you remember to button up your pants this time? I don’t want to walk into town with your pants unbuttoned as a greeting for all who might see you.”

“See us, not just me, you dope,” Sleepy corrected. “And, yes, I buttoned up my pants, thank you very kindly.

“Wind?” said the first.

“Yes, wind, I can feel it. Maybe it will push-off the mists. I actually think I can see the two of you now.”

“Maybe she did that.”

“Well, it would be about time she did something for us,” Dopey snarled.

“I’d be careful of what I said, Dopey, she well might be able to hear us and would retaliate by turning you into a statue.”

“Ha, I’d like to see her try!” And, with that statement, Dopey suddenly let out a very strange irk sound and froze in his tracks.

“Holy shit,” Doc said as he jumped back. “Holy shit.” He looked over at Grumpy who also was staring at their companion who had oddly gone rigid and appeared to be stuck to the ground.

 

Twisted 3


Rescue parties went up rarely. They did so only to satisfy the frantic pleadings of family members who sought out the missing and most of them had remained behind not being brave enough to search themselves.

The hunters went reluctantly. They went up old trails that were well worn by the many boot-covered feet that hurried towards the summit and then back down again. The climbers stumbled over rocks and sent showers of pebbles down on those coming up from behind. At various points, some would turn back telling the others it was only for the foolish to continue climbing. They all knew they could not stay on the mountains for long and never past twilight.

So, as the anxiety rose in their ranks, searchers disappeared back down the mountainside into the mists until only a few would remain climbing and searching. Then, those remaining would turn as almost one person and, without looking about themselves, rush back down to the center of Never More where the search party would be quickly disbanded amidst the anguished sobbing of family and friends. But there was nothing any of them could do.

They all knew that if they found the runners at all, they would be found to be quite mad. Each would be found speaking to someone unseen. Froth foaming on their lips. It was as though some terror stood before them that only the runners could see as they begged to have their lives either spared or taken to avoid looking at the horror anymore.

Some fleeing made it over the top, but no searcher ever went looking further on in the mists at the mountains top. No one knew what lay beyond. Only a few runners made it to the summit and then beyond. The searchers all worried as evening approached and darkness began to surround them. They had to get back to the town where they would be safe or, at least where they felt safe.

However, they never really were safe there or anywhere, they simply pretended that to be the case. The truth of it was that even those who crossed the final ridge between this valley and that were not only never seen alive or heard from again, but that their skins and blood could be found back in the township far below in their very own cabins as if they had never left and, in reality, perhaps they never had.

Those driven mad were simply left to be by themselves and soon died screaming. The message was clear; there was no escaping the town named Nevermore.

But it wasn’t always that way. Those who knew the story said it all began when a young girl had gotten lost up on the mountain in the mists. Rosealine Pond was just twelve and ran away from abusive parents. She met someone in the mists on the mountain and the result transformed her into, well, let’s say, someone who could be your worst nightmare and she became the ruler of the town named Nevermore as her spiderlike web of power and fear slowly descended over the valley.

That was 500 years ago.

BOOK — TWISTED, Page Two 12.19.2015


Surrounding the valley were mountains named Desperation. They were so named for the disease that drove some of the colony members to attempt escape from the valley. These runners, as they came to be known, would leave quietly but hurriedly, turning away from family and friends and rush into the rain that pelted the mountains continuously. The mountains were all too well-known for their power to strip runners’ souls from their bodies. Men and women would struggle up the fog covered rocky slopes cutting their hands on sharp stones. Their bodies were attacked by ever twisting winds that ripped at the runners’ clothing tearing it away in some cases.

Even as these men and women desperately climbed up foot by painfully gained foot to escape the darkness that lay behind them, it seemed as if they had made no advance. For those who were able to speak later, after being found by rescue parties that were reluctant to leave the colony’s closely kept border to look for the runners, it seemed to them that no matter how high they thought they had climbed, when they paused and looked behind them, they found they were just steps from the base of their tormentor. It appeared to them that they had climbed no further than a few feet even after hours of struggle and, after a while, they would drop, drawing their bodies into a ball, and weep. Some tried to retrace and reach the base only to find that each step down took no distance away. In fact the more they attempted to go down the more distant from the base they found themselves.

PREDATOR: FOUND:ONE


CAUTIONARY NOTE:

The following is about a violent and horrific murder. It is a real story about real people. Parts of this are very graphic. Please have respect for the victims, their families, and their friends.

———————————————————

PART ONE—Face Down

CHAPTER 1—911 Operator # 143

She lay face down.

At least, that is how they found the body—face down.

They being the hastily-established Manatee County team of sheriff’s deputies, forensic personnel, fire department paramedics, and the county coroner’s office staff that had been called into service on August 3rd, 2009, in the middle of the night. It was their job to descend on the horrifying scene at a residence in a quiet neighborhood in response to her husband’s frantic 911 call.

Manatee County 911, what is the nature of your emergency?

The operator’s voice was calm, well-practiced, having responded thousands of times in the same cool manner during stressful telephone calls as this would soon become.

Caller: (Unintelligible) I just got home, my wife is on the floor!

The voice was breathless, filled with shock and terror.

Three years after the Manatee County 911 system recorded the emotion-filled phone call from a distraught man, the prosecution introduced the tape as evidence in Case No. 2010-CF-000479, The State of Florida vs. Delmer Smith, a murder case.

The Court, jury, and gallery would sit and listen completely absorbed by the conversation being played back for them. While the horror of the night slowly became indelibly evident for everyone else in the room, the defendant appeared indifferent. He spent most of his time looking at the highly-polished wooden conference table-top where he sat, or at his handcuffed hands which were kept low behind the table so the jury could not see them.

He focused on them, turning them over, then right side up. He twisted them one way, then another, carefully examining each hand like a person would checking to see if they might need to wash them. Perhaps, in this case, to remove the invisible stain and erase the scent of his victim’s blood that only he was conscious of.

The act was eerily reminiscent of the scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth where the Thane of Fife’s wife spoke those incredibly memorable lines, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! … What! will these hands ne’er be clean? … Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

COPYRIGHT IN PLACE


Please be aware that this blog and all that is in it is under my Copyright, and that I dearly will take exception for someone to take and use anything that I have written or anything that anyone else has written that appears on these pages or are associated in anyway with my work here.