In a minute, Martha thought, I’m gonna lose my shit altogether. 

The patronising clerk looked over her designer spectacles at the shabby elderly lady and sighed. 

“These security questions are…” then her voice was drowned out by klaxons and the crash of falling steel barriers.

Martha felt an arm across her throat, and something cold pressed to her temple.

“Back off, or the old dear gets it.”

‘Old dear’ was the final straw – and Martha did lose her shit. 

It’s not a good idea to take a hostage with a Glock in her pocket and no compunction about using it.

©️jj 2019

An Extra Topping of Horror by Darrell B Nelson is a comedy for those raised on cheap horror movies. It takes all the horror tropes and puts a weird twist on them.

This description comes from Stephanie Flores’s review:

‘An Extra Topping of Horror’ is a B-horror movie written out in novel form. Brian is a pizza-delivery man who does not let aliens, demons, etc, faze him and teams up with a time-traveling physicists through countless adventures that are extremely reminiscent of pop-culture and horror movies from the past.’

Brian looked to his right to see an enormous orchid with a stem over 6 feet tall, the flower bulb on top was larger than Brian’s head.
Brian was too shocked to move as the orchid wrapped a root around his shoulders and the enormous flower bulb shot towards his head. It moved towards him too quickly for him to react and all he could think was that becoming plant food was a fitting end to his strange life.
Brian took a deep breath so that at least he could die with some dignity when the menacing bulb slowed at the last minute to gently rub against Brian’s cheek. He could have sworn the plant was purring.
Brian used his free hand to reach up and softly stroke the flower. It responded by wiggling back and forth and rubbing up against Brian. It was definitely purring now although Brian couldn’t see where the purr was coming from.
“Well, That didn’t go as planned,” the owner of the greenhouse said.
“You figured the plant would eat me, didn’t you?” Brian asked.
“Well, um.” The owner stared at the ground. “She likes meat.”
“You’ve been too afraid of her to get close enough to know she loves attention?” Brian slowly stroked the attention-starved plant, the old real estate agent in him noticed that there was a phone right next to Audrey, a plus for an outbuilding.
“I thought she’d swallow me whole,” the owner confessed. “I was planning on using a stray cat or dog to test, but I couldn’t do that to a poor defenseless animal.”
“So you thought you’d try a delivery driver first.” Brain grinned as he stroked Audrey’s bulb.
“I figured no one would miss a pizza boy,” the old man said, “I mean they are easy to replace.”
“Oh, She’s too loving to do that.” He turned to address the purring plant, “Aren’t you?”
“Look this was just a…” The owner started.
“The pizza is $15.85 and under the circumstances I think a good tip is order, don’t you?” Brian told him pulling out the pizza.
“Okay,” the owner said sheepishly, “Here’s forty is that good enough?”
“Yeah,” Brian said disentangling himself from Audrey’s loving roots, “That’s fine, Just give her a good petting from time to time.”
“You’d better appreciate this, boy.” The old man growled, “I warn you if you mention this to anyone I can make your life a living hell.”
“Maybe.” Brian handed him the Pizza and took his money, being careful to avoid Audrey’s affectionate roots. “But my life has been shot to hell so many times that I could be hell’s tour guide.”
As he was walking back to his car Brian could hear the old man saying, “Sorry Audrey I didn’t know you liked to be petted, there, there…Audrey your roots have me awful tight… Audrey what are you doing?? Audrey stop that…”
Brian stopped on the path and briefly debated turning around to see if everything was all right, but he figured if Audrey had decided to eat the man it served him right. Not paying attention to a sweet plant like that, also he hated the fact that he was leaving Kyle to clean up for him so he needed to get back to the Pizza Joint.

A Bite of... Darrell B Nelson

Q1: How much of your writing is autobiographical?

An An Extra Topping of Horror was my most “out there” book, and at the same time very autobiographical. My main character, Brian, had lost everything and had to take a job delivering Pizzas in a small American town. At the time I had gone from making six figures to delivering Pizzas in a small American town. So not a stretch.
Brian goes through the journey of self-discovery, finding out what is really important in life, while saving the Earth. I went through the same journey, didn’t save the Earth though.
90% of the customers were inspired by my actual customers, in a carnival caricature type way.

Q2: Facing your demons? How much of what you write could be classed as therapy?

Writing is definitely a way of staying sane, for me. I can work out my thoughts and emotions in a safe place. Sometimes find gruesome ways to kill people, something that is frowned upon in real life. I like to think the difference between being crazy and being a writer is a crazy person has voices in their head talking to them, a writer has voices in their head talking to each other.

Q3: Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

Not every book. In An Extra Topping of Horror, only a few of the character’s sexual orientation were mentioned.
Mind Thief on the other hand was set in college. Students are more open of what their orientation is, so 9 of the characters and side characters had their orientation revealed. Only 2 were straight. The funny thing is I had a reviewer say LGBQTI weren’t represented because I didn’t label them as such, and my heroine wasn’t bi, just really bad at being straight.
The thing is, I’ve only had one guy ever “tell” me he was gay, that was on our third date and he was wondering why I didn’t put out. BTW:His technique would have been better if he took me to a nice dinner, not just stopped by my room with a six-pack. My friends give me subtle clues, like when a guy introduces me to their husband or long term boyfriend, I hope they are gay. When I’m with guys talking about our wives and a girl joins and talks about her wife, I think she just might be gay. Subtle clues like that.
In my writing I take the same approach. Unless you are dating them, sexual orientation is the least important thing to know about a person. They will reveal themselves to you with subtle clues, like introducing you to their spouse.

Darrell in his own words

Darrell B. Nelson is a former Securities Broker and Insurance Agent who has decided to use the total meltdown of his former industry, and the total destruction of any illusions of personal financial security the meltdown caused, as an opportunity to pursue a writing career.
His passion for writing was encouraged at a young age by his mother, who would read to him every night. Fueling his dreams in ways only books can. As he got older she took him to the library every week. Letting his imagination soar.
While other children his age were dealing with where they were and what they were doing, he was flying through space helping to build Asimov’s Foundation, Make way for Clarke’s Star Child, or living on Bova’s Selene. Needless to say, he tripped over things a lot.
When he started writing he knew in the future his works would be of great importance, as time travelers arrived and started watching his every move. Or, maybe they were cats, wondering if he would pet them and rub their ears. Time Travelers have whiskers and like to curl up in your lap, right?

You can find Darrell B Nelson on Goodreads, Twitter or his own website.

The fat boy rode into town on a Fat Boy. After wrestling his pride and joy onto its stand, he ambled into the shade of the store. Two teenagers who leaned against the dirty wall of the boarded-up saloon grinned.

The smaller of the duo reached into one of his cracked boots and withdrew a screwdriver.

While his friend kept watch, he approached the machine.

The wail of an alarm split the air and the thief lay twitching in the dirt with a blackened tool in his hand.

The fat boy rode out of town on his Fat Boy.

©️jj 2019

By the time Sam had made the tea and coffee, Anna was sliding the first two omelettes onto warm plates. Sam took them to the table while Anna started the second round.  When everyone was served there was silence for a while: breakfast omelettes will do that if properly made and served hot.
Sam recovered first.
“More toast anyone?”
Three heads nodded, and he got up to put slices of brown bread in the toaster before returning to his own plate.

When the omelettes had been consumed and everyone was on toast and marmalade, Sam made sure all the cups were full before putting Tariq’s letter on the table in front of Jim, who raised his eyebrows before reading swiftly.
“Maybe something in it. Maybe not,” Sam said. “But I gave up believing in coincidences a lot of years ago.”
“Me too. And it’s a direction to look in.”
Patsy picked up the letter and read it too.
“Well, well. Talk about casting your bread on the waters. Do we trust him?”
“Mostly,” Anna said. “He knows he owes us.”
“Good enough for me. I guess we investigate the Russian with the unpronounceable name.”
“We do,” Anna agreed, “and I have a couple of pals in the area. I’ll ask what they know. One is a spook, so she’s almost bound to know about him if he’s a big enough bad lot.”
“Spook?” Sam exclaimed. “How the fuck…”
Anna laughed.
“Computer is a universal language. I happened upon some money that had been going missing in regular dollops. She got big props for stopping the leak. I got a friend in a very strange place. I’ll contact her and see what she knows.”
“You be careful,” Jim said, “I don’t trust your Russian chums. They ain’t always on your side.”
“True. But they won’t lie to me. So I’ll ask.”
“It won’t hurt to ask, Jim,” Sam said decisively.
“You sure about this, Sam? It might not be such a good idea to keep us close. We might not be healthy.”
“Oh sod that for a game of soldiers,” Sam said wearily. “Look at it like this, if it wasn’t for Patsy I wouldn’t have Anna. Without Anna I don’t have a life. So let’s have no more about keeping away from you. I won’t. Friends are friends, and in my book you don’t turn your back on friends because of a little local difficulty.”
Patsy snorted.
“Little local difficulty? I like that. It has style. And I also get the sentiment. Leave him be, Jimbo. He’s chosen.”
“Yes,” Anna agreed. “He has. We have. So let’s have no more about ducking out on you two. Not going to happen. Now. Do you have to go home, or do you want to have the boys come here for the rest of the weekend?”
“Come here?”
“Yes. Numptie. Come here. I’d love to see them and so would Sam.”
“I would. So. Can they come here for the weekend?”
“I reckon they could,” Jim said thoughtfully. “One of the boys could drive them to Cheltenham and we could pick them up there. What do you say Pats?”
“Well. It’s either bring them here or take me home to them. I need to cuddle them, and yell at them, and clip them round the ears for being cheeky, and reassure myself they’re OK. So. If Sam and Anna don’t mind…”
“Wouldn’t have suggested it if we minded,” Anna laughed.

“On your heads be it. Get on the blower Jim. I’ll be wanting a word with your Mam when you get her. I need stuff.”
“I’ll just bet you do.” Jim ducked swiftly, but not fast enough to avoid a smart clip over the ear from his grinning wife.
“Touché,” she said. “Now behave yourself. We don’t want Sam finding out what a prat you are.”
Jim grinned and got out his phone. He talked for a while in Rom, then handed the phone to Patsy.
“Rod is home. He has just volunteered to bring the boys here. But. He wants to come too.'”
Anna grinned.
“He’s always welcome, ain’t he Sam?”
“He is…”

Jim gave Patsy a big thumbs-up. She grinned.
“Okay” she said, and a faint cheer could be heard from the other end of the conversation. Patsy ended the call and gave her husband his phone back.
“They’ll be here this afternoon. Mam’ll give them a bread and cheese lunch, and they’ll leave straight after. I’ve told the boys they can have Monday off school, so we’ll leave you after breakfast Monday morning if that’s OK. In the meantime Jim’s dad will be visiting school and reviewing security. And putting the fear of God. Again. It seems that a very helpful playground assistant actually pointed the twins out to the blokes who tried to snatch them. Pops wants words. I don’t want to be there when he has them, and neither will the kids.”
“Me neither, but he’ll sort them. Jim. Can you help Sam sort out the rooms? Pats. You and me need to go be nice to my butcher, then raid Waitrose.”
“Waitrose? You getting middle class on me?”
“Nah. Nearest. You coming, or sitting on your fat ass displaying your inverted snobbery?”
Patsy sniggered.
“Score one for me. I got a rise out of Anna. I actually like Waitrose, though I wouldn’t dare tell my Mum or Jim’s Mam.”
“No. But I might tell them if I get much more lip. Sam I need the Range Rover. This’ll be a big shop.”
“Okay. Keys are in the office.”
“Thanks love. Come on fatso…”

Jane Jago

All she could hear was her own heart. Its beating had filled her ears since the crabbed elders spoke their edict. She could walk the elves walk, and perhaps live or perhaps die, or the villagers would stone her to death where she stood. She walked. Into the wildwood on midsummer day. And as she went the trees whispered her name in a language no human could understand.

Her destiny dropped from the mightiest oak and stood in her path. His eyes were as blue as summer skies and he spoke not a word.

But she took his hand anyway.

©️jj 2019

Raise a toast to each morning my friend
Here’s to friendship that has not a face
Shall we meet where the road greets her end
In the forest’s most secretive place
Will we walk side by side through that glade
Where the silence is heavy and still
Will we meet Dragonheart unafraid
And see starlight from Golgotha hill
Raise a toast to each day that we find
Awaiting as time rushes by
When we meet hand to hand, mind to mind
And conquer the world, thou and I

©️ jane jago 2018

A third Pulling the Rug collection from Jane Jago. From vengeance and dark deeds to love and happy ever after, this little collection of short fiction and verse celebrates the diversity of the human spirit.

Excerpt from a story entitled Columbine

Carnival, the night when the unrestrained appetites of the barrios would come leaping and prancing up the cobbled alleys into the very heart of to the city. The night when the fountains in even the meanest streets would run blood-red with wine, and masked women in diaphanous dominos would flirt with danger under sulphurous lanterns. 
    Papa Ouedo always leads the dance, with his huge bare feet slapping out a staccato rhythm on the hot stones and his face painted as white as chalk. Behind him, the boys and girls of the samba schools strut and posture – their semi-naked bodies slick with sweat and other effluvia.
    On this one night of the year, when the sky is lit by a million shooting stars, and the city by a thousand hissing gas lamps, the dancers will come right into the Piazza del Innocenti, polluting the atmosphere with their raucous music and the acrid aromas of sweat and sex. 
    Like every year since time immemorial, the balconies around the great square are set to be packed with the wealthy and aristocratic citizenry, who have their own traditions of lechery and gluttony to uphold as they celebrate Carnival in the safety of their marble-walled palaces. 
    When the music was at its hottest and most demanding, a small figure slipped unnoticed through the servants’ door of the noblest of all the noble houses. She was dressed as Columbine, in clinging cloud-grey draperies of the finest silk, and masked in exquisite feathers of black and white through which her eyes shone like blue diamonds. All she knew was that He would be dressed as Harlequin, and He would know her as she knew Him. Her heart pounded with some little fear, as it was dangerous to be out alone on any night, even here in the pampered streets of the uber-wealthy, but tonight it was pure insanity for a gently-bred virgin to be under the faraway sky. She knew this just as surely as she knew her own name, but it very quickly came not to matter. The music and the danger, and the sounds and scents of Carnival filled her blood like the bubbles in her father’s oldest champagne – and she felt alive. 

Jane Jago

Three other people you can expect to meet in the book.

1. Sam Nero, private eye, and denizen of the last city in the galaxy. This tough guy models himself on the famous detectives of 1930s cinema noir and is ably assisted by a platinum blonde bombshell by the name of Sugar Kane
2. The Night Librarian, a young woman who has charge of a vast collection of sentient books – during the night when anything can happen.
3. Anna Catiash, sky painter. Anna paints the sunsets that enliven the artificial sky of a domed city somewhere far away.

Pick up your copy of Pulling The Rug III

Jane Jago is an eccentric genre-hopping pensioner, who writes for the sheer enjoyment of the craft and gets in terrible trouble because of her attitude.

I might be kinda chunky, but that’s no call to be rude. I’m healthy, and happy as a pig in s**t.

But that don’t stop ‘em, do it?

You gotta be pre-diabetic, they say. And they take the blood and test it and it comes back normal. 

So they tries another tack.

Three times this month I’ve sat in the doctor’s waiting room listening to people hawk and cough, all to keep some skinny woman with  sour mouth happy.

Today my doctor passed away, age fifty. Stress they said.

I had me a cream doughnut in her memory.

©️jj 2019

Oh can you tell me mother dear what is that in the sky
‘Tis nothing but the soldiers blue no need for you to cry
But mother dear the noise is harsh the clanging and the guns
It is, but when you are a man you’ll love that noise, my son
May I sleep then mother dear as they overfly
Oh yes, I’ll sing a lullaby as the tanks fly by
The rusted hulks that filled the sky held no more power of dread
He nestled on his mother’s breast and a sky tank shot them dead

©️Jane Jago 2018

One must perforce confess that one’s interest in this particular literary effort was sparked by a bout of bronchitis. One was confined to beddybyes with poorly chest and Mumsie loaned one the box set of a television adaptation of this little book.

One was instantly enraptured. And one defies anyone to watch the dripping wet figure of Colin Firth emerging from that pond without a twinge of unfamiliar excitement.

Purely on the strength of such an enjoyable frisson, one embarked on a reading of the book upon which the series was based.

What disappointment awaited one.

Gentle reader it is dull, dull, dull.

The plot is thin at best.

The characters are woodenly cardboard.

And the language is old-fashioned and often abstruse.

To recapitulate. A young woman refuses a man. Then she sees his mansion in the country and changes her mind.

Star Rating: Two out of five. Plus one for Colin Firth’s sex appeal.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy's profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.