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Blurb:
When a series of man-made disasters strike the US, altruistic rock star Dante Benedick (AKA) "The One" must travel back through time to rescue the world and the love of his life.
Excerpt:
5:45 a.m.
Monday, November 22, 2010
The White House
Shortly before dawn, Renee Bellwood had one of the worst nightmares of her life.
She was walking in the ruins of a city. She wasn't sure what city. The devastation was extensive. Buildings were burned to the ground, reminiscent of the firebombing of Dresden in World War II. The city was still a raging inferno. Fire everywhere.
Concrete structures were rubble. All was chaos. Victims screamed, gestured with their hands, and then, one by one, collapsed, asphyxiated by oxygen deprivation. There seemed to be no other living soul in this nightmare. Everyone, except Renee, had fainted and burned to cinders. Streets, sidewalks were soot-blackened.
She wore a silky blue peignoir. Normally, at this time of night, she would have been cold, but the burned city was still very hot. The wind of the firestorm caused people fleeing from the burning houses to retreat into the doomed structures. Where the fire had burned itself out, the embers continued to smolder, warming the atmosphere and casting a grim haze of smoggy death over the landscape.
Dead bodies lay everywhere. Whole families huddled in grisly tableaus, burned to death. Cremated adults had shrunk to the size of small children. Pieces of arms, fragments of legs. Body parts burned so grotesquely, so badly distorted by the flames that they were unrecognizable as human remains. The victims were charred scarecrows. The corpses made Renee think of the Pompeii dead held prisoner forever after the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 78, suspended forever in time. Renee had to be careful not to step on corpses underfoot. All bodies still identifiable as human bore the look of victims who had seen unfathomable horror, unspeakable carnage.
Renee quivered with fear. There was a palpable sense of danger, yet there was no living thing nearby; only rotting corpses and dead bodies and dilapidated buildings. She couldn't shake the premonition that harm awaited. She wanted to run, but, as Bruce Springsteen sang, "Nowhere to run to, baby." In every direction, more destroyed buildings, more corpses littering the blackened streets.
She glimpsed a movement from the corner of her eye. Someone, or something, was alive. Despite her terror, she had to help. Instinctively, she knew she should just get out, but she needed answers. How could this happen? What had happened? Where was she? Were there other survivors?
A man crawled from beneath a putrefying pile of corpses. He smiled a menacing smile, a grisly broken grin.
Renee began to run, tripping over corpses, tripping the heavy fantastic. The man grabbed at her thin nightgown. She slapped away his cold, blistered hand. Gazing deep into his eyes, she was horrified to see that they were glowing a ghastly yellow.
The ghoulish figure knocked her down, loomed above her. Stooping, he pulled at the spaghetti straps of her nightgown, exposing her breasts. She wanted to scream, but no sound would come. The stranger tugged roughly at her gown. Pulling. Ripping. The fabric tearing. Brutally, he forced her legs apart, pinned her beneath him, and tried to thrust into her.
First Lady Renee Bellwood awakened wet with sweat, a sour taste in her mouth from the sleeping pill she had taken. Her husband was atop her. She struggled beneath William Buchman ‘Bucky' Bellwood, pushing his dead weight from atop her slender form. She ran from the bed, fleeing the testosterone overload from this leader of the free world, escaping to the safety of their shared bathroom, screaming, "How can you think of sex at a time like this? Today we bury our daughter."
As the door to the bathroom slammed shut, she quickly turned the lock and sank, feeling sickened, to the cold tile floor. With her forehead leaning against the bathroom tile, her world returned to the familiarity of toilet and tub, her safety in the White House bathroom. She felt violated and disturbed.
Authors' Bio:
Connie (Corcoran) Wilson graduated from the University of Iowa (English & Journalism) and earned a Master's degree from Western Illinois University (English & Education), with additional study at Northern Illinois, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. She's taught writing at six Iowa/Illinois colleges, and wrote for five newspapers, and five blogs, (including her own blog - www.weeklywilson.com).
An active member of the Horror Writers Association, her stories have appeared online and in print. Her work has won prizes from "Whim's Place Flash Fiction" and "Writer's Digest," and she has published two books, with 3 upcoming.
She's reviewed films and books for the Quad City Times (Davenport, Iowa) for 12 years, taught for 36 years, founded 2 businesses, functioned as their CEO, and wrote humor columns, as well as conducting interviews for the (Moline, Illinois) Daily Dispatch, and three other newspapers.
Connie's interviews with writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William F. Nolan, David Morrell, Anne Perry, Joe Hill and John Irving have appeared in "SciFi Weekly," "Reflection's Edge," "The Brutarian," and a variety of other online and print magazines.
Mike McCarty has been a professional writer since 1983, and he is the author of over 10 books (fiction and nonfiction), plus several hundred articles, short stories, and poems.
He is the 2008 David R. Collins' Literary Achievement Award winner, from the Midwest Writing Center. In 2005, he also became a Bram Stoker Finalist, for the Nonfiction Book of The Year, More Giants of the Genre.
He lives in Rock Island, Illinois, and is a former stand-up comedian, tried his hand as a musician, and once worked as managing editor of a music magazine. Currently, Mike is a staff writer for "Science Fiction Weekly," the official website of the SCI FI Channel.
