Feral Intensity v2: Prologue -

A yelp of pain escaped when his fist smashed into my face. Knees hitting the ground, I caught a heavy blow to the temple and collapsed face down.

My arms were yanked back and wrists cuffed.

Man, Maureen’s going to be pissed in the morning. Fortunately, my hair hid the spreading grin.

Maureen’s my Girl Friday and best friend. She thinks I work too much and has made it a personal mission to regularly drag me out to clubs for fun. Her order is always the same: Leave work at the office and relax, Shady.

Tonight, I’d failed more spectacularly than usual, but the consolation prize was the shocked expression she’d worn, watching me leave with him. Maureen, or Reen as I call her, has an unhealthy interest in my sex life.

Okay, my lack of one.

My attacker began dragging me up the steps of an old farmhouse. His name was Charles Watson; Number Five on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, due to his hobby of rape and murder. The last count I’d seen put the number of victims at twenty-seven. He had stuck to his M.O., which was a club pick up and a drive out to a secluded location.

Too bad I was his choice for tonight’s menu.

Once inside, he shoved me so that I fell onto an old mattress. It lay in the middle of what may have been a cozy living room once, but was a rotting wreck now.

Rolling over, testing the cuffs, I watched as he crossed to a tool box lying near a boarded up window. “Like it a bit rough, I’m guessing.”

“Aren’t you the brave little bitch?” Watson knelt on one knee, opening the tool box to survey the contents. After a few seconds, he selected something. Turning, he held a Bowie knife up so that its blade shone silver in the stray beams of moonlight sneaking through cracks in the old place.

“Nice. I enjoy good showmanship,” I congratulated him.

Watson sneered. “Being brave won’t do you any good.”

I shrugged. “You’re sort of missing something here.”

“What would that be?” He began walking towards me, obviously not worried about any kinks being thrown into his plans for the evening.

“I am a bitch.” The snap of the cuffs’ chain sounded like a shot. Holding my arms up and grinning, I added “Wolven bitch.”

Astonishment spread across his face. I memorized it, to save for later enjoyment. Lunging up, I kicked the knife from his hand and spun, driving a fist into his face. Watson stumbled backwards, tripped over the tool box and fell flat on his back.

A leap ended with my crouching over him, the scent of fresh, hot blood filling my lungs and stirring my wilder instincts. Eyes on his, I slowly leaned closer to lick some from his chin. “Mmm.”

You’d think a guy who enjoyed rape and torture would have a stronger stomach, but Watson’s eyes rolled up and he went out like a light.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Disgusted, I stood and nudged his side with the toe of one boot. “Not much of a challenge, were you?”

With a sigh, I squatted and hefted him in a fireman’s carry. The Feds and local law could scope out the crime scene. They’re welcome to it; I just bring in the bad guys.

Carrying him outside and to his car, it never crossed my mind that capturing a Most Wanted was going to change my life.

Not once.

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© 2010 G L Drummond

What do you think? Does it work? Not work? If not, why? Constructive criticism welcomed.

Note: Comments are moderated to prevent spammage. Non-spam comments will be approved when I see them.

My intention has never been, even as a small child, to write without any return on my effort.

Writing is a career, and getting paid for doing it is part of it.

There are things we have to do to make a go of it, to build an audience, if we have no intention of going the traditional publishing route.

One of those things is showcasing our work in the hope of finding readers who will enjoy it. Readers that will become supportive fans, which of course will hopefully translate into ‘buyers’ for our story products.

We may choose to offer free stories for online reading, or free ebooks. People will bypass purchasing a book, regardless of its finished form, if they can’t thumb through or browse it in some manner, rather than plunking down a chunk of change for it, sight unseen.

I know this, because I’m a reader. I thumb through books at bookstores, and check out samples online before making the decision to buy any book.

‘Free’ doesn’t mean we’re releasing those stories to the wilds of public domain for people to use however they may feel they are entitled to.

Writing is personal. Stories come from our imaginations. The characters in them are our children.

We choose to share them in certain ways, but they belong to us.

Just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean we’re selfish, money grubbing hard asses.

It means that they are our creations and no matter how much or in what fashion we share them, they belong to us.

Not because of laws that say so, but because stories, art, photos, software and any kind of creation wouldn’t exist if someone hadn’t imagined it and then decided to create it.

That is the truth and something that, no matter how hard others may try, cannot be taken away from us.

Copyright infringement and illegal distribution can’t take that away. Plagiarism attempts to, but can’t.

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I haven’t seen a big announcement about it, but last week, while making changes to a few of my ebooks distributed through Amazon, I noticed the following:

Personally, I immediately switched all my titles as shown: Do not enable digital rights management.

Hit the ‘publish’ button, and now they’re all DRM free at Amazon. It only took a couple of days.

Since people are still talking about Kindle versions of ebooks being DRMed, I think this has slipped under the radar. Most of those who choose Amazon as a distribution platform likely aren’t aware they now have a choice.

Just thought I’d try spreading the word a bit.

Basically, this is a test of a new sort of ‘business model’.

I will release a free to download, sponsored/ad-supported version of Resurgence in PDF, DRM free format with a Creative Commons license (free to share/attribution/non-commercial/no alteration/deriatives) if there are people willing to donate to make such a version available.

The donations will be my compensation as the author.

Resurgence is a short story/longer flash fiction piece of 2, 263 word count. It’s sci fi/fantasy.

Compensation amount is $ 113.15 ( five (5) cents per word).

Donate $5 or more, and you’ll be listed at the front of the sponsored version as one of the people who’ve made it available for free download. Your name and/or web site link, whichever you choose. The sponsored version will be available here, at my imprint site, and at Smashwords, and hopefully on other people’s web sites shortly thereafter.

The unsponsored version will remain available for purchase for those readers who’d rather not have ‘ads’ in their ebooks (it’s only 99 cents at full cover price).

If the response is good, I’ll do the same for more titles with different sponsorship options.

Do you want to set Resurgence free? Donate!

This is an intriguing idea, and here’s my opinions, plus the way I’d try to implement the idea.

Keep in mind I have downloaded mp3s from indie groups that have sponsors, thus allowing them to offer those mp3 files for free download, so I have had a brush with the concept.

I’d offer a limited number of advertising spaces for a fee, then release the title for free download, having been paid for my work and time in producing the ebook.

The idea being that anyone who downloaded it might go visit the advertisers (or should we call them sponsors?), and then purchase something from them.

Because well, if they didn’t, then I’d have more trouble finding sponsors for the next ebook, wouldn’t I?

And there’s the first con: showing a return on the sponsor/advertiser’s investment.

Will readers visit their links?

How will tracking be done to know that they are visiting from links in my ebook, so that the sponsors/advertisers know their investment is paying off?

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