Excerpt: El Vengador

Hard on the heels of Halloween comes this story! El Vengador is my first venture into paranormal horror.

Deputy Sheriff Michael Kirtchner gets an "unknown disturbance" dispatch call to a remote house trailer in the swamp. There, he discovers an old woman and a dog, terrorized by a mysterious beast, which he takes to be a bear. But when he contacts Game Warden Jeff Stuart to come trap the animal, Stuart tells him to get out if he values his life - this is no ordinary animal. Is Kirtchner up against a Swamp Ape - a Florida version of Bigfoot - or something more...sinister?

Based on a true story.

My recommendation? Don't read this at night.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

~~~


Elsie Moore ungracefully mopped her perspiring brow on the hem of her dress, then continued cooking her dinner on the tiny gas stovetop. A small pot on the back burner bubbled merrily, releasing a spicy smell as white grains of rice, gradually turning a greenish-tan, churned up. As a waft of strong skunk smell drifted through the tiny trailer kitchen from the open window, she wrinkled her nose and stared down in distaste at the skillet containing crawfish and boudin noir while poking at it with a spatula.

The foul odor from outside was not helping her opinion of her ingredients. She wasn’t fond of blood sausage in the first place, but it had been cheap, and she didn’t get into town much for groceries, so she made do. Being unemployed, she wasn’t overmuch blessed with cash and didn’t have a vehicle, so she was forced to depend upon distant friends for a ride to town, or more often, she just walked ― which ended up taking the better part of a day. So inexpensive and quick to get hold of were the rules of the house. The crawfish had come from a Cajun friend who lived up the bay. She wasn’t Cajun, nor was she from one of the local Native tribes, but she knew people in both communities, and they looked after her when they could; she was a fairly skilled herbal healer, and had been known to treat strangers more than once. Abruptly the skunk stench increased to nearly intolerable volumes, and she turned away from the stove, covered her nose with her free hand, and fought back a nearly unbearable urge to retch.

"Damn," she cursed. "Ah’m gonna have ta git somethin’ done ‘bout that skunk den, an’ soon, don’t Ah’m gonna end th’ summer unable t’ eat nothin’ f’r the stink. It ‘uz bad enough in th’ spring when they moved in, but now it’s hot, Ah gotta keep th’ winners open, ‘r suffocate…" Her German shepherd let out a long whine from somewhere in the back yard, and she yelled out the window. "BILLY! HUSH! Ah ain’t got time f’r that racket!"

She returned her attention to her makeshift excuse for jambalaya ― not, she thought, that it would amount to much without any celery or bell pepper, but at least she’d found some wild onions that morning ― and tried to ignore the smell coming in from outside, and which was threatening to spoil her appetite for good. A buzzer sounded, and she reached up to turn off the timer, then put a lid on the pot of seasoned rice, switching off the burner to let the dish soak up the extra liquid and finish cooking on its own.

By the time the crawfish were cooked, the rice was ready. It was early for dinner, but Elsie’s day started early, out the door before full dawn, wild-crafting edibles to eke out her meager supplies of food and gather herbs for medicinals.
The sixty-three year old widow of ten years and three grown-and-departed children dumped the tiny pot of rice into a plate, then upended the skillet’s contents on top. Fishing a bent-tined fork from a drawer, she moved into the den, sat in her favorite chair, and began to eat. After a few minutes, she grabbed the battered remote control and turned on the television. Static and snow greeted her from that appliance, and she reached for another control, fiddling with it until the dish outside had picked up another satellite. The picture was still fuzzy and staticky, but at least she could see and hear the broadcast. Then she settled back with her meal to watch a series of game shows.

Halfway through her meal, Billy, her German shepherd, came to the front door, pawing and scratching as he whined.

"NO, Billy!" she told the dog. "Ah’ll let ya in at sundown, no sooner, an’ yew kin curl up onna foot o’ th’ bed like usual. Y’re s’posed ta be a guard dawg, not mah pet, even iffen ya are mah onlies’ real friend. Jus’ settle down! What’s got inta yew today, no how?"

The dog whined and scratched harder.

"GIT!" she called. There was a scrambling sound on the wooden stoop, then Billy ran around to the back yard, where he began to bark like a fool. "Damn dog."

All of a sudden Billy began to yelp, loud, high-pitched sounds like a dog in pain, or maybe in terror. This mingled with a low growling sound, and unexpectedly the trailer filled with a horrible, intolerable stench. Elsie shoved her half-empty plate onto the end table, grabbed the nearby plastic waste can, and threw up her dinner. Before she could even wipe her mouth, a deafening clamor sounded right outside, and the trailer shook. Billy let out a kind of canine scream, and this was followed and drowned out by an animal roar of rage. The trailer shook again. Elsie shot to her feet.

"BILLY!" she cried, alarmed. "Billy! What’s wrong, puppy-dog? Whatcha got treed?" She ran to the nearest window and looked out. She saw nothing. The trailer shook again. She looked down.

Practically beneath her, pressed up against the back wall of the trailer, was the hind end of some very large, powerful, furry creature. The color was an odd, ticked shade of browns and blacks, mottled with blotches of livid green. A roaring howl, which seemed to come from beneath her, fairly made her guts vibrate. She watched the animal’s hindquarters tense, and the trailer shook yet again. Just then, Billy let out a pitiful yip… and was silent.

~~~

El Vengador is based on a true story. Yes, there really was a deputy sheriff in the Pensacola, FL area who really did answer a call just like this.

Care to see what happens next? Have a look.
 -Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

The Creation of El Vengador

By Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Today we are having a "book bomb" for my new ebook, El Vengador! A book bomb is when all of the fans and readers of an author get together and purchase their copies all on the same day! This can get the ball rolling on sales, because it results in a significant bump in the sales rankings, that in turn pulls in people who are browsing but unfamiliar with the author. But first, a little bit about El Vengador, just to...you know...whet your appetite.

 

Deputy Sheriff Michael Kirtchner gets an "unknown disturbance" dispatch call to a remote house trailer in the swamp. There, he discovers an old woman and a dog, terrorized by a mysterious beast, which he takes to be a bear. But when he contacts Game Warden Jeff Stuart to come trap the animal, Stuart tells him to get out if he values his life - this is no ordinary animal. Is Kirtchner up against a Swamp Ape - a Florida version of Bigfoot - or something more...sinister?

El Vengador is my first deliberate foray into the paranormal and horror genres. I’ve had numerous friends try to convince me to do so in the last few years, but never was able to get hold of the right story idea. So I waited and let it “percolate” in the back of my mind.

But when a Facebook friend (who wants to remain anonymous - for obvious reasons!) told me the story of his encounter of a mysterious “Florida Swamp Ape” during his tenure as a deputy sheriff, I was fascinated. And when he gave his permission for me to fictionalize the story, I knew I had found my paranormal horror story.

So I took his basic story from his own words and I transformed it. I cleaned it up, couched it in proper writer’s grammar, changed the point of view. I changed the deputy’s name, added the perspective of other civilians who encountered the creature…and then I twisted the knife.

Because, you see, I have some Cherokee in me. Oh, the family can’t prove it, not after the way the Cherokee were ejected from their properties during the Trail of Tears; any Native American who could pass as white in those days, did, and all records of their heritage were lost. But because I have several distinctive genetic expressions of that heritage, I am accepted by most elders I know as Cherokee. And my curiosity being what it is, along with my sincerity in wanting to know, I’ve been taught numerous things that most people don’t generally know.

Like the fact that the Cherokee (along with the Seminole and the Iroquois Confederacy, among others) are purported to have been offshoots – colonies, if you will – of the Maya peoples. It’s interesting to note that, just as the “Cherokee” are a group of tribes [Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, etc.], the Seminole are a group of tribes [Seminole, Creek, Miccosukee, etc.], the Iroquois Confederacy are a group of tribes [Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga, and later Tuscarora] ― so too are the Maya really a collection of tribes [Yucatec, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol, Kekchi, Mopan, and more]! The Maya comprised, and still comprise (oh yes, they’re still around ― they were laughing their butts off at the white fear of the “end” of their repeating calendar), more than 25 different peoples. The notion of splinter groups of this huge nation (it covered a substantial portion of Central America, butted up against the Aztec/Olmec empire, and expanded out into the Caribbean) moving up into Florida, then up the East Coast of North America, isn’t hard to believe at all.

It’s also true ― as I mentioned in the story ― that the medicine people and elders hold that the Maya, in turn, came from some place across the Great Sea to the East. Depending on who you talk to, this means we/they originated in Ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, the Biblical traders of Tarshish, or even Atlantis!

So it seemed to me that it would put a fun spin on things if I had this swamp ape, this mysterious unknown creature, be something other than pure animal. As it turned out, my research into the Maya turned up a mysterious “Howler Monkey God,” one Hun-Batz by name, and an entire mythology in which this god was set. Monkey = simian, and ape =  simian, so it wasn’t a huge jump for me, to proposing a curse invoking the Son of Hun-Batz. And suddenly the whole thing congealed into this amazing, suspenseful, paranormal horror story.

How amazing and suspenseful? Well, let’s just say I literally creeped myself out. I’m a night owl, prone to insomnia and getting up in the night to putter around until I can fall back asleep. And I immediately discovered that I didn’t enjoy that anymore; I had a constant feeling that there might be...something...outside, in the yard, in the dark, watching through the windows and doors. When I did go back to bed, it was only to have lucid nightmares about the creature and the events in the book! I took to closing the curtains and blinds, avoiding the windows at night. Finally I gave up writing on the story after sundown, choosing to write only in the light, and hoping to get the imagery out of my head by bedtime.

I was more or less successful in that. I find that I still do better not to think about the book at night, and I still have the blinds and curtains closed at night. But our neighborhood is well lit with street lights, and the birds cluster in the trees around the house and sing cheerfully. So I know there’s nothing out there that they think is unusual. And that is comforting.

I don’t know that I’ll regularly write horror. I’m inclined to think, from my experiences with El Vengador, that I might not be cut out for that! Still and all, much of the science fiction mystery I do write tends to have strong elements of both paranormal and thriller, with the occasional seasoning of horror concepts thrown in for good measure. So I think I can take what I have learned from the experience and fold it back into my other works. And I think they’ll be the better for it.

And you never know. After all, my friend really did encounter…something…in the swamps of Florida…

~~~

El Vengador is an ebook available through Amazon. If you're interested, please seriously consider purchasing it today, and let's see how high we can drive the sales ranking! Best-seller? Through the roof!

 

-Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com