I am happy to announce that a second editon of Along Came a Demon will soon be on Amazon.com. Same book, different publisher, hence cheaper price. You will be able to get Along Came a Demon for just $6.55! (as opposed to $13.60 which is the asking price via Lulu Publishing.) Next up - volume two, The Demon Hunters, will also soon be on Amazon. Boy, am I excited!
If you'd like a peek at The Demon Hunters, read on for an excerpt. Note: Please forgive the formatting. My blog doesn't seem to like indents, and also has problems with spaces between paragraphs.
I haven’t always seen dead people. Until eleven years ago, I’d have looked sideways at anyone who told me they did. And of course, I was in a real public place, a popular little sidewalk café crowded with people on a Saturday afternoon, when it happened. I’d just finished my iced chai, and as I fished in my pocket for change, noticed a woman standing near the door of the café. That left her right out in the heat of the sun and at that time of the afternoon it burned, but she wore a gray plastic raincoat with the hood over her hair, and black rubber boots peeked from beneath her long black skirt. Another loony, but I envied her for her pale skin and the fact she didn’t sweat. I sat under a big umbrella and I know my face shone pink from the heat.
I laid two dollars and some change on the table, got to my feet and walked past her, and noticed her tears. They streamed down her face, and she held her hands clenched tightly at chest level, obviously in some distress.
I went on past, but I turned my head and caught her eyes, and she stared right at me.
I couldn’t help myself. I stopped and half turned to her. “Are you okay?”
She looked fixedly back at me and shook her head. I guessed she was saying “no.”
That’s when I saw the big red patch on her chest just above her clenched hands, where the raincoat fell open.
She’d been shot, or stabbed.
“Oh my God!” I turned and found every person outside the café looking at me.
“Someone call 911!” I yelled. I turned back to the woman. “Don’t worry, help is on its way.” I stepped nearer to her. “Let’s get you out of the sun.” It registered that I didn’t hear any movement behind me. I looked back over my shoulder. They were still watching me, and as I looked from face to face, each dropped their eyes or turned their head the other way, or became interested in their lunch. I could not believe what I saw. “Did someone call emergency services?” I asked. Not one person looked my way. I couldn’t understand it. I know a lot of people in big cities tend to mind their business, which is why the police often have a hard time finding witnesses to a crime, but this lady stood right in front of them and they were ignoring her. They were ignoring me. "What is wrong with you people?" I yelled. I had never been angrier in my life. I took a couple of steps to the door of the café and stuck my head inside. “Hey! Someone call an ambulance. You got a wounded woman out here!” I was going to raise hell when this got over, but the woman needed my help, since nobody else seemed inclined. When I stood in front of the poor woman again she started moving her hands and fingers in an odd way. She was signing, which meant she was mute. I didn’t know handsign. I put my hands to her shoulders and spoke gently. “I think you should sit down.” My left hand went through her shoulder and hit the wall behind her, the brick grazing my knuckles. My brain stopped working properly. My hand, wrist and part of my forearm were inside her body. I had just stuck my arm through someone. There should be blood. She should be screaming. I should be screaming. She must be in shock and I wasn’t far behind her. A heard a siren. The paramedics were a block away. I couldn’t pull my arm free because then her blood would come gushing out, wouldn’t it? My arm plugged the gigantic hole I’d made in her body. Inches from her white face, I saw the tears on it were static, like strings of clear wax pasted to her skin. Although my knuckles burned where they hit the wall, I didn’t feel anything other than hot Californian air. I felt nothing of substance, nothing at all. My right hand shook as I put my palm to her cheek and it started to sink into her flesh. I guess I couldn’t process anymore because I blacked out. I came to in the ambulance, thinking, I fainted? Wow! So that’s what it feels like. Laying still, my eyes closed, I thought about the reason I passed out. I didn’t imagine the insubstantial weeping woman, I knew that. The café staff called emergency services for a wounded woman and instead carted off a loony, the same loony who yelled at their customers and talked to thin air. This loony had better keep her mouth shut if she wanted out of the emergency room. I didn’t argue when the doctor diagnosed sun stroke. I returned to the cafe a week later. She still stood there, to the right of the entrance, hands clenched at her chest, tears streaking her sad face. He faced her ten feet away, and she cried because she was going to die and couldn’t call out for help. She didn’t know him, just a guy who popped up in front of her as she sheltered from a fierce downpour. He didn’t look like he hated her, or killing her would bring him satisfaction. He just stared, and stared, and for an instant she thought he was only trying to scare her. Then he pulled the trigger. That just came into my mind, the way it does now when I see a shade for the first time. But that first experience knocked me to my knees. I found articles about the murder in the library. Nineteen-year-old May Wentworth worked as an assistant teacher at a private school for the deaf and blind and lived with her grandmother. They never found her killer. I learned to sign. I “talked” to her, but I couldn’t help her. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve wished meeting May Wentworth was an isolated incident, but after that it seemed I couldn’t turn a corner without seeing dead people. I packed up and came back to Utah. It’s universal, I suppose: when you’re in trouble you go running home, and Clarion was my home. My foster homes, the foster-parents and the other kids meant nothing to me, but the city itself. I knew Clarion, I knew the people there and their mentality. I felt safe in Clarion and I wouldn’t see many violently slain people in my little old hometown. Except the two in my house and a couple more down the street.
