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(¸.•´ (¸.•` ¤ Check it out! Michael Di Gesu featured Thanmir War on his blog today! Thanmir War is the first of its series, based on Cera’s home world.
For the A to Z challenge, I present Murder Most Fowl, an unedited serial story from the unpublished Cera Chronicles. Please excuse the grammar mistakes. This hasn’t been critiqued yet. If you’re just diving into this story, you may want to start with part A.
The musty funk of mummified flesh wafted from behind the bars segregating the empty Sheriff’s Office. A skeleton grinned at us, its arms dangling through the cell door slots. The floral pattern of the exotic rug was quite pretty, if not a little…oh, never mind. Those were bloodstains. I plopped down into the only cushioned chair, and kicked my legs over the arm. “Twenty percent. It’s really quite a bargain. I save your son’s life, and you give us a cut of Molly’s reward.” I wanted the money to rent a cart and go look for my other two companions.
Bartholomew bit down on his toothpick and glowered at Joe. “Not sure he’s worth that much.”
Michael yanked a dirty wanted poster from the bulletin board. “On the contrary, it would seem he is worth 37.28%. At least, that is what the bounty on his head equals out to.”
Joe leaned forward and squinted at the depiction of his upper half. “Hey Pa, look. I’m famous!” Even in the drawing, he didn’t have a shirt.
Bartholomew slapped a hand over his face and groaned. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be a happily married man right now.” He parted his fingers and peered at me. “His mother left when he was born. Took one look at the babe, dumped him in my arms, and walked out. He’s been the bane of my existence since.”
Fues poked his head in through the window from outside. “Your problem. My meal.” He jabbed Joe with his spear.
I frowned at the pygmy. “We can’t collect the reward if you eat him.”
Michael studied the paper. “It says here he shot and killed the sheriff of…” He looked up. “Graverock? We are in Graverock.”
That explained the Help Wanted sign in the window.
Molly gazed up at her own poster on the wall. “If there ain’t a sheriff, then I’m free to go, right?” She cast a sidelong glance at Joe. “Since, unlike you, I haven’t killed anyone.”
Joe scratched his chest. “I’d done wondered why they stuck me in that cell. Funny thing is, I don’t remember shootin’ no one.”
The door swung open and a loose-jowell man strode inside before stumbling to a halt. “Are you the marshalls?”
I looked him over. “Are you the new sheriff?”
“No,” he said. “I’m the undertaker. Coleman’s the name, and we’ve got ourselves a situation.”
Thanks for reading! If you want to start at the beginning, find it here. Don’t forget to visit other bloggers participating in the A to Z Challenge.
Do you have any criticism? Suggestions? Wild, off-the-wall ideas of “you know what would be funny…?” Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear them.
The oriental carpet was actually bloodstains! Haha! Fun and exciting, and very well written as always.
Thank you!
Your dialogue is so good! Now I want to know what the situation is…
The situation is… in U!
Love it!
Clever as always. 🙂
I saw you entered Michael’s intro thing after all. Woot!
I had to laugh when I read Derek’s lines, though. Totally not his voice. hahaha
Haha, yeah. I was totally honored that he picked Thanmir War for ‘T’. I thought he’d go with someone else!
The voice cracked me up, but it did bring up some misconceptions about my blurb… whoops.
And indeed looking forward to the situation! Love the way the story’s going…are we really gonna end in a couple more?
Danny Simon
Yep, 26 quick installments!
This just keeps getting more mysterious!
Hopefully not to the point of confusion…
… And we have another day to wait! Oh you devil. 😉 Nah, I don’t mind, but it’ll be a shame when we reach the end. 🙁
Ah, but there are many more Cera Chronicles coming. 🙂
Yay! 😀
Okay, I know it’s not related but, now, I can’t get Artemis Fowl out of my head.
Completely understandable.
“The musty funk of mummified flesh” – GROSS!!! LOL. Poor Cera – complications keep popping up no matter what she does!
Whoops, I hit “reply” too soon. I have to say that I keep forgetting exactly who Bartholomew and Joe are, and how they first appeared in the story. I have a feeling that’s more about the serial structure than anything else, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it at this point, but there are a bunch of characters for the reader to track…and we might need some reminders sometimes! Maybe set this particular critique aside until someone reads the whole thing front to back, though?
It’s been at the back of my mind the entire time. I have a problem with creating a lot of characters. It happens every time I write. >_< And it seems like every time I delete one, another one pops up. It's a problem that I haven't figure out how to conquer yet. Bartholomew is the bartender and Joe is the shirtless guy who's married to Perry. I'll throw some more hints and reminders in during the rewrite.
😀 Complications is right.
Even if they were bloodstains…”The floral pattern of the exotic rug was quite pretty, if not a little…oh, never mind.” Awesome line, and how I write actually – I start with all of this flowery talk and then, think – WHO CARES what’s happening?!?
I agree that there are a lot of characters and I’m not sure who is who or what they’re role is and what’s going on exactly as I have lost track a little, but I still enjoy the humour and action. You sure have the knack to move the action along and your dry wit cracks me up. I’ll be sorry to see it all end. Hope to see more of your work in future. You are one fun and talented writer!
http://cattitudeandgratitude.blogspot.ca/2014/04/t-is-for.html
OOPS! Make that their not they’re. Geesh! And I’m the type who gets annoyed when people text “your” instead of “you’re” and here I am being just as bad.
Oh, man, did this make me laugh! “That explained the Help Wanted sign in the window.” Full of great lines:) I’m gonna come back here in May, with a bottle of wine, and read through all of these in one sitting!
WriterlySam
Echoes of Olympus
A to Z #TeamDamyanti