Another Slice of Fear

Authors Rant

So here we sit again. I was actually very successful with A Slice of Fear. It's true that it isn't a Stephen King novel and perhaps isn't even close. I seriously doubt that I will sell 100,000 copies of this book, but I can always hope. I'm sure Edgar Allan Poe didn’t expect to sell as many books as he did after he was gone, but it happened.

I have become even more fascinated with fear. I know that's hard to believe because I have been fascinated with fears since I was very young, but still, it is something that I look at quite often. Since I wrote A Slice of Fear, COVID happened, and we got an opportunity to see fear from multiple sides. There were sides looking at losing their lives, sides looking at losing their freedom, and sides that just felt fear for the sake of feeling fear.

As I watched, I was enthralled by the dynamics that I had only read about in books. It is true I have seen fear close up, and I have also felt fear when I was young, but I never saw the level of fear that I saw in the last year and a half.

Although one of the stories in A Slice of Fear dealt with COVID it was the last story I added. As I wrote Another Slice of Fear, I found myself being more brutal and direct with each story. As I did so, I felt I was engaging in more of the nature of fear and less in suspense. You, of course, will be the judge of that. This change in my approach wasn't because I suddenly had the need to be more brutal and direct but instead because it seemed to fit. The world had felt so much fear they were desensitized to it. Depending on which side you were on, you may have been so afraid as to give up your freedom or fight for something that wasn't necessarily true. Either way, in my opinion, you were moving towards living in the shadow of fear. With that in mind I pushed for more intensity, with the sole purpose of dispelling the shadows by darkening them. That creative license creates a larger divide between light and darkness and in itself adds to the suspense of the stories.

The essence of fear is to find that thing inside someone's mind that makes them feel out of control. Fear is knowing that there is nothing you can do that will positively or negatively affect the outcome of a situation, any situation. Fear is something that comes at you so quickly that you act on instinct instead of with intelligence. Fear is deep and lives inside you whether you want it to or not. Those who are brave are not devoid of fear; they have just found a way to deal with it and in the process, overcome their bias of fear and find another path.

When I was young and walking through the woods of Mecosta County in Michigan, I occasionally felt fear in the middle of the night because there were no streetlights, and the true darkness was filled with sounds. I had no idea what was in the darkness, so I felt fear because I could not control it. I often find it funny that now I walk in the dead dark in Muskegon County, Michigan, and know my way without seeing anything. Knowledge dispels fear. Well, usually it does.

As you read, you may find some of the stories more mysterious than fear inciting. You may also find some to be more thrilling, grislier, and more angering. You have to remember; fear is different for everyone. As I sat watching Annabelle: Creation in the theater, people screamed and jumped while I giggled. It is different for us all.

One story, Edges, is a sequel to a story in my book A Slice of Fear it stands on its own, but I received numerous requests to take the story forward. So, I did. I hope you enjoy it.

Take a moment and breathe with me, then turn the page and let me spin a few tales that might just take that breath away. I hope you have as much fun reading this little jaunt as I did writing it. I hope you enjoy Another Slice of Fear.

Immortal

My name is Martin, and I thought I was a scientist until I became something else. My research was exhausting, but I was hopeful that the end result would meet my needs for a long time. I came across the text for a potion, for lack of a better word, while I was translating ancient Sumerian tablets that had been unearthed in a small city outside of Baghdad.

I employed a series of interns and carefully gave them pieces of text that I knew had no specific meaning to what I was working on. A few simple glyphs in cuneiform nagged at me when I first saw them. It did not take long to realize that the tablet I was working on was a recipe for eternal life.

I am sure that others may have seen the glyphs and realized part of their significance, but I had studied enough of the language that the ingredient list made some sense. What could be translated as the essence of air, I realized, was oxygen and another ingredient, with notes adding fire towards the end of the list, indicating the timing and temperature at which the mixture was to be brewed to make it work. It seemed simple until I got into a series of more complicated glyphs, some I had never seen before. I sat looking at the spiral twists and arrows with no clue how to proceed. The easy parts had been a series of items like cinnamon, turmeric, sage, and basil. It took a little longer to decipher the toxin from the Cerbera Odallam. I was unsure how things that would kill normally would grant eternal life, but I kept trying. After I exhausted all of the common items here, I sat, studying the spirals and text after the Sumerian text, trying to find a key.

It was then I met Gayle. She told me she was twenty-two and had wanted to work with me for some time. Her fiery red hair set her apart from everyone around her, and where most redheads had green or brown eyes, hers were a very light grey with speckles of blue scattered throughout them. She was a graduate student and understood more about Sumerian than any other person I’ve ever met. After months of working together, we grew close, but I was near fifty, and she was twenty-two, so it was strictly professional. I thought of her as a daughter and couldn't see her as more, no matter what my mind's eye imagined.

After we had worked on the spiral issue together for nearly six months, I threw up my hands. Why am I wasting my life on a quest only Don Quixote de la Mancha would have undertaken? ¶Gayle stopped me and looked into my eyes with near pleading intensity.

Don't you want to find out if it works?

I looked at those eyes that begged me to continue, and I could do nothing less than walk back with her and keep pushing with all of my being. In only two days, I realized that I had been a fool. Gayle was sitting next to me when I exclaimed, I've been looking at this all wrong.

What do you mean? Gayle asked.

I have been assuming that this ancient text was written by a primitive man, but I now see that this culture may have been far more advanced than we are today. As I was staring at this twist and the notations, I was also counting, and each of these spiral twists contains twenty-three sequences, and of those sequences, each notation is for a specific count.

So? Gayle asked.

So? Well, if I'm right, then the twenty-three sequences are the twenty-three essential amino acids that are part of our very existence. I think this last notation is a separation of the amino acids to be put inside this ‘magic’ potion.

Magic? Gayle laughed. This is pure science.

What is magic but science unexplained? If eternal life isn't magic, I don't know what is. I smiled. I'm beginning to believe that the essence of all magic may have been based on these texts, and it is as much science as it is magic.

An interesting theory, Gayle said.

Knowing what we know now, the sequence is easy, Adenosine, Guanine, and a few others will make up the last ingredients, and we have everything else. Think about it, we know what we need, and we know the proportions from the text. Now it's just a matter of putting it all together.

What then? Gayle asked. Do we release it to the world and let everyone become immortal or don’t we? Do we take it and become immortal together forever? What purpose would we have? Have you thought of any of these questions and how this would change everything?

I pondered for a few moments, not knowing what to say. I was overcome with the knowledge that Gayle and I were at the precipice of discovering; what magic had tried to do for thousands of years. Her questions were good. She was right. I had only thought about the goal but not about the aftermath.

Gayle, I said, I am far too old for you.

If we were immortal what would thirty years mean to 30,000? Could you spend thousands of lifetimes with me, challenged by who I am while becoming more of who you are? Could you love someone that could not die and would be with you for eternity? Could you love me and let me love you in a way beyond what a mortal man could understand?

I was lost. This young woman asked a series of questions that were literally rocking my world. She walked towards me, and those grey eyes with speckles of blue called my name while she gently kissed my lips. I had never felt so alive.

I think I could, I heard myself say. But maybe we should try this ‘potion’ and then perhaps share it with the world. Think of the changes that man could make with more time. Think of the peace we could create if we eliminated the terror of death.

Gayle’s eyes seemed a little sad, but she nodded at me, We should get to work then.

I was impressed as we began assembling the potion from the instructions translated from the tablet. I was very careful to use handwritten notes and leave very little evidence on computers or anything else for fear of being thought of fool or, worse a charlatan. Gayle was by my side every moment, helping me. She understood more about organic chemistry than anyone I had ever met. At twenty-two, she knew more