Stephen M. DeBock
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Stephen DeBock writes on just about any topic but for fun
concentrates on sci-fi/fantasy adventure and supernatural
fiction.
As a teenager, Steve would entertain (and frighten) the
neighborhood children by retelling them stories from E.C.
horror comics like The Crypt of Terror. As a middle school
teacher, he continued the tradition by reading his students a
horror story to initiate the school year. Now retired, he has
time to write his own stories.
His first writing success came as a high school senior, when a
25-word essay won him an all-expenses-paid vacation in Alaska.
Upon his return he entered the Marines and was chosen to serve
in the President’s Honor Guard. Vignettes from that venue have
appeared in American Heritage magazine and in various
newspapers.
Upon leaving the Corps, Steve worked days, went to college at
night, and spent weekends earning a private pilot’s
certificate. A flying narrative he wrote was published in AOPA
Pilot Online.
During his teaching career, Steve garnered an award by the
State of New Jersey for his work in consumer education. He
served briefly as a consultant for Consumers Union and
contributed to essays in Time magazine, ABC’s World News
Tonight, and CNBC.
Having founded and later sold a video rental business, Steve
and his wife also sold their home and lived for three years
aboard a 42-foot sea-going trawler yacht. An article describing
one of their summer cruises was sold to Living Aboard magazine.
Steve has written newsletters for both private and non-profit
organizations; a flash fiction story for the children’s
magazine Spider; and the text for a coffee-table book on one of
America’s most-collected living artists: The Art of H.
Hargrove.
He and his wife Joy live in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
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Alden Walker—sport pilot and skydiver—finds
himself and his light airplane mysteriously transported into an
alien world: a parallel Earth peopled by exotic-looking humans
as well as a host of animals that have evolved into human-like
form, with human-like powers of thought, but which have retained
their appetites for flesh and blood.
Especially human flesh and blood.
Accompanied by a beautiful indigenous woman with a score of her
own to settle, Walker must set out upon a covert mission to
retrieve a vital element from the creatures who have stolen it,
employing his piloting and parachuting skills in combination
with her superb swordsmanship. On their quest they will
encounter a host of anthropomorphic predators, until they
finally reach their goal: a mountain fortress occupied by a
coldly calculating race of humanoid vampire bats.
And upon the success or failure of their mission hangs the fate
of both their worlds.
Excerpt
Word Count: 50000
Buy at:
Smashwords (all formats) ~
Barnes and Noble ~
Amazon
Price: $4.99
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(ISBN:
978-1-61950-227-7) |
| Excerpts |
The Bridge Between Worlds |
Prologue
From the Baltimore Sun:
REPORTER KILLED IN SKYDIVING ACCIDENT
SALISBURY, MD—A skydiving mishap has cost the life of a
well-known feature writer for this newspaper. Lynda Murray, 26,
perished when her parachute failed to open. She was a veteran of
over 100 jumps.
Murray was the correspondent who penned the popular “Girls Do
It” feature that appeared monthly in Sunday’s edition of this
newspaper. The column chronicled her forays into offbeat and
occasionally dangerous hobbies and pursuits, especially those
favored mostly by men. Last September, she learned of a
parachuting school located at Walker Field, here, and signed up
for a jump course. She wrote a full-page article about her
experience, complete with freefall photographs, in a subsequent
“Girls Do It” column.
Having become enamored of the sport, Murray coupled her love of
skydiving with her growing affection for the airport’s owner,
Mr. Alden Walker. The two were married last Saturday while
enroute to jump altitude in the center’s airplane. Their plan
was to be pronounced man and wife during freefall by the Rev.
Donald Wilson, a fellow parachutist. They were then to perform
aerial maneuvers for the entertainment of their guests on the
ground before opening their chutes.
Features editor George Murray (no relation), an invited guest,
reports that whereas the parachutes of Walker and the minister
deployed normally, “Lynda’s never came out of her pack. All of
us could see her struggle to pull the ripcord. When she finally
pulled her reserve, it was just too late.” He added, “Lynda was
a vital part of our Sun family. She will truly be missed.”
Murray’s parents are deceased and she had no siblings. She is
survived by her husband, Alden James Walker. The Hemby Funeral
Home, Salisbury, is in charge of arrangements. Rev. Wilson,
acting as spokesman, has asked that in lieu of flowers, memorial
gifts be made to the donors’ favorite charities in the name of
Lynda Murray Walker.
Chapter 1
I could tell Gus wanted to smack me—hard—upside the head.
“When are you gonna stop moping around, Numbnuts? Two months and
you still won’t get back on the horse that throwed you. Fly a
plane. Take a jump. Even better, take a student pilot up, run a
jump lesson, earn the company some money for a change.”
I attempted to deflect the sting with a weak stab at humor.
“Just so I’m clear on this, Gunny. You’re calling the man who
signs your paychecks Numbnuts?”
He tried to look contrite, something he was never able to do.
“Oh, I’m sorry; Mister Numbnuts—sir.” He scowled and shook his
head, his short gray hair still cut high and tight and flat on
top, just as it had been when he was in the Marines. “Come on,
Walker, all due respect to Lynda, you’re not the one screwed up.
I’ve told you every day, every way I know, and you know I’m
right. From now on, convince yourself And do it fast.” He put
his hands on his hips, as he used to do when he wanted to
intimidate recruits. “I’m carrying your load as well as mine
around here, and my sea bag’s gettin’ kinda heavy. Know what I
mean?”
I had to admit he was right. I was as useless as teats on a boar
hog since what folks euphemistically called the accident. Don
Wilson, Nate the jump pilot, Lisa the head instructor, Dennis
the chief rigger, all the club members—they knew full well
accidents are caused; they don’t just happen. And they were kind
enough never to mention the obvious—that I was made a widower
after forty-five seconds of married life because of human error,
not mechanical. And the human in question wasn’t me.
So here I stood, in the ops building next to the airport parking
lot and directly across from the jump school, attempting the
impossible: staring down my former drill instructor, now my
fixed-base operation’s chief administrator. Gus ran the FBO with
the same no-nonsense, by-the-numbers approach he’d used on the
grinder at Parris Island. And his calling me Numbnuts was
mellow. I can remember from when I was an eighteen-year-old
recruit his getting within two inches of my nose, his stogie
breath nearly gagging me, screaming all sorts of imprecations
and aspersions upon my ancestry. I remember too, his famous
threat to the platoon, which he regularly made good on to
individuals throughout our boot training: “You little pissant,
I’ve decided I’m not going to chew your ass out! No, private!
I’m going to chew around your ass, and let it fall out by
itself!”
From day one, when my ragged platoon mates and I had to stand on
the painted yellow footprints in our first formation, eyes
front, thumbs on our trouser seams, heels together, feet at a
forty-five-degree angle, Staff Sergeant Bellows (how appropriate
the name) and his two junior drill instructors rode us hard,
kept reminding us that we weren’t Marines, we wouldn’t make a
pimple on a Marine’s ass, we were nothing but a bunch of high
school pussies. And they kept reminding us there were: “only two
ways to get off my beloved Parris Island—in a Marine Corps
uniform or in a pine box.” Most of the recruits both feared and
hated their DIs. But I didn’t. Well, I admit to a certain amount
of fear. But I had gone in knowing what they had to do.
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