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Like I have doing before. Here is the complete TwitterTale for November 2018. I post part of this tale every Thursday and Friday in November.

I brought the ax above my head and swiftly down, letting gravity split a log in half. The pieces fell to the side. I stuck a new one in place. I had a little more than a hundred to go. When I lifted the ax the second time smoke wafted into my nose.

My heart pounded, and my mouth ran dry. A forest fire would be dangerous. A trail of smoke lifted into the air, not enough for a blaze. Someone had to be using the cabin a few miles away. Bobby wasn’t going to like that. I’d rather deal with a fire.

I contemplated continuing my work with splitting the logs in half and ignoring the neighbors. I could distract Bobby for a few hours, but he’d eventually find out. If I was careful, he wouldn’t try and visit anyone tonight.

“Bobby?” I called when I entered the cabin.

“Jolene is the wood done? Do you want any help? I was putting our clothes away. He came to my side and gave me a quick kiss on the lips.

“Before I tell you something, you have to promise me you won’t hurt anyone.”

“I haven’t killed anyone in five years. What’s going on?” His eyebrows furrowed together.

“You didn’t murder anybody because I did.” I feared if he did again, he wouldn’t stop. I shuddered at the memory of killing the cop to steal a boat. A few more people who recognized us died too because of me. Bobby would have dropped more bodies if I let him.

“Just tell me,” he said.

“We have neighbors,” I said.

“I’ll grab our guns.” Bobby turned away from me and headed into the kitchen.

“Can’t we wait to see what they do?” I placed my hand on his arm, stopping him from pulling a weapon out of a box.

“What if they recognize us? Do you want them to disturb our peace?” We’d been here for little over a year, our longest time in one spot.

“What if they don’t know us? We haven’t been on the news for months now. You killing them will get the cops involved. Someone will miss them. I don’t want—” I stopped myself from saying more and pressed my lips into a tight line. I hadn’t told him something yet.

“Don’t want what?”

“Never mind. Not important.”

“Why are other people in our woods?” Bobby ran a hand through his black hair.

“This weekend is opening season. I heard when I went to town last,” I answered.

“What’s the big deal? It isn’t a holiday.” He swept my hair away from my neck and gave me a kiss at the base there.

“Opening season is a holiday to hunters.” I had grown up with them. My dad tried to take me several times, but I had no interest in hurting animals that couldn’t defend themselves. He gave up after a while. We both knew he wished to have a son and not me. I was an only child.

“How long will they stay?”

“Through the weekend. They’ll keep on coming back though if they don’t fill their tags.”

“What do we do?” Bobby asked. He wrapped his arms around my waist.

“We wait until tomorrow and go talk to them. If they recognize us or we suspect they do, we can kill them. We’ll have to leave right after they die,” I said after taking a minute to decide.

“What should we do now? I need a distraction or I’m killing our neighbors.”

“I have an idea.” I pressed my lips against his. I wouldn’t let anything disturb him and me. We deserved happiness like any normal couple.

As I always do, here is a teaser for next months:

The sound of hoofbeats echoed in the field, coming from behind me. I turned to find nothing there, no rider, no horse. I must be hearing things.

My car had broken down, and I was in the middle of nowhere with zippo cell reception.

Come back next month to check out the post or search for #TwitterTales @kamengauthor on Twitter if you can't wait. I post part of the story every Thursday and Friday, and to make them easier, I have numbered them #Part1, #Part2, and etc. You can also find many more authors participating from my publisher. It's lots of fun.


Hello, I had the pleasure of having A.B. Funkhauser ​stop by to talk about her book Heuer Lost and Found. You all know me by now. I just like to jump write in.

Unrepentant cooze hound lawyer Jürgen Heuer dies suddenly and unexpectedly in his litter-strewn home. Undiscovered, he rages against God, Nazis, deep fryers and analogous women who disappoint him.

At last found, he is delivered to Weibigand Brothers Funeral Home, a ramshackle establishment peopled with above average eccentrics, including boozy Enid, a former girlfriend with serious denial issues. With her help and the help of a wisecracking spirit guide, Heuer will try to move on to the next plane. But before he can do this, he must endure an inept embalming, feral whispers, and Enid’s flawed recollections of their murky past.

Winner Best Horror, Preditors & Editors 2015

Medalist Winner “Horror,” New Apple EBook Awards 2016

5 Star Reader's Favorite 2018

Toronto born author A.B. Funkhauser is a funeral director, classic car nut and wildlife enthusiast living in Ontario, Canada. Like most funeral directors, she is governed by a strong sense of altruism fueled by the belief that life chooses us, not we it.

Her debut novel Heuer Lost And Found, released in April 2015, examines the day to day workings of a funeral home and the people who staff it. Winner of the Preditors & Editors Reader’s Poll for Best Horror 2015, and the New Apple EBook Award 2016 for Horror, Heuer Lost And Found is the first installment in Funkhauser’s Unapologetic Lives series. Her sophomore effort, Scooter Nation, released March 11, 2016 through Solstice Publishing. Winner of the New Apple Ebook Award 2016 for Humor, and Winner Best Humor Summer Indie Book Awards 2016, Scooter picks up where Heuer left off, this time with the lens on the funeral home as it falls into the hands of a woeful sybarite.

A devotee of the gonzo style pioneered by the late Hunter S. Thompson, Funkhauser attempts to shine a light on difficult subjects by aid of humorous storytelling. “In gonzo, characters operate without filters which means they say and do the kinds of things we cannot in an ordered society. Results are often comic but, hopefully, instructive.”

SHELL GAME, tapped as a psycho-social cat dramedy with death and laughs, is the third book in the series, and takes aim at a pastoral community with a lot to hide. “With so much of the world currently up for debate, I thought it would be useful to question—again—the motives and machinations championed by the morally flexible, and then let the arbiter be a cat.”

Funkhauser is currently working on THE HEUER EFFECT, the prequel to HEUER LOST AND FOUND.

K.A. Meng (KAM): Are you a horror writer?

A.B. Funkhauser (A.B.): Sort of. It happened by accident.

KAM: Lol. You’re going to have to expand on that.

A.B.: Well, my first novel, Heuer Lost And Found, follows the day-to-day missteps of boozy funeral director Enid Krause as she comes to terms with the death of her Ex whom she hates. You’d think she wouldn’t have a problem embalming him despite his horrible condition (7 days post mortem in a hot house in summer), and, at first, she doesn’t. But then his irksome, blithe spirit spooks around behind her whispering and critiquing her thoughts and movements such that, very quickly, he gets to her and she loses it. She might still love him and that horrifies her.

KAM: That sounds romantic. *ick*

A.B.: I know, right? I went into the story believing that I was creating a heart-felt paranormal romance with a happy ending, but it didn’t turn out that way.

The novel won two horror prizes and was described by some as “visceral,” “haunted,” “crawly” and “chilling.”

There you go.

KAM: So you’re not actually a horror fan?

A.B.: Ha! I wouldn’t say that. I’m devoted to King, Hill, Gaiman and I also like Nick Cutter. Thing is, as a funeral director, I was trained to perform specific tasks in clinical situations. Anything inside of that is “normal,” anything outside it is not. So, any gruesome horror like the Chainsaws or Saws don’t appeal to me. The psych component, those “things unseen,” are what I love to root around in. In that I might be more of a spec fiction fan.

KAM: Maybe this explains how your books fell into the horror realm?

A.B.: No doubt about it. Reader feedback really focused on what went on in the preproom at the funeral home. I took great care not to be gratuitous; to only show the things the reader needed to see to understand Enid and Heuer’s mindset. (He’s appalled by her treatment of his body unaware that she is following procedure scrupulously.) I could see after the fact how those not exposed to this world would find some aspects of the book disturbing.

KAM: Did you re-release Heuer Lost And Found with a new cover?

A.B.: Back in February 2018 with a couple of tweaks. Spelling errors are gone and some really fatuous sentences got the chop, but it remains unchanged in terms of the text. It is what it is. The big deal for me is that the reader gets to see Heuer right away on the cover. He’s trapped between two worlds skulking around in the dark. In a twisted way, I was channeling Enid when I chose the image. She resents his coming back to her after 20 years and would be much happier if he just went away.

KAM: Some reviewers, I’ve noticed, found the book funny. Please explain.

A.B.: That’s true. Many cited humorous moments. One reviewer said she laughed so hard she woke her partner up. The banter between Heuer and Enid, but also between Heuer and his spirit guide—a foul-mouthed antique floor lamp housing the spirit residue of the funeral home’s founding matriarch—drew the biggest laughs. Heuer can be a petulant man-child at times. The women tell him like it is.

KAM: You’re working on the prequel now?

A.B.: Yes! The Heuer Effect is full steam ahead and I’m so excited. It’s 1979 and Enid and Heuer are alive and well and doing a lot of damage. Like all the other books in the series, it’s a stand alone, but those who have read Heuer Lost And Found get the benefit of being inside the joke. What really happened all those years ago gets examined. All of sudden, Enid’s behavior in Lost And Found makes sense.

For more information on A.B. Funkhauser:

Thank you for stopping by. - K.A.

 
 
 

I'm super happy to announce the latest anthology I am lucky to be a part of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Vol. 6

There’s never enough of a scare factor with just one horror anthology. That’s why Solstice Shadows presents a second Halloween themed collection of stories by an incredible group of authors for your reading pleasure.

Are you ready to make sure the windows and doors are locked? That you’ve put out all the necessary spook deterrents? Will those be good enough to keep out the ghosts, ghouls, and other creatures that rule this special night?

Voodoo, greed, and prejudice mar paradise.

Extraordinary characters create strange bedfellows

Obsession never dies.

Evil Waits in the Darkness

Some whacked game or pure evil?

Ava just wants to play.

Ghost Cat. Don’t honeymoon without one.

What’s the cost of endless cash?

Southern heat can drive you crazy

Her powers were about to lead her to her doom.

Ten tales of horror and frightdom filled with tales scary enough to have you watching your every move are offered for your reading enjoyment. Ten incredibly talented authors contributed to this finale of horror: Noelle Myers, Davina Guy, Ken Newman, David Mannes, Leigh Podgorski, K.A. Meng, Debbie De Louise E.B. Sullivan, Adam Zorzi, and Palvi Sharma serve up stories guaranteed to make your fright night truly fearful.

Yet again, we decided these ten stories aren’t quite enough. Grab a peek at Nicole Luttrell’s The Man in the Woods for even more spine tingling enjoyment.

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