Someday Always Comes, chapter 2 – excerpt

Posted on 04/28/2024 by Wanda Paryla | 3 Comments

Someday Always Comes, chapter 2 – an excerpt

Fernando ran with a small, seemingly fearless posse of bodyguards and anyone who crossed him ended up dead, or worse, and trust me…dead was much better than worse. Dead is just dead. But Fernando’s worst was gruesome. Broken bones, missing teeth, gouged out eye, no tongue, missing foot, missing fingers, and a broken spine. I’m definitely not making that up. The dude lived, but not to talk about it. I’d rather be dead.

I didn’t like to stare at Fernando’s face for too long. His chilling eyes were a strange brown color that I can’t accurately describe. In the dim, florescent lighting of Duk’s, they appeared crimson-brown, like dried blood. When he looked at me, his eyes told the tale that he could brutally murder me and then observe my dead body for hours without remorse, wallowing in the quiet joy that comes after the orgasmic rush that murdering someone causes for the ruthless contact killer.

Storm Dwellers, chapter 6 – an excerpt

Posted on 10/29/2023 by Wanda Paryla | Leave a comment

STORM DWELLERS, chapter 6 – excerpt.

Lynn stretched out on the couch to rest. As she drifted off, she heard her mom’s side of a phone conversation with Lynn’s father, Rob.

“Y’all get there without any trouble?” Angela asked. Then there was silence. “Uh-huh. I hope you can find those kids. It’s terrible, babe. Lynn told me a horrific story and I’m worried those kids might not be found.”

Lynn’s eyes fell on the grandfather clock in the corner. It was already noon. She watched the pendulum swing back and forth as her mother’s voice faded.

“What if they’re dead, Rob?” Angela worried. “For Christ’s sake. Oh, Jes-”

The room grew dark as Lynn slipped to sleep. She floated in the darkness; her breaths kept time with the ticking of the clock.

A pounding thunder snatched Lynn from her nap. She awoke to the sound of glass vibrating, and the twinkling of the dining room chandelier as it swung. Flashing lights from outside nearly blinded her as they filled the room through the windows. She threw her arm up to shroud her eyes from the intense brightness and psychedelic colors. What is that? The police?

“Why would the cops be here?” She said to herself. “Mom!” Lynn did not get an answer. “Mom, you home? Is that the police?”

Again, no response. She ran to the window only to recoil from streaks of blinding lightning.

“Oh, God!” She cried. “No! No!”

Lightning bolts hit the ground leaving burn marks as tree limbs cracked off from their trunks and fell or were propelled away by the strong winds. The wind moaned and whistled around the doors and windows. Lynn heard the floorboards of the second floor creaking; someone was walking around up there.

“Mom, you upstairs?” Lynn shouted.

She whirled around and tripped over the coffee table, hitting her cheek on the corner as she timbered to the floor. She crawled to a corner of the room and huddled on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest.

“Mom, where are you? Help me!”

Lynn’s chest felt heavy; she sat up straighter, pinning her spine to the wall, trying to open her lungs.

“This isn’t happening. It’s just not.”

She started to hyperventilate, breathing heavily and shaking. It’s okay. It’ll be okay, she thought.

“It’s okay!” Lynn screamed, covering her own ears. “It’s…okaaay!” Her words emphasized with intent. “Stop!”

There was immediate silence. Lynn thought maybe she had suddenly fallen deaf. She heard nothing except her own heartbeat and breath sounds.

Thick, rancid air filled the shadowy, still room. Lynn saw the tree branches outside that were still swaying in the wind, but there was no sound. Her movements guarded; she reluctantly rose with her back still against the wall, then eased toward the large living room window. She peered again through the sheer curtain panel, then pulled it back a bit and peeked out. The dismal sky held no moon. She looked straight ahead, peering into the darkness.

“It’s noon, what is going-”

Something slammed against the window. Lynn gasped frozen in place. Terry?

Terry’s face frozen, eyes wide with fright, was held up by some unseen force; pressed against the glass and looking straight at Lynn, her eyes bulged from their sockets.

Lynn’s mouth opened to scream, but the sound was stuck within her. She stood paralyzed from the shock of seeing her friend, Terry, like this again. Over the sound of her own heartbeat, Lynn heard Terry screaming, but she could not be sure if it was real.

A power rose from Lynn’s fear and anger. She felt it, she shook, her muscles tightened, finally the words came.

“Stop it! Leave Terry alone! Leave her alone! I’ll get you! I swear, I will!”

Lynn’s hearing returned to normal. The image of Terry morphed into a monster, a hooded creature with melting flesh and pointy talons.

Lynn jumped back from the window and spun, scanning the room for a weapon. She grabbed a marble book end from a shelf and hurled it at the window which burst upon impact; shards of glass embedded into the creature’s flesh; it spit vulgarities at her.

“Enough!” Lynn jutted her palm outward, she felt energy flow from her, and the shards already embedded in the creature began to twist and gouge at its flesh.

The monster howled in anguish as it attempted to pluck out the glass pieces.

Lynn darted away, stumbling through the dim house, crashing into walls, and stubbing her socked toes on furniture legs. She tried light switches as she went through the house. Nope.

The rumbling thunder returned, as did the violently whipping lightning strikes which lashed around like live power cables. Rain poured down, pelting against the house and the windows, causing the windows to blur.

Lynn’s intention was to run into the kitchen, find a weapon of some sort, rolling pin, knife, anything, maybe even a flashlight. She made it to the foyer and stopped near the front door. A light seeped in from under the door; a fog wafted through the space from under the door and every other crack too…or so it seemed.

Lynn stood mortified. Slowly backing away her mental faculties slipping away – No, I can’t do this alone.

The ethereal fog crept forward and began encircling her. She regained her thoughts and continued into the kitchen. She went right for the knife set on the kitchen counter and grabbed the biggest one. She backed up against a wall as the fog filtered into the kitchen.

“This isn’t happening,” Lynn said. “Nope.”

She squeezed her eyes tightly closed for a few seconds in an attempt to will a change.

Lynn opened her eyes. “No such luck for you, Lynn. Shit.”

Storm Dwellers, chapter 4 – an excerpt

Posted on 09/21/2023 by Wanda Paryla | Leave a comment

STORM DWELLERS

Chapter 4, excerpt

It was quiet again in the SUV. Lynn turned to check on Darcy and found dozing; her head bobbing from the motion of the vehicle.

Lynn yawned. She was sure they had been driving the same road for hours, maybe even passing a few places twice. Round and round.

Something doesn’t want us to make it home, Lynn thought to herself. Damn rooster! Again?

For the third time, Lynn soared passed by a stationary red and black rooster, rooted in place like statue with the exception of a few feathers tousled by the wind.

Immediately after, she whizzed by a welcoming sight, a sign that read: Black Willow 10 Miles. Overcome with a sense of immense relief, her heart rate slowed as her hands loosened on the steering wheel.

“Finally! We’re almost home, Darce,” she whispered as she patted Darcy’s arm.

Lynn and Darcy spent most of their lives in Cameron County, Texas. Meeting in the first grade, they hit it off immediately as if they were meant to be friends.

Darcy walked up to join the line accumulating outside to enter Miss Julie’s first-grade classroom, and her eyes landed on Lynn. She was drawn straight to her, and she crossed the grass like a boss, jumping the line as she bounded up to Lynn.

“Hello, I’m Darcy. I think I know you.”

Lynn studied Darcy; head tilted. She smiled.

“I’m Lynn. I think you’re right.”

A gust of wind blew, shaking the tree leaves. Some children, parents and teachers alike lost their grip on papers and took off chasing them around the grounds. Girls and ladies giggled or hollered out as they fought to control fluffing skirt tails.

Darcy and Lynn watched the chaotic sight on the school grounds.

“I wonder why the grownups are so frustrated and chasing papers,” Lynn said. “They just need to calm down. Let those papers fly away!”

They laughed and had been inseparable since that day.

“I saw your mommy in my dream,” Darcy told Lynn the morning they met. “She sang to me in words I never heard before.”

“Nope. That ain’t right,” Lynn said. “You didn’t even meet Mommy yet. And she doesn’t sing in anything but English, silly.”

However, when Darcy met Lynn’s mother, Angela, she told Lynn that Angela was not the lady she had seen in her dream; she did not look anything like that woman.

“I told you so,” the young Lynn stated.

“Yes, but,” Darcy persisted, “she told me that she’s your mother. I promise.”

Lynn was unable to wrap her young mind around it at the time, but she never forgot that day, and she was always curious about the woman Darcy dreamed. They talked about it a few times over the years, but never in depth and they never wholeheartedly pursued the dream woman’s identity.

When they were older, they searched Lynn’s old family photographs to see if they could find the woman among them. Lynn and Darcy made plans to save money and have an artist draw the likeness of the woman from Darcy’s memory of the dream since she had no drawing skills of her own.

One day, right before they entered the eighth grade, Darcy and Lynn took an introduction to French class at the library.

“That’s the language the woman sang to me in!” Darcy exclaimed.

***

Sybil and Terry Mendez’s mother, Adelina, claimed a lineage dating back to the Texas statesman, Jose Antonio Navarro. Their father, Richard, on the other hand, did not talk much about his ancestry, in fact, he went out of his way to avoid discussion of his ancestry so often that even it left Adelina and her daughters wondering about it. When they would inquire about their paternal ancestry to their father’s parents and other relatives, they always got jokes and snarky remarks in return.

Their father’s maternal grandmother, Paz – who was still alive and kicking at ninety-four, always told them that their father enjoyed rebuffing the ‘ooga-booga’ side of the family.

As kids Sybil and Terry would run around hollering, “ooga-booga!” which in turn made their dad, Richard, quite unnerved.