Announcement

Below are the opening lines from works of fiction. You have an opportunity to show the authors how their works should continue.

For each piece, the continuation deemed most entertaining by Evil Editor will be published on his blog. Judging criteria include maintaining the author's tone, and humor or shock value of the "twist" the story takes in your hands. Read the "New Beginnings" on Evil Editor's blog for examples. Submit your continuations as comments.

If you submit a continuation, you agree that it may be published royalty-free, as-is or edited, both on Evil Editor's blog and in books published by Evil Editor Publications. If you wish to be credited as the author of your continuation, include the name you want used on the blog, and the name you want used in any future book.

To submit an opening from your book, email to EvlEdtr@aol.com (Not attached). Openings should be in the 150 to 200-word range. Longer ones may be trimmed. Submitting an opening doesn't commit you to publication in a book, but it's hoped you'll grant permission. Do include the name(s) you want used if you want credit for your opening.

Do not comment on the quality of the openings themselves. They will be removed as soon as a suitable continuation is submitted. Save comments for when the piece appears on Evil Editor's blog.

Alphonse

The Chandler pulp and paper mill served up its usual sulphuric stink
with extra sauce on the day JC Bernard decided to kidnap his best
friend Alphonse.

As he trudged to the end of the back lane, he took special care with
his footing in half-melted chunks of dirty ice. He skirted a snow bank
and stared out at Chaleur Bay. When he glimpsed a cavorting pair of
humpbacks a few kilometres out on the steel grey water, he grinned,
feeling the cold air on his bare gums.

His smile turned to a grimace when a sharp pain invaded his hip,
shooting down his leg. He leaned on his cane and attempted to shake out
the bee-stings of age. Everything hurt these days – he was lucky to get
out of bed, much less hike a hundred yards behind his house.

Getting Alphie out of the nursing home wouldn't be easy either, but he
figured he'd have no trouble talking the boys into helping. Not so long
ago, they had no trouble rising at four in the morning for their yearly
pilgrimage to Montreal to take in a Habs game. Would this be so
different?

Watchman

Suenna.

The watchman guarding the gate--in between drinking and dicing with his friends--told me horses were forbidden the city. And then denied I had a place at the officers' school.

I showed him the letter, and he smeared it with greasy palms. While he puzzled, head bent, over the words, a youth in uniform, and leading two bay horses, approached. Where had he sprung from? I'd checked everyone leaving the Hippolita train to see if Della were among them; I couldn't have overlooked those covetable horses. They scented the air and stepped out lively. My horse's head hung low in defeat. Travel had begrimed the colours of the Aquilla in its mane, and they dangled like the flaccid fingers of drowned men.

The watchman shoved the letter back at me. "S'pose it's all right."

Why should anyone's word count for more than mine? Let the fellow mind the gate; that was his business.

"Till your brother finds out," the watchman added, with a snort.

Lacey

Thirty feet below the art gallery parking lot, Lacey McCrae pressed her back flat against the cement wall while a half tonne of steel cage rolled past her face. Trapped in a space barely wider than her hips, she looked out through rigid metal mesh at Wayne, the ex-Mountie who paid her to take these risks so he wouldn’t have to.

“Get in at that sensor,” he said. “I want to finish up and be out of here.”

Claustrophobic, she suspected. He didn’t like working in this underground vault, with its single exit and electronically self-locking elevator shaft. He liked narrow spaces even less. That’s why Lacey was the one in the cage.

Nella

I found the secret room quite by accident. Six months after father’s death, while cleaning his home office, I noticed one side of one of the wall panels behind his desk stuck out slightly from the wall. I went over to it, shoved at the loose edge, and heard a click. The next panel slid aside to reveal a lighted room. I looked through the opening, and saw walls lined with pictures. Curious, I stepped into the room.

Each of the walls held a double row of pictures, which were in chronological order, beginning with me as a newborn and ending with me an adult. I moved over to the nearest wall and looked at the first picture.

"Nella: Newborn October 12 3103." She lay naked on a pure white surface, her eyes scrunched up and her hands in tiny fists, as if she were angry at having been pushed out into the world. Had I once been such a tiny mite? I looked up to the picture directly above, and reeled back a step.

Kidnappings

We all witnessed the kidnappings. No one truly saw them take the children away, but we knew whom to blame. All our towns' children, ages ten to thirteen, vanished in a blink's time. No one had that power but the witches in the south. Those evil magicians manipulated the heavens rode down on us under cover of cloud.

Lightning struck our lands, and thunder crashed above us, shaking the earth. The clouds grew darker and heavier, but not one drop of water fell from them. We first watched in amazement. Never before had we witnessed a storm without rain. Then those despicable witches poured down from the clouds in effortless flight.

They returned our children to us, confirming our suspicions. We scooped up the returned and fled to our homes. Back to their clouds and to the south, the sorcerers left without a word. Celebrations consumed us until the food ran short and our rejoicing grew tiring. We returned to our homes once again and finally had a chance for a contented rest.

The next morning we woke to a horror. Our youngest had begun vanishing, fading away before our eyes. Laughter erupted from the skies, and clouds to the south roiled without rainfall. This time the sorcerers forced us to witness their thievery.

Dayglo

"You must get a lot of last minute customers?" Kyle blushed. It was 7:30 pm and his party was at 8:00. He looked around the costume shop. Nothing but plain brown boxes filled the shelves from the front to the back of the store.

"I can stay late to accommodate. Customer service in my fate." Multicolored, Day-Glo smiley-faces decorated the clerk's shirt. With its Peter Pan collar, voluminous sleeves and polyester sheen, neither Stevie Wonder nor Andrea Bocelli could miss seeing it. Ugly letters on his nametag screamed "Argyle." Harlequin costumes fill the flatscreen of the store's POS computer.

"Um, Argyle? I'd prefer black."

"You and Johnny Cash! I'm not Argyle. My name is Salvatore Gian-Carlo Benvenuti, Duncan for short." He reached under the counter and picked up a Groucho Marx nose, glasses and moustache.

"Say da magic woid and win a prize; black shall be your costume tonight."