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    More Mind Games
    More Mind Games
    More Mind Games
    Ebook84 pages1 hour

    More Mind Games

    By James Kinsak

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    About this ebook

    Here are 5 more James Kinsak stories, filled with a dark emotional honesty – dealing with the conflicting desires we feel inside for love or money, for different sexual partners, for helping someone vs. protecting ourselves, for staying ethically pure or advancing our career, for hanging on vs. giving up.

    Plus zombies. What’s not to love?

    Contains “When I Lay Me Down”, “A-Maze-Ment”, “Snort”, “Floaters”, and “One Night in Toronto.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFiero Publishing
    Release dateMar 4, 2012
    ISBN9781465793058
    More Mind Games
    Author

    James Kinsak

    James Kinsak writes fantasy, mystery, and horror stories that go into dark places and sometimes don't come out again.

    Read more from James Kinsak

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      Book preview

      More Mind Games - James Kinsak

      Novels by James Kinsak

      Driven

      Short story collections by James Kinsak

      Mind Games: 5 stories that do not end well

      More Mind Games: 5 more stories that do not end well

      Mind Games Deluxe: 10 stories that do not end well (taken from MIND GAMES and MORE MIND GAMES)

      MORE MIND GAMES

      5 more stories that do not end well

      James Kinsak

      Copyright © 2012 James Kinsak

      Published by Fiero Publishing

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Author Foreword

      When I Lay Me Down

      A-Maze-Ment

      Snort

      Floaters

      One Night in Toronto

      Afterword

      Excerpt from Driven

      Author Foreword

      For Mind Games, I expounded on the positive function that horror and dark fiction serves in our society. No such justifications offered here. These stories are just…honest. Sort of. We’re talking emotional honesty vs. factual honesty, of course, since none of us has yet lived through a zombie apocalypse or been snorted up a giant nostril while making a movie.

      But emotional honesty, dealing with the conflicting desires we feel inside for love or money, for different sexual partners, for helping someone vs. protecting ourselves, for staying ethically pure or advancing our career, for hanging on vs. giving up – that’s juicy stuff.

      And when you’ve got a slightly twisted bent, as I have, you just know that the sort of situations you’re going to have your characters face won’t be Oh, my goodness! Should I tell Brad that I kissed his best friend? No way. It might be, Oh, my goodness! Should I tell Brad I accidentally knifed his best friend and drank his blood?"

      (Of course I’d have to come up with a good reason for my character to have drunk Brad’s friend’s blood. Oh, right. Vampires. Or maybe someone who thinks they’re a vampire. But I digress…)

      I should also state here that while my publisher insisted I keep mind games in the title here for continuity (and because, I think, he just hated all the other titles I came up with), there’s actually only one story in here that I’d consider a total mind game. I’ll let you decide for yourself which one that is.

      For now, let me just say that we’ve got a bunch of people here who are faced with a bunch of difficult choices. Some make terrible choices while others make the best choice they can in a crappy situation.

      So how did each tale come about?

      When I Lay Me Down – Zombie apocalypse. Jeez, it’s even got its own television series now. When that happens, you know you’re into a happening meme. When I was challenged to write one of these, I decided to steer clear of the major blood and guts and gurgling moans inflicted on us by George Romero, or the running terrors of 28 Days, and go for something quieter. Truth was, the first version of this story was a flash fiction piece that said most of what I wanted to say, but editorial urging got me to flesh it out some more (pun intended). It also gave me room to add a nice little twist to the end which ultimately makes the story for me.

      A-Maze-Ment – Okay, caught up by memes again. How many really bloody reality show concepts got made into movies in the last five years. I think I’ve lost count. (And if you haven’t seen them all, it’s because you haven’t been cruising the B-Movie section of Netflix enough. Shame on you.) All I can say is that this was actually written before I blinded myself with all that awfulness.

      Snort – The origin of this one is just strange. Which probably explains the strangeness of the story itself. It actually came out of a writing challenge I gave to my nephew while our families were staying at an all-inclusive Mexican resort. The deal was that we’d give each other a place and a character and then write a story about what we were given. I think I was given Hollywood and drug dealer. Hey, what else you going to do to pass the time while on vacation?

      Floaters – This came out of a newspaper story I read that stuck with me. Cranked my creative juices even as it churned my gut. I did not let my wife read this one.

      One Night in Toronto – I went to university in Toronto, Canada. The first apartment I rented after graduation is the one in this story. The events, though, are not autobiographical. I’ll also throw in that I wrote this during a mystery-writing workshop where we were challenged to write a noir. Go bleak! was the battle cry. The next day, when our stories were due, one of my fellow professional writers was reluctant to turn hers in because of just how dark it was. Then she read mine, and said, Well, hell… and turned it in after all.

      You’ve been warned.

      James Kinsak

      March 1, 2012

      At the end of the world, the choices get harder.

      When

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