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    Visions of Reality: The Short Story Collection
    Visions of Reality: The Short Story Collection
    Visions of Reality: The Short Story Collection
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Visions of Reality: The Short Story Collection

    By Erik Gustafson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Seven of my most popular short stories wrapped up in one.

    Ginger’s Marble - the family that feeds together strays together

    The Blood Knows - revenge is sweeter when dished out by crows

    The Order of the Cat -this odd town loves blacks cat

    My Lover, My Garden -two brothers and a jealous demonic garden

    The Fuse -a home invasion and a desperate family

    The Road to Safety -a broken down car, a hellish walk home

    Let’s Pretend -imagination leaking into reality

    ...plus Chapter 1 from my coming of age novel "Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon"

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherErik Gustafson
    Release dateAug 26, 2012
    ISBN9781476338422
    Visions of Reality: The Short Story Collection
    Author

    Erik Gustafson

    I spent 20 years serving in the United States Air Force, and have had the fortune to live all over the world, including Iceland, Germany, and in a tent for a year in Saudi Arabia.Always an artist at heart, I produced many paintings during my adventures. After my service, I settled down with my family (wife, two great daughters, 2 cats and a little white fluff dog) in small town Iowa, where I love to volunteer at the antique carousel. Now, I help people with intellectual disabilities to reach their potential and teach psychology classes at a local college.I switched from a paint brush to a pen and am now a horror writer, by night.I am working on my forth novel. I have been published in The Horror Zine, Horrified Press, Sirens Call Publications, Pleasant Storm Entertainment, Crypto and Co., Death Throes Webzine, and several other horror anthologies.

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      Book preview

      Visions of Reality - Erik Gustafson

      Visions of Reality: The Collection

      By Erik Gustafson

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Erik Gustafson

      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 recipient. 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.

      Thank you for reading these short stories.

      I hope you enjoyed them! I would love to hear your comments!

      Connect with Me:

      Twitter: http://twitter.com/ErikTiger

      Blog: http://eriktiger.wordpress.com/

      Facebook: http://facebook.com/AuthorErikGustafson

      The Stories

      Ginger’s Marble

      The Blood Knows

      The Order of the Cat

      My Lover, My Garden

      The Fuse

      The Road to Safety

      Let’s Pretend

      Chapter 1 from Fall Leaves and the Black Dragon

      Ginger’s Marble

      Ginger is a tomboy and her favorite thing to do is climb trees. Her golden blond hair is always in pigtails and she dresses in jeans and t-shirt most days. The eight year old wouldn’t stand for the cute dresses all her other friends wore. In fact, she preferred to play with boys but her parents steered her toward girls her age, whenever they could.

      There are two large apple trees in her backyard and she has climbed them both a thousand times.

      All she has wanted for Christmas and her birthday for the past three years to find a tree house nestled in one of the apple trees. Her dad probably would have built her a cool one by now, but mom is dead set against the idea. Still, he reminds her often that someday she will have a playhouse.

      Until that day, she perches in the limbs and straddles branches. The first branch of the tree is still out of reach. She wraps her arms and legs around the trunk and shimmies up until she can latch onto the first branch, and then swings up. After that, climbing is cake. She has made it about half way up each of the trees, and her goal is to one day climb all the way to the tops.

      Today she is leaning between the main trunk and a limb that almost stretches to the other tree when she notices something odd in mixed in the leaves above her.

      She lifts herself onto that branch and gets comfortable. Ginger looks down at the yard and the top of the back porch roof and realizes she has set a new record. She can even see the fake pond that is home to real turtles her neighbor has behind his privacy fence.

      Ginger! The girl spins around and scans the yard below. She doesn’t see her mom anywhere.

      I’m okay mom! she hollers down from her perch.

      Ginger, the voice called again, but it was softer this time. The voice sounded as if it was right there hiding among the thick layers of leaves and twigs. There is no way someone could be up here, she muses.

      She spots what she climbed up here for in the first place: a small cavity in the bark about the size of an eye patch.

      On her tiptoes, Ginger stretched her neck to get her face up to the hole. You in there, Mr. Squirrel? She saw a shadow-coated pinecone just inside the opening. She wondered why a pinecone was hiding in an apple tree. She reached in and pulled it out to examine it.

      She leaned out from the limb and pulled it out. She dropped the cone and watched it spiral down to the grass below.

      She looked back in the hole when something inside twinkled off the sunlight. She snaked her small hand in again and felt around. Twigs poked at her fingers and leaves rustled in the search. Her palm grazed over something smooth and she closed her hand around it.

      Ginger opened her hand and discovered a red marble about the size of those pop-in-mouth tomatoes that her grandpa grows and she loves so much. Swirling red clouds filled the inside of it.

      Cool! She held the marble close to her eyes. The clouds shifted and danced in the marble. She blinked hard in disbelief.

      The marble rolled along the groove between two of her fingers and fell over the edge of her fingertips.

      No! She tried to catch the marble, but it fell fast.

      From her height, the marble looked like a red eye staring up from the ground.

      Ginger climbed down the tree as fast as she could to retrieve her treasure. She sat at the base rolling the marble around in her palm, watching the red storm inside surge and rage. There was a bright flash from deep within. She thought it was a miniature lightning bolt. For an instant, the flash even made the rosy clouds light up.

      Ginger, she heard her name a third time and now she was sure it was coming from inside the marble.

      Is somebody in there? she asked, holding the marble not two inches from her nose.

      The red cloud shifted under the glass orb and a red haze oozed out from the marble into the air. Ginger breathed in and the red smoke slithered slowly up her nose making her cough.

      The girl lay perfectly still for an hour. Her now crimson eyes blinked while gazing across the yard. She arose and let the solid black marble fall into the grass. She was hungry like never before- practically starving. She had to eat something immediately.

      The little girl marched across her back yard, pigtails bouncing, then down concrete steps past a flower garden and onto the back porch.

      Once inside the porch, she heard herself growl. She thought it was just her stomach growling but she realized that the growling sound was coming from her throat. So hungry.

      She pushed the back door open, stumbled into the house, and came into the kitchen. She opened the fridge door but at first none of the food in there looked tasty. Then, on the bottom shelf, she spotted a plate of defrosting hamburger. Her hunger overwhelmed her: she squatted down, grabbed a fistful of the raw meat, and shoved it in her mouth.

      Food had never tasted so good. She chewed and moaned with satisfaction, swallowing huge chunks of the soft meat. Pieces of hamburger clung to her chin. Before she knew it, she had gobbled the entire plate of meat, but she was still hungry. In fact, she was even hungrier than before.

      Ginger what on earth are you doing? Her mom shouted from the doorway. Ginger was down on all fours, licking up the tiny pieces of meat that fell from the plate.

      Ginger looked up at her mother through grisly red eyes, salivating.

      She lunged at her mom, grasping her ankle, and biting into the flesh like it was a chicken leg. She shook her head and tore down into the meat. Her mom stumbled against the doorframe and pushed Ginger away.

      Ginger, blood matted on her delicate chin, looked up at her mom and cried.

      What on earth is the matter with you? She asked bending down to rub her ripped ankle. Blood was all over her foot. Ginger was staring at the blood.

      She growled and lurched forward, licking madly at the bloody skin. The gritty tendon scratched at her tongue.

      Ginger, stop it! she called again. Her words sounded heavy in her ears as if she was underwater. She slid down the doorframe and crashed hard on the floor.

      The room started spinning.

      Ginger leaned over her mom’s stomach, hands stretching the skin apart and feasted on her sloppy bags of flesh when her mom returned

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