Something New This Way Comes
My homage to Ray Bradbury
As it happens, I’m re-reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury, so I couldn’t help but “play” with that title to announce my new book.
It’s titled Because No One Noticed and I should have a pre-order link soon. Here’s how the story begins. I hope it entices you to read more.
Saturday, The Day Of
Sirens slice through the early September morning silence. It’s only eight-thirty, and already Saturday has switched from a calm first day of fall to one charged with danger. The sounds speed down the highway where accidents happen most of the time, then veer into the center of the small town of Las Animas.
Fire trucks, police cars, and EMT vans converge on the town’s lone strip mall in a crescendo of ear-splitting shrieks until the parking lot is a solid din.
People who’d planned on a late start shove bed covers aside and peer out windows. Those already savoring their morning coffee set down their cups and go onto front porches. Early joggers stop, cocking their heads to determine where those emergency vehicles are headed.
Clifford Mott’s boss grumbles as he opens the convenience store door, and the full force of the noise shatters the last shred of his good humor. The man’s beginning to regret hiring the slow-witted high school dropout who called in sick and pulled him from his girlfriend’s very warm and lovely bed. He’d fire the jerk if anything like this happened again.
In seventeen-year-old Lula Banes’s house, her father—the General—sits at the kitchen table, folding the Wall Street Journal in half and trying to ignore the annoying noise. Upstairs in her bedroom, Lucille, his wife, pulls out earplugs from her nightstand, and, stuffing them into her ears, buries her head under the silk-covered pillow.
Win Knight’s father is in what Las Animas town dwellers refer to as Knight’s Castle. He and his latest girlfriend have spent the night together. Kate’s there, too. The housekeeper sets aside the skillet of sizzling bacon to turn on the local news.
Marty Skolinski’s dad, on his way to open the hardware store, slows the car to peer at the crowd gathered on the street. The sirens have stopped, but the emergency lights still flash like a manic light show. He shakes his head, frowning, but then drives on because he has a sale this weekend, and customers will want in by 9:00 AM.
Both Dina Strong and her cousin Brittany left their house early, freeing up two slots for the one shower in the crowded home. Dina’s parents, her aunt, and her uncle will have to vie for bathroom time. Each of them looks forward to those extra few minutes alone with soap and hot water. Anticipation of this small luxury keeps them too occupied to pay much attention to the noise coming from the street.
In the old upscale section of town, Blossom Henley’s mother is just finishing her morning shower, but she still hears the blaring horns and screeching sirens. She hopes someone hasn’t been hurt, but from the sounds, something serious is happening. She turns off the water and grips the safety bar. The night her husband was killed in a car crash, she’d heard sirens and never thought they had anything to do with her. She’d been so wrong. Now whenever she hears sirens, they almost stop her heart with dread.
Soon everyone in Las Animas will know what has happened in that strip mall at the Saturday morning hangout called Blendz and Moore. In the future, whenever sirens wail, they’ll halt whatever they are doing, remember this morning, and share that heart-stopping dread with Blossom Henley’s mother.
If you’d like give this new book a shout out on your social media, I’d really appreciate the help. You can email me at cleemckenzieATgmailDOTcom or let me know in the comments for this post, and I’ll send whatever promo you’d like.
And now for other important stuff!
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What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?
I’m a Neanderthal, I guess because I only use my word processing program on Apple. If that’s not available I resort to pen/pencil and paper. I know. I know. What’s next, Lee, a quill and parchment?
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Excited for the new book, Lee!
Sorry, your posts never show up in my feed.
Congratulations on the new book!