okay...Rose asked nicely for another excerpt. so, being the fine upstanding gentleman I am, here's a portion of The Time After. now though, we're in new, unedited writing, so please allow for major blunders.








Joey shone his flashlight towards it; the high-intensity beam wrapping itself around the now apple-sized orb.

The flashlight flickered as though the batteries were dying a quick death. The orb enlarged, and Joey felt a slight tingle in his hand. the tingle grew also, becoming a mild annoyance, moving to a minor ache. Last Christmas, he?d hung lights around his door and windows. But being in a hurry, had shot a staple through the wire. The lights were plugged it, the staple conducted an electrical current through the metal staple-gun, and Joey receive a nice shock. Whatever was happening now was identical to that.

He tried to release the flashlight, but couldn?t. His hand was engaged in a death grip, fingers in a vise-like grasp. The still growing spectral entity rode the light beam towards its source, and the closer it came, the stronger the impulses were.

Now moving up his arm, a feeling of millions of needles (fangs) sloughing his flesh in agonizing agony, puncturing invisible divots and burning hot. Joey tried to scream; his vocal chords were as frozen as his hand, only a mist of spittle escaped his mouth.
As the orb drew closer to the flashlight in slow, lazy circles, Joey became a living conductor; a five foot nine capacitor storing energy and jerking uncontrollably. He knew he was about to die. There was no was a human body could survive much more. Soon, he figured, his heart would explode inside his chest, his brain would fry, and Chaz or Kat would find a smoldering dead corpse.

Nearer now, eclipsing the flashlight completely, the orb slowed. Then, as before, disappeared.

Joey felt the spell give way. He fell to his knees, then toppled sideways to the hard concrete floor. His light landed hard also, busting the lens and the bulb. Darkness without afterimages, just total serene darkness.

Joey slept.

And dreamt.