Up in Smoke - eBook
“One thing’s for certain,” he muttered at the small inert form on the asphalt. “You’re not green.”
In this mountain town, there are animals more dangerous than bears…
Jack Reynolds has torched his share of bridges. When his estranged daughter, Nicole, comes back to town to consult for the clean energy research lab in the old mine, the environmental crusader’s latest attempt at connection crashes and burns. But then Jack finds a dragon-like baby animal in the highway—right after an evacuation order from the lab due to a “containment leak.”
His suspicions aroused, Jack imposes on Nicole to get a tour of the lab. But when events go drastically awry, will Jack and Nicole be able to put their differences aside before their relationship—and the entire town—goes up in smoke?
Up in Smoke is a Jack Reynolds contemporary fantasy novelette. If you like flawed characters up against high stakes in plots with shades of the fantastical, you’ll love this short fast-paced story.
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This listing is for an eBook.
Excerpt:
Jack rounded a corner, but his headlights illuminated the creature in the lane too late to do anything but swerve. Not enough. He nicked the animal with the driver’s side headlight.
Fighting to regain control, he cursed and slammed on the brakes. He pulled over to the side of the highway, fetched a flashlight from the glove box, and got out to see what he’d hit.
Since Ptarmigan nestled into the toes of the foothills and he lived on a small acreage around the base of Mardell Mountain, hitting wildlife on his commute was a constant danger, and one he was usually more wary of. The shattered headlight and dented hood and grill said “small deer,” and he cursed again. This old beast was probably worth less than what it would cost to repair it, and his insurance company would probably just rather write him a cheque for the truck’s value. He turned and shone the light back down the lane toward the inert dark lump in the middle of the highway. It wasn’t big enough to be a deer and the shape was wrong, too round in the middle, too long. Maybe it was a wildcat? He couldn’t remember ever hearing of anyone hitting a cougar on the highway—they were usually too canny—but it was too big to be anything else. Maybe it was a deer after all.
Cautiously, he approached the animal. It wasn’t moving, but every so often, it would make a pitiful clicking sound in its throat. With every step, his eyes got wider and his mouth got dryer. Instead of hooves and fur and ears, it had claws and scales and horned browbones extending back from a small, pointed snout marked by two tiny slits for nostrils. Two leathery wings extended from the creature’s back—and one appeared to be broken.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered.” Jack stared down at what, according to every fantasy tale ever invented, was obviously a dragon—small for a dragon, but he couldn’t think of anything else to call it. It blinked up at him from golden eyes split with a band of black, seeming anything but threatening. It was smaller than he’d thought from a distance, too, no bigger than his German Shepherd. He squatted down beside it and laid a hesitant hand on its shoulder. Its skin was soft and dry like a snake’s. It followed his actions with its eyes, but seemed to be in too much pain to shy away. It seemed calmed by his touch.
“One thing’s for certain,” he muttered, examining the charcoal-coloured hide that blended with the dark asphalt. “You’re not green.”
Content Levels:
Equivalent movie rating of 14A for violence, moderate profanity, and intense themes of animal testing, human trafficking, and slavery.
Book Details:
Format: eBook
Genre: Cryptid adventure thriller, light science fiction, speculative eco-thriller
Length: 13k words; 48 pages
Reading time: about 1 hour
First published: March 2019 (in Constellate eZine)
Release date: September 4, 2019
Re-released by: My Secret Wish Publishing
ISBN (ebook): 978-0-9947364-9-9
