Smith's Monthly #21 Read online

  Copyright Information

  Smith’s Monthly Issue #21

  All Contents copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Cover and interior design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing

  Cover art copyright © by Philcold/Dreamstime.com

  “Introduction: Answering a Question” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith

  “Just Shoot Me Now” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Hugolacasse/Dreamstime.com

  “Black Betsy” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Photoeuphoria/Dreamstime.com

  An Easy Shot copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Fotoslaz/Dreamstime.com

  “The Romance Novel Challenge” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Elena Efimova/Dreamstime.com

  “My Socks Rolled Down” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art Macleoddesigns/Dreamstime.com

  Melody Ridge: A Thunder Mountain Novel copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Philcold/Dreamstime.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in the fiction in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  CONTENTS

  Short Stories

  Just Shoot Me Now!: A Poker Boy Story

  Black Betsy: A Jukebox Story

  The Romance Novel Challenge

  My Socks Rolled Down

  Full Novel

  Melody Ridge: A Thunder Mountain Novel

  Serial Novel

  An Easy Shot: A Golf Thriller (Part 4 of 8)

  Nonfiction

  Introduction: Answering a Question

  Subscribe to Smith’s Monthly

  Copyright Information

  Full Table of Contents

  Introduction

  ANSWERING A QUESTION

  I wrote jukebox short stories, as I called them, for over thirty years. I set the stories in a small bar called the Garden Lounge that was owned by a really nice guy named Radley Stout. Just Stout to all his friends.

  The jukebox had a special science fiction power. It could take a listener of a song played on the jukebox back to a memory.

  Physically back to the memory.

  And that person could then, in the few minutes of the song, change their life.

  My first jukebox story was published in Night Cry Magazine, the sister magazine to the Twilight Zone Magazine, in 1987. That was a very long time ago.

  And I had written and not published two jukebox stories before that.

  Over the years, I wrote more jukebox stories and sold them.

  “Jukebox Gifts” was published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and got me award nominations and a movie option. I even published a jukebox story in the Jukebox Collector Magazine, the only piece of fiction the magazine ever published.

  As the years went by, I kept wondering about the origin of the jukebox, about those mysterious parts inside it that allowed it to take listeners to a memory. Stout, my character who owned the jukebox, never wanted to open it up and look at the strange equipment.

  As the author, I wasn’t ready to look inside yet either.

  But I always considered the jukebox stories pure science fiction.

  I just hadn’t figured out the science to the jukebox.

  Then a couple years ago, for the pages of this magazine, I started a new time travel series with a first book called Thunder Mountain. Again, pure science fiction, and in the Thunder Mountain series I actually explained the time travel with physics and math.

  After Melody Ridge in this issue, I now have seven Thunder Mountain novels in the series. They all stand alone, but I think it would be fun for a reader to start with Thunder Mountain and read them from the start all the way through.

  So what does Melody Ridge have to do with the jukebox stories?

  Finally, after almost thirty years of writing jukebox stories, I wrote the jukebox origin story and that origin is Melody Ridge.

  I finally got the courage to open up the jukebox and take a look at what made it work.

  To me, this doesn’t feel like an end of anything, but actually, now with the origin known, I can write even more jukebox stories as the mood strikes.

  And I hope to keep writing Thunder Mountain short stories and novels as well.

  So I hope you enjoy Melody Ridge and the other stories in this issue.

  As a writer, I am very proud that I finally figured out a puzzle that had me stymied for almost thirty years.

  —Dean Wesley Smith

  July 6, 2015

  Lincoln City, Oregon

  Poker Boy wants nothing more than to be left alone in a good game of poker. But a cherub circles overhead in the poker room wanting to talk.

  And Poker Boy knows this cherub and knows the little guy represents trouble.

  Even worse, the question the cherub asks Poker Boy could change a lot of futures.

  How really, really annoying.

  JUST SHOOT ME NOW!

  A Poker Boy Story

  ONE

  The little jerk cherub just kept fluttering around near the ceiling of the poker room at Spirit Winds Casino. He acted like a bird trapped inside a small room with no windows. I know he was trying to get my attention, but the last thing I wanted to deal with tonight was a cherub.

  And actually he had a couple small birds with very long beaks with him and they seemed to be flying in a figure-eight pattern, just missing each other as they moved around and around over my head.

  The game was as good as a five-ten no limit gets. Three tourists who were drinking and wanting to have the action, two weak regulars, and two professionals. Plus me.

  I had died and gone to heaven, cherub and all, it seemed. I was already three hundred up and the night was still young. Nothing can get my blood going more than a high-action poker game with players I know I can beat.

  But nothing can put a player off his game more than a circling cherub.

  I glanced up at the cherub and his two bird friends as I tossed a seven-four off-suit into the muck. No one else in the room could see the little idiot fluttering around the lights. He had golden hair and wore a white cloth wrapped around him that looked more like a diaper in places than anything else. The cloth started at one ankle and ended up over his shoulder.

  His white wings were fluttering constantly like a humming bird’s and he had on the traditional fake cherub halo that seemed to glow bright yellow. They could take those halo things off like a hat. He was about three feet tall at most and wore no shoes.

  I even knew this one’s name. Chadwick.

  Chadwick the Cherub.

  I had dealt with him once before on an assignment to help out a woman who thought she was dying and had started to give away her vast fortune. It turned out old Chadwick was just showing himself to her like a bad flasher, making her think she was seeing an angel with a very small penis.

  He was sent to cherub counseling after I stopped him from forcing the poor woman to end up broke and insane and permanently put off of sex.

  Now it seemed he was back. And was just as annoying. At least this time he was keeping his cloth diaper where it belonged.

  I tried to ignore him again for another hand, but ignoring a kid-sized mythical creature fluttering over your head is hard to do.


  Finally I couldn’t handle it anymore. I flipped into the muck a couple suited connectors and froze time.

  Actually I didn’t really freeze time. No one could do that. But I did have the power to step between moments in time. It felt like I had frozen time because all the sounds of the casino stopped, and everyone froze in that moment.

  Everyone but me and Chadwick.

  His two bird friends remained frozen as well up near the ceiling. And some bird poop was stopped in midair headed for a spot right in front of my chips. Great, just great.

  I stood and looked up at the cherub who had stopped flying around and was just hovering, looking down at me with a smile.

  “All right, let’s get to this,” I said.

  He came down and hovered in front of me, his white wings moving so fast that they looked like they were standing still. His smile was a cross between a worried grin and a smirk showing how happy he was I had come around.

  “Nice trick on this time thing,” he said, indicating the frozen people around us. “I thought only gods could do this.”

  “Just park it and take off that stupid halo,” I said.

  He stopped and stood on the nearest empty poker table. He folded his wings back behind him and stuffed the halo into his white cloth diaper strip where it wrapped up and over his shoulder like a sling.

  “First off,” I said, not even trying to hide how annoyed I was, “does Cherry know you are here?”

  Cherry was the head cherub and one of the nicer creatures I had ever had the pleasure to meet.

  Chadwick nodded. “She’s the one who sent me.”

  His voice was deep and rough, not at all like what his image would project. He sounded more like a cigar-smoking old man. Most cherubs were thousands of years old. My boss, Stan the God of Poker had told me that Cherry was far older than he was which meant she was thousands and thousands of years old at least.

  More than likely Chadwick was a few thousand years old as well.

  “And I can check that?” I asked, calling Chadwick’s bluff.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He wasn’t lying. I could tell a lie on a cherub’s face from across the room. It seemed the sweet look didn’t give them much chance to lie, especially to poker players. Cherry actually had suggested he come talk to me.

  Great. Just great. A perfect night just ruined. Could someone just shoot me now?

  TWO

  “So what do you need from me?” I asked, almost afraid of the question’s answer.

  Good old Chadwick looked me direct in the eyes with those round, innocent-looking brown eyes of his and said, “I want to be part of your team.”

  I actually managed to not break out into complete gales of laughter.

  The team he was talking about consisted of three other superheroes and one god that helped me solve major cases. We often saved the world.

  Me and my girlfriend and sidekick, Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl, led the team. Patty was a superhero working in the hospitality side of the world.

  The third member was Screamer, a man able to read minds and connect minds at times. Screamer was a superhero who worked in the law enforcement branch of the gods.

  The fourth member was The Smoke, a part dog, part human who was a superhero working for the gods of animals.

  And then there was Stan, the God of Poker, my boss. He was our connection to Laverne, Lady Luck herself.

  And now Chadwick the Flasher Cherub wanted to join the team.

  Somehow I kept most of my poker face locked on and smiled and asked him the next question.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Oh, I personally don’t,” Chadwick said. “But Cherry thinks it would be a good idea for me to start doing something constructive with my time now that I am mostly done with my counseling sessions.”

  I sort of stared at the chubby little cherub for a moment, trying to understand what I had just heard.

  I must be dreaming. I had to be. I was at such a perfect table, a perfect poker game, the kind of game that just didn’t happen every night. And now I was dealing with a converted flasher who wanted to join my team, but who really didn’t want to join my team.

  And a bird was about to poop on my poker table.

  This had to be a nightmare, a really bad one.

  I had no idea what to do.

  I wanted to just laugh and send him back to Cherry, but my little voice was telling me that wouldn’t be a good idea. There had to be some politics involved with all this and for a superhero to get involved with politics among the different gods was never a good idea.

  I looked at Chadwick again.

  “What can it hurt?” he asked, shrugging.

  I couldn’t begin to answer that, since most of the time that the team worked together on a problem, the entire world was at stake.

  I looked up at the ceiling and shouted, “Stan!”

  I needed help and I needed it fast. Before I said something I would regret and maybe cause a rift between different branches of gods, as if there weren’t enough of those already.

  Stan appeared beside me, inside the frozen time instant I had created. Stan wore his normal gray sweater, dark slacks, and blank expression. He was slightly shorter than I was and looked like any person you might see on the street. As the God of Poker, he could blend in anywhere and it was impossible to read any emotion on his face unless he wanted you to, or didn’t care.

  “Hi, Stan,” Chadwick said, waving a chubby little hand at the God of Poker.

  “I was afraid of this,” Stan said.

  “That’s not making me feel any better,” I said. “Chadwick here wants to join my team.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Stan said.

  “But he really doesn’t,” I said. “Do you, Chadwick?”

  “Oh, hell no,” the cherub said. “It sounds like far too much work. It was just Cherry’s idea.”

  “You know what I told you about swearing,” a woman’s voice said from above us.

  I looked up as Cherry fluttered to a stop on the table next to a suddenly worried Chadwick.

  She looked almost identical to Chadwick, except her golden hair was longer and the diaper-like cloth also covered her chest. Her face was thinner as well and she had a beauty to her that took my breath away.

  “Sorry,” Chadwick said, looking down.

  “Nice seeing you again, Cherry,” Stan said.

  “I agree,” I said, bowing slightly to her. “You look more radiant than ever.”

  She smiled and I could feel the warmth filling the air around me. “There’s a real reason a lot of the gods like you, Poker Boy,” she said.

  “He’s a charmer all right,” Stan said, shaking his head. “So tell me why you think it would be a good idea for Chadwick here to join Poker Boy’s team?”

  “Keep Chadwick focused and out of trouble,” Cherry said. “He needs something to hold his attention.”

  “Besides human women,” Stan said before I could. Thankfully.

  “Yes,” Cherry said. “To be honest.”

  I knew now how to solve the problem. I just had to find good old Chadwick something to do. I had no idea what, but anything was better than him hanging around my team.

  “You know we seldom put the team together,” I said to Cherry. “In fact, it has been almost two months since the entire team has needed to be together for a problem.”

  “Oh,” Cherry said, the smile vanishing from her face. “That’s not going to work. I thought you met and worked every day together.”

  “Not even every month,” Stan said, backing up my play.

  Chadwick actually looked relieved. Cherry looked completely devastated for some reason.

  I needed to come up with an idea and come up with it quick.

  I sort of turned to Chadwick. “Besides human women, what do you like?”

  “I don’t even like them that much,” Chadwick said.

  Cherry turned slightly away and rolled her eyes, which made Stan g
rin.

  Then Cherry said, “His mother married a Putti, so there is a lot of the old Cupid blood in him.”

  “So, Chadwick,” I said. “What exactly are your powers that would help my team?”

  I figured that if I could learn what he could do, I might be able to come up with a way to get him busy with something else. Anything else.

  Chadwick looked annoyed, but Cherry looked at him and he took a deep breath and turned to face me directly.

  “I can fly. I can be invisible. I can pass through any wall. I am an expert spy and can remember everything to the word anyone says that I am listening to and report that back exactly. Because of my father, I am an expert with the magical bow and arrow, but am not allowed to carry one because of an incident a number of decades back with a movie star and a president.”

  With that he glared at Cherry who only shrugged. “You tried to interfere with human events. You will serve your sentence to the fullest.”

  Chadwick just shook his head and looked down.

  “How fast can you fly?” I asked.

  “I can be in Las Vegas faster than you can jump there with your teleporting superpower.”

  Both Stan and Cherry nodded at that.

  I was surprised. Now that I was actually thinking about it, there was no doubt Chadwick would be a good addition to the team on some problems. None of us had the abilities he had.

  I glanced at Stan who actually looked like he was thinking the same thing.

  “Chadwick,” I said, “honestly I think we can use you at times on our team. We don’t use every member every mission, but I think your powers would add to our team on certain missions.”

  Stan was nodding.

  Cherry was looking surprised, and Chadwick looked shocked.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Chadwick asked.