Frank Talaber
Bio
I believe in whacking a reader upside the head, toss them screaming into the book, and just when they think they are starting to figure things out toss a curveball. they say that you don't have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps.
Stories (16/0)
The Joining
Chapter Two Barely an hour after dealing with Jake, Samuel buzzed Carol, this time hopefully in response to her instructions to alert her to a particular wedding party’s arrival and not because of another naked emergency at the front desk. She strode out of her office, her eyes sweeping across the newly redecorated lobby in admiration. The Fairmont Victoria was definitely five-star, all the way from the deep green Berber carpet on its lobby floor up to the multi-tiered chandelier and its quarter of a million crystals in the middle of the grey, gold and marine blue ceiling. Amazing what sixty million bucks can do.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Criminal
A Lion Prowls Tonight
A Lion Prowls Tonight One enters the lion’s den with great trepidation. Even confined behind bars, in manacles, this remorseless killing machine was a sight to behold. Restless, he padded back and forth as I entered his territory, his space, and worst of all, his rules.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Criminal
Cinnamon Hearts by the Vedder
Cinnamon Hearts by the Vedder I sat with granddad on the edge of the Vedder River in Chilliwack, our fishing rods dangled in water moving by with a slow measured pace on a hot summer day. We hadn’t a bite on our lines yet, but one of the first things I learned about fishing from Gramps was that it didn’t matter if you never caught anything. "That wasn't the point," he’d say.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Families
I’ll Always Hate Zucchini
I’ll Always Hate Zucchini “Drop the zucchini and run,” said my mother, before we lost her on that first night of our holidays in Mexico, “it’s the only thing I can do.” I was ten at the time and had poked my head around the corner, thinking everyone else was asleep as the cursed vegetable rolled on the ground.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Families
Full Moon Madness
Full Moon Madness Drumbeats, hearts melting. Your memory haunts the corridors of my sequestered dreams, where silhouettes of mountains fill the horizon and tinkles of orchestrated mewlings shatter the chill of a full moon night in northern British Columbia. A land I swore I’d never caress again, especially on All Hallows Eve, the only night these mystical doorways can be traversed. A dimension where nothing is real and everything revolves around dreamtime perception. The realm of the witch called Ximena.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Futurism
Life’s Ruts
Life’s Ruts Tears streak down my face as I struggle awake to stop the incessant beeping. “Just a horrible dream,” I tell myself. I reach to feel the comforting warmth of my still-sleeping wife before rising. Blood red neon informs me it is five-o-eight, July second. The day after Canada’s birthday.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Horror
Azrael’s Whispers
Azrael’s Whispers Desecraters of tombs, looters plucking at baubles, that’s what we were. Crowbars levered at nails screeching in protest like babies torn from their mother's womb as we tore at the boards erected to bar entrance to this once-hallowed ground. I stared at rust flows etching down cedar planks, outlining the vestiges of the Catholic cross that once stood over the doorway. White paint crumbled, graying under the oppressive touch of the sun’s heat, only to be swept away by the breath of wind and rain’s caress to dim lands of memory’s fading passages. Haphazardly nailed plywood concealed stained-glass windows that once danced with the colors of heaven. None of us knew when this old angel of grace had been closed up, but I felt the whispers singing by my as the old doors creaked open.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Horror
Introducing Mr. S. Claus
Introducing Mr. S. Claus His contorted face will haunt the rest of my life, they all do, as his blood splatters adorned the wall in a macabre painting adding to the festive colors of the yuletide season. Making sure my contract was fulfilled I pumped two more silenced bullets into his body. The mob didn’t hire amateurs to take out those they needed to have disposed of, and with a six-figure contract I wasn’t about to make a mistake. I’d done this enough times to know not to take chances.
By Frank Talaber4 years ago in Futurism
