Golly geepers!

Somebody in Galveston sure is interested in little ol' moi!

From my Backsass visitor log:

This calls for a celebration!  How about a Youtube video of Glenn Campbell singin' Galveston?

Naaa. I'd rather hear Rodney Franklin...

 

HATE-FEST MARATHON at Crossroads Flog

Flogger hatred of VaFlaggers has reached a new high -- or would that be a new low? -- as they wallow in hate of their own spewing...for somebody who has done nothing to  them. The usual orgiastic joy in denigration is on conspicuous display with their comments about the intelligence of the people they hate. What does that do for them? Normal, healthy, decent people don't need to slosh around in such calumny in order to feel good about themselves. 

Yes, I have to wonder about the visceral hatred expressed by BParks for people who have never done a thing to her. Ditto Kristen Konate, who put her own address on Facebook and then accused two VaFlaggers of doing it -- a false accusation repeated by Brooks D. Simpson.

What would cause somebody to do such a thing? I have to tell ya, folks, I cannot relate to it at all. It is truly mystifying.

I might understand it if the VaFlaggers had attempted to hurt these people -- to ruin their reputations, to damage them financially, threaten them in some way. But what have Susan or Tripp done to BParks to earn the spitting, hissing, venomous hatred she belches at Crossroads?

Where are Susan's 133 posts fomenting hatred for Brooks D. Simpson the way he has been fomenting hatred for her, attempting to incite some lunatic to do -- well, goodness knows what would satisfy Simpson in that regard. Suffice it do say there are NO posts from Susan lying about him, harassing him, persecuting him, fomenting hatred for him, and attempting to incite some lunatic to action.

(And no, Simpson, Susan Hathaway doesn't read your feculent blog. People -- including myself -- sometimes relay information to her about filth, crap and slime you have posted about her and the VaFlaggers. But I suspect the number of times she's actually visited your repulsive blog could be counted on the fingers of one hand.)

What's truly fascinating is that they are so caught up in the pleasure of their hate-wallow, they don't realize they are showing to the world just how depleted of decency and integrity they are. I've written about Simpson exhibiting his lack of integrity numerous times ... but it's not just him. Does BParks not understand she's showing the world her lack of ethics when she says, "Don’t they know we have eyes everywhere? We’ve infiltrated their groups, Facebook pages, blogs etc. Nothing gets past us." I simply note that if they are infiltrating with false profiles, they are violating Facebook rules, and thus exhibiting again their lack of integrity.

And does she, and all the rest of them, not realize that decency and integrity trumps intelligence? The Nazis were smart, ya know?

Now ... I'm the first to admit I there may be things I don't know that would have a bearing on this circumstance. So, if anybody knows of something harmful or objectionable the VaFlaggers have done to the floggers and/or floggerettes, that would justify, or even halfway explain, flogger/floggerette odium,  please, post in in the comments. What evil thing has Tripp done to Andy Hall, Brooks Simpson, Kevin Levin or any of their followers to cause such an outpouring of sheer meanness for him

Similarly, what has Susan Hathaway done to Brooks Simpson to earn the animosity, the lies, the harassment, the bullying, the persecution he has been aiming at her for TWO FLIPPIN YEARS. WHAT HAS SHE DONE TO HIM THAT JUSTIFIES HIS HATE AND HARASSMENT,  AND HIS EGGING ON HIS FOLLOWERS TO THE SAME HATRED?

Yes, these are rhetorical questions, because EVERYONE KNOWS, including the haters, harassers, and persecutors at Crossroads and other flogs, that the VaFlaggers have done NOTHING to Brooks D. Simpson or any of his demented followers.

Critiques Begun on My Novella

Prologue from Love in Smallfoot Alley has been critiqued, and that means rewrites are next. The way the crit group works, it takes forever to get a chapter critted, so I'm shopping around for another group.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of the protags. I can't figure out whether they be white or off-white....

Chris "Kit" Dupree
Misogynistic, semi-reclusive, blind to his own loneliness.

Leslie Hoffman
Optimistic, genial, solitary but not by choice

Circumstance brings them together -- and puts them in danger

Kit's Theme -- Fingerprints  -- by Larry Carlton
 

Leslie's Theme -- Love and Paragraphs -- by Chris Standring

Da Badness of Whiteness and Off-whiteness

Following Simpson's ridiculous post about Lee-Jackson weekend in Lexington, Diversity King Patrick Young left a comment at the Crossroads flog:

"Interesting to see the wide diversity of the marchers who ranged from white to off-white."

I think we'll be waiting until hell freezes over for him to tell us what's wrong with that. I mean, there has to be SOMEthing wrong with it, or at least significant about it, for him to make a comment, right?

So his concept of diversity is .... color. Yes, that IS interesting. I thought it was food....

Okay, all you white and off-white folks who attended the festivities and commemoration, can you fill me in on some things?

How many fights were reported over the weekend? How many arrests of visitors/marchers? How many injuries/visits to the emergency room? How much rioting? How many rapes? How many plate glass windows broken? How many stores robbed? How many people robbed? How much vandalism? How many vehicles stolen? How many tires slashed?

Any other mischief I've neglected to ask about? Don't be shy, don't hold back. Inquiring minds wanna know! And since it seems unlikely that Mr. Young will tell us what's wrong with white and off-white gatherings, we'll have to try to pin it down ourselves....

Have at it, folks!

  UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE  UPDATE 

We have received the statistics of the number of crimes identified above that were commited by white and off-white marcher attendees of  Lee-Jackson Day in Lexington, Virginia. Many thanks to the person who supplied the info:

Fights ..........................................0
Arrests ....................................... 0
ER trips ...................................... 0
Riots. .......................................... 0
Rapes .......................................... 0
Plate glass broken ........................0
Robberies ....................................0
Vandalism ....................................0
Vehicles stolen. ............................0
Tires slashed ................................0

I guess, whatever is so mean, bad and nasty about white and off-white people getting together with each other, it doesn't seem to be the sort of criminal activity one sometimes finds occurring in situations where crowds gather.

Living Rent-Free? Or Jackhammering?

"...I figured there would be marching and singing and pictures and videos of people marching and singing and meeting old friends. Just like last year. I was not disappointed. However, apparently I was on the minds of some of the participants. As Susan Hathaway, leader of the Virginia Flaggers, declared, “I imagine the great press coverage, turnout, and that inspiring VMI photo and narrative has him twisted ALL up in knots.”

"Nice to know that I’m living rent-free in your head, Susan." ~Brooks Simpson

Absolutely ludicrous.

This is the man who has attempted to JACKHAMMER his way into VaFlagger consciousness with lies, ridicule, harassment, persecution and incitement of others, via 131 -- that's ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE -- blog posts and/or comments on his own flog since December 29, 2011. (See updated list of Simpson's obsessive flog posts in the left sidebar. <--------  Scroll down.)

And this does not count his comments on other flogs.

Whether with outright lies or innuendo or ridicule or attempted smears by imaginary association, he has done his best to hurt, harass, bully and persecute people who have done him no wrong.

He has falsely accused -- or at least insinuated -- Tripp Lewis of child abuse. He has implied conspiracy in the Rob Walker matter or, at the very lease, ridiculed the VaFlaggers for not being omniscient.He contacted the Richmond Police about the Walker incicent -- just like it was any of his business -- looking for something he could use to stir up hatred for the VaFlaggers. He has plastered information about Susan's employer on his filthy, slimy flog, apparently in the hopes that she would lose her job.  And he has LIED, LIED, LIED, LIED, LIED about Matt Heimbach and the VaFlaggers.

He has joined with deceitful persecutors of the VaFlaggers in the Richmond area regarding the I-95 flag project. He has attempted to stir up hatred for the flaggers by namecalling them, labeling Barry and Grayson, (who are, by all accounts I've seen, decent, honorable and good-hearted men) as Susan's henchmen (and who really believes he was applying the third usage?), accusing them of putting Kristen Konate's address online WHEN SHE HERSELF WAS THE ONE WHO DID THAT. He has tried to sic the Richmond media on them. He regularly switched back and forth between calling them ineffective and implying they are dangrous racists.

Why? I've asked my blog visitors to offer an opinion as to the motives of floggers and floggerettes. Now I'm inviting replies to a question specifically about Brooks D. Simpson.

What is the motive behind his obsession? What does he want the result of his VaFlagger flogging to be?

I will tell you what I think -- and this is solely my opinion.

I think he wants to see them come to harm. I think he would love to see some crazed leftist, goaded by criticism like that which he spews forth, attempt to hurt them. Either physically, by violence, or to cost them their jobs, ruin their ability to make a living, or to harm their reputation. Any sort of damage, harm, injury, pain they could experience would please him, I sincerely believe. But I think physical violence is his secret heart's desire. Or can you really call it secret, in light of 131 obsessive, sliming, lying blog posts?

Femme Natale

The more I see of academic types online, the more I think they either aren't very smart, or aren't very ethical. Take, for example, Susan Natale, whom I identify by her last name to distinguish between her and Susan Hathaway, VaFlagger Extraordinaire.

I don't know how Natale pronounces her surname, but I pronounce it "Natalie" -- as in Natalie Wood, the actress, because Natale is such a drama queen. I don't think she'll ever make it up to the level of BParks and LibertyLamprey, but maybe with practice, she'll get closer. The primary difference is the type of anger leading to the drama. With BParks and Lamprey, it's heat -- far more heat than light, while Natale's appoach and delivery is glacial.

In a comment she recently left at Simpson's Crossroads flog, she quoted this recent blog post by me here at Backsass: http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2014/01/more-fun-than-bparks_22.html

Apparently date stamps on internet posts and comments go right over her pretty little academic head. What's amazing is that she actually has a LINK to the TRUTH, but LIES about it.

No, no, no, no sugah...  You don't have to visit a site to copy a quote from it if the quote has been sitting on your hard drive for over three years. What happened on January 13, 2014 is that I made a graphic meme from the quote and posted it on Backsass, here:http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-thought-to-ponder.html

But for those to whom the truth means something, I requested permission to use the quote from the person who posted it at The Spearhead (screen handle, Jabberwocky), on July 20, 2010, not January 13, 2014.

Jabberwocky replied the next day, July 21, 2010:

I did a copy/paste on that very day, made it a rich text document and saved it to my hard drive under the name JabberwockyQuote.rtf. Miraculously, it survived a couple of hard drive crashes and OS reinstalls, as most (though not all) of my data did -- with the original save date intact. Here's a screen shot of the directory it's stored in, made today:

What happened on January 13, 2014, as already noted, was my creation of a graphic meme using the quote by Justin Brown, identifying him by the name he gave me permission to use, and noting the date he posted it online. Here's a screenshot of the directory where the image file is stored, and the date I created and saved the jpg.

And here is Justin's quote all gussied up as a graphic meme --

While we're at it, let's note another of Natale's lies. In commenting on this meme at the Crossroads flog, she sed -- 

January 13, 2014
Susan

It is a tad concerning that Connie’s new quote of the week comes from a man who claims that he wants to be the next Paul Elam. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paul_Elam

Well, no, Justin didn't say that, did he?  He said, "I'm prepared to make this movement part of my real life and actual identity, like Paul Elam."  That doesn't say he wants to be the next Paul Elam. Frankly, folks, unless she can produce a link to where he actually said that -- used those words -- that  he wants to be the next Paul Elam, it is an outright lie to claim he did. What he said in this comment means he is prepared to participate in the MRM using his real name, like Paul Elam has done -- not a pseudonym... you know, like "Jabberwocky" or "LibertyLamp" or "Spelunker."

So, what do y'all think? Is all the untruthfulness in the floggosphere deliberate or inadvertent?

Background Reading (use your browser's back function to return here):

My Comments at The Spearhead   ~   My Time in the Manosphere
My E-mail to Paul Elam
___________________________________________________

   UPDATE    UPDATE    UPDATE    UPDATE    

This isn't so much an update as it is an addendum for clarification. As I have written earlier, I perceive that the men's rights movement has its extremist wackos just as feminism has. My exact words were "fanatics, extremists and crazies." My exchange with Jabberwocky/Justin Brown appears in a comment thread that follows a guest post by Paul Elam at The Spearhead. Many of Paul's ideas are what I consider to be extremist, and there's not much he espouses that I agree with, primarily because I perceive them to violate the teachings of Christianity. Many of my differences with feminism are based on the same thing -- its violations of Christian beliefs. That and its basic dishonesty....

Arizona State Has a Racism Issue

No! Really?

So sez the Rev. Jarrett Maupin, an Arizona civil rights activist at a news conference after the story broke that a fraternity at ASU had held a "Racist MLK Party."

But-but-but-but didn't Simpson tell us just days ago how "diverse" the student body is at ASU? Why, to hear him tell it, it's a paragon of diversity out there in the desert, a veritable paradise of multiculturalism. Never mind that there are three times more WHITE faculty members than there are non-white members. We're only supposed to look at that lovely diverse student body.

But wait! What good its it to have this wonderfully diverse student body --  if they're a buncha scum-suckin' racists?

Where do these kids learn such blatant racism? Perhaps from an educational establishment that preaches diversity and multiculturalism, but then puts together a faculty that is 75% WHITE?

And don't you wonder how many of these little Tau Kappa Epsilon white supremacists have found themselves in history classrooms taught by none other than Brooks D. Simpson? 

Even if they're not in his classes, doesn't he have a share of the responsibility of seeing to it that this kind of scum-sucking racism does not rear its ugly, lily-white head on that sunnily diverse campus where he is supposedly such a force to be reckoned with? Obviously, he's fallin' down on the job. He needs to stand up, take responsibility for this, and vow to do better....

Fox News reports, "ASU Frat Suspended After Racist MLK Party"
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/22/asu-frat-suspended-after-racist-mlk-party/

Benson Minute: MLK's legacy lost on ASU frat
http://www.azcentral.com/video/3088023823001

Arizona State University Frat Celebrates MLK Day By Being Extraordinarily Racist (VIDEO)
http://www.azcentral.com/video/3088023823001

Once again, the true, hypocritical nature of leftism erupts for all the world to see. And we begin to see the reason behind flogger obsession with evilizin' the South and bashing the Confederacy... Diverting attention away from the white supremacist left, the scum-sucking racist educational establishment.

It's Not History....

Simpson makes a post about Grant and gets 31 comments. So he immediately makes another post about Grant and gets .... 1 comment.

This will never do.

So his next post is about Jerry Dunford. He figuratively holds Mr.Dunford immobile, arms behind his back, so floggerettes can line up and punch Mr. Dunford in the gut. Figuratively, of course.

For us, as they say, it's not history, it's heritage.
For them, as we say, it's not history, it's hatred.

Who Approves the Merger...

... of the Museum of the Confederacy with the civil war whatchamacallit at Tredegar, and the name change?

Floggers and floggerettes who hate the Confederacy, and likeminded PC indoctrinees.

The reason they approve is because it will destroy the museum's name and mission, and replace them with something else. The aim is no longer the memorialization of the Confederacy and her soldiers, but their demonization. The merger will greatly enhance that aim.

If the merger supported and strengthened the original purpose of the MoC, these folks would be spitting nails.

More Fun THAN BParks

I'm talking about a new floggerette in Simpson's peanut gallery. New to me, anyway. She posts under the name Susan Natale and I have no reason to doubt this is her real name. I will refer to her mostly as Natale, however, to distinguish her from VaFlagger Extraordinaire Susan Hathaway.

Judging by her comments, Natale is a feminist, and she doesn't much like me --  not only because I'm not a feminist, but because I am quite adamantly opposed to feminism ... although I am also quite certain that her concept of feminism and mine are very different. Then there's the little matter of my being a neo-Confederate (which is also likely defined very differently by each of us). But her biggest problem with me is the feminism thing.

At least twice in comments at Simpson's flog (that I know of) she's mentioned me and Paul Elam in the same comment. For those who don't know, Paul Elam is a big kahuna in men's rights blogging -- founder and publisher of A Voice for Men. But beyond a brief, nominal internet acquaintanceship several years ago, I am not connected with him or his blog in any way. I don't regularly read it, or any other men's rights sites or blogs, anymore.

Several years ago, when I was researching sexual harassment for the writing of Southern Man, I came across a blog titled The Spearhead -- and with that as my jumping off point, I went on a rollicking ride through the men's rights movement, online version. I had considered feminism to be anti-religion and destructive dating back to my first acquaintance with it back in high school. But I had never considered just how damaging to men it was until these blogs opened my eyes.

What I learned is that the men's rights movement has its excesses -- its fanatics, extremists and crazies, just like feminism, and the concept of men's rights runs the gamut from the Christian view of manhood to PUA/Game. But I also saw they had legitimate grievances, and I found many things I agreed with them about. I read the forums at AntiMisandry (even posted, very infrequently).  I read sites like The National Coalition  for Men, Dr. Helen, Hawaiian Libertarian, In Mala Fide and others. I knew what "MGTOW" meant. I knew who Roissey was.

At the time, Elam's A Voice for Men was just getting started. Since he and I had exchanged a few comments on other sites and blogs, I emailed him and asked him if he would read and review Southern Man, which I described to him as anti-feminist. He said he would read it, but also said it likely would not be compatible with his views, so he could not commit to a review. I mailed him a paperback version.

I didn't hear anything from him and no review showed up on his new blog. I checked for  it a few times, and took the opportunity to look around his blog. And in so doing, I came to understand why he didn't review my novel.

The last scene in the book probably best sets up the explanation.

     At home, Troy headed for the bedroom, suddenly drained, both emotionally and physically, and sleepy. He took off his shoes and coat and stretched out on the bed fully clothed. He drifted off only to be half awakened moments later by a soft, rustling sound somewhere in the room. Coming closer to consciousness, he recognized it as whispering. The whispers of his family.
     "He’s already asleep," Patty said. "Let’s let him rest."
     "I’m not asleep," he said, slitting his eyes to see them hovering near the doorway. "Come here to me, all of you."
     They piled into the bed and snuggled next to him. His arms stretched around them and he held them close. His eyes closed and he smiled.
     "Y’all are what I live for."

Best I can tell, this scene depicts the polar opposite of what Paul Elam believes, summed up in this segment of the mission statement of A Voice for Men: Promote a rejection of sex based chivalry in any form or fashion. More elaboration can be found in AVfM's editorial policies, which Elam identifies as his own opinion.  He believes the era of traditional masculinity is over, and the "old world arrangement" is a death trap for most men. His site is "anti-marriage" and supports "post marriage culture." Anti-traditional also means "rejecting  traditional values where they apply to expectations of men...including men’s roles as protectors and providers."

Oops. Southern Man is saturated in sex based chivalry and in promoting men's roles as protectors and providers (but also in promoting women's roles as scripturally submissive wives and mothers). Eh bien... C'est la vie.

I hope Natale won't be too disappointed that Elam and I reside at opposite poles.

As for her comment about "pro-rape friends," I don't have any of those, nor am I "pro-rape" myself.  (Good Lord, what a accusation). I simply retain the intellectual ability to distinguish between rape and not-rape. I know that feminists and leftists in general have a breathtakingly distorted lens when it comes to their viewpoints about rape. I actually had one anti-Confederate tell me once that female slaves would not have been capable of distinguishing between being raped and not being raped.

The feminist view, though, seems to be that the only thing necessary to punish a man for rape is a woman's accusation of it. Even if a man is innocent of the accusation, it creates a horrible trauma for women to acknowledge his innocence and let him go unpunished. I hafta wonder if, when it comes to false accusations of rape against men, whether Natale would agree with Catherine Comins, who argued (in Time Magazine in 2001) that men who are unjustly accused can sometimes gain from the experience.

    "They have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. 'How do I see women?' 'If I didn't violate her, could I have?' 'Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?' Those are good questions."

Or maybe her views are more in line with those of Amanda Marcotte. From Wikipedia: :

Marcotte attracted criticism in January 2007 for her views on the March 2006 Duke lacrosse case, when three students were accused of rape; the students were charged, but the charges were later dropped and the players charged were pronounced innocent by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.[18] Marcotte declared on her blog that people who defended the accused were "rape-loving scum."[19] One comment in particular attracted attention:

    I've been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good f------ g-- is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and f----- her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.[20]

Does Natal perhaps agree with Wendy Murphy, who famously told us,  “Stop with the presumption of innocence. It doesn’t apply to Duke ... I’m really tired of people suggesting that you’re somehow un-American if you don’t respect the presumption of innocence, because you know what that sounds like to a victim? Presumption you’re a liar.”

In any case, when I was skating through the MRM, I came across a call by Pierce Harlan of The False Rape Society blog (now called The Community of the Wrongly Accused), seeking writers. I replied, and the upshot was that I wrote about 40 articles on Rape Culture and Gender Feminism for the FRS blog. I'm in the process of putting them online all in one place, and will make sure a link to them is very visible -- for Natale's convenience.

Until I get that done,, here's a sampling for her and other feminists and assorted leftists to get all bent out of shape over:

_________________

The Patriarchy I Grew Up With

Perhaps by now, regular readers of The False Rape Society may be wondering about my adamant opposition to feminism. In the interest of disclosure, here's a bit of background.

I grew up surrounded by a sea of good, honorable, gentlemanly men (and very good women, too, despite their not being feminists) -- men of principle, high-minded men who exercised self-control and who had huge hearts full of love, men who continuously did good things for others, and not for praise or honor, because most of it was unknown and unacknowledged except to a few others.

These were ordinary men untouched by celebrity, unacknowledged by the world -- men who lived quiet lives in small towns in the South, who worked at a variety of occupations and earned various incomes. Among the hundreds upon hundreds of wonderful, loving men in the churches where my daddy preached when I was growing up, there were a few bad apples; I can count them on my fingers.

The eight or ten bad apples I knew personally are the only men feminism would look at.  It would try to smear all men with the deeds of those few.  It's the same thing with patriarchy. All they want to look at is the bad it "caused." But when it comes to good things...well, look at the way feminists refuse to acknowledge the good men have done, including things that greatly benefited women, and that they would have gotten no other way.

I acknowledge and respect the differences between men and women and I don't denigrate men for being the way God made them. But I don't engage in male-hero worship. I do love, respect and honor men who are loving, respectable and honorable, and even some who aren't, when caught up in circumstances beyond their control. And I don't try to smear all men, or maleness, with the bad deeds of some, as feminism does.

That's why I have so little respect for feminism. I'm much more willing to acknowledge the few good things it has produced for women -- far more than feminists are willing to credit men's accomplishments. But just because some good things resulted from feminist efforts doesn't mean I have to swallow every chunk of bitter falsehood they're trying to cram down my throat.

Like claims of  "rape culture." 

Patriarchy has some bad aspects--it's an institution of flawed humans and cannot help being flawed--but it is not the total evil feminism would have us believe.  I will always be grateful to those wonderful, honorable men of my youth, who showed me the reality of maleness and manhood, and thus inoculated me against the virulence of radical feminism.

More Fun with BParks

Sez B:  (1) Not only did Connie reply to my reply by misunderstanding that she’s failed at everything on her list, (2) she then proudly admits to being all of the deplorable things I listed. (3) How sad that even calling her out on her ‘pretend profession’ is not getting through to her. (4) Take the hint Connie. You’re not a good writer. (5) Your photoshop skills are just below the high school level. (6) Your novel’s subject matter is offensive. (7) Your only supporters and commenters on your blog are fellow racist troglodytes. (8) Take down your disgusting flag. (9) Go away. We always win in the end. (10) All you people are doing is giving us more to mock.

Well, letsee, shall we? Starting from the top:

1. If I had failed everything on my list (of what it takes to write and publish a novel) -- I wouldn't have three novels for sale on Amazon right now, with more on the way. Now, B -- do you mind if I call you B? -- if you had even the slightest confidence of your criticism, you'd quit prattling about something you haven't even read (how much sense does that make, folks?) and you would actually read the book and put a scathing review on Amazon. You don't even have to buy it.  Coupon for a free download from Smashwords is good until February 2 -- or you can read the PDF right in your browser....

To read the novel online, click the PDF link on the left to open the file in your browser. To download an e-book file in a variety of formats for various e-readers, follow the link on the right to Smashwords.  You will have to register, but it's free and easy. Coupon code for free download: CZ38P  Good until Feb 4.
(Note: download at your own risk. Files were malware-free when uploaded, but I have no control over hacker activity or internet glitches.)

      

C'mon, BParks. Don't be shy, don't be scared. Read and review. Make it just as slimy as your lowest level of decency makes possible....

2. Deplorable is in the eye of the beholder, sweetie. I happen to think your lies and leftism are deplorable. So there. Nanner nanner boo boo.

3. Well, I don't have a profession anymore, pretend or otherwise. I used to be a secretary, but I be like retired now.

4. B, "good writer" is relative. I'm not as good as some, but I'm incalculably better than Y-O-U are.

5. I've been paid for my photoshop skills. Have you, B? Show us some of you photoshoppin', hun. Skeered to show it to us?

6. Yep. Love and fidelity in marriage is offensive to leftists, sure enough. Facing adversity with fortitude and without payback is offensive to leftists, sure enough. Doing the right thing is offensive to leftists, sure enough.

7. "Troglodytes." You folks just can't help yourselves, can you? The stuff of which leftist "tolerance" is made: namecalling steeped in hatred. Your twue cuh-wers are showing, B, and they make OURS look good.

8. Take down my flag? LOL!!!

9. Go away? LOL!

10. Mock away, B. That's apparently the most high-brow communication you're capable of.

____________________

More B: "What’s even more scary is I heard a few quotes there that sounded exactly like Connie…'being proud of white dominance…preferring to be with ones own kind…etc' It just goes to show that sick minds think alike."

If BParks were charged with finding where I've mentioned "being proud of white dominance" or having to live in, oh, say, really white Antarctica, she'd have to start learnin' how to build an igloo...

As for "preferring to be with ones own kind" -- all you white floggers and floggerettes who are married to a white spouse, get a divorce immediately -- and marry someone of a different race, ya hear? Do it. Put up or shut up.

(I guess all the white floggers and floggerettes who have white spouses have ... sick minds -- by their own criteria.  In their mad, mindless rush to demonize and lie about others, do they ever THINK about what they're sayin', I wonder?)

Just a Reminder

I am an admirer and supporter of Southern/Confederate heritage in general, and the Virginia Flaggers specifically. I am not a Virginia Flagger. I am not a spokesperson for the Virginia Flaggers. They send me content via email for me to format and upload to their blog. I do not write any of it.

They have made me an honorary VaFlagger due to my voluntarily maintenance of their blog -- and due to my defense of them, on my own blogs and elsewhere, from lies, malicious attacks, harassment, hatred and persecution by floggers and their followers, primarily Brooks D. Simpson.

Most of my information about the VaFlaggers comes from Facebook -- from their group and individual pages -- and other sources on the net.  On a very few occasions, I have contacted members of the VaFlaggers to verify facts or obtain information before writing about it and posting it. But I keep such contact to a minimum, as I am well aware that the demands on their time -- particularly Susan's -- are great, and I am reluctant to encroach on it. I have access to very little information that is not available to the general public.

My writings, which appear on my blogs and elsewhere, are my thoughts, for which I am solely responsible. They originate with me. Simpson's odious attempts to smear the VaFlaggers by attributing my beliefs and writings to them is, in my opinion, a clear (but unsurprising) breach of ethics.

Posted for those who prefer truth to lies, malicious attacks, harassment and persecution.  C.Ward

Tito Knocks One Out of the Park!

" Equality incurs tolerance, and tolerance has become but another word for nihilism.  It's easy to be tolerant, if you don't believe in anything."  ~Tito Perdue

 DECADENCE, speech delivered by Perdue 

at H.L. Mencken Club Conference, November 1, 2013 

This link dedicated to Susan Natale by moi

Seen at the Crossroads flog....

Thelibertylamp:  Isn’t Border Ruffian a Connie sock puppet? Or is it someone else?

Brooks D. Simpson: He’s a resident of Anniston, Alabama, who is too timid to post under his own name.

Hmmmm.... just like Thelibertylamp, huh? Except I don't recall BorderRuffian EVER threatening anybody. Remember this?

"Well, they* should be scared of us, we win at this game, always have and always will. We would like to help put a stop to this flag going up, but we need a little assistance." ~Thelibertylamp

Which brings up a question. What is "winning" and what is "the game" for these people? Or to phrase it differently, what is the point of flogger hatred and flogger vitriol about Southern heritage in general and the VaFlaggers specifically? Is there a point? Is there something they wish it to accomplish? Some goal or end result they are shooting for?





_____________________
*The VaFlaggers

Whiskey Plank!

Rough draft of Love in Smallfoot Alley is basically complete, weighing in at 34,507 words! Hooray!

Historically, when reaching this stage, it takes another 3 months to reach publishing readiness (finding beta readers, evaluating their comments, doing the typesetting, etc). I suspect this one will take about that long, too. I also suspect it will be less than 40,000 words when published.

Smooth Jazz Interlude....

One of Pat Metheny's Best -- Here To Stay
Seven minutes and 35 seconds of laid-back cool with a driving beat... starting with incredible keyboardist Lyle Mays' one-two-three punch..(Listen for a touch of Marvin Gaye's Mercy, Mercy Me)



Gerald Albright -- Feeling Inside
Six minutes and and 37 seconds of pure, mellow groove progressing inevitably to a breathtaking end... If it doesn't blow you away, if that last note doesn't give you chills, you don't have a particle of soul....  Put in the earbuds, lean back, close your eyes and just listen. Don't try to surf and listen. Just listen.

Enjoy!

Put Up Or...

At Simpson's flog, floggerette BParks of Virginia has denigrated my novels numerous times. I'm waiting -- I won't say anxiously awaiting, because I think hell will freeze over first -- but I'm waiting to see her produce a comparable counterpart to my novels. Comparable means doing basically what I do, but with her own subject matter.

1. Write the manuscript (after deciding on the genre, concocting a story, creating characters, choosing a location and setting, etc.)

2. Edit and rewrite the manuscript, as many times as necessary.

3. Submit the manuscript to critiquers and beta readers because I don't have the money to pay for professional edit. But if she has the money for that, I will consider it comparable. Judging by her comments, she would need a professional edit...

At this point, she can choose to shop the manuscript around to agents and publishers to try for getting traditionally published in an industry being radically transformed by the digital revolution.That's what I did with Storm Surge, and it was published by Desert Breeze Publishing, a royalty-paying publisher in Castaic, California. But to truly parallel my novels, she needs to self publish. To continue --

4. Do the book design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_design) and choose a trim size.

5.Typeset the manuscript in a desktop publishing program for print. (I use a very old version of QuarkXpress, but she can use an up-to-the-minute program like In-Design or its rival, Page Plus, if she likes.)

6. Create the cover, using whatever artwork she wishes and whatever graphics editor she chooses, in the file formats specified by the publishing platform. Choose and place titles, typefaces, styles (drop shadows, etc.) and back cover text and images. Calculate the spine width based on the number of pages and type of paper. Cover art for print must be 300 dpi. btw.

7. Decide on a publishing platform. The major ones for self-publishers of paper books include CreateSpace/Book Surge (owned by Amazon.com), Lulu, Lightning Source and some others. She can research it herself, if she wishes.

BParks cannot use XLibris, AuthorHouse, iUniverse. Vantage Press, PublishAmerica or any of the other vanity/subsidy publishers. To turn out a comparable product, she has to choose a publishing platform that does POD (print on demand) book creation. (I use CreateSpace. Their process is easy, they are accommodating, and the finished product is beautiful. But BParks can choose whatever non-vanity, non-subsidy publisher she wishes.)

Decide whether to buy an ISBN (expensive) or use a free one from CreateSpace. If you use a CreateSpace ISBN, they will own your book, not you. Decide on a price and royalty rate, distribution, etc.

8. Upload the interior and cover files (converted to PDFs) to the chosen platform.  Order a proof copy. Make any changes to your interior and/or cover files and upload the corrected file. Do this as many times as necessary (every time you find an error in the book).

9. Format your manuscript for e-book distribution, which is different from typesetting. You can't just upload your print-book PDF (except to those platforms that will convert it for you -- for a price). E-book file types include e-pub, mobi (for Kindle), lrf, etc. Authors can self-publish e-books through Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, Book Baby and others for distribution through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers.

10. Begin promoting by submitting free copies to book reviewers. It would help to join various author forums for help advice on this. Buy ads, if you can afford them. If not, do whatever you can at low or no cost. Create an author/book blog and/or website. Create a Facebook page for your book. Tweet about it occasionally, but not continuously.

11. Occasionally make your book free as a sales strategy (see Kindle Boards Writers' Cafe for insight into that), and be sure and let me and my readers know when it's free ... so we can see just how comparable it is to my books.

Remember the old saying. Those who can, do. Those who can't, bitch, moan, fault-find, nit-pick and nag....

Cover Flat Mockup for Smallfoot

This is mainly just for testing the layout. The back blurb is not the actual blurb, which hasn't been written yet. This is actually the preliminary script for a video trailer. But it fits, for the purposes of checking the layout.

Will be looking for music, sound effects and images (already have quite a few that will work) when I get to the whiskey plank stage (completion of first draft).

A blinding rainstorm ... terrifying, red-eyed creatures ... a crash into a flooded ditch...  Will Leslie Hoffman survive the trip to her new job? Is her gorgeous, taciturn rescuer trustworthy, or another danger?

Chris Dupree -- misogynistic, semi-reclusive, blind to his loneliness. Can sweet, genial Leslie revive his dormant heart?

A young man found in an irreversible coma... a grieving brother obsessed with learning the cause... a shrewd PI hired to ferret out the truth.

Does a profoundly psychotic patient hold the answers? And will he reveal them in time to save Leslie from the same fate?

Smallfoot is a Southern Heroes Novel, which is not necessarily a series...just a designation. Nearly all the men in this story are Southern men and they are heroes of one kind or another, but the hero of this story is Chris Dupree -- the male lead.

Yet More Questions...

...that will go unanswered (which is itself an answer that says A LOT)

Let's say in the town where you live, you are involved with a hobby or activity -- say, model trains -- and you are a member of several model train organizations. There's going to be a couple of get-togethers in your town of model train aficionados from all over -- one a sort of convention, the other, a few weeks later, a celebration with an expo for the public. Your local organization is going to participate in both.

Two years after these events, never-before-seen photos made at them surface on the internet. A couple of them show your local chapter's officers posing with a college student who is evidently a model rail fan. He's standing with your officers and some other expo-goers behind a model rail layout, everybody's smiling big. In some of the photos, he is identified as a member of your local group.

Turns out he lives out of state and attends school out of state, and at the time of the convention, he had helped to start on his campus a NAMBLA-like group. He's heavily into promoting and legalizing man-boy love (homosexual pedophilia) and his perception that model training attracts young boys accounts for his interest in it. Since the convention, he has actually made quite a name for himself with that campus undertaking.

Is any of this the fault of your local group's officers? Back during the convention, should they have known he was a homosexual pedophile? Does his posing with your group mean that your group comprises homosexual pedophiles, or at least supports them? Do the photos obligate your group to "disavow" affiliation with such groups, or their beliefs and goals?

Some Simple Questions for Simpson...

...(that also will not be answered)

1. Do you remember everyone you've had a photo made with?
2. Do you know everyone you've had a photo made with?
3. Do you know about everyone you've had a photo made with?
4. Do you know what everyone you've had a photo made with believes?
5. Do you know what everyone you've had a photo made with has done?

A Question for the Floggers...

...that, of course, will not be answered

The floggers say that with us, it's heritage, not history.

They say that with them, it's history, not heritage.

If what they care about his history, and they don't really care about heritage -- why pay any attention to us at all? Why are we even on their radar screen?

And yet they are obsessed with us. It makes no sense.

Georgia Flagger Sets the Record Straight

A resident of Carrollton, Georgia, Billy Bearden is an original Georgia Flagger, dating back to the King Roy Rat Barnes and Sonny Lied eras. As an advocate and mentor of the Virginia Flaggers, he was instrumental in their start-up and has continued his support of them.

In response to Brooks Simpson's relentless persecution of the Virginia Flaggers, particularly his attempt to smear them with a fabricated association with Matthew Heimbach, Bearden has injected some much needed reality into the subject. In this short essay, edited from a Facebook post, he zeroes in on a recently surfaced photo, multi-posted at Crossroads, and adds pertinent dates that are totally ignored by Simpson and other floggers.  ~Ed.

Let us look closely at this photo. We see myself, Karen, Tripp, Susan and Mr Heimbach. This photo was taken on March 31, 2012 at the opening of the Museum of the Confederacy, Appomattox.

REMEMBER THAT DATE!

The Flaggers were present at the location because Waite Rawls had LIED to 7 Camps of the SCV and 1 Chapter of the UDC. He had placed a cardboard standup of RuPaul in a CBF dress inside, but refused to allow a CBF to fly on the grounds outside.

The call went out to anyone who agreed with the Flaggers and disagreed with Rawls. LOTS of SCV, Flaggers, and various people showed up to protest. Obviously, not all are/were Flaggers.

Most of the people in the photo did not know Mr. Heimbach. As we were walking from our spot on the opposite side of the road along the driveway to an adjacent parking lot (when this picture was taken) there were many in front of us, and many behind us. (See video here: Flagging the MoC Appomattox)  When we lined up in the parking lot at a distance of 100 feet away from the ceremonies, someone pointed out that a person had a sign that was questionable.

I walked over to the person (now known to be Matthew Heimbach) who was standing with the SCV Mechanized Cavalry group, and asked him to not display the sign, as it was not who we were or what we were about. Mr Heimbach complied with the request, and did not display the sign again.

Almost immediately after that, the banner plane arrived, and buzzed the ceremony for about an hour.

History shows that the only other time Mr Heimbach attended an event in which the Virginia Flaggers were participants, was the SCV National Sesquicentennial Heritage Rally in Richmond in February 2012 - just a month prior to Appomattox. The leftists and Flagger haters are failing miserably but constantly attempting to link the Virginia Flaggers to whatever evils Mr Heimbach may have committed.

Well, look again at the dates --  February and March  2012. At that moment in history, the only thing Mr Heimbach had done to my knowledge was to create the Towson University White Student Union, something that was far removed from Georgia and Virginia, and not on my radar.

For those who read the SPLC and ADL websites, they clearly show that Mr Heimbach "crossed over the Rubicon" in 2013, long after the two events in early 2012.

(Many thanks to Billy for caring enough about truth -- obviously something the floggers do not care about when their mission is to smear and persecute somebody, in this case, people who have never done anything to them -- to speak out. I would just add that while few if any heritage folks even care about the fabricated  Heimbach issue, since they know the VaFlaggers are not "white supremacists," some of us do care about the attempted smears, as they have the potential to goad some wacko floggerette to attempt injury or damage to the VaFlaggers. That's one reason I am determined to counter these lies. ~cw)

The Southern Sasquatch ~ Bigfoot In Dixie

Lots to blog about in the near future -- explaining male superiority to some feminist that showed up recently at Simpson's flog (or, at least, I haven't noticed her there before); hosting a guest post by a noted Flagger; taking another look at poor widdle Corey's departure from the floggosphere, and more....

But right now, I'm on a roll with Smallfoot Alley, and I'm pushing to finish the rough draft.

This little novella has been hard to write because it wasn't a story inside me clamoring to get out. It actually began as two experiments.

The first was to see if I could write a paranormal romance.

Three years ago, I was in an online critique group where paranormal romance was all the rage. Since these stories were popular sellers at the time (and presumably still are), I decided to give it a try. Of course, "paranormal romance" usually means vampires and shape-shifters. I don't even read those, and I had zero interest in writing about them.  So I cast about for some kind of paranormal entity I could feature and settled on cryptids. Specifically, cryptoprimates. Big, hairy, bipedal hominids, subject of countless badly shot videos and photos and star of Harry and the Hendersons.... With a twist. My cryptid would not be in the great northwest, but in west Alabama.

The Southern Sasquatch. Bigfoot in Dixie.

Think Fouke monster.  Think The Legend of Boggy Creek.

Well, hey, it's more plausible that such creatures exist than it is that vamps and shifters do....

The other experiment was to see if I could write by the seat of my pants.

My sister is a pantser. A lot of the writers in my various crit groups were pantsers. I'm a plotter. To make matters worse, when I don't purposely fictionalize a story element, I aim for historical accuracy in my fiction, even for minutia, and sometimes said accuracy can be difficult to determine. And researching it can take up way too much precious writing time.

In Sweet Southern Boys, f'rinstance, there is a description of the weather and moon phase for Verona, Georgia on January 14, 1994. I located an almanac for that year online and used information I found for Valdosta, Georgia, which is approximately where Verona is located. This is how it showed up in the novel:

Prologue

Verona, Georgia
January 14, 1994

The vehicle streaked westward on a dirt road through sparse woodlands, kicking up dust in its wake. Behind the wheel, Randy Stevenson, soon to turn eighteen, monitored the road ahead. Tall and broad shouldered, he was a gracefully muscled athlete. Shaggy black hair framed his face -- a sensitive, enigmatic face that captivated girls at Verona High School.

Only people who knew him well -- and the two boys with him knew him as well as anyone -- would know how agitated he was behind his stony expression. His nostrils flared to accommodate his rapid, shallow respiration. His hands were not trembling only because they held the steering wheel in a tight grip.

A crescent moon hung in the sky ahead, glowing through a hazy cloud cover. It was eight o'clock. The temperature hovered around forty degrees and the three boys wore lightweight jackets over their jeans and shirts.

Randy's eyes darted to the rear view mirror. In the distance, a dusk-to-dawn light cast a circular glow in the darkness and shone down on the riverside cabin the boys had departed moments before. The cabin and the half dozen vehicles parked around it disappeared as trees closed in behind the car.

With Smallfoot, I had burdened myself with a story I didn't want to write using a method unnatural to me. Eventually, it morphed from a cryptid paranormal to a mad scientist thriller...  Nevertheless, it has been hard to slog through, and I'm glad to see "The End" way up there steadily advancing my way.

The story was initially inspired by this stock image -- a visual writing prompt, so to speak -- and I made the first working cover from it. Without knowing anything about the story, I decided to title it, "Wrong Turn" because who would turn onto such a spooky road intentionally?

I dropped that idea after doing cursory research on the title and discovering it is the name of a 2003 movie that ridicules Southerners with the "inbred hick monster" stereotype.  Six people find themselves trapped in the woods of West Virginia, hunted down by "cannibalistic mountain men grossly disfigured through generations of in-breeding," sez the IMDb. Lovely. Writer from Ohio; producer from Pennsylvania. And people wonder why we want to secede.

Cover evolution

I quit even trying to pants it pretty early in the writing and went back to plotting. Created a preliminary storyline. Created some little towns in west Alabama near the Tombigbee River. Created the characters. Hero, Chris "Kit" Dupree, descendant of Louisiana Cajuns. Leslie Hoffman, grew up on the other side of the Heart of Dixie, near Opelika. I wrote a tagline (Chris Dupree never believed in crypto-primates -- until they threatened the woman he loved), changed the title, re-designed the working cover, and slogged on. (A working cover keeps me focused and inspired during the writing of a story. I make one as soon as a story comes together enough to visualize a cover theme.)

For the longest time, I was stuck at about 12,000 words.  No matter how I plotted, I couldn't get past that barrier.

Originally, I set the story to open in mid to late autumn. It certainly wasn't spring or summer in the original stock photo. I found a new photo and made the lovely, colorful autumn background that served as my working cover throughout most of the writing, though it didn't match what the story said (and didn't "say romance," according to fellow members of a writing forum).

A few weeks ago, I managed to reach 28,000 words by skipping whatever barrier had me stuck at 12,000, going to the end of the story -- I'd figured out early how it was going to end -- and writing the scenes in reverse order.

That was how I figured out what the problem was. I ran into it both going and coming, and there was no mistaking it anymore. The storyline would not accommodate Thanksgiving and Christmas, and all that those holidays mean to people, and all the activity, travel, visitors, etc., that those holidays generate. I thought and figured and potted, and moved the opener to early January.  Problem fixed.

I will have to edit those 28,000 words to reflect the new timeline but that shouldn't take long. Of course, not even south Alabama has pretty autumn leaves in January, so my working cover, which I loved, will have to go. Perhaps it will work with some future project.

I went back to my original stock image of the road with bare trees and set about to make a working cover from it. The iStockphoto watermark annoyed me so I went to the site to purchase the image without it. Oh, man, what a shocker. iStock has priced many of their photos out of my range including this one.

Nothing to do but start a photo search. I combed my usual suppliers.  I was about to despair of finding anything, and thinking I might have to change the entire theme of the cover when I found a road through some bare trees a dusk.

Did a little processing, slapped the titles on ... and was not happy. The road was more like a long, one-lane driveway, which did not fit the story at all. I would have to composite something, I went looking for roads, just roads. Lots of pictures of roads on stock sites. None of them looked like they'd work, until I found the highway through the desert.

One of the hardest things I've encountered in photoshoppin' is making two images shot under different lighting conditions look realistic together.  The desert road gave me fits. I must have done it over half a dozen times before I got it to work. I shortened the trees to make them appear more distant, filled the now empty foreground with the road, blued the whole thing and added the titles.

Old and new working covers

Full circle

And now, back to finishing the story. It should be about 40,000 -- a long novella -- when complete. 

_____________________________

Excerpt where the road first appears. 

(Set up: Leslie Hoffman is traveling to Sommers, Alabama where she is to take a new job. She's driving through a horrendous thunderstorm when she encounters creatures whose red eyes evoke preternatural terror in those who see them.  BTW, Chris Dupree's appearance was inspired by actor Ryan Carnes, who did a fairly credible job as SyFy's The Phantom a couple of years back. I've never seen him in anything else except a couple of guest spots on TV dramas, but a Google search suggests he isn't real picky about the roles he takes. He's a cutie, though.)

______________________________

I've gone more than twelve miles. Must've taken a wrong turn in Bristol...

The reality of her situation dawned. She was caught in a violent thunderstorm on a cold night in January...and lost.

Her hands cramped from tightly clutching the steering wheel. Forced squinting and anxiety had combined to give her a raging headache. She could barely make out the road through the windshield madly distorted with rain, against which the wipers were nearly useless. High winds buffeted the little vehicle. Any moment, the tires could lose their purchase on the pavement and slide into the mud-soft shoulder. She and her transportation could end up at the bottom of a flooded ditch.

Is that a light ahead?

She vowed to stop, wherever she was, at any sign of habitation.

It was not a light but a reflective road sign that read "Erwin."

Erwin? Where on earth is that?

More to the point, what was it? Not a town, or even a crossroads community. There were no stores, no houses, no structures of any kind, and no lights. But the shoulder widened and led to a flat, open space, almost like a graveled parking lot, though no building accompanied it. Still, she pulled off the road, switched on the dome light and reached for a map on the seat beside her.

"I make it through this, I will get GPS installed," she muttered as she unfolded the map and searched for her whereabouts. She found Bristol and Sommers, but no Erwin.

"Well, that's just great. I'm in the twilight zone."

Her fear abated a little since she had something to busy herself with besides driving near-blind in the terrifying storm, but she lowered the map when fresh chills crept across her skin. She tossed the map aside and turned off the dome light.

Movement. Outside the back window. Not wind or rain, but something alive and stealthily approaching the SUV. She shifted to reverse to activate the backup lights.

What she glimpsed in the rear-view mirror created a burst of fear that froze her for a second, followed by greater fear that energized her icy hands. She double checked the door locks before shifting into drive and stomping the gas pedal. Wheels spun useless, spraying gravel before they found traction. The little SUV leapt forward, adding to her alarm, and she eased up on the accelerator to move off at a less frantic pace.

Something was outside the car. She had not imagined the the images in the mirror because she heard bumps, like fists pounding against the fenders, as she drove away. Scarcely breathing, she careened the SUV back onto the blacktop.

A glance in the mirror sent a neural alarm through her such as she'd never known. By the glow of the tail lights, she saw something --men? animals?-- running after her. Two of them, long-haired, dressed in rags --or was it fur?-- with luminous red eyes.

Spurred by a spike in terror, she again pushed too hard on the gas pedal. The vehicle whirled completely around and ran off the other side of the road, half into a ditch filled with churning water.

Tears blinded her as she tried mindlessly to drive out of the ditch. The drive wheels spun uselessly.

Four-wheel...four-wheel...how? How? Oh, yes! Little chrome bar ...under the shifter...

She yanked on the T-bar and locked the the four-wheel drive, something she'd never done, and pressed the gas pedal. She vehicle seemed to move forward and hope fountained up inside her. But it was over in an instant as both engine and wheels whined uselessly and the vehicle actually bogged down a bit.

Please, oh, please! Move, roll, please!

Her pursuers reached her, pounded on the windows, rocked the car. Rain cascading down the glass distorted their faces, but she saw enough to lift the hairs on her neck. They were man-like but not human and their eerie vocalizations formed no words.

They would break a window and get to her any moment. Terror turned to madness and her scream filled the night.

Suddenly, headlights emerged from the darkness and moved closer. A vehicle pulled off the pavement near her SUV. The two creatures or men or whatever they were, ran toward the woods behind her and disappeared in darkness.

Someone emerged from the truck with a very bright flashlight and shown it about her vehicle, and into the night, left and right. She barely made out the form of the newcomer when he stepped around the front of the truck, through the beams of the headlights--a man clad in a long duster with a shoulder cape. A wide-brimmed cowboy hat shielded his eyes from the rain. He approached her SUV and tapped on the window.

"Hello," he called. He held the flashlight against the back window and slanted the beam around inside.

She rolled the window down a crack and gulped back a sob. "Oh, thank goodness! I was so scared! Those--" Empty lungs made further speech impossible. It was as if the breath had physically been knocked out of her and she struggled for air.

"Are you all right?"

Deep gasps wracked her, but she felt a measure of calm, or at least coherence, returning. "I sort of... hit my head...on the steering wheel. But...I don't think I'm hurt. I need--"

"I'll take you to the hospital in Catesville."

"No, I just need to get my car out of the ditch and get to Sommers."

"That'll take a wrecker. Have to wait for the weather to clear. If you're injured, you need to see a doctor."

"No, really...."

"You can't stay here."

He was right. No point in resisting. She pulled her keys out of the ignition and snatched up her purse.

"I have luggage," she said faintly as she struggled out of the tilted vehicle and, blinded by the pelting rain, promptly stumbled over something and went down on her hands and knees in the mud.

He took hold of her arm, helped her to her feet and led her to the huge truck rumbling nearby. He opened the door and said, "Get in. I'll get your luggage."

Trembling from the frigid air, she climbed up, literally, into the spacious club cab and dropped her keys into his outstretched hand. The stranger transferred her suitcases to the compartment behind the driver's seat and returned to her SUV to lock it before sliding behind the wheel. He returned her keys and she dropped them into her purse and glanced about. The truck's motor rumbled as he made a U turn and headed northwest.

"Did you see where those...men went?" she asked, grateful for the warmth flowing from the dashboard vents.

"What men?"

"There were two of them. Real short, five feet tall, maybe. Long hair, ragged clothes that hung off them in tatters. They chased me."

He shook his head. "Chased you? I didn't see any other vehicles."

"They were...on foot." She cleared her throat, suddenly aware of how crazy her story sounded.

He didn't speak for a moment. "I didn't see any men...on foot. But you can file a report about them with the sheriff's department in Catesville."

He brought the truck to an unexpected stop. Caught in the headlights, roiling, muddy, wind-tossed water flowed rapidly across the road. A sign rising up out of the water read Crow River.

"Bridge is awash," the stranger said. He turned the truck around and headed back the way they'd come, but just before they reached the area where they'd left her vehicle, he slowed and turned left.

Leslie peered ahead and her terror, which had calmed to simple fear, rose again. The road was paved but in need of repairs. Vegetation, stark and leafless, pressed close in on each side, and the skeletal structures of defoliated tree limbs entwined overhead. Like a tunnel into a nightmare.

"Where does this road go?" she said, unable to keep the quaver out of her voice.

"It goes by my place and intersects with a county back road into Catesville."

"I wonder if you could take me--" She cleared her throat and willed her frantic nerves to calm. "Please, excuse my lapse of manners. My name is Leslie Hoffman. I'm on my way to Sommers where I have a new job. I took a wrong turn and ended up here. If you could just take me back to Bristol, I might have a place to stay there tonight."

Again, he said nothing for a moment before lifting a shoulder and putting the truck in reverse. This road was too narrow for a U turn and he backed all the way to the main highway, his body turned sideways so he could see out the back window.

Headed east again, they passed her vehicle-- she barely made it out in the flash of lightning-- and crept past the Erwin sign. For some reason, the familiarity of it comforted her.

No more than three minutes later, they were stopped again by a small, turbulent river flowing across the pavement.

Leslie's throat constricted when she realized the situation. They were trapped by flooded roads. "Do you suppose that water's shallow enough there to drive through? I mean, a big, high truck like this...."

"It's Hatchet Creek," he said. "The water's higher than the bridge rails."

She jammed her knuckles against her teeth and blinked back tears. "I just came this way a few minutes ago."

"Yep, these things can happen quick. That's why they're called flash floods."

Without further talk, he turned the truck around and dove back to the wild, scary road overarched with skeletal trees. Waves of cold fear washed through Leslie's body and coaleasced into a painful lump in her chest.

Except for the strangely unhuman little men, everything behind her seemed safer--staying locked in her car back in the ditch; staying in the cafe office...staying in nice, safe Montgomery doing transcription, which she'd wanted to escape for so long.

She glanced down to her aching, mud-coated fingers and cut a sideways look toward ... what? Her rescuer?

He was soaked, too. His leather duster was slickened with rain. The cowboy hat had kept the rain out of his eyes outside, but the brim dripped. Beneath it, his face, bluish by the light of the dash, took her aback. He appeared to be young; under thirty, and not bad looking in profile. But there was something about him, his laconic way of speaking, his distance, that frightened her.

Why would he subject himself to the violent storm to help a stranger? Was he a Good Samaritan, or something else? He could be worse than the two who had pursued her earlier, if they even existed. She might go missing, and nobody would ever see or hear from her again. She might end up raped and murdered and buried deep in the cold, skeletal woods along the edge of Hatchet Creek.

Hatchet...hatchet...axe...axe murderer....

The drive seemed to last forever. With each bumpy, rain-soaked minute, her fear grew and when he braked the truck and turned left, it exploded behind her solar plexus. By the indirect light from the headlamps, she could see a hulking structure, a shack. A good-size shack but still a shack. And dark, because the storm had taken out the electricity.

"Wait here," he said. He stepped away from the truck and she sat alone, trembling like a puppy as terror gripped her throat and drained the remaining warmth from her body. Her raincoat was fleece-lined but nevertheless inadequate for the damp, penetrating chill.

He'd left the headlights on and she could faintly see him trot up the steps and disappear inside. He returned in moments and hung a dimly glowing camping lantern on a porch post beside the three wide, wooden steps.

He stepped back to the truck, took her luggage out and told her, "Come inside."

"I thought you were taking me to Catesville," she squeaked. "County back road, remember?"

"Hatchet Creek bridge is out; that means Skipper Flat, about a mile north, will be flooded. There's no way out until the weather breaks."

She followed him up the steps, gripping her mud-coated purse as the truck lights snapped off behind them. Another gas lantern barely lit the interior. She had the impression of big furniture hulking in the shadows, and looked around for someone else, anyone else -- wife, kids, parents, anybody.

Nothing. She was alone with a stranger, trapped by a flood miles from anywhere, with no way to contact the outside world.

And nobody knew where she was.

He put her luggage on the floor, again said, "Wait here," and disappeared, this time toward the back of the house. He must have gone outside because the sound of the rain pounding the roof and the saturated ground grew sharper, louder, as though a door had opened.

Where'd he go? To get a-- a-- an axe? What if he kills me and dismembers me and--

At the sudden sound of a growling engine of some kind, she jump and squeaked. Several electrical lights came to life around her.

It's just a generator. Get a grip! You're getting hysterical. He's not an axe murderer. Probably. Now, try to keep your wits about you.

She was not in a shack, as she'd assumed in the dark. The electric lights revealed that it was a log cabin, a roomy and very upscale one with modern conveniences and a host of creature comforts. A man's domain, no doubt about it. Man-sized furniture upholstered in bold plaid or brown leather sat about the big room. A massive stone fireplace took up most of one wall while a huge, antique armoire stood opposite it. On another wall, a big flat-screen LCD television hung at sitting eye-level.

The room was comfortably warm; apparently the power had not been out long enough for the cold to seep in ... or else it was heated some other way. Not the fireplace; it was black, not so much as an ember glowing.

She heard a door close. Footsteps sounded behind her and whirled around to keep him in sight as he walked across the room. He carried nothing--no axe, hatchet, machete or knife. He took off the duster and hat, hung them on pegs near the front door and ran a hand through his wet, dark blond hair. For the first time, Leslie could see that he was good-looking. Extremely so. The cargo pants and T-shirt he wore were not soaking, but damp enough to cling to, and thus reveal, his lean, well-muscled body.

He returned her gaze and she unconsciously clutched the lapels of her raincoat together at her sternum She must look a sight, hands and shins muddied, hair plastered to her head, mascara surely running down her face in black rivulets.

"How's your head?" he asked, his voice and demeanor perfunctory.

"It's okay. I was scared, not injured." She ran her fingers along her forehead just below her hairline. "I barely bumped it on the steering wheel."

He looked at her a second longer, as if he wasn't sure whether her assessment could be trusted, took her luggage and stepped to a door next to the armoire.

"Guest room with bath in here." He walked through the door and reappeared moments later without her luggage. "After I get cleaned up, I'm going to heat up some beef stew, if you're hungry."

See? What kind of rapist-murderer feeds his victim beforehand?

"That sounds good. I had a bite in Bristol, but it seems to have played out on me." She gave a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry, I've been too frightened to remember my manners. I haven't said thank you, although I do appreciate very much what you've done, Mister...."

"Chris Dupree."

* * *

Leslie returned to the guest room. The thought of changing into night clothes made her uncomfortable so she curled up in the big, comfy easy chair and tried to read. But she kept thinking about Chris Dupree...about how he attracted her. And frightened her.

She knew nothing about him. He really could be a serial killer, no matter how kind he'd been to rescue her, take her in, feed her. Maybe flooded highways on stormy nights were his hunting grounds. Although now that she thought about it, would she be so frightened of him if she weren't already scared out of her wits by the little creature-men, whatever they were?

Her eyelids lowered and the unread page before her blurred and darkened, but sleep would not come, only a heavy drowsiness. Mere seconds after her eyes closed, an unearthly chill crept across her, as it had in the SUV when she stopped to study the map. Her eyes popped open. Suddenly gripped with fear, she looked toward the window.

Glowing red eyes in an unhuman face, just inches beyond the glass, stared at her. A hand, fur-covered but oddly human-like rose up to knock against the glass.

Terror such as she'd never known took her in its grip. Breath rushed out of her and would not return, no matter how hard she struggled to inhale. She could neither breathe nor look away. The thing would break the glass soon, and come for her--

Breath at last rushed in to fill her lungs and she immediately forced it out again, across her vocal chords, in the loudest, longest scream of her life. Unable to see through eyes she tightly clenched, she heard the pounding on the glass, heard it break, felt the creature grab her shoulder--

"Miss Hoffman...Leslie."

Her eyes snapped open to see Chris Dupree looming over her, his hand at her throat. Her mouth flew open to scream again, but only a faint breath found its way out. Her gaze fastened on his face and reason returned.

He wasn't reaching for her throat. He was jostling her upper arm, to waken her from the nightmare. He didn't look threatening at all. He looked concerned.

"Are you all right? You cried out in your sleep."

Her muscles still stiff with fright, she turned her head to look out the window. The glass was intact. Nothing but blackness beyond. No glowing eyes. No hairy creature pounding on the window. There was no sound but the rumble of rain on the roof.

Tears stung her eyes and she covered them with a hand. Caught in the grip of residual fear, she found herself also assailed by scorching mortification.

"This is so embarrassing! You probably think you found a basket case by the highway. I don't understand. I'm not given to seeing things or to experiencing such a ... debilitating level of fear. I do apologize for causing you so much trouble and once this awful weather clears up, I promise, I will so be on my way."

He ignored her apology. "Are you over your fright?"

A glimpse of her dream returned and she shivered. "I dreamed about those men, or whatever they were, that chased me. Are you sure you didn't see them?"

He took a seat on the edge of the bed to face her. "No. That doesn't mean they weren't there, but it does seem unlikely. You might have actually seen the eyes of an animal reflecting your taillights. The flooding could have forced them from their nests or burrows. Maybe you were so tense from driving so long in the storm and from being lost that the shadows and lightning fooled your eyes."

"They pounded on my car."

"Could have been a falling tree limb. The wind is strong. The ground is always littered with limbs after a storm."

She nodded. "I didn't think of that." His explanation, his dispassion ...the soothing sound of his voice...they went a long way toward calming her. "So, you don't think I really saw any little hairy men with red eyes...."

"Anything's possible," he lifted a shoulder, "but not likely--although local legend has it that skunk apes and monkey men inhabit the swamps around here."

She gave him a bewildered shake of her head. "Skunk apes?"

"The Southern Sasquatch. Bigfoot in Dixie." A grin of pure mirth without a trace of scorn or mockery lit his face. It was the first time Leslie had seen him really smile and neither fear nor embarrassment could induce her to look away, nor stop an answering smile on her lips.

"Sasquatch is seven feet tall. These little hairy creatures weren't as tall as my vehicle."

"Ah. The monkey men. Shorter than an average adult human. Simian in appearance but they walk upright. They're all over the South -- if you listen to tales at drunken frat parties and around kids' campfires. There've been sightings of them in Chatahoula County for several years -- not many but enough for the arts and crafts tourists to nickname this area Smallfoot Alley."

"Smallfoot." Leslie erupted in a soft, half-hysterical giggle, and suppressed it abruptly. No need to enhance his likely impression of her as a complete bimbo. "But you don't believe in them."

He shook his head. "Like I said, anything's possible. But no, I don't believe in them. Except for some species of monkeys in Mexico and Central America, there are no primates on this continent."

Leslie nodded, wondering where her humiliation had disappeared to. It was completely gone. It was as if his gorgeous smile had dissipated it, the way sunrise burned away morning fog. Somehow, it had also taken away all thoughts of serial killers and ax murders. What was there about this guy that simply talking to him created a such a warm, safe feeling inside her?

Their eyes fastened. Aware that her expression might give away the faint quivering in her stomach, she had to look away. Her gaze fell to the middle distance between them and absently moved to the window -- and she froze, every muscle in her body petrified in an excruciating clench.

The thing was back. Her warm, safe feeling shattered before overwhelming panic that sent shudders through her body. She struggled to breathe but terror paralyzed her lungs.

She was peripherally aware of Chris getting to his feet, heard his hushed voice say, "I see it."