10 Minutes From Home: Episodes 1-4 Read online

  After a few years of continual illness and a handful of strokes, he finally agreed to see someone about a pacemaker. The morning of his appointment for the consultation, he rose happy, enjoying the beautiful spring weather. He ate a solid breakfast and basked in the warmth of the early morning sunlight at his kitchen table. Beth found him lying on the floor shortly thereafter, a peaceful look on his face. He was rushed to the hospital and declared dead a short time later. The memorial was simple, heartfelt and full of people exchanging stories of my father and the joy he brought into their lives. He had been a strong man, a great father, and a kind soul.

  My mother, Christiaane, was born in Holland and was just a young girl when World War II broke out. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was the most popular barber in town. The Nazi’s invaded during the blitzkrieg of Holland, and within days of the initial attack they had taken over the entire town. She told me of an incident where a German soldier had come into her father’s barber shop one busy Saturday afternoon, and demanded he get his hair cut right away, despite the long line of waiting townsfolk. Her father refused the officer, telling him he would have to wait his turn like everyone else. The officer stormed out of the barbershop and returned to his command post. One of the patrons of the barbershop quickly sent word to my grandmother of what happened and, fearing for her husband’s life, she walked down to the German post herself, asking to speak to the officer in charge. The German officer approached and listened to the sincere Dutch woman who pleaded for her husband’s life, explaining the situation and apologizing. The officer told her she could leave, and that she should take pride in the fact that she just saved her husband’s life. Some time later, the Nazi’s actually commandeered my mother’s childhood home as a post, and treated her family as if they were slaves. This was when my grandparents knew they could take no more. One day, under the guise of going into town to get food, they boarded a ship with help from some local friends. With nothing but what they could carry inconspicuously, they set sail away from their Nazi-occupied homeland to Canada.

  My mother’s family made a new home in Oshawa, Ontario, with the help of some family that had already moved there before the war. My mother, now called Chrissy, was very happy in her new home. She grew up very independent and strong willed, and was well-liked in school. She was always the popular girl, everyone’s friend, the social butterfly. After meeting Charles, courting, and eventually getting married, she always held a job of some sort outside of the house and a clear sense of independence; it was part of her personality that could not be suppressed. Even while raising me, she would always have something on the go, some project, some job somewhere to keep her in the social loop. She loved being around people and thrived in social settings. I think it was this independence that eventually drove her to divorce my father. She couldn’t handle being tied down. I think she was still discovering herself and looking for something in life that would truly satisfy her longing to see more, to discover herself and the world. At least that is what I always thought. But she never stopped loving my father, and they were always respectful of one another and never stopped caring about each other. In a different reality, who knows if things would have gone the same way?

  As for me, Denny, I was always a happy child. I was very imaginative and creative, and very often lost in my own world. I loved to play, to pretend, and to get lost in the worlds created in my own mind. I loved toys and would spend countless hours playing pretend with my friends, whether I was a soldier, a superhero or a strongman. My parents were low maintenance, meaning they pretty much left me to my own devices. They instilled in me their values, and the rules by which to remain safe in my own life, and I followed their lead.

  I rarely got into trouble, except for at school. I was not much for education, although I liked the atmosphere and social aspects of it. I didn’t like the work though. If it was creative, such as writing stories or art, I excelled, but in the laborious pursuits of the rest of education, history, math, science, I had no interest. I always passed my classes, and was well liked by my teachers, but I was a real daydreamer, my head was never where it should be; I was always off in some distant dream.

  In grade school, I was desperate not to disappoint my parents. I kept failing to submit homework and would have notes sent home for my folks to acknowledge and sign. I got very good at forging their signatures and bringing them back. Of course, it eventually backfired on me when someone in the school office started noticing discrepancies in the signatures. Needless to say, it didn’t end well for me.

  Through high school, it was much of the same. I had good enough grades to get by, but I was still more into daydreaming and having fun. I did well in English and art class, as usual, and did horribly in math and gym. I hated gym class. I couldn’t wrap my head around being forced to play sports I did not enjoy. I was the worst gym student the school had ever seen, and perhaps the only gym student ever to actually fail the class. Forty-two percent and damn proud of it. Luckily, I didn’t need a gym credit to graduate, and graduate I did.

  My twenties were a blur of no responsibility. I lived on my own or with roommates for most of that time, and spent most of my money on entertainment and frivolous fun. My twenties were all about hanging out with friends. They were also about depression. Despite the fun I had socially, I had some issues personally. I longed for some sort of relationship, but my world was filled with not very serious people who were interested in not very serious relationships. I was popular with my friends, but not with women. I was every woman’s best friend, and I often heard the (damning) words ‘you’re like a brother to me’. I had a string of short-lived relationships, but most ended by way of me wanting more, and the women being scared off. I ended up with loneliness issues and some related anger issues.

  One day when I was about twenty-seven, I had an epiphany one day that I was wasting an awful lot of my life sulking about things that were beyond my control. That realization turned my life into a drastically happier place. I started working in fields that were more to my liking and spent more time doing what I wanted to do, which was writing. I stopped worrying about relationships and figured that life would unfold as it deemed fit. All those theories and attitudes rang true when I was introduced to Diane and my true life and purpose began. Moreover, everything I believed in my life was solidified once Jordan was born. I was finally a truly happy man.

  Titles from:

  BOOKS of the DEAD

  BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES (Vol. 1)

  BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES (Vol. 2)

  BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES (Vol. 3)

  BEST NEW ZOMBIE TALES TRILOGY

  BEST NEW WEREWOLF TALES (VOL. 1)

  BEST NEW VAMPIRE TALES (Vol. 1)

  CLASSIC VAMPIRE TALES

  GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING

  GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING II

  GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING III

  GARY BRANDNER - THE HOWLING TRILOGY

  JAMES ROY DALEY - INTO HELL

  JAMES ROY DALEY - TERROR TOWN

  JAMES ROY DALEY - 13 DROPS OF BLOOD

  JAMES ROY DALEY - THE DEAD PARADE

  JAMES ROY DALEY - ZOMBIE KONG

  JOHN F.D. TAFF - LITTLE DEATHS

  JOHN L. FRENCH – PARADISE DENIED

  MATT HULTS - ANYTHING CAN BE DANGEROUS

  TONIA BROWN - BADASS ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP

  MATT HULTS - HUSK

  TIM LEBBON - BERSERK

  PAUL KANE - PAIN CAGES

  ZOMBIE KONG ANTHOLOGY

  * * *

  Thank you for reading!

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1: THE BIG 4-0

  CHAPTER 2: A DAY AT THE RACES

  CHAPTER 3: RIDING THE ROCKET

  CHAPTER 4: THE ROAD TO DIANE

  CHAPTER 5: STATE OF THE UNION

  CHAPTER 6: GETTING OUT OF DODGE

  CHAPTER 7: THE SUMMER OF RECEPTIONS

  CHAPTER 8: THE SEWER THE BETTER

  CHAPTER 9: THOMAS RICHARD WASHINGTON

 
; CHAPTER 10: IN COUNTRY

  CHAPTER 11: ISABEL LUCINDA HAWKINS

  CHAPTER 12: THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY

  CHAPTER 13: THE GREEN MILES

  CHAPTER 14: JOHN VINCENT HICKLE

  CHAPTER 15: SCARBERIA OR SCARLEM?

  CHAPTER 16: DIANE STEPHENIE BURTON

  CHAPTER 17: THE GREAT ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 18: APARTMENT COMPLEXITIES

  CHAPTER 19: FRANK STIRLING CALLAGHAN

  CHAPTER 20: SEIGE OF THE BRAMFORD

  CHAPTER 21: CLIVE STANLEY MORGAN

  CHAPTER 22: HOUSEKEEPING

  CHAPTER 23: SAVIOUR

  CHAPTER 24: DENVER LEO COLLINS

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1: THE BIG 4-0

  CHAPTER 2: A DAY AT THE RACES

  CHAPTER 3: RIDING THE ROCKET

  CHAPTER 4: THE ROAD TO DIANE

  CHAPTER 5: STATE OF THE UNION

  CHAPTER 6: GETTING OUT OF DODGE

  CHAPTER 7: THE SUMMER OF RECEPTIONS

  CHAPTER 8: THE SEWER THE BETTER

  CHAPTER 9: THOMAS RICHARD WASHINGTON

  CHAPTER 10: IN COUNTRY

  CHAPTER 11: ISABEL LUCINDA HAWKINS

  CHAPTER 12: THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY

  CHAPTER 13: THE GREEN MILES

  CHAPTER 14: JOHN VINCENT HICKLE

  CHAPTER 15: SCARBERIA OR SCARLEM?

  CHAPTER 16: DIANE STEPHENIE BURTON

  CHAPTER 17: THE GREAT ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 18: APARTMENT COMPLEXITIES

  CHAPTER 19: FRANK STIRLING CALLAGHAN

  CHAPTER 20: SEIGE OF THE BRAMFORD

  CHAPTER 21: CLIVE STANLEY MORGAN

  CHAPTER 22: HOUSEKEEPING

  CHAPTER 23: SAVIOUR

  CHAPTER 24: DENVER LEO COLLINS