With a biting sense of humor, sarcasm, and a unique worldview, Christoph Paul’s “The Passion of the Christoph” exposes readers to an unprecedented commentary on every topic. Paul’s take on sex, religion, politics, sports, to name a few, will leave you transformed as you absorb this insightful compilation of satiric and hysterical essays.
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Genre – Humor / NonFiction
Rating – NC17
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Website http://christophpaulauthor.com/
When money is made, anything can happen
I was born in a middle class neighborhood in Cincinnati. Both of my parents are still together and I have three sisters. Back in the day, Cincinnati was one of the top ten places to have a family. The midwest was where the factories where, so you could get a good job and it was a safe city to live in. My childhood as a whole was great, about the best ever. I could do anything I want, I had great friends, went to the best schools, and everything was safe. My high-school was ranked number five in the country as far as public schools. My Father worked as at the post office and my Mom was a nurse. I'ma tell you something about my Mom: she grew up in downtown Cincinnati and was a hustler. She knew the game and knew what she wanted. You wasn't running no game on her. My parents and I had a little falling out though, due to my activity in the streets and we do not speak anymore.
How I got into the drug game?
Well I used to work at the Andrew Jurgens company and had been there for about ten years making 60, 70 grand. I had never gotten into the street game at that time because I am a opportunist, a bottom line guy. I only deal with things that the bottom line has a plus sign by it, you know. So while all my buddies were slinging crack and weed, I didn't see that there was enough money for me to be a street boy out there and the reward level wasn't good. I had a cousin in the south who was dating this big drug dealer in Atlanta. So while I was visiting, he asked me what a pound of weed goes for in Cincinnati? I tell him $1100, $1200 and that I can check with some of my buddies. What he does is gives me ten pounds, tells me to hit him back with $7,000, and gives me 30 days to see what happen. I get back home and I am thinking okay, I have 30 days to get rid of this, so I should be able sell them for a stack a piece and I will have three grand. What happens is I call my buddy, he comes over and checks out all of them, and boom, they were all gone as soon as I got home! Instead of 30 days it took me three hours!
That's what I call a come up (we both laugh). Thats what got the hook in me. Now I am making good money at my job, real good money but dang, I made $3000 in three hours? I gotta stick with this, you know what I am saying?
Me not knowing the game, I'm thinking, okay I'm a get these and bang 'em off not knowing how things work. This is what I learned down the road, when people start knowing you have a quanity of drugs, you become a target and I didn't know that at first. So I started to bang 'em off, riding to Atlanta, and I quit working overtime. I'm making $3000 a week, thats an extra $12,000 a month you hear me? So I am stacking the first couple of months and I started needing way more than that ten, so now I am like, if I buy ten will you front me ten? My connect said yeah and it got to the point that I would go to the A, leave with 20, call some folks, and sometimes they would be waiting for me in my driveway! I didn't even have to take the pounds in my house.
The thing about the drug game is that whether it is meth, coke, weed, whatever it is, if you got the best price and the right stuff, you can't keep enough of it, it's gone. I couldn't keep enough of them because I am selling the pounds for $1000 and they are going for $1200 on the streets. Now as I was getting savvy, I learned a couple of things: Never be greedy in the drug game. Never keep it in your house if you have to, because when the robbery boys come and stick a gun your mouth, they are going to ask where the drugs and the money. I'd rather give them they money than the drugs, because you can always make it back.
You know and I know, with that kind of success, your name starts ringing and in the hood, information goes like wild fire......
It got off the hook. After six months I had over 70 grand in profit, so I quit my job. Now I have been there for ten years, but that one week in Atlanta was not enough. So my ex wife and I started going down to Atlanta three times a week.
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Genre – NonFiction / Sociology
Rating – PG
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The Eden Plague
Plague Wars Series Book 1
(Second Edition)
Prologue
Long, long ago.
As the shining metal serpent wound itself around the tree the woman stared. Good or evil?
Desire for knowledge beckoned her closer.
Beryl and gold shone on its metallic skin. Tiny legs glittered as it moved over the branches, fangs delicately penetrating fruit after fruit, leaving holes glistening with sweet slime.
Aroma overwhelmed the woman, tempting her to pluck a succulent growing orb and eat it all. Finished but unsatisfied, she seized more fruit to bring to her garden, to offer to her man.
More trees awaited the robotic snake as it slithered off, bearing its deadly gift.
-1-
“Just do what I tell you, Elise,” she heard Jenkins say as she stared at the weird weapon. Growing up on her father’s ranch, she’d fired handguns and shotguns and rifles before, but this thing…he said it was an automatic shotgun, but it looked more like a blaster from one of those Star Wars movies.
“Hold it tight in to your shoulder. It’s going to kick like a mule but you shouldn’t have any problem with that.” His unsettling eyes locked with hers, and she asked herself again why she didn’t point it at him and use it once he gave her the ammo.
Because I can’t, she answered herself half-bitterly. Even if I ever was a killer, that option is closed to me now.
She’d made her peace with that feeling, even if it did mean she was under Jervis Jenkins’ thumb. Not exactly her boss, certainly not a colleague, she loathed him to the limits of her ability. She considered biting him and seeing how he’d like to deal with the consequences, but then others would come and stash them away in some deep hole, and throw away the key.
At least now she was a pampered pet. At least now they needed her.
For a while.
“Come on, Elise. Focus. Show me how you like to hold it.” Jenkins played with the ziploc bag of special shotgun shells, relishing his cheesy sexual double-entendre.
Ignoring him and his innuendo, she snugged the weapon in tight like any other shotgun, dry-fired it, then cocked it again. “Nothing to it,” she said confidently. Bravado kept Jenkins happy. Sometimes. She had to play his games, and the Doctor’s games, and even though they never took advantage of her that way, she was still emotionally dead to them, enslaved as she was. She used to think she was an atheist – I’m a scientist, after all, dammit! – but at the end of her rope, she had recently begun praying the same prayer, over and over: Dear God, if you’re out there, send someone to save me.
Jenkins snapped his fingers, master to bitch. “Okay come on, step in there, and let’s go over the plan again.”
***
Daniel Markis thought back to that first meeting as they winged their way southward. It's a bad day when you shoot your future wife. Laughing to himself, he remembered…
Something seemed out of place when he came home from work that afternoon. The side door to his house stood open. Turning into his driveway, he pulled his beat-up old van to a stop and switched it off right away, listening. Suburban Dale City was quiet, just the thwock - thwock of tennis balls in the court across the street.
Daniel stared at the open door. Something was wrong, because he lived alone. Ever since Becky left so long ago, he’s been alone.
Echoes in his head: crazy brain-damaged loner.
Reaching under his seat, he pulled out his car gun. The stock full-sized Springfield Arms XD rested comfortably in his hand, with two extra mags in a clip-on holder. An XD compact, his carry piece, became his backup, nestled on his right rear hip.
God bless Dixie, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Second Amendment.
Daniel lived on a corner – generally a bad idea, he thought, far too much traffic – he’d usually lived on military bases before – getting off track. Keep it together, DJ. They’d said it was the organic damage, so that he couldn’t think like he should. Explosion, concussion, brain injury, three-two-one-boom.
Focus, Daniel. He forced his mind back to the now.
Debating calling the cops for about three seconds, he realized his phone was dead. Forgot to recharge it last night in the house, stupid car charger’s broke, gotta get a new one. Hell with it.
The serpent in the back of his head woke up.
Chemical concentration was called for. Pharmaceutical brainpower. He pulled a ziploc bag full of jelly beans out from under his seat. The purple ones were gel-caps. It was a good way to hide his stash from the cops, and he couldn’t afford to get busted. He chewed two of them, along with some of the candy to kill the taste. The stimulant-painkiller combo flooded into his bloodstream while he sat there wishing he had a cortisone syringe handy for his knee.
Taking a deep breath, he readied himself.
Exiting his van onto the concrete, he kept the XD in front of him and low in a tactical crouch. His left knee was stiff, courtesy of that Taliban IED, but the pain was dulling now. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated on the job in front of him and powered through it.
Probably some kids doing a daylight break-in, though they were stupid to have left the side door open to be seen. They hadn't broken the glass storm door, so he opened that with his left hand and looked at the inner door, ajar. Nothing seemed damaged. Letting his eyes adjust for a moment, he then eased in, listening.
Quiet.
He took a quick look at the door hardware. It didn’t seem broken, and the deadbolt was intact. Did I forget to lock it this morning before work? What if I hadn't come home early? Maybe they’re already gone. Yeah, that’s it. Odds are they already ripped me off and they’re long gone. Still, Daniel Markis goes by the book. Always do the right thing.
His heart hammered and he was having less difficulty focusing now. Better living through chemistry: Dexedrine, hydrocodone and a little epinephrine makes it all better.
Clearing his house room by room, he searched for anything out of place. On the ground floor, his widescreen and his desktop computer were still there. Moving upstairs to the bedrooms and bathrooms, he found no one. Nothing missing or disturbed.
He left the basement for last. If there was anyone in there they should have heard him moving around; At least he hoped so. The house was forty years old, and it creaked. He really hoped they had bolted out the basement walkout into the back yard, over his useless waist-high Housing-Association-approved rail fence and across the neighbors' yards to escape.
No need to shoot some stupid kid or pathetic junkie. I’ve shot much better men for much better reasons and it’s not something I want to do again.
Creeping down the basement stairs, he knew that was bad tactics if he wanted to catch someone unawares. Obviously he should have gone back outside, and tried to sneak in the sliding glass door of the basement walkout. Actually he wanted whoever it was, if there was anyone, to leave by that exit.
Never corner a rat, unless you mean to exterminate him. Always leave him a way out.
At the bottom of the stairs he turned sharply left, back along a short hallway which opened out into the main finished part of the basement. He didn't hear anyone, but he smelled him.
It was easier for Daniel than some people, because everything he used was fragrance-free. Artificial scents bothered him; they made his eyes water and his nose clog up. This smell was faint but unmistakable, man-cologne. Something expensive. Rubbing the bottom of his nose with his offhand finger, he kept from sneezing.
From being fairly relaxed, comfortable on the chems in a combat-mode sort of way, everything inside him shifted sharply into overdrive. This isn’t some kid, he thought, and he isn’t running away. The world crystallized in that way it did when he was close to death.
He’d been there before. The serpent in his head knew someone wanted Daniel J. Markis dead, erased, blotted out. Charging out of its cave it sank its fangs into his hindbrain like a terrier on a rat. Everything took on a cut-glass clarity, with slightly rainbow edges.
Surveying the part of the basement he could see from the end of the hallway, he saw no one in the open room. There was a door into the unfinished part to his left, another door to the three-quarter bath to his left front, the walkout glass doors right front, and the door to the basement bedroom to his right.
A faint sound marked someone in the bathroom and the XD swung left automatically. Daniel crouched behind the end of his battered sofa, set the weapon comfortably on the armrest, and called out, “Come on out of there, you.” Not eloquent, but it got the message across.
A moment’s pause, then the door exploded from the inside. 12-gauge shotgun, a part of him said, the shooter was hoping to catch me napping. Some kind of automatic, since he fired four rounds quick, bang-bang-bang-bang, and Daniel didn’t hear the distinct chack-chack of a pump.
Sweeping the room from his left to right, the shooter fired blind through the thin hollow-core door, spraying clouds of splinters with each shot. The sound was deafening, and the final blast struck the top of the sofa about a foot in front of Daniel, sending pieces of cushion flying. Already fading back and moving left, he avoided the next one that never came, low in a duck walk.
Cursing himself for not retrieving his own shotgun from his bedroom, Daniel realized he couldn’t expect to penetrate two thicknesses of wall at the corner and do any damage with a pistol. He certainly wasn’t stepping in front of that door.
But local knowledge is always a huge advantage, and this was his own house. Opening the door to his left, he slid silently into the unfinished section of the basement, pushing the door almost shut behind. Now, immediately to his right, stood a single thickness of drywall behind two-by-four studs. No insulation, and on the other side, that bathroom and the shooter.
From point-blank range Daniel unloaded seven rounds through the wall, walking them diagonally left to right and slanting from low to high, knee to chest level. The expanding loads punched through the thin gypsum, leaving thumb-sized holes as they went, and he heard a grunt and the thud of a body falling.
The serpent cheered.
Moving already, he took cover to his left behind the water heater and finished off the magazine, firing into the tiny bathroom at about calf level.
He then reloaded, waiting.
No sounds, but he smelled blood and worse. That was a good sign, in this case. It usually meant death.
The serpent rejoiced.
He glided silently up to look through one of the holes in the drywall. Bright red splash, a jumble of flesh and dark clothing, the stink. Standing back up, weapon held in close to his sternum, he kept it pointed forty-five degrees down, still in a shooter’s grip. None of that aiming skyward Hollywood crap you see on TV.
Moving carefully back through the door, he took his left hand off the weapon and pushed at the shattered bathroom door. The shooter’s body blocked it, and as Daniel was fairly sure the man was down and out, he moved to brace himself to shove it open when he heard something behind him.
Clap. Clap.
The serpent coiled, wary.
A slow, sarcastic clap.
Crap.
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Genre – SciFi /Adventure
Rating – PG13
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Dissolution of Peace by Richard Flores IV
Sleeper's Run by Henry MosqueraWar on Terror veteran, Eric Caine, is found wandering the streets of Miami with no memory of the car accident that left him there. Alone and suffering from PTSD, Eric is on a one-way road to self-destruction. Then a chance meeting at a bar begins a series of events that helps Eric start anew. When his new job relocates him to Venezuela-the land of his childhood-things, however, take an ominous turn as a catastrophic event threatens the stability of the country. Now Eric must escape an elite team of CIA assassins as he tries to uncover an international conspiracy in which nothing is what it seems.
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Genre – Political Thriller
Rating – R
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Chapter One
Samuel slips the knife to Rex.
Wilkins rocks forward onto his toes, to get a clear look at Ben, who sits in reverence with his head dropped forward, exposing the pale smooth nape of his vulnerable neck. The air is rank with odor from damp armpits, oily hair, and decaying gums. It’s the smell of rot. When Wilkins has guard duty on Sunday mornings, he watches Ben Burne, because it makes him feel hopeful here among the human scrap meat. He is drawn to the devotion on Ben’s face, and so he doesn’t notice the jagged-edged homemade blade as it is passed from one inmate’s hand to the next, underneath the lip of the stainless steel pew.
Rex hands the knife to Heto.
This ascetic chapel with a plastic altar is populated every Sunday by lifers who, if given the chance, would slash God’s throat. They attend services as an alternative to sitting in their cells. Wilkins thinks about how no one wants to be here, no one except Ben. Ben is enraptured. He communes with the hanging wooden crucifix lost in a personal reverie: Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee. The lime paint of the prison’s cinder block wall doesn’t tint Ben’s face in the same ghoulish way it colors the skin of the other inmates. Wilkins wonders if this is a sign. Yes, he thinks it is. Yes, God is trying to tell him something. He has cast the glory of His forgiveness on Ben Burne.
Ben nods his head in prayer. He has lost a lot of hair for only fifty-three years old; the penitentiary food and harsh soap are hard on the body. Ben has managed to stay muscular by lifting weights in his cell and using the window bars for chin-ups. He raises his face. Real tears swim in his eyes as he swells with piety.
Ben, with his reputation, is a celebrity here; as long as Ben is around with his superior air and his attention grabbing ways, well, it pisses off some of the others who feel just as deserving, just as tough. And they are just as tough — they just aren’t as smart. In any room, in every room, Ben is the puppet master.
Heto passes the knife to Leon.
Leon is an obelisk of a man: tall, thick, and sitting directly behind Ben. A grisly anticipation ripples through the room, knowing glances are exchanged and eyes light up, giddy with expectation. Wilkins tilts his head, sensing a palpable shift in the room. His eyes narrow; where is it coming from? He scans the pews up and down. He peers underneath at the shoes solidly on the floor. What is it? He can’t place it. At the altar, the chaplain prays fervently for each of these men’s souls. He feels some solace in knowing that at least he has saved one man. He has saved the soul of Ben Burne.
The inmates in Leon’s row shudder eagerly. Leon likes holding everyone’s attention this way. They are waiting for his move. He tenses first. Then, his jaw drops slightly open. Saliva moistens his mouth and a drop of spit forms on his canine tooth. Right next to him, the skinny hollow-eyed inmate giggles in a small sharp burst - the sound of caged madness. Leon’s fingers clench around the knife. Ready. He springs up! The chaplain looks. Leon’s knife hand juts up and then powers down toward Ben’s bare neck. Miraculously, Ben’s hand jerks up and grabs the blade. It sinks deep into his palm. He makes no sign of pain. He closes his fist around it and the two men stand in a struggle of power and will. The room erupts. They are animals sprung loose - clawing and fighting. Wilkins battles through the melee to get to Ben and Leon who are locked eye-to-eye and motionless as blood gushes from Ben’s closed fist. Wilkins is almost there when an inmate jumps him from behind reaching for his weapon. With eyes in the back of his head, Ben uses his other hand to karate chop the inmate, breaking his neck and sending him to the floor without even a scream. Wilkins regains himself, grateful to Ben, who has not taken his eyes off Leon. Wilkins pulls his gun out and shoots four rounds into the ceiling. The fighting stops at the sound of the gunshots. Other guards burst in. Wilkins moves in next to Leon where he and Ben are frozen in inert combat with the blade closed into Ben’s fist. Wilkins levels his weapon at Leon’s head.
Ben scolds, “Leon, this is a place of worship.”
Flooded with adrenaline, Wilkins rests his weapon on Leon’s temple and adds, “And I hope you’ve been praying.”
Ben turns his eyes calmly to Wilkins, “Not in God’s house.”
A tremulous silence, they all wait for Wilkins’ decision: life or death. He has the choice. He could pull the trigger and no one would care. One less animal to feed and cage. Society might shake its head, but it would be grateful to be rid of him. At this moment, with the muzzle of the gun at Leon’s temple, and with everyone waiting, the choice is his. He could take this life. He wants to take this worthless life. The muscles in his face give a little. His blood calms. Two other guards sense it and step forward grabbing Leon. They slam him to the cement floor breaking his jaw and his nose. They pull his arms behind his back and cuff him. Other guards have taken charge of the rioting rabble and order is harshly restored. Ben opens his hand. Wilkins carefully pulls the embedded knife from Ben’s palm.
“I’ll take you to the infirmary,” Wilkins says.
Ben nods, turns to leave with him, but then stops and asks the chaplain, “Father, are you all right?”
The shaken chaplain nods. He drops to his knees and says a prayer for Ben’s soul. Wilkins leads Ben out of the chapel and down the hall toward the infirmary.
Wilkins is amazed at Ben’s ability to withstand the pain and asks, “How did you do that?”
“God did that - saved us both - you and me. But evidently he has turned his attention to other things because it hurts like a motherfucker now.” These two men almost smile at each other. How strange, Wilkins thinks, to see the budding of humanity in a man with this kind of history. What was it that turned Ben Burne?
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Genre – Thriller
Rating – R
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