Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Triple 7 Challenge



Image of Alan McDermottI was recently nominated to take up the 777 Challenge by my good Twitter friend Alan McDermott (find him at @jambalian on Twitter). Alan is the author of the GRAY JUSTICE and GRAY RESURRECTION thrillers - both available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. You can find the seven line excerpt from his upcoming novel GRAY REDEMPTION on his blog, here.

Gray Justice 

The rules are simple - share seven lines from page seven or 77 from my current work in progress and then pass the Challenge along to seven lucky authors!





This excerpt is from page seven of book two in the Forney County series, tentatively titled AVENGERS OF BLOOD.  If you've read book one, THE DEVIL OF LIGHT, you've met Goober, a gentle resident of Forney County whose transportation is a blade-less riding lawn mower - because that's all the power he can handle. On page seven of AVENGERS OF BLOOD, Goober is on a desperate mission to get to The Whitehead Store before closing time to pick up potato chips. But instead of a simple rack of snack food, Goober finds a crime scene with the victim hung and burning.

For the record, I don't write about zombies, werewolves, or vampires, so it's Goober's overactive imagination that turns the victim into a zombie:

Reaching a hand out, he felt for the spigot on the wall, never taking his eyes from the zombie as it swayed ever so slightly in the gentle breeze. Goober yanked the hose from its reel and flinched away from the sizzling that sounded when the sputtering stream hit the burning figure. With a rip of protest, the frayed rope around its neck broke and the zombie dropped to the ground with a thud. Water flew and bits of charred cloth and skin ripped away from the smoking body. It lay motionless for a moment, then stirred.

Goober’s heart lunged to his throat and he jumped straight up into the air, releasing a blood-curdling shriek. He charged back through the stockroom door, slammed it shut and stood trembling, listening as the zombie staggered to its feet. Goober took a running leap over the gooey mess on the floor and sprinted into the store, where he dove behind the counter and reached for the phone.

With shaking fingers, he pecked out 9-1-1. “Police? This is Goober. We got a burnin’ zombie on the loose in The Whitehead Store. Bring the machetes. We gotta cut his head off.”


Now for the hard part! Here are seven authors I admire to take up the Triple 7 Challenge, in no particular order:







3 comments:

  1. Love it! Goober is too much.

    I accept! :) I will get my lines up in a day or two.

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    Replies
    1. Goober holds a special place in my heart! Thanks so much for accepting the Challenge - I can't wait to read it...

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  2. Mine is posted, and I tagged 7 other awesome authors. You can see my post at:

    http://kenhoss.blogspot.com/2012/08/triple-7-challenge.html

    Here are the 7 authors I tagged:

    Carolyn Arnold, Everett Powers, Jennifer Chase, Patti Roberts, Doug Dorow, Griffin Hayes, and Gail Baugniet.

    ReplyDelete