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    Unexpected Encounters
    Unexpected Encounters
    Unexpected Encounters
    Ebook147 pages2 hours

    Unexpected Encounters

    By Annie Reed

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    About this ebook

    Unexpected encounters can change your life in amazing ways.

    Take the neighbors you've never met who hide their lives behind drawn curtains. Or the furtive family you see late at night at your local pizza parlor. Or the old woman who might hide a heart-breaking secret beneath her wrinkles and gray hair. What would it be like to get to know them—really?

    Ranging from tall tales with a definite steampunk flair to urban fantasy to near-future science fiction, this latest collection in Annie Reed's Unexpected series will open your heart to the possibilities that exist when you take a minute to get to know the people we share this planet with.

     

    "Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women." –Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

     

    "One of the best writers I've come across in years. Annie excels at whatever genre of fiction she chooses to write."  —Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor and writer of The Retrieval Artist series

     

    "The appearance of a new Annie Reed story is a treat. Try one and you'll be hooked." –David H. Hendrickson, award-winning author of "Death in the Serengeti"

     

    "Annie's writing is magic, seriously." –Robert J. McCarter, author of A Ghost's Memoir series

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThunder Valley Ink
    Release dateApr 27, 2021
    ISBN9798201637989
    Unexpected Encounters
    Author

    Annie Reed

    Award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch calls Annie Reed “one of the best writers I’ve come across in years.”Annie’s won recognition for her stellar writing across multiple genres. Her story “The Color of Guilt” originally published in Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, was selected as one of The Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. Her story “One Sun, No Waiting” was one of the first science fiction stories honored with a literary fellowship award by the Nevada Arts Foundation, and her novel PRETTY LITTLE HORSES was among the finalists in the Best First Private Eye Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America.A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie’s recent work includes the superhero origin novel FASTER, the near-future science fiction short novel IN DREAMS, and UNBROKEN FAMILIAR, a gritty urban fantasy mystery short novel. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly series of themed urban fantasy stories written by some of the best writers working today.Annie’s mystery novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels PRETTY LITTLE HORSES and PAPER BULLETS, the Jill Jordan mystery A DEATH IN CUMBERLAND, and the suspense novel SHADOW LIFE, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to. For more information about Annie, including news about upcoming bundles and publications, go to www.annie-reed.com.

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      Book preview

      Unexpected Encounters - Annie Reed

      Unexpected encounters can change your life in amazing ways.

      Take the neighbors you’ve never met who hide their lives behind drawn curtains. Or the furtive family you see late at night at your local pizza parlor. Or the old woman who might hide a heart-breaking secret beneath her wrinkles and gray hair. What would it be like to get to know them—really?

      Ranging from tall tales with a definite steampunk flair to urban fantasy to near-future science fiction, this latest collection in Annie Reed’s Unexpected series will open your heart to the possibilities that exist when you take a minute to get to know the people we share this planet with.

      One of the best writers I’ve come across in years.

      Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women.

      Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

      Introduction

      A Tale of Good Whiskey, Bad Coffee, and One Devious Woman

      Homeless

      Hunter by Night

      Omens and Oracles and Eros, Oh My

      Famous

      Cleo and the Scout

      One Sun, No Waiting

      Copyright Information

      About the Author

      Introduction

      You’re holding in your hands (or on your e-reader) the most eclectic collection of stories yet in the Unexpected series, and I think that’s kind of exciting.

      One thing all these stories have in common, besides the general theme of how random encounters with strangers can change your life in amazing and totally unexpected ways, is an element of the fantastic. Some of those elements have their roots in urban fantasy, while others trace their origins to the science fiction end of the spectrum.

      Take A Tale of Good Whiskey, Bad Coffee, and One Devious Woman. It’s been described as a tall tale, and I’m good with that. It’s also the one steampunk-ish story I’ve written to date. Not that I have anything against steampunk—it’s just not in my general bailiwick. Give it a read and see what you think. I had a lot of fun writing that one.

      You’ll find Moretown Bay stories here as well, and those range from the grittier urban fantasy tales Hunter by Night and Famous to the more lighthearted Diz & Dee story Omens and Oracles and Eros, Oh My. Homeless and Cleo and the Scout deal with contemporary takes on characters born of myth and legend. One Sun, No Waiting is an award-winning near-future science fiction story.

      I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had many random encounters—unexpected or otherwise—in the last year or so. Putting this collection together made me remember what it was like to just sit somewhere, whether in a coffee shop or a mall or a theater waiting for the movie to start, and people watch. To just be out among other people and let my imagination run free. Writers do that a lot, and I’ve missed it.

      Here’s hoping that by this time next year, I’ll be out people watching again and generating story ideas for a second Unexpected Encounters volume.

      Stay safe, everyone.

      —Annie Reed

      April, 2021

      A Tale of Good Whiskey, Bad Coffee, and One Devious Woman

      Well, now that you’ve let me wet my whistle, so to speak, I best be getting on with tellin’ you that story I mentioned when you so kindly let Emmett ’n me set foot in your establishment, seein’ how we’re a little short of cash at the moment.

      Emmett’ll tell you he saw the thing first, but he’d also tell you how he found gold nuggets the size of his fist just lying on the ground out in the middle of nowhere back when we was prospecting if he thought anybody might buy him a shot or two of whiskey just to hear him tell the tale. See, Emmett and me, we been riding together a bunch of years. While he’s about the best friend I got in this world, Emmett and the truth ain’t never been more than nodding acquaintances.

      Of course, what we seen when we was riding trail out there in the Colorado territory... well, ain’t nobody gonna believe that story no matter who tells it, but I like to think I come as close as anybody to how it really happened, without all that extra stuff Emmett puts in his stories. Embellishments, he calls it. ’Fore I heard him say that word the first time, I didn’t even know he knew words that big.

      That’s the thing about Emmett—he’s smarter than he looks. He just can’t cook worth spit.

      That’s how the whole thing started. With Emmett’s coffee.

      We was out looking for cows that wandered off from old man Sumpter’s herd. Ain’t nothing dumber than cows ’cept maybe sheep, and yes, I know first-hand how dumb sheep can be, and no, I ain’t telling that story.

      I’m telling the story ’bout how I found the artifact.

      We’d been out riding east of Sumpter’s Flats, just Emmett and me. Why old man Sumpter claimed that spot of land for his own I ain’t never figured out since it wasn’t much ’cept for sagebrush and scrub and desert, the mountains so far away to the west they don’t look real. We hadn’t had so much as a lick of luck tracking down the cows we was supposed to be looking for, ’cept for that one we found that the buzzards claimed for their own. Emmett ’n me, we ain’t the world’s best cowboys, but we’d make even worse soldiers. We’d hightailed it out of Abilene before Mr. Lincoln’s war started—the one sure-fire thing we done right—and we been riding trail in the Colorado territory ever since.

      Contemplating our poor fortune trying to track down critters dumber than a mule, we’d made camp the night before in a little hollow in the middle of all that nothing. I went to sleep hoping I’d have at least one cow to bring back to Sumpter so I could prove I’d earned my pay. I woke up to the bitter smell of Emmett’s coffee and the burnt-grease stink of those nasty little biscuits he likes to cook over the campfire.

      I made myself choke down one of those biscuits. While I waited to see if my stomach was gonna rebel, I talked Emmett into playing a bit of poker.

      Emmett, he don’t like poker much, but there ain’t much else to do to pass the time out in the middle of all that nothing. We sat there by the campfire playing for the money old man Sumpter’d pay us once we got back. I won more than I lost thanks to a pair of one-eyed Jacks. Emmett told me even if I was the luckiest sumbitch he’d ever known, he wanted a chance to get his money back, and he poured us both more coffee.

      Now Emmett’s coffee ain’t the best most mornings, and this time he’d truly outdone himself. I might have myself a cast-iron stomach, but a man’s got his limits. I didn’t mind the prospect of playing poker instead of hunting cows. I did mind having to swallow more of that godawful coffee. So when Emmett wasn’t looking, I threw my coffee into the brush behind me.

      Well, damned if something didn’t yell at me from that self-same clump of sagebrush.

      I say, good sir!

      I about jumped right out of my skin. I ain’t been so surprised since I won that pot in Abilene, best damn hand of poker I ever played in my life, but that’s another story for another day. This story’s about the metal man I threw Emmett’s coffee on, and what happened after that.

      Yes, I would like another whiskey. Thank you kindly for asking.

      And yes, I said metal man.

      Weren’t no bigger than my boot neither, sitting propped up against the brush, arms and legs and body and head all made out of some kind of metal that didn’t look quite shiny enough to be gold. O’ course, it being the desert and all, and he was as dusty as my chaps and his joints squeaked and squealed when he...

      No, I’m not joshing you. He was made of metal and he could move and talk all on his own. No, his voice did not sound like mine. If anything, he sounded like some of those high fallutin’ fellers I seen waiting for the train in Abilene. Only he was small.

      Real small.

      Well, my horse didn’t much like that little metal man, let me tell you. By the time I got my horse over a good case of the jitters and settled back down, that metal man had crawled out from beneath the sagebrush and was standing on one leg right there as big—or not so big—as day.

      I say, do you happen to have any oil on you? he asked us. A lubricant of any decent variety will do in a pinch.

      I turned to look at Emmett to see if he was seeing the same thing I was. Emmett was sitting stock still, mouth hanging open, and holding that dented pan of his over the fire, the biscuit he’d been cooking starting to burn.

      Buck, he said. You seein’ what I’m seein’?

      I do believe I am, I said.

      Emmett blinked. We ain’t got no oil, he said to the metal man. Got a little bacon grease.

      Bacon grease, the metal man repeated. A bit of steam escaped from the back of his head, and his metal shoulders seemed to droop. It is a type of lubricant. Beggars can’t be choosers.

      Emmett cooked those nasty biscuits of his in bacon grease whenever he had it. He tossed the pot he kept the grease in to me since I was closest to the metal man.

      I held the bacon grease out like I was offering up my finger to a rattler. The metal man took it from me with metal fingers that looked like tiny versions of my own, except with even tinier gears and rivets holding them together.

      Emmett and I watched as the metal man worked bits of bacon grease into the joints of his legs. High overhead a hawk was circling in a way that made me wonder if the metal man looked like a meal. He might smell like a meal now thanks to all that grease, but when he was finished, his joints didn’t squeak and squeal no more.

      Ah, he said, bending his knees. I thank you, kind sir. He handed the bacon grease back to me. I would love to stay and chat, but I really am quite long overdue.

      Overdue where? Emmett asked.

      The biscuit still cooking in his pan caught fire right about then. Emmett yelped and jumped up from the rock he’d been sitting on and dumped the pan, burning biscuit and all,

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