Smash & Grab & Steal & Loot

Smash & Grab & Loot & Steal #1

“May I help you?” the stuffy man at the counter asked.

“Arrrr!”

“Keep yer eyes to yerself, matey!”

“Ye best be helpful, dog!”

A dirty hand loaded with shiny gold rings reached across the counter and tweaked the salesman’s name tag.

“Don’t be thinkin’ we ain’t watching ye, Gary.”

The way the hand’s owner said Gary’s name made the salesman think of how someone might describe a pile of fecal matter. Another chorus of arrrr’s and grunts and snarls and other pirate-y noises followed the boisterous threats directed at the customer service rep. Tina held up her hand, and the store became quiet other than the rustling of sword scabbards and knife sheaths, the tinkling of jewelry, and the clink of coins within their purses.

“Don’t mind them,” she said to the man behind the counter. “They’re just…”

The man raised an eyebrow at her, waiting to hear what her answer could possibly be.

“They’re just a band of pirates my husband hired to follow me around to make sure no one gives me any trouble,” she said with a sigh, sounding as if she’d had to explain it for the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.

Gary gave a wary glance to the six pirates gathered around her. “I see,” he said. He looked back at the attractive woman standing before him. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Do you think you could fix this?” Tina asked, holding out her hand.

Gary leaned forward to get a look at the gold chain. He paused when he felt the tip of a sword under his chin. He glanced up to see a mouth full of shiny gold teeth greeting him.

“I see ya achin’ to get a look-see down M’lady’s shirt,” Captain Ironbeak growled, his voice dangerous and only slightly less toxic than the atmosphere of Jupiter. Continue reading

“It’s Darkest This Way” (book #4, series finale) rough draft is done!

Quick update after a long silence to let you know that I’ve just completed the rough draft of “It’s Darkest This Way” (book #4 of the “This Way” series)! Keith Draws sent me the final cover for it as well! I’m hoping that I can get this edited and published within the next month, though with school starting again on January 13th, it might be a bit delayed.

Here’s the cover, and I’ll post updates regularly as the final draft nears completion.

"It's Darkest This Way" cover

“It’s Darkest This Way” by Travis Hill
Cover art by: Keith Draws

Hallowed Journeys – Chapter 2 preview

Here’s a second chapter preview, this time it’s Mother Alanna, another character from “Hallowed Ends.”

TWO

The timeless dream became a steady white light, the sun, the flowers, the hillsides, the bright blue sky fading into an endless void with no beginning, no end. The flower petals fell from Mother Alanna’s fingers, disappearing before they reached her feet. She called out to the void, her voice seeming to echo forever with no reply. Sadness enveloped her, the sense of loss of her god abandoning her, taking from her one final happiness as the peace and serenity of her dream became nothing. The silence made her want to scream, the fear of madness replacing the serenity that she had felt only moments earlier. A bright flash, somehow brighter than the white void, forced her to close her eyes.

When she opened them, she was surrounded by darkness other than the dim glow of the heavy object on her chest. Alanna lay still as she steadied her breathing, amazed that the heavy metal on her chest flared lightly with a red glow with each breath she inhaled, becoming a dim blue that faded with each exhale. She listened intently, unsure of her surroundings. The faint sound of voices met her ears. Alanna struggled to move, her limbs stiff and sore. When she was finally able to gain control of her hands, she ran them over the object on her chest, sighing at the warmth emanating from it. Continue reading

Crazy Idea Number One Blog Post Best!

Thanks to my new best friends @ Speculative Fiction Showcase for allowing me to do a guest blog post! This one is about where all those crazy ideas come from!

SUPER BLOG POST NUMBER ONE BEST! by Travis Hill

Hey, gang, some guy named Travis here. I’ve been allowed, by both the nice persons who run this site, as well as my lawyer, agent, and rabbi, to do a guest blog. Today we’re going to talk about something that a lot of authors seem to hate, which is “where do you get your ideas from?” Now, I’m not sure why authors hate this question so much, as I happen to think it is the absolute best question anyone could ever ask me. Even if they are the 3(324.36 ×10²⁴)⁴ person in the last seven minutes to ask that particular question. Because every time someone asks it, I always seem to have a different answer.

Before we talk about where weirdo ideas come from, let’s explore why authors hate this question so much.

Because some jerk inevitably asks if an author wants to hear his jerk idea and whether or not its a good idea and if it is a good idea can you write it and split the profits with me?

Okay, that run-on sentence was on purpose, because I’ve actually heard this question asked to both myself and to “real” authors (aka Authors Who Make Enough Money To Have Me Shipped To The Moon On A Space-X Cargo Rocket). And when you hear it, it’s said exactly as I wrote it—one long run-on sentence in a single breath. Depending on how introverted or shy the questioner is can also raise and lower the pitch of the question in ways that I cannot describe in less than 500 words. But I’m sure you can imagine how it sounds if you think about a 15 year old kid at a con who has a death-grip on the mic because suddenly his great idea of getting picked to ask a question in a room with 7 writers and 500 fans/readers wasn’t all that great of an idea after all. Continue reading

“The Minotaur” cover update!

Thanks to Trevor Smith for painting an unbelievably awesome cover for “The Minotaur”!

I originally planned to publish it as a stand-alone novella, as it is only around 20k words, but then an idea popped into my head (a dangerous affair anytime me + ideas collide!), and I’ve decided to make it a collection, but one where all of the stories tie together in a general way: An ancient genie shares stories of how humans foolishly used their wish after releasing him, spanning thousands of years from the Fertile Crescent 6000+ years ago, to a few hundred years in the future.

More on that later. In the meantime, here’s the finished cover!

12 year old Billy Jacobs battles the devil for his soul on the hardest pinball table ever created

Spirit Guide

SPIRIT GUIDE

“Hey, mate,” a familiar voice said from my left.

I looked over to see the garden gnome sitting on the arm of the couch. A sigh escaped me after I blinked my eyes a few times.

“Great,” I muttered. “You again.”

“Exactly!” the gnome said without moving its lips. “Me again.”

“Go away,” I mumbled. “You’re not real.”

“Are you sure about that?” the gnome asked slyly.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

I reached out to the gnome, sure my hand would pass right through it since it was nothing more than a figment of my imagination—a figment that had followed me around for the last three days after a binge on what I had thought was absinthe at a local watering hole in San Elira. I still didn’t know what I had consumed, but I knew it wasn’t absinthe even if it was the same electric-green color. My fingers bumped up against the solid ceramic gnome, sending it crashing to the floor.

“Owwww!” the gnome cried, its voice muffled. “What the hell, Mike?”

I peered over the arm of the couch to see the gnome face-down on the wooden floor. I blinked a few times. This isn’t real, I reminded myself. None of this is real.

“I’ll ask again,” the gnome said, still face-down on the floor. “Are you sure?”

“Fuckin’ great,” I said, reaching down to pick the gnome up. “Now you can hear my thoughts as well. What the hell was that shit?” I asked myself, remembering the silky, smooth, slightly sweet taste of the liquid I’d gotten smashed on.

“It’s what the locals call ‘Silandra,’” the gnome answered after I put him on the roughly hewn coffee table in front of me. “I heard it was a beverage the natives concocted a thousand years ago.”

“That’s what you heard, huh?” I asked, deciding to go along with the hallucination.

I checked my surroundings beyond the couch. I was in a small bungalow or shack somewhere near the beach. The low roar of ocean waves breaking on the sandbars mixed with the slight rustling of tropical vegetation outside the shack.

“And what exactly is this ‘Silandra’?” I asked after turning my attention back to the gnome.

“It lets you talk to the gods,” the gnome said solemly. Continue reading

Update 1/8/2019 – “It’s Darkest This Way”

Just a quick update to let you know that I’m hard at work on the fourth and final book in the “This Way” series:

“It’s Better This Way” introduced you to Evan Greggs, The Farm, and the post-invasion Pacific Northwest.

“It’s Harder This Way” – Evan and The Farm attempt to deal with the problem of Base Charlie and the remnants of the army.

“It’s Darker This Way” – Evan once again embarks on the journey to find his sister, Sandra, whom he hasn’t seen in the twenty-six years since the Bulls invaded Earth. Luna Payne’s gift is the catalyst that generates a new lead for Evan, but a new threat emerges when the army detonates a nuclear warhead against the Bulls near Seattle.

“It’s Darkest This Way” – the final chapter of Evan’s story as he pursues a lead that will take him toward Helmet, a vicious strongman who plans to eliminate General Kendra Flanders and the army — if the Bulls don’t retaliate first.

***

I’m four chapters in and going strong, and hope to have this out for everyone to read by March/April 2019. Stay tuned for updates and preview chapters!

(have no fear, however, as while this is the end of Evan’s story, there’s still much more to tell thanks to Luna Payne and Kendra Flanders)

Audiobook Narration via Twitch/YouTube Coming Soon!

I’ve decided I’m going to try something new this week. Once my Blue Yeti microphone arrives, I’m going to begin narrating short stories first, then full-length novels while streaming on Twitch. You can find my channel HERE.

Once the stream is done @ Twitch, I’ll upload it to YouTube.

Keep in mind that I am not a professional voice actor, so it might take me a bit to hit my groove. Because of this, I’m going to start with some shorter stories such as “Dragons Are Not Your Friends” and “Bears Are Not Your Friends Either.”

And I’ve also created a couple of very, very awful pieces of art for these two stories just so you have something to look at while listening to my terrible, nasal, annoying voice!

Art skill is definitely NOT my friend…

Why does this weird bear have a rifle and a camera???

Gaming the System – Chapter 1

GAMING THE SYSTEM

By Travis Hill

Copyright 2017

 

ONE

I listened as I stood in the darkness, but the only sound I heard was the thumping of my heart and my own breathing. With my back against the wall, I inched forward as quietly as possible. The killer was somewhere ahead of me, armed with a chrome or stainless automatic. I wondered where the fuck Tillman was. My partner and I had split up at the entrance, with me taking the stairs while he went around back.

It was stupid, and we were going to catch hell for it. Sergeant Hines would be just the first in a chain of superiors taking a piece of our ass for chasing an armed gunman into a half-finished office tower without waiting for backup. But they hadn’t watched this guy execute two men less than twenty feet from us either. They hadn’t seen the look in his eyes as he stared at us while putting a bullet in the second victim’s skull. The perp was either insane or he was the hardest of the hard-nosed killers syndicate organizations used to take solve problems.

Then there’s the fact that Tillman and I had each burned through an entire twelve round magazine from no less than fifteen feet away. The asshole only laughed before he turned and ran across 5th Street and into a construction site. Neither of us spotted a blood trail, which meant we wasted twenty-four bullets at almost point-blank distance and came up empty. Last time Tillman and I hit the range to renew our certifications, we were thirty out of thirty at thirty feet and twenty-six out of thirty at twelve. Twelve feet and a moving target that randomly swiveled to present an inch of surface area to hit.

Continue reading

The Definitive History of Ronald K. Drumpf’s Presidency: The First 14 Days

CHAPTER ONE – WEEK TWO
White House Waiting Room – 9:30PM Eastern Standard Time

“They’re ready for you, Mr. President,” the Chief of Staff said.

“Did you hear something?” President Drumpf asked his Secretary of Defense as they stood in the waiting room going over the president’s speech.

“I don’t think so, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Ralphie Thaddeus Cruise said, hoping that it was the right answer. Wrong answers had caused the previous Secretary of Defense to be fired three days into the new administration.

“Mr. President?” Don Kaylic said again. “It’s time for your speech.”

“There it is again,” President Drumpf said, looking around the waiting room. He spotted an almost invisible man near the door. “Oh, it’s you Don,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s pretty hard to remember you even exist sometimes.”

“Yes, Sir,” his Chief of Staff replied, blending back into the wallpaper.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” Drumpf grunted.

The 45th President of the United States of America and Greatest Nation On Planet Earth and Maybe the Galaxy led the Secretary of Defense from the waiting room into the hallway. They walked for almost a minute in silence until President Drumpf put his hand on Cruise’s arm, bringing the man to a stop.

“I’m supposed to thank you, Ralphie,” Drumpf said in his most presidential voice. “But we all know it was me who solved this important problem. I mean, you did help a little bit, but not as much as I did. So it really should be you thanking me.”

The longing desire in the SecDef’s eyes made the president’s smile widen into a feral grin.

“You know how to thank me, Ralphie,” President Drumpf said, pushing down on the Defense Secretary’s shoulder until the man was on his knees. Continue reading