“It’s Darkest This Way” (Book 4, series finale) is published!

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Just wanted to let everyone know that the wait is over. After almost six years, the final sequel to “It’s Better This Way” (free everywhere!) is published!

Evan Greggs continues the twenty-three year search for his sister, Sandra, in this fourth and final installment of the “This Way” series. Armed with only his weapon, the two pictures of Sandra drawn by Luna Payne, and the information given to him by an older man who was present during the destruction of Corvallis soon after the Bulls invaded Earth, Evan prepares to journey to Helmet’s stronghold near Snoqualmie. Torn between his obsession with finding his sister and remaining with his traveling companions, his love for Rebecca Collins, and the promise of electricity, running water, and safety at Base Bravo, Evan and crew must first face Little Jack’s gang.

Book 1: “It’s Better This Way”
Book 2: “It’s Harder This Way”
Book 3: “It’s Darker This Way”
Book 4: “It’s Darkest This Way”

"It's Darkest This Way" cover

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

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 Only Hurts In Your Heart

IT ONLY HURTS IN YOUR HEART

Janelle can’t stop crying. I can’t say I blame her. I’ve done my share over the last two years, though the amount of tears both of us have shed in the last six days makes the last two years seem like an office party. Darren Eggers is on the TV, though he’s really not there. It’s a pre-recorded loop, and he’s been repeating himself for the last six hours. The first three times he gave us his news report, Jan and I held each other, both of us shivering from the icy infusion of absolute terror.

“I don’t think I can do it,” she says between sobs. “Mike… I can’t do it.”

“It’s the only way,” I say, wrapping my arm around her stomach as we spoon on the bed. I put my lips close to her ear and whisper, “We have to. If we don’t… We have to.”

“I’m afraid.”

“I know, baby. I’m afraid too.”

Janelle, the woman I’ve been in love with for twenty-nine years, turns over to face me. She hasn’t worn makeup in over a year, since there hasn’t been any makeup to buy. There hasn’t been anything to “buy” for the last year. There’s not enough people left to run a store, let alone a factory or a farm to actually produce something. The last thing I bought was a .45 automatic, a pump shotgun, and two boxes of ammunition. They were the last weapons left in the store, maybe in the city. Gary, the owner of the gun store, sold me two of his personal firearms, knowing there wasn’t going to be anyone left to shoot (or do the shooting) soon enough.

Even though we’ve been together for three decades, and I’ve seen Jan without makeup for much of it, it took me a while to get used to her natural face. She’s still the most stunning, heart-stoppingly gorgeous woman I’d ever laid eyes on, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that she is one of those rare, truly beautiful women that doesn’t need makeup to make jaws drop and tongues wag. But without makeup, she can no longer hide the sadness, the despair that has infected her. That has infected everyone, according to the news. Or will soon. Except it isn’t the infection that’s going to exterminate the human race.

“Is it going to hurt?” she asks, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand.

“Only in your heart,” I say, kissing the cheek she just smeared, tasting the salty hopelessness of our situation. “But otherwise, you’ll just fall asleep.”

Janelle begins to cry again, her mind hearing the unspoken and never wake again. I didn’t think I had any emotions left in me to join her. The wetness on my own cheeks says otherwise. 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

Oath of Office – Chapter 1

So, here’s a kind of fun but yet serious story I’ve sort of been working on between other major stories. It’s just a chapter for the moment, but if you like it, leave me a comment and tell me you want to read more!

1. Breach & Clear

“Honey?” Virginia whispered in my ear as she shook my shoulder.

“Wazza?” I asked sleepily, letting go of the slim island woman’s waist as the Caribbean jazz fusion faded into the rustling of covers and the slightest of muffled noises.

“Alex, wake up,” my wife whispered again, this time more urgently. “I think there’s someone outside.”

“Probably some fuckin’ protester assholes,” I mumbled, desperate to resume my conga line dance even if it wasn’t with my wife of twenty years. “You have my permission to shoot them.” I rolled over on my side and closed my eyes.

“Dammit, Alex, I’m serious!” she hissed, giving my shoulder one final rough shove.

“Okay, okay, sheesh,” I said then wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth. “It’s probably the cats and they see another cat outside.”

I rolled my legs onto the floor and stared into the darkness for a moment as if my slippers might suddenly glow softly so I could find them. I huffed a sigh and gingerly tiptoed barefoot toward the bedroom door, praying I avoided any number of obstacles that might make me erupt in a high-pitched scream of vulgar profanity.

I silently pulled the partially-opened bedroom door back, immediately feeling the brief sensation of fur on my bare ankles twice. I waited until I felt a third before taking another step. Stepping on one of our three cats in the middle of the night was only slightly more pleasant and slightly less heart-stopping than feeling my foot slide through a puddle of cold, slimy, chunky feline vomit.

I paused for a moment after hearing a series of strange sounds. The noises were muffled but my brain tried to interpret them as two-way radios. I shook my head and walked to the living room window to look out. The exact instant my mind tried to piece together why an army of police cars were outside our home was the exact instant what seemed like an Anti-Terror Special Operations Unit burst through every possible opening into the house.

“GET DOWN!” screamed at least seventy thousand voices all at once. Continue reading

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

Hallowed Journeys – preview chapter!

Hello again! Since many of you have recently read “Hallowed Ends,” I wanted to let you know that the sequel, “Hallowed Journeys” is definitely coming at some point. I also figured you might want to read a little bit of it, so here’s Chapter 1, which picks up where “Ends” left off. “Journeys” will be a much longer story than “Ends,” and is no longer told only from one character’s point of view. I’ll post a few chapters from different character PoV over the next couple of weeks!

ONE

“Do not stray from my side,” Feyric whispered to Celana as they entered the raucous, rowdy bar attached to the inn. “And whatever you do, do not show Carnage to anyone. No matter what.”

“Yes, sir,” Celana said, doing her best to keep her face from showing both fear and excitement.

“Yes, father,” Feyric said from the corner of his mouth, emphasizing it with a slight nudge of his elbow into her shoulder.

“Yes, father,” she said, keeping her eyes on the oiled, dusty floor of the tavern.

Feyric navigated through the small crowds of boisterous sailors, merchants, and laborers, finally arriving at a curtained-off area near the rear. Three pirates immediately rose from their stools and blocked his way, giving him and Celana murderous glares. Feyric nudged Celana behind him, then looked at each of the men for a moment before holding up both hands.

“I seek passage to Nian, and your captain is the only one willing to make such a journey,” Feyric said to the man directly in front of him. “Silas from the docks told me to seek him out.” Continue reading

“It’s Darkest This Way” (book #4) update!

Hey, all. I know a lot of you have powered through the “It’s Way” series and are hoping for a conclusion to it, so just wanted to let you know where I’m at with that.

#1 – It’s Better This Way
#2 – It’s Harder This Way
#3 – It’s Darker This Way
#4 – It’s Darkest This Way

Book #4 will be the final book in this series, and will conclude Evan’s story. I am hard at work on it right now (and school as well!), but hoping to have it out somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas of this year (2019). The very talented Keith Draws is working on the cover for it, and I’m 75% or more finished with the rough draft. I’m hoping to knock it out during Thanksgiving break, unless I somehow get it finished before that!

Now, as you may have read in the series, General Kendra Flanders and her Warthogs are just getting their plans off the ground while Evan & crew are finishing up their stories. Plus there’s Luna Payne, who still has a role to play, as do the fine folks from Eugene like Dallas Payne and Seth Ingram. I’m going to begin a new series for them, which will begin immediately after the “This Way” series.

There’s still a lot of story to tell, and the Bulls aren’t going to simply jump into their ships and blast off without a fight…

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

Monster – Chapter 2 (non-fiction)

Monster – Chapter 2 (Non-Fiction)
CHAPTER 1 LINK

II

As unpredictable as the monster was, sometimes she was like a VCR tape that had been watched until the machine ate it. Over the years, her need to lash out, to punish, to hurt, could always be counted on. The abuses piled on, from the time she beat me with a belt so vigorously that it broke into two sections when I was six, to the most frightening moment of my entire life when she tried to force me to put my hands on the kitchen table so she could cut my fingers off after I damaged some of her kitchen knives at age eight.

I spent the majority of my young life in such a state of fear that she would eventually kill me during a blind rage that I’m still damaged by the trauma to this day. Books and baseball were my only true outlets of escape, and baseball was a summers-only affair that couldn’t be relied upon during the majority of the year. Books, on the other hand, allowed me to leave my world and enter others, from the strange, horrifying settings Stephen King created, to the somewhat cheesy but still enjoyable Nancy Drew series. As an adult, I find myself comparing my imagination to that of Calvin, from the comic strip by Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes,” except instead of having two loving parents, I had a single, terrifying, toothless, monstrous creature who was as real as some of Calvin’s imagined beasts.

Devouring books, from whatever I could constantly check out at the public library, to the numerous books lining the shelves within the duplex that was more prison and torture chamber than a home, is the one thing that kept me sane, kept me from eventually turning the tables on the monster and murdering her. The monster realized that this was likely an eventual outcome at some point, as the object of her fury continued to grow both physically and mentally, and she knew that one day I would no longer be the punching bag who would cower and cry as she rained down physical blows, enhanced by a flurry of verbal strikes designed to keep me from believing that I was anything but a worthless piece of shit—as if her goal was to be able to look back one day and think, “He turned out exactly as I predicted!” Continue reading