by Ricky Sides
Evan could hear the bear running behind him. It sounded to him as if the bear was right on his heels, so the boy redoubled his efforts. Fear produced adrenaline made it possible for him to run faster.
The boy felt the hot breath of the bear on the back of his neck. His terror caused him to emit another involuntary scream. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he ran even faster. Then his foot hit a snag and the young man went flying face first toward the ground.
Excerpt from book 7 of the peacekeeper series:
Far across the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Spain, a great fleet was being assembled. The convoy was a mismatched assortment of vessels, which spanned the technology of the past century and a quarter. Sailing yachts sat at sea alongside the battleships and destroyers that would lead the armada. Behind them were fuel tankers, supply ships, troop transports, freighters, several oil tankers, and every conceivable civilian vessel rated for the open sea imaginable, including several cruise ships. These ships all carried pirates who’d seized most of the vessels in the years following the breakdown of world governments.
The pirate fleet was a multinational assembly, ruled by a captain’s council that was composed of the captains of the largest ships. To qualify for membership on the council, the captain had to have a crew of at least forty men, and the ship had to be seaworthy. Disagreements in the council were often settled by votes, but occasionally, fights between the opposing captains settled disputes. Those fights, more often than not, resulted in the death of the loser.
For the past several years, these pirate vessels had systematically looted the coastlines of the western European nations. The token efforts of those countries to deal with the pirates made little difference in their ability to raid and plunder at will. Only one nation had managed to stand strong against the pirates, and had thus far beaten them during every confrontation.
With the collapse of Parliament, the people of Britain turned to their monarchy, expecting the royals to reestablish order, and with the support of the British people, the monarchy rose to that challenge.
The United Kingdom had managed to keep sufficient portions of their naval forces intact and seaworthy to prevent the pirate fleets from pillaging their isles. Now they were running low on resources. The worst shortage was that of petroleum products, without which they couldn’t produce fuel to maintain their fleet vigilance, but there were other critical shortages as well.
Forced by these shortages to pull back their defensive forces (to their own coastal waters,) the United Kingdom was effectively isolated. The pirates saw this as a victory. The once great kingdom was weakening, and would soon be theirs to plunder. But they too were suffering critical shortages. Like the United Kingdom, they were low on petroleum products, ammunition for their captured warships, and food.
Now the pirates were turning their sights on the United States, where they expected to obtain crude oil, fuel for their ships, food in abundance, and a myriad of other items in high demand throughout devastated Europe. With those resources at their disposal, they felt confident that they would be able to crush the fleets of Britain, and then establish an era of pirate rule over the seas of the world.
Excerpt from Adventures in Reading.
In the mid-nineties, my wife was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, which had metastasized to her lymph nodes. The essay “Coping with Breast Cancer” details what happened in the wake of that diagnosis. We decided to release this essay in the hopes of helping other couples confronted with this terrible disease. Therefore, when I released a short story collection in a book titled Adventures in Reading, the essay was included.
Here is a brief excerpt from Coping with Breast Cancer.
In the fall of 1995 we were living the good life. We’d just bought our dream house and moved in the previous July and were looking forward to our first holiday season in our new home. Only one thing placed a cloud over our lives at that point in time. My wife had a mysterious bloody discharge from one breast. She had also lost a considerable amount of weight and I was beginning to become concerned.
My wife was reluctant to agree to go to a doctor but finally I managed to elicit a promise from her that she would go to see a physician the day after Thanksgiving. That morning we got into our car for the drive to the doctor, never suspecting that our lives were about to be forever changed.
I sat in the waiting room while my wife saw her gynecologist. I saw her come back out just a few minutes after she had been escorted back to the examination room. She was pale and said that the doctor had told her we had to go to the hospital at once for a mammogram and that the doctor was calling ahead to get her worked in that day.
She broke down and cried on the drive to the hospital and expressed her sense of dread saying, “The doctor says she’s afraid it might be breast cancer.” That was the first time I heard the words breast cancer in relation to my wife.
The doctor was true to her word and the people at the hospital were expecting my wife when we arrived. She was immediately hustled back into the radiology area where she underwent her first mammography at age 35.
Tensely I waited, not yet comprehending what was happening. My mind seemed numb, almost as if I had consumed a vast amount of alcohol. I guess I was in a sort of state of shock. I nervously thumbed through some brochures sitting in a rack in the waiting room. As I did so I told myself that there had to be some mistake. My wife couldn’t have breast cancer. Not my Sue.
Excerpt from The Ultimate in Women’s Self-Defense:
Self-defense knowledge and psychological evaluation test
1. What is the first thing you should do if someone grabs you?
2. What should you do if you are alone in your home and you suddenly get the feeling that there is a prowler in the house? In addition, what should you do if you know for certain that there is a prowler in the house? This is a two-question section. Please answer both questions, even if your answer is the same in both cases.
3. Name three household articles that can serve as a weapon in an emergency. Please stick to household articles and not conventional weapons.
4. What should you do if a group of people attacks you?
5. What would you do if you were in your bathtub and someone attacked you? In this scenario, you are alone in the house with no one to call for help.
6. What would you do if you were about to get in your car and noticed someone was already inside your vehicle?
7. What are the best places to hit on a man’s body? Remember that you want to hit the places that will cause the most pain. List at least five specific targets, but the more the better.
8. What would you do if someone threw you down on the ground and then dove on top of you? Please fully answer this question. Most women only partially answer this particular question because they consider it one of the worst-case scenarios. Of course it is. This is why the question is on the test.
9. What would you do if someone grabbed your arms and pinned them behind your back? This question needs to be addressed in two ways. In one scenario, your attacker is standing behind you. In the other, the attacker is in front of you.
10. What are the warning signs that you may have a burglar in your house? In this scenario, you have been out of the house and just returned home.
11. Should small children be permitted to answer the telephone? Please explain your answers.
12. If you were sexually assaulted today, how would you rate your chances of surviving the ordeal and successfully fighting off your attacker?
______ Excellent
______ Good
______ Maybe, with some help.
______ Certain Victim, if attacked.
Now that you have completed the test, please save the test document that you created. You’ll want to reference that paper periodically as you study this book. Do not be discouraged if you didn’t know how to answer the questions properly at this point in time. I assure you that by the end of this book you will perform considerably better.
