Short chapters help to keep this essay readable. It's designed for the general reader with a brief historical introduction that leads into the main discussion.It seems a little odd to say that the book is about the fall of the Roman empire because the contrast between the fall of the western hal...
Doing the right thing.Kids had yelled at her. Demanded to know why she had let it happen. Demanded to know where Sam was. Deluged her with complaints and worries and crazy theories until she had retreated.She’d hidden out after that. She’d refused to answer the door when kids knocked. She had not...
But she had to keep Little Fete calm. That was her top priority, her brother. Her blank-faced, helpless, unloving brother. She resented him. He had turned her into a mother at age fourteen. It wasn't right. This should be her time to shine, to be bold. This was her time to...
Rainy turns to look at the source. There is a group of perhaps twenty people, mostly women, holding signs reading Eve is not Adam!!! and 1 Timothy 2:12. Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence!!! She doubts even the Christian Bible comes with that ma...
That paragraph has now been deleted and was online for only twelve minutes. We suspect source material from KSI, Swedish Intelligence. Project MKULTRA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “MKULTRA” redirects here. For other uses, see MKULTRA (disambiguation). Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was ...
I wondered if the time would ever come when I would not dread the approach of the Master of the Game. The foul yellow mist, that harbinger of supernatural terror, rose now. But it came in a way unlike any previous appearance. I stared in fascination as the hundreds of still-life people in the aud...
the man in mismatched armor asked Grimluk. “Is it missing?” Grimluk asked. The man in the mismatched armor—so-called because he wore a helmet that was obviously too large for his rather small head and a chain mail shirt so small it was tied together in the back with pieces of yarn—stared at him a...
Not a bite. No likelihood of food suddenly appearing. Jack’s stomach no longer growled or rumbled. It cramped. The pains would come in waves. Each pain would last a minute or so, and stretch out over the course of an hour. Then there would be a reprieve of an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. B...
“Dr. McLure.” “Yes?” “Dr. McLure.” Donna. She’d been with me forever, since we were study partners back at Stanford. She was an active type, unlike me, she loved surfing and go-cart racing and even skydived on occasion. She was a perpetually tan, smiling, bright-eyed woman with a first-class mind...
Anything at all. Only instead of a dress or a nice pair of slacks, she could do the same with her very body, her shape. The form she took. Her powers were unlike anything the world had seen before. A single hand rose from the volcano as the newly made, still steaming-hot mountain split apart. A s...
The Magnifica plus Stefan would leap and then fall in slow motion while yelling comical catchphrases. They would land on the bateau mouche’s awning and slide down safely, and the cops would be left fuming helplessly. Ah, if only life could be a movie. Or a movie could be life. Although not some m...
She’d never experienced a sense of awe. Never even known what people were talking about when they went on and on about some sunset or the sweep of stars in a clear night sky. But now she was feeling something. She couldn’t see. It was as black as if her eyes had been gouged out. (A thought that m...
Nijinsky thought his watch- ful biot would allow him to see and understand what Burnofsky was doing. Foolish boy. Male model. I’m one of the great minds of the cen- tury, and you think I can’t carry out my work right under your nose? “Karl, it’s good to see you,” Charles l...
The sedatives they’d obtained were working for now, and Nijinsky couldn’t bear having Vincent tied up. Nijinsky stood looking down at Vincent as Vincent stared at the butcher-wrapped sandwich on the paper plate beside the snack pack of corn chips. “You have to eat something,” Nijinsky said. Vince...
I SAW WHAT I LOOKED LIKE. I SAW MY FACE. MY body. And with it, memories of earlier stages of my life. Me a year ago. Me three years ago. Me as a little girl taking gymnastics. My locker combination was 13-36-9. My grade point average was 4.0. I was five feet, five inches tall and hoped against al...
Sam told Taylor. “Edilio and Dekka to the gas station. Brianna on the streets. We’re going to deal with Zil.” For once, Taylor did not argue. She bounced away. He took a deep breath of cold night air and tried to get his head together. Zil. Had to stop him. But all he could see was Drake. Drake i...
WAKE UP.” Her eyes opened. She blinked up at Sam. It was full daylight. Not even early morning, later. She had slept a long time. A sharp intake of breath. She jumped up and began patting her body, probing, pushing, feeling for anything that shouldn’t be there. The divot in her shoulder burned li...
But it didn’t happen very fast. What did happen fast was Fenrir and Thor untangling from each other. Xiao slipped out from under them unnoticed. Stefan pulling on Thor’s sword had definitely stolen the spotlight. Now Stefan was sort of dragging the sword across the floor. The point left a scratch...
Heading for the town plaza. At the corner of Golding she paused to attack the school. She burned it in detail, firing the deadly light through long-shattered windows. She burned until the smoke began to billow and terrified kids who had sheltered there came running out. Some made it. Others did n...
The cause of her death had been officially listed as “anaphylaxis caused by severe allergic reaction.” The specific cause was shrimp. Shrimp. Lisa Bayless had died of shrimp. Case closed, as far as the coroner, the police, and even Lisa’s family were concerned. She left behind a grieving husband,...