Swimming with Tarantulas

GUEST POST BY: Suzanne Robb

Ramble ahead…

I am never sure what I’m supposed to write when asked to do a blog or something in which I am given control. I much prefer questions, or even puzzles to the possibility if me rambling on about something and boring people to death.

I would love to have all sorts of interesting stories about myself, but sadly in most of them I am the cause of other people’s good laugh.

For example, did you know tarantulas can swim? I found out the hard way by going swimming at night. I saw something “floating” on the water and headed over to investigate. When I was within about five feet I realized what it was. My first night in Arizona, welcome!

I tried to move away, but my ability to move in any sort of organized manner left me. The more waves I caused the more the thing rode them to get closer to me. Eventually, as I neared the side I was able to use my sandal to flip it out of the water.

At this point I sighed, safe right? Nope, the ground below her, and I can safely say her (not that I am some sort of arachnid pervert who checks them out) because hundreds, what seemed to be thousands to me, of babies spilled off her back and onto the ground.

I backed away, got out of the pool and decided to swim another day, with a bigger shoe.

And now I have gone off on the aforementioned ramble, so that is over and I can get to the meat of this post which is my collection with Dark Continents.

The title is Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!

The title is actually a combination of the basic idea behind a three story collection. There is a story titled Welcome to the Future in which a boy makes a choice about genetic alteration with catastrophic consequences. Another story titled The Moonlight Killer (my favorite) is about a man bitten by a wolf, though he bites back with interesting results. The third story is B.I.T.E, about a dysfunctional family that tried to fend on an apocalypse involving giant cannibal squirrels, large cobras with hands, and other unpleasantness.

I wish I could say there was some sort of unifying theme, but like me my stories ramble around my head. They usually have some element of comedy and or horror mixed in. I like to mess around with mythology as well. Not too much so people get mad, but just adding in elements of what if?  Sometimes it works out well, others not so much.

I hope those who have read the collection enjoy it, and those that read this do not think me a total freak.

 

Suzanne Robb is the author of Z-Boat, released by Twisted Library Press and Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh my! published by Dark Continents. She has over 4 dozen stories in current and upcoming anthologies with various publishers. She is also a contributing editor at Hidden Thoughts Press, and in March Wicked East Press will be releasing Read the End First, an apocalyptic anthology she edited with Adrian Chamberlin. In her free time she reads, watches movies, plays with her dog, and enjoys chocolate and LEGO’s. Visit her blog here at Ramblings of an Anxiety Ridden Mind

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

By Tracie McBride

An ex-boyfriend once said to me, with much disdain, “you’d be useless in the apocalypse.”  He was a huntin’, fishin’, campin’ out under the stars kind of guy, and my lack of interest and ability in any of those things marked me as, not only useless, but probably a liability (I did outfish him once, but he did all the messy stuff, like baiting the hook and gutting the fish; I just had to reel it in and cook it.  At best it was a collaborative effort.  At worst, it was sheer dumb luck on my part that I caught dinner and he caught nothing).

Eighteen-odd years on, and I have not forgotten those words.  They surface with regularity in our household, where How To Survive The Zombie Apocalypse is a popular dinnertime conversation topic (the ex was talking more along the lines of a nuclear winter, but I believe the skills required to survive an apocalypse are transferable across most apocalyptic scenarios).

I don’t know how to hunt.  I have only the most rudimentary foraging skills.  I need help to fish.  I can’t build things.  I can identify a trigger on a gun, and I know which end not to look down, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge of firearms.  I have no medical skills to speak of.  I’m not strong enough to wield a bludgeoning instrument with effectiveness, have no archery experience, and armed with a chainsaw, I’d be more of a danger to myself than anything else.  And I’m getting too old to contribute to repopulating the planet.

So what can I do?  I’m a reasonably competent home cook, but I’m guessing that skill will be redundant in the zombie apocalypse; the only thing you’ll need to know about food in that situation is how to avoid food poisoning.  I’m good at writing lists and counting money and filing things in alphabetical order and being nice to small children and animals.  Suffice to say, one thing at which I would be superlative in the zombie apocalypse is tripping over my own feet and providing fodder to the zombies, thus allowing all the useful people to escape.

Snareville - where zombie survival is an art form

“I’d be useless in the zombie apocalypse,” I say to my husband.

“That’s not true,” he says.  “They’ll always need storytellers.”

Pffft.  He can afford to be patronizing; his nine years of service in the New Zealand Army make him better equipped than most for survival.

Oh yes.  That was the other thing I’m good at; choosing a spouse.  Stick with him, and I’ll be able to swan about in the apocalypse, writing lists and patting puppies and telling stories around the campfire.  Much the same as I do now, really.

“Honey…have I told you lately how much I love you…?”