About The Artist
Chryse Wymer is a fiction author living in Ravenna, Ohio.
She admits to having a strange dark way of looking at the world, and her writing is a reflection of that. Her work tends toward science fiction and fantasy, horror, and mystery. But it's funny, off beat, like her.
Aside from reading, she's an adventurer. Although she likes jewelry making and mundane things, in the summer, she'll gladly saddle up on the back of her sweetie's hog, ride four-wheelers and go where the wind takes her.
Chryse is 32, short, a massage therapist and part-time receptionist. James her husband is 25, tall, and a full-time extrusion operator. They are both rather serious metalheads, Metallica being on the frontlines of that seriousness; they are absorbed in music in general.
William S. Burroughs is her biggest writing influence. "The Naked Lunch blew me away," Chryse said.
She is currently novelizing Living with Murder, based on her novella of that same title. A suspense novel is in the preliminary stages, and poetry collection entitled Living with Murder, primarily based around her novella Living with Murder.
She admits to having a strange dark way of looking at the world, and her writing is a reflection of that. Her work tends toward science fiction and fantasy, horror, and mystery. But it's funny, off beat, like her.
Aside from reading, she's an adventurer. Although she likes jewelry making and mundane things, in the summer, she'll gladly saddle up on the back of her sweetie's hog, ride four-wheelers and go where the wind takes her.
Chryse is 32, short, a massage therapist and part-time receptionist. James her husband is 25, tall, and a full-time extrusion operator. They are both rather serious metalheads, Metallica being on the frontlines of that seriousness; they are absorbed in music in general.
William S. Burroughs is her biggest writing influence. "The Naked Lunch blew me away," Chryse said.
She is currently novelizing Living with Murder, based on her novella of that same title. A suspense novel is in the preliminary stages, and poetry collection entitled Living with Murder, primarily based around her novella Living with Murder.
Link Exchange
Excerpt From THIS DARK MAGIC
Even Good Toasters
Go Bad
Go Bad
Maybe I should have cared about the bodies piling up around me. But only two kinds of people stood still in this world--the dead and the soon-to-be dead. There was a time when I would have stopped for the bums panhandling downtown, plunked a couple bucks in their Styrofoam cups. Not anymore. I kept my head down and my shoulders hunched, not looking anyone in the eye, pretending to be even smaller than I am. Hoping no one noticed me as I lifted my legs high to step over the half-dead bodies lying naked in the streets, and hearing young people holler and glass break. It was an ugly world. But sometimes I'd look up to open a door and see a kind smile, a faded rainbow, or bright red flowers blooming on someone's balcony. These were my small hopes that things would get better.
Nobody had much, anymore, and I was among them, owning just a crummy Studebaker with permanent bronchitis where a good day meant not having to call a tow truck, and an old record player. Cops were the first to go bad, so who could tell why someone stole a can of soda, a bobble-head doll, or a half-used tube of toothpaste? It was all so random.
Nobody knew what had started the killings, the criminal behavior. At least, if they did, they were keeping their mouths shut.
Summer heat blasted Capital City, turning its blacktop into a tarry frying pan. Women made fans of magazines and newspapers, while men used cloth handkerchiefs to dab at the sweat dribbling down their brows. Seemed like we were all dying from the inside, anyhow.
This used to be such a nice city. A little smog, cussing in the streets, homeless people begging in the bad parts of town. Nothing over-the-top violent. Not many muggings.
One afternoon, around two months ago, I sat in my backyard gazing at the rippling lines of air, my buttercups and daffodils choking in the sun; and that's when I heard it. Silence.
I walked into the living room. The dusty oscillating fan that survived WW II should have click-click-clicked with each movement. It didn't. The undetectable hum that came from electrical appliances, even when not in use, was strangely absent. My icebox normally wheezed like a heavy smoker. Now, silence.
Reggae music billowed from the kitchen: my cell phone. It was work--a story, and I had to report it.
My car sputtered and shook all the way downtown, where I worked at the Capital City Gazette. Fifth floor. The skyscraper resembled a rectangular soup can, not brooding and cool but ugly and barely functional. The elevators were down so I took the stairs two at a time, wheezing by the time I hit the third floor. I slumped against that last door, and nudged it open. The room was airplane hangar-huge, and full of office paraphernalia. Small work stations crowded against each other, some-the better paid-with desks and plastic potted plants, and others-the barely paid-huddled together at long tables so full of monitors, mice, and keyboards that someone could just fit a 4X6 framed photo on his desk. A whirlwind of candlelit activity passed in front of me.
"Hey Mac, watch where you're goin', will yuh? Herbert was a portly man in the way of old timers who wore suspenders and kept their pants down under their voluminous bellies so they could say they still wore the same pants size from high school.
"Oh sorry. What's with all the candles? I thought we had backup generators.
"We do. They ain't workin either."
Instead of standing around slack jaw with question marks in my eyes, I walked to my desk and found the sticky note buried in the bottom drawer: my contacts at Electrex, the power company. Not that it did much good. I talked to top dogs and head honchos, and while most agreed that the mainframe causing the problem was nestled in the sleepy Ohio town of Cadiz, no one knew what created the blackout. Mumbling, muttering, and finger pointing were the answers they gave me. I would be surprised if someone at Electrex didn't lose his job.
After several hours of turning up bupkiss, I made my way home. Most of the traffic lights either flashed red or were totally black. Something like indigestion turned my stomach. Whatever had happened, whatever was happening, it was wrong, very wrong.
Half the country was without power for twelve hours, some longer. Soon after the blackout ended, I heard the first scream.
Broken cigarettes blanketed the sidewalks in ashes. So many that I crunched them underfoot like cockroaches. But despite the statistical unlikelihood of my surviving the year, I was optimistic. I had a lead. Someone had to break this story before we all took a dirt nap and had bugs crawling in our ears.
I managed to track the storeowner down to a joint around the corner from work. The convenience store was a dive with ads covering the windows, and newspapers hanging in a square around the counter. I laughed to myself. They probably kept me in business. After we exchanged pleasantries, Mr. Hosseini told his story:
"A chubby-faced black boy walked into my store, slipped a candy bar in his jacket pocket, and began to walk out. 'Wait.'
"The kid turned and looked at me. 'What…old…man? The boy spit the words and smiled. He was an animal, this child, or at least made me think of one. You know sharks and how their teeth are jagged triangles and they have this total-pupil look? Their whole eyes black? He made me think of that, those shark-teeth sparkling under these lights when he smiled.
'The candy bar… "
The storeowner stopped, dumbstruck. But by what? Fear shaped his eyes into watering saucers, and he had stopped breathing for a moment.
"Mr. Hosseini, I said after he told his story, "thank you for your time. I shook his hand.
My hand went slack as he held me in a crushing grip. Mr. Hosseini clenched his jaw, and then narrowed his eyes; as I met his steady gaze, he said, "He looked dead, this little boy, like he smashed a stick of chalk and covered his face with it."
I smiled, sheepishly. What can you say to something like that?
There was a double-barreled shotgun behind the counter, and he didn't strike me as the kind of man who would be terrified of petty theft. "Why did you let him go?
"Something about him…even though I knew the kid. I didn't want trouble, but now…after everything…find that little son of a bitch, Mr. Landers."
I pulled my hand away with an audible snap. The chimes sounded as I pushed a shoulder against the door. Goosebumps went up my arm; this was where it all started. With some weirdo kid. At that very minute, there were cops and robbers, insurance salesmen, stockbrokers and extrusion operators--the most ordinary people- killing, robbing, raping, and everything in-between.
Any other day, I might have said that a chance encounter with a newbie photographer asking me to dinner was just that: chance. Coincidence. But my vast journalistic experience had taught me that coincidences hardly ever exist.
"Please, Mr. Landers, come to my farm. Natasha will make you a lovely home-cooked meal so you can forget all this nonsense."
I grunted, uncertain, until my belly growled.
He wrote down directions and said, "We'll see you at eight."
The first time I had met Jonathon Crowley, he struck me as shy. Kind of an oddball. He liked to sit in the office lounge, and work word searches uninterrupted. Now when I looked at him, I did so out of the corner of my eye so that the man would not notice my reporter's stare boring holes everywhere inside him. Someone like that, so dark and nonverbal that he had the feel of a serial killer, a man who might start wordlessly wielding an axe, was something suspicious in our land of ordinary criminals.
Later that night, what I saw in his home prickled my reporter's intuition.
Continued on next page
Nobody had much, anymore, and I was among them, owning just a crummy Studebaker with permanent bronchitis where a good day meant not having to call a tow truck, and an old record player. Cops were the first to go bad, so who could tell why someone stole a can of soda, a bobble-head doll, or a half-used tube of toothpaste? It was all so random.
Nobody knew what had started the killings, the criminal behavior. At least, if they did, they were keeping their mouths shut.
Summer heat blasted Capital City, turning its blacktop into a tarry frying pan. Women made fans of magazines and newspapers, while men used cloth handkerchiefs to dab at the sweat dribbling down their brows. Seemed like we were all dying from the inside, anyhow.
This used to be such a nice city. A little smog, cussing in the streets, homeless people begging in the bad parts of town. Nothing over-the-top violent. Not many muggings.
One afternoon, around two months ago, I sat in my backyard gazing at the rippling lines of air, my buttercups and daffodils choking in the sun; and that's when I heard it. Silence.
I walked into the living room. The dusty oscillating fan that survived WW II should have click-click-clicked with each movement. It didn't. The undetectable hum that came from electrical appliances, even when not in use, was strangely absent. My icebox normally wheezed like a heavy smoker. Now, silence.
Reggae music billowed from the kitchen: my cell phone. It was work--a story, and I had to report it.
My car sputtered and shook all the way downtown, where I worked at the Capital City Gazette. Fifth floor. The skyscraper resembled a rectangular soup can, not brooding and cool but ugly and barely functional. The elevators were down so I took the stairs two at a time, wheezing by the time I hit the third floor. I slumped against that last door, and nudged it open. The room was airplane hangar-huge, and full of office paraphernalia. Small work stations crowded against each other, some-the better paid-with desks and plastic potted plants, and others-the barely paid-huddled together at long tables so full of monitors, mice, and keyboards that someone could just fit a 4X6 framed photo on his desk. A whirlwind of candlelit activity passed in front of me.
"Hey Mac, watch where you're goin', will yuh? Herbert was a portly man in the way of old timers who wore suspenders and kept their pants down under their voluminous bellies so they could say they still wore the same pants size from high school.
"Oh sorry. What's with all the candles? I thought we had backup generators.
"We do. They ain't workin either."
Instead of standing around slack jaw with question marks in my eyes, I walked to my desk and found the sticky note buried in the bottom drawer: my contacts at Electrex, the power company. Not that it did much good. I talked to top dogs and head honchos, and while most agreed that the mainframe causing the problem was nestled in the sleepy Ohio town of Cadiz, no one knew what created the blackout. Mumbling, muttering, and finger pointing were the answers they gave me. I would be surprised if someone at Electrex didn't lose his job.
After several hours of turning up bupkiss, I made my way home. Most of the traffic lights either flashed red or were totally black. Something like indigestion turned my stomach. Whatever had happened, whatever was happening, it was wrong, very wrong.
Half the country was without power for twelve hours, some longer. Soon after the blackout ended, I heard the first scream.
Broken cigarettes blanketed the sidewalks in ashes. So many that I crunched them underfoot like cockroaches. But despite the statistical unlikelihood of my surviving the year, I was optimistic. I had a lead. Someone had to break this story before we all took a dirt nap and had bugs crawling in our ears.
I managed to track the storeowner down to a joint around the corner from work. The convenience store was a dive with ads covering the windows, and newspapers hanging in a square around the counter. I laughed to myself. They probably kept me in business. After we exchanged pleasantries, Mr. Hosseini told his story:
"A chubby-faced black boy walked into my store, slipped a candy bar in his jacket pocket, and began to walk out. 'Wait.'
"The kid turned and looked at me. 'What…old…man? The boy spit the words and smiled. He was an animal, this child, or at least made me think of one. You know sharks and how their teeth are jagged triangles and they have this total-pupil look? Their whole eyes black? He made me think of that, those shark-teeth sparkling under these lights when he smiled.
'The candy bar… "
The storeowner stopped, dumbstruck. But by what? Fear shaped his eyes into watering saucers, and he had stopped breathing for a moment.
"Mr. Hosseini, I said after he told his story, "thank you for your time. I shook his hand.
My hand went slack as he held me in a crushing grip. Mr. Hosseini clenched his jaw, and then narrowed his eyes; as I met his steady gaze, he said, "He looked dead, this little boy, like he smashed a stick of chalk and covered his face with it."
I smiled, sheepishly. What can you say to something like that?
There was a double-barreled shotgun behind the counter, and he didn't strike me as the kind of man who would be terrified of petty theft. "Why did you let him go?
"Something about him…even though I knew the kid. I didn't want trouble, but now…after everything…find that little son of a bitch, Mr. Landers."
I pulled my hand away with an audible snap. The chimes sounded as I pushed a shoulder against the door. Goosebumps went up my arm; this was where it all started. With some weirdo kid. At that very minute, there were cops and robbers, insurance salesmen, stockbrokers and extrusion operators--the most ordinary people- killing, robbing, raping, and everything in-between.
Any other day, I might have said that a chance encounter with a newbie photographer asking me to dinner was just that: chance. Coincidence. But my vast journalistic experience had taught me that coincidences hardly ever exist.
"Please, Mr. Landers, come to my farm. Natasha will make you a lovely home-cooked meal so you can forget all this nonsense."
I grunted, uncertain, until my belly growled.
He wrote down directions and said, "We'll see you at eight."
The first time I had met Jonathon Crowley, he struck me as shy. Kind of an oddball. He liked to sit in the office lounge, and work word searches uninterrupted. Now when I looked at him, I did so out of the corner of my eye so that the man would not notice my reporter's stare boring holes everywhere inside him. Someone like that, so dark and nonverbal that he had the feel of a serial killer, a man who might start wordlessly wielding an axe, was something suspicious in our land of ordinary criminals.
Later that night, what I saw in his home prickled my reporter's intuition.
Continued on next page
All content Copyright Chryse Wymer 2007-2010
This Website Designed By Anne Rogers Copyright 2007-2010.
This Website Designed By Anne Rogers Copyright 2007-2010.
This Dark Magic also available for free from SMASHWORDS