We have a Member Monday submission for you. This is an excerpt from CR Roberts’ novel, Sweet Danger; A Mystery Novella. You might recognize CR Roberts as Writers Forum member Carolyn R. Flaubel. Carolyn was the grand prize winner of last summer’s short story contest, with the Southern Gothic story ‘Let Freedom Ring’. You can find Carolyn’s novel at Amazon by clicking on the above link.

From “Sweet Danger; a Mystery Novella”

By CR Roberts

I was happy and feeling content. The first honeybee yard I was heading to was my own. All one hundred hives belonged to me, Jessie McConnell, either bought and paid for or painstakingly divided from one stronger colony into two. After I checked on my busy little girls, I’d go see how the rest of the yards were doing. Dad and Mom ran their bee business, McConnell Honey Company, by themselves with just one employee, but the bees had really taken off lately, and the folks were plenty glad to have me working for them also now. Some people were surprised when I showed up to handle an account. They weren’t expecting a kid of seventeen, much less a girl.

My hive tool and various hammers, empty coffee cans and baling wire rattled around in the floorboards as the old Chevy bucked and pitched over the ruts. I was happily thinking of the icy Pepsi in my cooler and tuna sandwich in my lunch bag. The only other equipment I needed that day was stuffed in a couple of bee boxes tied down on the flatbed; a smoker, some burlap, extra rope, and a bucket of water. I was only planning on cracking open the hive lids, checking on the health of the colony, and then moving on to the next one. I needed to confirm that each one was full of bees, the queen was still there, and it was well-stocked with honey and brood. These were due for going to the seed alfalfa pollination. The farmers paid well, but only for good bee hives.

If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with my own happy thoughts, I might have had an early warning when I pulled to a stop to get out and open the gate. It was kept shut with a chain. Half a dozen padlocks laced the rusty chain, and my key opened one of them. But I didn’t need to use it. The chain had been cut. Instead of being concerned, I just shrugged. One of the property owners must have forgotten their key and needed to get in, I figured. I got back in after pulling the gate shut behind me and wiring it shut with a piece of the baling wire.

At first, I didn’t notice the fresh tracks leading down to my bee yard. But the background noise of bees humming sounded ominous. Something was wrong. My belly tightened. I turned the corner and was shocked at what I saw next. I gasped at the black cloud of honeybees in front of me, and I cringed at the furious whine that came in through my open truck window.

I quickly rolled up my window and backed away from the bee yard to give the angry bees a little space. What in the world was going on? They’re crazy mad! I thought. The last time I had seen something close to this was when I was driving in to one of the parents’ locations, and I met in passing a man running in the opposite direction, one hand dripping with honey and the other wildly swinging about his face, which was already raising red welts.

Something was terribly wrong. Maybe some animal had knocked some boxes over, or worse, some person had come in and vandalized my hives. These bees meant a lot to me, both financially and personally. My stomach squeezed in anxiety. I wasn’t afraid, mind you, but I was worried over my honeybees, and I slid my long legs into my white cotton coveralls, tying off the bottoms around the tops of my leather work boots. Normally I didn’t bother with a lot of fuss in protecting every crawl hole in my coveralls, but this was different. Angry bees were stinging bees, and I did not need angry, stinging bees crawling under my clothes. I tied the strings of my wire veil around my chest and then put my leather gloves on, pulling the canvas gauntlets up past my elbows. Finally I was ready. I jerked the truck door open and hopped up on the flatbed, rooting around in the bee box for my smoker and a piece of dry burlap sack.

My heart was pounding as I jogged toward the storm of screaming bees. I was pumping the smoker bellows madly to encourage the curl of acrid smoke wafting from the hole while juggling my hive tool and trying to stick my phone in my pocket with clumsy gloved hands. The closer I got, the more worried I got. The bees hitting my veil and my body felt like someone was tossing gravel at me. Most were bouncing off, but the angry ones were hanging on to me, and I could see their stings sticking out, pulsing as they sought to stab me through my clothes. I stopped to give my coveralls a few puffs of smoke. The stupefied insects let go and wandered off, forgetting what they had been up to a second ago.

A dark object lay crumpled on the ground. I saw legs sticking out, and I was confused. Then I realized it was a man, his shape disguised under the roiling, buzzing, stinging honey bees.

Good Lord! I had to calm things down, and fast! Was the man alive or dead? If he was still alive, maybe I could save him. Another part of my brain was kicking into business—if I didn’t stop this mess, I would have no hives left. The mob mentality would take over and they would all start robbing from each other, killing and stealing honey in a mad frenzy until the whole yard was ruined. I started puffing my smoker over the bee-covered man.

I didn’t want to asphyxiate the bees, or the man, I thought, coughing from the rank smoke, so I spread out the fume in a light blanket, back and forth over the crawling mass. Periodically I had to stop and puff smoke over myself as more bees attached themselves to me, trying to find a way in, to sting, in their blind fury.

I smoked them, and I brushed off clumps of them until the person was more man than bees. I grabbed him by the ankles and began dragging him back towards my truck, stopping to waft more smoke on both of us to keep the mad bees from following us. I was strong, strong as most boys are because of my work, but if the man hadn’t been a wiry guy, I’m not sure I would have made it back to where my Chevy was parked. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and my arms were shaking by the time I lugged him over there and heaved him in through the passenger door. I ran around to the driver’s side, tossed the smoker onto the back of the flatbed, jumped in and slammed the door shut after me.

I hated to do it, but I started squashing the bees who had followed us into the cab, killing them or folding them up in my sweat rag to immobilize them. I’d never had a bee fly up my nose and sting me, and I didn’t want to find out what that was like. Finally I was able to yank off my veil and check the man out. I was no doctor, but I could tell that he was dead.

Grossly swollen, his face, neck, and hands were purple and covered with welts upon welts. Thousands of tiny pulsing bee stingers, each tugged from the abdomen of a dying bee dotted his skin. I couldn’t find a pulse when I pressed my fingers against his carotid artery. At least, where I thought his carotid artery should be, since his neck was so swollen it looked like a tree stump. It was then I noticed the odor.

The man was reeking of honey bee alarm pheromone.

Every experienced beekeeper recognizes that peculiar odor that masses of honeybees give off when they are at high alert, as in, Code Red! Danger! Kill it! I expected to smell a whiff of this around the poor guy because so many bees were stinging him and giving off the pheromone. But the overwhelming smell from the man rose above and beyond what you’d expect. The only answer was that it had been deliberately applied to him. This wasn’t some hapless dude who’d wandered into my bee yard looking for a free swipe of honey. This was murder.

Of course I sucked it up and tried a little CPR after I made the 911 call, like everyone knows you are supposed to do, no matter what you think about the patient’s condition. But then I had to start driving us back to the main road to meet the ambulance. I parked in front of the gate, rewiring the baling wire on the chain hanging around the post. I turned off the engine and waited, every now and then cracking the window to shoo a bee out.

Copyright ©2019 by CR Roberts; used with permission

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This Writing Life

By Linda Boyden

In the 1990s after I had retired from teaching and was unpublished, my writing rules were simple: write everyday. Write about what you know and especially read in the genre in which you hope to be published. The only issue: I wanted to be published in all of them, so I spent my days reading and writing and pretty much playing in a sandbox of words.

When I had a number of picture book manuscripts ready (oh, silly me), I began the tedious process of submitting them to publishers/editors. While waiting for two or three contracts, possibly more, to wing their way to my mailbox, I decided to get serious about a middle grade novel.

Did I know how to do this? No, so back I went to my local library to start reading as many middle grade novels as possible. I attended SCBWI (Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators) and Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers’ conferences, and listened and learned. Armed with all this knowledge, I considered the plot of my soon-to-be-best seller.

If it’s true to write from your heart, then the choice for me was a no-brainer: as a child I devoured fairy tales. Loved the magic of them, the promises, the evil wickedness, and the heroic rescues. Naturally, I didn’t want to do anything that had been done before so mine would need a twist. I imagined a middle grade, modern fairy tale complete with a sassy fairy godmother that needed to borrow a misfit eleven-year-old human boy to be the champion of her fanciful world.

I had the most marvelous time creating that world, making my own kind of magic with my own twist. When I finally had it pieced together enough to share with a writing friend, I suggested we meet at a local bookstore and coffee shop. She could read a section and I would pay her with coffee and a muffin. After she finished, she smiled and beckoned me over to the children’s books section. Pulling one from the shelf, she asked, “Have you read this yet?”  I shook my head. |

”Well, maybe you should,” she said. I trusted this friend so I bought it.

Later that evening, I fell into the most delicious modern fairy tale, about a boy named Harry, the boy who lived, albeit with a scar on his forehead. When I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I screamed for a long time.

Not out of of jealousy or envy, but because of the many coincidences that occurred between our two stories, i.e. things like my protagonist’s best friends were the Beasley family who were red-headed and rambunctious while Rowling’s character, Ron Weasley was also red-headed and had a rambunctious family. Next, the Grindylow Sea surrounded my villain’s castle while Rowling had grindylows, a type of water demon, in one of her books, too. Seriously, who else has ever heard of grindylows? I never submitted that manuscript.

After much thinking I came to the conclusion that Rowling and I had both done extensive research on Celtic mythology and had used it in our stories.

Later, a different idea began tickling my brain and wouldn’t leave me alone. I had been itching to get back to illustrating. While listening to a CD of songs for young children, I was intrigued to discover that the popular and well known Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star song had a number of obscure verses. So off I went researching. First, I made sure it was in public domain so I could use it for the text. I then envisioned the illustrations that I’d make from cut paper collage.     I scurried about cleaning off the art area of my office when boom: there was an announcement that a well known author/illustrator, Jerry Pinkey’s latest book, “Twinkle, Twinkle” was in the running for a Caldecott Award…and yes, it was a retelling of the familiar song and of course, simply breathtaking.

Seriously, I cannot be the only writer that this stuff happens to, can I? On one hand, it means I’m in good company and headed down the right track. On the other, I might just smack every new idea with a sledgehammer from now on.

Later on, I remembered when I do school visits and talk to students about the writing process, I always answer their inevitable Where Do You Get Story Ideas From question with, “From the Cosmic Goo, an imaginary place where ideas stay and wait for artists to grab one.” Could many authors access those ideas simultaneously? It’s one of the better answers I’ve come up with, and could be true.

Writers Forum is open to submissions for the blog or the e-newsletter.

Type of Material and Guidelines for e-newsletter and Website Submission: 1.) Your articles on the art or craft of writing. 2.) Essays on subjects of interest to writers. (200 words can be quoted without permission but with attribution.) 3.) Book or author reviews. 4.) Letters to the Editor or Webmaster. 5.) Information on upcoming events, local or not. 6.) Photos of events. 7.) Advertise your classes or private events. 8.) Short fiction. 9.) Poetry.

Please submit copy to the editor at writersforumeditor@gmail.com . Electronic submissions only. Microsoft Word format, with the .docx file extension, is preferred but any compatible format is acceptable. The staff reserves the right to perform minor copy editing in the interest of the website’s style and space.