Tag (from Secrets and Sins)

Deep in a dark, almost forgotten forest, sat an enchanted girl. Her light brown hair gently blew in the careless breeze. She stared at the flowers, wishing to touch one. How long had it been? She couldn't recall, nor could she recall the feel of its silky petals. Her arms longed to reach out and caress them but she couldn't, and sadly she knew she couldn't. Her father would be angry with her if she did.

Above her were branches she could never climb. Her shoulders fell as she sighed. Why do I continue to come here when there is nothing for me to do, she asked herself. She looked at her surroundings and thought, not for the first, that it was beautiful.

Her cold lips curved when she saw a chestnut squirrel run up the bark of a nearby tree. It paused on the closest branch to stare at her. It's whiskers wiggled as it tried to figure her out. Pushing its nose out it sniffed the air. She thought she saw something spark in its innocent eyes before it turned, and ran off. Her body collapsed on itself in disappointment. "It sensed my sickness," she mumbled to no one. She had no friends. She couldn't with her sickness. It wasn't allowed.

The sound of a trig snapping turned her head. Her eyes grew with fear when she saw a blond hair boy standing beside a small bush. There was no fear in his face, only slight curiosity. "Why are you on my father's land?" he calmly asked.

She didn't understand what he meant. Land? "Land cannot be owned by any man."

With his eyes on her he stepped away from the false safety that the bush provided. "If he has enough money it can, which my father does."

Money? Her head tilted to the side as confusion filled her violet eyes. "What is money?"

Laughter that started in his chest erupted from his lips. "Silly child, it's why you are wearing the clothes on your back."

She looked down at her gold fitted dress her mother had made her. Her lips pushed out as her narrow eyes settled on him. "I'm not silly."

Her leaned forward. "Yes you are and I'm Josh," he happily stated as he forgot about the trespassing. He held out his hand.

Jumping away she pulled her hands close to her chest. "What are you doing?"

"Shaking hands silly. That's what people do when they first meet." He looked from his palm to hers; he didn't understand her fear. He scanned his palm once again. It was clean. With brows down he dropped his hand as he sadly shook his head. "What is your story?"
"I don't have one yet." She stared at the proud grass. It took a lot to hurt it. She wished she could be that way.
"Why won't you shake hands?"

She shrugged, not caring to talk about this.

Now his soft lips pushed out in uncertainty. "I heard you say you had a sickness, what kind?"

Her eyes grew. Needing comfort only she could give she pulled her hands closer to herself. "I can't touch things."

He smiled a charming smile. "Why not?"

"Because my father said so."

"And why did your father say that?" He had never met anyone sick before. His family kept him well protected from everything, even life when they could.

She turned her attention because she needed something different to look a. "Because bad things happen."

"Like what?" he challenged.

She shrugged again, not wanting to talk about this.

"Nonsense," he exclaimed. He ignored the stunned look on her face. "Parents always tell lies to us as a way to keep us in line." He proudly smiled. "But see, I know this."

Lies? She didn't know what those were. Instead of admitting this and looking silly again she decided to play along with him. "Really?"

"Yes," his chest was slightly pushed out. "With that cleared up; let's play a game." Excitement made his voice a little higher. He hadn't had a friend in quite some time thanks to his family and their fear.

"What kind of game?" Her head rose with interest. She liked games; she liked games a lot.

"Tag."

Her brows fell in confusion. "I never heard of that one."

He laughed. "Of course you haven't silly. The way it is played is you count to twenty and then come look for me. You want to find me and tag me before I tag this tree." He walked up to the tree the squirrel had disappeared into and touched it's bark. "See? Simple."

"Did you tag that tree?" Ugly fear curled in her belly.

"Of course I did." He shook his head. Poor girl, he thought. Her parents must have kept her locked up more than mine. "Okay; close your eyes and count."

She stared at him as disbelief grew inside her. "But you touched it."

"Oh," he groaned. "Not that again." He met her eyes so he could will the truth into her. "They lied to you." His eyes softened. "You can touch things."

"I'm scared."

"Do you want to play?"

Her heart skipped a beat. She had never played with a kid her age before. She wanted to; she really wanted to. "Yes."

It was settled. He smiled his charming smile again. "Then trust me."

Wanting to trust him she nodded. "Count then find you."

"You got it."

She closed her eyes. I'm playing with a kid. A friend, her mind corrected. She smiled and giggled to herself. Maybe now her loneliness was finally at an end. "Twenty!"

She turned. At first she didn't know which way to go. Slowly through the hunt it became fun. She froze when she found him. He grinned at her before taking off for the base. She laughed then chased. This is fun, real fun. She laughed when she saw him skid. Oh no, her mind gasped when she saw how close he was to the tree. She took a deep breath before pushing her body to go faster.

"I got it," he yelled as he turned.

It was too late for her to stop. As she tried to halt her run she stumbled like all children do. Without thinking she reached out. Before grabbing onto him she saw his face change from happy joy to confusion then it settled on horror. Her heart sank. He finally sensed my sickness. She could already feel her tears gathering in her eyes.

She felt his warm flesh beneath her cold skin. There was nothing she could do as the skin below her fingers turned to ash. The condemning curse spread all over his body. In a matter of seconds he was gone. She stared at her own hands in disgust as the sobs began.


Her father found her as a crying mess. He looked at the ashes the breeze was slowly taking and knew. He shook his head. "You know the rules," he softly said, not wanting to be too harsh. "We cannot touch mortals." Her tears hurt him. He didn't know how to stop them.

Her arms tightly wrapped around herself as she rocked back and forth. "He was my friend."

His heart broke. Dropping to his knees he wrapped his own arms around her. Her body trembled next to his. "Death has no friends," he sadly told her the cold truth. Her head fell in defeat as a wail escaped her throat. He closed his eyes. Tonight would be long and painful for both. He mumbled the words to take them home.

Playing with the Dead (From Endless Dreams)

Ricky walked into his clubhouse and shut the door. It had been another rough day at school. Once again, the other students had made fun of him because he was weird. He didn’t think he was weird, but they didn’t care about what he thought. Eight year olds were stubborn that way. 

His parents got him this clubhouse years ago, so he would have somewhere to play that was out of their way. He had decorated it with dap pictures; boxes for furniture, a bookshelf for his Dr. Seuss, and of course his friends.

His only friends consisted of dead animals he found around town. He had birds, squirrels, little dogs, and cats. When they started to smell or fall apart he would say his goodbyes, and gave them a proper burial.

He sat in the middle of the room and told his friends of his day. They agreed the students were jerks, and Chi, the dog, vowed one day they would get their due. He was always threatening to bite the mean people but he never did. Ricky smiled as he shook his head.

He knew his friends loved him. He wished he could take them to school. But since no one else had their special connection only he could hear them speak.

His friends watched as he played his imaginary games. This time he was a great wizard. Nutty, the squirrel, jumped up to help him fight the dragon. Ricky laughed as Nutty knocked Chi off his feet. The dragon had once again been defeated.

“Yay,” he exclaimed as he spun in spot. “No one can beat the Great Lord Ricky.”

“Or Nutty the Dragon Slayer,” Nutty added as he crossed his arms.

He bent over to meet his eyes. “Oh yes, Nutty the Dragon Slayer as yet to be defeated as well.” The squirrel nodded with approval.

“One day I will win,” Chi said. He sadly bowed his head.

Ricky dropped his stick wand as he scooped the dog into his arms. His fur was rough against his flesh. “I’m sure you will.” He gave him a hug. He was used to the feel of bugs crawling on his arms. Every time he picked up one of his friends the creepy crawlies would come out of their body to visit him as well. He was a true animal lover so he refused to kill them.

“Ricky!” his mother called.

His shoulders drooped with disappointment. It was time for him to go in. “I’ll come by later,” he promised before he ran to the house.

Inside, the house was bright and warm unlike his beloved clubhouse. His mother removed the cobwebs from his hair. “Ricky, one day I am going to go in that clubhouse and clean it,” she told him.

“No!” he cried out as he stepped away from her. Fear wrapped its cold grip around him. He knew his mother would get rid of his friends and then he’d have no one. He swallowed the pleas he wanted to make and went to the restroom. Dinner was done and he had to wash his hands. All good boys kept their hands clean.

At the table they ate dinner as a family. His mother and father talked of re-doing the house. Ricky didn’t care for change, life was good the way it was.

“How do you feel about a play date with the boy down the street?” his mother suddenly asked him.

He stared at his fork. “What is a play date?” he asked, quietly.

“You know,” she beamed at him. “Its where you meet up with a kid your own age, and play games.”

“Sounds fun,” his father crimped in.

“Sounds horrible.” He dropped his forks, no longer feeling hungry.

His mother sighed as she looked at her husband. Her blue eyes pleaded with him to help. He wiped his mouth before he set his cloth napkin aside. “Hey bud,” he gently grabbed his arm. “Having friends is a good thing.”

“It teaches you how to fit in,” his mother added.

He sulked in his seat. “I don’t want to fit in.” His lips pinched together in a small pout. “Beside, I have friends.”

“Really?” she perked up. “Bring them over some time so we can meet them.”

“Yeah buddy, we want to see who these awesome friends are.” His father picked up his fork to continue eating.

Ricky licked his dry lips. He wanted to be in his clubhouse, his friends never made him explain himself. “You wouldn’t like them.”

“Why not? Are they troublemakers?”

“No it’s just…” How could he explain it so his parents would understand? “The living do not understand me dad, but the dead do.”

His thick brows frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

“If you speak in riddles no one will understand you dear,” his mother pointed out.

“It’s not a riddle mom; it’s the truth.”

“Its silly, that’s what that is,” his father corrected. “You are going on that play date, and you will learn how to be normal.”

“Or at least learn to pretend to be normal,” his mother added as she shook her head. “Where did we go wrong Shawn?”

Uncertainty darkened his handsome features. “I don’t know hun; I just don’t know.”

Ricky bowed his head with shame. Why couldn’t he make his parents happy? “May I be excused? I wish to take a bath.”

“Go ahead,” his mother dismissed him.

That night, while his parents were asleep Ricky snuck out of the house to be with his friends. He had to tell them of dinner and his play date.

“This is not good,” Chewy, the cat, said. Its eyes were milky. “Not good at all.”

“Why do you need to go on a play date when you have us?” Nutty asked. If he had eyes Ricky knew there would be sadness in them.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. My parents are making me go.”

“Parents,” Chi huffed. “My dad was never around and my mother lost interest in me the moment I could walk.”

He eyed the dried blood on his fur as he thought about what he had said. “But I’m a human.”

“Humans are animals,” Chewy pointed out.

He let out a heavy sigh as he stared at his hands. They were so small and delicate. “They just don’t understand me.”

“But we do,” Chi replied.

“The dead always understands you,” Nutty purred.

“Always,” Chewy said with a smile. Its thin fangs hung over its lower lip.

“The dead,” he whispered. The dead understood him. “But they are alive.”

“That can be changed,” Chi said. Ricky stared at him. The mutt’s black hollowed eyes stared into his. “They can join us here.”

He licked his lips as he rose to his feet. They could join us here, repeated in his head as he walked back to the house.

That night, while his parent slept, Ricky set their room on fire. He heard their screams of pain as they lost their life’s. The flames consumed their flesh so Ricky was not able to add them to his clubhouse, but he knew their spirits finally understood him.

He hid in his beloved clubhouse when the fire truck came. The officers found him speaking to his friends, and sharing stories of the fire he had caused. They took him to the mental hospital so he could receive the help he needed, and be taught not to play with the dead.     

Interview I did for Belladonnas Book Corner

Q.What inspired you to write your first book?
A.I had been writing fanfic and poems for a number of years, and one day I mentioned to one of my friends it would be nice to write a full novel. She told me, ‘Do it then.’ At that moment I realized the only thing stopping me from writing it was me, so I sat down and did it.

Q.How did you come up with the titles of each bo...ok?
A. Normally the title comes to me while I’m writing the book or short story. It’s not something I plan before hand because I want it give the reader a hint of what the story is about.
Q.Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
A. The message in ‘Diaries of the Fag Hags’ is simply; embrace who you are and be okay with it. My novel ‘The Last Resort’ is complete horror, so there’s no real message there. It was written to purely entertain.
Q.Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
A.There are some real life experiences in ‘Diaries of the Fag Hags’ because in my life I am Hag. I didn’t intend for them to be my novel, but as I was writing it they just came out in the story.

Q.What books have most influenced your life most?
A.I find myself influenced more by real life, true crime and new age literary than other fictional writers.
Q. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
A. I find myself drawn to Stephen King because of how well his career in writing is, and how simple it began.
Q.What book are you reading now?
A.The Taking by Dean Koontz
Q.What are your current projects?
A.Right now, I am writing a sci-fi novella called ‘Mothership’. It’s a little look into how blind people become when they are driven by fear and greed. How their need for personal survival will surpass the survival of a species.
Q.If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your books?
A.No. I am satisfied with how they turned out.
Q.Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
A.I do not really remember. When I was a young child I would draw stick people and write little blurbs to tell my stories. I would make my family read them. So, it seems as if I have always been writing.

Q.Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
A.Adding the little things. I get caught up in the overall story, and the action, that I sometimes forget to add the details like what the surrounding room looks like. I have to stop and remind myself, that if I do not add this then the reader will not see it as I see it.
Q.What was the hardest part of writing your book?
A.Taking the time to edit it only because I want to move on to writing the next one.
Q.Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it? A.That it is okay to be weird with your
writing. You are allowed to create worlds and people that are outside of the box.
Q.Do you have any advice for other writers?
A. Don’t be afraid to write what YOU want.
Q.Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
A.I hope you enjoy my novels as much as I enjoy writing them to share with you.
Q.What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?
A.First, load up on weapons and gather my family together so we can get to the country, and then plan. If you don’t have a plan and get away from big groups of people you’re dead.

Q.If you could be any paranormal creature what would you be and why?
A. A dragon. It’s powerful, beautiful, and wise.
Q.Fav Movie ?
A.I have a lot of favorite movies so I’ll just name a few, ‘Young Guns’, ‘Forsaken,’ and ’27 Dresses.’
Q. Fav band right now ?
A.Tim Mcgraw (he’s not really a band but that’s who I’m loving right now}
Q.Fav food and drink ?
A.Pho soup and Pepsi. I could live on those two things.

Check out their facebook page to get updates on novels and authors: http://www.facebook.com/#!/belladonasbookcorner?fref=ts

Halloween Interview I did for Kharisma Rhayne

1)-- With imagination as your only limitation, what would your Halloween costume be this year and why? A butcher gone mad. I would put blood on an apron and on my gloves (since I’m not able to have a knife). I would make sure to wear dark make up around my eyes and make my hair wild. I love horror, and am not really into wearing the little outfits since all the other girls do that. 

2)-- What is your favorite horror movie? There’s so many that I love so I’ll name a few; Dead alive, Dead silence, Forsaken, and the Freddy series.

3)-- What is your favorite horror book? At the memont its Great Tales of Horror by H.P. Lovecraft

4)-- What fantasy/horror character do you wish really existed? Ash from Evil Dead

5)-- Do you believe in ghosts? Yes

6)-- Share with usle to  your most wicked fantasy. The only fantasy I have these days is that my boyfriend would clean the house, naked and wearing a collar 

7)-- You're a serial killer--what would your signature kill be? Disembowelment

8)-- You have to be bitten by a vampire, which one would you choose? Quinn from The Chosen by L.J Smith

9)-- Tell us about your latest release. The Diaries of the Fag Hags follows three wild ladies as they go on their little adventures through life; Darnisa, Jasmine, and Faye. Darnisa is a strong, out-spoken, woman who is determined to prove she can get a man. Jasmine has to work through her own issues, while accepting that the hot men surrounding her do not want her because she has no penis. And Faye has a habit of looking down her nose at others while having a hard time standing up to her man. It’s a novel that allows you to explore their life's, and their secrets.

Now some quickies (doesn't everyone enjoy a quickie now and then?):
Vampire or Werewolf? vampire
Ghosts or Witches? witches
Goblins of Elves? elves
Freddy or Jason? FREDDY
Leatherface or Micheal Myers? Micheal Myers
Jigsaw or Pinhead? Pinhead
Chucky or Bride of Chucky? Chucky
The Ripper or The Grudge? The Grudge
Day or Night? Night
Fire or Ice? Fire
Biting or Licking? Biting
Scary or Funny? Scary


Check out her blog at: http://www.kharismarhayne.com/2012/10/halloween-interview-toy-davis.html?zx=a692343eeaebff51

Three star Review

I recieved a three out of five star review for The Last Resort.

A group of college friends decide to spend winter break at Flow's cabin. They invite Hailey to join them for the first time, and she agrees to go because of her crush on Flow. Unbeknown to most of them, this cabin is known as the last resort due to the families that were killed there. The situation changes as people start to disappear. Hailey is the only person to notice, and can't seem to get the others to listen. She's determined to make them see the danger before its too late.

The Long and the Short Of It Reviews

There's nothing better than a story about a house with secrets. And the one featured in this story has many. One thing I liked about this story is it started as what I thought would be a romantic suspense between two characters and then to my surprise, more characters showed up.

The author did a good job unfolding the back story about all the murders that had taken place and it gave the tale an eerie feel. The pacing was fast which made it a quick read. I would have liked to have seen this story longer so that the characters could have been fleshed out a little more and I would have gotten the chance to know them more in depth.

However, if you're looking to read a quick eerie tale, especially for Halloween, this might be one for you.


Originally posted at LAS Mystery Reviews

Check it out for yourself at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Resort-ebook/dp/B0080H61JO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350435122&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Last+resort+by+toy+davis



Cooking to Relax ~ Pork Chops

Another thing I love to do is cook. I feel like cooking is a reflection of my love, I know that sounds silly but I do it when I'm happy and when I know the people I love are going to eat. In my novels I will usually share one or two of my personal receipes. Today I shall share my receipe for pork chops. It is quick and easy.

All you need is pepper, garlic powder and oyster sauce. Coat the meat with the ingredients and bake in the oven at 350 for 30 to 40 mintues. On the side I usually serve rice, and corn or green beans.

And dinner is served :)

Crafting for fun ~ Wax Art

One thing I love to do (besides writing) is crafts. So today I decided to share my most recent one. It was one I found while looking into DIY projects, and it seemed simple enough. Make ART out of melting crayons.

Mine did not come out this way as you will see. First problem I ran into was HOW to get the crayons to stay at the top of my posterboard. When I used glue, they fell off because they were too heavy, so I finally used duct tape. Next the crayons did not melt the way I expected from this picture. Some would melt while others did not. The colored wax also splattered onto my wall, which is not good since I rent. All in all, at least I tried something new and that's always fun. Below are the pictures of my little art adventure.

My wall

My hand, I peeled the wax off

The finished product