Excerpt teaser #1 for Savage Fire

My short story collection, Savage Fire, will be released on May 31st as an eBook. Yesterday, I showed a rough draft of the cover, so today I thought I'd offer an excerpt from one of the stories. The stories range from noir intrigue to horror to bizarro to (dark) comedy, but this is a mix of a couple of those. (I won't say which - you are free to guess)

Also, watch on Twitter for the hash tag #savagefire, which I am using for tweets and hints about the collection. I depend on all of you to share and retweet those links to let more people know what's coming. (Who am I kidding? You don't ever know what's coming until it hits you upside the head.)

Excerpt from Awake in the Age of Lizards, a story from Savage Fire:

The faithful were sore afraid and flagellated themselves with thorn-covered rose branches, but the lizards paid no heed.  Lamenting their fate, the faithful walked across hot coals, but the lizards did nothing except cringe at the horrid burning-flesh smell.

Fearing a loss of faith amongst the faithful, Tommy Gwen'cher stood and spoke to them, encouraging greater flagellation and faster walking across coals, but the faithful started to edge toward the exits.

"I will not be swayed by the shifty-eyed or the meekly acquiescent," he declared, and brandished an AK-47 assault rifle.