Unstoppable Force: A Storyteller's Collection: Vol. 1 Short Story

By Stephanie Writt

Unstoppable Force
Lisa’s boys just might kill her. With worry! With all of their teenage antics and death-wise interests. When they moves to the coast everything changes. For her and her boys. She hopes for the better. But one windy night will inspire her boys with a  plan that may bring Lisa to the breaking point. Will she ever sleep again?

“Unstoppable Force” can also be found in “Storyteller’s Collection: Volume 1 of 10 Stories from Your Favorite Genres.” Its complete short story list is:
• Rebellion of the Princess of Argon
• Once Every Year
• Walk of Power
• Twin Competition
• Valley Girl Vampire to Save the World
• A Future Song
• Stranger That Saved Her
• Contract Vampire
• Unstoppable Force
• Flight of Little Bird

“The story [A Future Song]...left me feeling satisfied and touched.”
 – Charles de Lint

The Storyteller's Collection Series
Vibrant stories from all genres populate this eclectic series. Each story a complete telling that will take the reader, from beginning to end, on a character driven ride. Volume by volume, all packed with dozens of new characters. See, hear, feel and taste their journeys to places spicy and exotic. And to places as warm and familiar as home.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Press
• Release date: Feb 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386573760

Book preview

Unstoppable Force

Unstoppable Force

A Storyteller’s Collection: Volume 1 Short Story

Stephanie Writt

Wayne Press

Contents

Unstoppable Force

Read and be happy!

Want to read more in this collection?

Free Story: 1st in Geriatric Magic’s: The New York Collection

Geriatric Magic

Want to read more in this series?

Free Story: 1st in Tony & Gage’s: The Junior Year Collection

The Day Tony Earned Detention

Want to read more in this series?

Preview: Love & Jinx

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Love & Jinx: Want to finish reading?

Also by Stephanie Writt

About the Author

Unstoppable Force

The wind screamed a hollowing pain outside Lisa’s bedroom window that dove under the covers and shivered her from nose to wool socks.

Down comforters need sleep-inducing technology built into them. On a control of some kind, so when the wind blew off the Pacific ocean, raced from sandy beach up a vacation rental packed cliffside, to twirl in an endless shriek of howdy-do just outside her bedroom window all night long, Lisa could just adjust her Down Dampeners to eleven and sleep in quiet peace.

Trains had choo-chooed themselves hoarse behind her house where she grew up, and she’d slept fine.

Drunken frat-house screaming matches laced with water balloon hailstorms did little to budge her from slumber in college, what little sleep she got between homework and boyfriend.

Boyfriend turned to husband, turned to father, turned to dirt-bag loser cool dad the boys never saw. And, until recently, Lisa’s worry about surviving as a single mom had been the only thing that kept her up and wide awake, with panic.

After five years on her own, Jason and Shane doing great-ish in high school (no pregnant girls, at least all C’s) she had been sleeping fine.

Until this damn wind.

Damned move.

Whose grand idea had it been to move to the ocean?

Oh wait, that’s right. Hers.

The boys hadn’t been too bummed. All their friends from Portland had booked out the summer weeks and school year weekends to come visit.

In a concrete paved city, surfing involved four wheels and a board. Four very expensive wheels, Lisa had discovered as both her sons’ passion for skating had grown over the years.

Now at the beach (even the freezing Oregon coast), surfing with just a board and real waves, made by God and water, had become the boys’ cathedral. Their friends piled into beater cars and trekked it westward to the shore. Their mecca. Made of sand, salt, and the threat of a shark attack.

As a mom, worry hung about her neck like a noose from her boys throwing themselves into their love. Water could break bones just like concrete and metal.

They couldn’t drown in the city.

The noose tightened at that realization, as she watched them run into the pounding surf for the first time. Her nose had run in the cold wind that scoured the empty February beaches as their instructor ran them into the waves, black rubber wetsuits glistening wet and shiny, like whale skin.

Seal skin.

That thought, another realization, had struck her and her worry noose had tightened.

The noose hadn’t eased when she saw the sunbeams of joy that had shone so bright from her sons’ faces when they had (finally) returned to shore. But it had made the worry bearable. Her boys’ happiness meant more than her fear.

Most of the time.

The move had become possible with the boom of her soap-making success online. On the coast she had the ability to cash in on the tourist season during the summer farmer’s markets, and then made and shipped product all year long.

She really didn’t need to sell to the farmer’s markets to survive, but she had wanted a change, a big one, a move. An etch-a-sketch choice that would erase all the past and allow her to start fresh. Away from sticky awkward friendships with people who still weren’t sure who to choose, Larry (ex-husband she couldn’t shake) or her. Still sitting the fence after all these years, her friends wished her luck in their last goodbyes, their relief obvious. Lisa held no hard feelings, since their relief matched her own.

The move had been good for everyone, for all the right reasons.

Except for the damned wind.

Lori thrashed in her bed as the scream of it raked down her spine, like nails to a chalkboard. She tried to bury herself under blankets and pillows to muffle the sound, leaving a breathing hole made of blanket origami, just big enough for her mouth.

For a blissful moment Lori thought the muffling would work.

Her body began to relax in the quiet(er).

She took a deep breath and sighed away her tension, felt the bed hold her as her body grew heavy. Her mind began to wander in the last few moments before sleep took her completely. Ahhhh…

Skreeeeeeeeech!

A high pitched wail ripped between the protective blankets, pierced Lori’s eardrums and sent her bolting out of bed.

Her blanket cocoon would not release