Smith's Monthly Issue #60: Smith's Monthly, #60

By Dean Wesley Smith

This 60th issue of Smith's Monthly contains nearly sixty thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith, including the entire six-story collection, Too Strange for the Name: Six Really, Really Whacked Out Stories with Sex, and the new novel in the Seeders Universe, Rescue Two.

Also included are four new short stories in some of Dean's most popular series: "Ashes to Weddings," a Marble Grant Story, "Subdivision Survival: The Game," a Bryant Street Story, "Enough Time," a Thunder Mountain Story, and "Deadly Invisible Sky," A Pakhet Jones Story.

Get ready—it will knock your socks off!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Apr 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201629441

Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA TODAY bestselling writer, Dean Wesley Smith published far over a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. He currently produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the old west, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, and the superhero series staring Poker Boy. During his career he also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds.

Book preview

Smith’s Monthly Issue #60

SMITH’S MONTHLY ISSUE #60

DEAN WESLEY SMITH

WMG Publishing, Inc.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Ashes to Weddings

Introduction

Ashes To Weddings

Subdivision Survival: The Game

Introduction

Subdivision Survival: The Game

Too Strange for the Name

Introduction

Introduction

Don’t Rust on Me Now

Introduction

Don’t Rust On Me Now

Iron Eyebrows

Introduction

Iron Eyebrows

Mated from the Morgue

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The Romance Novel Challenge

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Squatter’s Rights on the Street of Broken Men

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

If Sex is All a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess?

Introduction

If Sex is All a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess?

Enough Time

Introduction

Enough Time

Deadly Invisible Sky

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Rescue Two

Introduction

Author’s Note:

Prologue

Section One

The First Search

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Section Two

The Galactic Missing

Section Two

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Section Three

Rescue Three

Chapter 26

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About the Author

INTRODUCTION

Introduction to Issue #60

A NUMBER WITH A ZERO

I have no idea why when a number with a zero in it comes up, I think it is important. But I do, every time. Especially with birthdays and this magazine.

Birthdays, I think we all understand.

But this magazine, Issue #60 seems important. But it is just another issue. Right? Granted, doing an entire seventy-to-eighty-thousand-word issue of a magazine every month with only my own stuff in it is kind of strange. (Actually totally nuts.) And doing sixty of them monthly is really out there, I will admit.

But when I hit an issue with a zero number, I always have two thoughts. First, should I just toss in the towel at this nice, round number? Stop the insanity.

Second thought is can I even make it to the next nice round number?

So far every time I have decided to just shoot for making it to the next round number, and staying on the monthly schedule somehow. So going for seventy.

For the longest time, early in the numbering, I serialized novels as a second feature besides the main novel and the original short stories.

Then somewhere in the middle of the last sixty issues, I put in entire nonfiction writing books with the novel and the original short stories in every issue. And then for #59, I actually did an entire issue of just short stories, with two collections and a bunch of original short stories as the focus.

If a magazine doesn’t develop and change a little over sixty issues, something is wrong. Or at least I tell myself that. Got a hunch over the next ten issues to the next round number, there will be more changes.

This issue is back to an original novel, four original short stories, and an extra collection of stories. But now that I have broken the mold of what I was doing issue after issue, I will be doing more experiments as I head for issue #70. That #70 issue will be, if I can hold the schedule, the February issue of 2023.

And then I will be facing two round number dates coming after that. First, if I do get past #70, I will face the 10 th anniversary of when this magazine started, October 2013.

So if I make it that far, I will celebrate the 80 th issue and the 10 th anniversary of the start date within a two-month period.

That will be fun. Might really have to celebrate that.

If I can make it that far. Should be interesting, if nothing else.

Stay tuned.

—Dean Wesley Smith

April 2022

INTRODUCTION

Las Vegas, wedding capital of the entire country. And at times, Marble and Sims end up watching very strange weddings.

Like a wedding between two serial killers. Sort of. At least they killed old marriages.

A strange wedding in a town full of really strange weddings.

ASHES TO WEDDINGS

A Marble Grant Story

I stood with my partner and love of my life, Sims, across the street from one of the nicest wedding chapels in Las Vegas, watching a very beautiful couple pose in front of the chapel for their wedding pictures. The chapel had a high-peaked roof with steeples that went well over two stories. The stone walls were colorful and the windows mostly filled with stained glass.

Marble knew the place was always kept up and clean, a chapel a person could be proud to be married in, unlike some of the ones in the old hotels or on backstreet corners.

It stood at the intersection of two of the city’s main streets like a guard watching over one of the largest industries the city had.

Marriage made this town a lot of money.

My name is Marble Grant, formally a superhero, now a ghost agent. I was married about 120 years ago, but I can say simply it did not go well, so never had a desire to do it again.

And honestly, before Sims, never met a partner I wanted to marry.

That first time I married a rich man who thought of me as his property. I didn’t much like that, and besides, I was much more interested in his maid, who was not only having an affair with me, but also with my husband.

I suggested to him one day that I join him and the maid in the bedroom and he threw me out and filed instantly for divorce. If I had been another maid, he more than likely would have agreed. But I was his wife and that kind of thing was just not done.

Well, it was done, but not in his mind.

I had stashed enough of his money away and his expensive jewelry and a very expensive painting that he had in storage that I lived just fine as I learned to become a superhero.

But wow I did miss that maid.

Sims, on the other hand, had been married once as well over a hundred years before, to a very, very abusive man and she doesn’t talk about those days and what happened. I don’t blame her. It was a different time for women back in the late 1800s.

So now, standing here on the street corner on a beautiful spring day in Las Vegas, watching a bride and groom seem happy, wasn’t something we did that often. It just so happened we had left Fremont Street downtown to get away from the tourists and were out for a very pleasant walk when we happened on the scene.

As we stood there watching, a slight breeze kicked up the bride’s full skirt of her low-cut wedding dress and with a glimpse, as she tried to push the skirt back into place, it was clear she hadn’t worn any underwear, although she did have on a garter.

I wonder if the photographer, a young kid who didn’t look much older than a high school kid, had gotten that free shot.

That was nice, Sims said, laughing.

That it was, I said.

Sims and I were both working today, so we had on what we called our work clothes. Both of us wore jeans, running shoes, and silk blouses. My blouse was blue today to match the faint blue I had colored my long hair. Sim’s long blond hair was tied back and hung down over a white blouse.

Our job as ghost agents was to climb inside a person’s head to see if they needed help. Most of the people we looked at didn’t need any help and had normal lives with normal problems.

Sometimes we found a person who had a serious health issue and we got them to go see a doctor.

And sometimes we had to deal with monsters, often when our detective friend and sometimes lover, Sky Tate, called us to help with a bad guy she was dealing with.

You up for seeing what the newlyweds are thinking? I asked Sims.

I imagine they will be horny and that makes me horny, Sims said. Can you handle that?

We’re going to have to find out, I said, smiling at her.

I’ll take the groom, she said, and we headed in closer to them.

I sank inside the beautiful bride, expecting to find a former cheerleader, ten years out of school, marrying the love of her life or a second husband.

Nope.

Her real name was Nannette Long, although she was getting married under the name Jane Parsons. She was actually ten years older than she claimed and looked. And this was husband number six.

If I counted that right.

Her memories actually were a little confused on that point.

And she was really, really good in using that part of her body we caught a glimpse of, thanks to the wind, in luring in, trapping, marrying, and then killing husbands. Sometimes she killed them in just a few months, sometimes after a couple of years. It all depended on how good the sex was.

But weirdly enough, I wasn’t feeling like she was evil and a killer like I usually did when inside a monster’s brain.

And from what I could tell climbing around in her head while she put on her act for husband number six, Nannette Long was very, very rich.

Jane Parsons had money under that name, and worked as a real estate agent here in Vegas. But she was convinced that husband number six beside her was loaded.

Or was he husband number seven? I caught a glimpse in her memory of another marriage to a guy with pimples when she was very young.

Quick sex, a pregnancy came out of that one.

Oh, wow, this woman had depths to her that would take some time to dig through.

I stepped out of the bride and moved back to the sidewalk across from the chapel as Sims stepped out of the groom and did the same.

We both tried to talk at the same time, so I indicated Sims should go first.

You are never going to believe this. He marries and kills his brides for their money and six months or a year or so of good sex.

I pointed to her. She does the same thing. Exactly. She thinks he’s rich.

Sims just shook her head. He is, but not under the name he has at the moment.

How often has he killed his wives? I asked.

This will be the sixth, maybe seventh time, Sims said. There is a first one with someone young I couldn’t get a read on.

Same exactly, I said, pointing to the bride as the two of them turned and headed back into the chapel with the photographer following. I had no idea how a kid that young could get that kind of job.

So got any ideas? Sims asked.

We need more information, I said. I couldn’t see how she got rid of her earlier husbands. I just got the sense she killed them, or she believed she did. To her they died, that’s all I know.

Same with him, Sims said. But he doesn’t seem evil at all. You’re right, we need more information. You go explore him, I’ll take the bride this time.

We went into the chapel, following the couple who were standing at the counter signing paperwork. I sank into the husband this time.

And the first thing that hit me was a wave of passion. He could barely wait to get his bride back to the Wynn where they were staying and get her out of that wedding dress.

Oh, wow, once we were done with this, Sims and I were most definitely going to have to get back to our condo.

And fast.

I forced myself to swim through that passion and get to layers underneath. And that was where it got interesting. I went all the way back in his memories of his first marriage.

He and the girl had both been seventeen and she had gotten pregnant and they had decided to get married. It was not a good marriage and they argued, but both of them loved their child and each other.

Money pressure, both of them in college, it was almost impossible.

And then I found the memory of the conversation that started all this. What would you do if I was dead? he asked her after three years of almost no sex and lots of arguing.

Her answer had been that she would mourn him since she still loved him, and then find another man who was rich and who wanted sex.

He had realized he would do the same thing if she was dead.

So that was what they did.

They both pretended to die, figured out what they needed to do to change their names, and then met again after a few months. They would pretend to not know each other, flirt, then get together again, and then when things started to stale, they would both die again, at least in name, and start over.

And suddenly it all came together and I realized the photographer was their kid from the first marriage, now in high school. Now that made sense.

I wanted to know how they made it work, so I went back in his head to their last deaths and meet-cute. He had changed his name and signed up for a gym he had never gone to. She had done the same, and after a month they met there and started flirting and their first date had been a sushi dinner where they told each fantasies about their made-up histories.

Two days later, after a workout, they walked out to his car together and had wild sex in the back seat.

I could feel myself getting hot, so I left the husband at almost the same time as Sims left the bride.

Their kid, the photographer, was sitting on a chair, his expensive camera across his legs, just shaking his head as his parents went through the routines and paperwork of getting married again, giggling like young kids.

Well, got to admit that’s a happy marriage, Sims said. All the years, from that rough start, they made it work.

I am actually impressed, I said. And they don’t seem to be hurting anyone with their name changes and games.

Got a hunch that kid might need some counseling, Sims said, laughing.

At least he didn’t have to live in two homes most of his life, which would have been the case if his parents hadn’t come up with this craziness.

Sims agreed. No right way to do relationships or marriage, that’s for sure. He got two people who loved each other. No better lesson than that.

I looked at the beautiful woman who was my partner and said, You feeling warm in here?

Sims smiled. Being around and inside these two could make anyone warm.

I got a plan for that, I said.

Sims reached out her hand. I’m all yours.

That was exactly my plan.

I jumped the two of us to our bedroom and for a time it got even warmer. A lot, lot warmer.

INTRODUCTION

Billionaire J.R. Kuchar bought all seventy homes in an enclosed subdivision. Every home monitored completely and a massive fence, impossible to climb, protected the entire facility, with military guards on patrol.

Every house armed with the same weapons. Finally, the most dangerous survival game ever invented started. Subdivision Survival.

Real life or game. All a person must do to win? Stay alive for a year.

SUBDIVISION SURVIVAL: THE GAME

A Bryant Street Story

The four-bedroom mini-mansion looked very similar, yet different from the one just over the hedge next door. Or the ones that lined the curving street.

Tile floors, open concept main area with a chef’s-level kitchen to one side. Floor-to-ceiling windows along the wall facing the backyard and the pool.

There had to be a formal dining room, of course, for those special occasions. It was off to one side of the kitchen and on the other side a dining nook with a table and six chairs that also looked out over the pool and got perfect morning light, or at least that was what the saleslady told him in her pitch.

Just like every house in this development, the fences around the backyard were high enough to ensure privacy.

There would be a guest suite down a hall on the main floor and up a grand staircase, two bedrooms and a master bedroom suite. Every house in the development similar.

A three-car garage, of course. And all the best finishes on the counters and bathroom fixtures were top of the line.

This house had been staged with actually tasteful furniture in brown and tan tones that lightened up the stark white and off-white of the tile and walls and the black appliances.

It even had two beds upstairs in the bedrooms.

I’ll take it, he said. Staging furniture and all.

The saleslady nodded, trying not to show her joy at making a sale over the developer’s asking price.

His name was J.R. Kuchar, although today he was buying this house as Chandler Church for one of his many companies, called Chandler Holdings, Inc. He didn’t care what the home cost. He had far, far more money than he could ever spend, even buying a house every other day as he had been doing