Six Birds & a Cat > Bonus Fiction & NF Content!

By Dan Gallagher

Who can resist a tale of family crisis and desperate adventures to save a lost daughter? Who can resist a trek in the pristine Australian jungle? Who can withstand long-lost species of monsters, now re-emerging? Come with me on one of my longest short stories, yet most popular emotional rollercoasters. Gasp at amazing nonfiction accompaniments as much as the fiction… or is it fiction? Food for thought are the relationships and dreams we love, yet which drive so much conflict. Along the way, try to avoid being food for… well, experience it for yourself!

 

Bonus:  Salamanders are so cute, so harmless. Right? Ask Mitch about that. Read this one carefully. Monster in the Sand (MITS) is written in the "defective narrator" style, made famous by Poe. Though MITS fits into the speculative fiction genre, you'll appreciate its literary subtlties. MITS has proven to be food for thought and lively discussion since 2017; great fun for reading discussion groups. Who or what is the monster, why does the sand burn like frostbite, and who is truly dead? Enjoy the brief nonfiction accompaniment and compare/contrast this tale to "The Tell-tale Heart". Enjoy, but don't blame me for your nightmares.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Gallagher
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215684856

Dan Gallagher

A Writing Style Shaped by Life-experiences: As the youngest of eight in a Catholic working class family; as a soldier, scholar, family man, advisor and adventurer, Dan developed a vivid, hard-hitting style: He has trekked volcanoes, deserts, swamps; trudged Appalachian, Arizonan and Venezuelan heights & gorges. He has explored exotic locations like Macau, Hong Kong, the Everglades, Bayous, Mexico's Baja? even New Jersey! Attacked by a charging bear, Dan killed it at fourteen feet, evaded a northern Canada wolf-pack and an enraged moose. He's parachuted, been in a knife fight and numerous other life-threatening tangles. Though he's not seen combat, Dan held command of Mechanized Infantrymen in live-fire assaults, ambushes and defenses in Germany & the U.S.. He has lived in Rhode Island, Alexandria & Williamsburg, VA and North Carolina. Other personal experiences inform Dan's writing style. He knows what faith, race and age discrimination feel like. He helped reform court-marshalled soldiers, consoled the homeless and took charge in deadly accidents: a C-130 aircraft crash and a 110 mph motorcycle collision. In counseling clients (Dan's pre-retirement financial & business brokerage work), Dan handled hundreds of millions in transactions. He's seen what strengthens and dissolves relationships. Dan has experienced spiritual and miraculous phenomena and investigated those of others. Dan usually pursued simultaneous endeavors (studied Economics, Modern Languages, Finance Math, English, and was a published professional instructor). He's been a lifelong student of Natural Sciences, Comparative Religion and Cryptozoology. Dan and wife Laura have been in love for over three decades and treasured raising their four "snit-generating" kids. Several professional and personal tragedies have been profoundly humbling. Yet, through it all, Dan kept sane to help others. He says, "I give psychological counseling to my cat, Watson, who claims to be a sabre-tooth tiger. Watson must think I'm gullible: he never tries to convince others of his delusions." Dan is the author of financial & expository nonfiction and quite a bit of humor, but mostly speculative and adventure fiction; no fantasy. He endeavors to give readers vivid sensory and emotional experiences. His bio is at the AuthorDan website, AuthorDan.com or StoriesAmazing.com

Book preview

Story Pair Prologue: 6BC and MITS

This bonus pack has two short stories. Each could stand alone, but are best enjoyed in the order given. Both are cryptozoological-mystical tales with nonfiction accompaniments. Each tale is preceded by a research piece, but 6BC has a second nonfiction at its conclusion so as to preserve a surprise! Monster in the Sand (MITS, 2,700 words) and Six Birds and a Cat (6BC, 10,800 words) differ profoundly from each other. And, yet, these connect through a medical discovery...and through attachment to evil or virtue. MITS (unreliable narrator) reveals a monster in descent, while 6BC (3rd person omniscient) is a quest for family unity, asking whether a genetics/medical discovery can be a mystical intercession. Plot summaries follow.

MITS: Mitch traces his history of brutality through his current status of descending into...well sand can be pretty mucky. Reader must infer; it's more literary than most horror/speculative fictions. Fired from employment as a soldier of fortune, his next gig finds him bounty hunting a drug lord into the wilds of northern California where he is attacked by another type of monster and a competing bounty hunter. But, with a soul like Mitch, you've just got to infer the truth, as he cannot accept what thrusts itself upon him...in more ways than one.

6BC: Keith is a tough, but loving black Marine Corps hero and failed Baltimore businessman. His prays in vein for the recovery of his brain damaged son, all the while ridiculed by jaded, skeptic-daughter Liz. Is he a failed father of four? Reader contemplates this as he recruits his explorer-scientist brother, Bart, to locate prodigal daughter Maive in the wilds of Queensland, AU. Maive lives (lived?) out-of-wedlock with a white scientist who is in charge of researching the newly discovered remnants of Thylacoleo carnifex, pack-hunting and arboreal-ambushing marsupial lions. Police have given up the search for the lovers, but Keith and brother Bart scour the facility for clues—and poignant memories—and set off into the bush. They barely survive to find and join the two trapped in a disguised observation cave beside the Thylacoleo cave; they cannot exit without certain death, and food is exhausted. What could be worse than a pride of thylacoleos waiting outside your cramped observation tunnel? Yes, the Thylacs would have left daily to hunt, enabling escape, but have something to fear themselves and that is why they stay at the cave, giving no escape opportunity. And what they fear comes closer to both the animals and humans. But Keith has a plan, desperate, daring. he is the bait, running along the cliff base to reach a path to the plateau above. Alone, unable to signal for help and, yet he is soon no longer alone; his wife has rented a helicopter with an experienced pilot and locates the cave and Keith. The family strains to pull all up to the top, dodging the melee between Thylacs and the visitor. As the c'copter takes off, the denizen leaps to eat Keith in one bite. But a Thylac rips its way to bite Keith first: his spinal cord is partially severed in a razor-gash as the Thylac is beaten away and the group flies to a hospital, a hundred miles southeast. At the hospital, the press already presses in and Keith is near death. But his cure and that of his brain damaged son are the same. A new technology mentioned in the nonfiction accompaniment to MITS. But, even Liz can see that there is more than science involved.

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Sightings and Research:  Giant Salamanders by Dan Gallagher

We’ve all seen videos of crocodiles nabbing big animals at watering holes. Animals evolve—or survive eons unchanged—to fit a habitat’s niche, such as that of a large animal predator. Why would one of the most isolated habitats in North America be any different, not with crocodiles in mountain streams but with historically gargantuan salamanders lying in wait.

Salamanders have been carnivores with poisonous skin for a hundred sixty million years and their lengths have ranged from an inch to nine feet (Gao and Shubin 2003). All species regrow lost limbs and nerves, an ability that the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute and other groups now race to harness for humans. They also regrow teeth:  fifty to a hundred sharp spikes aimed inward toward