Excerpts

 from other books by Joel Gray    

 

 

    

   Joel Gray has written other books besides Sign of Treason (which is now available at PublishAmerica.com.).

 

  Here is an excerpt from the third chapter of a manuscript titled, Androids.

 

 

                       

 

 

                                                

 

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     Chapter 3 (from "Androids") 

 

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    His heart was a drum in his chest, emphasizing each of his footsteps. Carl was running.

   The sun was now a mere dying sliver of orange. Red clouds drifted in the stratosphere like a convoy of ships.

   Carl hated himself for not remembering to bring flashlights. Night would soon be upon him.

   Carl paused. His breath came in choppy puffs.

   He had rounded the corner of a brick building and was now staring keenly into the dark, crimson gloom of an extensive, tree-covered park. He was attention was not focused on the surreal crimson shadows of trees, nor was it focused on the ripples in a pond. Carl flattened his back against the brick wall.

  There was no way he could face what occupied the shadows of the park. Nevertheless, he had to…

  Carl peered around the corner, at the apparition.

  A massive, elongated structure of dark grey metal was hovering a few feet above the grass. White-blue lights illuminated its underside. Resembling a turtle shell, the vehicle was streamline and powerful. Carl could decipher the latter conclusion from the deep rumbling sound that propagated from it.

 Just then, a door or hatch, in its side, opened and an orange light pored from the aperture.

 ...

 

 

  

 

      Here is an exerpt from a book, by Joel, called Beneath the Rising Sun:

 

         

    He was running. Air rushed past his face. There was a snap just a few feet behind him. His pursuer was closing in. He wouldn`’t have much time before the pursuer would reach him.

       The early morning light cast feint shadows on the ground. A sound filtered through the blast of the wind on his ears. His attention had been to the ground so long that he had forgotten to look straight ahead.

     Thud, Thud, Thud.

     There was a loud, guttural trumpet blast from above.

     He turned his head just in time to see a leathery boulder, supported by four, vast tree trunks of muscle, charging toward him. Reacting quickly, he dropped to the ground, just as the creature thunder by, overhead.

     When he stood, the runner gazed in astonishment and terror at the sight before him. A thousand, massive animals, like the one that nearly ran him over, were coming his way. Eying a ditch with a small rivulet running through it, the runner lunged toward it, rolled, and fell into the hollow, only seconds before the charging herd arrived. His pursuer was not so lucky. It dodged the trunk-like legs of on-coming beasts for a few seconds before a massive foot smashed it like a fly.

     When the herd was gone, the runner crawled out of the ditch. A few feet away, the smashed body of the deinonychus, his pursuer, let out a final grunt and closed its eyes, for the last time. 

 

    Here is an excerpt from story, by Joel, called Infinitesimal:

  

  Across the infinite, scintillating sand, a lone figure walked.
The Sun cast its hatred in burning waves of heat onto the skin
 of his white back. He had removed his shirt a minute ago and
 not long afterwards his skin began to tan. 
   He was alone. The sand stretched for miles in all directions,
swirling in the breath of the wind.
   How utterly empty the world was. Not a human in sight. Not a
scrap of life anywhere. Not a drop of water in sight.
   Off in the distance a shadow appeared. As he approached it, the
shadow focused into a gnarled tree: Life!
   Sitting below the leafless, blackened tree, the wanderer
stroked his inch long beard, removing the crust of sand blown
into it.
   Now, he could die in peace.
   The world, in just two days, must have been transformed from
 its high-tech society with over ten billion members, to a vast,
barren landscape of wasteland.
    He and his friends had been lucky to find the underground
bunker.
    He could remember the bombing vaguely as it occurred far
above his bomb shelter.
    It seemed that an earthquake had hit during the first nuclear
strike. Shockwaves, traveling through the ground, had toppled
 the book shelf in his room.
    His friends told him that the nuclear strike had occurred five
miles away.
   The following nuclear attack had been much closer.
   It came back to him as he felt the coolness of the tree’s shadow
 on his chest. 

                             ________________________

 

 

    There was a flash of light outside, beyond John’s view, hidden
by tons of earth and concrete.  
     A concussion---
     A room, in a certain skyscraper, with a single, cluttered desk,
immaculate floor, and white walls was transformed---
    Window cracking for a split second—
   Boards snapping—
   Nails flying out of their holes— rain of metal.
    In an instant, the wall behind the computer was in pieces, flying
toward it like a crashing ocean wave.
   Glass fragments rotating and inching their way forward,
millisecond by millisecond---
   Nails like a hundred throwing knives, rushed toward the plastic
and
 metal machine—a delicate, synthetic brain-- with a gust of intense
700 degree concussion wave behind them.
     The computer was fried before the concussion wave reached it.
The intense nuclear radiation had destroyed its electronic
components.
    
    John heard the dull boom rumble through the hundred feet of
concrete above him. In that moment he knew that is fears were
being realized.
    The nuclear war had brought a hydrogen-bomb-tipped
rocket to his city! 

    Something moved in his peripheral vision: his shelf!  It fell
toward
 him fast as the ground shook. He could not escape its
incoming
force.
   Wood and heavy books crashed into him. His vision went
dark.
                                 ________________
 
    He opened his eyes to the white sand and blue sky. John
Evans could
not remember what had happened to him since that fateful
day.
He had lost consciousness in the dark bunker.
    When he awoke, a desert had replaced the cool base with
its oven heat.
     It seemed that only ten minutes had expired since he had
opened
his eyes to see the white expanse and remembered the falling
shelf.
 Only a short while ago he had been in the dark.
     It was queer, to say the least.
  
  Then, something happened.
   The hot, bright Sun was extinguished like a candle in a
windstorm.
In an instant the blazing desert was dark. However, the heat
 still remained.
  The Sun must have died. John thought.  What am I thinking?
If the Sun had died I would be dead a well. Perhaps, a cloud
had concealed it, John continued his train of thought. There
are no clouds. This is a desert. Or, could it be an atmospheric
affect produced by a nuclear war?
    The question died away when a light cut the darkness like a
 knife with a single beam of white purity. A rectangle of light,
shaped like a doorway beckoned John forward.
   His mind was blown away like the air surrounding a
nuclear bomb is dispelled. How in the Universe, could a door
appear in the middle of a barren desert after a bizarre, instant
sunset!?
     This has to be a dream.