Flatheads

by Byron Starr

Overview

Back in East Texas for the summer break, college student Kevin Harvey gets more excitement than he counted on when he signs on with a logging crew to escape his dull summer job bagging groceries. As he and the other 'flatheads' (so called on the off chance they don't get out of the way of falling trees) soon discover, the Texas piney woods hold many secrets -- some better left undiscovered.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940000841303
Publisher:	Creative Guy Publishing
Publication date:	04/01/2010
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	184 KB

About the Author

My reading hobby branched into a writing hobby in 1999. Over the next three years I saw several short stories published in print and on the internet. On February 1, 2002 my first novelette, Flatheads came into circulation. Ironically, that was the very day that the space shuttle Columbia fell out of the sky. Due to my day job as a small town undertaker I found myself wrapped up in the recovery effort; when it was all said and done I was involved in the recovery of all seven astronauts. The next four years were spent hammering out a nonfiction book focusing on the Columbia recovery effort in Sabine County. My book Finding Heroes came into circulation in October 2006, and I’m now back to writing fiction (Thank God). I’m a little rusty, but I’ve had some success. My first novel Ace Hawkins and the Wrath of Santa Claus will be coming out some time in the Summer or Fall of 2008.

Read an Excerpt

"How did we get screwed into starting this job on a Friday?" Derek asked from his seat by the passenger's door.

"The owner of the tract couldn't go out and meet me until yesterday." Mack grumbled, "I told him that we'd rather start next Monday, but he's in some kind of hurry to get his money for those trees."

"What's wrong with starting the job on a Friday?" Kevin asked, thankful to have the subject changed to something that didn't pertain to him.

"Bad luck," Roy offered from the back seat.

"Yeah," Mack seconded, "You start a job on a Friday, and it never fails; shit breaks down left and right, and about half the time someone ends up getting hurt. I never start a job on Friday when I can get around it."

"I wouldn't have placed you as the superstitious type." Kevin said to Mack.

"Son, let me tell you," Mack said, wagging a thick finger for emphasis, "You work around chainsaws and falling trees long enough, you'll develop a little superstition. I'm tellin' you, loggers are strange folk. I know one contractor who would turn down a job if there was a cemetery neighboring the tract."

"Jerrod Haskins," Roy injected.

"That's him," Mack acknowledged; then he jabbed a thumb toward the back seat and said, "Hell, ol' Roy has one of the weirdest rituals of them all."

"What's that?" Kevin asked.

"From the time we start a job until the job is done, he never brushes his teeth."

"Never?" Kevin asked in a somewhat subdued voice.

Behind him, Roy had taken out his false teeth and was creeping them over Kevin's shoulder. Suddenly, he thrust them into Kevin's face and said, "Yep, just soak 'em."

The sudden appearance of Roy's teeth made Kevin almost jump into Derek's lap.

Laughterroared through the pickup to the point that Mack almost had to pull over to keep from having an accident.