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Seven Days on the Mountain Sample Pages

Told from first and third person point of view, Seven Days on the Mountain draws from Homer's The Odyssey to re-tell a tale of a hero who must return home, no matter what, to save her family.

Civil War rages in the US. Renegades, outlaws, and rogues comb the countryside. Callie must learn how to survive, how to hunt, fish, shoot, and kill, if she wants to survive the new America.


The two men who argued were closest to us, closest to the woods, which thinned as you moved towards the road. I could see their elbows and watched as they turned and pivoted as the men fussed. They were talking about our cabin. The fire they had seen had been the one I made this morning to cook bacon. Some of the wood had been wet, and knowing we were leaving, I didn’t think it would matter much if anyone saw the smoke.

I guess I was wrong. Nothing like telling everyone where you are.

“Yeah, remember how we went into town, to get us some booze. We were lucky to get out alive, Chief.”

“I told you not to mention that to me again.”

Alex showed no signs of moving or taking action. My stomach was acid. My trigger finger itched, and I tapped it against the stock of my rifle to ease my tension. These were the same men who came in the night and forced us to leave the top of the mountain. I just knew it.

Homer's Odysseus is re-cast as a teenage girl thrown into a harsh, violent world. If the rogue soldiers were not enough, stranger and wilder creatures and beasts haunt the mountain, block her path back to family and hope.

Johnny Penny led Callie Uly Grady out of the orchard at approximately 10:19 AM on a dreary Thursday morning. He held her hand and they practically skipped into the clay driveway that split the open-area property in half. To their right was the large red barn, which was as large as the Jessup’s house. There was a smaller barn next to it that had a running waterwheel mill, and double doors that were at least ten feet tall. There were dozens of vehicles in the yard that were in various states of disrepair. The oldest was a Hudson that had rusted out and was currently the home of hibernating squirrels who had mistaken its engine for an oak. The newest was a Ford Taurus that looked like it could make it into town if horsed enough.

To their left, the house, a sprawling Victorian telescope house which stretched far to both sides, and to the front and back. The windows were stained glass, and the wrap-around porch was screened in to protect from the mosquitoes, no-seeums, and gnats that took control in the summer months. There were two chimneys and both were blowing smoke, which did not seem to travel far before dissipating. Callie wondered how far the smoke could be seen.

The house awoke their memories of house sounds, when, as if summoned, came the sounds of music, and laughter.

“Somebody’s home,” Johnny said cheerfully “This is going to be good. I can feel it.”

Callie didn’t respond, though she felt something coiling inside of her. Something was wrong here.

Ghosts, a mad beast, the very mountain itself all stand in Callie's way. And at times she will have to learn to rely on herself to save her skin.

When the animal caught the unknown scent it followed it to the edge of the place. The animal was curious about the fleshtaste of the unknown scent, and now was faced with a problem. To chase the fleshtaste would mean it would have to go where the once living now rested. It didn’t like that place. Because that place made its head hurt, and made the world whirl and stink. But it wanted the fleshtaste. And the new scent led the black bear back towards the cabin.

It lumbered into the yard and came to the window. It snuffled but everyone inside was asleep. The black bear couldn’t see them from the clothes on the window, but their scents enlightened the sides of the place. He could smell their sex, their anger, their blood. There were three, two males, one female, and one of the males was bleeding. It did not smell the overwhelming scent of the place, of those that were no longer alive, but it believed that after the storm came the place would awaken. The bear wanted to see this so it waited under a large pine tree. The place when it was awake both excited it and scared it. The bear wanted to see if the fleshmeat would flee the place. It hunkered down in the snow and slept. In its dreams the earth shook under its feet as he ate flesh and snapped bone.


And if she can survive the trek back up the mountain, what waits her? What evil have men done to her loved ones?

About four o’clock that afternoon as the sun sunk behind the stripped oaks and the shaggy pines, they crested a small ridge and saw the house about a quarter of a mile from them. From their angle they saw smoke rising above the chimneys, a string of clothes on the line, and fresh cut wood in the woodpile. Callie almost threw down her shotgun and ran for the fences, but fear stopped her, fear and detail. Something wasn’t right.

She dropped to her knee and leaned on a tree.

“Well, should we just walk up and knock on the door?” Johnny asked as he dropped behind her.

The clothes, they weren’t familiar, for the most part they were men’s long underwear, seven pairs of them, stiff, but yet blowing upwards in the wind.

“Those clothes are military issue.” John wheezed.

From their angle they could not see much, but they could spy the ends of three snowmobiles, and what looked like part of an army green truck or jeep.

“We don’t have a choice,” Callie said.

“What? We’re not going in are we?” John asked.

“No, we must watch and wait.”

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