William I. Lengeman III

Man Bites God
Humorous flash fiction by W.W. Lengeman
Available in a Smashwords edition.

A horse walks into a bar. Count Dracula gives a commencement address to an audience of hemophiliacs. A man accidentally barbecues his brother. A home brain surgery project doesn't go so well. It's all here and more in Man Bites God, a collection of 22 humorous flash fiction stories by W.W. Lengeman.

You'll laugh. You'll cry. Then you'll laugh again before breaking into a brief crying spell, punctuated by an occasional snicker or a unusually loud guffaw. Then you'll get really pissed off and fling a plate at the cat. Then you'll almost laugh again but you'll catch yourself just in the nick of time. Then you'll remember to take your medication and eventually things will settle down a bit.

Table of Contents

Together Again
Tastes Like Chicken
The Man Who Mistook His Stomach for a Hat
Metal Box with Peanuts, Interlude Four
The Curmudgeon
My Mother, the Shrink Wrapping Machine
Into the Light
Count Dracula’s Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of the Lord Charles D. Razar School for Hemophiliacs
The Obligatory Car Chase Scene
The Idea
Damned Grandpa
The Silence of the Mice
Hardboiled
A Crisis of Confidence
Dead Poet’s Full Contact Kickboxing Society
Neurosurgeon’s Correspondence Course
A Passionate Interlude
Toast
The Horse Whispers
Waiter, There’s A Mad Scientist in My Soup
The Mixed Up Man
Man Bites God

Kick the Baby
Humorous short fiction by W.W. Lengeman
Available in a Smashwords edition.

What to do when you don't have a soccer ball handy? When you have a black-eyed pea stuck in your nose and are being menaced by a kangaroo? When your Hindu holy man isn't all he could be? When you're menaced by a bloowbolunga? All is revealed in Kick the Baby, a collection of four humorous short stories by W.W. Lengeman.

Sacramento Slim and the Bloowbolunga
The bloowbolunga, for those of you who might not be familiar with the species, is about the size of a small convenience store – minus the gas pumps, of course – and could easily be mistaken for a big old hot air balloon laying on the ground with most of the air sucked out of it.

Black Eyes
Some people are just plain unlucky when it comes to getting things stuck in body orifices. Grandpa Jerry used to tell us about his grandfather – Asa – who choked to death on an unpeeled orange. Then there’s my second cousin Bimini, who got a G.I. Joe stuck in his…well, never mind where.

My Fakir
I lay in bed that night, watching Sanjay - he was seated in the lotus position on a platform on top of the telephone pole – and I had a moment of doubt. What if it came down to brass tacks and I had to make a decision between Gerri and him? I’d become attached to the old coot and, even with all the problems, I found it difficult to imagine life without him.

Kick the Baby
Of all the games we played when I was a kid, the one I liked best was Kick the Baby.

Eyeless in Hate
Short fiction by W.W. Lengeman
Available in a Smashwords edition.

Eyeless in Hate is a trio of short stories that combine elements of fantasy and horror and are inspired by works by Percy and Mary Shelley.

Lost Angel in a Ruined Paradise takes its name from a poem by the great Romantic poet, Percy Shelley. It tells the story of what might happen when an angel crash lands on the wrong side of town.

The Dead Dads Club draws inspiration from a much-imitated work by Percy Shelley's wife, Mary. The Dead Dads Club are a quartet of teenaged boys whose grim experiments in their hideout deep in the woods are reminiscent of Mary Shelley's great work of literature, Frankenstein.

Eyeless in Hate is an update, with young adult protagonists, of Percy Shelley's great lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound.

The Man With the Tick Tock Heart
By W.W. Lengeman
A fantasy short story.
Available in a Smashwords edition

In time the man with the tick tock heart would perhaps be forgotten or, more likely, ascribed to that realm of myth where he will exist only as a creature of imagination. But that’s okay too, since imagination is oftentimes a nicer place to inhabit than this world of pain and broken shoelaces and death and overcooked vegetables.

It’s been said that wonders are only wondrous to those who rarely see them. When the man with the tick tock heart was carried off over the ocean, some of the townspeople insisted that the wonder had gone out of the world, but there were others who knew better. After all, there is wonder to be found in even the darkest of times and in the most unlikely seeming places. It’s all just a matter of knowing where to look.

In Fields of Drunken Flowers
By W.W. Lengeman
A horror novella set in deepest darkest Africa.
Available in a Kindle edition.

When the phone rings late one night Thomas Kane is unexpectedly called to Africa to deal with the death of his parents, who moved there several years earlier to open a winery. Thomas arrives in the war-torn country and meets Bobby Foster, a "consultant" who tells him the truth about his parents' death.

The region is under the thumb of a band of lawless rebels who live in the hills beyond the winery and who have free reign to do whatever they want. They are led by General Nehemiah, who may be a sorcerer and shapeshifter and who definitely is a charismatic and dangerous man who instills fear in everyone he meets.

Thomas concerns himself with handling his parents' affairs but things soon spiral downward. When he finds himself in circumstances more harrowing than he could ever have imagined, he takes to heart the words of H.L. Mencken, who said "every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

My Mother, the Lycanthrope
By W.W. Lengeman
Book one in The Lykoi Chronicles, a young adult fiction trilogy.
Available in Kindle and Smashwords editions

Everyone has problems, but Leigh Trinkett is starting to think she has more than her fair share. Leigh has vowed to make the soccer team, but she’s not sure if she’s got what it takes, even with intensive coaching from best friend and budding soccer star, Ashley

Then there’s Leigh’s family life – and all is not quiet on the home front. Brother Buddy is a would-be ninja who leaves no stone unturned in his quest to annoy Leigh. Crabby old Grandpa Sam came to live with the family when his ranch went under, along with Jerry, a trained dwarf cow who has the run of the house. Leigh’s father is preoccupied with the fate of his business, a shop that specializes in trial-sized products and is suffering trials and tribulations of its own.

Oh, and there’s Leigh’s mother, who hasn’t really been herself lately. Mom’s been sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, is on first name terms with the local butcher and just may have something to do with the cooler of meat Leigh finds hidden in the garage.

Will Leigh make the soccer team? Will Buddy drive her nuts? Will her father's business survive? Is her mother a werewolf? All will be revealed in My Mother, The Lycanthrope, book one of The Lykoi Chronicles. Stay tuned for Daughter of the Wolf and To Howl With Wolves, the second and third books in the trilogy.