The other part of that excerpt is now available on Khakidoggy's site:
http://thevoice.dog/The title of this episode is "All That Glitters."
Background: These two chapters are excerpted from a mystery novel entitled
ARROW: A College Tail. I wrote most of it during National Novel Writing Month a few years back. The characters are as follow:
Francis - a raccoon, student, and a species dysphoric. He is gay, but not trans-sexual. Instead he identifies as a wolf trapped in a raccoon's body. In his composition class, he wrote an essay about that and had to read it aloud. You can imagine the derision (and sympathy) heaped upon him.
Jay - a wolf, a couple of years older than Francis. Also gay, but attracted to raccoons rather than his own species. You can see where this is heading. Jay invited Francis to join Alpha Eta Rho, a Greek letter society that is structured as a wolf pack (with Jay as alpha, of course.) Francis has accepted, taken a pledge, and received a brass token to carry as proof of membership.
Ernie - another raccoon, student, straight but open-minded, and Francis' room mate.
Win - a wolf, student, straight, and a friend (dare I say "wing-wolf") to Jay in his pursuit of Francis' attention and affection.
Also mentioned, Stefan Ulf, historic figure from the university, founder of the real Alpha Eta Rho group which had been a sort of speciesist organization that harassed deer and probably physically injured or killed several of them.
At the beginning of "Gibbous Moon Rising," Francis has had a nightmare in which he was visited by Stefan Ulf, a threatening black wolf, who directed him to go to a certain hollow tree and find an ugly claw like weapon concealed there. Francis was to use this to kill a deer in order to prove his loyalty to Alpha Eta Rho. Naturally, Francis awakens quite disturbed and tries to make sense of this nightmare. On his way to the library to look for information about Alpha Eta Rho and Ulf, he passes a police investigation of an apparent murder, and the victim's body is still lying there: a young buck deer. Now Francis fears that he himself has somehow committed this grisly deed, while hypnotized or sleepwalking. That's the point at which these excerpts begin.
The complete novel has never been released, but at Khakidoggy's urging, I am looking at the manuscript to see whether I can get it into shape and do something like that with it. Possibly an ebook, anyway.
Please enjoy the teasers. Comments or criticisms welcome.
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