Ross McDermott

@beyondtheonions

I write ✍ Author TUSK: A Beringia Story - pre-historic/fiction The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt - western Weathervane - a.co/d/3iPzhvE western/horror Sunsetter - western/horror

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Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 26d

Just look at this vampiric-looking mudder focker... anybody else see the head vampire from the 1987 movie The Lost Boys...huh? huh? Yeah! #scottbessent -- blood sucker extrodinaire!

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 26d

#noprompt #writing #words #amwriting #support not #charity - a pitch or a plea? Both perhaps, but no beggar am I. #poem #poetry #booklovers #BlueSkyPoetry beyondtheonions.wordpress.com ~words for the wolves~

I do not stand with hat in hand
though I struggle, no beggar am I
Too young to retire
Yet too old to hire
Stuck in this late-life quagmire
but no beggar am I
At night
by the glow
of candle light
I write - as always - wealthy in words
So I do not stand
with hat in hand
but offer my words to the wolves.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 26d

#vss365 #sprint #poem #poetry #SocialCommentary #urban #life #darkpoem ~Pickatown Road~

His shoes are laced tight
He slips silent, unseen
Puddles blotch the tire ruts black
in the stretching alley, long and dark
somewhere off that Pickatown Road.

Each night he #sprints this gauntlet of shadows
Racing through the thick dark smell of urine and malt,
vomit and fault
Desperate hands reach out
but he races by head down,
down that alley off Pickatown Road.

Home, the finish line, his day’s complete
Until tomorrow – back on the street
Just one of many – an urban athlete
racing down that alley off Pickatown Road.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 26d

#ThingstoWriteAbout #butterfly #poem #poetry #writing #amwriting #photo is mine #nature Fluttering, #flying from one to the next A treat to the eye she leaves me perplexed For why couldn't I just flutter and fly and lead such a life so tranquil? ... I try.

A soft, white butterfly takes a moment's rest, daring the crown of a Scottish thistle.
photo by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 26d

#2wordprompt #serious #species #writing #amwriting #dystopian #scifi #wip

We bowed to their demands, subtle suggestions at first, that slowly slipped to mandatory commands with which we were left with no choice but to follow, as our world had slipped to become their human zoo. In the slitted eyes of the Arbitrarians, humans were mere commodities, and were never considered a serious species.

from my wip Spiral Eyes - a dystopian scifi adventure
Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 26d

#WIPSnips #divine #foreshadowing #writing #amwriting #horror #fiction #wip Possession (working title) *Taz watches an approaching storm while waiting for his friend to arrive. (Tubular Bells anyone?)😈

The sun of the day had been chased away and a late summer shower brought promise of a humid evening ahead. Taz could feel the sauna coming as his car was a little old and struggled when it came to air conditioning – only Mother Nature could help him on days like these, but she offered no divine intervention. He pulled into the Tim Hortons parking lot, spying a surprisingly long line in the drive through, and opted to park and go inside instead.
He emerged with two coffees, one for his friend who was soon to arrive. He placed them in the car’s front cup holders, then pulled a cigarette pack from the breast pocket of his black golf shirt. He leaned on the car and lit a smoke with one deep draw. He looked up at the clouds to the west, the thunderheads loomed far on the horizon, but their approach could be heard, if one listened closely. Taz felt the soggy air gently drift towards the feeding storm.

excerpt from my #wip Possession (working title) - horror fiction
Ross McDermott.

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 27d

An epic #western adventure that transitions to a tale of ancient evil in the wilds of the west. Saddle up and fasten down those holsters. Get ready to ride into the dark, Dead of the Night: 2-book series #western/#horror The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt #prequel www.amazon.ca/dp/B0H6J5TTD...

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 27d

#WIPSnips #next #writing #amwriting #horror #fiction #wip Possession (working title) *Taz gets spooked while investigating an old psychiatric hospital... boo! 👻

Bam!
The door slammed on Taz’s face. “Holy shit!” He grabbed the camera, tripod and all, and started running down the hall. For several seconds the viewers were treated to a night-vision view of the dark, deserted hallway bouncing on their screens. Taz’s heavy breathing and suppressed cursing provided the audio during his flight. Two large doors appeared in the green-glowing distance, bouncing closer and closer. The camera and Taz exploded through those doors out into the night air. He dashed across the grass a short distance and stopped to catch his breath. Taz positioned the tripod and turned to face the camera. The rising ramparts of the abandoned hospital glowed a spooky apparition in the background.
“Hey folks. That’s it for me for now.” He was bent over, leaning on his knees, looking up at the camera, heavy breaths between words. “That was an incredible rush of adrenaline! Catch up next time when I go back in.” Taz paused and smiled. His blue eyes crinkled as they always do. “But we’ll save that for another time, another night,” he shook his head and laughed at the camera. “Not tonight. No sir. Whatever walks the empty halls of Saint Thomas, on this night, It walks alone…. That’s all for now. This is the Forest City Ghost Guy signing off. Taz out.”
A message for viewers rolled text on the screen:
Got Ghosts?
Call the guy. Forest City Ghost Guy.
*FCGG is a certified paranormal research society*.

excerpt from my horror/fiction wip Possession (working title)
~Ross McDermott~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· 27d

#vss365 #writing #novel #excerpt Mr. Andrews barely slowed. He disregarded my pull on the reins and continued across the dry-bed of the creek. I reached behind me, pulling the repeater from its sheath and dismounted on the run, needing several desperate paces to cease my forward #momentum.

cover design by Emma McDermott
western/horror fiction novel
Sunsetter
written by Ross McDermott ~ Beyond the Onions

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jul 6

#ThingsToWriteAbout #handwriting (vibe) #cursive #poem #writing #poetry #dark

I find the flow of cursive romantic,
A glimpse into the hand of the one who held the pen.
There is much to be seen in the rolls and waves
The temperance of certainties
Found in just a breath
Etched across a page – a stained winter’s white
Such providence, they can speak, silently regal
Though but whispers to the parchment
They speak clearly their hard consonants,
balanced in the countenance of the soft faces,
Conjured through the vowels.
The scribe’s hand shaking… the valediction strewn as sticks
Black of bark; strokes of night, so spills the ink

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jul 3

#WIPSnips #out #writing #amwriting #wip #horror #fiction Possessions (working title) - feeling under the weather... both today and yesterday... I blame it on the weather (heat. ugh! 🥵) - think I'll go back to bed. 🥱 *Deidra returns home to find a present from Dusty... 💩

The Ford Focus careened into the condo complex, drawing daggers of stares from a couple of the ‘socially conscious’ neighbors.
Though Deidra had no recollection of driving, nor of her escape from the dark, she was thankful to see the sanctuary of home, and that no other presence could be felt. She was, for now, freed from void of black and seemingly back in control.
She climbed out of the car feeling unsteady on her feet, suddenly slammed by the heat of the day. Her exhaustion had again returned and her mind thought of nothing but sleep. As she entered her townhouse the stench of shit assaulted her nostrils, causing an immediate gag reflex. Dusty, who lay on her side beneath the kitchen table, thumping her tail on the linoleum floor, barely raised her head, but smiled with a panting drop of her tongue, unashamed or not caring about the mess she had made.
“Oh Dusty!” Deidra said, prompting the dog to retrieve her tongue back into her mouth. “Why?”

~excerpt from wip Possessions (working title)
by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jul 2

#WIPSnips #knock #writing #amwriting #rewrite #revision #wip #horror #fiction Possessions (working title) - this snippet contains mild, sexually suggestive content - possibly #nsfw *Deidra awakes in the doctors office, naked, ashamed and confused.

The jackals again. They came to her sleeping mind, snapping and snarling then suddenly stopping, turning their eyes to gaze at Deidra in the strange, dreamscape world.
She felt her eyelids flutter, like the wings of a moth desperate to evade the heat of the flame to which it had been so drawn. Then as quick as it came the dream dissolved into whiteness, and Dierdra’s eyes flew open. She was still at the doctor’s, still lying on the examination table, but her body felt stiff, as if she’d just ran a sprinted mile and had not yet recovered. Suddenly she shivered and realized she was naked. Her clothes lay piled on the floor rolled up in a ball. She no longer rested in the fetal position but lay sprawled on the table, her legs wide, her privates moist and her nipples erect.
She’d known what she had done by the feel of her fingers and the shame washed over her with an undeniable wave of confusion. A quiet knock on the door raised her alarm.
“One second,” she called, her voice echoing that wave of confusion. Quickly she scrambled to her feet, weak at the knees and shaking, she hurried to put her clothes back on, flushed in her inability to recall what she had just done in the room. All her mind remembered was the eyes of the jackals and the whiteness of the world just before she’d awakened.
“Is everything okay Miss Calloway?” the voice of the doctor’s nurse; the pretty Indian girl who had escorted her to the room. “I was just coming to check when I realized you hadn’t left the room.” The pretty girl opened the door just as Deidra was pulling her T-shirt over her head.
Deidra flushed hot when she saw the girl’s face.
‘She knows what I was doing,’ her mind thought with anguish.

wip Possessions - working title
by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jul 1

#WIPSnips #writing #wip #amwriting #dystopion #scifi - Spiral Eyes Just a short one today... previously posted a longer version. *Not the #scarf that might first comes to mind.

Fish heads and rice. Mariner stared at his breakfast and felt his stomach churn.
‘Far better than the slop they feed the specimens,’ he thought, as he scarfed down the mix with an eagerness he did not feel.

~ from the wip Spiral Eyes - dystopian scifi fiction
by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jul 1

Happy #CanadaDay! The True North, Strong and Free

Photo by Igor Kyryliuk & Tetiana Kravchenko on Unsplash

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 30

#WIPSnips #tournament #writing #horror #fiction #wip Possession (working title) - from Chapter 3: Mickey's hands *Deidra awakes to a fond and somewhat arousing memory... #books #amwriting #booksky

She woke up lazy, rolled onto her back, then to her opposite side, bringing the twisted rope of comforter with her. She wrapped hers legs around the twisted blanket, exposing herself to the cool morning air in a tangle of fabric and flesh.
Despite the events of the night, Deidra felt well rested. The morning dawn faintly announced its rise in the east, pouring through the open, bedroom window a haunting, blue glow. Her eyes drifted open to stare at the wall. She thought of the guy she went to the Jays’ game with and the baseball bat he’d bought her at the souvenir shop. She smiled, eyes glowing softer in the morning light.
He was a nice guy, she recalled, dark, Italian or Portuguese, she couldn’t really remember, if she were to be honest, but he smelled good, was tanned and had full, dark hair with dazzling blue eyes. He played soccer, as did Deidra, which is how they had met, at some pitch at the end of a country road.
‘The Oriental Club,’ she recalled, as an antiquated, wrought-iron archway announced from above as one entered along the pitted, gravel driveway. Her waking mind relished in the memory of that tournament when she’d first saw him. His eyes flashed at her from his end of the pitch, but it wasn’t her eyes he was looking at.
‘But that was okay,’ Deidra remembered, ‘I wasn’t looking at his, either.’ She snuggled into the comforter. Then she remembered why she was remembering that guy – ‘the baseball bat’ – and her eyes flew open.

~excerpt from wip Possessions (horror fiction)
by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 30

#vss365 #florid #poetry #prose #verse #query❔ #writing #wonder #doubt #writers #poetrylovers

Florid words. Just baubles.
Cheap decor left dangling from the weeping limbs of a dead, dry pine.
Crumbling, brittle thorns. Needles fall in showers in this hall of discontent - dusty tears from the tormented heart of a warrior poet.
Is all the light a manic mirage; a grand deception in this torturous chamber?
To question is not enough, but to wonder is divine.
So I relish in that wonder, refusing to relent an answer, with an equal air of divinity.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 29

#vss365 #carrion #prose #dark_writing #distopian #writing #amwriting

Marbled limbs strewn the wire, tattered and torn.
They mark the border between the worlds of rights and wrongs,
cast upon the razor coils -- just crumbs for the birds.
The fettered man took pleasure in the smell,
while lamenting his desire for the tasty tang of severed flesh.
By chains he had been bound, till he himself was cast upon the wire,
carrion -- just crumbs for the birds.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 29

#thingstowriteabout #seedlings #poetry #dark_poem #writing #amwriting #vsshorror

There are owls in the garden
They often come at night
Their eyes don't glow with yellow
but gleam as glass -- obsidian
to black to be so bright
They screech in streams of consciousness
my own, or so it seems
and conjure fear as #seedlings
to sprout as screams within my dreams
They scurry in a flurry
closer they draw near
They feed upon my anguish;
they feast upon my fear.
They drink through tubes for tongues
swallowing my tears.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 29

#WIPSnips #water #writing #amwriting #wip #horror #fiction Possessions (working title) - from Chapter 1 - The little man *Deidra answers a knock on the door

He knocked on the door. Movement muffled behind the walls. Dusty’s sudden barking confirmed the address. The man heard approaching footfalls, a shift and a shuffle. The door opened.
At first her eyes caught his and she took a small step back, grasping the edge of the door, ready to slam. Dusty broke the spell when she barked a happy, snappy bark, and rose on her hind legs to rest her paws on her human – tongue licking everywhere and anywhere, her black-tipped, undocked tail wagging furiously.
“Dusty!” she exclaimed, her eyes gleaming happy to see her lost friend. She crouched and embraced the animal, tears of re-found joy pooling in her eyes.
The grungy man standing on the stoop watched her – inspecting her suitability. He guessed, no – he knew, she was 36 years old, divorced, lived alone, no children, proud of her independence and content with her data entry job in the Water Works Department in the small town of Satterville.
‘She’s pretty,’ he thought, but not in a drop-dead gorgeous, Hollywood sense. The words ‘earthy’ and ‘natural’ came to mind. She was dressed for work: a stylish, white, sleeveless blouse and a black pencil skirt accentuated her fitness; light on the make-up and smelling like a bush of blooming lilacs in the early spring air. Her hair was tied back in a neat, brown ponytail, and her green eyes glowed beneath her carefully groomed bangs.
‘She’ll do just fine.’
The little man smiled, but Deidra didn’t notice.

excerpt from the wip Possessions (working title) --horror fiction
by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 28

Assaulting to the eyes The storm rolls in Its rumbles fill the skies Disgruntled roars its cries Its anger undisguised and so its wrath begins. #vss365 #disgruntled #poem #poetry #storm #nature #photography

An approaching storm forms the backdrop to our meagre attempts to harness the true power of its wrath -- powerlines shimmer against the darkened sky.

photo by Ross McDermott.

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 28

#thingstowriteabout #wand #poetry #narrative_poem #witchy #dark #horror #conjuring 🧙‍♀️ ~Les Enfants du Bois (The Children of the Wood) ~

She tasks them.

Hunched and black by fire light,
she grins and chants soft whispers.
Their deeds, a dark tableau,
swim amidst the flames.
She sees them and she knows them.
They heed her calls by name:
Alderic, Francious, Gwyneth, Rohan,
and of course the gypsy twins,
Seleena and Savan.

The witch requires no wand,
she rolls, contorts and sways,
she guides them through the storm.
to a place where they can play.
Around her float the strangest things:
twisted twigs tied tight with strings;
figurines, demented things.
For her they dance, for them she sings.

A glow. A glow, from down below a glow.
It climbs the hills to lick the cave
and lets the old crone know,
Les Enfant du Bois
have now commenced the show.

Back into the fire,
Incantations to inspire.
They go. They go.
Off to the next they go.

excerpt from the narrative poem Les Enfants du Bois
~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 27

#2wordprompt #reports #dazzle #writing #streamofconciousness #braindump #uap #ufo

In #reports from far and wide, the lights are said to #dazzle.
They glide in quiet mesmer across the skies of cities; the fields of farms; the vast, wide plains and; above the mountains' rise.
Some call them The Fallen.
Some say they come from distant stars.
I say I have no fucking clue, what the hell they are!

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 27

#thingstowriteabout #poetry #nature #photography Once they frightened me; I used to think they'd bend their tails spit needles in my eyes mesmerized as they zipped passed, wings a-blur translucent glass Now I'm glad to see them at rest or as they fly and often wish to be one; illusive #dragonfly.

A dragonfly at rest.
Photo by Ross McDermott.

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 26

#vss365 #villain #prose #apparition #writing #excerpt from the #novel Sunsetter. #books #booksky #booklovers #readingcommunity

Just for a moment I saw him, leaning against the willow and watching us depart. I blinked and he was gone… just a memory imprinted on the land?
My mind reeled as for a moment – Union cap, buckskin waistcoat, a casual lean and a pearl-handled Colt dangling on his hip – I recognized the apparition, the trembling mirage of the man known as the murderous #villain Rosco Pitt. I paused at the crest of the hill and as quick as my vision appeared, it had vanished before I could focus my eyes.

excerpt from the novel Sunsetter
by Ross McDermott

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 26

#2wordprompt #thingstowriteabout #horizon #insult #gathering #poetry #darkpoem #writing #amwriting #perdition

Time is but an #insult to eternity
On the back of a black snail it rides
across endless #horizons
slipping through the fleshy fingers
of self-proclaimed gods;
all #gathering in multitudes
in the dungeons of perdition
where, destined to dwell as mockeries,
they are blind to the forever.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 25

"Words lament, pages weep, Never written if never read." ~ Ross McDermott ~ #books TUSK: A Beringia Story - #historicalfantasy a.co/d/9owR2nQ The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt - #western a.co/d/4dskZHv Weathervane - #western / #horror a.co/d/eymNU43 Sunsetter - #western / #horror a.co/d/05SwSc5j

Books by Ross McDermott - images of their covers

https://beyondtheonions.wordpress.com/

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 25

#thingstowriteabout #2wordprompt #dancing #sisters #enchance #poetry #writing #Pleiades #stars #astronomy ~Seven Sisters~

one hides beneath a veil
deep in grief; a failed romance
yet seven #sisters they are known
they cluster #dancing in their dance
six shine bright for Taurus
their light, in winter skies, #enhanced
twinkling bright, these sisters seven
fled the hunt for night's expanse.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 24

#WIPSnips #finale (final) #writing #western #horror #fiction #books - Excerpt from the completed #novel Sunsetter. One last entry -- the grand #finale, one might say... Sunsetter is available now. #shameless_self_promotion 😉 #booksky

Percival’s face once again regained that leathered calm. His eyes glistened with false empathy as I saw now. He was no longer the gentle, caring man. In my eyes he was now the deceiver, a master of his craft. His spells came with his words and the way in which he spoke them. His eyes and expressions mesmerized, but more than just a witch was he. He was a shifter of shapes, an illusionist, the grand thespian on a dark stage forever bowing low to that final curtain call.

Excerpt from the novel Sunsetter
by Ross McDermott
available now in ebook and paperback

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0GXBDRG69? a.co/d/05SwSc5j western/horror

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 24

#2wordprompt #office #street #poem #rhymetime #writing #madness #horror

They thought him mad, he wandered.
Fiends in clouds, aloud he pondered.
His mind was needing laundered
So they snatched him from the #streets.
A fitted jacket without sleeves;
restraints applied, no more reprieves;
Wood between his clenched-tight teeth;
The acrid stench of pain and grief.
A sudden arc – electric ride
Muffled cries; white, bulging eyes
And then the storm subsides
Back in his padded #office
Between white walls, his mind resides.

~Beyond the Onions~ Ross McDermott ~

Ross McDermott@beyondtheonions· Jun 23

It is here! My newly-released #novel Sunsetter is now available in ebook & paperback - sequel to the novel Weathervane, continuing the tale of an ancient evil in the wilds of the west. *Note: The Murderous Villain Rosco Pitt is a prequel to the tale a.co/d/0duB5zfi #books #western #horror #fiction 😀