THE MONSTER has escaped and the villagers fear for their lives. A penal colony prisoner discovers that there is no escape. An overnight guest encounters something other than the resident GHOST IN THE ORCAS ISLAND HOTEL. A vacationing executive on a sea kayaking whale watching trip gets more than he bargained for in TIME OFF, and, a woman tying her shoelaces somersaults into another dimension. The unintended consequences of smart phones and distracted people becomes apparent in ELECTROLEMS. An undercover intergalactic animal cruelty investigative team visits a dairy farm on Earth. A boxing match between two nuns is coordinated by a young priest who used to be a machine-gunner in the belly of the beast. JEAN-CLAUDE VOYAGE and Marie Noel Binoche, two well-dressed rats, meet in a Paris fromagerie and fall in love. A starving young BOY is faced with the decision of whether or not to eat his pet chicken. An abandoned infant baboon arrives at a convent, collapsing at the feet of a statue of St. Francis of Assisi. An eccentric heiress's mansion in the Hollywood Hills is turned into a psychiatric residence for celebrities. Several thousand years in the future the Gatherians come to Earth, conquering the humans, turning them into a food source. In JOSEPHINE, a seamstress nun has a pet rat that sits on her shoulder while she sews. A controversial political party called TORT (Truth Or Remove Tongue) makes headlines, friends and enemies. Most of the stories are fiction, but a few, like the author's childhood encounter with CHARLES BRONSON are true.