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Cool (or creepy) Crescent City Stuff, Free Ch 1, Cute Animal Video

Oct 21, 2025 Speculations Newsletter

If there are a few typos here or less polished writing, well, things are wild right now. Book one is out and still getting interviews, book two releases in less than a month, book three edits are due back to the editor (sounds better than saying overdue, right?), a different book in a different genre is on deadline to get the draft finished and sent to that editor, I've had a copyediting job waiting patiently in the wings, another one lined up behind that and...well...pant, pant, gasp, gasp...I'm trying my best to get it all done but didn't want to neglect my news to Speculations subscribers. So here goes...

Cool Crescent City Stuff

Book Two of The Perilous Gods releases in less than one month! The book is set in Crescent City, the most northwesterly town in Northern California, just miles from the Oregon border. Del Norte County is huge (approx 1000 sq miles) with a tiny population of just over 5,000 people in Crescent City, the largest town by far and the county seat. But for such a small, remote place, it's jam packed with interesting things. I lived a dozen years not far from there and knew it was where I wanted to set my story.

Preorder now at: https://geni.us/whenthewindss​

Release date November 20th

With Halloween coming up, here's a list of places that are in the book that some consider eerie, scary, haunted or weird.

Dead Lake

Yes, it's real and it's called Dead Lake. There's a legend about the Toloaw tribe and the origin of the name, but most likely, it was named Dead Lake for the lack of life in the lake until it was rehabilitated. Supposedly, tho, it does maintain the same level despite no known inlet.

Here's a not great quality YouTube video I found. (About 3 min) You can see, tho, how my characters would have had a hard time bushwhacking their way at night around the side opposite the pier and road.

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The text in the video looks like it was taken word for word from the article I linked below of spooky places in Crescent City, including the typo near the end where it says Dead Lake but means Lake Earl.

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Pacific Shores

Also real. 12,000 acres that a developer tried to sell in the 1960s though it's on a fragile ecosystem and has been in contention for more than 50 years. (I couldn't find my photos for it but the trailers and trash are from there, tho most of the land is paved roads and stop signs and nothing else.)

​https://legacy-tlc.org/projects/pacific-shores-subdivision/​

Battery Point Lighthouse

Like most lighthouses, said to be haunted. The more distant photo below shows the only path to the lighthouse, a path that can only be accessed at low tide. When the tide is in, the ocean water completely covers that sandy stretch between the parking lot and the path. The picture of the floats hanging in the tree is from that large tree next to the lighthouse.

Also near the lighthouse is the jetty with the odd-looking dolosse, that I described in the book as looking like giant concrete jacks scattered in a children's game. https://trailingahead.blogspot.com/2016/10/exploring-dolosse-walking-on-and-off.html​

Redwood State Park

The area around Crescent City has the largest Coastal Redwood preserves left in the world, tho sadly, that's now about 3% of the Coastal Redwoods in the area before logging began. A fair number of scenes take place within Redwood State Park. https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=413​

Pelican Bay State Prison

This from the internet:

Pelican Bay State Prison is a supermax prison located in Crescent City, California, known for its high-security measures and solitary confinement units. Opened in 1989, it houses a significant number of maximum-security inmates and has been the subject of controversy due to its harsh conditions and history of violence.

Trees of Mystery, Paul Bunyan

Not in Crescent City but in nearby Klamath is the Trees of Mystery attraction (I've never been inside, so I can't share the mystery) and the statues of Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox. For scale, I wouldn't come up to the knee of the ox.

Here's an article talking about some of these places. I didn't see this list until after I wrote the book, but looks like I got a few of them into the story.

​Haunted Places in Del Norte County California​

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Want an idea how all this ties together in a book about Slavic mythology? Check out the 30-second book trailer below!

More Slavic mythology books

(Reka's Grasp is the only book here I haven't read yet, but I recently met the author and put it on my list.)

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Book One Is Out NOW - here's my most recent interview about While the Gods Sleep, the series, and how the publishing deal came about:

​https://jamreads.com/interviews/some-thoughts-with--l-d-colter​

And the interviewer's review of While the Gods Sleep.

Don't want to go to the link, here's his final summary:

While The Gods Sleep is a great dark fantasy novel, a perfect read if you like fast-paced and high stakes fantasy while being a lover of mythology; a first installment (standalone) of a series that promises to continue exploring other mythologies, something I'm totally in for!

​https://jamreads.com/reviews/while-the-gods-sleep-the-perilous-gods-1-by-l-d-colter​

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BTW -- in case you're wondering...

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Cute Animal Video

In honor of Jane Goodall who passed away Oct 1st while on a speaking tour, here's a famous clip of a chimpanzee hugging her before returning to the wild:

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Closing Out, Here's a Special Chapter One Preview for Newsletter Subscribers:

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When the Winds Sing

L. D. Colter

©2025

Chapter One

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A sharp and tangy scent of ozone seeped under Alex’s motorcycle helmet, a single breath of warning before the heavy drizzle ripened to a cold, drenching deluge. Gray streaked the air. The landscape muted around him, blurring into a background of clouds and mist as rain bled down over the coastal redwoods and red barns and faded green pastures along the rural road.

He reduced his speed to adjust for the slick asphalt and gusty winds. Winter rain was a familiar companion in this northwestern corner of California, but he’d always viewed weather as an integral part of a whole rather than an annoyance to rail against. Even his parents passing away on wet winter days hadn’t bound his grief from those times to gray skies and chilly rainfall. Nature, in all its forms, brought him a measure of peace that little else in his life had ever equaled.

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Negotiating a curve in the road, a bearded, grandfatherly figure came into sight in the field on his left. The man was standing maybe a hundred feet from the road, flying a kite. The cheap drugstore model with its paper skin, light wooden skeleton, and tail of rag cloth shouldn’t have been able to fly in this weather any more than if he’d tied a wet wool sweater to his string. Yet, it not only stayed aloft in the storm but sailed strongly, fifty feet or more above the road.

The entire scene defied both logic and physics. Alex searched for a rational explanation for the man, the activity, or the aerodynamics of the kite and came up blank. Raindrops as large as teardrops splashed his visor and dotted his vision as he lifted his head to follow the kite’s implausible acrobatics.

A solitary car passed, traveling in the opposite direction. With no other traffic in sight, he eased off the throttle for a better look. The garbage bag rain jacket over his secondhand leathers flapped with decreasing violence as he decelerated. The cold had penetrated his layers and his fingers felt numb inside his gloves, so the old guy must have been freezing. The gray wool suit hung dripping from his torso, and the woolly black hat perched on his head offered no protection for his face or neck. Alex saw no structures in the field and no car parked along the road. He couldn’t guess where he’d come from as none of the widely scattered farmhouses nearby were within comfortable walking distance for the weather.

The man held the spindle of twine with both hands, locked in battle with the kite that strained to break free and soar east. Alex drew level and saw a flash of white teeth and the man’s shoulders shaking with laughter while the kite bucked high above the road, directly overhead.

Lightning streaked the sky, rare and unexpected at the coast. It filled Alex’s vision. The white kite vanished against the bright flash, as if morphing into pure energy. And where the old guy held one string, the afterglow of the flash and the moisture on Alex’s visor created the image of hundreds of strings, thousands, shimmering between the man’s hands and the sky. Thunder boomed, loud as a bomb detonating.

He lifted one gloved hand to wipe his visor just as a brutal blast of wind hammered into his side, unbalancing him. Grabbing at his bike’s handlebar again, he overcorrected, swerving left then right. The gust reversed direction, like some ocean monster inhaling to hurl another blast. Above him, the kite plummeted on a sudden wind shear and the vertical wooden strut shot toward him like a crossbow bolt. He braked and veered to evade it. His back wheel lost traction on the wet road.

The motorcycle toppled to the right as the kite hurtled toward him. A second before the strut would have speared him, the kite jerked horizontal, scooping the air and flying parallel to the ground. The sound of vibrating paper momentarily eclipsed the noise of his motorcycle peg scraping the pavement as the kite arrowed toward the old man, who must have yanked the line.

Alex tried to kick free of the bike, but it skidded out from under him before he had a chance. He slid less than a yard, tearing the garbage bag from his shoulders and scuffing his pride worse than his jacket. Lying in a puddle, half on his right side, his brain took a moment to assess the impact. Drizzle pattered on his helmet—the heavy rain having stopped as suddenly as it had started—while he confirmed he’d sustained nothing worse than a bruised hip and shoulder.

Shaky and amped on adrenaline, he pushed to his feet and cursed himself for an idiot for falling over at low speed in the middle of an empty road. He felt more like a high school kid who’d tripped on the stairs than a thirty-two-year-old ex-con who’d dumped his motorcycle. Flipping his visor up, he glanced reflexively at the field to see if the old man had witnessed his fall. He hadn’t. He was preoccupied with a younger man who stood face-to-face with him, gesturing angrily.

The new person’s sudden appearance was as startling as his clothing: a round fur cap and a gold-embroidered tunic of white cloth over white leggings with tall brown boots. Ignoring his bike lying on the centerline, Alex stared at the pair, struggling to make sense of the bizarre elements playing out on this peaceful stretch of road.

He bent to the kill switch on his bike and turned the engine off, only half paying attention to what he did. It seemed impossible he could have missed seeing another person out there, especially someone who looked like he was dressed for cosplay. Ripping the remains of the garbage bag from his waist, he tucked the torn plastic into a saddlebag to throw away later. A distant grunt came from the field, and he looked up to see a fight in progress. He watched, stunned, as the younger man hit the older man in the face.

The unexpected violence fired electricity along Alex’s already heightened nerves. His fingertips and lips tingled. He straightened slowly, feeling lightheaded.

It was out of the question for him to wade in and break up the fight. He couldn’t. Not after the way things had gone to hell in Missoula. Those few moments on a quiet street outside a bar were all it had taken to set the events in motion that had ruined his life. He was on parole for felony assault and alarms were ringing in his skull, telling him to leave now before anyone saw him here.

He ignored the warning bells and continued to watch the two men, transfixed. The old guy looked a bit like his grandfather, who had developed dementia in his late seventies. If this man suffered from something similar, it might explain why he’d been out in the middle of nowhere in the rain.

Alex scanned both directions along the road, hoping for someone else to come by and stop the fight. There were no cars in sight. Calling 911 should have been the obvious solution, but things weren’t that simple for someone like him. Reporting a crime had the potential to go sideways for an ex-con, and GIS and digital ID technology meant that calling anonymously was a thing of the past. He might be questioned. His parole officer might be notified. And if one of the men got badly hurt—or worse—he could end up a suspect.

Nothing. Nothing would ever be worth the risk of ending up behind bars again.

The old man not only managed to stay upright but fought back. The one in the tunic punched him in the gut. Alex stared hopefully at the empty road a second time. Making sure his motorcycle was in neutral, he hauled it upright, rolled it to the side of the road, and booted the kickstand down. Suppressing his concerns about the altercation, he squatted to block both men from sight and quickly checked the gas tank for leaks or damage.

He told himself the grunts were the wind, though the wind had died to a breeze. The ocean surf beyond the trees at the end of the field, then. He stood to see the two men still grappling but not as unmatched as he would’ve guessed. Neither appeared to have a weapon. Neither looked badly hurt. Three years ago, he would have intervened anyway. Not anymore. Prison had changed everything. Worst of all, it had changed him.

He flipped his visor down and straddled the bike. Any minute now, someone would drive by; someone who could call the police without repercussions. He turned the key in the ignition. The engine ground without turning over. A smell of gasoline wafted to him. He swore again.

His phone vibrated. It was bound to be Fen texting him to see why he hadn’t called yet. If his ex-best friend’s message yesterday meant what Alex hoped, he might soon be on the path to getting his conviction overturned. After practically begging Fen for help the past few months, the last thing he wanted was to undermine the tenuous reconnection it’d taken him so long to build. Looking unreliable—not calling this morning when he said he would—wasn’t helping.

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The flooded carburetor on the ancient Honda would take at least five minutes to clear. More time for the situation in the field to fall apart. More chance someone would see him sitting there, assume his involvement. More chance he’d miss Fen, because calling him from here while the two strangers fought a hundred feet away would be entirely too weird. His chilled hands sweated inside his gloves. He checked the road in both directions again. Other than the distant surf and a light breeze, all was silent. Against his will, he looked back at the field.

The old man was climbing the short embankment up to the road, smiling. He held his kite frame with his left hand and rolled the last of the string onto the spindle. He showed no sign of pain or injury, and the other man was nowhere to be seen. Alex’s stomach lurched as he pictured the guy in the tunic and leggings lying stabbed or strangled somewhere in the tall grass. He needed to get off his bike, be ready to fight or run, but doubt and confusion pinned him in place.

“You are all right?” the man asked him. His sodden suit—the same color as the dark-gray clouds above, the same color as his eyes—had a thick weave and a dated look. His voice was deep, and he rolled his r’s in a familiar accent that carried on it memories of Alex’s parents and grandparents. The fuzzy, black ushanka hat, ear flaps folded up and tied at the crown, was identical to the one his grandfather had brought with him from Russia.

Alex lifted his visor again. “Where’s the other man?”

“What other man?”

“The one you were fighting out there.”

The man pursed his lips. “You are not all right. You hit your head?”

“Are you trying to tell me you weren’t just in a fight with another man?”

“You need to look?” The man jerked his head back toward the field. “See for yourself?”

The likelihood that this old guy was lying and that a costumed man had suddenly appeared in the field, fought him without leaving any mark or injury, and disappeared again was looking very slim. Alex’s call to Fen took a back seat to his need to know if he was losing his mind.

“Yeah. I think I do.”

He could settle the question in a couple of minutes and still have time to at least text a quick explanation before driving the last mile or so to work. He removed his helmet and hung it on the handlebar. The soft rain drummed on his hair.

“I’m Stribog. Orel Stribog,” the man said as Alex followed him back down the embankment. He moved confidently and with an unexpected spryness. Alex adjusted his guess at the man’s age down by a decade.

“Alex Orlov.”

“Orlov. Good name.”

Alex hadn’t spoken much Russian since his grandfather died three years ago, but he knew that Orel and Orlov were both derived from the word for “eagle.” His last name had tumbled out because of that connection, and he wondered now if he’d introduced himself to a killer leading him to the spot where he’d left one person dead already.

His gut told him no. He’d known killers; this Stribog didn’t trip the same warning flags those men had. And if he was wrong, he was at least thirty years younger, he’d stayed fit in prison, and doing time had taught him to hold his own against worse than this man. All the evidence seemed to point to Stribog being right, though: Alex had been in a wreck, hit his head harder than he thought, and had imagined the second man.

Stribog led him to a culvert where a stream flowed under the road and out into the pasture, meandering its way to the nearby ocean. Two strands of wire sagged low over the culvert. They climbed easily over the old fencing just as a car finally passed them. Alex glanced up, still jumpy, then wished he’d kept his face turned away. Even if there’d been no altercation here, at the least he guessed they were trespassing.

The wet grass swished at their calves as they negotiated the embankment down to the pasture. The boggy smell of saturated soil and crushed alfalfa rose from the field and mingled with salt air off the ocean. They traced Stribog’s muddy footprints back to the flattened patch where Alex had first seen the old man.

As a forest ranger in Montana, Alex had tracked injured animals through the wilderness; he’d stalked poachers and illegal trappers who’d tried to hide their tracks. He read the signs now in the sopping wet grass as easily as he could read a trail map. There was only one set of footprints in the area where Stribog had been standing. There was no blood. There were no drag marks or footprints leading away from the trampled grass. No dead body lay nearby. No unconscious person.

“There was no one out here with you?” Alex asked anyway.

“Why would anyone be out here in the rain with me?”

“Why were you flying a kite in the rain?” he asked.

“Winds are good. Why were you riding motorcycle in rain?”

Alex didn’t answer.

“Ah, good thing we came back,” Stribog exclaimed. “My pin.” Something gold and metallic, about the size of a fingernail, glittered in the muddy grass near his toes. He bent effortlessly to pick it up and rubbed it with one large, rough thumb. Alex saw the pin was molded in the shape of an eagle.

“Here, hold this.” Stribog held the kite out, needing his hands free to reattach the pin.

As Alex reached to take it from him, Stribog lunged. One hand grabbed Alex’s shoulder in a crushing grip. With the full strength of his other arm, Stribog punched the kite into his stomach.

The kite vanished.

Alex doubled forward, gasping. Bones shifted. Muscles and tendons stretched. His lungs squeezed dry. His chest and belly felt impossibly enlarged to the size and shape of the kite. He clenched his right hand into a fist, but his motorcycle glove padded the motion. His breath and strength had been knocked from him, and his lightheadedness and tingling came back redoubled. He couldn’t inhale or exhale. Couldn’t swing or run or fall.

“Definitely not all right,” Stribog said. He jammed his hat back on his head. The gold eagle glinted at the front left. He bent to retrieve the kite that Alex must have dropped. “I think you hit your head.”

Alex stared at the kite in Stribog’s hands. He tried again to breathe as muscles and bones reluctantly shrank back into place. He didn’t know what had just happened, but it couldn’t have been the crazy thing he’d hallucinated. His chest ached but he managed to answer, “No.”

“Yes, I think so.”

Alex was forming a different theory. His job pouring concrete this close to Pelican Bay Prison must have set off some sort of panic attack. Lower Lake Road was hardly the fastest way to get from Crescent City to his job site, but he’d been coming this way all week to put a few acres of farmland and trees between himself and the prison where he’d spent two years and fifty-four days of his life.

The backside of the prison bordered Highway 101, making it nearly impossible to avoid when going north, but it lay well hidden from the highway behind a thick stand of redwoods. He’d driven past it on 101 many times with no problem. This week, his jobsite had been just north of the main entrance. Even though he’d taken a route well to the west to avoid it, he’d felt the facility crouched nearby. He’d been constantly aware of its presence while he worked a scant half mile away, close enough to conjure images of the check-in shack at the gate, the cluster of white buildings, the guard towers.

If this was a panic attack, though, it was the first one since the early days of his incarceration. And even at their worst, they’d never come with hallucinations. He didn’t even know if it was possible for panic attacks to trigger delusions.

“I’m getting over a cold,” he said.

Stribog raised his thick, white eyebrows but said nothing. They started back toward the road.

“You want me to call someone?”

“No. I’ll be okay. I need to get to work. I’m late.”

“I can give you ride.” The man gestured up the road. Once pointed out to him, the mid-sized silver car seemed obvious. It stood parked on a dirt track in front of the gate to the next pasture, camouflaged by a dip in the gravel drive and the tall grass to either side. “Better than motorcycle in rain with bump on head.”

Alex’s fingers tingled so vigorously they stung. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to grip the throttle or brake. “No. Really. I’m okay.”

They reached the road. He straddled his bike, mud caking his boots and bits of wet grass clinging to his leather pant legs. With shaking fingers, he turned the ignition key. The engine fired to life. Without pausing to text Fen, he pulled his helmet on, shifted into gear, and drove north.

In his mirror, he could see the old man standing in the road, watching him.

Enjoy the preview? Please consider preordering the book!

Preorders help all the silly metrics, which ultimately help visibility and sales...

​https://geni.us/whenthewindss​

Until next time, happy reading! L. D. Colter has farmed with draft horses and worked as a paramedic, Outward Bound instructor, athletic trainer, roller-skating waitress, and concrete dispatcher, among other curious choices. She’s an author of contemporary, epic, and dark fantasy novels, a WSFA Small Press Award finalist, and a two-time winner of the Colorado Book Award for science fiction and fantasy. Find more at her website: The Speculative Worlds of L. D. Colter​ ​ Subscribe to Speculations

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