After spending several generations running around protecting the world's cryptid population from persecution (and protecting the world's human population from being eaten), it's only natural that there would be quite a few stories about the Price family, and their predecessors, the Healys. These are a few of those tales.

The stories on this page are separated by generations. At the top of each set of stories will be a note explaining what time period they cover, and which set of primary characters they include. Stories appear on the page in chronological order, not necessarily order of publication.

In the case of free stories, multiple formats have been provided. Please download these, rather than attempting to read locally. In the case of stories included in print anthologies, purchase information has been provided.

Welcome to the family tree.


JONATHAN HEALY AND FRANCES BROWN
(circa 1928-???)

Something is killing people in Arizona...and whatever it is, it's not anything currently known to science. Left unchecked, this new predator could call down a Covenant strike team on the state, endangering the lives of uncounted innocent cryptids. Faced with this immediate threat to the cryptid community, the Healy family has no choice but to send a representative to check it out. And as the youngest Healy, Jonathan inevitably draws the short straw.

Naturally, things can't be as easy as "take the train to Arizona, find out what's killing people, make it stop, go home." There's the desert heat to contend with, along with over-friendly locals, a traveling circus that seems to follow the predator's path, and a golden-haired trick rider who may or may not know more than she's letting on. It's enough to drive a gentleman cryptozoologist to distraction—and that's before the mice get involved.

That's really not addressing the fact that anything with a taste for human flesh is likely to regard Jonathan himself as potential prey, and he is, after all, so very, very far from home...

"The Flower of Arizona" was originally published in the DAW anthology Westward Weird, released in February of 2012. Copies are available from a bookstore near you.



After a rather...eventful...visit to Tempe, Arizona, Jonathan Healy wants nothing more than to return to his home in Buckley Township, Michigan, where at least the threats are generally familiar ones. With the last of the blood mopped up and the locals none the wiser, it seems he's just a train ride away from getting his wish.

Of course, there are a few small complications. Like the lovely and occasionally violent Miss Frances Brown, former star of the Campbell Family Circus, who seems to have become his new traveling companion. Or the Aeslin mice, who complicate travel at the best of times. And then there's the matter of the train having driven through a dimensional gateway into Hell...

Maybe Jonathan shouldn't be quite so worried about when he'll be making it back to Michigan. Maybe his time would be better spent in worrying about how to get off the train while he, Fran, and the mice are all still among the living.


Download "One Hell of a Ride" in ePub.
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Road trips are wonderful things, filled with adventure, excitement, and questionable lodgings, but there comes a time in every man's life where all he wants is the chance to sleep in his own bed, eat at his own table, and reunite his colony of talking pantheistic mice with their fellows, thus making sleep a little bit more likely. With Buckley Township in his sights, Jonathan Healy is finally going home.

The trouble is, home for him isn't home for Fran, who grew up in the desert, never lived under a fixed roof for more than a week at a time, and has no idea what to expect. To make matters worse, Jonathan's parents—Enid and Alexander Healy, late of the Covenant of St. George—are right on hand to make things more awkward for everyone.

With her future on the line, it's time for Frances Brown to make one of the biggest decisions of her life. Does she stay in Buckley Township and try to make a life with the Healys? Or does she saddle up her horse and ride back into the sunset?


Download "No Place Like Home" in ePub.
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After a rocky start and a lot of dangerous adventures, the day everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived: Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown are going to be married, and none too soon, since their first child is set to arrive at any moment. Alexander and Enid couldn't be happier about their son gaining a wife and a child, while giving them a daughter-in-law. The mice have been celebrating for weeks. If only Jonathan and Fran were so sure...

Marriage is a big step, and Fran is terrified of what her future will bring. Is this her happily ever after, or just one more short-term home in a long string of the same? Help comes in the form of her old circus friends...but that just raises more questions. Will she ever be happy holding still? And what does it mean to be married in green?

You are cordially invited to join the Healys and the members of the Campbell Family Carnival on the joyous event of the marriage of Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown. Assuming they go through with it.

Everything changes today.

Download "Married in Green" in ePub.
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Download "No Place Like Home" in PDF.




Jonathan and Frances Healy are beginning their new lives together with that most traditional of celebrations: the honeymoon. Leaving their infant son with Jonathan's parents, the Healys are leaving Buckley Township, Michigan for the cosmopolitan wonders of the city of Chicago, where they can properly celebrate the fact that they managed to have a wedding without anybody winding up dead.

Of course, these are the Healys we're talking about, and nothing in Chicago is exactly fitting the description provided by the Bureau of Tourism. From the gorgon-run hotel where they'll be staying to the swamp hags in the Chicago River, things are definitely business as usual, at least by the family definition of "usual."

Bootlegger Arturo Gucciard has only just been introduced to the Healy definition of "usual," but he's going to need to get awfully familiar with it if he wants to live long enough to have a honeymoon of his own. And Jonathan, well. Jonathan just wants to have a normal honeymoon.

Good luck with that.

Download "Sweet Poison Wine" in ePub.
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ANTIMONY PRICE
(circa 2013-)

Growing up as the youngest of three is never easy. Doing it when your brother is a genius and your sister is a world-class ballroom dancer is even harder. Doing it as the latest in a long line of cryptozoologists, monster-hunters, and fugitives? Borderline impossible. Maybe that's why Antimony Price needs to blow off steam every once in a while. Her extracurricular activity of choice?

Roller derby.

Under the name "Final Girl," Antimony Price skates for the Slasher Chicks, a flat-track roller derby team and part of the larger Silver Screams derby league, skating out of Portland, Oregon. She never expected work to follow her onto the track, but now derby girls are collapsing, and someone could be seriously hurt if the cause isn't uncovered in time. But no pressure.

With the help of her cousins Elsie and Artie Harrington, and her friends on the track, can Antimony prove that she chose the right derby name, and really make it to the end of the bout? Because this Final Girl is in one hell of a lot of danger...

"Bad Dream Girl" will be appearing in the Apex anthology Glitter and Mayhem, coming in August of 2013. Order yours today!