Scapegoat

by Alan Draven

SCAPEGOAT is a short fantasy tale about baseball, the curse of the Cubs, time travel, and a whole lot of nostalgia. Sam Burke is a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan. He has a special gift—or curse—depending on how one looks at it. If he concentrates hard enough and if the circumstances are just right, he can time-shift to transport himself to a different time and location for a few brief moments. More often than not, he fails and nothing happens. One afternoon at Wrigley Field, he attempts to time-shift to a fateful Cubs game in October 2003. To his surprise, he succeeds, but something goes wrong and he seems to be stuck there. He’ll soon realize that he’s in way over his head after he tries to change History. Will Sam be able to fix things and return to his own timeline?

31 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 27, 2025

About the author

Alan Draven was born the same year KISS unleashed their debut LP. He lives in beautiful Québec City with his lovely girlfriend. He’s been penning dark tales for nearly twenty years. His first novel, Bitternest, was published in 2007. Since then he’s written half a dozen novels mainly in the horror genre as well as a superhero novel, Heroes of the North: October Dawn in 2013, and a thriller titled Oblique in 2018 under the pseudonym Neal Vandar. He’s also edited two anthologies, Sinister Landscapes in 2008 and Creeping Shadows in 2009. In 2022, his final novel in the Bitternest series was published, Once Upon a Time in Bitternest. Amok the Powerful is his first foray into Sword & Sorcery fiction. You can visit him 24 hours a day on his blog bitternest.blogspot.com or on Twitter/X @alandraven