Author Archives: krischarlesauthor

Kris Charles is a pen name. She lives in Iowa. She enjoys music, baking, and playing with a Pup named Milo Roy. Katy Lily was her first major story, starting in 1992, it was told as a verbal story to her youngest brother. Parts were used as short stories for classes from grade school to College. And now, all ten year of Katherine Lillian’s Life will be published for the world to read. Kris is also the author of A Guardian’s Life Saga; first novel is The Seven Deadlies. The author of The Keepers Trilogy; first novel is The Keepers and the Sisters of Lilith. Others coming soon include Darkened Grace and Praying.

Moments By Katherine Rochholz Copyright 2011 KC Rochholz All Rights Reserved

Here I am stuck between worlds, watching the person I am assigned to, and wondering why I ever did what I did. What did I do? I killed myself. I broke up with someone I had loved, well he dumped me. I felt like I could not live without out so, I was tempted by the razor in my shaver. The next thing I really remember is waking up in front of a dark figure. He told me I would have a chance to redeem my soul. I had taken my life because of love. So love must save my soul. I would be given a person, who was on the same path as I was, and I was to save him. I must show him life is better, to find him his soul mate. Only when he said “I love you” to a person and he really means it, will I be released from my punishment.


Meet my ward so to say, his name is Adam, and he ran again from another relationship. The man is hot, he has bright blue eyes, and unruly black curly hair, and he works out, and you can tell. And the trouble is he knows it. He is also very rich, so he is under the impression that people only love him for his money. Not his mind and quirky ways. Like being a gamer. Or the fact that his sense of humor can be dark. He really is a nice guy. He donates to a lot of children charities; he spends his time with children who have nothing. He gives out scholarships; he is truly a good person. I wish I had met someone like him when I was alive; he is a perfect man, money or no. You should have seen his face when I was dumped in the middle of his apartment. It was classic, but after about ten shots and a lot of explaining he seemed okay with it, well he was going to deal with it. Of course I was also dumped quite nude into his place, so we had to find me some clothes. Thankfully I could put clothes on! I was nude because I had died that way. If I knew that was going to happen I would have wore that tiny black dress I had made just a few weeks before I died. My sister wears that dress now, all the time. He is the only person that can see me, and that sometimes upsets me. I wish I could tell my family I am sorry. Sorry for what I put them though, what they will always have to live with. I wish I could tell them that it wasn’t something they did, it was me, and I knew how to hide my depression. And how abusive my relationship was, but my focus is now on Adam. I have been in this limbo land for three years now, and he has still yet to mature enough to say I love you to anybody.


Thankfully I don’t have a time limit I have until he dies, if he dies without saying those words then I fail, I will be stuck in limbo forever. So it is not like I am not trying! I have talked him into plenty of relationships, however he always runs when he feels like he might be falling in love! I am about to strangle him, and now he hasn’t been on a date in over a year. He says why should he go out when he has me at home. I just roll my eyes and keep reminding him that I am dead. He always reminds me that it is a pity that another man drove me to take myself from the world. He thought I was quiet interesting, and much better companion then the women I kept telling him to ask out.


One day I was sitting there filling my nails, or pretending to, so I could pass the time, as I can’t really file them. I was waiting for him to come home from his job, which was being a big shot investment manager on Wall Street; I figured with a new bar opening up I can find someone else to set him up with tonight. As soon as he walked through the door I knew we were going to be fighting again.


“Adam, I told you we are going out tonight.” I stated standing up, I was wearing a cute little outfit I had made from some fabric he had bought me.


“I don’t want to go out to find my so called ‘soul mate’!” He stated making the quotation marks with his fingers.


“You don’t know what will happen if you don’t.” I stated and went to his bedroom and started picking out clothes for the club tonight.


“You keep saying that, like it is some horrible thing that will happen if I don’t find someone to say ‘I love you’ to.” He stated following me.


I sighed. I couldn’t tell him what happens to me if I fail; it is in the bloody rule book. “I told you I can’t tell you some things, but you could end up going down the same path as I did. I don’t want to see that!” I yelled back at him.


“Why?” He asked grabbing my wrist and pulling me away from the closet.


I flinched; remember my last boyfriend, and the violence I endured. I pulled my arm away, and he let go right away. I just glared at him as he sputtered his apologies. “It is fine.”


“No it is not, I never should have touched you that way.” He stated, as I started to walk away he pulled me back to him, holding me in his arms. “I should not have touched you that way! Look at me!” He said as I looked down at his chest.


“It is fine let’s just concentrate on you! You have a chance in this world, I don’t anymore, and I took that chance away from myself. I won’t take it away from you!”


“Why?”


“Why, what?”


“Why don’t you want that for me? Is it just to save yourself?”


I looked up at him appalled at his question. “NO! I truly care for you. I love you; you don’t deserve what happens when people like me do what I did! I don’t want that for you!”


He just smirked and bent down and kissed me. It seemed like time stopped. “I love you.” He whispered against my lips, kissing me before I could respond.


Out of the corner of my eye I saw the being that had met me at my death. He smiled. He waved his hand and the next thing I know my heart was beating, and I could feel myself coming back to life. There was a large burst of light and a voice. “Don’t make me regret giving you a second chance at life.”


I smiled and knew that this time around I wasn’t going to make my same mistakes. Adam smiled at me, and I at him. “I get a second chance.”


“Good, then it won’t look so weird when I marry you.” Adam stated and then kissed me again. And everything, for once, was right in the world. Even if for just that moment in time. After all life is made up of little moments that define us, make a life or even take a life. But sometimes you get a second chance.



Okay it has been awhile!

Okay I have year two completed, year two and three will make up book 2, as far as year four it might be thrown in there so it may be a long book, the reason is that year 9 and 10 will be one book, i know that know as the events of those two years are too connected to rip apart. Year 5 will be a big book for me, not in the sense that it will be long, but in the sense that some big events will happen, year six and seven might be combined with eight, at this point i am not 100% not sure, but there will be somewhere between 5 and 6 books in this series, but we shall see…  right now back to NaNoWriMo just at about 41k words!!!!!!  Also there will be a composite book of poems and short stories coming out at the end of the year beginning of next and in Jan I will have a book signing at The Cellar in Waterloo, IA Book Launch party!  Book 2 of Katy Lily will be published sometime after the new year, and book one of Katy Lily will soon be available in paperback via Lulu.com!!!!!

Dylan And Suzanna. I Am Death Series Story One All rights reserved Copyright Katherine Rochholz 2011

I am Death. I mean whoever hears those words outside of a play, or now in this future most only dreamed of in 1515, movies. NO ONE! Well that is what I thought as well until I came back to my home and found a man who was about five seven or five eight with a dark tan and graying brown hair and the bluest eyes in the world sitting with my black green eye cat in my chair. My mistake was asking him who he was. Man do I regret that question. His answer was just that. “I am Death.” And to make matters worse it was followed by “and I am your father.” And that it was time for me to come home. That is how I ended up here. And where is here? Good question. Here is about five hundred years after that fateful date and I am waiting for this drunk to get into his car. I thought this day would be a total bust, after all I had twenty souls to collect that day and I was only on number five. That was until I saw his daughter. Then those human feelings I left behind five hundred years ago came rushing back. And I knew she was the one who could save my soul. But how do I convince this angel from heaven itself, when I just took her father’s life force? This is my journey to salvation, join me if you dare.

Maybe I should explain, when you are a child of death, you became a reaper yourself. It is not as cool as you think. Father was quite the ladies’ man, so to say. I have about a thousand half brothers and sisters all over the world doing the same thing. Now we are not evil or good. We are neither. We are neutral. We walk this Earth, taking the souls of the dead to judgment. But we never are judged. Each reaper has one soul that can save theirs. Our souls are in a limbo state, we could go either way. Good or bad, or stay neutral. Most of us stay reapers forever, I mean forever! There are reapers that have been here since the dawn of humans. Before there were six plus billion humans, it was just my father. He was the angel chosen to be death. It was decided by both God and Lucifer, so that way the angel would be neutral.

Well it was like that until about five thousand years ago, then my ‘father’, to use the term loosely, was tempted by Lucifer with a ‘fair maiden’ well my father fell. She had a child and when the child came of age that child became a reaper. To punish my father and to make sure he remained neutral, God came down with a punishment. That my father would never see heaven again unless his true soul mate saves his soul, the same punishment was dished out to his children. He has yet to find his soul mate. When he does a new death is chosen from the reapers who have not been saved. Which to date is all but five.

A reaper was given a gift though, to know when their soul mate enters their life. Just great that I had to be collecting her father’s soul at the time I meet her. Well not meet her but see her. For my soul to be saved I have to tell her I am a reaper and she has to accept that. That is why only five of my half siblings have been saved and allowed to live a normal life and death. People have issues dealing with the fact we are the ones who take the souls of their loved ones. How we do it would take more time then I have to explain, but basically it works like this: everybody has a certain amount of time on earth, they have to fulfill their goal, which they may not know, and they die. For example an infant, they are put on this earth to remind people how fragile life is, or for other reasons. God is not very good at giving reasons. Or a father may be taken early so that his children can go on to meet their goal. Sometimes I feel that the humans we take are God’s pawns in the war against Lucifer.

Before I thought I would just keep on reaping until the end of time and spend my time in limbo for eternity, that would be better then this life. Now I have a choice. Now I can choose to go after this woman.

After a few days of thinking, and waiting for the funeral, I went up to her and introduced myself. “Hello my name is Dylan. So sorry for your loss.”

“Did you know my father? By the way I am Suzanna.”

“In a way I did.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was there for an important event in his life.”

“Oh.” Before she could say more she was swept up by the next round of guests.

I watched her for the whole night and for the following few weeks. Making a point to bump into her when she was getting coffee or at the grocery store, of course I also had to perform my job, so I couldn’t be too much of a stalker. Which was what I was turning into. One day I took the chance to ask her out. “Hi.”

“Hi! Dylan right?” She turned to look at me, as we waited in line for coffee.

“Yes. Suzanna right?” I pretended to ask with a smile.

“Yes.” She smiled right back.

“Would you like to have dinner?” I stopped and waited, holding my breath.

She smiled and said “yes, that would be great!” So we made plans to meet up that night. That was six months ago.

We have been going strong and no I have to tell her who I am. So as we lay there watching her favorite film, I look down at her. “We have to talk.”

“What is wrong?” She looks up with me in worry.

“I have something to tell you.”

“You are breaking up with me aren’t you?”

“No. But you may leave me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Here what I have to say first.” I move to sit in front of her, to look her in the eye.

“I am a Reaper. That is my job. You asked but I never really told you.”

“What is a Reaper?” She asked.

And I told her. Everything. About my father. How I found out. How the first time I saw her I was claiming her father’s soul. Taking him to his judgment, then making sure his judgment was carried out. It seemed like forever. I spoke and spoke never really listening to my words, just watching her face. Watching her go though hatred, revulsion, sadness, and the final one I could not name. I had never seen that look. “There is everything.” I hung my head and waited for her to leave, waited for my soul to be crushed.

“I understand. I am okay with this. Do you always have to stay a Reaper?”

“No.”

“Well what did you do before you were a Reaper?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was she really accepting me? “I was a carpenter.”

“What do you do for money now?”

“I own a lot of furniture businesses.”

“Okay. I love you. No matter what I love you.”

I just kissed her. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to be saved. All of a sudden I saw this flash of light. My father stood inside of it and smiled. I knew that I was released from my curse. I could really have a life with Suzanna. “Suzanna, marry me?”

“Yes.” She smiled. And in that smile I knew heaven.

Breaking Point By Katherine Rochholz Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved

Everybody has a breaking point.  Everybody.  Even I do.  Mine may be higher then most, but they are about to push me to my point.  When that point is reached, stay out of my way.  My advice? HIDE.  RUN.  DIE.

The day started out like any other, well like any other these last twelve months.  I came back from my latest tour of duty, and my husband celebrated in true style the night I came back.  We had gorgeous twins, named after our parents.  I just had a doctor’s appointment giving me the okay to go back to work if wanted too and was at home cooking dinner, waiting for my family to come home when the phone rang. 

The chills ran down my back.  It was my cell phone that was ringing.  The number of people that know that number, I could count on one hand, the reasons they would call that number needed only two fingers.  And I know we hadn’t declared war.  So it meant I had lost someone.  I picked up the phone that was never more than a few inches from me, and said “hello.”  I listened to what seemed forever, though it was only moments.  In moments my world fell apart.

            My husband, brother, and my children were killed; the message left with their bodies was to me.  Telling me I killed their family they killed mine, and I was next.  Well I was not going to allow that to happen.  I went to my study, I went right up to the wall, were there was a keypad, I put in my code and the wall opened.  Revealing my weapons,

            I knew if I didn’t kill this team of killers then they wouldn’t stop until I was dead.  They already took my life.  They didn’t realize they also made the biggest mistake of theirs.  I called my contact back and asked for all the information we had on the team.  I was told they had always left the country going into South America.  I knew I would follow.

            I grabbed all I needed and jumped into my truck and was off before my cell phone rang again, with my boss telling me to stay put.  Just twenty four later the hunt was on, as I stepped of the plane in Brasilia.  Within just a few hours I found someone willing to sell out the group of people that took my life from me.  I knew that going into the warehouse I was standing outside of was suicide but what did I have to live for?

            For the night I just stared at the building that I knew held the people that had destroyed my soul.  That had caused me to reach my breaking point.  I knew if I did what I did, I might be facing some really serious charges, regardless of the fact I was a jarhead, but I might be in more trouble by being who I was, then if I had been a normal civilian.  I also knew that I had a five hour window.  I had five hours to make it out of Brazil after I killed the group of men in that warehouse.  That is if I made it out alive.

            I walked right into the warehouse with my guns pulled, within moments there was nothing but the sounds of guns shooting and the flash of the bullets leaving the guns.  I felt them miss me, and I could see mine hitting my targets.  I was down to the last guy when a bullet got me in my left shoulder, and I knew it was bad.  I continued searching for him, when I heard babies crying.

            “LEAVE!  Or I kill them.”  The man, whose eyes were blacker then his soul with hair to match, stepped out from behind the shadows and I felt my heart stop.  My babies, they were alive.

            “Put them down and I will allow you to walk away.”  I stated knowing even as the words left my mouth they were a lie.

            “I want you guns on the floor.”

            “Fine.”  I stated putting all my guns on the ground.

            “I know with that wound you won’t get far!”  He put the children on the ground and started running to the door.

            I looked at my children, knowing that they allowed me to think them dead; they had killed my husband and my brother.  I pulled a knife from my sleeve and threw it.  It seemed like time stopped, even for just that moment it did, as I watched my knife hit him in the back of the neck.  He fell to the ground and struggled to take his last breaths.  All too soon the silence filled the warehouse.  The only sounds were the breathing of my children and the heavy breathing of myself.  And I knew I had a serious wound that would need immediate attention, but I didn’t have that luxury.  I needed to get my children and myself out of Brazil.

            I pulled another knife out of my sleeve and as I started the fire that would burn the warehouse down I put the knife in the flame then touched it to my wound, feeling the pain of the burn, knowing it was my only real chance of making sure my children made it out of Brazil.  After that I grabbed my children and walked out of the warehouse, as the flames consumed it.

            It didn’t take me long to get home, after all I had left the weapons I had brought in the warehouse.  As soon as I landed in Dallas, my boss was there to meet me.  “General.”  I stated saluting him. 

            “Gunny, only you could bring down who you did.  Now off to the hospital with you and your children.  Next time pick up the phone.  You would have known your children were alive.  We were going after them.”

            “There will be no next time sure.”  I stated as they loaded me and my children into the ambulance.  “No there won’t be a next time.”  I laid back and smiled at the only two people in my life that could save my soul.  Or cause me to break and lose it.

Rembember September 11th

Today I remember the day so many lives were changed, I thank those everyday heroes among us.  And make a promise to never forget the reason I am free!

We may hurt, We may bleed.  We may cry, We may laugh.  We may live our lives.  We may throw them away.  It isn’t a question of what we can do, but what can’t we do!  Becaue of you! Because of your sacrifice We are free to do as we please!  Thank you!