1,80 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: WS
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
A vampire who doesn't kill - for food at least. A vampire hunter who doesn't kill - as he slinks from town to town. The last of their kind, Allia and Jackson are alone and lonely when they meet at a bar. They're companions, for now. They're lovers, for convenience. Anything else is just a terrible idea...
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 73
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Ähnliche
UNDEAD LOVE STORY
TERE MICHAELS
THE WRITER GARAGE
Copyright © 2024 by Tere Michaels
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 979-8-9903515-1-6
Created with Vellum
To everyone who wants a happy ending.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
About the Author
Also by Tere Michaels
INTRODUCTION
I wrote this a million years ago, in a different format. This weird little story was never published, but I’ve always loved it.
This morning I woke up and realized I wanted to share it again.
In some strange way, I think Jack and Allia’s relationship related to how I feel about writing. I love it, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. Being published is a dream come true. It’s also painful! And difficult. Making art and letting strangers read it - terrifying.
But I’m proud of this story, its deviation from my usual fare. It stands up (to me at least!). It makes me happy.
I hope you enjoy it.
Happy Reading!
Tere
PROLOGUE
When it was the veil between “normal” and “bump in the night type stuff” became so thin the bleeding began, no one could really tell. It happened slowly, like global warming or too much cancer in a neighborhood with a chemical plant. One incident, two. Ten eventually becomes a thousand but in this case, there was no chance for a class action lawsuit.
Who do you sue when the vampire virus becomes as common as a cold?
Like a bad 70’s exploitation film, the world was rampant with things foreboding and dangerous, forcing regular folk behind reinforced windows and steel bolted doors. Civilian patrols became vigilantes and vigilantes became the law. Riots – because what else do you do when you’re scared and opportunistic – were the new shopping trip. Food and fuel were currency.
And yet it wasn’t the complete anarchy portrayed in every post-apocalyptic story ever told. It was fucked up and complicated, but people made do. They educated their kids (even made more of them), they ran businesses (gun and liquor sales soared), they survived.
Cannibalism was rumored but no one had proof. And the news organizations were gagging for proof.
There were, of course, those who knew about the veil and managed the chaos long before it went live, as in common knowledge. They had been hunting vampires for years, with guns or science (these crowds didn’t mix). The original survivalists, their basements were filled with supplies and their generators had back-up generators - they watched the madness with a sense of bemused superiority.
And then they killed more vampires. But it was never quite enough.
It got a little dicey for a while. While the average citizen felt a sense of pride cleaning up their little block or neighborhood of nasty blood suckers, the hunting types struck farther and farther away from home. They followed the vampires to compounds and mountaintop cabins and posh penthouses. They drove coast to coast, filling in when a comrade went down.
For a group without central organization, it made for some bitterly unhappy and unappreciated folks, who didn’t much care about risking life and limb for the ignorant.
Some of them stopped. They retired to their mountaintop escapes and barbed-wired homesteads with enough whiskey and ammo to keep them alive, thinking “fuck ‘em.”
The O’Dell’s were legendary vampire hunters – at least in their own minds.
They were ahead of their time, no one disputed that. Back in Ireland, Great Great Great Grandpa O’Dell figured out that it wasn’t demonic as much as it was viral. He didn’t hold to Holy Water or crosses; he liked machetes and guns. His methods and madness were passed down generation to generation, along with an unfailing sense of pride.
Balls. O’Dell’s had them. More than enough.
Throughout Europe and North America, the O’Dell’s strutted around, slayed, drank whiskey and procreated. The number of O’Dell’s exploded.
And yet.
He thought - if only they had some sort of system. A database - hell, a prayer chain would have helped - to keep track of who was where and doing what and maybe then someone would have said: What the hell happened to all the damn O'Dell's? Maybe they would have realized the veil was thin and things were getting out of hand when not even the free and easy reproducing O'Dell's were down to dozens instead of thousands.
Jackson didn't know. His mother died (the way his father had, the way his brothers and sisters had) and Jackson sadly sought out the larger O'Dell bosom to wet with his tears and there was...
No one.
He searched, curious and then frantic and then resigned.
In 2040, Jackson O’Dell was the last of this kind.
Before everything went to shit, Allia lived a quiet and practical life – as quiet and practical as a vampire could. You could get away with living away from civilization, raising a few animals for blood to drink and meat to sell. You could keep a pretty garden for the occasional nosy neighbor who drove by the pretense of normalcy hidden behind ten-foot-tall sunflowers and a white picket fence.
Allia lived with Frances and Anton and Nola; they were peaceful and boring, just like her. They ate communal meals at the big hunk of a kitchen table and bitched about who left the dirtiest towels on the bathroom floor.
Of all the things she might have imagined in 1887, choosing the life of a simple farmer a hundred plus years later never crossed her mind.
Everyone knew who the Ohio O’Dell’s were. Frances scowled when they dropped by for information and ammo. She didn’t like being an informant.
So, she hid in the barn while the rest of Allia’s family broke bread, drank beer and discussed the world with the sworn enemy of their kind.
The youngest, Jackson, was handsome, smart but quiet. He’d sit silently, eyes following the conversations with a hooded quality to his features. His mother, Amy Jo, didn’t like dealing with vampires unless she was killing them, but she knew how to massage information out, and make it painless, almost pleasant. Anton and Nola believed the flattery, because they hated being monsters.
And Allia just wanted to make the trades, pocket the cash and watch their headlights as they raced to whatever blood bath called.
Then things got bad…
Jackson forgot the redhead in the farmhouse, consumed by remembering all the other dead people. He didn’t hunt anymore because he couldn’t remember any of the lessons of his youth – why it was so important for O’Dell’s to kill vampires, to spill their blood.
He packed up his truck and drove around, one step ahead of his demons.
Allia heard the O’Dell’s were all dead and shrugged. She had her own problems. Because Frances ran off and Nola sat in the sun hour after hour, until she burned herself too much to recover. And Anton never came back from a trek to town for supplies.
She packed up her truck and drove around aimlessly, one step ahead of everyone who wanted her dead.
Paranoia makes you run, gunning for the horizon as faceless danger breathes down your neck.
Until, through no conscious effort of your own, life brings you full circle, back to a familiar place.
1
It’s been so long since his name was said aloud that when she whispers it behind him, Jackson nearly comes off the bar stool in shock.
He turns his head and there she is, a (non) living, (non) breathing woman.
And she knows his name.
“Hello Jack,” Allia says, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
He could phrase it like, “Are you going to kill me?” but as he follows her outside the rowdy Nevada saloon, it slips out as “Can you kill me?” She doesn’t look surprised, and she doesn’t answer as she slides into the passenger seat of the Dodge, letting him close the door like they’ve just hooked up. Like it’s a date.
They drive to his motel. She hums along with the radio, playing with the ends of her hair. He wants to ask her a question - any question really - but he lost the fine art of conversation a very long time ago.
