Pick up my newest NSFW calendar and pinup comic here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadedraws/super-arcade-funtime-18-month-calendar
ANY NOVEL READERS OUT THERE?
Recently, I started reading novels again. I picked up a collection of Lovecraft stories at Barnes and Noble along with some classics that my son selected like Homer’s Iliad, Arabian Nights and The Count of Monte Cristo. I’m also about to go on an Amazon book shopping spree, having selected the following:
Dune
Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles Collection
Ready Player One
R.A. Salvatore’s Homeland
Mistborn
Elric of Melnibone
I’m curious to see what my customers are actually reading. Do you typically read novels? If so, how avid a reader are you? Are you into Fantasy? Horror? Science Fiction?
Let me know in the comments!
CHECK OUT THIS VAMPIRE SHORT STORY I WROTE
I wrote this fun, little vampire short story last year for paid Substack subscribers and decided to share it with the rest of you now for free. Let me know what you think!
**STORY BEGINS**
The chamber was dark; a domed cavern deep within the recesses of a limestone mountain. Drab green streaks dabbed along the inner curved facades.
Beyond the stony chamber, networks of tunnels wormed outward like some decrepit, abandoned ant colony. A haunting wind whistled faintly. Unseen water droplets plinked lazily onto the cold, granite floor with a cruel persistent.
—ploink *long pause* ploink
Bones littered the ground, scattered about. The remains of innumerable prey. Skulls of goats, dogs and vermin; mangled torsos, legs. This was a feeding ground.
Within this unremarkable void IT sat. Frigid and lifeless as a gravestone, it idly sat upon a sheared throne of batholite. Creepily still, the creature seemed to be merged with its stone furnishing. Leathery, blue-grey skin stretched across jagged, angular features. Its sickly pallor mimicked the cool stone upon which it sat. A tattered robe hung over its hunched, spindly frame. Gnarled, elongated fingers clung to the tips of the throne’s arm-rests.
A pointed skull shaped around a stretched, narrow face. Pointed, bent ears flung out. Its visage was gaunt, cheeks sunken and pock-marked and from which an aquiline nose protruded. The corners of its mouth hung draped along its face, pulled low by the centuries. Two yellowed, pearly daggers peeked down from the front of its dried, thin lips through a cracked scowl. Its mouth, chin and chest was stained thick with tones of red.
—ploink *long pause* ploink
Two beady eyes glowed faintly from the recesses of its caved sockets. It glared outwardly, unblinking—as if lidless—deep in a kind of self-imposed suspension; A primal catatonic state. Present but unawake. Its upper lip curled and twitched unconsciously.
A whirling, whispering breeze seeped into the tomb. IT was unmoved. It had heard this endless song until time itself ceased to have any meaning. The Change had rendered time an alien concept to it.
It sat there for season after season, oblivious of anything beyond its craggy, lightless realm. A fortnight would go by before it so much as tilted its head ever so slightly to stretch the sinew beneath its weathered skin before returning to stillness.
A yammering of distant grunts and growls emanating from another section of the tunnels broke up the monotony. A sound of struggling and tumult, but one that grew closer and louder. IT remained unmoved.
A pack of feral dogs covered in matted brown fur shuffled backwards into the chamber, dragging in their clamping jaws the limp, stiff carcass of wild pig. The kill was riddled with patches of fang marks; a messy, violent kill. The pig’s maw splayed open; its eyes bulging. The poor thing died after a prolonged campaign of terror.
IT finally moved, twisting its head with a slow, plodding measure. Its eyes trained down on the dogs and the kill. Its lips peeled back with a lazy snarl and a guttural hiss. The dogs recoiled, lowering their heads and scurrying off.
As the feral dogs’ whining howls shrunk in urgent retreat, IT rose from the graven throne. Its shoulders hunched, its head training on the matted lump of mauled flesh before it.
Glaring at the pig with a voracious intent, ITs eyes focused on it with an icy hunger. It raised its hands; the spindly, spider-like digits jutting from its palms curling and clicking.
Suddenly, the dead swine slid about a foot along the cold stone beneath it, as if pulled by an invisible force before stopping. With a gentle wave of ITs hands, the pig carcass leapt from the ground and fell into ITs arms. It slunk back towards the throne and slowly crumpled into it.
Moving in a strange rhythm—as if possessed—Its head whipped down, burying its fangs into the hunk of meat. Its eyes fluttered, bulging as veins in its neck pulsed and wriggled. It guzzled and guzzled as the corpse slowly deflated. Soon, the liquid contents of the pig had been consumed. It casually tossing the drained remains aside. It too would become nothing more than a pile of bones to add to the refuse.
Night had passed giving way to the sun which peeked over the horizon, baking the side of the mountainous tomb with the light of dawn. With only a cursory inspection, the entrance to the caves was an unassuming crevasse. In actuality, it appeared like a hungry maw, fangs of stone spiking downward, as if inviting in willing prey.
Marianne trudged up to the peculiar mouth of the tunnel system, glaring upon it with measured concern. The girl was a fresh-faced beauty, her cheeks bore a ruddy complexion, framed by a porcelain-white canvas. Large, brown, almond-shaped eyes peered out and her full, pouty lips puckered in the cold morning air. Dressed from head to toe in climbing gear—that did little to conceal her clearly shapely figure—and a helmet equipped with a front-mounted light.
She peeked into the dark of the cavern mouth. A low, haunting breeze seeped out, whispering to her. Beyond that, not a sound.
Well, she thought, Courage first; regret later.
She steeled herself and stepped in, flipping on the helmet’s light.
The PLOINK of water droplets echoed against the otherwise ghostly silence. Peculiar and ominous but not enough to dissuade her forward progress. She delved deeper, noting the smooth, winding pathways. A weaker spirit would’ve been repelled but not her.
Marianne had always been an athletic, bold personality; Fremont High’s volleyball team captain, part-time rock climbing instructor for summer cash at her local gymnasium and a standout for her college’s women’s swim team.
Mystery and adversity attracted her like a moth to a flame. She craved pushing her own boundaries, always pursuing that which was unknown. Hers was an endless journey to demystify whatever she could about herself and the world beyond her.
As she trudged ahead—the light on her head bobbing with each precarious step—she felt something drawing her forward, a dull tingle between her eyes. She was compelled, tempted. Nothing would imply anything of interest could be found along this bored cavern path but more winding tunnels, but at this point Marianne felt herself being drawn towards an unseen, silent beacon. She could not break herself from this peculiar venture.
She soon lost track of time. The occasional ringing PLOINK of dripping water became dizzying in its looping monotony. How deeply into the mountain had she traversed? Strangely, she was unconcerned.
Scrambling through the dark, she stepped on something and lost her footing. Finding purchase against the tunnel wall, she looked down only to see the culprit: a blood-stained bone. Turning back ahead, she found the path forward littered with more bones.
Suddenly, her helmet light flickered weakly. She tapped it nervously. “No, no,” she whimpered. “Don’t die on me.” Then it did. She was left standing blind in a void. “Shit,” she muttered as the panic began to set in.
She calmed her breathing, letting her eyes acclimate to the dark, but still she was aimless. All she could do was turn around and feel her way along the cave walls to escort herself back the way she came.
As soon as this thought entered her mind, a voice intruded—a shrill, glacial voice—and it growled with a low hum, “Come to me…”
Marianne stopped in her tracks, finding it unbelievable that she’d heard this. It was not a voice native to her own mind, but a foreign one, having wriggled itself into presence; a phantom space that crowded out her own inner monologue, quieting it.
Her face was tight and reluctant, but she turned stiffly—as if a marionette whose strings were tugged by unseen hands. Drug along by this wispy, light voice, she pushed along deeper into the mountain, her feet moving with a sudden, disquieting urgency.
The alien whisper was her beacon. She now moved as a chained dog whose owner was reeling her back. A face and outstretched arms that were once tense and scared became loose and resigned. Her feet began to slowly shuffle forward with an agency of their own, pulling her further into the darkness.
Marianne’s eyes struggled to acclimate to the lightless path before her but soon faint contours emerged. She was a silent observer of her own body, unable to control herself. Step after step, she felt herself being drug along, as if caught in the invisible grip of a black hole with only the hopelessness of futility as her companion.
Finally, her feet stopped moving. She glared forward, but the void was unchanging. She didn’t know how far she’d gone into the mountain. She didn’t know how far she’d have to run—if given the chance—to escape, or in which direction she’d have to go. Her heart pounded, her face squidged up in terror at what could come in mere seconds.
Then, in the darkness, two beady, pin-like orbs emerged. Dull lights, but lights nonetheless. She moved to them as they got larger. Then they were right in front of her, beaming down on her. Eyes. His eyes. The Fly had now met the Spider.
Suddenly, the eyes melded with the dark again and she felt her head twist and a deep, seething pressure clamp down on her neck. The pain was unlike anything she’d felt before. Not just some force applied to her; she could feel her essence being extracted from her. Fluids drained from her and to him—or It, whatever it was.
Her terrified trembling gave way to an abrupt weakness; her body turning limp. She felt herself crumble to the cave floor, eyes fluttering. It had taken what it wanted and turned away, now disinterested.
Strangely, Marianne’s weakness turned to a sleepy warmth. She opted to close her eyes; her body telling her that—for some ungodly, irrational reason—that sleep was the only recourse now. She’d felt as if her internal programming had been rewritten; her senses had been hacked and reconfigured. Her brain whispered the same word over and over to her. “Sleep.” So she did just that. Closing her eyes and giving in to the exhaustion. Sleep.
An indeterminate time later, her eyes weakly peeled open. It was temporarily a blur, but everything momentarily came into focus. She could finally see. The cave was awash in a dull, marbled blue. Flecks of shimmer in the rock walls. A silky smoothness texturing everything. The cavern chamber was small. The calming drip of leaking water emerged. PLOINK!
Marianne sat up and looked around. Reaching out to balance herself, her hand rested atop something hollow and rigid which scraped against the ground as she unsteadily put her weight on it. She noticed it wasn’t a rock but a bone. A leg bone. She gasped tightly. Then, she saw the angled pillar of stone behind her. Its throne.
The horror suddenly hit her. Her head whipped to and fro looking for a light source; a torch or a beam of sunlight that had somehow crept through hundreds of feet of mountain to illuminate the cave, but there was none. There was no light in the cave, but she could see. Something had happened. She was different. Her eyes—once slave to the darkness—had been empowered to see in it. Her hand clamped her neck with realization. It had bitten her.
She began to hyperventilate as a torrent of emotions washed over her. Panic set in. She didn’t know what it all meant. A voice whispered from the darkness of her own mind; not a voice which cracked the silence of the cave, no, but a whisper that pressed up against her brain. “Quiet,” it said. And then she did. Her panic turned to a resigned curiosity. She waited for the voice to speak again. It was coming from the throne.
Marianne crawled along the bone-scattered floor around to the front of the stone-carved throne and finally saw the robed shape that was recessed into it. That tapered, veiny, blue-grey skull; those spindly crab-leg fingers; those beady pin-light eyes that gazed with a lazy, focused heat; and finally those needle-like fangs protruding from under its upper lip.
Its lips did not move, but she heard it speak. “Go forthhhhhh,” it said, its words dragging along with no desperation for brevity. This thing—whatever it was—had no particular respect for time. As if it was immune to it.
“Gooooo forthhhhh,” it said again as a dim, needling rattle in her mind.
Marianne looked beside her and saw the crevice through which she must’ve entered the chamber. Then she looked at it, but it had nothing else to say. It had not moved or changed in any way, but she felt apathy emanating from it. It didn’t care about her anymore.
She looked back up at the crevice, an escape, and pushed to her feet and dashed out. There was no more fear. She felt no magnetic pull keeping her there. Conversely, she felt a lightness in her gait, as if her legs had been super-charged. Her pumping legs propelled her forward at an unbelievable speed, dashing purposefully through the winding cave walls. Walls which she had previously stumbled slowly and awkwardly through she now blazed past without even a moment’s consideration.
Before she knew it, she saw the blazing light of the cave entrance beckoning her. Bursting out into the fresh air, she turned her head to the sky, expecting the sun to be graciously welcoming her with its warm glow, but to her horror she found that it was the Moon that was beaming down on her.
She’d never seen the moon so bright. The mountain slope was as bright as day, albeit awash in a bluish tint. It was nighttime not day. Her eyes burned as everything around her was clear and vibrant, but she knew that this was preposterous. Based on the placement of the Moon, it had to be nearly one or two AM but it could just as well have been noontime based on the brightness.
Marianne surveyed the sweeping mountain view, hearing the cracking sway of distant trees in the wind as if she were bending branches in her own hands; the sounds of crickets rubbing their legs together was loud enough to pass as if they were building a nest in the cozy cavity of her ears; she could hear the breathing of unseen vermin as they scurried into their hidey-holes.
She reached up to her face, touching it with a morbid, impassioned curiosity. The world around her sprouted anew and filled her with an all-encompassing, precocious fascination.
Gazing back up to the Moon, she suddenly was overcome with emotion. She dropped to her knees and wept.
SIX MONTHS LATER
Club Thornbelly was throbbing with heat and flesh. Steam was practically pouring off of the building into the cool night air. Electronic music pulsed through the walls and out into the street as a line of hopeful patrons queued up patiently outside.
The chatter of urbanites whined aloud as cars whizzed by; horns honked, an unfettered shout called out, a bus moaned past leaving a grey trail of exhaust in its wake. The cacophonous song of city life.
Mark happily reached the front of the line as the burly, broad-shouldered doorman took his ID and money. He looked over the card with a sly, measured acuteness. Mark beamed through clenched teeth. Gangly, awkward and — but no smooth criminal. The doorman listlessly looked over the kid, sensing no threat before nodding to the door. “Go on in, man.”
He quickly made for the door, unable to swipe the goofy grin from his face before he pushed his way in.
The club was bumping. A sea of flesh undulated on the dance floor. A prism of colors cascaded against the walls. Lights burst and flash with an erratic rhythm. Complete sensory overload.
Mark slicked back his hair, unable to contain his excitement and potential prospects for the night. His eyes darted about looking for the bar until he found a clump of people at the far end of the room congealed around the bartender and his implements.
He cut through the swath of club-goers, arching around the dance floor, bobbing and weaving through human traffic to the beat of the music. Slicing through even more people, he neared his goal until his hands finally rested on the bar. The bartender couldn’t miss the kid standing fiercely proud and upright—goofy grin and all—as he waved the mustachioed, middle-aged man over.
“Billy! How you doin’, man!” Mark asked.
“Work is work. The usual?” Billy shot back.
“Please.”
“You’ve got a lower batting average than a blind kid swinging at a pinata, but you’re persistent. I’ll give you that,” Billy said as he poured Mark a drink.
“I got a feeling about tonight! Tonight’s my night!”
“I hope so, my man. I hope so. For your sake,” Billy slid the drink to him.
He held the drink up to the bartender with a wink and a nod and took a sip.
After several hours, the drink had long been sipped to death as Mark’s grin had faded as did his hope for the night. He hung his head low in despair. Then, another drink was slid in front of him. He looked up to see Billy wiping his hands with a towel.
“That’s for you. Courtesy of the lady at the end of the bar.”
Mark’s face lit up, eyes widening. He turned and looking past the blurry faces of the other bar patrons, he saw the shape of a woman. The upper part of her face was obscured by shadows, but the rest of her more than informed him. Wet, cherry-red lips, bared shoulders in a slinky dress wrapped around a package of dangerous curves.
He looked to Billy, dumbfounded. The bartender looked back at him with a firm, reassuring gaze as he wiped the bar down with a rag. What are you waiting for?
Hands trembling, Mark wandered over. In his muted perception, the pounding music was now just a droning noise. The bar patrons all had blurred features. All that he could see was her.
He approached the woman, tilting his glass to her. “Thanks for the drink. That doesn’t happen a lot, or at all. Women buying me drinks.”
“First time for everything. Right?” she purred.
Mark chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I guess. I’m Mark, by the way. And you are.”
She leaned forward in the light, revealing a pair a golden-brown eyes to die for. “Marianne.” The low cut down the front of her dress also teased a generous, deep slice of cleavage. Mark quivered.
“Wow, Marianne. You really make a great first impression.”
“I’ve heard that before. So, you here with anyone?”
He shook his head. “No, running solo tonight.”
“Good. Let’s go somewhere,” she said with blunt, impenetrable confidence.
His eyes bulged in disbelief. “You want to go somewhere? Okay, sure! Where?”
“Anywhere,” she said, taking his hand.
Mark quickly set his drink down as he allowed Marianne to walk him away from the bar and out of the club.
Before he knew it, they were on the sidewalk and the music that once throbbed from the club merely bumped lightly in the distance. She’d released his hand and was walking with bold fearlessness, swaying her hips and shoulders with each step.
Mark was able to sneak a lingering peek at her. It was strangely addicting to just look at her. Her long, slinky legs, toned arms, voluptuous chest and long, bouncy, dark locks. She was a package. He struggled to look away as his eyes disobeyed him.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
She stopped dead and peeked down a dark alley. Steam poured up from a vent filling the alley; a cat dropped down off of a crumpled old metal trash can; puddles filled dimples in the craggy, time-worn asphalt. A peculiar, ominous selection.
“Down there is fine,” she remarked.
“This alley?" he chuckled. “What are we going to do here?”
She began walking into the alley. The sight of her rear-end packed into that dress had Mark struggling with his conscience. Despite his better judgment, he quickly followed her.
“I’m thirsty,” she answered.
“But we just came from the bar.”
She turned to him, the both of them now bathed in shadow. Billowing steam from a nearby floor grate wafted up and around them.
“Marianne?” he asked as the steam and darkness obscured his view of her.
“I’m right here, Mark. I’m right here,” she said dryly.
“Maybe we can go somewhere else?” he asked, beginning to tremble. He could only see the vague outline of her frame.
“I know you want me. Here I am.”
Marianne leaned through the steam, pressing her chest against his, and kissed Mark. His eyes bulged in disbelief.
Wrapping his arms around her lower back, she pulled him closer and tighter, embracing him. He was in such a state of rapture, he didn’t realize she’d pull away from his lips and had buried her face in his neck. Drunk on her embrace—eyes closed and toothy grin smeared across his face—he didn’t sense the pressure on his neck until it was too late.
Marianne bit into his neck with measured precision. He winced and whimpered but immediately fell under her spell. His arms limply flailed, grabbing for purchase, but to no avail. She guzzled at his neck, a trickle of blood pooling on his shirt collar. Having taken her fill, she released his rubbery form which collapsed against a trash bin.
He weakly pressed his hand against the wound on his neck, looking up at Marianne who stood over him. Even with this indiscretion, this violation, he couldn’t help but be enamored with her still. This siren who had bewitched him loomed over him with a menacing allure.
She reached out with a merciful gentleness. Her smooth fingers wiggled ever so slowly to invite him further. He reached up and took her hand.
“As a dog serves its master, you will serve me. Yes?”
An overwhelming sense of duty swept over him. The bite had done something to him. She’d not only taken blood, but transferred something into him. A sudden, desperate, undying loyalty.
Slightly pained, mouth agape, he nodded. “Yes. I will.”
Marianne’s cherry-red lips peeled back into a smile, revealing a pair of pearly fangs. “Good. Very good.”
TO BE CONTINUED
The Count may have turned Marianne, but she is Diabolical. Absolutely love her
I've read all of the above. Almost got a Master's in Lit, so I'm pretty well-rounded. Currently digging into my more technical books... bouncing back and forth between "XML in a Nutshell" and "Idiot's Guide to the Bass Guitar."