Vampire Lover Sample Chapter

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This section will feature various sample chapters from Vampire Lover.
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NEW CHAPTER -- BONE WEARY -- pp. 25 - 29

Four-twenty-five a.m. and the latest "Mother of All Storms" showed little evidence of abating. The wind and rain were still blasting the coast of six states at near hurricane force, pushing the tides well above normal and snapping the power lines like licorice whips.
On the island, most of the natives were snug as bugs, having spent the three previous days fortifying their homes and larders. The winter renters, unaccustomed as they were to the severity of island weather, were mostly camped out in the local high school auditorium. Lying on mats on the floor, they hugged their children nervously, and rolled their eyes toward the gym's rafters with each renewed howl of the wind. Some pre-teen boys were raising their own commotion fighting over a battery powered Nintendo.
Winter renters were mostly divorced women and their children, passing through, looking for work and a little peace for themselves and their families. There were always seasonal jobs at the local nuclear power plant, just a short drive north off the island, and they lied to their children, convincing them that wintering at the beach would be an adventure they could share. In reality, the beach was attractive because the off-season rents were super cheap and the property owners were anxious to have someone babysit their sand castles until spring, when the gypsies would have to make way for the handymen who would get the shacks in shape for the main event: the big bucks vacation hordes.
Other houses remained empty from September through May, and on any night, if you were strolling along the beach road, you would be all alone with the silence, house after empty house, their dark windows ebony eyes looking out over the beach. If you cared to get a little closer, and were very observant, you might catch the flicker of a match strike in the window's black pupil, or the wisp of smoke training upward from the bowels of what looked to be a deserted bungalow. These were the telltale signs of the uninvited renter, the winter tenants no one wanted to encounter.
All those empty houses presented a powerful temptation for drifters and petty criminals to break and enter. Grab a crow bar, pop a screen off one of the windows, and you were in.
The smallish bungalows were only good for shelter, as they were mostly furnished from garage sales and had been beaten into crap by summer after summer of hyperactive kids and drunken teenagers. Up-island, however, was another story entirely. In the architectural monsters dotting the beach there were wonderful things to steal; or, as in the case of Bone, you could simply live in style for a spell, not unlike checking into the Ritz Carlton with a stolen credit card.
Presently, he was standing naked in front of the plate glass window that overlooked the raging surf, with a snifter of brandy in one hand and a joint in the other. He exhaled a cloud of pungent smoke which enveloped his head, obscuring his reflection in the glass, like a veil of ruined lace.
Life was good.
For the past few days, Bone had kept himself busy making several provision runs to the mainland on his Harley. He never shopped in any of the island groceries or liquor stores. It was a big mistake to let the townies get to know your face. To successfully squat, you had to be invisible.
The smoke cleared and his features appeared again. His face very definitely would be remembered. A livid purple ridge of scar tissue traversed his face like a lightening bolt. It started at the top of his right temple, snaked down across the bridge of his nose, turned left and cut an ugly moon under his eye, ending in an exclamation mark that drove down along his jaw, skipped over his neck, and was punctuated at his collar bone with a deep impression. It was a souvenir of his tour of duty in Vietnam.
He had been attacked by a teenager wielding a machete, who seemed surprised after cleaving his face when the knife got stuck in Gary's collar bone. It cost Charlie his life and saved Gary's. After that, his friends called him Bone. Two weeks in an evac hospital, a little creative stitching, and they'd sent him back in-country. A little uglier, but basically intact and fit to fight.
Since the war, Bone had been floundering on a sea of liquor and drugs. Ending up a vagrant was humiliating for a man.
In-country, his beauty mark had been an asset of sorts. It scared Charlie and most of the officers he served under. They left him alone and that suited him just fine. But, back home, his face preceded him in every situation. Men and women were equally afraid of him and people were rude. He could not hold a job even when, by some miracle, he got hired.
It was a depressing and exhausting life, and somewhere across the years, Bone had simply stopped reacting. He'd rendered himself invisible and dropped entirely into the street life, peddling some pot to keep gas in his bike and fencing some stolen property for a local motorcycle gang.
He never courted the respect of the bikers, but they accepted and trusted him. For Bone, it was his first social interaction as a peer since 'Nam.
When the clubhouse was busted, Bone had been in the Apple making a deal. Upon his return, he found the bail bondsman desperately trying to phone in some money for the crew. Bone turned around and walked right out. He got on his Harley and rode until he reached the island, then headed north and cruised the beach road until he was surrounded by the huge, looming beach mansions. Palaces of cedar, glass block, and multi-level decking. After ditching his bike in the bayberry tangle of the barrier lot, he trudged through the sand dune toward the houses. They were enormous and beautiful in the moonlight, like a modern Stonehenge at the end of the nation. He'd spent many of the happiest summers of his youth on this island, but had never stayed in any of these grand houses.
He'd squatted in tool sheds and hunting shacks, he'd even spent two months in an abandoned garden apartment complex, but he was totally overcome with the need to live like a master of the universe for a while, recharge his batteries, check his compass, dry his powder.
Maybe take a stroll off a short pier.
And, so, here he was, warm and dry and protected from the rain and surf pounding away at the other side of the glass before him, symbolically exposing himself to the storm.