A pair of mysterious experts sneak into a remote lab and uncover a surprising secret. Pulp mystery abounds in this debut serial by Dave.

Recent Chapters

• 10 January 2009 : A Discovery of Animals, part 4 of 4 (No Comments)
• 9 January 2009 : A Discovery of Animals, part 3 of 4 (No Comments)
• 9 January 2009 : A Discovery of Animals, part 2 of 4 (No Comments)
• 9 January 2009 : A Discovery of Animals, part 1 of 4 (No Comments)
• 9 January 2009 : Louis and Clark (No Comments)

This section will remain a work in progress as long as we have stories to tell.

Fearing he’s been kidnapped, Bobby is a little panicked, but most just very confused. But things take a horrible turn when he catches a monstrous fever. What’s worse, he soon finds that parts of his body are beginning to change—and not in a way that is even the slightest bit pleasant. Luckily for the reader, he keeps a journal.

Note: This is old, I need to update this a little.

New Project! I’ll start off with some sci-fi/fantasy fiction. It follows the exploits of Dr. Tobias Hayes, a young professor who Knows Too Much in a world secretly dominated by intelligent undead. But who or what is “Kaiser?” Tobias risks it all to learn the truth.

This story is my take on a roleplaying campaign called “Daying Days,” designed by my friend Drew. The majority of the major plot events are built on his careful planning, and the world is very much his creation. The character of Mr. Low originally belongs to another friend, Mark.

Plotwise, the story features various kinds of supernatural beings, government agencies, and a unique kind of monster hunter who I like to think of as an information broker. My focus, though, is character development—like any good science fiction, I’m interested in using an unfamiliar world to talk about our own. Even if you don’t like zombies and vampires, there might be something for you.

Luke Davison half-ran, half-stumbled toward the retreating bus, almost slipping on the invisible ice sprinkled across the road. He flailed his arms in desperation, panting heavily, trying to ignore the fact that what was supposed to be his lunch was slowly being squeezed by his excessively large textbooks with every lunging step. We never even read half the chapters, he’d thought the previous time his lunch had been similarly mistreated. It’s just a waste of paper, my back, and my lunch.

At last, the ruby brake lights of hope pierced through the twilight, and Luke stumbled onto the bus, the ice still fighting to bring him down. As the bus lurched forward through the first lonely beams of sunshine, creeping past the horizon, Luke surveyed the tattered brown seats for a place sit. Scanning across averted eyes and creepy stares he chose the last empty seat and quickly shuffled himself, sweatshirt, coat, gloves, hat, scarf, and backpack into the half-vinyl, half-duct tape bench..

He was sweaty from the run. Luke hated getting sweaty when bundled up. He could feel himself begin to stick to the inside of his coat. He also noticed that his breathing was far louder than any sound on the bus. The harder he tried to subdue it, the more his lungs began to beg, and the louder the panting got. If it wasn’t bad enough that he had to look like an ass running after the bus, now he was sweaty and panting, and…oh yeah…this was the third time this week.

Why do I always have to be that guy? Luke thought. He didn’t care if he was graceful; he just wanted to be less awkward. I haven’t made a single friend. I have no one to talk to. Am I really that horrible of a pers…

“Hey.”

Luke jerked wildly to discern the direction of the disturbance. He’d gotten used to being alone with his thoughts, and it took a noticeable amount of time for him to regain his mental footing in his physical reality.

“What are you mumbling about?”

The disturbance leaned forward, brushing the wispy black hair out of her eyes to reveal her smooth, yet eerily pale skin.

“I said, what are you mumbling about?”

Luke’s quizzical look upon realizing the origin of the sound was matched by the quizzical look on girl sitting behind him. She’s one of the creepy ones, he thought. Why would she be speaking to me? Yet, there was something calming about her friendly face. He was tired of solitude, and creepy was sounding far better than lonely.

“Oh, I…uh…I was just talking to myself. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. He thought. Now she’s gonna think you’re awkward and crazy.

“I’ve been doing that a lot lately, myself. My name’s Maria,” she said. She extended a wispy yet strong hand across the border between the seats. Her pale skin was noticeable even in the strained glow of sunlight, sloughing through the cold morning air. She had deep amber eyes, which while sad, were friendly. And maybe even pretty, Luke thought. He twisted his cumbersome gloved hand to meet hers. “I’m Luke.”

Trouble in Illinois (AP)

Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. B-b-beep.

Beep. Beep. B-b-beep.

Beep. Beep. B-smack. Crunch.

The tangled mass of bed sheets with arm protruding, unnaturally bent, rested for a moment on what was left of the alarm clock. Slowly, the heap returned to its original position, the arm retreating to the safety of the nest only to be replaced by half a foot as a sigh slowly moaned its way through the covers.

Tap, tap, tap.

“Luke? Come on, man, you’re gonna be late for school,” said the muffled voice through the door, reverberating annoyingly in the once peaceful sanctuary of linen.

“Grmngr,” was the response from the inside.

Slowly, the creature emerged from his cocoon, until it was obvious that any metamorphosis that may have occurred had gone horribly wrong. With only the first hint of twilight trickling through the window, a hunched figure begrudgingly shuffled toward the wall. With much groping, a click. A dingy row of lights flickered on above revealing an even dingier stick of a young man in what used to be a pleasant pair of blue boxers. His fiery red hair seemed to flicker, too, as if commiserating with the tired LEDs above. Twenty-three seconds passed with the only movement being the shadows from the old light source and a gentle swaying of the young man. At last, he unclosed his eyes.

Luke Davison was not a morning person.

The door burst open.

“Good, you’re up,” said the intruder much too cheerfully for the lack of sunshine.

“Come on Peter. You stay up all night and sleep during the day. Why can’t I?” Luke said, pulling a sheet free from the tangle on his bed to cover his bare shoulders and chest. Even with his brother, he was self-conscious about his image. He was plenty strong and athletic, but he was also plenty pale and plenty skinny. With Peter’s broad shoulders and heroic stature, Luke felt he was figuratively—and often was literately—in the shadow of his big brother.

“Fine. You can work at the plant for ten hours all night and then try to sleep with Dad looming around making his usual racket, neighbors calling when he gets out of the yard, and, oh yeah, a little brother who gets in trouble at school. You can do my work for me, and I’ll go take your classes. I’ve done twelfth grade before, I should be able to do it again,” said Peter with the annoying holier-than-thou tone that grated Luke’s nerves more than the skinny microphone from “The Price is Still Right.” It’s the forties, Luke always thought. People have wireless microphone implants now. What’s with the antique?

“That’s not fair, Peter, you know I didn’t want to get in that fight, but those kids were giving me the creeps. Have you seen some of those kids? I mean, ‘have you seen some of those kids?’” repeated Luke with the annoying holier-than-thou mimic tone which irked Peter more than his dad making noises in the house when he was trying to sleep. Peter didn’t like the skinny microphone, either, but it didn’t bother him like it bothered Luke.

What did bother Peter was that Luke was right. Those kids were creepy. There was something off-putting about them. There was something about this town. They had only just moved, the seventh time in three years. “Ya gotta go where the jobs are,” Mr. Davison always said,  spontaneously throughout the day, especially as his condition worsened. Peter knew he was right, but hated to be reminded. As the sole bread winner, it was a blow to his ego when he couldn’t keep a job longer than three or four months. “It’s just the way the economy is,” he would console himself, but he knew that there was something more, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“You just think they’re creepy because they’re not like the people at the other six schools you’ve been to,” Peter lied. “This isn’t like the big cities you’re used to. Why do you think it’s called the Midwest. Middle of nowhere. West of Hell. Ask me if it snows in Hell.”

Luke smiled. Ever since they found out that Hello, Michigan used to be named Hell, Michigan, it had become an inside joke between the two of them. And middle of nowhere was very accurate, too. Somehow, this random crop of buildings and people had found reached the exact same spot, winning the universal lottery and beating entropy once and for all.

East North Effington. Effington itself was a tiny scrap of a town. What once was a prosperous area had been slowly eaten away by “progress,” and Effington was all that was left. Two families, the Carvers and the Heinsmen, were too stubborn to leave. Carvers will never give up their land to Heinsmen, and Heinsmen will never sell to Carvers. North Effington only recently incorporated, breaking off from the original Effington when its citizens—Carvers—wanted their own postal service. Apparently, the one postman in Effington, a Carver, was having an affair with a Heinsman. So, the Carvers did what they do best, and carved themselves out of Effington (having Cletis Carver on the county board made this easier). The Heinsmen got to keep their precious postman (who is no longer a member of the Carver clan), and the Carvers got the fishing pond.

Somehow, East North Effingham cropped up shortly after. It didn’t seem to be affiliated with either of its namesakes by anything other than location. Both boys found this odd, but neither felt their concerns worth mentioning. The town, not appearing on most maps, was even part of the 15% of all landmass which had yet to be clearly seen by Google Earth. Peter had found the town in a small job ad. His newspaper glitched and downloaded a second page C6, which was the same as the original C6—except for the ad. Regardless of the curious nature of the error, the job was more money, more hours a week and there was paid training; Peter couldn’t pass it up. Ever since their father began hearing voices Peter couldn’t pass anything up, and Luke was dragged along.

“Luke! The bus!” Peter said with a shake of his head. That boy is gonna be late to his own funeral, he thought.

Looking up, he saw Peter wave down the bus through the cracked, discolored window. The window was in poor shape, with PermSulate flakes falling off and tinting pixels flickering dark, clear, dark, clear, dark, clear. Sometimes Peter felt like his eyes might be cracked and discolored like the window, painting his perception of the world with pale, dirty yellows and odd discontinuities. If only he could clear his clouded vision and see what the world really was… but he was afraid. What if the world is better seen through the glass? What if the real world isn’t more beautiful, but more frightening? What if…

There was a noise. A sort of whispering in his ear he’d heard before many times, but always ignored. He tried to shake it off as something grabbed him and he turned around to see his father. Lately, Mr. Davison had worn a distant look, rambling at times and weakening physically to match his mental degradation, but now he seemed to have returned to his previous glory. His strong chin and dark eyes demanded attention, and his firm grip agreed.

“So, you hear them now, too. Still think I’m crazy?”

On the platform, artists changed and the beat picked up. It was harder,louder. It was beautiful to the vampire pushing through the thong of humans, the sweat from their bodies saturating the air and raining down almost imperceptibly. The prey never seemed to notice these things—their senses duller than the hunters’. They smelled delicious, sweet. Which one? The beat picked up and he was up there with the rest, lost in the bounce of music that rolled heavily off the guitars.

He closed his eyes and flowed as the lights overhead began to shift colors, pale yellows to greens, reds, blues and whites, illuminating the mass and warping it into a writhing kaleidoscopic beast. Everyone was trying to obtain a piece of that immortality, that second of glory they thought music offered. But the only one in the building who could grant it was him.

And there. Her hair, flowers, her skin, Dial soap mixed with sweat. Her blood was already boiling in her veins and while he could almost taste her, that alone wouldn’t be enough, not tonight.

Her body grinded against his. The one piece of fabric she wore ended a number of inches below her waist, low cut in the back and front. Knee high leather boots, arms holding a crazy jigsaw puzzle of bracelets—yes, this girl was looking to get noticed tonight. It didn’t matter if she was with anyone, if she’d just had a fight with her boyfriend—or whoever—or if she was just here to enjoy herself. He wanted her. He would have her.

She felt his body against her and pushed back, flicking her shoulder length hair to the side, to catch a look at her new partner, and felt his breath drag along her cheek and neck. She shuddered as his hands ran up her side, almost pulling her dress up to uncover parts it shouldn’t, at least not in public. Another song broke off and an even heavier one took its place, the guitars slamming the crowd with their electronic barrage. The walls shook, either whether from the dancing mass or the amplifiers, no one knew or cared. If the building fell around them, so much the better.

Kiestel took his prize away from the main crowd, and they found themselves outside. Mouths locked as their hands danced over each other’s bodies. His courser ones ran up her curves, feeling her fine feminine shape, while her smooth delicate hands moved over his tense shoulders. Clothing shifted out of the way as she was pushed against the wall, which rumbled with the encouraging throbbing of the the band. His body closed against hers, the cold, rumbling  surface behind her caused her to push against him. A grin flashed between his lips before they closed and met hers again, briefly, before moving down her neck.

Their movements began to weave into the music, drums slamming through the framework of the building, vibrations hitting the streets like shells from a bomber. They acted as one, echoing each other and the music, her voice almost lost in the air with sounds of pleasure. He could barely hold on to his sanity waiting for the right to time to bite, to feed, to take his truest pleasure.

Her body began to tense as he ground her into the building, as if he were trying to seal some secret hole before the music could escape them. Then the bass went into a thunderous solo, and her body gave in to the pleasure. She issued a muffled scream and her mouth bit into his shoulder, just as he bit  into her neck.

The fangs sank in, breaking the flimsy human shell, and Shroud noted the beautiful liquids rushing out to meet, both from the wound and below. And he fed, as her mind was lost in an uncontrollable bliss, shaking against his solid form as he held her there, his, in control. He had to be careful—there was a reason he was on the run to start with—but it was hard, so hard to finally break away from the girl. At last he did, and while her body slumped to the dirty alley ground, her mind soared on, confused and absent.

Making himself decent, Shroud left the alley, the beautiful act still bright behind his dark eyes. Blood during an ecstasy tasted better, and the control it provided just made the ride so much better. Shroud was miles away as he walked down the street. The music blasted away any thought that tried to enter the immortal’s mind.