Starbound Lovers

I've been busy working on a new series. Vampires of all things. I never thought I would be writing about creatures drinking blood. Goodness knows, I've written alot about bloody scenes with killers. I'm actually really enjoying it and creating a very different world. I'm also enjoyuing creating the cover for it. Not sure if it is the final deal, but I'm getting there on both! :)

Below is a short excerpt of my work in process, currently titled Kiss Me Before Dying:


Mark grimaced. “The poor bastard.”

“What do you think happened? Do you suppose he got trapped in here and just wasn’t able to get out? He couldn’t have been stupid enough to go spelunking alone.”

They both pivoted around slowly and angled their lights around them in a complete circle. Stalagmites protruded from the cave floor, while the ground to their right sloped downward to the motionless pool. A thick black, impenetrable wall cut off deeper parts of the cave.

“I don’t see another body,” Jason murmured. “I’m not an expert on dead people, but I’m guessing that he’s been dead probably a couple of months.”

“You think?” Mark avoided looking at the body. It just creeped him out too much. But keeping his gaze averted lasted all of two seconds. Morbid curiosity won out over repugnance and he found his gaze inadvertently drawn back to the corpse.

“Hell if I know.” Jason grunted. “I can’t imagine dying in this place alone and unable to see a damn thing. I probably would have gone insane before I finally bit the bullet.”

“He might have been alive for a good while. He could have easily broken a leg or something and couldn’t get out, and then possibly starved to death.” When he noticed the neck and chest, his hand with the flashlight stilled. “Then, maybe not...”

That same morbid curiosity urged him down on his haunches to get a better view. This close to the body, both his flashlights revealed a neck and chest torn apart. “Shit. This guy didn’t’ die from anything broken. It looks like a wild animal got to him.”

“That’s crazy,” Jason argued, his voice thick with unease. “This place is locked up so damn tight. Nothing that big could survive down here.”

“Tell that to the dead guy.” Then Mark noticed a rock or something. “Hey, what’s that between his arm and body?”

His cousin aimed his light at it. “It doesn’t look like a rock. Too porous...”

“Jesus!” Mark jumped up and back, almost falling on his butt in his haste to get away from the body. “It’s his heart.”

“No!”

Jason, having an obviously better stomach than him, bent over and peered down at it. “It looks like part of its missing.”

“Missing? Looks worse than that. It looks like someone ripped his heart out of his body. That’s what it looks like!” Mark backed further away. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Goose flesh rose along his spine and across his neck. He peered into the blackness around him, unable to shake the sudden fear digging into his muscles, and kicking up his heart rate. Any second now and he expected a wild bear or rabid wolf to attack.

“Wait. Not yet. There’s something else...” Jason hunched even lower and pulled at something in the corpse’s hand.

“Just forget it. It’s not important.”

“No. This guy found it important. It looks like he was clutching it like some type of life-line.”  Jason tugged harder.

At the sound of bone snapping and giving away, Mark winced and thought he just might get sick.
Jason lifted some type of silver rope into the air.

They both angled their lights at it. Mark now realized it wasn’t a silver rope but a thick chain with a large, fist-sized medallion on one end.

The pendant swung back and forth before Jason steadied it with a hand.

As Jason lifted his palm, the silver winked beneath the flashlight’s beam. Mark realized he had it all wrong. It wasn’t a medallion or a pendant, but a necklace. And at its end was a blood-encrusted cross.