Excerpt from the Great American Novel Part 1

As mentioned, I'm on hiatus as I'm trying to do some other writing at the moment.  But since you guys often show up here to read what I write, I figured it might be fun to share some of my work with you guys.  Now, I don't want to give too much away, so I'm going to just share a little snippet, mostly context free. This is from Chapter three, so you're getting into the story a bit at this point, I hope. And the main protagonist has been established, and we're getting to know her world, a bit better after the initial conflict has been introduced.

Bear with me, because my tendency is to write quickly, get the thoughts down, and then come back later to clean up the language, grammar, fix pacing, etc... I'm a little sensitive, as this is really putting myself out there (you try sharing a work in progress sometime), but I am going to leave the comment section open, and I would, honestly, love your feedback. If you feel that you would rather the messaging be private, please feel free to email me.

So, without further adieu:


Chapter 3

   The wheels on her El Camino skidded in the dust, locked solid as the rubber slid over yellow dust into the road's edge.
   Elvis was twitchy, but when wasn't he twitchy? This much sunlight could play havoc on the gears of even the most expensive robot, and this model could have belonged to her grandmother when she'd been a girl in hydro-curls.
   "Clean your gears, Elvis," she said, removing her sunglasses to look out over the horizon.
   "Auto Clean commencing," the metal man droned tonelessly, the whir of pneumatic tubes humming gently. Dammit, she thought. Where am I going to find robot cleaner out here?
   The remains of Old Dallas rose on the horizon, a twisted mass of girders, a paean to an age drunk with its love of power, industry, wealth, celebrity and professional sports.  She's been lucky to be born in the years when people weren't into stupid stuff like American Idol and phoney music, but when the masses had begun to really appreciate deep and meaningful music from artists who'd been underrated in their age, like Pink and Ke$ha.
   All of that was now forgotten, lost in the haze of the third Darkness War.  The beauty of music had become a luxury few could afford.  Dance, all but forgotten.  After dark, when she needed the music most, she could only slip her earbuds into her pearly ears and let the music overtake her.  But if they heard the music, if the vampires heard the music, they would find her out here, and it didn't matter then if Elvis was functional or not.  And no matter how she felt about Ke$ha, that wasn't the last sound she wanted to hear.  Except, for, of course, the music would be drowned out by the gurgling of a vampire on her hot blood.
   The sun was already getting dangerously low, and as much as the broken city before her scared her, the idea of being out on the road, exposed like this, after dark, wasn't a good idea, either.  "We're going to have to go into the city, Elvis," she sighed, putting her Ray-Bans back on and tightening her fingerless-gloved hands around the leathery grip of the steering wheel.  "A-a-ffirmative, Kaya," the robot droned.
   Stupid robot.
   She put the car into stealth mode, the engine bursting silently and the wheels making no noise on the broken asphalt as she pointed the car toward the wrecked skyscrapers.  Inside the streets, the auto-car seemed to move like a panther, from shadow to shadow.  She knew of a couple of places she could be safe, none of them great options, but the sun was sinking, and soon, the vampires would be rising from their ultra-coffins.
   The door was almost invisible, buried in the wall of what had once been the arena for the Dallas Lonestars, Texas' favorite professional paintball team.  Long gone were the millionaires of the sport, and the whooping crowds that had thronged the stadium.  Now, it was all just a dusty memory.
   A blue light appeared from a narrow slit, cascading over her sweaty, nubile body, outlining the curves she never bothered to hide.  "Dammit, Bryan, let me in!" she seethed at the door.  "It's Kaya!"
   A whir of pneumatic pistons and a heavy iron clang, and the door slid open, Bryan on the other side, clutching a sledge hammer.  "Heya, Kaya," he said.  In long days and nights on the road, she had tried to forget.  He was big, broad shouldered, handsome and had a penchant for these ancient myths told in stories called "comic books" that she didn't quite understand.  Their affair had been torrid and satisfying, but she knew hoping for more with a dangerous man like that was simply hoping for too much.
    "Get your ass in here," he said, a mighty arm swinging the sledgehammer up onto his shoulder.  "It's almost sundown."  She padded into the room, Elvis trodding in just as the massive metal door shut behind her.
    "How bad is it?" she asked, once he'd sat her down, given her a mug of grog and put something resembling food down in front of her.
    He looked around, blazingly intelligent eyes looking for the right words.  "It's real bad out there."
    "We lose anybody I know?"
    "About a half dozen per week," he nodded solemnly.  "Those damned vampire bastards.  Ever since their scientists came up with the ultra-coffins-"
    "I know," she said, cutting him off.  "I know."  Her thoughts drifted to her father before she pushed those thoughts away.
    The green light of Elvis's motion sensor lit, and Kaya leapt to her feet, the katana in one hand, the Faze-Pistol gripped expertly in her shooting hand.  Bryan let out a belly laugh.
   "I think," he said, stepping away from the doorway, "I need to introduce you to a friend."
   From the shadows stepped a man, but not a man.  After countless years stealthily fighting on the front lines, she knew him immediately for what he was.  His skin was too pale, his eyes too dark, and his front teeth too pointy, revealing his true nature. 
   "Kaya, this is Drumicus," Bryan smiled.  "He's a friend.  And he may just help us win this thing."
   Dammit, Kaya frowned, lowering the katana and pistol.  Did he have to be so good looking?


So that's it for the scene for now. I hope I left you hungry for more, and I hope I didn't reveal too much. Thanks for reading, and I really look forward to your feedback.