Sorry that I haven't been on in a long time. I'm very busy these days and I try to come on when I can. I'll try to answer all your comments as soon as possible.

HIS DARK EMBRACE / DEAD PERFECT

February 2008

Excerpt from Chapter 1

Shannah had followed him every night for the last four months. At first, she hadn't been sure why, other than the fact that she was dying and out of a job and had nothing better to do.

She remembered the first time she had seen him. She had been sitting by the back window in the Pot Pourri Café across the street from the town’s only movie theater. She had been sipping a cup of hot chocolate when she had seen him emerge from the theater. It had been in late October, near Halloween, and the theater had been running classic vampire movies all month, showing a different film each night of the week. The old Bela Lugosi version of “Dracula” had been playing that night.

The stranger had been wearing a long black duster over snug black jeans and a black tee shirt. With his long black hair, her first thought was that he could have been a vampire himself except that his skin was a dusky brown instead of deathly pale. A wannabe vampire, obviously. She knew there was a whole cult of them in the city, men and women who frequented Goth clubs. They wore black clothes and capes. Some of them wore fake fangs and pretended to drink blood. She had heard of some who didn’t pretend, but actually drank blood. Others role-played on the internet in vampire and Goth chat rooms.

Shannah had been sitting by the window in that same café when she saw the stranger the second time. He hadn't been coming out of the movie theater that night, merely strolling down the street, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, which were black again. During the next few weeks, she saw him walking down the same street at about the same time almost every night, which she supposed wasn’t really all that strange. After all, she went to the same café and sat at the same booth in the back at about the same time every night. One evening, simply for something to do, she left the café and followed him, curious to see where he went. She followed him the next night, and the next. And suddenly it was a habit, a way to spend the long, lonely nights when she couldn’t sleep. Sometimes he merely walked through the park across from City Hall. Sometimes he sat on one of the benches, as unmoving and silent as the bronze statue of the town's founding father that was located near the center of the park.

While following the man in the long black duster, she learned that he went to the movies every Wednesday evening and always sat in the last row. He wandered through the mall on Friday nights. He spent Saturday nights in the local pub, invariably sitting in the shadows in the far corner. He always ordered a glass of red wine, which he never finished. Other than the wine, she never saw him eat or drink anything. He never bought popcorn or candy at the movies. He never bought a soda or a cup of coffee or a hot dog in the mall.

When she followed him home, she learned that he lived in an old but elegant two-story house at the edge of town. The house had bars on the windows and a security screen door, and was surrounded by a block wall that must have been twelve feet high, complete with an impressive wrought iron gate. She wondered what he was hiding in there and spent untold hours pondering who and what he might be. A drug lord? An arms dealer? Some sort of international spy? A reclusive millionaire? A serial killer? A mad scientist? A terrorist? Her imagination knew no bounds.

The holidays came and went. He didn’t go to visit family for Thanksgiving, and no one came to visit him. As far as she could see, he didn’t celebrate Christmas. No tinsel-laden tree appeared in the large front window. No colorful lights adorned his house. He didn’t go out to celebrate the New Year. But then, neither did she. As far as she knew, he didn’t buy flowers or candy on Valentine’s Day, nor did he go to visit a lady friend. He was a handsome man - tall, dark and handsome - which begg

His dark embrace, it holds me now,
Suffocating me from the light.
All I can do is pray and bow.
And fall far from the lord’s empty sight.
He promised his love to me eternally,
But look at where I stand now.
A stranger to him as I die slowly,
As death caresses my brow.

I feel a thorn caress my chest,
They’ve forgotten I’m alive.
After all the love that he expressed,
It may be impossible to survive.

“I’ll love you forever.” He vowed to me,
on one very cold autumn night.
But as fate itself sits at my feet,
It seemed too late to decide.

His dark embrace, it holds me now,
Suffocating me from the light.
All I can do is pray and bow,
And fall far from the lord’s empty sight.

I feel his eyes upon my face,
Has he really come back for me?
He’s here now at my resting place,
But can he really see?

“I’m alive!” I want to say,
as he holds my hand to his chest.
But for my sins I must pay,
And for eternity I shall rest.