New Book Teaser

 After writing yesterday about werewolves, I got to thinking that perhaps you'd all like to read a little bit from the book I'm currently working on. So, I'm sharing a significant portion from the first chapter of my upcoming second book, All-American Werewolf. 

Enjoy!

🖉

Lenny Stevens sat on the front porch of his small rural house in the brutal early July heat, slowly moving on the two-person swing hanging there. The slight, gentle movement he made as he swung through the humid night air was the closest thing he’d get to a breeze that night; the heat wave that had gripped Maryland for the entire summer continued to hold the region in its grasp.

If the heat this summer weren’t bad enough then the humidity made it even worse. As Lenny lit a cigarette and breathed in the moist late-night air, he could smell the damp just hanging in it. The bedroom felt like an oven since Lenny and his wife couldn’t afford to replace their air conditioner, so rather than spend one more sleepless minute laying in a pool of his own sweat he’d come to the porch to cool down.

To cool down, and to think.

Lenny worried about the future. Ever since graduating high school, he’d worked at one of the factories just over the county border in Pocomoke City, the past seven of which he’d been first shift foreman. Although he and his wife, Cindy, had never had much in the way of worldly riches, Lenny’s factory job had afforded them the comfortable little house in which they lived with their two rambunctious boys – both of whom were, thankfully, visiting his parents for the week. The bills paid, food on the table, and enough acres of land that Lenny could pursue his side-business as a small farmer. Overall, things were good.

But that rock-solid foundation on which Lenny thought he’d built his life was starting to crumble. He realized the mistake he’d made by thinking life would be predictable, assuming it would follow his plan when he was promoted to shift foreman. Lenny figured he’d stay in that job for the next decade or so, then move into the shop foreman position. Finally, after many long years of loyal service to the company, he’d retire to Florida with a nice pension to live out his days fishing and growing fat.

It was a good plan until politics got involved. Ever since NAFTA had been passed five years earlier, Lenny had watched as one factory in Pocomoke City after another grew ever more anemic until, after having moved most of the operations elsewhere, each factory finally closed. Lenny had prayed his own factory could avoid that fate, but in the past two years, he’d seen the same process starting there as well. First, this division is closed, and everyone working there gets laid off, then that division is moved overseas, and everyone there likewise gets pink-slipped, and so on.

Lenny felt like he was trapped on a slowly sinking ship, knowing what the inevitable outcome will be but also fearing he might still drown if he jumps overboard and swims for it. He took a long drag off his cigarette and looked down at this dog, curled comfortably at his feet.

“What would you do, Max?” he asked, patting the dog’s head as he did. “What would you suggest I do?”

If Max had any wisdom to offer, he kept it to himself.

Lenny let out the smoke in a long, discontented sigh, and as he did, he thought he heard rustling in his cornfield a few yards away from his porch. Max suddenly became interested in that spot as well, but at almost the exact same moment he heard Cindy open the screen door. Thoughts of whatever the sound might have been immediately left his mind when he looked at his wife, her skin glistening with sweat, her hair sleep-tousled, wearing a sheer negligée that hid very little of her nude body under it. Max, however, stared at the same spot in the cornfield unerringly.

“Can’t sleep again?” Cindy said softly in the quiet night, lighting her own cigarette as she joined him on the swing.

“Nope,” Lenny said, putting his arm around Cindy and pulling her close to him. “Too damn hot up there.”

“Not much better out here, though.”

Lenny nodded his head in agreement, taking a drag off his cigarette. “No, not much better, but at least it don’t feel so damn stuffy out here.”

After a moment of silence, Cindy said, “But I’m going to assume it’s not just the heat that’s got you up. Worried about work?”

“Yeah, I am,” Lenny said, flicking the cigarette butt out towards the driveway. “I’m worried, but I’m also stuck, you know? Like, I can see what’s going to happen. The writing’s on the wall, everyone can see it coming. So, I should leave, get another job.” Lenny paused to light another cigarette, taking a long first drag as he did. “But, problem is, working in a factory is all I know how to do. I’m 35, a little too old to learn a trade, no way I’m going to school. And honestly, I don’t want to start over in another factory. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am now, and I really don’t want to go back to working on a line.”

Holding Cindy close to him, Lenny could feel the soft swell of her breast pressing into his chest, and he found her slick, sweaty skin to be wonderfully distracting.

“We need to come up with something,” Cindy said, her head leaning against her husband’s bare chest.

“I know.”

“I heard people talking at the restaurant of maybe there being oil or natural gas or something in the western part of the state, maybe up in Pennsylvania. They say that pays real good money.”

“Yeah, I could do that. I’d probably like that. I think that’d have me out in the field a lot,” Lenny said, gently massaging his wife’s hot shoulder with his fingertips as he drank in the image of her body. “We’d be separated for weeks at a time, I think. You OK with that?”

She thought for a moment, her hand resting on his thigh. “Hmm…I don’t think so. I’d miss you too much. Maybe one of the crabbers that work out of Crisfield?”

“Well, babe, then I’d be out for many weeks at a time. I’d be gone more than if I were in the oil fields.”

A silent moment as the two thought about their very limited options, coming up with nothing.

“So, what do you suggest we do?” Cindy asked at last, lifting her head from Lenny’s chest to look into his eyes. “You don’t make enough from farming to cover the bills, even with what I bring in. We’ll need to do something else.”

“I know, I know,” Lenny said, no longer really focused on the discussion and dismissing it from his mind. He’d gone over it a million times in his thoughts and found no obvious answers, he was tired, and the more he looked at his wife’s all but naked body, the hornier he became. “For now, let’s just enjoy having the house to ourselves,” he said, as he leaned in to start kissing his wife’s neck.

But just as he was about to move his hand to Cindy’s breast, Lenny again heard the rustling sound in his cornfield. Lenny and Cindy both looked that way, half-expecting to see someone watching them, as Max got on his feet and immediately started barking loudly. As they did, they caught the faint odor of rotten eggs.

“What is that?” Cindy whispered harshly.

“I don’t know,” Lenny said, as he slowly started to walk towards the cornfield, Max joining him. “Stay here,” he said to Cindy.

Lenny walked slowly, carefully, like he was trying to sneak up on whatever might be in the corn even though he was totally exposed on his lawn. He scanned the field, hoping to catch sight of what might be lurking in the waist-high corn. The dim lamp over his driveway only illuminated a few rows into the field, so there easily could be something in the dark beyond the light. Max barked aggressively the whole time as he approached next to Lenny, eyes on the cornfield.

Lenny paused, coiled and ready to move suddenly, trying to see or hear anything. He couldn’t, though he knew there was something out there in his fields as the rotten egg smell became worse.

“Max!” Lenny yelled as the dog suddenly ran headlong into the field, disappearing into the darkness. Lenny took two quick steps to follow him, then stopped when he heard Max yelp once in pain, followed by an immediate end to his barking. “MAX! MAAAX!!”

Lenny stood in the abrupt silence, trying desperately to hear or see anything. He could see nothing but his darkened cornfield and heard nothing but blood flowing in his ears as his heart pounded in unexpected terror.

“Lenny,” Cindy said from the porch behind him, “what’s going on?” 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think Max got hurt. Get the –” Lenny stopped speaking suddenly, as he caught swift movement to his left and the odor of sulfur became overwhelming. He pivoted quickly to see what it was but only had time to catch a of glimpse his own death approaching.

Lenny shrieked once in abject, overpowering horror...