About The Vampire Fred: Wicked Game
by Vaughn R. Demont
124 pages / 52000 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-760-2, 1-60370-760-3
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, epub, Sony-optimized pdf
Being a vampire sucks, especially when you’ve got to deal with things like a dead-end job as an office drone, avoiding vigilante vampire slayers on the subway, and being price-gouged on blood from the slaughterhouse. Add in a crush on your annoyingly charismatic sire, and unraveling a little conspiracy to upset the balance of power among the vampires of the City, and it’s all in a night’s work though for fledgling vampire Fred Tompkins, as long as he doesn’t miss out on any overtime.
Review
Sara Bell, author of The Devil's Fire, writes: Fred Tompkins' life
didn't get good and started until after he was already dead. Not only
that, but the poor guy didn't even die a dignified death: he died a
glorified hood ornament thanks to the lead foot of a vampire car thief
with no respect for crosswalks or pedestrians. Daniel McKay--the vampire
who ran Fred down and then turned him as a belated apology--has been a
constant thorn in Fred's side ever since: watching his TV, drinking his
blood, and driving Fred so crazy with lust Fred's starting to wonder if
he'd be better off dead-dead instead of merely undead. Then the dreams
start, and Fred's carefully crafted afterlife goes to hell in a hand
basket.
I'm a vampire fan from way back. There probably isn't a myth or legend
on the subject I haven't read, a good bloodsucker flick I haven't seen.
With so many vampire romances on the market, it's rare to find an author
who breathes new life into the genre, but Vaughn R. Demont has conjured
an entirely new take on the legend with The Vampire Fred: Wicked Game.
The characters are uniquely drawn, the passion between the two leads
intense, and the story engrossing from the first page (who doesn't love
a good Scooby Doo reference?) I read the book in one sitting and was
entranced from line one.
Sample
I didn't start hating Scooby Doo until after I died.
To begin, it's a ridiculous formula. How those kids could not catch on that it's a guy in a mask every single episode just boggles the mind. And these mysteries just happen to occur on whatever long road trip they happen to be on. No one asks them to check it out. They just do! Don't even get me started on how they spend entirely too much camera time on the stoner and the dog.
They also tend to show it in clumps, fat four-hour blocks entrenched in the early morning, and by early, I mean two a.m. until just before sunrise. Granted, you would think this wouldn't be much of a problem. Normal people are usually asleep, or working all night, as is the case with myself. We're either waking up or going to bed when the extravaganza of 70s kitsch winds down.
But I still hate it, and even though I never see the damned show, I have come to see that overgrown, badly drawn, gluttonous beast as the symbol that I am truly dead inside.
And I'm not talking about the put-on-a-hoodie-and-some-black-eyeliner kind of dead inside, I mean literally dead inside.
And who the Hell over the age of six still watches Scooby Doo, Where Are You anyway?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind about a month.
Imagine, if you will, a cool April night, about an hour after sundown. The clouds are breaking above; there's a waxing crescent moon that looks like a big banana; there's still a light mist in the air since it only stopped raining a half hour before. Imagine this in Victory Square, with all the lights and buildings, and that great Italian restaurant on the corner where they shot that movie scene that one time.
Take that scene and insert a car. Not just any car, though. We're talking upper tier. A car worth more than a house in Destry Bay -- with sleek, clean lines and a loud engine. Imagine this scene as a still, a snapshot, if you would. Keep the car in that freeze-frame but let it rumble around in your mind that at the moment that car is doing about one-twenty.
Now imagine a man, about five nine in height, maybe a buck fifty. He’s wearing an off-the-rack suit from a store that sells TVs, clothing, and produce, his body suspended just above the hood of that car, upended, his legs contorted into a position yoga instructors would wince at, one shoe on, the other knocked off by the impact. His arms are outstretched, his black hair blown away from his face by the rush of wind, his brown eyes registering shock, and his monitor-tanned face showing vague surprise.
That guy? That's me.