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Shotguns and Shifters
Trailer Park Vampire Book 1
by J.R. Rain &
H.P. Mallory
(read on for a sample)
Chapter One
Waitressing had been hard enoughbeforethe fog rolled in.
The Damnation Diner was the only decent restaurant this side of the Ozarks, and now, instead of Budweiser, we served blood. And blood didn’t keepnearlyas well as booze.
I walked along the sterile aisles, shuffling in my worn, leather heels from table to table. Gathering up some orders, I chatted with the locals about the specials, all the things a normal waitress does. The only difference was that breakfast in the Damnation Diner was usually served right about midnight and the people I was serving, to put it bluntly, weren’t people at all.
‘The Fog’, as we came to call it, was a deep red mist that had settled over our little town of Windy Ridge. It had spread everywhere within a hundred-mile radius, and when it came, none of us knew what to make of it, much less what to do about it.
Some folk thought the Rapture was upon us—the two churches on either side of town were full to the brim. But when the first people began to change, those thoughts got stamped out right quick.
The changes started slow, with neighbors screaming in their homes, apparently losing their dang minds, then running out into the woods, never to be seen again. Those thatwereseen again didn’t fare much better—some of them started sprouting horns, others tails, some now had claws, and others, fur. We even found some with gills but, unfortunately, we couldn’t get them to water in time.
I still have nightmares about that.
Overall, there was sheer and utter panic, people yelling and praying as they slowly began to shift into unthinkable things, but no one knew what was happening. The only thing we did know, the only thing we could attribute the horror to, was the burnt, blood-colored clouds that had floated into our town and then floated right back on out again. That danged fog had changed everyone and everything in Windy Ridge. And it had only taken a week to do it.
It’s hard to believe that those fairy tale monsters you hear about as kids are actually real—well, that is until you wake up and see dryads frolicking through the trailers and swamp creatures soaking in kiddie pools as they wave to you with newly webbed hands.
Yep, that red fog had affected every one of us, but not in the same way. The only person in town that hadn’t changed into a full-bodied creature was Boone, and that was only ‘cause the fog had cured the lung cancer that was slowly and mercilessly killing him. Not only that, but the fog also left him with a keen invulnerability to any kind of harm.
Like I said,everyonehad changed, and I wasn’t immune. One day I woke up to a ray of sunshine peeking on through my trailer window and let me tell you, that ray of light felt like the devil’s own poison once it hit my skin. Next thing I knew? My mouth was full of blood.
Naturally, I panicked and rushed to the restroom, only to find I’d grown fangs which had gone and left two holes in my bottom lip. Only once I caught my breath and forcibly told myself to calm down did I realize my blood tasted like the gods’ very own nectar. Thankfully, everything else about my appearance stayed pretty much the same, except for the fact that the years stopped hitting me and I had two pinprick scars underneath my lower lip. When normies came around (which wasn’t often), I said the scars were from old piercings.
Technically, I wasn’t fibbing.
I was never one for old folks’ tales, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t guess what I’d turned into. I could run like hell and any injury I had was healed within a minute. I had superhuman strength, couldn’t stand the sun, and I’d stopped aging. And I had a hankering for blood that was one hundred times as strong as the worst craving you ever had during shark week.
Yep, I’d gone vampy.
And that was when I realized that everything I thought I knew about bloodsuckers was wrong. Well,almosteverything. For one thing—that whole bit about vampires fearing crosses? A bucket of horse manure. I can still pop by the local Baptist church and not even flinch. My reflection still looks back at me in the mirror whenever I’m in a visiting sort of mood and I have to admit, I look better than I have in years. My hair’s as red as it was when I was a girl, and those heavy baby diapers that used to hang under my eyes? Now a thing of the past. In fact, all my age lines disappeared the day I grew fangs and the chicken pox scars Ma (rest her soul) described as giving me ‘character’ now are nowhere to be found.
I could still handle garlic, both in salt and bulb form, and, thankGod,there was no fear of running water that kept me from showering. The oddest thing, though, was that I wasn’t actuallydead.My heart still beat, chugging on like a determined engine in a worn-out, old Ford. And I definitely hadn’t passed away to awaken as a walking corpse Nosferatu style with an oversized head, ridiculously long fingernails and bucked-teeth fangs. In fact, near as I could tell, I never actually died.
My daughter, Sicily (the smartest of us), believes there’s some kind of scientific explanation for everything that happened. She chalked up my blood hunger to a severe vitamin deficiency and who knows? Maybe that’s it. That girl is smarter than I could ever be, so I usually leave the theories to her. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out exactly what happened the day that fog rolled in, but the good thing about Windy Ridge is that its people are resilient. We adapted, and now, life almost feels like normal again.
I grabbed a fresh batch of chicken tenders (uncooked and minus the breading) from the kitchen and shouldered my way out through the double doors, striding over to a table that usually fit four but was now encompassed entirely by one man. I’m comfortable saying ‘man’ because he did still havesomehuman features, like the large feet that spread out beneath the table (even if they were covered in course, brown hair) and the nose that sniffed the food as I put it down. But that nose wasn’t quite human, elongated as it was.
Bud reminded me of Barf, John Candy’s dog character from Space Balls. He had that sorta look and was overlarge, probably the largest creature in town (I’d guess him to be over six-foot-five), with long, shaggy brown hair, and eyes that betrayed his kindness. His arms matched the color of his hair and were patched with the same fur that covered the rest of him. When he grinned at me, he revealed a set of powerful canine teeth. Reaching for the chicken with his paws, he curled his claws around one of them and gave me a great big grin.
“Summa bitch, Twila, I’m gonna need me three more orders!” he said as he glanced down at the chicken tenders which were piled high on the plate in front of him.
“I’m gonna have to charge you for more, Bud,” I informed him.
He nodded, before looking up at me. “What aboutta trade?”
