Darkfallen: Greta!! I told you not to feed that damn turtle!
Greta: But he’s my baby!!
Darkfallen: You’re baby, my ass!! I’m about to call an expert.
*Greta pets the giant turtle that is soaking in the Wastelands swimming pool while sucking on the last author’s leg.
*clicking her cell phone shut
Darkfallen: He’ll be here in a minute.
Greta: Who?
Kealan: This is not my beautiful house.
Greta: No no no!! You did not call him!
Darkfallen: Thank Zombie Bob that you’re here!! We have a problem.
Greta: No we don’t!! Little Dude is part of the family now! I can’t help it that he got into some non-organic veggies and started craving human flesh. He doesn’t know any better.
Darkfallen: Do you think you can help, Kealan?
Kealan: How about electrical-taping him to a chair and forcing him to watch reruns of JerseyShore? That would kill anybody’s appetite.
Darkfallen: Yeah, we tried that but the dang turtle kept escaping from the chair.
Kealan: Industrial strength glue, and brainwashing him into believing that there are no people in the outside world, only starving bald eagles and ravenous coyotes.
Darkfallen: Well, that’s an idea. Do you have any of those with you?
Kealan: No, but you could convince him that dining on people is like admitting he’s racist.
Darkfallen: Do you know how to do that?
Kealan: No, not really. Have you tried draining the pool?
Darkfallen: Oh yeah!
*One hour later and one man-eating turtle stuck at the bottom of an empty pool, Greta hangs her feet over while Little Dude strains to jump and sink his beak into her flesh.
Greta: This sucks!! Little Dude is not pleased in this!!
Darkfallen: It’s better than the other alternative.
Greta: Which was?
Kealan and Darkfallen: Turtle soup!!
Greta: You guys suck!
Darkfallen: Thanks for visiting the Wastelands Kealan! You totally saved us from having a destructive man-eating turtle on our hands.
Kealan Patrick Burke is offering 5 Wastelanders a chance to win an e-copy of his latest thriller, "Kin". Enter into the world of backwoods cannibals and see if you can make it out alive!
Without
Kyle by my side, I now faced with heading into my Trig class too early. Nobody
blazed a trail to be the first one sitting around and waiting on the teacher.
Because of Kyle’s hormones, I faced looking super un-cool and nerdy. When you
put those words together, you never came away looking sexy.
Stepping
into the room, I immediately noticed that I was right. I headed straight for
the back row. I turned around and almost wet my pants.
The new
girl was sitting in a desk at the front of the room. She wore that same faraway
look they always have, these Walkers do. I gave them that nickname because
sometimes a ghostly film trailed behind them. It always reminded me of angel
wings. Otherwise, I guess they might be considered plain old ghosts. To label
them as spirits kind of took away from their magic. The mystery people were
always super gorgeous, like this chick: slick, dark hair that stopped just
below her shoulders, a long oval-shaped face, and nice skin. And they always
wore something dark: black jackets, jeans, and a tee shirt.
To
admit this girl made my skin crawl sounded sissy and weak. This wasn’t the time
to be a wuss. Manning up, I squared my shoulders before I sat down. The little
kid in me wanted to run away like a baby. But then she laughed. It was a
high-pitched giggle, a normal girl’s chuckle. It surprised me. That wasn’t
right. I couldn’t ever remember the Walkers laughing before.
“Go
ahead and run. I’ll just simply find you like I always do,” she said, her face
still turned toward the teacher’s wipe board.
Her
voice was smooth like a forgotten song, a hypnotic one. I could listen to it
all day long. But even super sexy voice didn’t change the fact that she pretty
much read my mind.
“Have
you decided whether you’ll run or not yet? I have an awful lot of things to
take care of.” She turned her head the slightest bit to the side
My
underarms prickled. I was glad that Mom forced me to start using the clinical
strength deodorant this morning; to say I was nervous wasn’t even close to how
I felt.
“Are
you an angel?” I asked, my voice squeaking on the last word. What a dork. She
didn’t frighten me too badly, but I wasn’t exactly ready to get her phone
number either. As a little kid, I remember talking to a few of the Walkers. As
soon as I hit my thirteenth birthday the ability to communicate with them
disappeared. This was the first time I’d spoken to one in years.
“I hate
to tell you this, but I’m not a ghost an angel or a zombie. Sorry.” She turned
around to face me, an amused expression on her ridiculously gorgeous face. I
inhaled sharply and held my breath. The word beautiful didn’t do this
Walker-girl any type of justice. Her strange, dark eyes with the specks of blue
and green inside the irises pierced into me.
I
swallowed hard and found my voice. “So then, what are you? You’re not the only
one I’ve seen or talked to. And why do I have the honor of being the stalked
one?”
She
made a light laugh and tilted her head. Her slick black hair flowed around her
face as if it were made of silky thread.
“Others
have come before me?” She seemed to have said it to herself rather than asking
me. One thing I did know for certain. I was probably going to be committed to
the loony ward after all of this. “I’m going to need your help soon, Caleb. So
be ready.”
“Be
ready for what?” I asked, crossing my arms and feeling just a tad flirtatious.
A desperate idiot. Kyle was chasing Erica the Stiff. And me, I got some sort of
angel girl sitting in front of me. A good man always knows when to aim for the
right goal.
She
glanced behind my head just before a sudden crash thundered behind me. My heart
leapt into my throat. I jumped up and spun around thinking it sounded like
gunshots. But I was being paranoid. It wasn’t a gun or anything at all
threatening. The classroom clock had fallen. Bits and pieces of it lay all over
the floor.
I
groaned. “Oh hell. They’ll think I did this.”
“What
in the world did you do, Caleb Wood?” a girl’s nasal voice asked me. I turned
around to find Jillian Bowman and her tortoise shell glasses grinning at me. She
was the last person I wanted to see. What, or rather who did I not find?—the
Walker girl. She’d vanished.
Something
hitched in my chest. I wanted to know more about her. I’d never gotten so
intimate with them before.
She
told me to be ready.
Exactly
what did I need to get ready for?
Hungry for more?
Then you've come to the right place because today is your lucky day.
Some promises are meant to be broken. Sarena Lengton knows what it's like to die -- two years ago her soul journeyed to the Underworld. Zakariah, the Lord of Judgement, has offered to spare her life in return for a promise. Sarena must convince his younger brother, Kesyl, to use his powers as a Sealer to open a portal to the Underworld. Then Zakariah can absorb Kesyl's soul and experience life on Earth. Now seventeen, Sarena has managed to avoid completing Zakariah's task. But when she witnesses a murder at Sterling High where nothing but a skeleton is left behind, Sarena knows she will need Kesyl's help to catch the killer. As they work together, she finds herself falling for the boy she promised to help destroy. Sarena doesn't want to know what Zakariah will do to her if she defies him. But if she keeps her end of the bargain, Kesyl will lose his soul. Can Sarena keep her life and her love? Or will both be torn from her forever?
Doesn't that look fabulous?
You can check out the prologue to "Sealer's Promise" on Kathy's websitehere.
Now that you've been teased in an extraordinary way, how about a giveaway? Kathy Coleman is hard at work putting the finishing touches on her novel "Sealer's Promise". But because she is a super awesome gal she wants to give you a chance to win a book of your choice from The Book Depository.
