What's a good way to celebrate Halloween?
How about checking out an (unedited) sneak peek for LITTLE SHADOW MAN?
This is my horror novella-in progress.
Warning: It's dark and includes some bad language.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Excerpt:
Chapter One
September 17, 2000
There was no way in hell those things were real.
Two perfectly shaped mounds, like igloos of silicone.
They never moved, not even when Marlene sneezed. A cute, adorable sneeze of course. Not a loud, obnoxious sneeze with mucus or god-forbid...germs. No, the 1985 Homecoming Queen only produced precious little sneezes, followed by a giggle.
The two preposterous mounds on her chest didn't shift. Her upper body tilted, her head twitched. Just enough to make her cascade of golden silk sway and mesmerize every man in Solomon's Grocery Mart. But the mounds--nicely encased in a fitted work-out shirt with giant daisies in just the right spot--were immobile.
Jenny tried to look away, but to her shame, she was also mesmerized.
Even when Marlene shot her a look through narrowed eyes, Jenny still stared at the mounds.
How much did those mounds cost?
What would Jenny look like with a boob job like that?
As though she could read her mind--and boy would that be disastrous if it were true--Marlene leaned down close to Jenny in the check-out line and said, "Honey. Don't you know it's rude to stare?"
Jenny's face got hot and she finally looking away, glancing at the dirty floor.
"That'll be nineteen dollars and seventy-five cents." The check-out guy appeared to be talking directly to Marlene's chest.
"Oh dear. I'm a little short today." Marlene's grocery haul included fat-free yogurt and fat-free cookies and diet Coke and an enormous bag of broccoli, which Jenny was convinced was just for show.
People like Marlene Anderson didn't really eat food. They just smoked and popped pills, and occasionally got plastic surgery to keep up appearances. They also slathered on twenty-three pounds of make-up and false eyelashes.
"Uh...wha...what do you mean?" The check-out guy was starting to stammer. A pair of humongous tits could do that to a man.
"Mr. Solomon lets me charge it. Just put it on my account. I'm good for it." Marlene giggled.
The check-out guy glanced at old Mr. Solomon, dressed in head-to-toe polyester, with the tell-tale button popping open right over his impressive gut.
Mr. Solomon nodded at the check-out guy.
Marlene smiled at Mr. Solomon.
Mr. Solomon took a long, lingering glance at Marlene's plastic surgery-enhanced bosom, licked his lips, and then walked away.
What the actual fuck?
Marlene collected her groceries, neatly bagged in her Roxy totes, and turned to Jenny. She smiled at her, one of those pitying smiles.
Jenny took a large dose of satisfaction in the fact that Marlene's lips were chapped. Her burnt orange lipstick had gathered in the dry creases of her mouth.
Not so perfect after all, Miss Homecoming Queen!
"Please tell Jim I said congratulations. You must be so proud of him. Making town council is such an honor." Marlene tilted her head a bit to the side, as though she were trying to figure out what Jenny was all about.
The short, pudgy girl married to a local politician?
The awkward librarian with the blond jock?
How had it happened?
A cloud of perfume drifted down the grocery aisle from Marlene and assaulted Jenny's olfactory system. It was Poison, of course. The perfume that every 1985 cheerleader in Freeland, Massachusetts, swore was their secret weapon.
Jenny knew that scent well.
She herself didn't wear perfume. Why bother when you were a five-foot-tall, chubby suburban housefrau with stretch pants?
Expensive perfume wasn't gonna make a bit of difference.
But that scent was all too familiar.
It was the fragrance that greeted her every night when Jim got home late from work. Doused all over his rumpled white shirt and his shitty suit.
Poison.
Poison would be too good for the likes of Marlene Anderson.
Even though it was an un-Christian sentiment, Jenny hoped that when Marlene Anderson finally kicked the bucket, it would be painful.
Bloody.
And gruesome.
That would knock those mounds right out of place.
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