That was where she would go.
The Man in the Pristine Scrubs
"YOU are hungry, aren't you," he cooed to the infant in his arms. "Well, we'll fix that."
His canine teeth extended. They were so much better than the previous, unwieldy set he'd shed in the laundry room less than half an hour ago. This new form was superior. His thoughts were clear, focused. And he looked human. Better than human. Better than his best days on Wall Street. He'd blend in much better than those monsters.
Better still, he was young and healthy again.
He bit the tip of his index finger and watched the blood well into a bead, then touched it to the baby's mouth. She made a face at first, then began to suck.
"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us, little one. We seem to have experienced a setback on the way to a brave new world, but it's only temporary. We'll get there eventually, and you'll play a big part. Oh, yes, little one. I have big plans for you."
Epilogue
HE hurt. Hurt bad.
Burns, for sure. All over.
Broken arm.
Broken leg.
Make that two broken legs.
But somehow he'd managed to survive that explosion, that fall.
He was too weak to cry out. But that was okay. He heard soldiers sifting through the rubble.
They'd find him soon.
Until then, he had good company to kill some time with.
The best company a man could have.
He set Alice on his chest, and wondered how long it would be before they found him.
But he could be patient.
He could wait a little longer.
Not a problem.
THE END
From Joe Konrath, about this bonus content
Welcome to the supplements section. One of the cool things about ebook technology is that page count no longer matters. In print, paper costs money. The longer the book, the more it is to produce it and ship it.
Since we're not bound by this (technically we're not bound at all) we can include a bunch of DVD-style extras that don't increase the cost of the ebook.
You've probably just finished reading the interview with all four authors about writing Draculas.
If you're a writer, or you're interested in how four different authors crafted a single novel, we've included a lengthy selection of our emails to each other during the writing process. In this, you can see how our final draft changed from our original vision, and how we put it all together.
We've included complete Kindle bibliographies, bios, and excerpts from our latest novels.
We've also included these three bonus short stories.
I've been fortunate to have collaborated with all of these authors on separate projects. Here's a brief explanation of each.
Years ago, a friend of mine told me I had to meet Jeff Strand because he wrote "funny but sick shit, just like you." I read some of his Andrew Mayhem books, loved them, and we began to correspond. I thought it would be a lot of fun to team up his Mayhem character with one of my characters from the Jack Daniels series, a private eye named Harry McGlade. We wrote a novella called SUCKERS, which came out in a limited edition hardcover and sold 250 copies. Later, I put SUCKERS up on Amazon Kindle, and it's made us a small fortune.
A while later, we were both invited into a tiny werewolf anthology, and decided to hash out a quick story. The result was CUB SCOUT GORE FEAST. The anthology never came out, but the story lives on as a supplement to this ebook.
Blake Crouch and I met under similar circumstances. A mutual friend told us we both wrote dark, scary serial-killer books, so we checked each other out and found our writing was very similar. On a lark, I asked Blake if he wanted to try a writing experiment. I write about a driver who kills hitchhikers. He writes about a hitchhiker who kills drivers. Then, without showing each other our sections, we try to kill each other.
The result, SERIAL, was released as a freebie on Amazon, and downloaded more than 250,000 times. Amazon now carries the longer, expanded SERIAL UNCUT, which is about five times the length. Here's the original.
I've been a fan of F. Paul Wilson since I was a kid, and we met a while ago at a writing convention. When we were both invited into a horror anthology, neither Paul nor I had time to write a story, so I asked him if he wanted to collaborate, which would be faster. He graciously agreed, and the result, A SOUND OF BLUNDER, was released in the antho BLOOD LITE. It's a parody of the famous Ray Bradbury story. Thanks to Pocket Books for allowing us to include it here. Jeff Strand was also in that collection, and it's well worth seeking out.
Collaborating is a fascinating creative endeavor. Two heads, or four heads in the case of DRACULAS, really allows the writing to come quick. Having instant feedback on scenes that are hot off the keyboard is a luxury writers don't normally have, and hopefully the fun is apparent on the e-ink page.
It's been my pleasure to work with these talented guys, and I hope we get a chance to do it again soon...
In which Paul, Jeff, Blake and Joe interview each other about the process and experience of writing DRACULAS...
BLAKE: Joe, the idea for this book started with you. Where did you get the concept for DRACULAS and how did you go about assembling collaborators?
JOE: While browsing bestselling Kindle titles I was surprised by how many were classic novels in the public domain. One that leapt out at me was Stoker's DRACULA, and how many incarnations have been done of that particular character. The recent trend is turning vampires into teen heartthrobs and romantic leads. I don't find that nearly as interesting as a horrible creature that needs human blood to survive.
I didn't want Bela Lugosi in a black cape, or anything sexy. I wanted something ugly and horrifying. So I postulated that the original DRACULA was based on a real historical event--a human mutation that was contagious and could cause outbreaks.
So I called up Blake, because we bounce a lot of ideas off each other, and I knew this was potentially a fun one. I didn't have time to do this on my own--too many other deadlines--but I knew how this could work. I'd written three other Jack Kilborn books (AFRAID, TRAPPED, and ENDURANCE) which all operated using the same formula: There is an overpowering evil, and several different characters fight to survive during an eight hour period. No chapter breaks, just point-of-view changes.
This structure could be done, simply, with more than one writer. All we needed were three or four motivated individuals, each whom would follow a few characters, and we could have an ensemble piece.
If I recall, Blake was up for it, and we brainstormed other writers who might be interested. I'd worked with F. Paul Wilson before on a previous story (A SOUND OF BLUNDER in the collection BLOOD LITE) and pitched it to him, hoping he'd be available and interested. Then I contacted Jeff Strand, whom I'd worked with on SUCKERS and CUB SCOUT GORE FEAST, but he wouldn't commit to it because he was too busy with other projects.
Then I told him FPW was in, and Jeff signed up immediately.
BLAKE: Although we each have pretty unique and varying writing styles, we did our best to seamlessly interweave all the individual sections so the sum of the parts would feel like a cohesive book. Readers may have hunches about who wrote which characters, but should we go ahead and take our pants down and tell everyone who wrote what?