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SILVER BULLET #2 - Coming Soon!

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:34:54 GMT

NaNoWriMo Sprint #2

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:16:53 GMT

COMPULSION
(Tuning) / Ribbon Head – Thorns of Life (0:36 + 4:27 = 5:03)

She put the bottle down with a clink. He knew it was empty without turning around – bottles with liquid in them make a thunk, not a clink.

He turned the carrots over and over under the faucet, washing the dirt out of the creases of their flesh. He could hear her staring at him, feel the silence of her desperation tugging at his shirt. He could smell her need for validation, the yawning pit of hate that called him to spin around on her and make a snide comment or, better yet, let loose with a stream of profanity and degradation that would force her to acknowledge she was still alive.

He put the carrot on the cutting board next to the sink, picked up the celery stalks, and plunged them under the cool, clean water. He turned and twisted them precisely, making sure to rinse every trace of soil. He felt the weight of her need lift from him and she lifted herself from the dining room chair. He heard the soft, bare footsteps as she stumbled to the sideboard, felt the hinges of the cabinet shudder open, and knew there was another bottle waiting to console her.

(199 WORDS)

NaNaWriMo Sprint #1

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:21:59 GMT

BACKSPACE
(More Guitar) / I Hate New York – Thorns of Life (0:29 + 3:58 = 4:27)

“Telemetry’s looking fine, Schwitz. Let’s downshift and see if we can’t drop momentum to negative without retro-deleting any possibility waves.”

Schwitz looked up from her readscreen, her green eyes hazy behind the data filters on her navgoggles. “What,” she managed after a moment of working her jaw silently. Negs smiled that devil’s grin of his as he shrugged. “My dad will effin’ kill me if we wreck. Not to mention all the possible future-damage we could cause if we screw it up.”

“Isn’t that what makes it awesome?” Negs looked at Schwitz, she looked at him, and, with the ghost of a smile, she punched the BACKSPACE button, time swirled, possibilities collapsed, and she and Negs found themselves in the space behind space, existence’s backstage.

(125 WORDS)

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:23:41 GMT

It's almost that time again, folks - National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) is right around the corner. Starting November 1st, 2009, I will be joing hundreds of thousands of other participants in writing a 50,000 word novel in the course of one month. I've done it twice in the past, failed it once, and didn't even try last year, but I'm ready and rarin' to go this time around.

I urge any and all of you out there to join in! If you've ever fancied yourself a writer, this is a chance to give yourself a reason to write. You don't even have to finish (although, trust me, once you start, you'll want to finish) just give it the old college try. If you write just one sentence to be proud of, it'll all be worth it.

I'll be starting my daily sprints (5 minutes of writing based on a randomly generated word) tonight and posting them here for all of you to see. Some of them might end up in the novel, some of them might end up being used in a comic or short story, and some of them will live only for the brief, shining moment that the appear on this page but I'd love to hear back from anyone about what they think. And hopefully I can inspire even one other person to start writing their own stories.

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:05:02 GMT

Well, it's finally happened.

PLANETARY is finally done. And what an ending it was. You know what I love most about Mr. Warren "I'm A Cranky, Scary Old Bastard" Ellis? His ridiculously soft underbelly, which is fully on display in this epilogue story.

Also, I love that we've finally figured out, as a culture, that our serialized fiction doesn't have to have a hard-edged ending. Our fictional worlds can go on after we leave them. And that is just fine by me.

The Drummer, Jakita, Doc Brass, Anna Hark, even Dowling and his evil cronies, and especially Elijah "I'm A Cranky, Scary Old Bastard But Not An Avatar Of My Author, Oh No, Not At All" Snow - thanks for all the years of reminding me what a strange world it really is.

Hello New and Old Friends!

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:08:37 GMT

Guess who isn't real good at east-to-west time change mathematics? Yep, that's right, little old me. Here I thought that getting up at 4:30am Columbus-time (i.e. EST) on Monday morning to catch my flight back to Chicago so I could be at work at 8:30am Chicago-time (i.e. CST) was no big deal because it was just a little bit earlier than my usual wake-up time of 6:00am back home, since, I figured, 4:30am Columbus-time is 5:30am Chicago-time.

As all of you with even the most basic math skills realize, I was wrong - I actually got up at 3:30am Chicago-time, meaning I had been up for 5 hours already when I first got to work. I made it through the day, however, and even spent a good chunk of the evening helping my friend edit his Chicago Sketchfest Application Video, so things weren't all bad.

The convention was a blast. I heard tell that it was a bit under-attended this year in comparison to the past but I had a good time, regardless. We sold some books, I wrote some stories, and we met a bunch of really great people including the super-talented artist/writer (and friend of the Afghan Whigs, apparently, which, in my book, makes him stupid-cool) WJ Grapes (www.fyredragon.com).

Brett and I pimped The Silver Bullet pretty hard and people were also interested in Once Upon A Time and The Redeemers Preview (now with a brand-new cover!). On Sunday I got the chance to eat at Schmidt's Sausagehaus und Restaurant. I mean, this was a pretty boss trip!

If you bought one of books, had me write you a story, or even if you just stopped by to say, "Hi," please leave a comment on the page and let me know you're out there!

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:02:34 GMT

"After three decades of shared days, he knew his wife's breathing, even over wires, even at great distance."

- The Prisoner's Dilemma

Richard Powers

Sometimes a single sentence can blow your heart apart. I keep writing in the hopes that I'll someday put one of my own down.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:57:23 GMT

Guess who's going to have a table at Mid-Ohio Con 2009? If you guessed Michael Golden, Bernie Wrightson, James Kyson Lee, or Ray Park, you would be correct but would have missed the point entirely. If you guessed me, Eric Rampson, then you would be both correct and fully capable of utilizing context clues. Yay you!

Mid-Ohio Con is on Saturday, October 3rd and Sunday, October 4th at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in beautiful, scenic Columbus, Ohio, which is smack dab in the middle of the state. Those of you who correctly guessed Eric Rampson earlier should be able to see why Columbus's location in the state is important.

I'll be at a table with artist extraordinaire Brett Wood (The Venger: Sins & Secrets). The first issue of our new book, The Silver Bullet, will be available at the show. I will also have a new printing of The Redeemers #0 with a brand-new cover by series artist Wil Brendel. We didn't make our fundraising goal but we're pushing ahead anyway. Neither of us may be able to afford to eat when all is said is done but The Redeemers will see the light of day.

I will, of course, be doing Stories For A Buck as well.

If you're going to be at the con, please stop by and say, "Hello."

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:11:26 GMT

I am finally reading James Robinson's Starman. I'm partway through Vol. 3 of the hardcover collections.

Holy crap is this a great book. It lives up to the hype in every way. Shade is one of my all-time favorite characters.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:15:57 GMT

If I were stuck on this train car forever, would I eventually fall in love with one of the other passengers? Let's, for the sake of argument, say that I will survive for another 40 years here onthis train car. I'm not overly concerned with how that would happen - in the scheme of things it doesn't matter and is far less interesting than the other question - will I fall in love with one of these people?

I'm looking around at the women on the train since I am heterosexual and, while I can't completely rule out a switch in orientation based on a 40 year captivity, I feel that my particular programming is going to make me more likely to grow fond of a female. As I look around, I can already see a few candidates, women who are physicaly attractive to me. If I end up, after ten or five or even one year, falling in love with one of them will it be genuine love or will it simply be a misplaced survival instinct?

This is what I get for not putting my book in my bag this morning...

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:22:05 GMT

I got the chance to play a couple of my GenCon purchases last night with some good friends. Endeavor is definately going to be a favorite - really simple mechanics hiding a fairly deep series of choices, which is right up my alley. Tales of the Arabian Nights is exactly as awesome as my friends reported. Even though I was Accursed, Scorned, Crippled, and Wounded when we had to call the game (due to my continued GenCon-induced lack of sleep), it was still a blast.

I was glad for the distraction of good games and good friends, to tell the truth. I found out earlier in the day that Brainstorm Movies, Comics, and Games - hands down the BEST shop in Chicago and the place I've bought my books for the past five years - was going to have to close it's doors. The wonderful owners may still have trick up their sleeves but things don't look good. It was a dark day for comic fans in the city. I mean what am I supposed to do, buy my books from Graham Crackers' now?

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

More Redeemers Stuff

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:55:36 GMT

Read the full 8-page preview issue of The Redeemers FOR FREE:

http://www.wheretheresawil.com/redeemers0/

Redeemers TEE-SHIRTS:

http://www.wheretheresawil.com/store/ (Scroll down a bit)

Only 14 days left to get your little slice of The Redeemers pie!

The Redeemers

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:00:27 GMT

There are only 15 days left to help fund The Redeemers. Response was overwhelmingly positive at Chicago Comic-Con this year (a lot of the people who bought the book early in the weekend stopped by the table to say how much they liked the preview) and we'd love to get this story out in front of people. Please stop by http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ericrampson/the-redeemers-issues-1-4 to get more information.

My hope for The Redeemers is that we can form a community around the book, its characters, and its world - something akin to the kind of community that builds up around genre TV shows like Buffy/Angel/Firefly, Lost, or BSG. I am planning on recording more and more Redeemers music and releasing it as issues come out. I want there to be more than just the comic (although the comic is the focal point, where the story is being told), I want a whole world created. Trust me, I have plans within plans within plans...

I'm Back!

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:16:26 GMT

From GenCon, that is.

The best four days in gaming (tm) really lived up to the hype this year - great games, great friends, and great ham purchased from CostCo leading to great ham'n'cheese sammiches at lunch everyday...

It was heaven.

I picked up 13 new board/card games (14 if you count the new 2-player Starter Pack for The Spoils that I got):

Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm Expansion – Kingsburg was the hit of the con with our group of gamers. I’ve loved the game since I first played it last Christmas. My girlfriend is less enamored of it, though, so it has been off the table for some time. I recently introduced it to some of our newer gaming friends (who are actually our old friends that we have been slowly indoctrinating as gamers) and they loved it, which made picking up this expansion a no-brainer. The expansion comes with 5 modules that each adds some new mechanic/quirk to the game. I’ve only played with one of them so far (the expanded building sheet) and found it to really add new depth to the game. I can’t wait to try the other modules, especially the Characters that give you special abilities throughout the game.

Arcana – A small-box card game from AEG, Arcana is like Dominion (get cards to build your deck so you can get better cards) mixed with, I don’t know, Hearts, maybe? It is a type of trick-taking game with some neat mechanics and jaw-dropping art. Turns out I missed a tiny rule in our first play (if no player’s Agents have sufficient Arcana to take a Stake card, those Agents remain at the Stake card for the next turn) that made the game run a bit long but I am very much looking forward to playing it again.

Endeavor – Z-Man Games’ lite civ-game is awesome. I only got one play of it in over the weekend but it was a killer one. Tight and quick game play, strong art, and high-quality bits really made this one stand out. Definitely a distillation of mechanics from several earlier games (Puerto Rico, Caylus, etc.) but with enough of its own goodness to stand apart, Endeavor has a good shot at becoming a Top Ten game for me. I particularly love that there are Slavery cards that you can benefit from until the end game where they actually cost you points.

Bridge Troll – Another Z-Man Games release, Bridge Troll is a neat little game in which the players are trolls trying to build the best troll bridge in the kingdom. You do that by getting tolls from travelers. Unfortunately, improving your bridge also requires you to eat to keep up your strength and haul boulders to make improvements. Therefore, each traveler you claim from the row of available cards each round has to either be banked as coin or food. You turn in both coin and food to make improvements. There’s a nice little bidding mechanic used for turn order and a neat-o weather die that determines how many traveler cards are available each round. Some travelers have additional special powers and other travelers are hazardous to your bridge (Knights free some of your food, Bandits steal some of your coin, and Billy Goats Gruff stomp on your bridge with their hooves, lowering your bridge value). All-in-all, it’s impressive not just for it’s fun, quick game play but also for how well all of its elements stick to the theme.

Revolution! – Another bidding game, this one from Steve Jackson Games. Revolution! sets each player up as a person trying to come out on top after helping to foment a, you guessed it, revolution. You bid different types of currency (Force, Blackmail, and Gold) to coerce or bribe different city officials and notables to support you and provide influence over the people of certain city buildings (for instance, bribing the Priest gets you a bit of influence on the Cathedral). At game’s end, each player scores bonus points for any buildings that they have majority influence of (shown by placing colored cubes in the building). This game seems very random at first but if you have a core game group, I think that repeated plays allow for more genuine strategy as players’ bidding tendencies are revealed. It’s also happens to be super-pretty looking.

The Stars Are Right – I love the Cthulhu mythos. Love. It. I have all sorts of games with a mythos theme (Arkham Horror, The Call of Cthulhu RPG and the trading card game, etc.). Now I have probably the most brilliant one of all, The Stars Are Right. Why did it take this long for someone to take that important bit of the mythos (the part about the stars needing to be right in order for R’yleh to rise) and make an awesome game about it? I don’t know but it’s here now. In the game, you play cards from your hand to alter the layout of a 5x5 grid of tiles representing the night sky. You can push whole rows of tiles one space, you can swap the position of adjacent tiles, and/or you can flip tiles to expose the other side. You do this in order to create constellation depicted on cards other than the one you played in order to summon the creature on that card. Summoned creatures allow you to change one type of move to another (or sometimes several other moves). Some creatures also give you “discounts” on calling down the Great Old One they serve. And, of course, almost every creature gives you points. First player to ten points of summoned creatures win, but you can only have 6 creatures summoned at a time, so You’re going to need to summon some of the more difficult ones in order to win. Couple the awesomely awesome thematic gameplay with the just as awesomely awesome artwork by François "Goomi" Launet (The Unspeakable Vault of Doom webcomic) and this is, by far, my favorite mythos game.

Monkey Lab – Probably pretty close to a kids’ game, Monkey Lab casts the players as former lab-imprisoned monkeys staging a break-in to rescue their former lab-mates. You’d think the game would be cooperative but the designers wisely chose to focus on the fact that monkeys aren’t good at sharing, so while you all want to free your friends, you want to be the best at doing it. The game is simple and light (mixing action management with set collection mechanics – move into various rooms, check which combination of two or three objects are need to bust it open, get those objects into the room, and free the monkey then rinse and repeat) but it can get tense in the end since, if you bust out a monkey while one of the other players’ monkey is in the same or an adjacent room, they get points, too.

Tales of the Arabian Nights – This is a game I can’t wait to play. Some of my GenCon group got to play my brand-new copy while I was playing Endeavor with another part of the group on the other side of the room and a couple of them reported that it was their favorite game so far (they’re relatively new gamers). Even the gaming vets really liked, it though. The game seems pretty free-form, which interests me. However, I am afraid that it may be too free-form, not allowing for any real meaningful decisions. However, if I go purely by the amount of laughing and clapping going on while my friends played, I’d have to guess that I’m going to love it.

The Island of Doctor Necreaux – A cool-looking little cooperative card game with a Saturday morning serial theme, this game will be a big hit with my various gaming groups, I think. The evil Dr. Necreaux has kidnapped a bunch of scientists and forced them to construct a doomsday device. You and the other players are special agents sent to rescue the scientists before a bomb set by a previous (and now missing) team of operatives. Find the scientists and the Escape Shuttle before the bomb goes off and you win. Each player gets three Character cards that give them abilities throughout the game. Then, as a team, you choose a speed at which you are going to move through Dr. Necreaux’s lair this turn. You turn over that many cards, one at a time, and resolve them (fight monsters, encounter traps, explore rooms, and find items). Once you turn over a number of cards equal to your chosen speed, the turn is over and the bomb’s Countdown Clock moves one step closer to zero. The scientists are in the middle third of the deck, the shuttle in the bottom third. Find both cards before the bomb goes off and you win. I’m interested in the game’s “press your luck” style mechanics and the theme is right up my alley.

Ad Astra – The members of my GenCon group who got to play this while I taught Agricola across the room said it’s like Settlers crossed with Race for the Galaxy. Um, yes please. I’ve read through the rules twice now and I cannot wait to play this bad boy. Preprogrammed actions, trading, group-based scoring that could backfire on you…this has elements of a classic. And it was co-designed by Bruno Fadutti, he of Citadels and Red November fame, so how can it help but be good (the other designer, Serge Leget helped create Shadows Over Camelot, so, you know, he’s no slouch himself.)

Batt’l Kha’os – Take Carcassone, add Orcs and Knights fighting, stir in awesome special ability tiles and tokens, and you have Batt’l Kha’os. I picked it up to have another straight up two-player game in the house for me and the special ladyfriend. You play tiles with knights or orcs on the corners. When four tiles have been put together to make a square, whoever has more units in the center, knights or orcs, wins the corner. When the four corners around a tower (scoring tile) have been decided, the player who has control of more corners wins the tower. Special tiles and power tokens can alter the number or strength of your or your opponents’ units on the tile. Basically, it’s just an awesome concept for a tile laying game.

Tomb: Cryptmaster Expansion – Tomb is an underappreciated gem of a game (if you’re into crazy fun dungeon crawling action). It’s underappreciated mostly because the rulebook is fairly unclear about a number of wacky situations that can come up with certain combinations of the numerous cards in the game (okay, honestly, the rule book is unclear about some very basic situations, not just the wacky ones). The Cryptmaster aims to fix all that IN ADDITION to providing a bunch of new options for the game. The rulebook has been completely rewritten, not only adding rules for the new material in the expansion, but clarifying and explaining most of the problematic issues from the original game. The pieces are of the same ridiculously high quality. You get 84 more characters to add to the 84 you got with the base game. It adds new Spells, Prayers, Items, Tactics, and Tomb cards. But it’s really the rewritten rules that make this puppy the wonderful package that it is. Personally, I have no problem coming up with rulings for things on the fly as we have for the past year, but now I have a rulebook to back me up. Hurrah!

Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus Expansion – This was the must-buy of GenCon for me. More Battlestar Galactica goodness MAY NOT be passed up. The base game was the surprise hit of last GenCon for me (who’da thunk a licensed game could be so good) and I expected the expansion to be no less awesome. Then I realized that I was at GenCon with a majority of people who had yet to experience BSG (the show OR the game). So, while I did manage to grab a copy before they sold out, I have yet to play it. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to rectify that oversight.

Hello Chicago Comic-Con Friends!

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:51:52 GMT

Hey everyone that I met at Chicago Comic-Con. Please comment on this entry and say, "Hi!" If you bought a book from me at the show then first off, thank you. Second off (is that even a saying?), please let me know what you thought of the book you bought.

I had a great time at the show and it was definitely because of all the wonderful people that stopped by the booth and gave us a minute of their time!

THIS ENTRY WILL REMAIN AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE UNTIL MONDAY, AUGUST 17TH
NEW ENTRIES BELOW

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:50:34 GMT

The first full day of Chicago Comic-Con is over and done. Sold a good number of books and dollar stories, met some great people...good day. Here's to day two! Stop by table 4418 and say, "Hi!"

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

The Silver Bullet

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:58:46 GMT

COMING SOON!

Chicago Comic-Con

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:53:36 GMT

I'll be in booth #4418 all weekend selling Once Upon A Time #1-3, The Redeemers #0, and of course my signature One Page Story For A Buck. I will be joined by a couple of artists over the weekend - Wil Brendel (The Redeemers) and Brett Wood (super-awesome project we're working on that is so super-awesome it's still secret but I can tell you that the name is The Silver Bullet). I am sure they will be happy to do sketches to go with the story for cheap, too.

I will also have a number of other fine Ronin Studios books for sale:

3rd System Preview
Adam Zero #1
Adam Zero #2
The Edge #1
Lightning Squirrel #1
Lightning Squirrel #2
Mayden #1
The Ministry #1
Razor Kid #1
Ronin Illustrated #1
Ronin Illustrated #2
Ronin Illustrated #3
Tales of Lucidity
The Venger #1
Wyliman #1
Wyliman #2

You can find out about many of these books at forums.ronin-studios.com.

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:18:47 GMT

Last week, WizardWorld.com ran a front page story about The Redeemers #0:

http://www.wizardworld.com/re0tastexatc.html

So, you know, that's pretty cool.

Chicago Comic-Con

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:54:45 GMT

I will be at this year's Chicago Comic-Con (formerly Wizard World Chicago, itself formerly Chicago Comic-Con) at the Ronin Studios table in Artists' Alley. I haven't gotten a space assignment yet, but when I do, I will post that information here. I will have four or five books for sale: Once Upon A Time issues #1, 2, and 3; The Redeemers #0 (a Chicago-Comic-Con exclusive); and possibly the Miss Mighty ashcan (it may not make the print date at this point). The Ronin Studios anthology Hope: The Hero Initiative (featuring THE LAST PERFECTOR STORY written by yours truly) may also be at the show. In addition to all that goodness I will be writing one-page stories for a dollar again all show long, so come by and get your very own exclusive Eric Rampson story written to your specifications. Hopefully there will be some artists stopping by the table on and off all weekend so you can get an accompanying sketch, too.

This is going to be a good year, I can feel it.

Thu, 28 May 2009 18:09:24 GMT

MISS MIGHTY
Written by Ann Crago and Eric Rampson
Art by J.C. Grande

Ashcan #1 available at Chicago Comi-Con 2009.

The Newness

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:37:02 GMT

The Redeemers
Written by Eric Rampson
Art and Letters by Wil Brendel

Ashcan #1 available at Chicago Comi-Con this year.

Welcome and all that jazz...

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:07:53 GMT

Just wanted to stop in after the whirlwind four days that was Wizard World Chicago to welcome any new people that stop by after meeting me at the Ronin Studios booth over the weekend. Thanks to everyone that made my $1 short story sketches such a blast to do and to all the people that helped me sell out of my first published comic ONCE UPON A TIME. I am hard at work lettering issue #2, so keep your eyes peeled for info here.

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD LIST OF STORIES I WROTE THIS PAST WEEKEND:
Post-Apocalyptic Unicorn
Fiery Muppets
Igor the Soviet Emo Robot
A Nazi and Zombie Musical Romantic Comedy
Everyday Steve
Dressy Daschunds
The Doctor and Rose (my first ever Dr. Who story)
Saul and his 'Tato Skins
Fairy Picnic and Soccer Day
Spidey and Spawn in the Bathroom

There were many, many more. If you have one that isn't on the list, please remind me by dropping a comment. I'm off back to work!

Sometimes we shouldn't follow our dreams...

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:00:26 GMT

Every armchair general has a theory about how the plague started. Most civilians have come to the consensus that the government had the military working on something – either a weapon to use against our enemies or a treatment to use on our own troops – and that something is what caused this whole mess. The military are on the same page, although they posit it was definitely a weapon and definitely sent by our “enemies”. They figure that the fact that the plague spread all over the world was just a matter of its creator’s overconfidence or ignorance, probably both. I’d expected the religious to see it as the wrath of the divine, judgment day…what have you. And some of them do subscribe to that line of thought. I was surprised by how many, from every and any faith, couldn’t care less about the cause, choosing to focus on the world’s recovery, both physical and spiritual. After all, wasn’t the fact that we were safe, that we were surviving, proof that this wasn’t the end?

Those civilians, those soldiers, those holy men and women – they are all gone now. The camp is gone. I haven’t seen another one in my long, hard trip across the country. I haven’t seen a single living soul in three months. I think only one thing has pushed me on, kept me moving, kept me alive. The truth. I think the world is beyond saving so now, for this old reporter, all I have left is trying to find the story. So here I am, in the suburban Chicago laboratory of a Mr. Allan Jesshoff. I have followed scraps of notes, half-remembered tales from the lips of dying men, and not a healthy bit of gut instinct to this still mostly intact structure. The lab itself is of little interest to me – I have no idea what half the devices do and making suppositions isn’t my job here, anyway. No, the lab, even with the still writhing zombie strapped to the examining table, its tattered lab coat still baring the logo of the lab, is of no interest to me now. But the small office-slash-apartment behind it is. A few hard kicks get the door open (it takes me a second to understand that I just kicked a door in and I stop for a second to soak in just how different I’ve become) and the first thing I notice are the posters on the wall. DAY OF THE DEAD. 28 DAYS LATER. I, ZOMBIE. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. The second thing I notice is the body, with one, precise hole through the head. The lab coat on this one not only identifies the lab but the also the wearer. I pull the door closed behind myself and push Mr. Jesshoff off the couch, onto the floor, as I sit down. There are several neatly stacked notebooks on the small coffee table. On top of the stack is a single sheet of loose leaf paper. It’s dated 01/16/2007. Below the date, in simple block capitals, it reads, “I DID IT!”

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:07:27 GMT

His arm shot out in front of him, brandishing a chunky silver cross. A smug smile played across his face as I faltered, cutting my charge short awkwardly, barely staying on my feet. I bent there, ten or so feet in front of him, putting my hands on my knees. I didn’t need to breathe, but most people didn’t realize that, so I heaved in and out, making a big show of catching my breath. I was glad to have a reason to stop looking at the stupid cross, to be honest. I heard him start to giggle.

“Keep it up, chuckles,” I thought to myself, “because I can feel the moon rising in my blood, and once it crests, that cross won’t do a thing to save your sorry ass.”

“Big, scary vampire. Ha! Look at you. Think you’re fooling me with the ‘let me catch my breath’ bit? You don’t need to breathe! You think I don’t know that? What a stupid sonuvabitch you are!” I didn’t look up as I heard his footsteps approaching, but I could feel that cross, like a red-hot anvil pressing on the back of my neck. I swear I could hear a faint sizzling. Just had to keep him talking for another minute or two, though.

“You got me,” I said, not lifting my head. I raised my hands off my knees, palms out, without standing. “Guess you know just about everything about me, huh?”

“Zachary Grist. Born 1834. Reborn 1859. Basic vampire bad-ass package – enhanced strength and speed, shapechanging limited to mist, bat, rat…”

“Don’t forget wolf,” I added helpfully as I felt it start to tingle under the blazing pressure of the cross on my neck. The hair started to rise.

“You think I’m afraid of you as a timber wolf? Please.” He kicked me playfully in the shin, like he was kicking the tires. “Basic vampire vulnerabilities – the Christian cross, garlic, running water, mirrors freak you out…”

“You sure you aren’t afraid of my turning into a wolf,” I asked, all concerned.

“Shit, no. I’m not scared of you period, Grist.”

I slowly stood up. I could feel it running through my dead veins, the power of the moon. My canines were 2 inches longer than their already considerable length, reaching down to my chin. I could feel the cross still burning it’s glory into my flesh, but the animal that was rising in me couldn’t care less. It wanted blood a by the gallons.

By the time I locked eyes with him, his face was a mask of terror. I could see my snout as it pushed out. I pulled back my lips into the best grin I could muster, showing off my mouthful of ragged, saw-blade teeth. “Full moon tonight,” I spat out, but I’m not sure it was intelligible. Didn’t care much, either, because than the beast took over. I dimly remember the sound of screaming before the hot, sweet blood poured down my throat in waves.