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  I wish. Instead, I found myself scrambling to get out of his way. Scrambling and, sadly, slipping. Remember the rain? Anyway, I swore and clawed at the dirt, trying like hell to find my feet when two things happened simultaneously: El Diablo lowered his head...and lightening struck.

  Both at the exact same time.

  And that’s all I remembered.

  * * *

  I awoke days later at the Rustic City Hospital.

  I came to slowly, aware that, as usual, I was alone. Not even a friend sitting by my side to see if I would pull through. Well, I pulled through alright. Maybe too well.

  As I lay there in the intensive care unit, blinking and trying to assess just how bad the damage was, I came to one conclusion:

  I was doing very well indeed.

  Nothing seemed to be broken. In fact, nothing about me seemed injured in any way. According to the nurse on duty who swung by to check on me, I had been in a three-day coma with a massive head wound. Apparently, the bull had done its best to trample me into oblivion...except...

  Well, except the exact opposite happened.

  The bull had literally disappeared off the face of the earth.

  No shit.

  Well, I have an opinion about that. In fact, so do a lot of people. I’m kind of a celebrity these days. Go figure.

  Anyway, I’m fairly certain that the bull didn’t disappear off the face of the earth. No. Thanks to that freakish lightning strike, I’m fairly certain the bull and I became one.

  At least, if these horns and my now famous tail had anything to do with it.

  * * *

  Yes, I now sport a longish tail that actually ends in a fluffy little ball.

  Not as cute as it might seem. That fluffy little ball itches like hell and has a nasty habit of getting caught in stupid elevators and stupid sliding glass doors.

  Stupid, stupid bull.

  Anyway, it wasn’t long after my release from the hospital when the horns appeared. Within hours of being back at my apartment, the first bumps appeared above my temples. Another hour after that, two black, sharp horns tore through my skin to curve up and out, blossoming above my head like something out of the devil’s own garden.

  Yeah, I was freaked, man. Freaked.

  I studied myself in the mirror. Pale faced and sick to my stomach as I ran my hands up along the thick horns, tentatively touching their tips with my own fingertips.

  “This isn’t happening,” I said over and over (and sometimes still to this day).

  The horns were firmly attached to my skull, as if screwed in. As if they’d always been there. Worse, as if they would always be there.

  Stupid, freakish horns.

  And as I paced in my small apartment, as the freak rainstorm that had brought the even freakier lightning strike continued to pummel the good town of Rustic City, I felt something appear in my pants.

  No, not that something. Hell, I wish it had been that.

  No, this something appeared on other end. The rear end. Yes, I’m talking about the damn tail with the furry little ball. That damn furry ball that itches so damn much.

  There it was, curled in my boxers like a sleeping snake. Except it wasn’t a snake. And it was attached to me. Right there at the base of my spine.

  A tail.

  A goddamn tail.

  I had been so worried about the horns that I hadn’t noticed the appearance of the tail.

  Go figure.

  * * *

  No, I didn’t have many friends in those days. Truth is, I don’t have many friends now. In fact, I might even have more enemies than friends.

  It’s the way of superheroes.

  Anyway, with the appearance of the horns and tail, I called the only person I could think of: a fellow rodeo clown named Gerald. He and I had worked many years together. We weren’t actually friends, but we had shared a beer or two. Now, thirty minutes later and sporting a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon under one arm, Gerald, sans the clown make-up, appeared at my door.

  And nearly dropped the Pabst Blue Ribbon.

  Nearly. It would take a lot more than horns and a tail to make Gerald lose his grip on his beer.

  Instead, he cowboyed-up through the shock and was soon sitting across from me in the living room. My ass was still sore from the new tail and, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure exactly how to sit with it, so I stood and paced. Gerald kept drinking until the shock wore off.

  “Jesus,” he said again, for perhaps the tenth time.

  “Yup.”

  He motioned to my horns. “Those things real?”

  I lowered my head, gave him a good look.

  “They look real,” he said and drank a lot more beer. “You have anything to say about all of this?”

  “Damn strange,” I said.

  Gerald nodded. “Yup.”

  It went on like this for another ten minutes as he examined my tail, running his hands along it, getting dangerously close to my backside.

  “I don’t feel right looking too closely,” he said.

  “Jesus, it’s just a tail, Gerald,” I snapped.

  “Yeah, but it’s attached to your ass. Your shockingly hairy ass.”

  I shook my head and continued pacing, my tail whipping about the small apartment. Once or twice the furry end smacked Gerald in the head. He said “hey” but kept on drinking.

  “Well, it stands to reason...” Gerald finally said, after perhaps his eighth beer.

  “What stands to reason?” I asked.

  I had been pacing and panicking and wishing like hell I would wake up from whatever nightmare I was in the middle of. No such luck.

  “Well, the bull that was about to hit you done disappeared.”

  “What do you mean disappeared?” This, of course, was the first I’d heard of it.

  “Well, most people were scattering for cover and not too many saw what I saw.”

  “What did you see, Gerald?”

  He took another swig of beer. “Just when the lightning struck, I thought you were done for, Carl.”

  Truth was, so did I.

  Gerald went on. “But when the lightning struck something very strange happened. You ended up on the far side of the arena, and the bull...”

  “Yes?”

  “The bull was gone. And...”

  “And what?”

  He shook his head and looked away. “Nothing.”

  I roared. A great roar. So loud that my little apartment shook...and the popcorned ceiling actually popped. “Tell me!”

  Quaking with real fear, Gerald said, “Okay, okay. Just relax Carl. Well, there was something else.”

  “What, goddammit?”

  “It wasn’t really lightning that came down from the heavens.”

  I blinked. “Then what was it?”

  “Well, it was a kind of lightning, I suppose. But it was mostly in the shape of, well, a man. A giant, lightning-shaped man. Then again, I might have been drunk at the time. In fact, I’m sure I was drunk.”

  I thought about that as Gerald drank the rest of the case of beer. I thought about that even more as Gerald slept it off. I thought about all of it and more as I paced my small apartment, occasionally slapping the snoozing Gerald in the face and knocking over every goddamn lamp in the joint.

  * * *

  I spent that night in agony.

  While Gerald slept off the Pabst, my body literally—and I mean literally—morphed into something bigger...and greater than it was before.

  Perhaps even greater than anyone had been before, ever.

  Why this happened to me, I don’t know. What exactly had happened to me, I still don’t know. No one knows, either. I’ve had some of the finest scientific minds study me. Hell, one mad scientist even put me in lockdown, determined to replicate me into an army of me’s. Except, of course, I had broken out and destroyed his island fortress. But that was a story for another time.

  Anyway, the following morning, I had gone through a complete—and painful—metamorphosis. Yes, the ho
rns and tail had been weird enough, but by the time old Gerald awoke from his beer-induced slumber, he might have thought he had awoken to his nightmare.

  Nope, pal. This one is all mine.

  For standing before him, naked if not for the stiff fur that now covered my body from head to toe, still breathing heavily and sweating from the growing pains of the previous night, was the creature—and some even go as far as to call me superhero—that is now known as The Bull.

  Me. Carl the part-time rodeo clown.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Gerald, and I never saw him again, although he went on to write a book about our friendship. Fiction, mostly. I should sue his ass.

  To say that my life changed radically from that moment on is an understatement. I couldn’t go very far without having people either follow me or run in fear. Didn’t take the press long to figure out that the mother of all freaks was living in Rustic City. Hell, TMZ has staked out a permanent spot in the parking lot just opposite my apartment.

  Yes, the press coverage alone was dizzying. And as my publicity soared, and as the medical establishment did their damn best to come to grips with what had happened to me, two things became evident:

  One, was that the world actually needed me. It seems that almost overnight my services were needed. From saving whole families in fires (my thick bullish hide is impervious to flames, go figure), to stopping bank robberies (for some reason, the number of bank robberies seemed to shoot up in Rustic City).

  Two, with my own strange transformation, there also appeared another type of monster. One that many would call evil geniuses. Or, worse, homicidal madmen bent on literally destroying the world. Some have speculated that the Universe needed an answer to the influx of coming evil. A sort of superhero yin to the evil yang. Apparently, I was the yin.

  Why a bull, I don’t know. Hell, I could think of countless other animals that might have been more useful. But I am what I am.

  What can I say?

  I am The Bull, with my great strength and quick temper. Don’t get me started on seeing the color red. The Bull, with my razor-sharp horns that can literally tear through anything. The Bull, with my tail that I’ve mastered as a useful whip. The Bull, with my thick hide that protects me from bullets and knives and everything else in-between. No, I can’t fly, but I can charge quickly.

  Comics have been made of me, and even movies. I have a Facebook page that numbers in the hundreds of millions of fans. Even more than Vin Diesel.

  Go figure.

  Many laugh at me, some admire, most fear me.

  I would fear me, too. A giant of a man. Half man, half animal. A freak of nature. There was nowhere for me to hide, and so I didn’t bother hiding. In fact, I never bothered moving. I liked my one-bedroom apartment. I liked my Pabst Blue Ribbon even more. It just takes a hell of a lot more of the stuff to get me drunk.

  No, I don’t have a Bat Signal, but I do have Skype.

  You can Skype me, too. I’m always ready to help. Just let me finish my beer first.

  I am The Bull.

  Go figure.

  The End

  Return to the Table of Contents

  The Prophetic Heart

  Adam Carr has a problem.

  It’s his heart. He’s sure of it. Except, of course, his doctors can’t find anything wrong with him or his heart.

  Nothing at all.

  This troubles Adam, as he’s certain the problem is getting progressively worse. In fact, as he leaves his cardiologist’s office now, stepping out into the blazing hot Corona sunshine, Adam is certain that someone is playing a very sick joke on him. Perhaps even God.

  As he stands there, as his body adjusts from the air conditioned comfort of the specialist’s office to the extreme heat of this outpost southern California city, Adam finds thinking difficult.

  After all, it’s damn hard to concentrate when he could hear his own heart pounding in his ears.

  He takes in a lot of air and lifts his face to the sun and listens to his heart beating so loudly that he’s certain anyone within twenty feet can hear it.

  Except, of course, no one can hear it.

  Only him.

  And it is totally freaking him out.

  Thump, thump, thump...

  And so it goes.

  He’s had three experts check him out, and subsequently three experts tell him there’s nothing wrong with him. Nothing at all. This last expert even went so far as to suggest that Adam go see a psychologist.

  “It’s in your head, I think,” said the doctor looking down at a clipboard.

  “No, it’s in my chest, doc. I can hear it. Pounding loudly.”

  “Your heart is beating normal, Mr. Carr. I’m sorry, there’s just nothing I can do for you. You are, in fact, in perfect health.”

  And so it goes.

  Now Adam finds himself standing in the heat and the sunlight, listening to his heart, and knowing without a doubt that he’s very much not in perfect health.

  Something is wrong. Very wrong.

  Adam first noticed the louder-than-normal beating two weeks ago. He’d been lying in bed with his girlfriend. They’d had a particularly vigorous lovemaking session and he’d been out of breath, reveling in his manliness. His heart, as one would expect, had been hammering away in his chest. Loud and persistent. Hell, he could feel it rocking his entire body. At the time, Adam had grinned. After all, his hammering heart was evidence of a job well done.

  And so he had lain back, smiling.

  That should have been the end of it. Except for one problem...his heart continued thudding in his chest.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Louder and louder.

  “What the hell?” He’d sat up and asked his sleeping girlfriend if she could hear his heart and she rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Now nervous, Adam had gotten out of bed and paced the small bedroom, listening. Yes, his heart was as loud as ever. He was sure of it. He felt his chest. His heart didn’t seem to be beating any faster. He counted the beats per minute and did a quick internet search for average heart rates. His heart rate was average. Sixty beats per minutes. Nothing to worry about, right?

  Then why was his pounding so damn loud in his ears?

  Why indeed?

  He didn’t know, and now two weeks later, neither did his doctors. Yes, Adam was officially worried. Who wouldn’t be?

  A psychologist, Dr. Mann had suggested.

  Hell, maybe he was going crazy.

  Adam Carr didn’t know, but one thing was for certain, he was burning up out here in the sun.

  He heads to his car and gets in even as his heart begins to pound even louder.

  Louder and louder.

  * * *

  Traffic is heavy.

  Worse, drivers seem to be driving particularly crazy this afternoon. Adam wonders if the crazy driving is a result of a full moon or something—but then wonders if full moon excuses count during the middle of the day. After all, it was night somewhere in the world, wasn’t it? He doesn’t know much about astronomy. And, really, he doesn’t much care.

  No, all he cares is about is getting to the bottom of his beating heart.

  Or rather, his unusually loud beating heart.

  “I mean,” he says to his empty Toyota Prius, “what the hell is that all about?”

  He doesn’t know but, as he’s taken to doing these past few weeks, he drives with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his chest.

  Adam knows he probably shouldn’t be driving. He’s too distracted. Too weirded out. After all, what the hell was wrong with him?

  “And how does no one else hear it?” he asks the empty car. His heartbeat is so loud, so thumping loud. Thumping in his ears, his chest, throughout his whole goddamn body.

  Jesus.

  Adam is, admittedly, scared.

  That something is wrong, he has no doubt. Whether in his head or body, he doesn’t know. Either way, something is very, very wrong.

  To make matter
s worse, the beating, he’s certain, is getting louder. This morning it had literally woken him up from a fitful sleep. Pounding in his chest. Seemingly up through the bed itself. The walls themselves. The earth itself.

  Jesus...

  The past two weeks Adam has known only incessant pounding. It’s driving him crazy. Literally.

  “Sweet Jesus help me,” he says, rubbing his chest as he stops at a red light.

  Yes, today has been different. Today the sound seems to have actually gotten louder. And it only seemed to be getting louder and louder.

  Adam shuts his eyes and rubs his temples and is not surprised that a tear squeezes out of his tightly shut eyes.

  The beating is so loud, so frustratingly loud. Frustrating because no one else can hear it.

  Next, he runs his fingers through his unkempt hair. He knows he looks like a mess. He doesn’t care. Hell, he doesn’t care about anything anymore—not until someone can figure out what the devil is wrong with him.

  As he goes back to staring at the light, waiting for it to turn green, Adam is certain that his heart is going to explode in his chest.

  The sound consumes him totally. He could have been on a construction site, with a jackhammer nearby. But he isn’t. No, he’s sitting in his little car, scared shitless, knowing without a doubt that he was going crazy.

  Or that he was going to die.

  More tears appear, and as he looks up to see himself in the mirror, he sees something else there, too.

  He sees a big rig truck bearing down on him from behind.

  Adam stares in the mirror as his pounding heart fills the car, fills the air, fills everything.

  Mercifully, the last sound Adam Carr hears is not the sound of his own beating heart, but the sound of metal crashing into metal.

  The End

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Vampire Dawn: Outtake

  Author’s Note: Vampire Dawn (Vampire for Hire #6) was a tough book for me to finish. I wrote, I believe, six different endings before settling on one. But one of them has always haunted me. I liked it. Except, sadly, I couldn’t make it work. I liked the set-up: Sam saving her kidnapped sister. Except, of course, I never had her sister kidnapped...or even involved in the storyline. So, to make it work, I would have had to go back and layer her sister more thoroughly throughout the story. I wasn’t sure that would work. Plus, I didn’t really like the idea of using her sister as a plot ploy. So, the idea got scrapped, and the scene cut...until now. Please note, this alternate ending was never quite finished, but I think you might still enjoy it. —J.R.