Hey there! There’s a new book coming your way in just a few days… WALLY EYE CORPSE CLUB! This is the first book in my new Adult/Urban Fantasy series.
“WECC is the story of a 69-year-old man, Wally Peters, who used to run a successful bar in The French Quarter of New Orleans. After stabbing a young thug who broke into his establishment one night, Wally’s life changed dramatically. The would-be thief died and was miraculously resurrected a short time later right in front of Wally’s eyes. For reasons only he knows, Wally decided to foster and hide the young corpse. Jump to a few years later, Wally has closed the bar that now, after a number of unfortunate incidents, houses 13 corpses. His adult kids, Parker and Saren Mae, his favorite bartender, Baer Don, and the daughter of a friend, the punked-out Moody Puddles, help Wally shield the world from the potential would-be zombie apocalypse by…basically… babysitting the corpses. What they don’t know is their lives are about to get complicated. Events were set in motion and they are literally sitting on top of a powder keg that will rock all their worlds and thrust them into a supernatural storm. Things are about to get weirder in The French Quarter.”
I wanted to give y’all a little preview of Book One, so here is the first chapter. I started writing this book when I first moved to New Orleans, the place I now proudly call home. It’s such a bizarre world as is and the setting and the characters all inspired Wally. It’s almost a true story!
Enjoy Chapter One of Wally Eye Corpse Club.
1. THE 13TH MEMBER OF THE CLUB (Wednesday Night - October 22 – Bourbon Street)
It was nothing out of the ordinary. For the most part people just thought it was part of the show one would expect to receive when stumbling down Bourbon Street on any given night of the week. Amidst all of the frozen statue street performers, the gang of kids beating on buckets, the magicians, the palm readers, the inappropriately dressed older woman, dancing with her lit up, loud bicycle… a knight in a full suit of armor did not stand out or present itself as anything out of place. If anything, people might try to hand a dollar to it as it passed them by, appreciating the costume commitment.
Animating the suit was Saren Mae Peters, an average sized thirty-one-year-old with a black pixie cut and a dislike of most humans, dead or alive. She raced down the crowded street, her desperate eyes searching, the metal pieces clanging together. She knew exactly where the fiend was heading. He always ran the same way.
Why, she thought, did she have to be on duty tonight? Why would she ever be left on duty with Gris (whose name was actually pronounced “Gree” not “Gris”), the most worthless of all employees? Why? Why? Why God?
Oh! There he was! Foster! She spotted him.
Bouncing around in the crowd, as if drunken dancing to all the various mix of songs blasting from the bars, Foster worked his way toward his favorite haunt, a lumbering, clumsy mess of rotting flesh. Down the street he swayed and stumbled. Saren Mae could see his destination, a good piece up ahead, barely within eyeshot. Foster always, ALWAYS ran to the “close to illegal” (that’s what Saren Mae called it) strip club. For whatever reason he was drawn to this place. Saren Mae thought how he must love fresh, young, stripper meat. The thought made her sick to her stomach.
“Foster! Foster! You better stop!” She called out, lifting the face mask momentarily. It was a worthless attempt. The night was far too loud for her voice to break through. The lid snapped back down.
The dead man continued shouldering his way through the tourists. He really did just look like one of the drunks, Saren Mae thought to herself. He fits in nicely here. Maybe I should just leave him. She wondered if he’d still be welcomed at the street party after taking his first bite out of someone. She thought he probably wouldn’t.
“Stupid Gris!” She said to herself, her voice echoing in the metal hat. “And Dad, I’m mad at you now. I really am! You and your goodness and kindness and stupidity… your all life matters philosophy! These guys should be laid down… permanently laid down… buried! This is ridiculous!”
On and on she went, talking to herself as she pursued Foster. She watched him closely, trying to catch up to him as quickly as she could. Her gait was off and her steps a bit labored. Standing around in a suit of armor was one thing, racing through the street in it, completely different.
It was a consolation that Foster had gotten his jaw wired shut after the last time he snuck out of the bar. It was an experimental, new method her brother had suggested. It had worked in this case. Otherwise the pervert zombie would have already left a trail of victims she would have had to round up. As it was, he was working tirelessly, attempting to force open his disgusting mouth. She saw the muscles in his neck tense repeatedly, and his pale face even got some dark crimson color in it from the effort of it.
She thought way back to what Baer had said to her after her father had somehow successfully convinced him this whole thing was a good idea. He had turned to her, pleading a case for her to get involved…
“Everybody is holding their breath out there, waiting for the big zombie apocalypse that’s coming. The world is moving too damn fast and too damn rambunctiously for it not to happen. There’s a glitch in the matrix. Wally’s got the right idea. Right here, surrounding us, is the goddamn zombie apocalypse… the start to it anyway… This is it! And we have the power to keep it quiet. It’ll never, ever happen, as long as we keep it from happening. Right here in this room… the beginning of the end, but with our help… the end of the beginning.”
Thinking back, that speech had hurt her head. First of all, Baer, who was the new, big deal, god of a bartender back when her dad had a bar, had never spoken near that much to her. He always seemed too busy acting like Tom Cruise in Cocktail… slick as shit and annoying as a burning piss.
Also, the argument was ridiculous. You don’t keep a house full of walking corpses, you kill them. That’s how you stop the “goddamn zombie apocalypse”. But… that was where Wally came in. He wouldn’t kill anything, as long as it could move. If something could walk or crawl or sit up, he considered it to have value and he wouldn’t dare end it. When did her dad get so sentimental? He used to be so… not that way… opposite in fact.
For some reason, Saren Mae had agreed to be a part of this. Most likely it was her love for her father. She didn’t know. Here she was now, out here on the street, in the middle of the Quarter chasing a mobile corpse. How ridiculous, she thought. How had her life come to this?
Foster had reached the strip club. He was standing just beyond it in the street. He must have been caught up in the excitement of the moment because his mouth suddenly flew open wide. The wiring didn’t hold and Foster screamed out an animalistic sound that should have been a warning to all around. His jaw was free and he was ready to eat.
Saren Mae panicked and picked up her pace, determined to tackle Foster to the ground before he reached his destination. Fortunately for her, the crowd was thick and the space just in front of the club was congested. Unfortunately for the crowd, Foster was headstrong.
Hopelessly watching as he grabbed ahold of a random vagrant drunk, she raced toward him. He bit deeply into the man’s shoulder, pulling a chunk off before he threw him carelessly to the ground. Oddly enough, no one around seemed to even notice. The party continued on as if nothing had happened.
Gotta love Bourbon Street, Saren Mae thought, and then… Seriously, why am I left working with Gris? No back up? No nothing? This is ridiculous! She continued her overlapping, confusing inner dialogue.
Foster barreled his way toward the entrance, undeterred by anyone else. He reached the sidewalk just in front of the “gentlemen’s club”. He reached out toward the man at the door, but never touched him or any of the sweet, showy girls with bad childhoods.
From down the street came Saren Mae’s brother, Parker, hurling himself like a superhero through the crowd. He tackled Foster to the ground while simultaneously clasping some type of homemade clamp on the monster’s mouth. He lifted Foster from the sidewalk, grabbing him by his waist, and carried him toward Saren Mae. She quickly clanked over to him.
“Thanks, Parker,” she breathed, lifting her face mask to look him in the eyes. “I was hoping you’d get the message. Thanks so much.”
“Yeah… Really… Anytime… Whatever…” He rolled his eyes and handed her the package. She plunged a needle into Foster’s neck and he fell limp. “Is it just you and Gris tonight? Cause… that’s a bunch of bullshit. You should never be left with him.”
“Well, you won’t commit,” she said to him as she knelt down to pick up the body, flopping him over her shoulder. “What else do you got to do? What were you doing tonight?” She noticed a smear of red on her brother’s face, as if he’d been chugging cool aid or had kissed a whore. “Really,” she wiped his face, “what were you doing?”
Parker ignored the question, and watched his sister pick up Foster. “You got that?” He questioned, knowing full well she was much stronger than she looked. Not waiting for a reply, he asked, “any collateral damage?”
“Right there,” she said, pointing to the drunk wallowing around in the middle of the street, “that fine specimen.”
Parker searched. “Ahh… yes… I got him,” he announced. He turned toward the crowd, a few of whom were actually kneeling down to help the man. “I’m a doctor!” He announced loudly. “A really terrific doctor!”
Saren Mae rolled her eyes. She supposed he could be a doctor but she probably wouldn’t trust him with any serious illness. He was a little too self-centered, she thought. But then again, he was pretty loyal… and he was pretty much always on call…
“Let me through! Let me through! This is a serious situation we got here!” He pushed his way through and cleared the unobservant crowd, picked the man up like a baby, and came back to his sister. “Shall we?”
“We shall…” Saren Mae, unenthusiastically replied, as the face of her helmet slammed shut. “This is ridiculous…” She muttered.
“I’m trying to tell y’all,” Parker casually agreed.