Get ready to be spooked! Some of you may have read Method Zombie, the short story spin off I wrote to the Hollywood Creatures series. Well, this fall it's going to be expanded into the Demon Daddies' Motorcycle Club series!
Read a teaser now:
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“Where the hell are you going?” Tonya, my roommate, questioned as I put the finishing touches on my zombie costume. And by finishing touches, I meant the last smears of cow brains on my shirt. In Hollywood, they had some amazing prop brains you could smear, but as a newbie in town who had yet to secure his first role (or his first job, for that matter), I couldn’t afford those. So cow brains from the Indian market it was.
Not sure what they used the brains for, but they looked awesome on my shirt, and as long as I washed them by the end of the day they probably wouldn’t stink too bad.
Besides, zombies are supposed to smell like rot, right?
“I have an audition,” I stated proudly, and Tonya’s eyebrows shot up. She was here in Hollywood for a similar reason I was—to become a star—though she was going for pop singer, not Academy Award winning actor. Or hell, at this point just a Geico commercial would make my day.
“That’s awesome, Tommy!” a huge grin spread across her beautiful face. We were both pretty beautiful, of course (it was a requirement in Hollywood), but Tonya simply blew my mind with her stunning features and curvaceous body. If I was straight, I’d totally be into that. Unfortunately for her, I preferred bodies of my own type, if you know what I mean. “What’s the role?” Her brow furrowed. “And why are you wearing a costume for an audition?”
I gave her a sheepish grin. “Well, it’s not so much a role. More like a service position. At a theme cafe and bar. Horror movies. The place is called Creature Feature.”
Her eyes lit up. “That’s so cool! And it totally counts as a role. After all, you’re acting, right?”
I brightened, giving an enthusiastic nod. “Yeah, I am! I think I can even put it on my acting resume.”
“You so can.” She grinned. “Break a leg, boy!”
* * *
I stared up at the cafe with an open mouth. Creature Feature was… well, it was awesome. It made the Hard Rock Cafe look like a joke. For real. Even from the outside, it was fantastic, with dozens of posters of 1920s horror movies and life-size marble statues of characters like Jason, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers.
Even my zombie costume wasn’t really going to stand out, not from the looks of some of the people entering. There were everything from fairies with brilliantly colored wings to vampires wearing clothing from a century ago. One man was even black from head to toe with vivid red eyes, and I don’t mean a hungover African American. No, this guy was pitch black, dark as night, with eyes the color of freshly spilt blood.
It was crazy! I loved it.
I walked in, noting that the majority of the couples inside fell under the LGBT spectrum in some way, which was cool. Most gay bars were over in Silver Lake, so I hadn’t even realized this was here.
It was already pretty packed, though it wasn’t even noon yet, but I supposed that was one of the upsides of being a bar and a cafe.
I glanced around, searching for some clue where I should take my resume, then just headed for the bar, where a strong, very hot man old enough to be my father—at least if he’d had me in late high school—with a scruffy beard that made my cock jump was scrubbing away at the counter.
Honestly, it wasn’t only the beard that did it for me. There was something about a strong, older man with touches of silver at his temples wearing a leather biker’s vest with no shirt that made me want to moan and shove my hand in my panties. Not that I wore panties. Not often, anyway.
And God, what a chest this daddy had. At least, I assumed he was some kind of leather daddy. Or possibly just a biker, but a biker who worked in an LGBT bar was good enough for me.
Though before I started planning the wedding, I should probably get through the audition/interview.
I shuffled my way up to the counter, giving an impressive, and slightly erotic, zombie moan (if I did say so myself). “Hello, are you the manager?”
“Technically?” The man snorted. “Technically Mick, the owner, is also the manager. But he’s skipped his lazy ass out of town and left me in charge. So I guess the answer is yes? At least for the rest of the week.”
I blinked. “Oh. So you weren’t the one who posted the job offer?”
“Actually, I was. You’re here for the interview?” He grinned, flashing a mouth full of pointed teeth.
My eyes widened. “Wow, your teeth are amazing!”
The man raised a silver eyebrow, looking at me strangely. “Um, thanks? I guess? They’re just demon’s teeth. Most demons have them. Or, in my case, half-demon.”
Oh, I got it. We were going for an in-character interview/audition/whatever. Like a Method Acting exercise, only the job depended on whether or not you could pull it off. Well, I would totally pull it off. I was a Method Actor through and through. I’d gotten 100% into the zombie headspace before showing up here. I knew all my character’s little quirks, his motivations, and even what gender of brains he preferred to munch on (men, totally).
I gave a casual shrug. “I’ve never actually met a demon before, to be honest. Are there are a lot of them in LA? I’m new to the zombie life.”
“Oh, recently dead, are you? I guess that explains the smell.” He made a face, waving his hand back in forth in front of his nose. “No offense, of course. I’ve heard it wears off fast. But in the meantime, maybe you should stop by Bath & Body Works for some bath salts or something?”
“Not a bad idea. Or it wouldn’t be if I wasn’t a broke zombie and the bath salts at Bath & Body Works didn’t cost a fortune.”
The man chuckled. “I like you, kid. You got a resume?”
I nodded, reaching into my crossbody bag and pulling out the folder containing my resume.
“I’m Tommy Landson, by the way.”
“The name’s Dave, but you can call me Tycoon. Everybody does,” he said as he inspected my resume, looking slightly amused by its sparse contents. At this point, I didn’t have much to brag about. My part as an extra in an indie film about Burmese pythons in space and the job I’d kept for two weeks at the gas station west of Compton were pretty much all I’d done since graduating from my high school in Oklahoma six months ago.
“Why Tycoon?” I asked then winked at him. “Are demons big entrepreneurs?”
He chuckled, and the tiny man seated down the bar with pink hair laughed, too.
Oh, and when I said tiny? I didn’t mean Little. No, if you saw this guy in a picture, you’d think he was an average person. But in reality? He couldn’t be more than three feet. His wings, though… his wings were as big as he was! And damn were they fabulous. They looked just like a butterfly’s, only they were a collection of brilliant pinks and purples and blues. He still managed to look tough, though, with the leather harness he had crossing his chest and the 1%er patch on his leather pants.
“Please. Coon can barely add two plus two,” the man said with a grin, and Tycoon tossed a handful of sugar packets his way.
“Fuck off, Buzzard. The name, it’s a biker thing.” He turned his back, showing off a massive patch reading ‘Demon Daddies MC’ with ‘Tycoon’ stitched above it. “Don’t listen to itty bitty over there, though. He’s a Fairyboy. He doesn’t know his dick from his lips.”
I glanced around, looking for any other signs of bikers, but most of the patrons looked like your average Joes. Well, if your average Joe had yellow eyes and claws, anyway. “Is this a biker bar?”
Tycoon grinned. “Nah, no worries, kid. I’m just helping out my buddy Mick while he’s away. And Buzzard over these was sent to spy on me.”
“Bullshit,” the little man snapped. “I’m here for the Virgin’s Brain Omelet with a side of Sizzled Worms.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Virgin’s Brain Omelet?”
Tycoon snickered. “Sorry, Tommy, no actual brains here. The menu’s just named after nasty-ass stuff. That omelet is eggs, bacon, and bell peppers with cheese on top, and the Sizzled Worms are plain old sausages.”
I made a disappointed face, keeping with my zombie character. “It’s so hard to find actual brains anywhere. I have to make a trip all the way to the Indian specialty groceries just to find cow brains.”
“It’s a tough life. But hey, come join us here and if any of the customers piss you off too much, you can always eat their grey matter.” He shrugged. “It’s one of the big upsides to being a paranormal, right? Who’s gonna stop you? At least as long as they’re not human, either, anyway.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Being a paranormal is pretty… great?” I was exactly sure what he meant by ‘paranormal’ but I figured it stood for anything that Dean and Sam Winchester would have gone after on Supernatural.
“Was it weird going from human to paranormal? It seems like a sudden change. I’ve always thought spirits like you must have it pretty tough.”
I blinked. “Well, I’m really a zombie, not a spirit, so…”
Tycoon gave me a weird look. “Zombies are a kind of spirit. You’re just trapped in your physical body as well.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
“Bro, I doubt they get a guide book that spells this shit out when they die,” Buzzard stated not-so-helpfully, and Tycoon threw another half a dozen sugar packets the ‘fairy’s’ way.
“Definitely no guide book,” I agreed. A wicked idea tickled my brain, and I turned a sultry smile on Tycoon. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tutor me?” I shrugged. “Maybe… privately?”
A slow smile stretched across the man’s face rugged face. “I think that could be arranged.”