Eerie
by C.M. McCoy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Mature YA Paranormal Romance
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BLURB:
As seen in People Magazine…
Hailey's dreams have
always been, well...vivid. As in monsters from her nightmares follow her into
her waking life vivid. When her big sister goes missing, eighteen-year-old
Hailey finds the only thing keeping her safe from a murderous 3,000-year-old
beast is an equally terrifying creature who has fallen "madly" in
love with her. Competing to win her affection, the Dream Creature, Asher, lures
her to the one place that offers safety--a ParaScience university in Alaska he
calls home. There, she studies the science of the supernatural and must learn
to live with a roommate from Hell, survive her ParaScience classes, and hope
the only creature who can save her from an evil immortal doesn't decide to kill
her himself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
A Guarded Girl
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the
most fatal to true happiness.”
Bertrand Russell
Hailey stared at the empty can on her tray, silently willing
the caffeine to kick in. The last thing she needed was to fall asleep, dream of
monsters, and have an “episode” in front of her 200 closest non-friends.
No way she’d let that happen.
Now if only her droopy eyelids would cooperate, because the
hard plastic chair under her butt sure wasn’t. The dang thing was teasing her
and feeling mighty comfy, like a puffy armchair, and she was sinking fast.
Thankfully, though, just as her head bobbed, the bell rang, jolting her into a
wide-eyed, full-body spasm.
Great. Real smooth, she thought, rubbing her face with both
hands as a few gigglers shuffled past.
She groaned, rising with all the enthusiasm of a mushroom, not
at all looking forward to another two hours inside the social torture chamber,
or as everyone else referred to it, South Side High School.
She was so intent on avoiding the students there for the
rest of her senior year that she rarely looked up from her books anymore, and
those last two hours dragged. When three o’clock finally rolled around, she
bolted outside, took the first open seat on the bus, rested her head against
the window, and let it bounce there. She was just about to make it through another
day of school very happily unnoticed, when Tage Adams smacked her on the back
of the head.
“Ah!” she yelled, startled from sleep.
The bus was waiting at their stop, like normal, and Tage was
waiting for her in the aisle, politely—not normal.
Tucking a wayward strand behind her ear, she hurried off the
bus.
Tage followed.
“What’s up with you today?” he said nonchalantly, adjusting
his pace to walk next to her.
He’d never done that before.
“Nothing,” Hailey said, surprised Tage was talking to her.
They’d been catching the bus at the same stop for four years, and he’d never so
much as looked at her.
“You’re usually not like that, that’s all.”
“Like what?”
“Nodding off in class, falling asleep on the bus…you know,
slacking off. It’s just, you know, you usually have your nose in a book.”
He watches me?
“Oh,” she said, unsure.
“Guess you were working late last night…St. Paddy’s Day…”
“Yeah.” Of course she was working late. Her family owned the
most popular Irish pub in Pittsburgh. Hailey pressed her lips together. Small
talk was not her thing. Especially not with him.
Her mind went blank.
Searching the pavement for a thought, she chewed her lip as
too many seconds stretched the silence. Finally the pressure forced her good
sense aside and she opened her mouth to say…anything.
“What’s—”
“Well, see ya ‘round, Dancing Queen.”
She snapped her mouth shut and waved as he peeled off and
trotted down Bridge Street. She tried to form the word, “bye,” but all that
came out was “buh—”. Standing dumbfounded, she stared after him. She hadn’t
realized Tage knew she existed, let alone the fact that she waitressed. And
danced.
Stunned, Hailey walked, then jogged, then stopped dead to
puzzle over what had just happened. Then she jogged again until she finally
reached the pub.
Nobody at that school “chatted” with Hailey. Not since the
fourth grade, not since the day a particularly mean girl concocted a
particularly ugly rumor—that Hailey had started the fire that killed her
parents. The whispers and sideways glances lasted close to a year, and in
trying to defend herself, Hailey only made things worse. By the time she
figured out that nobody else believed in pyromaniac-nightmare-monsters, it was
too late. She’d already earned the label, “weirdo,” which, unfortunately,
stuck.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
C.M. McCoy is an
Irish dancer and former Air Force officer living in the Great White North.
Though B.S.'d in Chemical Engineering and German, she’s far happier writing
stories involving Alaska and a body bag (with an awkward kiss in the mix.)
While working emergency dispatch for Alaska State Troopers, she learned to
speak in 10-codes, which she still does...but only to annoy her family.
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