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Revamp by Beck Sherman

Three days of darkness, then all hell breaks loose.

My name is Emma Spade and this is my story.

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Finals were a killer, but now I was off to Los Angeles to check out graduate schools. All I had to do was turn in my term paper, and I was running late. I tore over to Professor Winnie’s office. When I went in, I was shocked. He looked half dead. I asked if he was okay and he asked me if they’d come. I asked him who?  “Them”, he said. “Death.”

I awoke from the nightmare and was afraid to open my eyes. I could feel something was wrong and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what. I knew it to be true before I saw it – I was alone on the plane. I realized we had landed, but why didn’t anyone wake me?

Everyone knows LAX is one of the busiest airports in the world – so, where was everyone? Luggage was left sitting everywhere I looked, with clothes spilling out. It looked like the bags had walked in by themselves and started to unpack.  Was it terrorists?

I heard a ringing phone and ran to answer it. There had to be a person on the other end of the line. It quit, right as I got there. How many times has that happened to you? How can the quiet be so loud?

I had so many questions running through my mind, as I tried to make sense of what was happening, or should I say, not happening, around me. When things are bad, of course there is no cell service, but I was able to call my boyfriend, Sullivan, from a pay phone. He hadn’t seen any TV, but had heard nothing about anything going on in LA.

I heard the approach of heavy footsteps and hung up the phone. Five men came up to me. I was six feet tall and still had to look up at them. The leader, I named him Burns, asked me if I was traveling alone. I told him yes and was led to a room that looked more like a jail cell.

Burns introduced the man sitting at the table as Mr. Meyers. He began asking me questions. He told me because he liked me (yeah, right, he didn’t even know me) he was going to tell me the truth – it was bio-terrorism. Of course, I knew it was a  lie. I didn’t know what the truth was, so I lied right back. I lied about everything.

Before I knew it, he pulled out a gun and shot me with a dart. He pulled on a pair of gloves, smacked me around, grabbed my hair and drug me into a room with an exam table. There was blood all over everything. He came at me again. I grabbed his balls, squeezing as hard as I could, and gouged at his eyes until they popped out of his head. Blood and gore was oozing down his face and over my hands. I tipped over the table and grabbed the biggest scalpel I could find. But he didn’t move.

Even though I couldn’t walk, my legs were useless, I was able to crawl out the window and fall into the parking garage. But now what? I couldn’t walk, couldn’t use my legs at all.

I awoke in the morning, after hiding out in a car all night, and I was able to walk. I snuck out of the parking garage and found a cab with the keys in it. I began driving down the empty road, there were only crows in sight. I ran out of gas at LaBrea and Venice, but this was my first trip to LA, so I still didn’t know where I was.

I entered the house, hoping to wash off the blood and guts that were covering me. Maybe even find some help. I heard something in the closet. The question was, should I jerk it open or do it slow?

It was a dog. I  was afraid to move, afraid it might rip my throat out. Instead, it licked my face. I could see it was starving, its ribs showing. I named him Schizo.  I stepped on and broke what looked like a handmade cross, Schizo grabbed it and ran for the door. He was telling me it was time to go. Schizo was acting like Cujo – it was a good thing I listened to him. Little did I know, he had saved my life.

I ran into Cooper and I didn’t know whether to be glad or not, but Schizo seemed to like him. So that had to be good, right? We spent the night in a church and in the morning headed out to find others “like us”.

I told him I had to call my mom, he said that they were all dead and I’d better to get  used to it. I had no idea why he said it, but would soon find out.

Cooper Knox: He was at home, because his father had leukemia and he had decided not not go to med school. He needed to keep the business running to be able to afford the treatment his father needed.

Rojas was picking him up and taking him to work while his car was in the shop. On the way he noticed traffic was much lighter than usual.They had heard on the radio that there was a flu epidemic. But Rojas said that his Grandma was pretty sure it was the end of the world, because the blackout had let the darkness in.

They got out of the car at the work-site, there were a lot of crows flying overhead. It creeped them out. It began to rain, so they decided to call it a day and headed home. He arrived and walked into a nightmare he never could have imagined. He grabbed his girlfriend Mel and ran out of the house. A van pulled up and the people inside told us to get in. After some hesitation we did. It didn’t seem like we really had much of a choice. They found out Mel had been bitten and before he could do anything, they opened the door and kicked her out.

After I met Scott, he told me to forget everything I knew – because it was all wrong. As he told me about the UVF, and himself, we headed to the “base”.

Scott had been recruited in the CIA and  moved to LA where he met his wife, Mary. When the blackout came, he had to tell Mary their son was taken because of him. Scott had been an assassin, but was promoted to handler and his boss, Mr. Frank proceeded to tell him about his father and Project Sunset. It was the Company’s best kept secret.

We had arrived at Sleepy Storage, our new home.

Ever since I got here, I thought to expect the worse. I had no idea how bad it was going to get.

    5 STARS – Would Buy It For Them (lol)

It really surprised me that I could rate a vampire book so high but I just can’t say enough about it.

Both covers are eye-catching. Colorful and simple. The title was short and catchy. I like things that are simple, yet relate to the story.

The writing was outstanding and the details extensive. I haven’t read anything like this before. It was very novel and unique to me. I couldn’t quit reading. It was hard to stay awake, but I just had to know what would happen to Emma. The last quarter of the book just flew by for me.

It was war, but not like any war every fought before. I really had no idea where the book was going. The whole thing was a great surprise.

How could you wrap your head around it, if it was happening to you? What would be going through your mind? Your mind would struggle to make sense of the insensible.

The characters were well defined. Their personalities, feelings and emotion were well developed making me able to feel for them and care about them. I wanted good things to happen for them, but then I would think – hey, wait a minute, you can’t do that.

I laughed when she talked about the stuff in her luggage getting frisky and producing offspring.

The end was…………….well, you’re going to have to read it for yourself, but it will leave you saying, WHAT? It sure did me.

Beck Sherman gave me this book because Laura (at fuonlyknew) and I approached her about doing a tag-team and working together to promote her book. We both like it so much, we wanted to share it with as many others as we could reach.

    Giveaway:   Beck Sherman has been gracious enough to offer up 3 ebooks for this giveaway. It is International and, as always, easy to enter. Ends September 30,2012.

Just, leave a comment with your email address.

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About the Author

Beck Sherman was born and raised in Massachusetts. Beck attended Syracuse University undergrad, has a master’s degree in photojournalism from the University of Westminster, London, and when not writing, enjoys exploring abandoned insane asylums and photo-documenting the things that go bump in the night, when they’re kind enough to pose.

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