Thank you for having me, Gwen. It's not often The
Author lets me out to play, so I'm
making the most of the opportunity by
telling you how I really feel about
being cast as a vampire.
When I appeared as a vampire in Luna Black, I was thrilled to
finally get a placement in a short story.
Until then, I'd lived in the recesses
of The Author's Imagination. It was a
scary, scary place. Imagine a massive
cauldron full of unused ideas, characters,
and plot lines, all swirling and
mingling like a mini-tornado. A frightening
place. I still get flashbacks.
I loved playing Victory Dead. However,
while I loved my
role, I expected to get another story
placement not long after. I had big
dreams - zombie, ghost, demon. Only it
didn't happen. Unlike the movie world,
once you're assigned a role in the literary
world that's the only one you get. Forever. So
I did what
every character of note does, I pestered
The Author. I took every opportunity
to remind The Author I needed another
story. I mastered the art of subliminal
messages. Someone mentioned vampires?
VICTORY DEAD! Someone mentioned how much
he or she loved Luna Black? VICTORY DEAD!
Someone mentioned blood? VICTORY
DEAD!
After a few months of solid pestering, I
finally got what I
wanted. Victory Dead was back. Not only
that, I was the lead character in a
dark science fiction story. Could I have
wanted anything more? Well. Yes. I'll
always want more - it's the first rule of
being a character.
If you want to know where I ended up in the
second story,
and why I've convinced The Author I'm now
worthy of my own series of books,
read Taking
Time. Here's an excerpt to tempt your taste buds:
The human female McCaffrey sent was not as
young, tall, or
lithe as McCaffrey, but I wasn’t interested
in her in a way any normal
human would be–she was my meal.
After meeting her at Kingley’s
cargo hold and showing her the food and
water, the redheaded female followed me
into the room I used to store my limited
possessions. She glanced at my unused
bed and stepped back, so I took hold of one
of her hands and pulled her close.
“Ignore the bed. It’s not what you’re here
for.”
She let out a long breath and sighed
with relief.
“What’s your name?” I asked,
hypnotising her with my stare.
“Taya.”
“It will be quick and painless,
Taya. I promise.”
The remaining moral fibres of my
being fought what I was about to do with
all their worth. It had been decades
since I’d last fed this way. When my time
on Revelation was up, I prayed I
could once again resist the
elixir.
I placed a hand behind Taya’s
head and waited for her breathing to slow.
When she’d reached an almost
trance-like state, her eyes taking on a
glazed sheen, I ran my right hand down
the side of her neck. She moaned as I sank
my teeth into her warm flesh, and I
pushed her face into my shoulder to
suffocate any pleas for help. Her body
squirmed under my clasp as I sucked the
blood from her veins, and I felt the
ecstasy of her life flowing through me. I
didn’t want to stop, but I had to.
After I’d taken only enough to
revitalise me, struggling with the desire
to take more, I let her wilt beneath
me and gently lowered her onto the bed. I
placed my fingers on her left wrist
and checked for a pulse. It was weak but
there was one. I hadn’t killed her.
Taking Time and Other Science
Fiction Stories
Science fiction
stories of time and space...
The future of humanity must be decided in Next
Phase. Winning the Planetary Lottery is not
as lucky as it first seems in
Schrodinger's Gamble. An apocalypse and its
aftermath threaten to tear one
couple apart in Daiker's Children. In Life
As I Know It a reclusive man finds
both his heart and home invaded during an
alien harvest. In Taking Time, a
vampire seeking shelter on a distant planet
finds himself facing a very
different kind of demon, after answering a
frontier settlement's plea for help.
Stories range from flash fiction to novelette in
length.
Book
Links
Amazon / Amazon.co.uk / Facebook / Goodreads
The
Author
Ellie Garratt is a science
fiction and horror writer. She is
a reader, writer, blogger, Trekkie, and
would happily die to be an extra in The
Walking Dead. Her short stories have been
published in anthologies and online.
Passing Time: Nine Short Tales of the
Strange and Macabre and Taking Time and
Other Science Fiction Stories are now
available on Kindle.
In early 2014, she will be launching a series of
dark science fiction novellas called The
Dead Chronicles.
