MATTIE was a story that came to me after I watched several old vampire movies. A young actor caught my attention. I don’t recall the names of the movies. They weren’t blockbusters. But I remember a few scenes. And I wondered if a vampire could be helpful and brutal. It would just depend on the situation. Well, that was Mattie. Kind of. Here is the beginning of my novel MATTIE! Enjoy!
PROLOGUE
A LATE-NIGHT VISIT
ONE
DARREN COFFEN, SEVENTY, SAT up in bed and looked to the right out his window. He slung his feet from under the covers and slid them into his boots on the floor by the bed. He reached into the corner and grabbed his coat and shotgun. He heard his chickens clucking outside. The cows and horses were running or pounding the dirt with their hooves. There was a lot of commotion near the barn and in the fields. The animals were anxious about something.
He hurried to the back door to get outside and catch the culprits. This was not the first time whoever or whatever had trespassed onto his property. He was going down the hall and thought of Denice. She was seventy-one, his wife. He forgot to wake her. She was going to be angry.
Denice rarely heard him when he got out of bed. She wore a sleep mask and earplugs when she slept. The crickets were too loud for her sometimes. She had told Darren when he went outside to let her know. Then if something happened to him and he was not back in time, she would know to look for him. Her concern grew from an incident when Darren’s tractor turned over on him in a field when it slipped down a ditch. He lay half under the tractor and in the mud for three hours. It was dark when she realized how late it was for him not to be home. She went and found him and had to call for help. One rescuer told her if she had not gone out to look for him, the mud would have suffocated him. The mud had already covered half of Darren’s face.
Darren felt he could not go back to wake Denice. He had to put a stop to whatever was upsetting the animals and killing some of them. He opened the door and stood on the steps. The porch light lit things up near the house. Only one of the three pole lights was on. The light mounted on top of the barn was off. The lights in the barn’s doorway were off too. He knew he did not turn them off. Nor did Denice. They were on every night.
He held the shotgun up with the barrel toward the sky. Something ran out of the barn into the field. He fired two warning shots in the air and ran to the barn. He stopped outside the barn door. The noise from the horses inside the barn was louder than before. They jumped and kicked their stalls. The noise was so loud he feared the horses would split their hooves or break their legs trying to escape. Escape what?
If you like this chapter, please pass it on to a friend. You can read more of MATTIE or pick up the book on Amazon. It’s scary and entertaining!
Take care,
Joan Harbor
