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    Gem: No Choices
    Gem: No Choices
    Gem: No Choices
    Ebook64 pages47 minutes

    Gem: No Choices

    By Craig Jones

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Life, undead or otherwise, is about choices. Katrina and Gem have a strained relationship, at best, with Gem sleeping in her coffin all day and on the prowl at night as a hit woman for the mob. All Katrina wants is a normal life, but when she's wounded in a drive-by shooting, Gem sets her gun sites on the shooter, and Katrina is swept up in the nasty business of revenge. So much for a normal life...until a pendant is discovered. If Gem wears it in sunlight, she could become a Daywalker...or if the legend isn't true...she could burn up and turn to dust. Katrina and Gem risk it all in No Choices.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTWB Press
    Release dateSep 18, 2011
    ISBN9781936991266
    Gem: No Choices
    Author

    Craig Jones

    Originally from South Wales, I have held a wide range of jobs from tennis player to gym manager to health service worker. I turned 40 in October, am married to Claire, and we have an insane ginger cat called Wookie. I went to school with Catherine Zeta-Jones, have played tennis with Jamie Redknapp, and coached Great Britain’s first ever World Number One tennis player. I have always loved horror stories, having grown up with Jason Voorhees and his slasher friends, and I love writing them even more. The thought of taking normal people and putting them in terrifying situations gives me a fantastic buzz. I hope to convey that buzz to my readers in every story I write.

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      Book preview

      Gem - Craig Jones

      Gem – No Choices

      By

      Craig Jones

      Copyright by Craig Jones 2011

      Published by TWB Press at Smashwords

      All rights reserved. No part of this story (eBook) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidences are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Edited by Terry Wright

      Cover art by Terry Wright

      ISBN 978-1-936991-26-6

      By

      Craig Jones

      Morning:

      Katrina stirred in her sleep as the nightmare of living with Gem played out in all its grizzly detail. The worry was as real as if she were awake, the terror just as palpable.

      In the dream, she paced the hallway of their new apartment, checking her wristwatch every five seconds. It was nearly 6:30 am. The growing warmth from the day’s first rays of sunlight had her senses on full alert. In Gem’s room, her coffin was still vacant, the lid still open. She hadn’t yet arrived home from last night’s assignment.

      Gem, where in the hell are you? Katrina muttered. She immediately conjured up the image of the night Gem had nearly been killed with a silver bullet. She lay prone on the floor of Maloney’s penthouse, clinging to her undead life as Maloney pushed the muzzle of his gun against her skull. And then came the ear-drum-shattering blast of a gunshot. But it wasn’t Maloney who had fired a fatal shot. It came from Katrina’s gun as she fired a bullet into Maloney’s head, a shot that echoed through her nightmare and morphed into the thump, thump, thump of something striking the front door.

      Katrina jumped, almost losing her balance as she burst into action, sprinting towards the front door of their new two-storey apartment. Something hit the door again, but this time the thump was weaker, hardly a slap. She checked that Gem’s shotgun was handily placed nearby, and then pressed her eye to the peephole of the steel reinforced door.

      Smoke!

      The hallway was filling with smoke.

      Katrina, help me, came Gem’s weak voice from behind the door.

      Heart thrumming, she unlocked the five security locks and pulled the heavy steel door towards her. Smoke swirled in revealing Gem sprawled on the floor, clawing at the air with hands ablaze. H-help me.

      Gem! What happened? Gem, answer me.

      Sunlight, was all she could manage while rasping in pain. Her once beautiful face was charred black. The pullover she wore looked welded to her skin. Her toasted shoulders bubbled with burn blisters. Pus ran from her eye sockets, and her hair spontaneously combusted into flame.

      Gem screamed like no scream she’d ever screamed.

      The apartment began to stink of burnt hair, burnt flesh, and burnt vampire. Katrina felt the sick feeling of uselessness roil in her belly. She was incapable of helping Gem. What could a mere human do against the curse of the undead, the reanimated, beautiful body now threatening to burn the apartment building to the ground?

      Wake up, Katrina, wake up. It’s only

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