Finished novel - needs much red pen and objective eyes - that is why the FGNC (Few Good Nags Club) was created by Tara Zucker of Posthaste Media, but they have helped with the prologue, and Tomas Hradcky has helped with the first two chapters, so, it is high time for the teaser, despite the fact that the FGNC disbanded years ago.  Tomas is still here, the book is still here, it is called "The School", and below is that long promised teaser.

                                                       PROLOGUE


    “ G’night Jose,” she waves, slinging her purse onto her shoulder.
    The young boy gives her smile, the same one every night - open and friendly.  No one ever bothers with Jose, he is just the night janitor, invisible unless something goes wrong.  She sighs.  They are all invisible until something goes wrong.  The thought depresses her, and she hurries out the back door into the alley.  Picking her way carefully through loose gravel, she makes it to the light at Wilshire Boulevard and waits, rubbing her arms together.  It is foggy tonight, and colder than usual. She is wearing only a skirt and tank top, no jacket.  She stands impatiently at the light, looking quickly to the right and left, there no cars, no headlights looming out of the fog, just rows of traffic signals sending out ghostly instructions to an empty street.  To hell with it, she decides, and hops off  the sidewalk. 
    “Dammit!” she swears as her ankle twists slightly in her stiletto heels.
Head down, she walks as fast as she can across the street, wishing she were home safe in bed.  She looks over her shoulder, there is not a soul on the street,  and tonight it bothers her.  It doesn’t make any sense, she always gets off of work around three thirty a.m., the streets are always deserted but she never feels nervous.  Just tired and low, too tired to feel nervous.  The sound of her heels clicking on the sidewalk seems abnormally loud, and her heart starts to pound.  She looks over her shoulder again, it feels like she is being followed, but she sees no one.
    “Idiot, it’s just the fog,” she mutters to herself, turning into the parking lot on Wishire and 6th street.  Her car sits like a faithful dog, the only car in the lot.  She relaxes slightly and glances at her watch.  Mayumi would be here in ten minutes, give or take.  She opens the trunk and rummages around, pulling out a long sweater.  Slipping it on she perches on the hood of her car and pulled her cigarettes out of her purse. She is so jumpy tonight, but the desire for a smoke outweighs the twitchy desire to lock herself in her car.  She is proud of her car, and does not smoke in it, she smiles to herself as she makes her way to the hood, brushing her hands along the side.  Lighting up, she takes a long drag, cupping her chin in her hands, trying to fight the familiar sense of desperation that is her constant companion these days.  Her thoughts meander to next week, when she will be back home, and her dismay grows stronger.  She should be more excited about going back, but she had left Korea for the same reasons Mayumi had left Japan - their lives were miserable there, and America was such a great country, there were so many opportunities, never in her wildest dreams did she think that she would have wound up in this position, that her life in America would  turn out to be such hell that going back home was all she wanted. 
    A slight breeze floats her fine straight  hair into her eyes, she hears a rustling behind the dumpsters.
    “Mayumi?”  She whispers, keeping her voice low. No answer.  She glances at her watch again, hops off the hood and takes a last drag off her cigarette, flicking it onto the ground.  She gives it a deft twist with the sharp toe of her shoes, her slender legs covered in goosebumps.

    The hand shoots out and clamps down on her mouth, before she can registar what is happening another hand grabs her left arm, twisting it viciously behind her back.   She tries to scream, but it is too late, her shrieks are being forced back down her throat as the hand presses down harder.  She tries to wrestle away, biting at the hand, useless.  The strength of the grip is no match for her tiny frame.
    “Shut up you little bitch,” a voice hisses in her ear, as her arm is jerked so hard behind her back it makes a popping sound.  The motion and the sound cause a jolt of pain so intense her stomach rolls and she begins to heave.
    “Dont you dare fucking puke on me, bitch. You puke and I will shove it right back down your throat,” the voice is against her ear, hot, damp, sick.
    “Please, please, take my purse, take money, take money please take just please let me go,” she pleads through the hand.  His hand on her nose, she can’t breathe she is going to suffocate, if he would just let up a little bit - -
    “I don’t want your money, slut, I want to know who you were talking with today before you went to work.”
    “I wasn’t talking to anybody!“ she shrieks as he twists her arm higher,  yanking her around, pulling her face up against his.  All of the fight leaves her as she sees him, she has only a second to register the face when his fist explodes into her, knocking her to the ground.  She falls on the asphalt, blood pouring from her nose and mouth, feeling the jagged gaps left by broken teeth.
    “What - “ he is kicking her, “did you SAY to him?”
    He hauls her up by her hair and she stares into his eyes, flat black.  Psycopath.  He likes hurting her, and he is going to love killing her.  His enjoyment is palpable, it is written all over his face, a face she has exchanged pleasantries with every single night for the last eight months.  She cannot believe she never once saw the psycho, she only saw the nice man, served him drinks, dinner, did whatever he asked, he was generous and polite, how could she have never seen this?  In a flash she knows it is over, it doesn’t matter what she says, she is a dead woman. Her body goes numb, all of the pain disappears the minute she understands.  Dead.  She is going to die, right here in this ugly dirty parking lot and she knows why, and she knows who, and she knows Mayumi is next.  A spasm of anger cuts like glass through the numbness. 
    “Fuck you,” she spits into his face, her blood and sputum hitting him directly in between those hateful eyes.
    “Cunt!” he yells, punching her hard in the stomach.  A car backfires, it sounds so close, how could it be so loud?
    She smashes into the wall, so dazed that she didn’t even seee that blow coming.  The back of her head bounces off of the bricks, but she feels no pain, it is like she is floating above herself, watching the whole ugly scene in slow motion.  Where is the car that backfired?
    There is another voice, a familiar voice yelling ‘....get out of here, get out before the....’
    “Help me,” she says, but her lips aren’t moving.  She has to get into her car, get out of here, if she can just stand up.......
    Her body topples sideways, and she closes her eyes.  It feels okay to just lie here for a minute, but she needs her purse, where is her purse?  She tries to open her eyes but it is too hard, she just needs to rest for a moment then she will get up, find her purse, get her cell phone, call for help.  She’ll do it in a minute, right now she just needs to rest.

Genre: Mystery, slight romance.  Basic cheap beach read.  They are harder to write than you think!  It is not high literature, just guilty fun.

 I hope you enjoyed the teaser,  but this novel has marinated a little bit too long, and it feels dated.  I will return to it, as it is loosely based upon a true story, and not a true story I read, a true story I lived.  I have to get it out of my system.  Hopefully, I will manage to do that in a way that will relieve some of my nightmares, yet create enough fiction around a real event that I do not foist my nightmares upon you, my future dear reader and friend.

  In the meantime, I have started a new novel, the premise is in the present, with a United States in complete disarray with a new administration, which is really just a shiny object to keep both political parties in an uproar, while the true powers that be carry out a diabolical plan.  It is in it's embryonic stages, so I do not even have a teaser, but when I do, you will be first to have it, and it is my hope that I won't let it go so long this time.

Thank you for visiting, and you have my word that it will not be another year before I visit my own web site again,