Travis Luedke is a husband, father, and author of Urban Fantasy Thriller, Paranormal Romance, Contemporary Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, and Sci-fi. He is currently catching a third degree sunburn in San Antonio, Texas, and loving every minute of it. His recent works include “
The Nightlife New York
” and “
The Nightlife Las Vegas
”, the first novels in the Nightlife Series.
Publication Release Schedule:
The Nightlife Series:
I
The Nightlife: New York
II
The Nightlife: Las Vegas
The Nightlife: BLOODSLAVE
III
The Nightlife: Paris
February 2013
IV
The Nightlife: London
June 2013
The Nightlife: SAN ANTONIO
September 2013
V
The Nightlife: Moscow
December 2013
Young Adult novels by Travis Luedke (TW Luedke)
The Shepherd
January 2012
BOGUS
April 2013
Science Fiction novels by Travis Luedke
BLACKKNIFE
2064
November 2013
Social Media, Book links, Author profiles, blog, & other links
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Apple
Smashwords
Diesel
Sony
Kobo
The Nightlife Series Blog
TWLuedke.com
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Goodreads
[email protected]
Continue reading for an excerpt of his new Young Adult novel
“The Shepherd”
.
THE SHEPHERD
By T.W. Luedke
Skate punks, a kleptomaniac vampire, clairvoyant visions and reincarnation.
A teen is stalked by a young girl who believes he is her dead fiancé reincarnated. Their mutual obsession leads to violent consequences.
16 year old skater Mike Evans has issues. His alcoholic father's unemployed and he's stuck living in a white-trash trailer park after the foreclosure of their family home. The last two years have sucked royally, one disappointment after another. Worse, he's plagued by clairvoyant visions of strange-grisly events with an annoying tendency to come true. Mike lost his best friend, ex-girlfriend treats him like a leper, and his only remaining friend Anita wants to get in his pants––he's clueless. Since his mother died at birth and his father doesn't give a damn, Mike's on his own.
His fortunes begin to change after helping a 13 year old girl named Nadia, the victim of a hit and run on the highway. A bond is forged between them through an intense night of ministering to her injuries. He suspects Nadia is homeless. An unusual relationship develops as she sneaks into his room nightly for a place to stay.
Mike starts living a double life. His daylight hours at school are filled with his new girlfriend, skating, and working part-time. His nights are spent with Nadia. She's a secret friend, keeping him company all night, listening to his problems when no one else will. Strangeness abounds as they develop a codependency crossing all the boundaries of friendship. Nadia is not your average little girl and she's obsessed with him. He suspects things, but ignores the obvious signs of danger.
The situation comes to a head as Mike struggles to avert his latest vision of gruesome death. He can no longer ignore the evidence leading to the undeniable conclusion that his secret friend is much more than what she appears to be.
Prologue
Thursday September 9th, 9:15 p.m.
Heavily faded on 40 milligrams of Oxycontin stolen from his mother's prescription in the medicine cabinet, Justin Shelby felt pretty damn good. His judgment, questionable even in sobriety, was that much further impaired with intoxication. Goaded on by his friend Tommy Schroeder, one of the wrestling elite of Moses Lake High School, Justin was inspired to new heights of idiocy. He quickly scaled the side of the outdoor playcenter at McDonald’s.
Justin typically spent his free time skating through downtown Moses Lake and the skatepark across from the Aquatic Center, harassing the bathing suit clad girls, enticing them into conversation and who knows what else. Like most skaters, he was thin, toned, and moderately athletic with a strong sense of balance and equilibrium forged by endless hours of skateboarding. Climbing up the playcenter wasn't really any more dangerous than the myriad skate stunts he and his friends attempted while recording videos for posting to YouTube.
Justin quickly reached the apex, standing exalted atop an airplane shaped plastic toy. A seven year old kid gawked up at him from the inside. Tommy encouraged Justin's antics with loud catcalls, laughing at every step of the way. Justin proclaimed his status as king of the hill, arms held up high. A flagrant violation of the rules posted at the entry gate (rule #3: no climbing outside the play center, rule #4: no children over the age of 14 allowed).
“Yeah bitches, hell yeah!” Justin yelled and hooted at the top of his lungs, pumping his fists in the air.
His antics were observed by another, one Mike Evans, who was once so close a friend to Justin they called each other BFFs––Best Friends Forever. Their relationship had suffered as of late since Justin began hangin with Tommy, who hated Mike. The feeling was definitely mutual for Mike, he’d begun to hate them both.
Parked in the McDonald’s drive-thru awaiting his dollar cheeseburger, Mike leaned out the window of his 87 Geo Tracker for a better view of Justin bellowing like an inebriated idiot. Mike shook his head, laughing at Justin––not with him––wondering what could have brought on this latest spell of insanity. Then Mike noticed Tommy Schroeder's up turned face and wicked grin, and the why and how of it became obvious.
Justin was putting on a show for his new buddy. Tommy was cool, popular, and wealthy, he also happened to be one of the biggest arrogant pricks in the 10th grade. Justin's induction into the cool crowd via friendship with Tommy was fairly recent. Justin was still in the something-to-prove phase, being extra obnoxious at times … like right now.
Unable to resist a jab, Mike called out to Justin, “Hey ass munch, get down before you break your neck!”
Justin's head whipped around to the sound of Mike's voice, causing his body to sway with the movement. He spotted Mike and a nasty smirk bloomed across his face. In a moment of sublime inspiration Justin dropped his pants to moon Mike with a show of lily white butt cheeks. In raucous laughter, Tommy yelled, “How about a double McAss burger Mikey?”
The girl delivering Mike's cheeseburger had her hand over her mouth to cover her braces as she giggled and snarfed at the sight of Justin's naked rump shaking back and forth while he taunted, “It’s a full moon out tonight Mikey, hope you enjoy the view!”
Mike got in the last dig, “That'll make a killer Facebook video!” He held up his cell phone-digital-camcorder to record Justin.
Justin looked back over his shoulder in surprise, attempting to pull up his pants at the same time. The knee-jerk reaction caused him to lose his delicate balance atop the cupola apex of the plastic airplane, and he fell onto his right-side hip, sliding down off the playcenter. Justin let go his pants, hands splayed out wide across the airplane seeking something to grab to slow his fall. There was nothing to catch except smooth plastic.
Justin slid inexorably down the side of the playcenter, pants and underwear still down around his thighs. He tried rolling over onto his belly to get positioned for a feet-first landing. The maneuver would've worked if not for the fence positioned so close to the playcenter. The bright yellow powder-coated aluminum fence that aided his climb to the top now blocked his landing on the way down.
Justin's momentum came to an abrupt halt as he hit the top of the fence ass first. He emitted a blood curdling shrill scream of agony as the two inch long three quarter inch diameter aluminum tubing extended above the top crossbeam of the fence impaled him where the sun don't shine. He was pegged right in the holiest of holies, two inches of aluminum post going in through the out door.
Mike saved the twenty five second video clip of Justin's playcenter adventure on his Motorola cell phone and promptly emailed it to a group of friends in his contacts list, mostly skaters who knew both him and Justin. Within fifteen minutes the video clip networked its way to over 100 students at Moses Lake High School and had been posted to dozens of Facebook profiles.
* * * *
Coming January 2013
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