OK...
I've been writing, editing and re-jigging stuff today. I've had a lot of fun doing this and I'm going to show you what I've done...

Please feel free to share - because, if I get comments and hits on this, I'll share some more.

Go on, have at it ;)

Bikers
 
 
 
At the dawn of the eighties, Rock music came into its own, going from strength to strength. Deep Purple endured, as did Free, Cream and a host of seventies’ groups. AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Status Quo, Queen, Whitesnake and The Who made their own eighties revivals and newcomers Meatloaf, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and ZZ Top either established a firm foot-hold or hovered on the fringes of ultimate cool in the UK rock scene.
Biker style took the throne as the height of fashion, with jeans, boots and leather jackets worn by bikers for their functionality, and fashion victims for the style of 'Rock Chic'.
The development of stretch denim meant skin-tight jeans could be manufactured cheaply and easily and therefore, came to the attention of the slim young things. Leaving little to the imagination where the shape of legs and buttocks were concerned; much to the delight of other slim young things and casual observers everywhere. Leather and denim clad a wide variety of different sized bodies and held an interest for most tastes.
Years before Grunge had even been thought of, 'Grebo' style spread like wildfire. The style encompassed the more functional aspects of leather and denim. Worn widely by Punks, but mostly by bikers, leather jackets were scuffed, often torn by minor slides down the road. Time-worn and filthy 'Originals' were worn by the more hard-core bikers whose ethos was that no cleaning products would ever touch their jeans or cut-off (a sleeveless denim, worn over the leather jacket). Stiffened and thickened by grime, oil and everyday filth, the denims were worn religiously for all of their bike riding. Whether the idea was that the filth, grime and oil encrusted jeans would give a greater protection or not, they certainly gave a great deal of protection from more fastidious females and so were usually discarded when out on the pull.
The unisex appeal of the style sometimes gave rise for confusion, especially as the male bikers also wore their hair long - as a snub to authority, a statement of personal freedom or just to emulate their rock star heroes. Some employers still insisted on well-groomed and short back-and-sides hair styles, but that regimen was falling by the wayside rapidly in the brand new decade.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ch 1
Bikers
 
 Justin Hardy stood at the bar, his freshly poured pint in front of him. The barman returned with his change and turned away to serve others without time for a word of thanks in either direction.
Sighing, Justin stared into the froth on the top of the beer. He hadn't wanted to go out at all but he was alone in a small village B&B in the middle of his sales trip and already fed up of the small room he had rented. He had asked the B&B landlady if there was anything to do of an evening and she returned his question with a glum look and the minimal phrase, "There's the Sitwell."
"Pub?" he asked.
"Yes." And then she turned away to continue cleaning her small house. Though she was not much of a conversationalist, her cooking was splendid (better than his mum’s) and the cleanliness of her house was immaculate. Sparse in furniture and home comforts - not even a TV in his room - the bare floorboards gleamed and the threadbare rug harboured not a single speck of dust. He had no wish to sit in her living room with her, watching the likes of Coronation Street or Emmerdale Farm however, hence the quest for other entertainment.
So Justin wandered across to the Sitwell Arms alone. He went in and chose the Tap Room of the pub, figuring if there were any others close to his age, they would be there rather than the Lounge. He took a quick look around and then moved on to the back of the room, up two steps and realised that part of the Tap Room was more spacious than he had first thought. It opened up, with more small tables dotted about.
He spotted a young woman and her friend sat at one table, she sat facing her friend, and therefore him too; the friend sat with her back to him. ‘A nice bit of rough, makes a change,’ went through his mind as he mentally prepared himself. If he had been wearing one, he would have adjusted his tie at that point. She wasn’t what he usually went for, but the choice at that point in time was sparse.
He looked her over, his eyes roving up her tight denim jeans and leather bike jacket. She had long straight hair, dark blonde in colour; too shiny to be described as mousey. She also had on a tiny vest top that barely covered her small but perfectly formed breasts. Her make-up consisted of a little mascara and eye-liner, and shiny pale lip gloss. Far removed from the type he usually went for, he preferred the higher-maintenance kind of girl, but she’d do as a temporary distraction.
She leaned forward, long hair dropping to hide her face and she swept it back to tuck it over her shoulder as she spoke. Deep in conversation with her friend sitting opposite her, they chatted quietly. The other, dressed in similar fashion, black leather bike jacket and jeans. Lovely long brunette, almost waist-length hair shone in the light from the sunset glinting through the window. Two empty half-pint glasses on the table, pushed aside so they could chat. He decided to take a chance to liven up his evening. Preparing to target the blonde, with the brunette as a back-up plan, he couldn’t lose.
"Could I buy you two ladies a drink?" he asked, his most suave smile beaming, his eyes on the breasts of the girl facing him.
Her eyebrows raised and he lifted his gaze to her face. She gave a strained smile back at him. Her companion sat up a little, taking time to turn around.
The words ‘fuck off’ only registered after he realised the mistake he'd made in the gender of the girl's companion. The lad was younger than himself by perhaps a half-dozen years, he was slim with gorgeous clean, shining hair but his youthful features were very obviously masculine.
"Oh jesus," Justin muttered. "Sorry mate." As the lad glared at him, he felt his face colour up and he decided against sitting in that part of the Tap Room. He hurried back down the steps to find a vacant table in a corner in which to recover from his embarrassment. He heard the girl laugh as he fled but her companion did not.
"Fuckin’ trendies," the long haired lad muttered.
"Are you going or staying?" She ignored his annoyance.
"Staying I suppose. Do you want another?" He stood up, picking up both glasses to take to the bar.
"No, I'm ok. I've had enough coke for now."
He nodded and left her glass on the table in front of her.
Justin watched as the long-haired 'hippy type' stood at the bar waiting to be served. He moved his resentful glare between the lad’s back and the girl as the lad ordered his drink. Justin thought to himself as he watched, ‘The tight-fisted bastard didn't even get his girlfriend one and they were only drinking halves, probably to make his dole money last to the next gyro cheque’. Smug in the knowledge that at twenty-four he had a reasonable job with better than average pay nailed down, his resentment blistered in his mind. ‘What did that girl see in him, the greasy yobbo?’.
 
A short time later, Justin got up to check out the tunes on the jukebox. He became more dismayed with each card he flipped over. He had already put his money in and not found any tracks that weren’t rock of some kind or another. He settled for a selection of tracks that were or had been in the charts and went back to sit down.
While he studied the choice of music on the jukebox, more bikers had arrived. The table where his drink sat almost finished remained empty, but the newcomers had surrounded it and moved the chairs so only his remained. He picked the glass up and moved to another table, very aware that it looked like he was intimidated.
 When the group walked in, the girl he had tried to chat up went over to greet one of them. She kissed him and he went to the bar to get them both drinks. The first lad followed her down and sat with the new arrivals.
Justin’s seat away from the crowd became enveloped again as more bikers arrived. He gave up and went into the Lounge area. He left his empty glass on the table and as he went, Justin heard the girl tell her boyfriend that he'd mistaken Staffy for a bird. “That’s an easy mistake to make,” the boyfriend said and they laughed at Staffy’s ‘Fuck off!’ response. Resentment flared in Justin’s mind as they laughed, and instead of another pint, he started on vodka & coke when he got to the bar on the other side.
Once during the evening, Justin went to the toilets and dropped a tab of speed he found in the corner of his wallet - not because he needed to - he wanted to. He wanted a better buzz than the downer enveloping his mood at that minute. It was all due to that hippy getting obnoxious. Who the fuck could tell which were boys and which were girls if they all dressed alike?
That was his last tab of speed and he was in an area that he didn’t know. The only way he could think of getting topped up was to ask a local. That meant talking to the greasy yobbos.
Justin waited his chance. He saw the girl he’d tried to chat up leave the bar area to go to the toilet.
He waited for her as she came out.
“Hey,” he said. “Do you know where I can score?”
She looked at him with a frown on her brow, puzzled at the question.
“You know,” he prompted. “Speed, wiz, even blow if there’s nothing else?”
She looked him up and down and sneered. “You fucking trendies think you’re so much better than us. You dress nice and smart and people accept you because of how you look. Just because we don’t wear suits and ties they think we’re scum but look at you, you’re the one that can’t get by without getting high. Fuck off, you tosser. I don’t do drugs; I don’t need it. Fucking waster!” She slammed open the door to the Tap Room and left him standing there.
He glared at the door she’d stormed through and told himself she was an uptight bitch and probably protecting her sources, he couldn’t blame her, he supposed. He went back to the Lounge and his drink.
He watched the rowdy bikers through the serving area that connected but separated the two bars for ease of serving and he allowed his smouldering resentment to fester.
A few drinks later, he struck up conversation with some of the locals and one old boy in particular chatted away quite happily; more due to the fact that Justin was generous in getting in the rounds than any other reason, he supposed. Justin stood in order to make his way to the bar again. He hesitated and steadied himself when he got to his feet, to prevent the drunken wobble he could feel beginning to slip itself into his gait. Through the bar staff's domain between the rooms, he again spotted the long haired lad – ‘Staffy’ she had called him. The bikers were all still in the lower area, crowded in and being quite lively in their banter, well they had to shout over the noise that was coming from the jukebox, he supposed. They seemed to be enjoying his choice of music.

I have been busy, I promise.
In between editing Tom Blake's new psychological thriller, and keeping my daughter stress-free as she organises her wedding, I've been collating thirteen short stories for my new anthology. I thought it was time I put those stories I had lying around the place to good use. I also had fun creating two-sentence stories to go between the thirteen shorts. I dubbed them 'Penny Dreadfuls' - not because they're dreadful but because they will sit on their own page in the printed version of the book and when a book is printed, on short runs, each page costs a penny (or thereabouts).

The anthology is ready to go (almost) and will be released on Halloween, with the print copies available on my birthday in early December, if all goes to plan.

As an added treat for those readers who would care to help me out, in the e-book release, there will be four previews of books I'm working on. The four are all different in their subject matter and I'd like my readers to vote on which they would prefer to see published next.
To thank those taking part in the vote, I'll be giving away some of my books, ebook and printed copies - more later when I've worked out the details.

The Anthology looks like it has a title - A Baker's Dozen.

The order of appearance for the stories is as follows:

1  The Last Vampire

2  Dark Images

3  Terrible Threes

4  Nursery

5  It Wasn't...

6  The Hunger

7  Houseplants

8  Eight Days

9  Love Me

10 Portrait

11 Dream Time

12 Will I...

13 B.E.K.s

The four previews are from:

Diamonds and Deviants, Biker (WiP), Children of Sol and Daughters of Le Fay.

Diamonds and Deviants:

Visitors to the apartment would probably wonder at a few things. The fully automated security blinds on all the windows for one thing. Why would an apartment need such high security so high up above the city? Even the windows that didn't have a balcony had the shutters. Any visitor would possibly assume paranoia - and perhaps the more fanciful would imagine a fear of vampires. The lack of any foodstuffs, cooking implements etc may encourage another fleeting and more imaginative notion – of vampiric occupation.
The apartment was scrupulously tidy, almost as though the owner didn’t live there much. Again, once it has been thought of, vampire springs to mind as a likely reason.
The aforementioned visitor would be wrong in all of those assumptions. The owner of the apartment was not a vampire and was certainly not paranoid.
Apart from the fact that the apartment was very much lived in, used and loved, it also never received visitors. Not one. Never.
The mail was delivered to a secure box in the foyer and the apartment was cleaned thoroughly by a trusted and well vetted employee of the building’s maintenance firm. The cleaning service was expensive as cleaning goes but it was an opt-in or out service so no-one had cause for complaint.
As an additional service, all visitors were screened and checked. If the occupant had neglected to give the name of any visitor, then even if the visitor had been regularly allowed in for years previously, if there was no name on the list, then there was no admittance.
The Security Guy had slipped up only once and before his shift had ended, he was replaced.
“If the name’s not down, they’re not getting in” was the byword.
If there was paranoia to be assumed, then it was there, where the choice of the building had been made. Anyone living in the building wanted - and paid for - the ultimate in absolute security.
It took a while to get to know everyone in the building but the security firm prided itself on being the very best. No effort was too large or too little. Even the pampered pooches were recognised and referred to by name. But more than that, the Security Guy had to be intuitive too.
A hangover? Security Guy would speak quietly - if at all.
A funeral? Security Guy offered respectful condolence or dignified silence, a black armband and on the one occasion, a tissue and a shoulder to cry on and an arm to lean on.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, was too much trouble for the Security Guys but the occupants also knew that they would never be allowed to debase, humiliate or take advantage of the Security Guys. They were expected to have more class than that. And yes, it always came as a complete shock when that point was rammed home.


Biker:

It was the dawn of the eighties. Rock music was prevalent and going from strength to strength. Deep Purple was still being listened to, as was Free, Cream and a host of seventies groups. Status Quo, Queen, Whitesnake and The Who were making their own eighties revivals and newcomers Meatloaf, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and ZZ Top were either established or just about to be big on the UK rock scene.
Biker style was at its height in fashion, with jeans, boots and leather jackets being worn by bikers for their functionality and worn by fashion victims for the style of 'Rock Chic'.
Tight stretch jeans had just come to the attention of the slim young things which left little to the imagination where the shape of legs and buttocks were concerned, much to the delight of other slim young things and casual observers everywhere. Leather and denim was seen to clad a wide variety of different sized bodies and held an interest for most tastes.
Years before Grunge had even been thought of, 'Grebo' style was widespread. This encompassed the more functional aspects of leather and denim. Worn widely by Punks but mostly by bikers, leather jackets were scuffed and sometimes torn by minor slides down the road. Time-worn and filthy 'Originals' were worn by the more hard-core bikers whose ethos was that no cleaning products would ever touch their jeans or cut-off (a sleeveless denim, worn over the leather jacket). Stiffened and thickened by grime, oil and everyday filth, the denims were worn religiously for all of their bike riding. Whether the idea was that the filthy jeans would give a greater protection or not, they certainly gave a great deal of protection from more fastidious females and so were discarded when out on the pull.
The unisex appeal of the style sometimes gave rise for confusion, especially as the male bikers also wore their hair long, possibly as a snub to authority, a statement of personal freedom or just to emulate their rock star heroes. Some employers still insisted on well-groomed and short back-and-sides hair styles, but that regimen was falling by the wayside rapidly in the brand new decade.
 
 
 Justin Hardy stood at the bar, his freshly poured pint in front of him. The barman returned with his change and turned away to serve others without time for a word of thanks in either direction.
Sighing, Justin stared into the froth on the top of the beer. He hadn't really wanted to go out at all but he was alone in a small village B&B in the middle of his sales trip and already fed up of the small room he had rented. He had asked the B&B landlady if there was anything to do of an evening and she returned his question with a glum look and the minimal phrase: "There's the Sitwell."
"Pub?" He had asked.
"Yes." And then she had turned away to continue cleaning her small house. Even though she was not much of a conversationalist, her cooking was splendid (better than his mum’s) and the cleanliness of her house was immaculate. Sparse in furniture and home comforts - not even a TV in his room - but the bare floorboards gleamed and the threadbare rug harboured not a single speck of dust. He had no wish to sit in her living room with her, watching the likes of Coronation Street or Emmerdale Farm however, hence the quest for other entertainment.


Children of Sol

The vampires went to their enforced rest for the daylight hours. Little did they imagine that when they awoke nothing would ever be the same again.
Decimation of the vampire covens was swift, brutal, bloodless, violent and unavoidable.
Ancient ones, revered and learned ones were destroyed. Weak, new vampires were blinked out in an instant and so were the strongest, most ruthless and indefatigable vampires that ever stalked the earth. They were gone in one daytime. The void left by the absence of their shared voices over the Bloodlink was deafening in its silence.
Some of those that were left gave themselves to the sun because of the unbearable silence but those that survived felt something more. Not only did a deep serenity that they had never realised could be theirs descend upon their minds, so did the weight of the responsibility that had passed to them.
In one day their whole history had been wiped out, their council, the rulers, the wise and knowledgeable – all gone. Until the survivors rediscovered the archives where the ancient tomes were stored, the records of vampire history were effectively vanished.
Those that were left would have to make their own way for a time. They could each hear the faint and forlorn voices over the Bloodlink but had no idea who the others were or where they were. They could be scattered across the globe for all they knew and it could take months, if not years to find every one of them.
As it turned out, they were not so very far flung.
 
Sol is his name. He is one god amongst many but he is one of the most beautiful and powerful. It is at his word that the sun – giver of life on the planet Earth – rises each morning. He is the one who has had most to do with humans and it is because of his interaction that they are named after his benevolence. Children of Sol have always been his main concern and the game that the gods play, sometimes at the expense of humans, is not such a game to Sol. He takes it seriously and does his very best to ensure that they survive everything that is thrown at them.
 
Sol first saw the human creatures on the first sunrise across the planet. The gods had gathered to watch his wondrous creation. He had promised a wonderful display and he did not like to disappoint. They stood at the top of the highest mountain on the planet and looked to the east. The sky turned from deepest black through deepest blue and on through an array of beautiful colours the like of which had not been seen.
“Sol, this is breathtaking!” Luna said as she grasped his hand.
He looked at her with an expression of tenderness and leaned forward to brush his lips against hers. Then he brushed a solitary tear from her eyelashes. He flipped his wrist to shake the droplet from his finger and where the droplet landed, a spring bubbled from the ground.


Daughters of Le Fay

The little kitchen girl was carrying a large metal pot in her arms, it was too heavy for her and she was struggling with the bulk of it. As she walked past the fireplace, as always wary in case she stumbled into the coals, she saw something in the steam of the huge cooking pot that was suspended above the fire, constantly on the boil. Fascinated, she put down the metal pot and leaned as close to the fire as she could without singeing either her tatty and ragged hem or her shins and feet.
Through the steam billowing about her face, she could see something and she concentrated. There was another girl in another place and Katherine thought that she looked familiar. Then, though she was level with Katherine,  the girl looked down, as though into a pool, her hair falling forward and she stared right into Katherine’s eyes, Katherine saw her own mirror image looking back. She was holding her breath as their eyes met over the unfathomable distance. A shock of recognition that she had not expected jolted her out of her reverie and the image melted as her breath, expelled in a gasp, dissipated the vapours from the boiling water. She felt a moment of vertigo and swayed forward towards the heat of the bubbling pot. Her eyes closed without her realising as a wave of nausea took hold.
She was disoriented and stood upright but overbalanced and swayed on her feet, stepping backwards to compensate. She stepped on something softer than the floor.
“Watch what you are about, clumsy dolt!” The screech came from the cook, she was creeping up on Katherine to catch her day-dreaming but Katherine stepped onto her gout-swollen foot. The cook slapped Katherine but because they were so close together, it was more of a push and Katherine, already off-balance, fell forward. Her hands were outstretched in an instinct to save herself as she fell, but the fire was waiting.
There was a sharp and terrible sizzle, she smelled burning hair, skin and flesh and then heard a piercing scream that tore at her very soul. It was a second or so before she realised the screaming was her own. 
She was still screaming as someone pulled her backwards, out of the flames. She felt cold water hit her as someone else threw the mop-bucket water onto her burning clothes and her arm was held tight and then forced down and she resisted but she felt soothing cool water as the pain in her hand was quenched.
“Stop that noise!” The cook yelled again, but it would not quieten the girl this time, she was too badly injured.
Then Katherine passed out.