The Undead Heart

Join date : 2011-07-04

Sometimes I find awful self-published books. Sometimes they find me. The latter was certainly the case with The Undead Heart, which I discovered one day when mindlessly browsing the Cracked.com forums. I got a bit too excited when I jumped in to spork the book's website. Eventually I decided to investigate whether the author was known for spamming their book like this, so I took to Google.

I found this.
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Considering that according to the About The Author page on Amazon, Tate's best friend is the one who types and edits her books, I have enough reason to believe that this is false. The supposed "cervical cancer" could not possibly be that urgent, considering that now a PDF of The Undead Heart is available for free.

She also tried to rig a contest by offering free copies of the book before.
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But what are we waiting for? Grab your copy and read with me!
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Quote :: For my niece, Bev, for whom I wrote this book series for.

I have never seen that many redundancies condensed into one phrase. It is spectacular in its failure. And we haven't even begun the actual story yet.

Quote :: They had put her out of the house. She was so mad that she decided to go for a walk before putting her things in the car. If she didn’t walk off some of this anger, she was going to end up throwing her own stuff!

You can't just state how your characters feel! That makes me feel angry!

Quote :: She was three blocks away from the house when she heard growling. She looked out into the street and saw a huge German Sheppard stalking towards her. Her first thought was to run, but she knew if she ran that the dog would chase her down.

Suddenly, a big threatening dog out of fucking nowhere. What's it doing there and why is it threatening our protagonist? Because the plot calls for it. Canis Ex Machina?

Anyway, she's cornered by this dog, it lunges at her, and then...

Quote :: She threw up her arms to guard her face and caught a blur of movement from the corner of her eye. She looked through her arms and saw a pair of hands catch the dog’s head in midair and crush it. No, that couldn’t be possible. Could it? When she lowered her arms, she found ‘The Man’ standing in front of her.

So the dog is pretty much the Tyler's Van of The Undead Heart. We now have even less reason to care about any of these characters; they are but stand-ins made of cardboard.

Quote :: “Good evening,” he said.
It was too much, and for the first time in her life, she passed out.

"Good evening?" Not "Are you alright" or anything even vaguely related to what just happened? And as you can probably guess, this is where the prologue ends. No explanation of what happens after she passes out, nothing that ties this into anything else.

In fact, the next chapter begins with the protagonist's graduation ceremony. Or rather, the fact that it is the protagonist's graduation ceremony.

Quote :: Rebecca Stockdale was seventeen years old and today was her High School graduation.

See?

She's seated on stage, she looks out into the audience and sees 'The Man' that we met in the prologue. This only lasts a paragraph before we're shot into a flashback.

Quote :: Beck (as Bev called her) had always been an unusual child.

Code for "Mary Sue."

Quote :: She had always been pretty, with long red hair and bright green eyes. Unfortunately, she had also always been an abnormal child. She had been born with the ability to see ghosts and had occasional dreams of the future.

Beauty, trauma, and ~*magick*~. The trinity's all here. Maybe there will be some scenes of unnecessary bitchiness to let us know she's an Independent Woman. Just for flavor.

Quote :: She had also been born with a slight electrical problem. If her emotions were running high she was prone to blow out light bulbs and appliances in her home. Her parents had removed all of the carpet from the home when she was three years old to cut down on the level of static electricity.

Oh, this isn't so bad. Sounds like quite the opportunity for some comedic scenes where little Beck wrecks the house like only a magical toddler can -

Quote :: She had gotten her first real beating from her father when she was only five years old.

Oh Jesus.

Quote :: They had gone to a family reunion, and she had told her aunt that she’d had a dream that she was going to die soon. When her aunt had died a week later, her father had beaten her, screaming it was all her fault. For years afterwards, she had believed that she had actually killed her aunt.

Believing herself responsible for the death of a family member that actually wasn't her fault? It's as if Tate was going through the Mary Sue checklist on purpose and adding as many traits as possible onto her.

Then when she was seven, she predicted that her teacher's house would burn down, it did, which leads to her peers bullying her as well. We also find out that Beck can read people's emotions which is how she knows that her parents hate her, in case the beatings weren't enough of a clue. Nevertheless, Tate has to spell out that "Charles and Lisa Stockdale were cruel parents."

This abuse happened to be the cause of Beck's myriad suicide attempts, like the one in the upcoming flash-forward! The Undead Heart 307911

Quote :: Her feet had left the dock, and she was going over the edge when an arm grabbed her around the waist.

Gee, I wonder who that could be.

Quote :: She hadn’t known how to swim at the time and probably would have drowned if she had fallen in. She had already started to cry when he set her back on her feet. He’d squatted and turned her towards him.
“Shh. It’s alright. You’re safe now,” ‘The Man’ had said. She could feel love, affection, and relief coming from him, but didn’t know why.

Oh yeah, and she's seven years old when this is happening.

Bev calls out to her, and while Beck's back is turned, 'The Man' mysteriously vanishes.

Quote :: She was nine years old when she saw ‘The Man’ again. Bev had started Junior High that year and wasn’t able to walk her to school anymore. She had been crossing the street that day, by herself, two blocks down from the crosswalk on Crossland Ave. She knew if she crossed the street at the crosswalk with the rest of the kids that they would call her names and make fun of her the rest of the way to school.

You have three guesses as to what 'The Man' will rescue her from this time, and the first two don't count.

Yeah, 'The Man' saves her from an oncoming car, then mysteriously disappears once again.

In the next scene, she had just turned twelve and received a bike for her birthday. Maybe her family knows just how accident-prone she is and hopes she'll finally get her speshul ass smashed by a speeding semi.

Quote :: So after dinner she had taken the new bike out to give it a try, thinking ’How hard could it be?’ She got on the bike and started peddling. She made it a sum total of one block down the street before she found out ‘how hard it could be’.

She was going too fast and squeezed the hand brake too hard causing the bike to flip over and slam her hard on her back onto the concrete sidewalk. The impact had knocked the wind out of her and she had not yet gotten her breath back when ‘The Man’ had lifted the bicycle off of her.

That's pretty hard.

Quote :: “Little one!” he said in a panicked voice.
She still couldn’t take a breath and felt as if she was going to die. He ran his hands up her legs, over her ribs, and up her neck. When he lifted her slightly off the ground to run his hands down her back, her breath came back in a giant whoosh.

If there weren't pedophilic vibes earlier... Upset

Quote :: “Can’t breathe”, she gasped , waving her hands above her chest.
“Look at me.” he said. She forced her eyes up to his. “Do what I do.” Taking her hand and placing it on his chest, he started taking slow deep
breaths. She copied him, taking deep breaths and holding them for a few seconds before releasing them. She could feel his cool skin through his shirt, which she later thought was strange since it was the middle of July and had been at least 100 degrees outside.

Underlying this is the fear that someone may have done this to Tate when she was a girl, and therefore she has no idea that it's abnormal.

Quote :: “Better?” he asked when she was breathing more normally.
“Yes,” she said, looking at his face, “You missed me this time,” she added, feeling his fear recede.
“I noticed that,” he said with a deep laugh. “I was unaware that this was going to happen. How do you feel?” he asked, helping her to her feet.

"Yeah, it's not like your being in danger summons me or anything. I just like to breathe on you."

She also finds her bike in her backyard with a mysterious new front wheel. He knows where she lives.

It's rather surprising that he isn't the one who rapes her in Chapter Four. The Undead Heart 961878

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Sun Jul 10, 2011 7:02 pm

I never knew that the 'stalker pedo vampire' thing caught on this much. Damn you, Twilight.

But seriously, this is pretty awful.

Hot and Botherer Join date : 2009-06-10

Kommandar wrote:: Believing herself responsible for the death of a family member that actually wasn't her fault? It's as if Tate was going through the Mary Sue checklist on purpose

That's actually not that crazy for a five-year-old. Children do think crazy stuff like that. The bit that's over the top is that her father thinks the same; that's the Mary Sue wangsty past right there.

Sporkbender Join date : 2010-01-21

Good god, this reads like something I might have written when I was twelve. Pacing: it's a good thing to have.

Join date : 2011-07-04

grmblfjx wrote:

Kommandar wrote:: Believing herself responsible for the death of a family member that actually wasn't her fault? It's as if Tate was going through the Mary Sue checklist on purpose

That's actually not that crazy for a five-year-old. Children do think crazy stuff like that. The bit that's over the top is that her father thinks the same; that's the Mary Sue wangsty past right there.

It's not that it's a Mary Sue trait by itself, it's just that when compounded with the other things (beauty! magical powers!), it puts yet another toe over the line.

Section Three is pretty damn uneventful, as Beck is still at her graduation ceremony which might as well be a blank white void for all the setting's worth. Mostly just more infodump which would have been more helpful in the flashback scenes.

Quote :: Looking at him in the audience now, she knew that something was wrong. Looking back to when ‘The Man’ had saved her from falling into the river, she would have guessed him to be about 27 years old, and she had been seven. When he had saved her from being ran over, she’d been ten and still too young to notice his age.

I spy a logical inconsistency. And only one sentence apart.

Quote :: It wasn’t until she was twelve years old and had crashed her bike, that she had noticed how nice looking he was.

He had been roughly 6’5” with muscles perfectly proportioned for his body frame. He had light red hair that he wore in a ponytail down the back of his neck and green eyes so light that they were almost yellow.

Any time you use the word "perfect" to describe a character's appearance, you lose.

Quote :: She had noticed how old he looked then but hadn’t really thought much about it. Now it was ten years since the first time she had seen him, and he hadn’t
aged a single day. No, that couldn’t be possible. She looked at him again now.

But she was already looking at him.

Quote :: He had almond shaped eyes, perfect cheek bones, and very pale skin. He was a beautiful man. And he was a man who had obviously not yet reached thirty years of age. If she was right about his age, then he should be around thirty-seven years old, and he definitely was not.

Again with the "perfect." As if there is an objective consensus on what "perfect cheekbones" are. And all of the repetitive "HE IS DEFINITELY NOT OLDER THAN HE WAS" could have easily been replaced with a more subtle, somewhat more poignant, "He looked exactly as she remembered him."

We also get another infobrick volleyed at us - Beck is graduating at the top of her class, and will be going to Duke to study Parapsychology, "to find out why she was like
she was."

Oh yeah, and she's seeing a ghost. Don't worry about him, he's not doing anything interesting. He's just another segue into yet another infobrick.

Quote :: He was not the only ghost she had ever seen, but he was the only one she had seen on a regular basis. She had never minded seeing ghosts. They had never scared her like they did most people.

She had never seen a ghost covered in blood or burned. Her theory for that was that she saw ghosts the way that they remembered themselves. If
they did remember themselves bloody, burned, or sick, they didn’t project themselves that way to her. To her, they looked like anyone else. She had also never had a ghost speak to her, and she had never tried to speak to them. She liked it that way. She had been made fun of enough without walking around talking to invisible people.

My assumption is that Beck's theory is absolutely correct and will remain unchallenged for the course of the entire book. Because how else could Tate relate such information to us?

Then there's an infobrick on her sister Bev, because she's sitting in the audience too. None of it is too interesting.

Quote :: She’d always thought Bev was beautiful. She was only 5’5” compared to Beck’s 5’8”. She had a perfect body and gorgeous hair. She had the same shade of red hair as Beck, but she could do so much more with it.

Unintentional incestuous lesbian subtext. Giggity.

Quote :: Bev had always been popular in high school, while Beck still didn’t have a single friend. That was partially her own fault. As she had gotten older, she had never gone out of her way to make friends. Being around people made her nervous, and she didn’t like to be touched.

She didn’t mind being able to read peoples moods and emotions, but when someone touched her there was a transfer, and for a few seconds she actually felt the way they felt, and she didn’t care for that at all. She didn’t mind Bev touching her but that was about it. Except for ‘The Man’, of course, she had never minded him touching her, either.

Here's more information that would have been nice if it was presented in a way that made sense chronologically. Like, shouldn't there have been a transfer when her father was fucking beating her? And why doesn't she mind if 'The Man' touches her? Does the transfer just not happen because he's a vampire?

Quote :: She looked at him again and found him staring at her. The look he was giving her made her skin tingle; in some places more than others.

WHY GOD WHY

It doesn't get much better from here:

Quote :: She jumped a little when she saw Alex Whitman sitting six seats down from her. She had only had sex once in her life. It had been with Alex Whitman, and it had been against her will.

That's where we move into ANOTHER FLASHBACK! SECTION FOUR, HO!

When she was sixteen, Alex Whitman, star of the school wrestling team and ~*totally popular*~, asks her out on her first date. He takes her to see a movie, The Mummy to be exact. She feels an emotion from him that she can't identify. After the movie, he drives her out into the country, where I'm just going to post the entire fucking scene because fuck this book:

Quote :: She could feel the fear starting to crawl in her stomach. He had driven for ten minutes before pulling into the dark parking lot of an old abandoned building. She had known something was horribly wrong and reached for the door handle to get out of the car.
“Don’t,” he had said grabbing her arm.
“Please, just let me out!” she begged.
“Come on. You knew we were going to do this,” he said pulling her towards him.
“No. I don’t want to do this. Let me go!” she’d yelled and slapped him.
She felt rage and hatred fill him, and he punched her in the face.
“What did you think I took you out for, you stupid bitch?!” he snarled and punched her in the face again.
“No, please! Don’t!” she had cried, trying to push him away from her.
“Stop fighting!”
When she kept pushing him, he had punched her three times in the ribs. She couldn’t breathe well enough to fight him much after that. He had reached over her and pulled the lever that laid the seat back. When he climbed on top of her, she had tried weakly to push him away again.
“I said stop it!” he had snapped at her and brought his fist down on her collar bone. It had felt like she had been hit by a hammer, and she stopped moving. He had ripped her shirt open and undid the clasp on the front of her bra. She had lain as still as she could as he groped her breast.
“Nice, let’s see the rest,” he had said pulling her skirt up. He tore her panties from her body and stuck his fingers inside her. She could feel a sick excitement running through him. He had slid his pants down and was rubbing himself on her leg as his fingers dug deeper insider.
“Ready?” he had grunted.
“No, please,” she’d begged him again with what little breath she could pull into her lungs.

He had ignored her pleas and, as he thrust roughly into her body, she had felt her flesh rip. He thrust harder and harder, and an agonizing pain stabbed through her as something inside her cracked. She wanted to scream but couldn’t draw enough breath. She had lain under him gagging on the blood that was running down her throat. He had reached up and wrapped his hand around her throat.
“Tell me how much you like it,” he had groaned.
She couldn’t talk through the pain and was terrified that he was going to kill her. She could hear him panting and feel his hot breath on her face. Some unknown time later, she felt him shudder. He rolled back over into the driver’s seat and pulled up his pants.
“That was as good as I thought it would be,” he had said.
All she could do was lay there and cry, completely helpless and ashamed.
“If you tell anyone what happened tonight, I’ll kill you. I don’t want anyone to know that I fucked a freak like you, now get the hell out of my car.”
When she hadn’t moved, he had reached across her and opened the door.
“Remember what I said, bitch,” he had said and pushed her out of the car. He had thrown her panties out after her and drove away.

There really isn't much I can say about this. I get that Tate wanted to make this sound as traumatic and horrifying as possible, but really it's not much more than a typical violent rape scene that's usually written by EDGY (often male) writers. As TV Tropes says, Rape Is The New Dead Parents, and throwing in some random punches can't possibly hurt.

Why didn't 'The Man' rush in to save her? Simple - she's sixteen. Too old for him.

Beck lays there for a while, and then somehow finds the energy to get up and stumble three miles to a telephone where she calls Bev. Bev drives her to the emergency room and insist that she call the police, while Beck for some reason doesn't want to. We get a nice tally of Beck's injuries:

Quote :: The doctors had taken swabs of the fluids in her and x-rayed her whole body. She had had a broken nose, a fractured check bone, two cracked ribs, a broken collar bone, several tears in her vaginal wall, a bruised cervix, and a fractured pelvic bone. They had given her I.V. pain killers, and she had been talking to Det. Eaton when her parents came in.

She was actually able to walk three miles with all of that. Fractured. Pelvic. Bone. Must have been the crack that Beck heard while Alex was raping her, which means that Alex must have been the goddamn Hulk. Also, "check bone."

Beck's parents insist on not pressing charges, because THEY ARE EVIL PARENTS.

Quote :: “If you didn’t want to have sex with him, then you shouldn’t have gone out with him. You’re not going to put that poor boy in jail because you changed your mind later,” her father had said. Det. Eaton had looked at her parents like they were bugs.

I really can't imagine a parent, abusive or otherwise, saying that their daughter should be having sex with anyone who takes her out. Aren't abusive parents usually possessive anyway? I'm no expert on the subject, but surely the father should at least be angry that someone was beating on "his property." Definitely not calling the attacker "that poor boy." Bev points out that six of Beck's bones are broken, which, yeah, isn't exactly a normal side effect of sex.

The detective asks Beck if she wants to press charges, and she says yes even though she didn't even want to call the police before and her parents are right there yelling at her.

Quote :: “You’re telling me that because she lies about being raped that we have to go to court?” her mother had yelled.
It was more than Bev could take and she reached out and slapped the hell out of their mother.
“I want her arrested,” her mother had screamed.
“For what?” Det. Eaton had asked calmly.
“For assault,” her mother had yelled.
“I didn’t see an assault,” Det. Eaton had said. Her mother’s mouth had fallen open in shock.

Well that's something.

Section Five flashes forward to after the trial.

Quote :: “The D.A. accepted a plea agreement from the defense. Alex has pleaded guilty to Assault in the First Degree in return for the rape charge being dropped. He was given a two year suspended sentence and one year of probation. They dropped the restraining order. He can go back to school now, Beck!” Bev had told her.

Can anyone who knows something about law explain how probable this is, especially with the amount of injuries that Beck sustained? It doesn't sound quite likely to me. Bev is livid:

Quote :: “Alex should be leaving the courthouse in a minute. I’m going to run over him,” Bev had said, and Beck knew that if she didn’t stop her, Bev would have done it.
“Bev, no, don’t do it!” she yelled.
“Why not? He deserves to be punished, and the court is obviously incapable of doing it! He’s getting away with it, damn it!” Bev had bellowed.

Bev is also psychotic. And has a voice deep enough to bellow.

Quote :: “I know he is, but you being in prison isn’t going to help me.”
“I would be out in no time. He got a year of probation for beating, raping, and throwing you out of a car. That means I should get about three years for murder. I’d be out on parole in fifteen months,” Bev had said.

She had to smile at how Bev’s pre-law brain had worked.

This is a seriously disturbing scene right here. Bev's mind is just crunching numbers while she thinks of just driving out and murdering someone. Beck's smile doesn't help things.

Quote :: “We don’t have that kind of luck. If you killed Alex, they would probably give you a lethal injection, electrocute you, and then hang you just to make sure you’re dead. Please, just let it go. For me,” she had begged.
“Fine,” Bev had said after a few seconds and tossed her keys onto the table.

So she's a psychopath who changes her mind easily.

Quote :: But she had had nothing to worry about. Alex Whitman never spoke to her again. She had walked past him a few times in the halls, and when she had been unlucky enough to catch his eye, he would flash an evil smile at her, but no more than that. When that happened, she had just looked in the other direction and kept walking.

And that's how Section 5 ends.

SECTION SIX!

Quote :: She hadn’t realized that she had been starring at Alex until he looked over at her and gave her that evil smirk.

How does one "star"?

Quote :: She knew what that smirk meant. It was his way of telling her that he had gotten away with it. God, she fucking hated him! She snapped her head back around to the front and found herself looking directly at ‘The Man’ again, and he looked…angry? He looked slowly from her to Alex and back to her again. She had no idea what he looked so mad about, but she knew it was somehow about her.

So he's one of those mind-reading vampires. Makes the plot sort itself out a lot more neatly. I haven't even read past this part yet, but my guess is, Alex is going to end up dead. Bev is also staring angrily at Alex, because I guess he just stands out in a crowd. Another infobrick about stupid boring Bev and her stupid boring law school. Beck looks back at 'The Man' before going up to get her diploma, and when she looks back into the crowd he's gone.

Hot and Botherer Join date : 2009-06-10

Kommandar wrote:: it puts yet another toe over the line.

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Quote :: She had never seen a ghost covered in blood or burned. Her theory for that was that she saw ghosts the way that they remembered themselves. Ifthey did remember themselves bloody, burned, or sick, they didn’t project themselves that way to her. To her, they looked like anyone else.

So how does she know they're ghosts?

Also, ffs, the parents. And... and everything.

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Mon Jul 11, 2011 6:39 pm

I kind of want to keep a list of all the cliches she's using, but holy crap would it be a long list.

Also, thank you for reading and summarizing this drivel for us. I don't think I'd be able to do it.

Join date : 2011-07-04

Remember how I made mentions of second and third chapters in the first post? Oopsy, turns out that those are just sections of a Chapter One which we had just come to the conclusion to. Hence why I edited the second post to say "section" instead of chapter. Not too big a mistake, just keep that in mind as we move on to the real Chapter Two.

We start with some exposition on how Beck will be going to Duke, and therefore will be a few hours away from Bev. They buy school supplies, Beck and Bev have an argument on buying new clothes because Beck just doesn't like things.

Quote :: “Thank God it’s not up to you, and you do need new clothes, because you don’t have any. I knew you were going to give me shit about this, so I burned all of your old clothes after you went to bed last night,” Bev said.
“You didn’t!” she yelled.
“Oh, yes I did. Backyard, starter fluid, match, poof, gone!” Bev said gleefully.
She threw the back door open and saw a black lump that used to be her clothes, melted in the middle of the yard.
“How could you?” she gasped.
“It wasn’t that hard. I’ve known how to strike a match for quite some time,” Bev said dryly
“That was an evil thing to do.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Bev said, not sounding one bit ashamed of herself.
“So now you don’t have a choice. Let’s go get your new wardrobe,” Bev said.

Once again, Bev is a psychopath. I wouldn't be surprised if she too had been abusing Beck, albeit emotionally rather than physically. And shouldn't Beck have noticed her missing clothes when she got up in the morning? I know I usually have an outfit in mind when I go to get dressed. They go shopping, and keep on arguing. I kind of want 'The Man' to show up again because he was actively horrifying instead of just irritating. Bev wants Beck to start dating, Beck continues being a party pooper.

Quote :: “I’m not going to turn into a hermit, and I really don’t mind being alone,” she said.
“That’s not the point. You can’t let Alex fucking Whitman take anymore of your life away from you than he already has.”
“He’s not. Look, I don’t think about what happened much anymore, but it did happen, and I can’t just act like it didn’t. It changed me, and there’s nothing I can do about that,” she explained.
“I know you’ll get passed this, you are the strongest person I’ve ever known,” Bev said quietly.
“I am a strong person. Strong enough that I don’t need a man in my life to make me happy. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

There would actually be some substance to this were there any sort of evidence that Beck being raped changed anything about who she was. She was always a self-loathing sadsack since she was a tot, thanks to being too special for her parents to understand. And how much do you want to bet that Beck will not actually be happy until she has a man in her life? Specifically, 'The Man'?

Whoops, here come the parents:

Quote :: “Can’t you study art or business? Can’t you at least try to act normal?” her mother, Lisa, asked.
“No, I can’t. I’m not normal. You have told me my whole life how abnormal I am. I’ve accepted it, you should too.”
“Do you have to humiliate us with everything you do?” her father snapped.
“Yeah, I do. Apparently, it’s my job. Everything about me embarrasses you,” she snapped back.
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business where I go to college or what I study. It’s not as if you’re paying for it.”
“If it wasn’t for my mother, you wouldn’t be going to college at all,” her mother shouted.
“If it wasn’t for Grandma Cora, you would have sent me to boarding school when I was seven. The only reason you didn’t was because she would have cut you off and you may actually have had to work for a living!” she screamed at her mother.
“Don’t you take that tone with us!” her father yelled and slapped her across her face.
“Don’t you ever touch me again!” she yelled as she stormed into the kitchen and threw open the door to the breaker box.
“Don’t you dare!” her father shouted.
“Fuck you! Fuck both of you!” she screamed and touched the breaker switches. Everything that was on in the house fried out, and the power shut down.
“God damn it!” her father yelled.

I think that this scene is here because Tate forgot to write Grandma Cora into the graduation ceremony so Beck could see her and launch into another flashback in which Cora decides to pay her tuition. With all that considered, Beck has quite the fighting spirit for a rape victim who was abused physically and emotionally for her entire life.

Quote :: She ran quickly out of the house, jumped in her car, and drove away. She hated them! She wished she had already packed her things into the car so she could leave tonight!

She is angry enough to warrant two exclamation marks in a row! She probably doesn't realize that starting this many sentences with "She" isn't good writing!

Quote :: She drove around until 1:00 in the morning before finally driving back home. When she pulled into the driveway she saw that all of her things were piled on the front porch.

And then, I am not kidding, the exact scene that was the prologue plays out again, word for word. German "Sheppard" and everything.

Quote :: She woke up on the porch swing just as the sun was rising. She convinced herself that ‘The Man’ and the dog had only been a dream. Things like that just didn’t happen.

Except that it's already happened to her before, what with the bike and the car and whatnot.

So Beck sees that her parents had already packed all of her things into her car for her. Well that was nice of them. Beck starts pulling out of the driveway, WHEN SUDDENLY

Quote :: She screeched to a stop three blocks down when she saw the dead dog on the sidewalk. It had happened! ‘The Man’ had killed the dog, carried her home, and put her on the swing. She remembered the new tire that had been on her bike after she had crashed and wondered again who had really packed her car. She had assumed that her parents had done it, but it really didn’t sound like something that they would do.

She looked in the back seat and saw that everything had been put in neatly. Surely if her parents had done it, they would have just stuffed it all in. She got out of the car and popped the trunk open. All of her things that didn’t fit in the back seat were stacked neatly in the trunk. They were even tied down by straps that she didn’t own, so that the stuff wouldn’t fall over. Now she knew her parents didn’t pack the car. What the hell? She knew ‘The Man’ had done this, but why? She closed the trunk, got back in the car, and headed to the interstate.

'The Man' saw all of Beck's things on the front porch, knew they were Beck's things, and was somehow able to locate her car and unlock it so he can put the items in there. And he had tie-down straps with him. And he set her on the porch swing instead of putting her inside the car.

And apparently Beck keeps track of the kind of tie-down straps that she owns.

Quote :: She pulled into her dorm parking lot before 4:00 that afternoon. She got out, opened the back door, and reached into the backseat to pull out her tub of clothes. It was gone! It couldn’t be gone. She had seen it in her rearview mirror just a little while ago! She looked around and saw ‘The Man’ standing on the other side of the car, holding her tub of clothes.

Uh oh. Make sure your underwear is still there, Beck.

Quote :: “What the fuck?! What are you doing here?!” she yelled.
“Shh! Stop yelling, Beck. People are looking,” he said.
She glanced around and saw a couple of people looking in their direction. They were only a few people around. She had gotten here late on purpose. She didn’t want to be trying to move in when everyone else was. She didn’t really care for crowds.
“What are you doing here?” she asked a little more quietly.
“You’re here. Now where are we taking this?” he asked.
“I’m not telling you my dorm room number. I don’t even know your name.”
“My name is Richard, and your room number is 205. I was only being polite by asking,” he said smiling.
“How did you know that?”
“I heard you giving Bev your address,” he said.

This is the part where Tate realizes that calling him 'The Man' in italics every time he shows up is kind of annoying to look at. (Also, 'The Man In Italics' would be a great title for a mystery novel where the clues are all typography-centric.)

Beck never reacted in such a way to seeing him before, not even in an event as recent as the graduation. Of course, now that she's far away from home, she might find it strange that he'd show up here. At the same time, Beck can see ghosts. She theorizes that ghosts appear as they remember themselves, and already knows that 'The Man' Richard doesn't age. Of course, the reader would know that Richard is a vampire, but it makes little sense for the supernaturally powered Beck to think of him as just this guy who just so happens to have appeared at various points of her life and [i[oh yeah, never aged a day[/i]. She's never talked to ghosts lest people think her any more of a freak, and yet here she is yelling "What the fuck?! What are you doing here?!" to what could very well be an apparition making her clothes float. Whatever happened to that weird calming effect he had had on her before?

Richard continues being his stalkery self. No surprise there. But now we actually learn he listens to Beck's conversations. And there's an odd change in tone in the way he speaks to her, no more calling her "Little One" or trying to be this comforting presence. Just "lol hi i'm richard where do i put your clothes now."

Quote :: “We were in the kitchen when I did that. Where were you, outside the window?” she asked angrily.
“Actually, I was across the street. Can I take this to your room now?” he asked.
“Why the hell not, you will anyway,” she said and walked off.
“That’s the wrong way, Little One,” he said laughing.
She turned and stalked in the other direction. When she found room 205, she slipped the key in and unlocked the door. He was already waiting inside the room.
“How did you get here so fast? How did you get in here at all?” she asked.
“I’m very fast.”

Richard is a terribly awkward vampire. None of the gentlemanly charm or elegance, no air of mystery or romance. Of course it would be interesting for one of these teen paranormal romances to have a vampire pursue a human girl because he's just too damn dweeby for the sexy lady vampires.

Doesn't stop him from bringing in all of Beck's things from the car in only fifteen minutes, and of course Beck is no help.

Quote :: “The room is bigger than I thought it would be,” he said, sitting the last of the boxes on the floor.
“Why are you thinking about my dorm room at all?” she asked.
“I think about everything that has anything to do with you, Beck.”
“Why? You don’t even really know me.”
“I know you very well, and I’ve known you for a very long time,” he said.
He reached out for her hand and she jumped off the bed.

Fucking. Duh. At the graduation, Beck managed to recall every time she and him had met in the past. She now knows that he is able to hear her conversations from across the street. She has the worst case of Genre Blindness that I have ever seen.

Quote :: “You’re not a stalker are you?” she asked quickly, backing away from him.

She asks this after letting him take her to her room and letting him close the door behind him. And after everything that had happened previously in the story.

Quote :: She didn’t feel as if he was dangerous, but she had been catastrophically wrong before.

HURR HURR RAPE

Quote :: “No, I’m not a stalker, Beck. I would never hurt you. I know you can feel that.”
“You seem to know a lot about me. I want to know why.”
“I can explain some things to you but not until we feed you,” he said.
“What? You even know when I’m hungry?” she asked.
“I can hear your stomach growling, Little One,” he chuckled. “Let’s go get you some food. When we get back, I have some questions for you as well. And I want the truth,” he said, the last part almost as a demand.
“I thought you knew everything about me,” she said crossly.
“So did I, but it appears that part of your story has been left out. I intend to find out what it is,” he said as he led her out of the dorm.

He takes her to Burger King. Yeah, Burger King.

Quote :: “Are you sure you’re not dangerous?” she asked, taking a drink of coke.

You've already let him take you to Burger King, now you ask if he's dangerous?

Quote :: “Not to you, never to you. You are the only reason that I have struggled to keep existing,” he said softly.

In other words, she's even more ~*special*~ than we had thought.

They head back to the dorm to finish this anyway, so I don't even know why they went to Burger King in the first place. They both say that they're going to answer each other's questions.

Quote :: “Most of the time, when I was in real danger, you were there to help me. How?” she asked.
“Most of the time?” he asked, his eyebrows raising in curiosity.
“Just answer the question. How did you know when I was going to be in danger? Are you a psychic?”
“Hardly. I only knew where to be because you told me,” he said.
“That’s not true,” she said in disbelief.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but it is true.”
“I don’t know you. I didn’t tell you anything,” she said.
“You’re right, you didn’t, but you will.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I’m not ready to answer that yet. What’s your next question?”
She wanted him to explain but let it go…for now.

In other words, because Tate Jackson wanted him to be there. Next question please.

Quote :: “How did you crush that dogs head last night?” she asked.
“I’m very strong.”
“Look, you’re going to have to do better than that. I want the whole truth. You’re not lying, but you are being evasive.”
“I know I am. I just don’t want to scare you away,” he said.
“I don’t scare very easily. I want to know how you’re so strong, how you’re so fast, how you haven’t aged a day in at least ten years, and I want to know right now,” she stated firmly.
He was quiet for a long time before he finally spoke. “I’m a vampyre, Beck,” he said in a voice so low she could barely hear him.

All I can say is FUCKING FINALLY. Trying to prolong the time until this "revelation" comes is not suspenseful in any way - the reader already knows it's a vampire book, and therefore will already know. There are ways of utilizing dramatic irony, but this is not one of them. We are also assuming that Beck lives in a universe in which paranormal romance books and their associated tropes do not exist. She doesn't believe him for some reason.

Quote :: “Vampyres don’t really exist.”

Says the girl who can short out electrical circuits with her mind, predict deaths, and see ghosts.

Quote :: He took her head gently and laid it on his chest. “What do you hear?” She heard nothing. No heartbeat, no stirring of breath in his lungs.
“This is some kind of trick, right?”
“No, Little One. It is not a trick.”
“I’m going to need more proof than that."

She is perfectly fine with him manhandling her brainpan, however.

Quote :: He moved across the room so fast that if she had blinked she might have missed it. He picked up a thick silver vase out of one of her boxes and crushed it one hand like it was made of clay.
“Do you believe me now?” he asked.
“Yes. I believe you.”

"Only a vampyre would be such a dick. That was an antique."

We cut to the third section.

Quote :: He was a vampyre. As impossible as it seemed, it was true. She let it run through her mind for a moment, and then busted out in laughter.
“What’s so funny?” he asked in confusion.
“Last night you said ‘Good Evening’, like in the old vampyre movies,” she said, still laughing.
“Sorry. I couldn’t help myself,” he said with a grin.

It really bugs me much more than it should that Tate spells it "vampyre." It doesn't make sense since Beck wouldn't spell it that way, as the story takes place in the modern day United States. Maybe she'd say "vampire" and Richard could correct it to "vampyre, with a Y" even though they sound exactly the same to Beck but it's kind of like the P in Psmith.

Quote :: “Wait,” he said, the grin falling from his face. “You’re not scared?” he asked with surprise.
“No, I’m not scared of you. If it was your intent to eat me, you would have done it by now,” she said. “Why haven’t you eaten me? Do I smell bad or something?!” she asked.

What an odd thing for a rape victim to say. ('-' )

Quote :: “You sound offended that I haven’t munched on you,” he said laughing. “No, Beck you don’t smell bad. Actually you smell like Fruit Loops, but no vampyre would ever bite you.”

I suddenly remember a joke from an episode of The Simpsons, "Bart's Girlfriend":

Bart: Give it up, Lis: she's a criminal mastermind. She's got 108 IQ,
she reads at a fifth grade level, and...[sighs] her hair smells
like red Froot Loops.
Lisa: [threatening] Yeah? Well I eat Froot Loops for breakfast.

Yeah, I could be watching The Simpsons right now.

Quote :: “Why not?” she asked.
“Whatever gives you the abilities that you have, seeing ghosts, and your ‘electrical problem’, it runs in your blood. It’s a poison to us. If a vampyre drank your blood, it would kill them,” he explained.

That's awfully convenient. So Beck can prance around with 'vampyres' and not have to worry about becoming dinner. But let that be a lesson to all writers - Mary Sueism is a poison.

Quote :: “Wow!” was all she could think of to say. She didn’t know how to react to being told she was toxic, so she changed the subject. “At my graduation, I felt a pull to you that I never felt when I was a kid. Was that the some sort of vampyre trick?” she asked.
“No, that would be puberty,” he said laughing again.

Well that's an awfully perverted joke to make-

Quote :: “Puberty. You didn’t feel that pull when you were a child, because you had yet to go through puberty. You felt it at graduation, because…well, you had become a woman,” he explained.
“No, that can’t be right. If it was only puberty, why was I only drawn to you? Why not one of the boys at school?”
“Because we’re mates, lovers, and your body knew that somehow,” he said. She starred at him in shock. He had to be insane, because there was no way that that was true.

Oh shit, that was serious.

Basically, Beck was functionally asexual until she saw her One True Love. Her entire sexuality is and will always be defined by this one man who insists that he and she are mates and she just doesn't know it yet. What the hell, Tate Jackson? What. The. Hell.

Beck doesn't believe him, but he keeps insisting that they are lovers even though they have never had sex. Then, Richard asks her who Alex Whitman is. She doesn't want to talk about it, understandably, but conveniently Richard can read her memories if she lets him take her hand. She does so, and he instructs her to think about that particular memory. When she does...

Quote :: “He raped you! He beat you, broke you, and left you to walk miles in pain! He dared to take a woman’s virginity against her will! He dared to touch my woman!” he roared.

Yes, "your woman" who didn't even know your name until today. Good show, Richard. Good show.

He then takes off, saying he'll be back in a few hours. He isn't, and Beck does some stuff and goes to bed.

Quote :: He was running through the darkness back to Clarksville. He had a car but running was faster. He had had his brother, Leso, pace him in a car once. The cars speedometer had pegged out at 160 mph, and he had left it behind.

Thank you, Tate. We needed that.

Quote :: The faster he ran, the angrier he became. He kept seeing that boy smile at Beck at the graduation ceremony. He had been laughing at her! He had believed that he had gotten away with what he had done to her! He had been wrong!

He had been RAAAAUUGUHBBLAARGLAWKWARDUSEOFTENSE!

Quote :: A fresh wave of rage washed over him every time he thought of that boy touching Beck. Justice had missed Alex Whitman the first time around, but it was coming at him now, and this justice was not blind.

That was supposed to sound dramatic, I guess. Don't use a figure of speech unless you know what it means.

Quote :: He reached Clarksville before midnight. There was nothing he could do to change what had happened to Beck, but he would do the one thing that the courts had refused to do. He would make her righteous. He would give her the justice that the courts had failed to deliver.

You are now reading this in the voice of Mojo Jojo!

Quote :: He had known that Beck was not a virgin the first time they had made
love, but she had never told him about this.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Wait. WHAT.

Quote :: He wondered why she hadn’t told him but knew he would never know. He knew where the Whitman boy lived, he had been here before. He had followed his scent there after the graduation to find out who he was. He could have waited to hear his name at the ceremony, but he had chosen to leave after Beck had taken her diploma. He had been angry that Beck had been starring at Alex, and that Alex had smiled at her.

I'm going to cool the tension by pointing out that eight sentences in a row began with "He [verb]ed."

Quote :: He had thought that maybe Whitman had been her boyfriend and the reason she had not been a virgin when she came to him. He had left the ceremony afraid that if he stayed that he would have jumped on the stage and torn that boy apart in front of an entire auditorium full of people. He had been right about Whitman taking Beck’s virginity, but not in the way he had thought. She had been sitting there on the stage with her rapist, and he had not known it! If he had known, he would have killed that boy. If he had known, the attack would have never happened.

And that makes eleven sentences in a row. But I'm even posting the sentences after it because by the dead gods, that is some dreadful writing.

Quote :: He stood in front of Whitman’s house deciding what to do next. He could hear only one person moving inside the house. He decided to take a straight forward approach and knocked on the door. As luck would have it, Alex Whitman himself opened the door.
“Follow me,” he commanded, starring into the boy’s eyes. The boy followed him with no questions, as he had known he would. When they were in the yard, he released Alex from his gaze. He watched as Alex looked around in confusion.
“You raped Rebecca Stockdale.”
He didn’t want this boy to have any doubts as to why he was there.

"Herp-a-derp, gonna follow this angry stranger!"

Quote :: “I didn’t rape anybody. Those charges were dropped,” Alex said smugly.
“Not by me. You raped her and beat her,” he said.
“So what if I did? What’s it to you?”
“It is everything to me,” he growled.
“The bitch loved it. You should try her sometime,” Alex said with the same smile he had given Beck at the graduation.
“You made one mistake,” he said.
He watched in amazement as Alex swelled his chest and squared his shoulders. This boy, this child, actually thought that there was going to be a fight! He saw Alex through a haze of red as his eyes filled with blood.
“And what was my mistake?” Alex asked, still unaware of the danger he was in.
“Your mistake was touching my woman,” he hissed.

"You should have raped a cheerleader instead. Ah well, time for killins!"

Quote :: He grabbed Alex and crushed him until his ribs cracked and his back snapped, then flung him to the ground and walked away, not caring if the boy lived or died. Either way, the boy would never rape another woman.

Well that was... anticlimactic. Compared to the lavish treatment Beck's rape got.

Quote :: He started running when he hit the street, heading back to Beck. He slowed down when he realized that he needed to cool down before he explained to her what he had done.

He couldn’t allow an offense like this to go unpunished. He couldn’t explain why without telling her how and when they really met. He had had 113 years to think of a way to tell her and had come up with nothing. There was just no way of telling her that they had met in the past, they had fallen in love, and become lovers in the past without sounding completely insane.

Vampirism and memory transfer is completely sane, on the other hand.

He arrives at Beck's dorm in the morning, where she was just on the phone with Bev.

Quote :: “Don’t you play with me! Det. Eaton was at Bev’s apartment this morning at 4:00 a.m. to tell her the good news. It seems that Alex Whitman was found in his yard around 1:00 a.m. He has seven broken ribs and a severed spinal cord. He’s never going to walk again.”

The good news that some psycho just permanently injured a person! This story is just rife with sadism. And not the fun kind.

Richard confesses that he's the one who attacked Alex.

Quote :: “After what he did to you, do you really need me to explain why I did what I did?! Are you actually mad at me about it?” he snapped angrily.
“Don’t you yell at me! And no, I’m not really mad at you. He deserved what happened to him and not just for me. If he did it to me, then he would have done it to someone else, and that woman may not have been as lucky as I was. She may not have survived. Bev is over the moon about this. Det. Eaton is taking her out for a celebratory breakfast.”

What's next, a fucking conga line?

But Richard is feeling tired, which is just an excuse for him to explain that he sleeps for two hours every few days. Okay. And he dreams!

Quote :: “What do you dream about?”
“You, Beck. Always you,” he said. “I’ve have dreamt about you every time I’ve closed my eyes for the last 113 years. I don’t expect this time to be any different.”

Yes he has has. This book suck sucks.

So he sleeps on her bed, giving Beck time to ponder why he said they knew each other, what he meant by '113 years', and she still denies that vampires (sorry, vampyres) existed. But enough of that, it's Beck's turn to be creepy!

Quote :: She leaned over and smelled him. He smelled like fresh cut wood and
spring rain.

Hehehehehehehehe. Hey Beavis, she said wood.

Richard wakes up and is looking at her, which startles her, and he grabs the chair before it can topple over. He asks what she was doing, and at first she says "Nothing" but then confesses to smelling him.

Quote :: “I don’t think you’re a freak, nor do I think it is at all strange that you were smelling me. Scent is very important to mates. I find your scent to be very comforting,” he said.

Her heart jumped in her chest when he said that. She had just had the same thought about his scent.

Nothing's more romantic than pheromones.

Beck still has a lot of questions, but not much time since Richard can only hang around for three days. Why three days?

Quote :: “Because if I stay longer than that, I won’t be able to leave you, and as much as I hate it, I do have to leave you,” he said.

He doesn't explain this at all. He does explain how he's able to walk in the sunlight. Sunlight damaging "vampyres" is only a myth, but it affects their vision so they can only see as well as humans do. The poor things. Sunlight actually feels pleasant to them, however.

Then we get an explanation on how Richard became a vampire.

Quote :: “How long have you been a vampyre?” she asked.
“Since 1834.”
“How did it happen? Did you do it on purpose?” she asked.
“No, I most certainly did not do it on purpose,” he said. “It happened in London, where I am original from. I was walking to a gathering at a friend’s house when I was struck from behind. When I awoke, I was tied face down on the floor of an abandoned building. I was struggling with the bonds around my wrist when I heard a voice behind me say, ‘Now you will pay for what you have done’. I felt something bite my shoulder, and when I awoke again, I was a vampyre.”
“Did it hurt when you changed?”
“The bite hurt like a hell, beyond any pain that you could ever imagine, but only for a few moments. It doesn’t take very long for vampyre toxin to kill you,” he said.
“But you’re not dead, you’re right here, talking to me.”
“Alright, I’m not dead, I am the undead. I’m not truly alive, nor am I truly dead.”
“So you’re an immortal?” she asked.
“No, if you were to cut off my head I would die. It’s the only known way to kill a vampyre.”
“Do you know who bit you?” she asked.
“No, I never knew who bit me. Nor have I ever done anything that anyone would have wanted me to ‘pay’ for. I think it was a simple case of misidentification. Whoever did this must have thought I was someone else, but it doesn’t really matter. Once you’re a vampyre, there is no going back,” he said quietly.

Well okay then. Reviews I've read of this book mention something about a plot point involving Jack the Ripper. I wonder if this has something to do with it. But yeah, now the infobricks are coming in dialogue form and it's every bit as annoying to read.

He also explains that only silver can break through a vampire's skin, too, and he bites a quarter in half for no good reason. Beck asks what he looks like before he became a vampire, because:

Quote :: “Well, I mean you’re beautiful. I was just wondering if it happened while you were ‘dead’ or after you woke up ‘undead’,” she asked.
A big smile spread across his face. “You think I’m beautiful?” he asked.
“You’re perfect,” she said.
“I stopped aging after I was bitten, but I looked like this before I became a vampyre,” he told her, the smile still on his face.
“You’re kidding me! You really looked like this before you were bitten?” she asked.
“I did.”
“Can I touch you?” she asked.
“You can touch me anytime you like, Beck.”

Good to know that the awkward isn't one-sided.

Quote :: She slowly reached out and placed her hand on his cheek. His skin was very cool to the touch. He turned his head quickly and kissed the palm of her hand. The sensation of his lips on her skin sent what felt like an electrical current up her arm causing her to jump. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, quite the opposite.

This is just really uncomfortable to read.

Beck asks if he's married, which is an easy way of letting Richard tell us that he married a human after becoming a vampire but she was killed by another vampire named Royal Elderson. Beck quickly changes the subject, asking if vampires really do feed on blood.

Quote :: “When we wake up after being bitten, we are crazed with hunger and have to feed immediately. After that we have to feed at least every seven days.”
“What happens, if for some reason, you’re unable to feed when you need to?” she asked.
“We can go longer if we must, but the blood thirst becomes harder to control, and we become dangerous,” he said.
“Aren’t vampyres already dangerous?” she asked.
“Of course we are, but we are usually in control of ourselves. If we don’t feed, then we lose that control, and the thirst takes over. The thirst will drive us to feed no matter what we have to do to do it. The blood thirst feels like a madness, and you will do whatever you have to do to make it stop. Even if that means that you have to feed on the blood of a child,” he explained.
“That sounds horrible!” she gasped.
“It is horrible,” he said.

He then explains that vampires can choose which victims they want to turn, and that most bite victims are drained until death. Vampires also have the ability to mesmerize victims so that feeding doesn't hurt the victim, but not all vampires use it. Richard explains, "...there are vampyres that enjoy the pain and terror of their victims. If a person was evil or sadistic when they were human becoming a vampyre only makes them worse. They use becoming a vampyre as an excuse for leaving their humanity behind.” Remember how Alex Whitman survived? I've a feeling we haven't seen the last of him.

But Richard doesn't feed on human blood, he feeds on animal blood. Sound familiar?

Quote :: “So I’m not in any danger of you eating me?” she asked.
“I never said that I wouldn’t eat you, only that I would never bite you,” he said, giving her a leering wink.
She was pretty sure she could feel even her hair blush!

And I'm pretty sure I can feel my soul crying.

Speaking of which, Beck is hungry! She eats a blueberry Pop Tart, which for some reason is uncapitalized, allowing Richard to exposit that vampires don't process solid food and thus he hasn't eaten in over a century. She offers him a bite of the Pop Tart.

Quote :: He took the pop-tart, sniffed it, and took a small bite. His eyes got big as he chewed. “It’s wonderful!” he exclaimed.
“Good. Now spit it out,” she said, holding her hand under his mouth. She could tell he didn’t want to, but he was a good boy and spit the food into her hand.

ROMANCE!

Quote :: “I hope you’re happy with yourself, now I want to taste everything!” he said.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she said, grabbing his hand and trying to pull him towards the door.
“No, Beck.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I can’t run around the town spitting out chewed food. What would people think?” he asked.
“Fuck what they think. We don’t even know the people here. I stopped giving a shit what people think about me a long time ago. This is the first time you have tasted food in 167 years, and I want you to do it with me,”
she said.
“Alright, I’ll do it on two conditions. You have to spit out the food, too. That way people aren’t just staring at me.”

Aw great, looks like Richard's a Manic Pixie Dreampire.

Quote :: “I don’t have a problem with that. What’s the second condition?” she asked.
“You have to let me kiss you.”

Beck is incredibly nervous, but gives in.

Quote :: She nodded her head, and it was all the invitation that he needed. He gently placed a hand on each side of her neck and pulled her face towards his. His breath smelled like pop-tarts and honey, and her heart was pounding in her chest.

Pop Tarts and honey. How sexy.

Quote :: “Calm down, Little One. It’s only me,” he whispered against her lips.
When his lips touched hers, it felt as if time had stopped and everything but them disappeared. She could feel her blood rushing through her veins. Some unknown time later, he pulled back and put his forehead to hers.
“My Beck,” he whispered.

He's still calling her 'Little One' as he kisses her.

Then they go out to chew on everything! It only takes a paragraph for them to arrive back at the dorm at 10:00 PM.

Quote :: “I’m glad you had fun. I’m going to grab a shower and wash the smell of food out of my hair.”
She took a shower, put on her panties and a long sleep shirt, and stepped back into the room. She heard him gasp as she closed the bathroom door.
“Beck! Put some clothes on! I only have so much control!” he yelled.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. She didn’t know what his problem was. Her tee-shirt hung to the middle of her thigh, everything was covered.
“I haven’t seen you in 113 years, and you come out here practically naked! You’re killing me!” he growled.

Yeah, I don't see this going anywhere good.

Quote :: “I always sleep in this, and what do you mean by 113 years?” she asked.
“Nothing. Forget it. I wish I could take a shower but I don’t have anymore clothes with me,” he said.
She knew he was evading her question but decided to deal with it later.
“I have some big boxer shorts that I lounge around in sometimes. They’ll fit you. The dorm laundry room is two doors down. I can start your clothes while you’re in the shower,” she said, digging the boxer shorts out of a drawer.
“Sounds good,” he said, taking the shorts.
When she returned from starting his laundry, she could hear the shower running. She decided to pick a movie from her DVD collection for them to watch. She ended up picking The Whole Nine Yards. It was one of her favorite movies. She heard the shower turn off and waited fifteen minutes, but he didn’t come out.
“Is everything alright?’ she asked, knocking on the bathroom door.
“I can’t come out wearing this. It’s not descent, Beck,” he said through the door.
“You said we used to be lovers, right? So what’s the big deal? Just come out here.”
He slowly opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw him in nothing but the boxer shorts. She had never been attracted in this way to anyone before. Now she had to put her hands behind her back to keep from running them up his chest. It was crazy!

That's not 'descent.' One would think that Beck would be a lot more nervous or frightened at these new found feelings of hers, given her past, but this is Twu Wuv.

She puts on the movie.

Quote :: “No way! This one of my favorite movies,” he said, lying down next to her on the bed. She just smiled about their shared taste in movies.

So much for the sophisticated, classy vampire.

Quote :: “Richard? What’s your last name?” she asked.
“Jaxon,” he answered.

Richard Jaxon. Tate Jackson. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

Quote :: “How old were you when you were turned?” she asked.
“I was six weeks shy of my thirtieth birthday when I was bitten.”
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said.
“I’m not. Not anymore. If it had not happened, then I would have never found you,” he said, turning towards her on the bed. “You made my life worth living. The last 113 years without you have been torture. First, I had to wait for you to be born. Then I had to wait for you to grow up. Now, you’re eighteen years old and lying next to me. You may not realize it, but right now, I’m in heaven.”

And he's just foisting all of this onto her. She is responsible for his happiness, and he has the potential to kill her if she doesn't want to be.

Quote :: This time he didn’t wait for permission, he just kissed her. The kiss was gentle at first then turned into a deep, more lust filled kiss. She felt his hand, still warm from the shower, slide up her hip. He slid his hand slowly up her side, under her shirt, and cupped her breast. She gasped in pleasure when his thumb brushed across her nipple. He jerked back at the same time the light bulb blew out.

I guess her general distrust of others simply vanished. If a victim of violent rape were reading this, they'd be hurling the book against the wall right now.

Quote :: “Beck, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that. I just got carried away,” he said.
She suddenly understood that he had taken her gasp as fear.
“I wasn’t afraid, Richard. It was really nice. Apparently too nice,” she said, frowning at the lamp. “Oh well, at least it wasn’t the T.V.,” she added smiling.

He had jumped out of the bed when he thought she was scared. Looking at him standing there in those boxer shorts she had to agree with him. He was no boy. Everything about him was all man.

Oh, gag me with a shotgun.

Quote :: “You’re okay with me touching you?” he asked.
“I think I’m more than okay with it. Now will you get back in the bed?” she asked.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, with you, I’m sure,” she said.

And coitus ensues!

Quote :: He got back on the bed and reached for her. He kissed her again, and she felt as if she were floating above the mattress. He pulled her shirt over her head and kissed his way down her neck to her breast. He paused there to tease her nipple with his cool tongue. She couldn’t believe that this was happening. That she was lying in bed with ‘The Man’ running his lips and tongue over her body. He kissed down her ribcage, over her hip, and down her thigh. Her breath was coming in small gasps. When he kissed back up her thigh and dipped his tongue between her legs, she could take no more.
“Richard. Now,” she panted.
“Are you sure?” he asked again.
“Now,” she repeated.
He didn’t ask again. He scooped his arm under her waist and brought her body up to meet his trust. He pulled her to him over and over as he pushed into her. Pleasure that she never knew existed crashed over her in waves. When it was over, he collapsed on top of her.

I think that the rape scene was longer and more detailed than this. But this leads into one of the funniest moments in the book so far:

Quote :: She knew something was different about him, but it took her a second to realize what it was.
“Richard, your heart is beating,” she said.
“Huh?” he mumbled into her neck.
“YOU’RE HEART IS BEATING!” she said loudly.

YOU ARE HEART IS BEATING!

It stops beating quickly enough.

Quote :: “Maybe it’s us. Maybe my electrical problems are affecting you somehow. Maybe we shouldn’t be together if it’s going to hurt you,” she worried.
“Don’t you know that I would rather die than be without you? We only have two days left to be together, and I won’t waste them by staying away from you. It’s not up for debate,” he told her firmly.

Rebbecca Stockdale - The Human Defibrillator!

Quote :: Oh hell no! Who did he think he was talking to?
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that! I am a grown ass woman, and I will not be talked to like a fucking child! I live by my own rules, not yours. We just had sex! It’s not like you’re my husband! Do you understand me?!” she yelled.

Oh no he di'int! Aw hell naw! *Z-snap!*

(lol she's an 'ass woman')

Quote :: “Yes, by damn, I am your husband! Do you understand me?” he yelled back at her.
Her mouth fell open, but no words came out. She had been struck speechless.

Daaaayyuuuuum!

Quote :: At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

Does someone come in with a gun?

Quote :: It startled the shit out of her, making her jump a foot off the bed. When she opened the door, she found a little wisp of a girl standing there.
“I’m sorry to bother you but could you turn your T.V. down? I live across the hall, and it just woke me up,” the girl said timidly.
“I was just about to turn it off anyway. I’m so sorry that I woke you up,” she said.
“That’s alright. I’m Maggie by the way. I hope that we can be friends,” Maggie said while yawning.
“I’m sure we will be. Goodnight.”
“Night,” Maggie said, already closing her door.

Well, that's certainly a thing. Back to the plot!

Quote :: She closed her door and turned back to Richard. He had moved to the left so that Maggie wouldn’t see him.
“It’s nice that you’ve already made a friend,” he said.
“Don’t you even try to change the subject!” she snapped. “What the hell did you say to me?” she said in a calmer voice.
“I’m your husband, Beck. At least I was a long time ago or will be in a few years from now, depending on how you look at it.”
“You told me that your wife died,” she said. He looked down at the floor and nodded his head.
“So you’re telling me that, somehow, I travel into the past, marry you, and fucking die!” she yelled.
“If you don’t stop shouting someone is going to call campus security,” he said.
“So what? If they show up you can squeeze them, and we can stack them in the closet until you get hungry!” she snapped.
“That wasn’t nice,” he said, feigning hurt.

Yelling, yelling, we need more yelling! There is no tension without YELLING!

But then Beck asks yet another question, this one of whether they fought a lot when they were married.

Quote :: “Yes, but it usually ended with us making love, so I really didn’t mind,” he smiled.
“Well, it ain’t ending that way tonight, buddy,” she informed him. “I’m going to bed. When I wake up, you are going to tell me everything, and I mean everything. No more of this ‘I’ll tell you later’ bullshit. Then, we’re going to the library to see what we can find out about your heart. Goodnight,” she said, turning off the one light that was still working.

I guess the time-travel marriage is the straw that broke the rapist's spinal cord. I'm surprised that Beck didn't blow up earlier, with how she is.

She goes to bed, he watches her sleep. We receive more exposition on their past. When the other killed her (by neck snap, naturally), her body mysteriously disappeared before it hit the ground, but he had no doubt that she was dead. Beck died, Richard was sad.

Quote :: The color had drained from everything and he had not understood how people had gone on with their daily lives when Beck was gone from the world.

Tate does not even bother to hide that the world revolves around Beck.

Quote :: Elderson had wanted him to trade his family for Beck’s life, and for years afterward he had wished he had agreed, but all he had been able to do was wait for her.

On July 18, 1983, she had been born at Clarksville Memorial Hospital on Madison Street. Rebecca Emily Stockdale had been born at 2:03 on a Monday afternoon. She had weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. and had been 18 ½ inches long. She had great big eyes and had been as bald as an egg. He knew all of this because he had been there in the hospital when she was born.

I think there's a creepypasta that starts like this.

Quote :: He hadn’t been able to stay away. He had had to see for himself that she had indeed been born. He had seen her through the nursery glass and his relief had nearly brought him to his knees. She hadn’t looked like his Beck, yet. No red hair, eyes still baby blue, but he could smell her. He could pick her scent up from anywhere inside the hospital. He had noticed in his years as a vampyre that children tended to smell similar to their parents. Not Beck, though. Her scent was hers and hers alone. Had he not been there for her birth; he would have assumed that she was adopted.

Special scent for special snowflake. The Undead Heart 831506

We get more description on Richard's memory transfer ability, but it's little that we don't already know. He actually sees the memories playing out as if they were his own, "like watching a mini movie."

Quote :: He found Beck’s abilities more interesting. Her dreams of the future were rare, but when they happened they were nearly always accurate. The seeing of ghosts, while amazing, seemed to serve no purpose.

See, Tate? Even your own characters agree!

Of course, she sees her powers as a curse, but he does not.

Turns out that there were even more injuries from which Richard did not save her. Oh, he was there, but I guess he just didn't feel like it.

Quote :: He had only wanted to stop the worst things from happening to her. Her scars from being run over and bitten had not bothered him at all, but he had thought they had affected her self-esteem. The hit and run had caused a lot of damage. The car had broken her right arm, leg, several ribs, and her hip causing her to walk with a permanent limp.

The impact had thrown her, causing a break in her left arm, a broken rotator cuff, and scarring to her face with what she had called ‘road rash’. She had had several surgeries to repair most of the damage but had been left with many scars. The dog bites had left scars on her arms and right breast. He had been afraid that saving her from these things might take away from her strong disposition but that didn’t appear to be the case.

Once again, Tate lovingly describes all of Beck's injuries. This is why I laugh when I hear some young writer brag about how much they like to abuse their own characters. It doesn't do a damn thing for character development.

Quote :: She was just as stubborn and willful as he remembered. She would be too much for most men to handle. She would not be a woman that cowered behind her husband. He liked her that way. She was an extremely intelligent and strong-willed woman. She could hold her own in any conversation and was not intimidated by anyone.

The prediction I made in the original post turns out to be correct. She is a STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN, HURR. But from what we've seen she could just have really bad mood swings.

Quote :: You would have to have known Beck intimately to know that she had any self-esteem problems. Now he knew that the external scars had not been the only problem, it had also been the damn rape.

Oh, that doggone rape! Dag nabbit!

Quote :: She had been raped, and he had not been there to save her. He had been busy scouring the United States for vampyres who might know where he could find Elderson.

Cue the sad trombone. Wah wah wah wah.

Quote :: Saving her from the accidents had seemed to help, though. She wasn’t a bit shy about her body now. She seemed like a different Beck. He had loved the Beck he had met in the past with all of his heart but had to admit that he felt a stronger pull to this Beck.

BECAUSE HE IS A PEDO

We then get an exposition wall on Richard's family. Three sisters, and three brothers. They all loved Beck. They are related to us as if we were reading their character sheets. Even their heights are listed in feet and inches. The clan's father is Daryl, their mom is Rita, and we get no other information on them. Sisters Saphira, Jenny and Heidi are the funny sister, the quiet sister, and the favorite sister respectively. Brothers Bruce, Harley, and Leso are "a favorite of the women at the brothels," yet another funny sibling, and the favorite brother.

Saphira and Harley have a rather interesting profession.

Quote :: Saphira and Harley ran a sort of daycare service for the ‘working women’ in the city. Though most of the daycare was at night since that’s when most of the women worked.

When I read the first sentence of that, I somehow imagined a preschool full of hookers lying down for nap time.

Turns out that brother Leso was Richard's actual brother by blood, and was also turned by him. We get an entire scene about the turning, and their life together pre-clan, but none of it is worth even summarizing here because who cares.

You hear that, Leso? You're stupid and no one cares about you.

If you want to read it yourself, it starts on page 51. There's an infobrick on how a vampire doesn't need to bite the neck in order to turn someone, and they only did so to feed. Okey-dokey.

Then there's an egregious use of curly brackets:

Quote :: Finding new construction work was never difficult because they were young, hard workers who could do twice the work of other men. {They could have done fifty times the work of other men but that would have looked a little suspicious.}

Silly author, curly brackets are for programmers.

They meet Daryl, and END OF CHAPTER TWO.

Sporkbender Join date : 2011-06-20

Wouldn't him killing Alex put a lot of suspicion on Beck?

Join date : 2011-07-04

I'd be more suspicious of Bev, given her psychopathic ways.

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Tue Jul 12, 2011 11:19 pm

Quote :: “Good evening,” he said.
It was too much, and for the first time in her life, she passed out.

Lol, I wrote a chapter of a troll fic once where whenever the POV character got into something that would have required five minutes thought to get out of I just had her black out. The she would wake up somewhere else. The she would get dressed. It really makes writing easy when you just stop everything whenever you get stuck!

Join date : 2011-07-04

Chapter Three is a bit shorter, about twenty pages, while Chapter Two is thirty-six pages. Chapter One was fourteen pages long. With all that in mind, would it be better if I took this on chapter-by-chapter, or do a half-chapter per post like I did with the first one?

But onto the story.

Quote :: When Beck woke up, there was no Richard in sight. She had just finished getting dressed when the dorm room door opened.
“How do you keep getting in and out of the dorm without someone stopping you? This is an all girls dorm, you know.”
“I have unforeseen skills and a piece offering,” he answered holding out a bag.

I don't want to know which piece.

Quote :: She would have kept arguing, but she smelled bacon.
“Eggs, scrambled light, crisp bacon, biscuits and gravy, and coffeeregular.”

Why is Richard always making Beck eat? First the Burger King, then the Pop Tart, then the 'date' where they chew up a fuckton of food and spit it out... Not to mention that he likes how she smells like Froot Loops. And his kisses taste like Pop Tarts and honey. What a food-centric story this is, and it's making me anything but hungry.

Quote :: “Ha! A lot you know. I don’t drink coffee with my breakfast.”

You're welcome, Beck. You're welcome.

Quote :: “Open the bag,” was his only response.

She opened the bag, and on top of the take-out box was a can of coke. She just looked at him with her mouth hanging open.

“You told me when we were together before that the only things you really missed were the internet, your sister, and coke. You have the internet. You talked to your sister yesterday. Now, you have your coke,” he told her, still smiling.

Of course she's a coke fiend! I should have guessed this from the beginning; it just makes so much sense! I mean, you'd have to be in order to deal with the reality that you're being written by Tate Jackson.

Seriously kids, capitalization is important.

Quote :: She opened the coke and asked, “Wanna taste it?”
“No thanks. I spit out a whole can on the way here, very tasty,” he said

I imagine him munching on the whole can like a goat.

Beck decides that she and Richard should go to the library to see what they can learn about vampire hearts. (I refuse to type "vampyre" without quotation marks.) Apparently there are a lot of books that have information on the subject, and they take them all back to Beck's room and start browsing them.

Quote :: Then, she felt his mood change. “What is it?” she asked over the top of the book she was reading.

He looked even paler, if that was at all possible. He didn’t answer, just stared at her. She took the book he been looking at from his hands and read the title. He had been reading Vampyre Lover by Potter Harris.

Everyone in this universe spells it the gaytarded way. I do not like that.

Quote :: The vampyre heart, which does not beat, will beat when intimate with their true lover; their soul mate. The soul mate proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the historically known soulless vampyre does indeed have a soul. The soul mate of a vampyre will always be an unchanged {someone who has not been turned into a vampyre} human. The drawback to finding this lover is that while the vampyre heart is beating, it is just as delicate and susceptible to damage as the human heart.

This is how Tate Jackson tries to sound academic. Yes, the whole paragraph is bolded. Aside from the poor abused semicolon, the egregious italics, the once again misused curly brackets, and the sheer clunkiness of the entire second sentence, why should it even be an eventual plot point that the vampire heart is weakened when it is beating? Richard explained earlier, the heart of a vampire is just vestigial. You can already drive a stake made of silver into it, but the vampire still will not die. Why damage to the heart is very very bad for humans is because humans need to keep their blood circulating in order to get precious oxygen to their muscles and vital organs. Vampires do not.

Beck decides to contact Potter Harris, the book's author. After a quick internet search, she calls him, asking if she can come by to talk about vampire hearts. Conveniently he lives close enough to Duke that she is able to see him in a matter of twenty minutes.

Quote :: “What are you doing?!” Richard snapped at her.
“I’m sorry. Did you not just sit here and listen to the conversation?” she snapped back. “I’m going to meet the man that wrote this book and ask him some questions,” she explained to him like he was five years old as she walked to the door. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You stay here and spit out some M&M’s,” she said and shut the door behind her.

I almost feel bad for Richard, having this ~~screeching harpy~~INDURRPENDENT WOMYN for a soul mate and not being able to do anything about it. Then I remember that he is a pedophile and a stalker. I guess they really were made for each other.

Richard wants to go with her to the author's house, but Beck prefers that he not do so as it could be dangerous to him. Richard insists on going along because he is already starting to feel the gentle tug of codependency. They're going to be taking his car, which is quite schmancy:

Quote :: He stopped at a beautiful 1969 Pontiac Trans Am. It was painted flat black with green metal flake flames up the hood, over the roof, and down the trunk, factory Pontiac rally wheels cut and made 8” deep in the front and 10 ½ inches on the back.

“This is your car?!” she asked in awe.

Gee, I'm starting to remember another vampire who impressed his young human lover with a fancy car...

How does he even acquire a car like this if apparently all he ever did with his life was pine for Beck?

Quote :: They got in, and the car started with a deep growl. She watched him as he drove. She’d had sex with the man, and she didn’t even know that he could drive, much less that he had a car like this. She didn’t really know anything about him. She knew he was a vampyre but knew nothing about his life. Still looking at him, she realized it didn’t matter. She loved him. It made no sense, but she knew it was true. She thinks that she may have loved him since the day she was twelve years old and he had lifted her bike off of her. She held out her hand to him now and he took it, smiling at her.

Note that she'd only ever felt lust for him until just now. Maybe she's just getting attached to him because he's the only sapient being other than Bev to show any affection for her whatsoever. Either way, she's accepting her fate far too well, even if it means she'll never be able to complete studying parapsychology like she wanted to. You'll see why later.

Quote :: “I had a dream last night. Bev’s gonna meet a man. Actually, she’s going to meet her mate. I’m so excited for her. She deserves a good man,” she said enthusiastically.

I'm going to pretend that somehow the word "soul" is omitted in a typographical error and that Tate doesn't actually think a human being would say "mate" in relation to their sibling. If they're not Australian.

Yeah, Beck is seeing the future again, and for once no one is dying. She's also noticing that his hand feels cool, but not cold, and wonders why he isn't room temperature. I think we're about to find out as they arrive at Potter Harris's house. Richard somehow knows that there's a vampire in the house, and reasons that the vampire will know that he's here as well, but Beck wants to go inside with him anyway. Richard fears for her, and decides that he'll walk ahead of her. For once she doesn't bitch about it.

Quote :: She stood behind him as he knocked on the door. A man answered but before she could get a good look at him, Richard had turned, swooped her up, and had her on the other side of the long front porch, all before she could blink.
“You are a hunter,” Richard said in an unearthly hiss.

And here you are hissing at him! Good job, Einstein!

Quote :: She tried to get a better look at the man, but Richard was still blocking her.
“I was a hunter, but no more my friend. I mean you and your female no harm,” he stated.

"Your female." Blech. Never use "female" as a noun where you wouldn't also be using "male." It sounds so gross.

Quote :: “He’s telling the truth, Richard,” Beck said.
He immediately took a step to the side. She knew that Richard didn’t trust this man, but he obviously trusted Beck’s senses and she was touched by it. Beck could see the man now. He looked all of 25 years old, was covered in tattoos, had piercings in his ears she could put her thumbs through and a dark red Mohawk.

Sure, why the hell not.

Richard's still feeling hostile and asks where he's imprisoning the vampire, the social paragon he is. Beck doesn't feel any unhappiness coming from inside the house, so they both come inside. Potter suddenly realizes who Richard is, even knowing his name, and has to go get his wife, who turns out to be Richard's sister Jenny.

Quote :: “Jenny,” Richard gasped and was across the room hugging her, though again, Beck had barely seen him move.
“We thought the hunters had gotten you. We came home, and the house was torn apart. We thought that the hunters had been there. How is this possible?”
“I came home and saw the house as well. I thought the hunters had gotten you and Leso. Leso! Is he…” Jenny started to ask, but Richard had put his finger across her lips.
“He’s fine. He’s not here with me today, but we have been together all these years,” he explained.
“What are you doing here? How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” he said turning Jenny by her shoulders and pointing at Beck.
Jenny stared at her for two seconds, before she squealed, “BECK!”
Again, Beck barely saw the vampyre move but was suddenly swept up and was being danced around the room at a dizzying speed.
“Beck, Beck, Beck,” Jenny chanted.

Quite the family reunion, quite the coincidence.

Jenny asks where Leso is, turns out he's at the college too so he can pry Richard away from Beck when he has to leave her. But why?

Quote :: Richard sighed, “So she will be better prepared when she goes back this time.”

Jenny doesn't like this, as she just wants Beck and Richard to be living happily in the present day rather than have her go back in time to get killed again. This is a good point, but Richard thinks that if Beck goes back in time she'll be able to save the rest of his clan from the hunters. Potter makes mention that he had killed one of the clan members.

Quote :: “I didn’t know I had the three of you!” Jenny cried. “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded to Beck as she turned to her with streams of blood pouring down her cheeks. It startled Beck at first. Then she realized that the blood was Jenny’s tears.

I had a professor who believed that you should never have your characters cry. Crying is cheap, while a lot of real emotions can be held in silence. I suppose this goes double for crying blood, which is in so many badfics and emo poems that it's about as poignant as a punch in the balls.

Beck completely accepts the very real risk of dying if it means she'll save Richard's family, "her family." In effect, Richard could very well be using her as a blood sacrifice, no pun intended. But oh wait, she doesn't feel any reason to be suspicious, because actually having to guess at someone's motives would be too darn challenging for Tate Jackson to write.

Suddenly, Beck remembers why she's even here in the first place.

Quote :: “Okay, stop! I need to know what hunters are; what member of my family you killed; when it happened; and for a bonus: throw in the explanation about the vampyre heart,” she said.

Sweetzombiejesus that punctuation.

Jenny hands her a Coke for no reason. Potter begins his long, long story. A vampire had found his soul mate, who wanted to be turned, but he did not want her to have to sustain herself on blood. She eventually dies, and he regrets his decision. The vampire becomes bitter and turns his hatred on all of vampirekind, and starts to gather men to become vampire hunters. This is where things get weird.

Quote :: He gathered 412 of us, one for each year of his vampyre life, and he changed us. Not into vampyres, for we do not suffer the thirst. We eat, drink, and sleep as humans do, but we have our creator’s strength, speed, and sense of smell. We smell the scent of humans like he did, but our scent and senses for vampyres is heightened. We can catch their scent from a mile away and track it for hundreds of miles.

Why the hell would a vampire even be able to pick and choose what powers the people he changes receive? How many other vampires know about this? Surely he'd at least do everyone else a service and let them know that it's possible to create these not-vampires, since after all his hatred of vampires hinges on the fact that they have to drink blood.

The hunters took a vow to kill all of the vampires, starting with him, and it also turns out that the hunters will be immortal until the last vampire dies. Why? Who knows. They're also vulnerable to beheading, which makes me wonder why the hunters don't just behead each other once they've become weary of life. Most of the hunters ended up killed by their prey anyway. Foresight was not their master's strong point.

Potter tells Beck of how he came upon a clan of vampires that fed upon animals, and they smelled different from regular vampires. Probably like lavender and freesia. While he was staring at one vampire girl, most likely Jenny because come on, one of the vampires had sneaked up on him. There's a fight, and Potter wins. So oopsy daisy, he killed Jenny's brother. He also says that Jenny's brother liked whorehouses. Thank you, Potter.

Jenny and the clan fled, now knowing that there's a vampire hunter in the area. Potter stumbles upon them fifteen years later, only with some of the members missing, and he concludes that they must be dead. He goes so far as to break into their house to find information on Jenny, but only finds Richard and Leso's pay slips. Nice to know that Richard isn't alone in his stalkery. Potter hides when the family comes back, and they smell that a hunter has just been in their home. They pack their shit and take off, not wanting to risk staying there for even another day. If they can smell hunters, why didn't Jenny smell Potter earlier? But anyway, this doesn't stop Potter, who decides to stalk Jenny for two months. She ends up living in the forest, where she's found by yet another hunter. Potter kills him for her, and it's love at first sight. When he tells her a year later that he's the one who killed her brother, she just forgives him.

Okay, Richard, as horribly creepy and weird as you are, at least you never killed any member of Beck's family. You have that.

Potter noticed Jenny's heart beating when they were having sex, so years and years later he becomes a radiologist to run tests on her.

Quote :: I’ll spare you the details of what I did to start her heart beating, but the MRI results spoke for themselves. While we were intimate her heart beat. She drew regular, if not rapid, breaths. The blood flowed in her veins. Her skin texture changed, and her brain showed normal activity. For all intents and purposes, she was human.

We tried the same thing with another female vampyre and a human male (who just thought she was kinky) and got no results. The MRI showed nothing, as if we were scanning a dead body. That’s how I came to the conclusion that during those moments of intimacy, vampyres are just as susceptible to danger as humans, because at that moment, they are human.” He stopped talking and looked around at everyone.

That's right, folks, sex with one's Twu Wuv turns them human temporarily. There is likely no purpose to this other than the Rule of Romantic. While you might think that the point I made earlier about the vampire's heart being able to receive damage is not really a setback is now invalid, how likely is it that a hunter is just going to follow after a vampire and wait for him to start having sex with his soul mate to suddenly stake him? Especially now that we know that hunters have a scent of their own? And did Potter actually try inflicting damage on the vampires during these tests, or is he just pulling this vulnerability theory out of his ass?

Quote :: “I am sorry for what I did to your brother, Richard.”
“I forgive you as well. I understand the obsession to watch the one you love and to ensure their safety,” responded Richard.

Stalkers have to stick together, you know.

Beck decides that she needs to come up with a plan to make sure that Potter gets together with Jenny without anyone getting killed. She's still comfortable with the possibility of dying in the process and having to be reborn to relive her miserable re-life. Richard then finally explains why he'll have to leave.

Quote :: Patiently, Richard replied, “Because, if I stay with her for the years between now and the time for her to go back, I could never allow her to leave. I know that.”
“What do you mean ‘allow me’?! I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” Beck snapped.
“Me and Leso could tear down that entire building in three minutes, and you wouldn’t be going anywhere,” Richard laughed.

Suddenly, there's a knock at the door. I hope it's Maggie again.

No, it's stupid boring Leso. He hugs Beck, they catch up, but now it's time for Richard and Beck to be leaving. But Beck realizes something special about stupid boring Leso.

Quote :: Beck took a deep breath and asked, “Do you remember me telling you about my dream of Bev finding a good man?” He nodded. “Leso’s that good man.”

The coincidences pile like the bodies back in 'Nam.

Beck decides it's time for Richard to tell her the story of how they met in the first place.

Quote :: “Okay, here it goes. It was 1888 when I met you. You walked past me on the street, and I caught your scent, but every other smell about you was alien. I didn’t know until later that you had just stepped into our time and some of the scents from this time had clung to you. Skipping the details of our meeting, you were sent back to 1888 to find the true identity of Jack the Ripper.

Wait. What. Why would she even... Fuck.

Beck arrived at a bad time, because this is when Richard's clan was battling hunters and "an evil clan of vampyres." Richard says, "Their master was an evil bastard of a vampyre," which I am going to use as a figure of speech. Like "son of a bitch," but with more bite. That evil bastard of a vampire was Royal Elderson, the vampire who would eventually kill Beck.

Quote :: As a vampyre, he is cruel and sadistic. Torture and human suffering were like the air that he breathed. They thought that the animal blood drinking vampyres needed to be killed, said we sullied the meaning of vampyres. Our happiness enraged him. That’s why he killed you, because of my happiness.

Elderson hates happiness, just like any good villain of a Saturday morning cartoon show.

He captures Beck and demands that Richard give one of his clan members to become part of his clan. Richard refuses to do so because he's an idiot and values the life of his own soul mate less than being able to see his least favorite sibling whenever he likes.

Hey look, more injuries for Beck!

Quote :: He had his arm around your throat with your legs dangling over the branch he was standing on. When I told him anything but that, he used his other hand to twist your head nearly all the way around and dropped your body. You vanished before you hit the ground.

And Beck is still perfectly fine with this.

Quote :: “You were right to tell him no. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if for me your family were turned into monsters like him. You’re not asking me to go back. I want to go back. I’ll find a way to stop it, I promise,” she told him.

Richard starts to think about when he and stupid boring Leso first met with Daryl, as that's where his last thought-exposition avalanche cut off. Nothing interesting happens; Daryl and his wife Rita offer to let Richard and Leso join their clan for better protection against the hunters and the Elderson clan. But on their way home, they meet one of the Elderson clan.

Quote :: They had not even made it back to their house when they sensed another vampyre.
They waited, and within two minutes, an ugly, brown-haired woman approached them from the opposite side of the road.
“Good evening. I am Tamara Elderson. I have been sent to bring you to my master.”

That's right, kids! Ugly means evil.

Stupid boring Leso refuses for the both of them. Tamara threatens them with death if they don't come with her, but stupid boring Leso still refuses. She lunges toward him, and Richard just steps behind her and rips off her head.

Quote :: “Are you alright?” he asked Leso.
“Hell no, I’m not alright!!! This was a brand new shirt,” he replied, looking down at his white shirt that was now covered with spats of blood.
“I’ll never get this out,” he added shaking his head.

Oh, you wacky stupid boring Leso! The Undead Heart 961878

That's when they both decide that they'll be joining Daryl's clan after all.

Present-day Richard begins to contemplate what would really happen if Beck is sent back.

Quote :: If she died, Richard would find her again, and they would try again. He had always assumed that this was the first time. Was it? How many times had this played out? How many times had he watched Beck die? Seen his family die? Ten? Hundreds? He had her now. How wise was it to let her go? Was he willing to let her die again just to get what he wanted?

Elderson never knew where Beck had come from. What if he found out this time? What if he killed one of her parents? Then, there would be no Beck. Was it worth it? But Beck knew now. She knew what she was getting into. He could stop her, but she would never forgive him.

The 'Jack the Ripper' plot point is then semi-explained, as that's how Beck acquires the job that would allow her to time travel. I don't get what that job could possibly be or how Beck would possibly choose it.

Then we learn that the clan's 'parents' were killed by hunters, explaining the disappearances that Potter had mentioned earlier.

Quote :: They only wanted the vampyres dead, all of them, no exceptions. The guilt he carried around was like a crushing weight or weightlessness in the pit of his stomach.

Yeah, either or. Sometimes it oscillates.

Quote :: He knew now that it was comparable to being on a
roller coaster…that feeling in your stomach when you start to drop after
going over the top. That’s what his guilt felt like, only his drop never
ended.

I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKIN' VAMPIRES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKIN' ROLLER COASTER

Quote :: He had moments where he didn’t feel it, but as soon as his family popped
into his mind, his stomach dropped like his brain was chanting: Your fault.
YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT!!!

YOU ARE DAMNED WITH THESE EXTRANEOUS EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!

Then we learn how Saphira and Heidi were killed.

Quote :: They were ambushed on the way home. It was the Elderson clan. They were nice enough to leave a note, “You’re next,” written in the blood of their sisters. Once again, they buried their family’s bodies. One of Elderson’s vampyres had been killed as well. They just threw it’s body into the woods.

Classy.

Richard, Jenny, and stupid boring Leso then move to the United States since there are so few vampires there, and the only hunter they ever encounter is Potter, who Jenny marries without Richard and Leso knowing, of course. Richard has vampire friends who are still out there looking for Elderson, and he starts thinking about Beck's death again.

Quote :: They knew they would be separated when the time came for her to leave. The separation would have been years for him but mere minutes for her. He was prepared as much as he could be for that separation but not for her death. For 95 years, he had hoped she would be born again but had never truly believed it until that day at the hospital. Now here she was, and he might be sending her back to die again. What kind of husband was he?

But he knew the answer to that question, a desperate one.

End of Chapter Three, everyone!

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Wed Jul 13, 2011 11:40 pm

Potter Harris? Would this author, perchance, be a fan of Harry Potter (perhaps even a badfic writer)?

Join date : 2011-07-04

Yep. Just checked her Facebook page.

EDIT: Further perusal shows that she has a friend named Tamara. Just like the ugly vampiress. Could this mean...?

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:38 am

Saphira? She seriously has a character named Saphira?

The Undead Heart 724940

Hot and Botherer Join date : 2009-06-10

I'm sorry, this is such drivel that I can't even read your snark. I mean, I keep trying every time you post, and my eyes just unfocus about halfway through.

Of course, reading only the beginning of every chapter means the WTF factor is through the roof. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:49 pm

grmblfjx wrote:: I'm sorry, this is such drivel that I can't even read your snark. I mean, I keep trying every time you post, and my eyes just unfocus about halfway through.

Similar problem here... Only with me I get to this bit:

Quote :

Quote :: He reached Clarksville before midnight. There was nothing he could do to change what had happened to Beck, but he would do the one thing that the courts had refused to do. He would make her righteous. He would give her the justice that the courts had failed to deliver.

You are now reading this in the voice of Mojo Jojo!

And can't go any further due to LOLs.

Join date : 2011-07-04

With that in mind, I could give a quick and easy summary of the events that have unfolded. Problem is that so much of this book is exposition and has kind of a wacky timeline that I can't tell for sure what's cruft and what's plot. Maybe profiling all the characters we've met so far might work better with this.

But I want to get Chapter Four out of the way, as it's only twelve pages long.

Quote :: Beck woke up the next morning to a breakfast biscuit and a coke.

Once again, eating!

Richard is still doubting whether Beck will survive, but she reassures him.

Quote :: “I was just thinking maybe this isn’t such a good idea. What if we’ve done this many times before and you always die anyway?” he asked.
“Nope, this is the first time,” she answered with confidence.
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“You said that I didn’t know you when I went back the first time and that I didn’t know your family. If that’s true, then it stands to reason that this is the first time you’ve ever came to me,” she explained.

There are a lot of time travel theories out there. We can assume Beck didn't even know that time travel would be possible in the future prior to all of this. Yet here she is, so sure that there is only one continuous timeline and she will be traveling along it while remaining in this very same universe. Given the huge amount of questions she had about vampires, she should be asking a lot more questions about this than Richard. If we operate under the assumption that the past is in fact changeable, and she is remaining on this timeline in this universe, everything that Beck is doing then will change some aspect of the years to come as she does them. She might accidentally trigger something that would end up killing Richard about fifty years later, meaning that he wouldn't be able to warn her of her fate and be able to use her to save his family. What then?

I think about the possibilities of time travel a lot more than Tate ever did, and she's writing a book series about it. Azathoth have mercy.

Richard also has a request for Beck.

Quote :: “I want you to analyze a sample of my blood, see what you can make of it, and if a weapon can be made with it.”
“That won’t work,” she stated.
“And why not?!” he snapped.
She snapped right back at him, “Don’t get an attitude! I’m just saying that the blood in your veins is probably going to be that of whatever you ate last. I’d have a better chance with a sample of your toxin.”
“Oh. Yeah, okay. I’ll give it to you but please be careful with it. My toxin may be as deadly to you as your blood would be to me,” he told her.

Nice to see that Beck doesn't have a monopoly on mood swings here.

Richard is also wanting her to find another way to kill vampires, assuming that it would also work on hunters, but Beck notes that the hunters were changed by an altered toxin so it may not work. To put her plans into action, she's going to need to add a chemistry class to her schedule.

Quote :: Smiling she said, “With enough money, I can take any course I want. It will be a lot of extra work and time, though. It’ll cut my social time down to nothing, but I don’t foresee me doing a lot of dating anyway.”
“I should think not unless you want those men’s deaths on your conscience,” he said, only half joking.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“I might. You want to try me?” he asked.

It's okay, because they're SOUL MATES! True love is more oppressive than I thought.

Quote :: “Actually, I do,” she said smiling as she pulled him onto the bed with her where they spent the rest of the day, only stopping to have pizza delivered. There was a knock on her door at 8:00 pm.

Such a smooooooth time skip.

Who's at the door? Why, it's stupid boring Leso! It's time for Richard to be leaving now.

Quote :: Suddenly distraught, she whispered, “Don’t go.”
“I don’t want to, but I have to,” he said. He stepped to her and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Little One. It’s the only way.”

He still calls her 'Little One' after they've had sex. This also makes me wonder where the 'Little One' pet name even came from in the first place, as she was an adult when they first met over a century ago. It's not like seeing her as a child is going to motivate Richard to call her anything other than her name.

Quote :: “I love you,” she said.
“Say it again.”
“I love you,” she repeated.
“I love you, too, Beck, more than you can ever imagine,” he said as he stepped away from her.
Leso stepped forward and hugged her next.
“Take care of him,” she told him.
“I will, don’t worry. Bye Beck,” Leso replied.
And just like that, they were gone.

Such original, scintillating dialogue.

Beck starts developing insomnia just days after he leaves. Potter brings her the vampire toxin to study, and she requests blood from him to see how it compares.

Quote :: They walked to the Chem. Lab and drew his blood with a silver needle she had had made and not just for this occasion.

Silver is a soft metal. I sure hope she used an alloy. Even then, we're just going to have to accept the fact that she can manufacture needles.

Beck is also spending some time with Jenny, who brings up another issue involved with time travel.

Quote :: Jenny told Beck something she hadn’t thought of, “You know if this works and you do come back, you will be the only one who remembers all of this.”
“What do you mean?” Beck questioned, confused.
“Well, all of our pasts will change,” Jenny stated.
“You mean Richard and I may not be together when I come back?” she asked in a gasping panic.
Jenny just laughed, “That’s not even possible. Richard and you are like me and Potter; soul mates. I just mean that everyone’s memories from the time you leave the past until you return to the future will be different. Everyone’s memories except yours. It’s bound to be confusing for you. Seven years of your life will be altered from what you remember. We’re going to have to come up with a reason for you to have amnesia or something so everyone doesn’t think that you’ve gone crazy.”

That gave Beck something to think about. Richard wouldn’t remember coming to her here. Jenny would have no memory of dancing her around the room or of all their shopping trips. She could live with that as long as she had more family to come back to.

All Beck would have to explain is the events that led her here. After all, Richard already knew that she was from the future prior to her death at least, so we can assume that at one point she'll be able to explain everything. It shouldn't be difficult.

Beck goes back to the chem lab to examine the toxin and Potter's blood under a microscope, but reveals nothing. As for the toxin, "It was like looking at a drop of sterilized water." She doesn't even run any other sort of tests on them. Instead we get a flash-forward to Beck's second year in college, where she begins her study on Jack the Ripper. She's in the library looking for books on him, when A WILD STRANGER APPEARS:

Quote :: “Can I help you find something?” he asked.
“No,” she answered him shortly. She could feel he wasn’t there to help her. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how truly alone she was.

Looks like creeps are drawn to Beck like flies to rotting meat. At least this one hasn't stalked or raped anyone yet.

Quote :: “Come on, let me help you,” he said stepping closer to her and almost touching her.
“I said no!” she hissed loudly.

Try hissing that. Just try it.

Quote :: “Come on, don’t be like that,” he said grabbing her wrist.
“I believe the lady said no,” a voice said from the end of the aisle.

She turned her head and saw Richard standing there. And he didn’t look happy.

Guess he lied when he said he was leaving. He's just watching from afar, like he always did.

Quote :: “Nobody asked you, did they?” the man asked.
Richard walked towards them. He emitted danger, but this man obviously didn’t sense it.

Then who sensed it? Just the narrator, I guess.

Quote :: “Leave now or die,” Richard hissed.
Richards hiss was different than hers. Her hiss was human. His sounded as if it came from the deepest bowels of hell, and the man holding her wrist finally understood that he was in true danger.

Beck is aware of dialogue tags, apparently.

Quote :: The man pulled Beck in front of him like a shield, putting one of his arms around her throat. She looked nervously at Richard. She had thought he looked mad at her graduation but that was nothing compared to the way he looked now. She saw just a flash of movement and heard the man’s arm break. The man screamed and dropped to his knees. Richard picked the man up by the back of his neck and threw him down the aisle into a brick wall hard enough to make it crack.
He was headed towards the man again when Beck yelled, “Richard, you’re going to kill him!”
He turned to look at her and calmly said, “Yes, that was the general plan.”

No one will ever touch "his woman" and live. Either way, this man is too dumb to live. I highly doubt that Beck is even worth a fight for him. He approached her thinking that they were both alone, logic dictates he should have bolted at the first sign that he was wrong.

Quote :: “Please don’t,” she said, while rubbing her throbbing wrist.
Suddenly, he was right in front of her, “Are you alright, Little One?”

Well that was easy.

They just leave the man there as they go to the store to buy some things for Beck's wrist. Richard confirms that he is still stalking her.

Quote :: “How did you know where I was?” she could finally ask.
“I’m always around.”

Eeeegh.

Quote :: Back at the dorm room, he iced and wrapped her wrist. She prodded again, “So what? You just watch me everywhere I go?”
“Pretty much,” he answered curtly.
“And you couldn’t drop by and say hello?” she snapped.
“No, I couldn’t,” he said quietly.
“And why not?” she demanded.
“Because just watching you is tearing my heart to pieces . To spend time with you and leave again may just rip my very soul apart,” he said fiercely.
“You’re here now,” she said.
He replied softly, “You needed me.”

YOU'RE TEARING ME APAAAART, REBBECCA

Quote :: She moved her wrist and cringed. He got up, went to the dresser drawer and pulled out a bottle of hydrocodone the clinic had given her for a pulled hamstring she had gotten about six months ago in a self-defense class she was taking.

Thank you, exposition fairy.

Richard asks Beck what she learned about the toxin, and she tells him what she knows.

Quote :: “Nothing at all. It was like looking at sterile water. I don’t know what’s in it that causes the change, but it doesn’t show up in any chemical test or under a microscope,” she said.
She had a plan, but she wasn’t going to tell him. She could have secrets, too.

Secrets she is also keeping from the narrator, since nothing she had ever done even possibly indicates a secret plan in her head.

She then falls asleep, but Richard stays with her.

Quote :: He knew he should leave but couldn’t pull himself away just yet. It had been torture all this time to be close enough to smell her scent but never to touch her. He wanted to tear apart every man that turned their head to watch her walk by. Jealousy had never been a strong emotion with him, but that had changed.

He saw her having a cup of coffee with a young gentleman in the courtyard about a month ago and had had an overwhelming urge to go over and rip the man’s heart out through his mouth. Only willpower had stopped him.

A good writer would use this as a way to heighten the monstrous aspect of the vampire character. Tate, on the other hand, uses it in an attempt to make him more sympathetic. *Weep.*

Quote :: And now there were going to be questions about what happened in the library. He would leave her a note telling her that if they questioned her to say she had seen nothing unusual that night. He also knew now that she had gotten her fighting skills from self-defense courses.

What fighting skills?! She couldn't even get herself out of a wrist grab!

He's gone when Beck wakes up, and we get another injury tally, but for once it's not of Beck.

Quote :: The news about the man in the library was all over campus. His arm was broken in three places, his shoulder was pulled completely out of its socket, and he had a fractured skull.

Oh, but he's still alive, as death is no punishment compared to living inside of a Tate Jackson story.

Quote :: He claimed to have no memory of what had happened to him. Who knows, with a fractured skull, he may not ever remember. Or, he may not remember because; he was not a student at the school, had no reason to be on the property, and didn’t want to explain himself to the police. Either way, he’d live.

Everything past the first sentence of this is unnecessary. ('-' )

Weeks go by without Richard, even though Beck knows he's watching her. It makes her feel safe, because I guess she never needs to use the bathroom. She's still studying Jack the Ripper, and we get a huge wall of infodump on his murders, who is suspected to be him, and the whole thing just clonks you over the head so I'm only going to copy and paste what I think is going to be relevant:

Quote :: There were no signs of a struggle. This lead investigators to assume that he must have been very charismatic and able to charm the prostitutes. It was also assumed that he had to have been very fast and strong giving the women no time to defend themselves.

In other words, it was a vampire. Royal Elderson.

Quote :: Beck thought he was one sick motherfucker whoever he was.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Then we get another time skip, this time to the end of Beck's third year in college. She's made a few friends, including Maggie from earlier, who can also see ghosts! Only unlike Beck, Maggie is afraid of ghosts, because she's just not special enough. But Beck has been seeing a very special ghost.

Quote :: She had seen one male ghost off and on since she was a kid. Most ghosts stayed in one location or with the person they had attached themselves to. This man wasn’t attached to Beck. He wasn’t there all the time, but he did pop up from time to time. He had always been pleasant enough, and from listening to Jenny talk about her family, Beck was pretty sure her ghost was Jenny, Richard, and Leso’s brother, Bruce.

Now a vampire and a vampire ghost are stalking her. That's just wonderful.

Beck also has, GASP - a male friend!!!

Quote :: Her other friend was Benny. He was in his second year and was also studying the Ripper cases. However, Beck was known as the Ripper expert on campus, and he had come to her for some information. To her surprise, they got along well. It was nice to have somebody to argue with about the cases. They rarely agreed but had a wonderful time debating it.

He walked her back to her dorm after dinner, kissed her on the cheek, and left.

Don't tell me you don't know where this is going.

Quote :: When she opened her dorm room door she found Richard, sitting on her bed.
“Who was that?” he asked in a pissy tone.

A-yup.

Beck tries explaining things, but it doesn't work on this creepy-ass vampire.

Quote :: Demandingly he asked, “What is a man doing kissing any part of you?”

Now she was mad. Did he actually think she would cheat on him?!

“Well, you haven’t been here to kiss me so somebody had to,” she spat at him.

It was the wrong thing to say. In a blur of movement, he had her pressed against the door with his body, pinned her hands above her head, and was kissing her. It was the hardest, deepest kiss they had ever had. There was violence in it, but rather than scare her, it excited her.

A rape survivor should not be feeling this way. At. All.

After the kiss, he keeps questioning who her friend is. But it's all just a big misunderstanding; Benny's gay! The Undead Heart 961878

The whole "We'll be apart and that's sad" thing comes up again.

Quote :: “You say that like it’s not a long time”
“In vampyre time, it’s not,” he replied.
“Well, I’m not a vampyre, and five years is a long ass time,” she told him.
“I’m sorry, Little One,” he said.
“Why do you call me that?” she questioned.
“You said once that you always wished you were shorter. I told you that you’d always be my Little One, and it just kind of stuck,” he explained.

That doesn't make it feel any less icky to the ears.

Quote :: “Oh well, that’s kind of sweet, I guess. By the way, I know you’ve been in my room,” she said smiling.
“How do you know that?” he asked, surprised.
“I can smell you on my pillows. Have you been sleeping here?” she asked.
“Sometimes. Mostly, I come here just to feel closer to you,” he answered.
“So, you come here to smell me?” she asked.
“No. I can smell you from across the campus. That’s just your scent. It’s how I follow you. I come here to be where you live, to touch the things you touch, to feel like I’m still part of you,” he said quietly.

Check your underwear drawer, Beck.

She urges him to stay the night with him, and then he's gone in the morning, not to see her again for years.

Join date : 2011-07-04

I also came across this blog post regarding Tate Jackson's conduct on Goodreads.com. It's definitely worth a read.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

For the record, I looked up "The Undead Heart torrent" and while a few torrents came up they were only uploaded about a day ago.

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:09 am

Kommandar wrote:: For the record, I looked up "The Undead Heart torrent" and while a few torrents came up they were only uploaded about a day ago.

Considering how the internet works, I am sure they were all uploaded out of spite.

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:15 am

Kommandar wrote:

Quote :: He reached Clarksville before midnight. There was nothing he could do to change what had happened to Beck, but he would do the one thing that the courts had refused to do. He would make her righteous. He would give her the justice that the courts had failed to deliver.

You are now reading this in the voice of Mojo Jojo!

I literally fell out of my chair. Ok, more I was already half-standing to get a drink and stumbled and--- shutup I'm clumsy. Still, there was laughing. Lots of laughing.

Quote :: It was the wrong thing to say. In a blur of movement, he had her pressed against the door with his body, pinned her hands above her head, and was kissing her. It was the hardest, deepest kiss they had ever had. There was violence in it, but rather than scare her, it excited her.

Upset A rape survivor should not be feeling this way. At. All.

So far, this is the only thing I disagree with you about. Rape =/= delicate little flower forever and ever, and this is apparently many years after the fact. A little violence in sex is not necessarily something a rape survivor would detest. However, he did this in anger, and she was also physically abused, which seems like it would compound the problem. This is just another example of how these two are ~speshul~. >_<

Join date : 2011-07-04

I finally decided to get my lazy ass in gear and start updating again, so here's Chapter 5. It's a long one, so pour yourself a drink.

Bev graduates from law school and finds a job closer to Beck so she can be there when the plot requires, and because Beck's been feeling lonely now that Richard is no longer leaving his scent on her personal belongings. No, seriously:

Quote :: She kept some of Beck’s loneliness at bay since Richard had stopped coming to her room. His scent no longer lingered on her pillows. She felt so alone most of the time and had it not been for Potter and Jenny, she probably would have convinced herself that Richard had just been a figment of her imagination..

I keep expecting to see nothing but the name of a month on the next page because of this, but anyway...

Beck graduates at the top of her class, again. Bev makes her go to the ceremony, again. Beck refuses to give a speech because she's still the sadsack she always was, also because it's been so long since Tate's graduation that she has no idea how these things are supposed to go. Richard still isn't there. Beck moves in with Bev, who has a pretty sweet place:

Quote :: It was a nice house with a big private yard enclosed by a privacy fence. It had 100 year old trees in the yard that provided shade for the house.

The house could be made of twigs for all we know, but hey! A private yard! Unlike us hapless plebs who have the government trampling all over our public yards.

Then Beck gets a job as part of a paranormal research team.

Quote :: They searched through old houses in North Carolina looking for ghosts. Potter and Jenny joined in just for fun.

This is pretty much what a five-year-old thinks having a career is like.

Bev asks about the ghost-hunting and Beck's friends, but Beck is keeping the whole vampire thing a secret. She says that she met Potter after reading a book he'd written, and that Jenny is his wife. Then she does something stupid:

Quote :: “So, what was the book he wrote about?” Bev asked.
“Vampyres,” she said quickly, wishing the conversation would go in another direction but knowing it wouldn’t.
“So, I’m curious. What are some of the vampyre myths? I’ve seen a lot of movies, but what did they teach you in school?” Bev inquired.
“Well, it depends on what you read. Most of the myths about them are just bullshit, like they sleep in coffins; they’re repelled by crosses; they burn in the sun; they’re burned by holy water; they shape-shift; they’re not visible in mirrors; and that they can only live on human blood. I could probably think of fifty more, but they’re all crap,” Beck explained before continuing, “Now, there are some that hold up better. Vampyres are cold. Silver is the only thing that can penetrate their skin, but they heal very, very fast. They can be in the sun. It just affects their vision. They can’t fly, but they are very fast and can jump extremely high.”

Nice going! And just look at all those ugly semicolons. This just keeps going on and on.

Quote :: “You sound like you actually believe in this stuff. So, tell me Ms. Expert, how do you kill a vampyre?” Bev asked.
“Again, it’s subjective and most of its crap, too. Burning, bury a body face down, stake thru the heart, piling blessed stones on the grave, put poppy seeds on the grave, bury the body at a crossroads. Most of that shit is just to prevent a body from rising as a vampyre, and none of it would work. Once they’re infected with the toxin, they will rise,” she stated.

Stake thru. It's like a drive thru. That serves steaks.

Bev asks if Beck believes in vampires, she says yes, and the conversation just changes after that.

Bev is still trying to get Beck to start dating, which Beck still keeps refusing because obviously she ~~doesn't want Stalky McPossessivepants to start killing such nice young men~~ IS WAITING FOR HER TRUE LOVE.

Quote :: “You’re not with a man right now, and you’re happy,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but at least I’m trying to find the right man. I just can’t find the one,” Bev said, clearly frustrated.
“Don’t worry. You will,” Beck said with a smile in her voice.
Bev looked at Beck and said, “You know something. You saw something.”
It wasn’t a question. She knew Beck’s tones too well.
Beck just shrugged, “I gotta go to work. There’s boogiemen to be found.” She said as grabbed her keys from the table and headed for the door.

The Undead Heart: Where conversations end, but never truly finish.

The next section begins after Beck returns from an unsuccessful day at work. The weather's not looking too good - a lot of lightning but no rain or thunder, which Beck's grandmother always said was a bad omen.

Quote :: She’d never noticed until now how dark their yard was at night. She turned off the car and just sat there for a minute. Her skin was crawling in waves. It was already 2:00 in the morning. She couldn’t sit in her car all night. Then it hit her; what if the danger was in the house? ‘Bev!’ her brain screamed. She jumped out of the car and ran towards the house.

And she must be part terrier to be this spooked by it.

Quote :: She didn’t even make it halfway across the yard when a man landed silently in front of her. He was dark-haired and her height, but that was all she saw before he grabbed her by the neck with one hand and threw her backwards toward the car. She twisted in mid-air and landed hard on her stomach, her face smashing into the ground. She didn’t even have time to rollover before she felt him above her.

She heard a deep growl from the other side of her car, felt something sail over her, and heard the impact of meat and bone crashing together. She couldn’t see much. The porch light wasn’t on to illuminate the yard, but she saw enough in the frequent lightning to know there was one hell of a fight going on.

Who wants to bet we'll be getting another injury tally soon? Anyone?

Quote :: They moved quickly around the yard, almost too fast for her eyes to track, but the sound was horrible. It sounded like a bobcat fighting a dog; hissing, snarling, growling and snapping noises tore through the still night air. The sound of the impacts were violent and terrifying. Then the front door of the house opened and the yard was suddenly lit from the porch flood light.

The sound were terrifying through the still night air full of lightning.

Quote :: "What’s going on out here?” Bev called from the porch.
At that moment of distraction, the strange vampyre was thrown onto his back. Leso took this opportunity to jump on the stranger’s chest and kick his head off like a soccer ball…and Bev had a front row seat.

I couldn't help but imagine this:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

When writing an intense fight between two vampires, avoid using such hilarious similes.

Quote :: “What the fuck?!” Bev screamed.
Leso turned towards Bev in a blur of movement. Bev fainted, but Leso caught her before she hit the ground. Beck got up off the ground and limped over to the body in the yard, never happier about the privacy fence.

The fence wouldn't do anything about the noise, but hey, it's not like anyone else is actually living around here for all we know.

Quote :: “That’s just nasty,” she said to Leso.

I read that in Cleveland's voice. Not kidding in the slightest.

Quote :: “Yes, but still, it was necessary,” he replied.
“I’m not complaining, and thank you very much for charging in like that, but it’s still nasty,” she said, wrinkling her noise.

Yes, her noise.

Leso carries Bev into the house and Beck follows. The decapitated body can wait.

Quote :: She turned to Leso, “Are there anymore?”
“Not that I can feel,” he spoke softly as he sat on the couch, cradling Bev in his arms.
She could tell he was having a hard time taking his eyes off Bev’s face. He finally slid Bev gently off of his lap and settled her carefully onto the couch.

If it's a rescue, it's twu wuv.

Beck asks Leso where Richard is, as this is one of those times during which he could have been following her.

Quote :: “We have found it easier to watch you if we take it in shifts. With his attraction to you, and my draw to your sister, we needed a break to stop us from coming to the two of you. Richard said you knew about me and your sister.” He paused for a moment before quietly asking, “You don’t mind, do you?”

So now we have not one, but two stalker vampires. Fantastic. Of course Beck doesn't mind because it's not like she's ever known anything else. She's sure that Bev is going to love Leso.

Suddenly, a wild Richard appears! And he brought Jenny and Potter!

Quote :: Richard was across the room in a flash, his hands flying over her body, checking her for wounds.
“Oh, Beck! I’m so God damned sorry,” he said before turning on Leso.

Right, "checking for wounds." ('-' )

Quote :: “What the hell happened? Where were you?!” he roared at him.
“I was right here. He was just faster than I thought he would be,” Leso tried to explain himself.
It was at that moment that Bev woke up. She sat up slowly and looked at everyone in the room, but it was Leso her eyes lingered on.

Even Disney movies develop romances better than this.

Quote :: “Bev, are you okay?” Beck asked concerned.
“That depends. Did I just see him kick a man’s fucking head off?” she asked pointing at Leso.
“Yes, you did,” Beck answered.
“Oh well, then I’m fine, I guess” she said before asking, “Vampyres?”
“Yes,” Beck replied.

This dialogue almost hurts to read. Almost.

Beck is rather surprised that Bev knows that they're vampires, and Bev explains that since Beck believes in vampires, so must she.

Quote :: “I used to believe in Santa Clause, too,” Beck teased.
“No you didn’t. Since we were little, you only believed in what you could see and what you could feel. So, if you believe in something, then I believe in it, too,” she stated simply.
Beck was touched almost beyond words.

I think I missed something somewhere in the previous chapters.

And finally it's noticed that Beck is covered in her own blood from being hurled into the pavement by that random vampire.

Quote :: “Yeah, I took a bit of a tumble, but I’m fine,” she said.
“You are not fine,” Richard growled, “You’re hurt and bleeding.”
Trying to assure him, she said, “I’m fine, Richard, really I am.”
He stepped up to her slowly and put his hand on her neck, turning her
head up to meet his gaze.
“I’m so sorry,” he said in a tortured voice.
“OOOOOH!” Bev shouted, causing everyone in the room to jump. “You’re the reason she doesn’t date!”

Graceful.

Quote :: “Yes, that would be my fault. I’ve encouraged Beck not to make me kill the men she meets, but it’s not been easy for me,” he said to Bev, but his gaze was burning on Beck’s face.

If he kills anyone, it's her fault. She made him do it.

Quote :: She focused back on Bev and said, “You know Potter and Jenny. This is Richard, and the man eating you with his eyes is Leso.”

Everyone is awkward here.

Quote :: Taking her cue, Leso pulled Bev to her feet like he thought he was going to break her. “Let’s get you something to drink. A coke, perhaps?” he said, shooting Beck a quick grin and led Bev towards the kitchen.

When Bev glanced back Beck gave her two thumbs up, knowing that Bev would catch her meaning. Bev looked back at Leso, her eyes wide with understanding, then they where out of sight.

This is the perfect time, even though there's the little problem of the body in the yard.

But Jenny and Potter are going to take care of that because they have nothing else to do in this scene, leaving Beck and Richard alone together.

Quote :: “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, leading her upstairs to the bathroom.

Beck had assumed he meant to get a wash clothe, but she was wrong. He closed the door, stepped around her, and turned on the shower. He turned back to her and started undressing her as if they had just seen each other yesterday. She stood stock still until he was done, just smelling him. Then, he grabbed her and set her on her feet in the steaming hot spray of water. Before she could do more than register that she was in the shower, he was naked and in the water with her.

She does all of this not even moving. Kind of an unsettling image. I'm sure she knows how to step into a shower, Richard, you don't need to do that.

Quote :: He washed her face and hair. He checked her whole head carefully, looking for any wounds he may have missed. There were none. Then, he washed the rest of her body. She knew he was checking her over for any unseen damage. She had a couple of scrapes on her breast and a small cut on her knee, but other than that, she was fine. In fact she was better than she had been in years. Which was bazaar considering that she’d just seen a man get his head kicked off.

Very bazaar indeed.
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Quote :: Richard had not spoken a word to her since they entered the bathroom. He had turned her towards the spray and was rubbing her shoulders and neck with cool hands. She dropped her head down and saw blood running through the water between her feet. She wasn’t bleeding anymore. She turned quickly and saw blood pouring from his eyes, down his face, and splashing into the tub below.

Once again, lyrical as a punch in the balls.

Quote :: “Richard?” she asked as fear made her blood run cold.
He put his shaking hands over his face, trying to wipe away the tears.
“You could have died, and I wasn’t even here,” he said in a shaky voice.
“I didn’t die. I’m right here,” she said, trying to pull his hands away from his face.

Even though he agreed to have himself and Leso take turns watching her.

Quote :: He stepped around her and put his face in the cooling spray of water. When he turned back to her, the tears were gone. He cradled her face in his hands and just looked at her. She stared back at him, absorbing every detail of his face. He had not changed a bit since the first day she saw him. It seemed unfair for one person to be so perfect.

It doesn't get much better from here.

He picks her up and carries her out of the shower, and then gets two towels with which to dry her since she's still incapable of motion.

Quote :: While he did this, she couldn’t stop herself from touching him. She touched his face, his shoulders, his chest, his stomach, trying to reassure herself that he really was here. Her eyes raked up and down his body.

Dressed, he was perfect. Naked, he was a god. He was flawless. There was not one thing about his body that wasn’t exquisitely perfect. It was hard to believe that he was hers. That if she did everything right, this was to be her prize.

So perfect that he cannot be described with anything other than "perfect." The feeble human mind cannot comprehend his perfection lest they be reduced to gibbering madness.

He carries her to bed while they're still both naked, and a sex scene ensues.

Quote :: He was on top of her without pause. The feeling of him on her was incredible. She had waited so long to see him again. She playfully licked and bit his shoulder and something in him broke. All traces of gentleness were gone. He wrapped his arms under her shoulders and pulled her up to him as he thrust into her. His thrusts were so violent that the bed frame gave way beneath them, crashing with them to the floor, but he seemed not to notice. Nor did she.

Gee, I'm getting a feeling of deja vu. Can't seem to remember what it is. Maybe the answer will come to me later when dawn breaks.

And, um, Richard passes out. Beck calls for Leso, and in a split second he's there. Bev is there as well to put a robe on her naked body, because what are sisters for? This makes for a really awkward moment.

Quote :: “Well Beck, you’ve killed him,” he said laughing.
“That’s not funny!” she yelled at him.
“Calm down, he’s just sleeping. What did you do to him?” he asked still smiling as he looked at the trashed bed. He just couldn’t seem help himself. He continued laughing as he looked at Beck’s expression and said, “Is that a bite mark on his shoulder?”
“Oh, shut up,” Beck growled suddenly embarrassed now that she knew nothing was wrong with Richard.

Everyone heads to bed, making that little bit all but pointless.

Richard wakes up after Beck falls asleep, and naturally, we get some more exposition in the form of his thoughts as happens every time Beck is asleep. He still can't decide whether to let her go or keep her safe with him.

Quote :: He needed to talk to Leso, but the noises he was hearing told him it would have to wait.

Bev has no problem fucking a vampire she just met. She knows that Beck knows it's twu wuv, so we can get all that pesky development out of the way.

Then his thoughts pretty much recap what had already happened that night.

Quote :: When he got into the house and saw Beck’s face covered in blood, he wanted to throttle Leso. Keep her safe! That’s all he had to do, and he had very nearly failed. As he listened to Beck breath in and out, he felt some of his anger with Leso slip away.

He had to remember that Leso’s woman lived in this house, as well.

"His woman" who hadn't even met him yet.

It's morning soon enough, and he goes to get his clothes from the bathroom.

Quote :: Leso looked at him, and a big grin split his face. “Beck looks really nice naked.”
“Excuse me?” he sputtered, his anger already rising.
“Yeah, and that little pink birthmark on her left breast just sets the whole thing off,” he said as he took off running.

Well, then. I guess Leso is Denny from The Room.

Richard chases Leso outside, who then jumps into one of the trees, and Richard follows. Leso explains what happened last night, how Richard fell asleep and Beck thought he died. A bird lands on Richard's leg for no reason and he shoos it away. They talk about how Beck almost died last night, and decide not to leave their respective mates again. Jenny comes out to tell them that Beck and Bev are awake, so they both go inside. The newly awake Beck goes to the kitchen with Jenny and Bev, where Potter has made coffee. Leso and Richard come in, and Bev is startled by Leso's sudden appearance. Potter explains things:

Quote :: Potter’s laughter drew their attention.
“That would be the mesmerism. It’s the vampyres preferred weapon of
choice. They catch a human’s eye, and it kind of hypnotizes them. They see nothing but the vampyre. Then, the human is theirs. They could lead them across the world, and the human would follow them without question. They could chase a human down with no problem, but why do that if you don’t have to? I heard that doesn’t work to well with you, though,” he finished looking directly at Beck.
“No, not at all,” Richard said from the door. He walked to the table, pulled a chair up next to Beck’s, and sat down.
“You’ve tried that shit on me?” she asked him, kind of pissed.
“Oh, many times, but it’s a no go,” he said, smiling at her. Potter laughed again. “It isn’t his fault. He can’t help it. If they see a human they want, it just happens.”

Shit just keeps getting creepier.

Quote :: “How come it works on me and not on her?” Bev asked.
“Beck is unique,” Potter stated simply.
“Yeah, she always has been,” Bev said smiling at her.

A vampire has a power that doesn't work on his desired human. Once again, I'm getting deja vu.

Then they all start trying to figure out what to do now, since the vampire from last night didn't just happen to wander in. Richard and Leso decide that Beck and Bev can't stay there anymore. They had set up a place back in Clarksville to live just in case a vampire found Beck that way. They pack up and start leaving in their various cars, leaving Beck's car and Bev's car behind to trick anyone who could be hunting them. Beck rides with Potter, as she has some questions. Beck wants to know what it's like to be a hunter. Potter basically gives us information that we already knew from before, with the addition of this:

Quote :: "...We didn’t get the ability to mesmerize, but vampyres
can’t sense or scent us..."

Even though in Richard's backstory it was mentioned several times that he and his family could smell that a hunter had been in their home.

Potter asks why Beck is asking all these questions, and this is what she says.

Quote :: “Because, I’m going to become what you are, and I’m betting Bev will want the same thing,” Beck said.

So she'll get guaranteed immortality as long as she doesn't get decapitated. I'd probably do the same thing if I got beaten up as much as she does. Potter says he can't change her, only a vampire can. But Beck has a theory.

Quote :: “I think you can help me. You don’t carry the toxin in your mouth, but I believe you carry the altered toxin in your blood. See, I think vampyres and hunters are essentially the same. You were made with vampyre blood, and I think that it’s not a toxin, but an infection, nothing I could find in the lab, but still there.

The infection you were given was modified. That’s why you’re still on the human side, but it was still part of the vampyre strain. I still had your blood at the house, but it was frozen, so I destroyed it before we left.”

Modified... infection? How does that work? What is biology? Fucking magnets!

Richard leaves the interstate so they can stay at a hotel, and once he and Beck enter their room, he makes his displeasure known.

Quote :: “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR EVER LOVING MIND,WOMAN?!!!”

He's angry enough to viciously abuse punctuation!

Quote :: He sat on the bed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers
like he had a headache, which she knew he didn’t.
“Are you thinking at all? His blood could kill you just as fast as mine. NO! Absolutely not! You’re not doing it! NO!!”

I think Tate formatted the text this way to make it a pain in the ass for anyone to copy and paste. There's no way anyone can look at this and think it doesn't make the page look hideous.

Beck starts yelling at him and once again declares herself to be a "grown-ass woman."

Quote :: “You don’t tell me what to do. I’m a grown-ass woman, and I don’t take orders from you!” she yelled at him. “The only reason you know about it at all is because I didn’t think you’d let me ride with just Potter!”
“And you would have been right. I won’t let you do it,” he said firmly.
“You can’t stop me. You’re not even going to remember this after I step into the past. Your future is going to change. I’m the only one out of any of us that will remember this!” she spat.

Richard reminds her of his memory transfer power, but Beck counters that he can only see her memories if she allows him to. Richard's hurt that he'd withhold memories of them from his past self, but Beck assures him that she'll still show him most of what happened. Richard insists that he show her everything, even the little fights they had. They then return to the fact that Beck wants to be a hunter.

Quote :: “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand why you want to do this. Are you trying to kill me?” he asked, burying his face in her hair.
She sighed. “I’m not doing anything to you. I’m just changing me a little.”
“No. If you kill you, then you kill me, too. Don’t you understand that, Little One? I have only come through all these years on the chance you would be born again. If you had not been, I would have been finished. I have already gotten the promise of death from Potter if you don’t come back to me this time,” he explained softly.
“I told you, you’re not going to remember this, and I won’t show you your plan to die,” she told him pointedly.
“I don’t need your memory to remind me that there is no point to life without you. That’s a knowledge I carry in my soul,” he mumbled into her hair.

It's just all about you, Richard, isn't it?

Beck begs him not to ever kill himself over her, but he asks her if she really wants to be immortal. She replies that none of the vampires or hunters are truly immortal, as they can be killed. She asks how long he's going to stay with her, and he promises to never leave her again. As if he ever really left in the first place.

Richard goes to Potter and Jenny's room to tell Potter not to give Beck his blood. A wild Beck appears!

Quote :: They all jumped slightly as she yelled through the door, “Get your ass back to our room! Now!!!”

But there's no shouting match this time, Beck just wants him to be there while she sleeps. And when she falls asleep, he thinks again!

Quote :: What if she only loved him because of the fascination she has for what he is? That fascination would be gone if she became a hunter. She would be the same as him. No. She would be better than him. She would not suffer from the thirst.

Yet Potter loves Jenny just fine.

Morning comes, and they all continue on their drive to Clarksville. Beck theorizes that she can use her blood to kill Elderson and his clan.

Quote :: They were driving down a wooded road, and Richard nearly put them into a tree when she said this.
“What are you talking about?! How much of your blood?!” he shouted.

Not this shit again.

Quote :: “He’s a bit touchy when it comes to you. I think the thought of any of your blood leaving your body greatly disturbs him,” Jenny interjected.
“Well, I am a woman. A lot of my blood leaves my body every month. So, he needs to get over that.”

Not true, only a small percentage of menstruation is blood. It's mostly uterine lining. But maybe Beck just doesn't know that.

Quote :: “Yes, he couldn’t watch over you during your time of the month. When you were a teenager, it was hard for him, but once you had gotten to college and your body had fully matured, he had to be restrained. One of us would watch over you and the other two would stay with him. I’m glad you found us so soon. I don’t think Leso could have handled Richard on his own,” Jenny explained.
Beck asked incredulously, “He wanted to eat me when I was on my period?”
Potter laughed, “Not at all. We’re all animals, Beck. When you’re on your period, you’re in heat. He could smell it from over a mile away, further if the wind is right.”

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Quote :: “But, he has to have been around thousands of women in ‘heat’. Why didn’t he jump on them?” Beck wondered.
“They weren’t his mate. You are,” Jenny explained.

This is not romantic. This is not romantic.

Quote :: Richard stood up, kicked over the big tree he had almost hit, and got back in the car.

Yeah, he's still being a big ol' baby.

Quote :: Twenty minutes later, they pulled up to a house about a mile back in the woods. It was a gorgeous, huge log house.

The word is "cabin." Log cabin.

Quote :: “How did you find this?” Beck asked in amazement.
“We didn’t find it. We built it,” Richard told her.
“How? I thought you’ve been with me all this time.”
“I have, we built this house when you were still a little girl,” he said smiling at her.
“Are you serious?” she asked, looking up at the beautiful home.
“Yes, that’s what Leso and I used to do; build things. So, we built you this. Do you like it?”
Awestruck, she replied, “You built this for me?”
“Yes, Little One. We built it for you.”

He just builds this house for her that he doesn't tell her about for years. Solid plan.

They enter the house:

Quote :: The house was beautiful inside, too. It had two staircases, on either end of the house, that led upstairs. The downstairs had a big living room, a dining room, a huge
kitchen, two bathrooms, and two bedrooms. While upstairs, there were six bedrooms and two more bathrooms. She knew who all the extra bedrooms were for and hoped she could fill them.

And he just planned ahead for kids while she was still a little girl. No biggie.

They sit down and begin to talk about Beck's plan. Beck asks how long it would take for her blood to kill a vampire, somehow Richard knows it'll take a few minutes if drunk, and seconds if injected. Richard asks Beck how she's going to get the blood to the past, and she reveals that she's going to sneak IV needles and anticoagulant and blood bags and syringes and everything she needs. She's even sewn pockets into one of her dresses to hold all this stuff. Richard says that surely needles would be felt through the dress when she's patted down.

Quote :: “They would, but they won’t be in the dress?” she told him.
Now fully pissed off, Richard asked, “Then how are you getting them there?”
Before she could answer, both the other women in the room laughed as they caught on before any of the men. Bev explained, “She’s going to take them through inside of her, Richard. You know, like a woman taking drugs into jail when visiting an inmate.”

THE PUNCHLINE IS VAGINAS.

But I am seriously cringing at the thought of carrying syringes like that. Thanks, Tate.

And Richard suddenly decides to go for a run.

Quote :: When he reached the front yard he broke into a run. He didn’t know how far he ran, but he ran until the woods ran into a cliff. He jumped up onto it and looked down upon a big field that ended at the Cumberland River. He could strongly smell the zinc coming from the zinc plant a good five miles away.

He has once again turned into Mojo Jojo!

Quote :: “You know, her idea has a good chance of working,” Leso said from behind him.
“Yes, my woman is going to bleed for us. She‘s going to drain her blood to save us. That’s wonderful,” he said sarcastically.

It's not like she's going to be crucified or anything.

He's also upset about the fact that she'll be making herself into a hunter, still bringing up the possibility that she could die if Potter's blood has the same infection that the vampires' do. But Leso mentions the fact that whatever infection Potter received didn't kill him. Richard's real concern is that Beck might not love him anymore, but Leso reassures him:

Quote :: “You really think that could happen? And here I’ve spent all these years thinking you were intelligent and sane. She’s risking her life to save your family, to make you a happier man. She knows she died the last time, and still she wants to go. She just got attacked by a vampyre, and did she even put her foot in your ass about it? No, she didn’t even get mad.”
Look at all the planning she did. Everything she put together. You left her over and over while she was in college, for good reason, but she always took you back. She ran with you here, not forgetting her box of plans. She did it for you. She did it because she loves you. And how did you thank her? You ran out on her.
Well, I’m going back. I’m going to thank her. You can sit here and sulk for as long as you like,” Leso said before he jumped from the cliff.

And this is the speech that causes him to go running back.

Quote :: He ripped the door off the hinges getting into the house and broke three logs on an interior wall when he crashed into it, but he got there. She was on the couch next to Bev. He ran to her and dropped to his knees in front of her.
“I’m sorry. I’ll never run out on you again. We’ll do whatever you want. You can change into a hunter, or a witch, or the Tooth Fairy. I don’t care. I love you. I’ve always love you. I will always love you. Stay with me in the past, the present, and the future. Marry me. Be with me forever. Please,” he begged her.

Yup, that's our Romeo. Even when he's apologizing he still sounds like a petulant child.

Quote :: She looked at him with tears in her eyes, but also with a smile. She looked at the front door laying on the floor and the cracked logs, then back to him. “Is there anything you don’t break?”
“Your heart, ever again. I promise,” he said solemnly.

I can actually smell just how putrid that line is. See? I even spit on it!

Later that night, Richard asks if Beck really will marry him the next day. She says she will on the condition that he fix the house. So there we go.

The next day, everything's going according to plan. It's not even eight AM and Richard's already fixed the house and found a preacher. But there's a slight problem, since the preacher knows Beck and her family.

Quote :: “Richard, he’ll tell my parents,” she gasped.
“So what, they won’t show up,” he told her.
“Yes, they will. They would look bad if they didn’t,” she explained.
Repentantly, he said, “Sorry, too late now though.”

Oopsy daisy!

After fixing her hair and putting on makeup, Beck and Richard get breakfast at McDonald's and buy some new clothes for the wedding at Wal-Mart. Some romantic escapist fantasy this is. They get disposable cameras and flowers - orange and white roses to be exact.

Quote :: “These stems are way too long. Do you have a knife with you?” she asked as they were driving to the church.
They were at a stop sign, and he took the roses from her, “How long do you want them?”
“About five inches,” she told him.
He turned the roses sideways and bit the stems clean through, handed them back to her, and threw the leftover stems out the window.
“Hey, don’t litter,” she scolded him.
“It’s not litter. It’s rose stems,” he retorted.

Somehow that was worth writing.

They get to the church, and Beck's parents are there to rain on her parade.

Quote :: “Rebecca, why didn’t you tell us you were getting married today?” her mother asked.
“You might have said something, young lady,” her father added.
She couldn’t believe it. They were actually trying to act normal to impress Richard!

Beck says that they haven't spoken in nearly eight years, which embarrasses them. They try to introduce themselves to Richard, but he won't play nice.

Quote :: “I know who you are. I know you’re here for your preacher’s sake. You couldn’t have him telling the parish that Beck got married without you here, could you?”
“I see Rebecca’s been telling stories again. If you met our other daughter…,” her father started to say.
Richard pointed to the church steps. They swung their heads, and their faces took on a look of shock and horror that was just as visible as Bev’s when she saw them. “That daughter?”
They swung their heads back toward Richard with their mouths hanging open.
“Yes, that’s what I thought. Pay attention to me. You can go into the church. You can go home. You can go straight to hell for all I care, but what you will not do is disrupt this day for us. Do you understand me?” he asked as they stared at him with their mouths still hanging open.

He can't even try to make things a little pleasant, just to keep them calm.

Beck then uses her electrical powers to zap her father's nose. This impresses Richard.

Quote :: He walked her toward the church. “That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Can you do that whenever you want?”
“No, only when I’m emotionally overexcited, but I’ve been wanting to do since I was a kid,” she laughed.

Oh, happy day! Like we've learned with Alex Whitman, violence is always the answer. The ceremony's over in only about a paragraph. While Richard and Beck are in Clarksville, Richard wants Beck to take him around to show him her favorite places. They go sightseeing for a while, nothing of importance happens.

Then Richard takes her on a picnic to the cliff to which he'd run away earlier.

Quote :: He turned her so she was facing the field. She gasped. The breeze moving through the bright moonlit field made it look like an ocean. He took a tablecloth out of the basket and laid it on the thick carpet of grass on the ground beneath their feet. He then took out a plate of paper wrapped sandwiches, chips, and cokes. She ate, he tasted, they talked, and made love on the tablecloth spread out on their cliff above their ocean.
“This is where I came yesterday when I ran away from you. This is where I was when I found out that this beautiful place is the ugliest place in the world without you here to look down on it with me. I love you,” he whispered into the cusp of her ear.
After a time, they both fell asleep.

End of Chapter Fucking Five.

Join date : 2011-07-04

So after letting this fall by the wayside, I'm picking it up again now that I'm on fall break.

CHAPTER SIX!!!

It starts in the field where Richard and Beck had their picnic. Richard wakes up. I'm not sure why Tate is so intent on cataloging his sleep cycle, but then I remembered I used to do the same thing when I couldn't figure out how to make time pass.

Quote :: was laying back on the ground next to her when he felt that tickle in the center of his brain.

He has a Spidey Sense? The hell is "that tickle?" I don't remember it ever being a thing before.

Quote :: Was it Leso or Jenny coming this way? No, wrong direction…Shit!

OH NO, HERE COMES CRAPULA

Quote :: A single vampyre made its way through the moonlit crop below.

Was there just the one? He cast his senses out, scouring the area around them. Yes, it was alone. What could it be thinking to come here alone? What in the hell was going on here?

Yes, he casts his senses out. Like we all do. Comes as naturally as breathing, it doesn't need to be described in any way that would let us know what it is.

Quote :: Out of nowhere, Potter streaked out of the night. Potter needed no help from him and yelled for him to stay back. He collided with the vampyre, throwing him back twenty feet. Potter was on his feet; crouched and ready for the battle, long before the vampyre was.

Potter just happened to know where they went and arrive just in time. I'm sure Tate will have an explanation for this that indicates that in no way did she make this up as she went along.

Quote :: When the vampyre had regained his footing, he launched himself at Potter, but Potter was quicker, darting under the launch and shoving his shoulder up into the vampyre’s ribcage, throwing him into the air. Before the vampyre got more than seven feet high, Potter grabbed him, slamming him to the ground, the vampyres bones broke with the sound of gun shots through the night air.

You heard it here, folks! "Vampyre" bones are filled with gunpowder! Man, wouldn't it be something if when a vampire died he just exploded into a cloud of bullets?

The vampire pleads for Potter to stop, saying that he meant no harm, and explaining that he's looking for Richard who's an old friend of his.

Quote :: “He’s an animal feeder or he’s portraying himself to be.” Potter called across the field.

I can't make sense of this either.

Quote :: Richard walked over to them and looked down at the vampyre on the ground.
“Jeremy?” he asked, surprised.
“Aye,” the vampyre answered, stretching his hand up in what appeared to be a friendly gesture, but Potter kicked it out of the air with a snake strike quick kick, breaking more bones.

This just in: Potter is a dick. Also I Googled "snake strike quick kick" to see if it was a thing. It wasn't. The only logical explanation is that this scene was written by a five-year-old who plays too many video games.

Quote :: “Would you please stop that, Hunter?”

Gosh, it's so rude the way you break my bones! Please be more considerate in the future!

Quote :: “Don’t move until you’re told,” Potter ordered the newcomer.
“Richard, would you tell him I’m your friend?” Jeremy asked.
“Were, you were my friend. It has been many years since we were friends,” he paused and turned to Potter, “Where’s Leso?”

"Would you so kindly tell this Hunter that I am your friend? It is rather inconvenient how he keeps maiming me."
"You see, dear reader, we have not seen each other in years. Where's Leso? Oh hi, Mark!"

Quote :: “Sleeping,” Potter replied.
“Damn! Watch him, Hunter. If he moves, kill him,” Richard stated as he threw a quick wink at Potter to let him know not to really kill him; yet.

I can feel just how satisfied Tate must have felt putting the italics on that last word. It miffs me.

Richard goes back up the cliff (yes, up the cliff) where Beck is already dressed and waiting for him, somehow feeling perfectly okay with the fact that her vampire husband just zipped off while she was asleep.

Quote :: “I need you to do something,” he told her.
“Okay.”
“I didn’t tell you what yet.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He truly did love this woman. He picked her up and jumped.

I imagined this exchange in a dreary monotone, as if Beck were under hypnosis. Romance! The Undead Heart 961878

Quote :: She giggled and said, “Sorry, dropping tickles.”

Maybe because it's nigger o' clock over here as I'm writing this, but "dropping tickles" is now my new favorite euphemism for taking a dump.

Quote :: He smiled and said, “Let’s see how you like this.” He ran about a dozen feet and leapt, two more leaps, and they landed at Potter’s side. He sat her down behind him and dropped into a defensive crouch.

My mind is going crazy trying to imagine the geography of this place, what with all the oddly precise measurements of distance both lengthwise and heightwise (just look back at the fight scene). How far can a vampire leap? How is a raven like a writing desk?

Quote :: With a hissing growl in his voice, he addressed Jeremy, “If you even look at her wrong, I’ll take your head off myself, old friend.”

Even though he carried her right to him! Great plan!

Quote :: Richard’s crouch became a wider stance, his upper body dropping to balance itself on the fingertips of his left hand, his right hand suspended in mid-air over Jeremy’s head.

"Richard's hand loomed over Jeremy's head." How difficult was that?

Jeremy explains why he's here, being oddly collected despite the niggling little issue of BROKEN BONES:

Quote :: “I am here to see Richard, to warn him of Elderson. I am not a friend of Elderson, nor part of his clan. I am only here because Richard is my friend,” the man stated to Beck.

"I am also a robot. Beep boop boop beep."

Beck assures Richard that Jeremy is telling the truth. Richard offers his hand to Jeremy, but somehow he's able to "pop up" (seriously) without the slightest assistance. Now, which bones were BROKEN again? But Jeremy's most concerned about Richard no longer trusting him. Richard says it was necessary, but won't explain why, only saying:

Quote :: “It’s my wedding night. I have other things on my mind right now,” he said as they turned and headed back toward the cliff.

Boo hoo, Richard. Boo hoo.

Quote :: “You fight in a strange way, more speed and force than skill,” Beck said from behind them.

Richard couldn’t help but laugh at her. His mistake!

Oh shit, I smell another EMPOWERED WOMAN MOMENT coming!

Quote :: Before he had stopped laughing, his legs had been kicked out from under him, a small push between his shoulder blades took away his opportunity to recover his balance, and he fell on his face.

He felt her weight as she fell to her knee in the middle of his back, quickly put her right arm around his neck, and gripped her bicep in her left hand, yanking his head back toward her weight on his back, and kissed the top of his head.

Aside from the disturbing notion of Beck feeling the need to do this, even if Richard is physically stronger than her, I can see the martial arts manual sitting on Tate's desk as she transcribes it into this scene.

Quote :: DAMN! She had gotten him! If she had been a vampyre, he would be dead now.

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I hate how my mind plays a gif in reaction to everything.

But then, Richard tells Potter to throw her in the air.

Quote :: Potter was still laughing at him, but he didn’t hesitate. He put a hand on each side of Beck’s waist and shot her straight up into the air. He was up on his feet before she was ten feet off the ground. He cocked his knees and waited for her to stop rising.

Ten feet. That does not sound very safe. It doesn't even stop there.

Quote :: She crested at about thirty feet and started to fall.

I did some quick calculations to determine the impact of her fall if Richard doesn't catch her and she hits the ground. For this, I was being generous with determining her weight, which I placed at 100 pounds despite the previous knowledge that she's tall. But this is all hypothetical. Her terminal velocity falling from 30 feet in the air would be 29.88 miles per hour. This puts her force at 7852315116.2593 newtons. And that's a whole lot of newtons. The Undead Heart 927788

Quote :: He caught her like a baby, in mid-air, sailing higher with her. They crested at about fifty feet and started to drop. He spun like a top with her laughing in his ear. He touched the ground lightly and kissed her.

And yet a kick from Potter can break bones? I am not letting that go. Will never let that go.

But we move onto section two.

In spite of the events here and in chapter five, Beck's feeling downright chipper about this perfect day. Everyone's now gathered in the living room, where Jeremy's about to take everyone to ride the exposition train.

Quote :: He was a good looking man, about 5’11”, short, black hair, slender but muscular, and she would bet he was in part Mexican decent because of his skin tone and the shape of his dark brown eyes. He was honestly here out of concern, but Richard had asked him wait until Leso woke up before telling them of Elderson.

Tate accidentally that sentence.

Richard introduces Jeremy to Potter. Jeremy's confused about the fact that a hunter had married a vampire, since hunters took a vow to kill all vampires and whatnot. But Potter retcons this by saying he only vowed to kill the murdering vampires! Not the ones who simply maim. (Remember Alex Whitman?) Then the font changes. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Potter then asks Jeremy how he knew about Beck, turns out Richard really liked to talk about her after her death. Jeremy asks for an explanation of how it could really be her, what with her being dead. Richard won't tell him.

Quote :: Jeremy contemplated a moment, then responded, “No, I didn’t think you would. Still I’m very happy for you. Men so rarely get two bites from the same apple.”

"A second chance," Tate. That doesn't sound as icky.

The font changes again.

Quote :: She didn’t know how to feel about Jeremy’s story. She knew Richard had waited over a century to see her again, but not until now did she understand that he had lived everyday of those years in sadness and knowing when she went back again, he would have to live through those years again.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman.

Leso walks in, and he and Jeremy recognize each other. Leso asks how Jeremy managed to find them. Jeremy says that Richard had told him that Beck was from the area, and thought that this would be the place to look. Even though for all he knew, she was still dead. Huh. Now Jeremy is going to explain why he was looking for Richard in the first place, but first, some more backstory on Richard.

Quote :: “Elderson was the vampyre that created you. Did you know that,
Richard?” He waited for him to speak.
It took a couple of minutes for the shock to fall off his Richard’s face.
Finally, he spoke, “Why?”
“Because you killed his brother.”

Welp, looks like he's one of them "murdering vampires!" Potter had better kill him now.

Richard denies this, but then remembers a man attacking a girl, and how he killed him with a punch to the head.

Quote :: The girl had recovered, but the identity of the attacker had never been discovered. Two years later, he had been bitten. All the pieces now came together in his mind.

Not sure I'm following this logic.

Quote :: “Why did he wait so long to attack me?”
“He was not yet a vampyre and was a coward in his human life. After he
was bitten, he found you. He had never intended for your existence to
have any peace or to last so long. He wanted your hero’s soul to be
tortured by killing human after human to survive.

Your hero's soul.

YOUR HERO'S SOUL. Good Ghatanothoa...

Elderson also planned to kill both Richard and his brother, but ran off when more powerful vampires moved into the area. He'd return three years later, only to find that Leso had become a vampire as well, which only made him more angry.

Quote :: Killing your brother no longer interested him. He had given up and was going to kill you both

Also the clan that Richard and company are in actually has a name. The Young clan. Good that we know now.

Quote :: Then, all of his dreams came true. You found a mate, your true soul mate. He starved himself for weeks so you wouldn’t smell him, driving himself nearly insane with hunger, striking only when near other vampyres, so your senses would be dampened. Then, he had done it. He had taken the life of your mate.

That's one dream, Jeremy.

Quote :: He left you in hell. When it looked like you weren’t miserable enough, he would take some of your family. He never thought that one day, you would hunt for him. When you did, he ran and hid like the coward he still is, leaving you in the hell he had created for you.

Left in hell twice! Metaphors don't taste so good the second time.

But now that Elderson is looking for Richard again, Jeremy needs to warn him that Elderson would take Beck's life if he found her. Leso points out that it explains the vampire that was in the front yard that one night.

Quote :: They talked for awhile longer until Richard insisted Beck go to bed.

She's a big girl, Richard.

As she sleeps, Richard thinks. This has been a pattern for too long. He's now feeling guilty about how he had put her in this danger in the first place, once in the past and again in the present. He decides that when she goes back in time, she must not meet him, so she would never have to be killed. So what does he do?

Quote :: He found her box in the closet and silently dumped it on the floor, kicking the dresses to the side, snatching up the scattered needles, and crushing them to dust in his hand. He tore the blood bags to pieces, then threw it all back in the box, and stuffed the dresses back on top. He put the box away, deciding not to tell her until the night before she left what he wanted her to do.

Klassy.

Beck receives a phone call in the morning, from a Dr. Mike Rogers.

Quote :: “We were looking over some reference for an experiment we’re running and saw that you graduated at the top of your class at Duke, and that you are considered somewhat of an expert in the field of Jack the Ripper. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“We would like to use your expertise in our experiment. It doesn’t pay very much, but I think you will enjoy the experience. Do you think you would be interested?”

If only employment came by so easily in the real world.

Quote :: Richard landed beside her, having just jumped over the house.

Beautiful.

Yes, this is going to be what would take Beck back in time to meet Richard. She'd be leaving in a week, which is kind of short notice for something like this. Richard's not feeling so good, considering how he destroyed the stuff she was going to take with her. He says that he's just sad because they would only be together for only a week. The font changes multiple times through all this.

Quote :: They spent the rest of the week mostly talking. He spent every second he could with her.

I love the sudden time jumps after the screwy pacing.

Richard asks her where she learned that attack she used on him before.

Quote :: “I thought you would have known, but it was in the same building as the self-defense class. I took two years of mixed martial arts and kickboxing classes after I finished the self-defense courses. For the record, I know you let me take you down the other night,” she told him.

This is one of those things that would be really nice to weave into the narrative rather than dropping in the form of an expobrick.

Quote :: “Well, one of the first things I’m doing when I go back is teaching you and your family to fight. You can go get Jeremy and teach him. He was in Dublin, Ireland then. He told me last night when you and Jenny went hunting.”

A man of partial Mexican descent in Ireland in 1888. Well, anything's possible...

Quote :: They spent her birthday playing toss in the front yard, but instead of a ball, they tossed her.

WHOA THERE!

Quote :: They tried to toss Bev, but she threw up after the first toss, so Bev sat on the porch cheering on everyone else. Later that night, they had cake.

Again, beautiful.

Beck goes upstairs to get a camera, when she finds Bruce the ghost waiting for her.

Quote :: He nodded, but was not smiling as he usually did. He pointed to the closet. She went the closet.

And accidentally the sentence.

Bruce shows her what Richard did to her needles and blood bags. She's of course very angry about this, but Bruce points under the bed where Beck finds a needle. He points to the pillow, where Beck knows to hide the needle.

Quote :: She looked over, and Bruce was back by the box waving her over. When she got to the box, he made a palms down patting motion. She got on her knees. He jabbed a finger towards the floor, opened his mouth, and ran his open hand quickly up his throat: NOW SCREAM!
“RICHARD!” she screamed.

Damn is she a good actor.

Richard rushes upstairs, saying that he can explain, but not there, so he takes her into the car. And he explains what we already know.

Quote :: “So, you think that if we never met, I’d be safe?” she asked, staring out the front of the car at Bruce. For the first time, she wished ghosts could talk to her.
“Yes, I do. I’m sorry, but it’s for the best, I promise. Go in the opposite direction than they tell you, get in a hotel room, stay there, and have food sent up to you. Don’t go out to see who the Ripper is. It’s Elderson.

Wait, what?

She decides to lie and tell him that she wasn't going to go to Richard when she went back anyway, and implores him not to tell Leso. Richard believes her, and isn't so happy later on.

Quote :: Richard ran but not to the cliff. He couldn’t look at it. He ran in the other direction, leaving drops of blood like a trail behind him.

That's sort of random. You'd think a vampire would know not to drip blood everywhere, but...

He jumps up into a tree and thinks. I am so tired of him thinking.

Quote :: His soul screamed in agony. He knew it was for best, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like his insides were being ripped out by acid-coated hooks.

Not just any hooks!

The next morning, Beck is with Bev and Bruce. All the B's, but Potter jumps in later. She tells them about how Richard told her not to meet him when she went to the past, and how he destroyed her equipment. She also finds it necessary to explain Bruce. When she tells Potter about her lie, he tells her it wasn't such a good idea, since losing a mate is rather traumatic for a vampire, but she argues that she's going to the past so Richard's not even going to remember this. Potter brings up the possibility of her not being able to change the past, so then Present Richard would have to live with the pain of her telling him that she didn't love him that much. Beck realizes that she's made a mistake and decides to go find Richard, and somehow Bruce knows where he went.

Beck finds him up in the tree, a pool of blood tears below. He's completely unresponsive to her, even when she throws a rock at him. Then she hears a high-pitched snarl.

Quote :: Her first, terrified thought was: vampyre. But when she swung her head around, she saw that that wasn’t the case this time. There, not six feet away from where she sat, was a bobcat. Of course there was a bobcat. Why wouldn’t there be a bobcat when she was sitting on the ground covered in blood?

Isn't there always a bobcat? We also get to learn some facts about bobcats!

Quote :: Bobcats were small cats, not much bigger that a large house cat, but they were vicious animals. Their teeth and claws could make them lethal. Her size would not detour him when she was saturated in blood.

Education, bitches!

And as we expected, Richard catches the cat in mid-leap before it gets to her. We break into another section from Richard's perspective, and it turns out he hadn't been responsive since he thought he was dreaming. How cute. So he drops the cat and it runs off into the woods.

Quote :: “Are you alright, Little One?”
“I’m better now, thanks to you,” she said, walking over to him and taking his hand. “I’m sorry about what I said to you. It wasn’t true.”
“It was my fault,” he said, and his beautiful wife slapped him hard across the face, stunning him.

Oh baby, you're so gorgeous when you're mad.

She is still quite upset that Richard didn't want her to meet him in the past, since she would remember meeting him and losing him after all, and tells him she loves him. Then she talks to Bruce, and explains him to Richard, who's shocked because he thought vampires didn't leave ghosts.

Quote :: He didn’t know and would not mention it, but it was nice to know that a vampyres soul remained intact, not immediately sucked into hell at the moment of their death. None of that mattered now, though. Only that she was here and loved him still, mattered.

They cleaned up in the shower once they returned home, washing away all traces of his tears. Afterwards, she spent a good hour questioning Potter. Did he love Jenny on first sight? Would he come with Beck in the past? Where was he between August and November of 1888? Everything she could think to ask him. Then, she and Richard spent their last night
together in this time on their cliff. One last, perfect night.

End of chapter six.

Subject: Re: The Undead Heart Sat Oct 15, 2011 8:47 am

If I were Bev, I'd change my name, get plastic surgery, leave the country, and deny ever having even met this woman.

Join date : 2011-07-04

An interesting (non-sporky) development. Seems that Tate has taken the free PDF off of her site, claiming that the promotion is over. I suppose either it's undergoing edits, OR since this thread is on the first page of Google searches for The Undead Heart, she doesn't want any more folks like me getting their hands on it. I suspect the former since she's the type to post whiny rants in response to criticism, and she has before on one Amazon review.

She's also doing psychic readings under different names. On one, she's Tate. On another, she's Mashashe Rogers. Yet she has another account on Book Blogs under the name of Mashashe Jackson. Curiouser and curiouser.
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