Live like a rock star.
Dance ‘til you die.
Are you in?
Blurb
What kind of a rock star lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere and plays at weddings and funerals? Then Jack Scratch comes into his life, ready to represent him and launch him to stardom. Jack can give him everything: a new band, a new name, a new life, a new look, and new boots…although they aren’t exactly new. They once belonged to The One, a rocker so legendary and so mysterious that it’s urban legend that he used black magic to gain success. But what does Jeremiah care about urban legend? And it’s probably just coincidence that the shoes make him dance better than anyone, even if it doesn’t always feel like he’s controlling his movements. It’s no big deal that he plunges into a world of excess and decadence as soon as he puts the shoes on his feet, right?
But what happens when they refuse to come off?
Excerpt
They’re mine. I’m really holding them, Jeremiah realized. I’m holding history that isn’t supposed to exist. When The One took the stage, any competition turned tail and ran. It was said that the one time the singer revealed what he looked like the crowds were moved to tears by his beauty and sophistication, and tore each other apart because they couldn’t get to him. Some said it was a conspiracy that complete copies of his songs didn’t exist because the music was too potent to release to the public. There were people who still worshipped the mystery, the music, the outfits, and the boots.
And now those people would come to him.
“Go on. Try them on,” Jack encouraged. Jeremiah nodded and carefully put the platforms on the floor. Shaking with nerves, the youth sat and guided his feet into the cherry red sheaths. Electricity crackled along his instep and through his toes. He tugged the vinyl up over his calf and gasped. Jeremiah was overtaken by a sudden burn, a sudden ant-crawling of power that worked its way through his skin and into his very soul.
“What the—” he choked. The plastic spasmed, tightened around his foot, and then relaxed. The left boot stretched itself a little higher up his calf and extended its sole and heel a little more to adapt to his needs. Jeremiah thought he had imagined it, but the right boot immediately followed suit. The matching sets of the laces squirmed and rippled, settling into a slightly different pattern than when they were taken out of their box. A quick look around proved that while everyone in the room was looking, Jack was the only other person that actually saw. “Did they just…?” Jeremiah couldn’t bring himself to say something so bizarre. He barely managed to hold back a cry when a thousand tiny needle teeth nibbled his skin from toes to knees. A tingling sensation spread under his skin and Jeremiah was filled with a rush of violent confidence that almost made him swoon.
“Good. They fit,” Jack said. Only his tiny, mysteriously cruel little smile hinted that he was aware of the boots’ strange behavior.
The longer Jeremiah looked at himself the more he realized that he could do no wrong. My life just changed. With these on my feet, my past is gone. I’m going to be better than I ever thought possible.
All around him the yes-men and hangers-on gaped.
“You look so good!” the store footman practically swooned. His vinyl and lace frock coat danced under the fluttering movements of his hands. His sharp, pale face flushed with excitement underneath the stylized Victorian wig.
“I’m gonna cry you look so good!” the blonde assistant squealed, gripping Jack’s knee as if she’d keel over if she didn’t have it there to support her. “It’s like I’m witnessing history!”
The faces that surround him were positively thunderstruck and at his mercy. The camera kept right on clicking. Jeremiah got to his feet and struck a few more ambitious poses, dropping into a low crouch before kicking a leg up in an insane bastardization of a round kick. It didn’t matter that he’d grown up looking like every other average guy in Middle America. It didn’t matter that he’d been more accustomed to cotton T-shirts and washed-out blue jeans than the clothes Jack had him wearing. The overall look wasn’t complete, but the boots pulled everything together. The added height evened out his lanky proportions. In some unlikely way the platforms made his stubble-sporting, angular face look downright exotic. His eyes blazed liquid brown heat and his dishwater hair almost glowed under the dressing room lights.
Jeremiah sashayed around the tiny space and leapt onto the low podium at the room’s center, full of a burning drive to do something. He wanted to sing. He wanted to rock. He wanted to dance, and he’d never had that sort of urge before in his life. Every school dance he’d ever gone to had involved him either playing in the band or drinking contraband beverages with his friends outside the building. “Guess I’m a natural!” he laughed. He knew he was lying, Jack knew he was lying, but there was no reason for anyone else to know the truth. Why bother with the truth when the image in the mirror was so much better?
He had expected his balance to be shaky in the tall platforms, but it was like the boots were built for him. He hadn’t thought to check the size. Maybe The One wasn’t the original owner; maybe they conformed to whoever wore them. Jeremiah’s face glowed when he looked at his mirror image. His reflection looked as giddy and ecstatic as he felt. Why do I care what they are? If they work, they work! His eyes dropped to the new footwear. He was just able to see the tiny, warped image of his face in the shiny toes. Everything’s going to be amazing from now on. As he admired his distorted image via his feet, all of his hang-ups and personality drained out of him. Who needs a personality with boots like these?
Jack Scratch watched his protégé glided round the room, that same tiny, dangerous smile just barely curling his full mouth. “Just think. What you have on represents everything that you want to be,” he coached. His words drilled through the rocker’s ears and hardwired themselves into the deepest parts of Jeremiah’s heart and soul. “They’re everything you want on your side. These boots are temptation and chaos, just like you. I’ve got it,” he declared. “I’ve got your name.”
“Give it to me,” a raspy voice in front of the mirror breathed.
“Forget Jeremiah Kensington: folk singer, blue jean rocker, country boy, small town loser,” Jack breathed, his giant hands fervently patting down his front until he found which jacket pocket his cigarettes were hidden in. It was amazing that he didn’t gouge himself in the chest given the sharpened tip of the massive silver ring that enveloped his right forefinger. The manager leaned back against the sofa and lit up, never once taking his eyes off his new golden boy and meal ticket. “From now on you are J.K. Asmodeus, rock star and corrupter of the masses.” A thin plume of smoke stretched up to frame his intense expression.
J.K. looked from Jack to the man in the mirror, saw how the red glitter of the boots was echoed in his eyes. “Yes.”
The two ignored the gasps and commentary around them as everyone texted photos and alerted the necessary paparazzi. The pair shared a slow smile as Jack inhaled another draw of nicotine. “It’s time to sign,” he murmured. The smoke crept in front of his face and turned his pleased expression into something that bordered on animalistic. He removed the top sheet of the stack he’d been examining and held it out to the younger man.
I should wait and consult a lawyer. I should take my time. These things need to be done with care, a distant echo of a Midwestern conscience chided. J.K. ignored it, grinned back at his manager, and reached for the fountain pen the manager handed him. His expression was almost as malevolent as Jack’s, though there were still traces of wholesomeness that had yet to drain away. “Let’s do it.”
Author Bio
Selah Janel has been blessed with a giant imagination since she was little and convinced that fairies lived in the nearby state park or vampires hid in the abandoned barns outside of town. Her appreciation for a good story was enhanced by a love of reading, the many talented storytellers that surrounded her, and a healthy curiosity for everything. A talent for warping everything she learned didn’t hurt, either. She gravitates to writing fantasy and horror, but can be convinced to pursue any genre if the idea is good enough. Often her stories feature the unknown creeping into the “real” world and she loves to find the magical in the mundane.
She has four e-books with No Boundaries Press, including the historical vampire story ‘Mooner’ and the contemporary short ‘The Other Man’. Her work has also been included in ‘The MacGuffin’, ‘The Realm Beyond’, ‘Stories for Children Magazine’, and the upcoming Wicked East Press anthology ‘Bedtime Stories for Girls’. She likes her music to rock, her vampires lethal, her fairies to play mind games, and her princesses to hold their own.
Author Links
Blog – http://www.selahjanel.wordpress.com Fandom Scene Column – http://www.fandomfestblog.com/blogs/selah-janel Facebook Author Page – http://www.facebook.com/authorSJ Facebook Book Page – http://www.facebook.com/intherednovel Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5622096.Selah_Janel Amazon Author Page – http://www.amazon.com/Selah-Janel/e/B0074DKC9K/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1346815995&sr=1-2-ent Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/SelahJanel
In The Red is Available in Various E-Book Formats at the Following Places:
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http://noboundariespressstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=63_67&products_id=224
Amazon:
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-the-red-selah-janel/1112737343?ean=2940015121148
Guest Post:
Taken from the Lifestyle Section of the Clarkesville Tribune…
J.K. Asmodeus: Local Boy Made Good or
Sudden Star Turning his Back?
Miranda Cranston
People have asked me how my trip to cover the J.K. Asmodeus tour went. How’s our local boy doing? What’s he gotten up to since we last saw him? Some of you who know Jeremiah very well even asked me how he was eating and if he remembered you.
None of these are easy questions to answer. I remember Jeremiah from school, like a lot of us do, and was excited to see our small-town-boy-turned-celebrity. I really was hoping for an exclusive or at least an invitation to chat and catch up.
What can I say that you haven’t already seen in photographs and on magazine covers? He doesn’t look like himself anymore. His hair’s currently long and blue and he has clothes that most of us couldn’t afford on our paychecks. For those that remember how shy and aloof Jeremiah was in high school, well I wonder what you’d think if you could see him schmoozing with top musicians, record execs, and the women that seem to materialize out of nowhere every time he enters the room.
I want to talk about his success, but that’s the story we already know. We’ve seen how well his albums have done, we’ve all heard the figures on how much his tours have grossed. Some of you are already probably aware by now that Jeremiah’s even gotten married and is looking at building an estate on the West Coast. So why bother writing this? Why don’t I get to the real interview, the story behind the story?
As much as I hate to admit it…there is none. I sat there at that press conference, I tried to ask my questions along with everyone else, and he flat-out ignored me. He didn’t even remember me, and it was obvious that because I wasn’t his type, he wasn’t going to give me the time of day. Before you chalk those comments up to residual high school cattiness, let me assure you that everyone in the room heard his opinion of a town that sent a boring, shy reporter who wasn’t much to look at. Not only that, but he flat-out denied ever having lived in Clarksville. He didn’t even recognize or acknowledge the name!
Granted, I wasn’t prepared for what that press conference would turn into. There seemed to be so much going on at once, and I’m sure I didn’t catch it all. At times Jeremiah (excuse me, J.K; he refuses to be called by anything else) was callous, but by the end he was offering his opinions from everything to politics, religion, and the state of music today and how he’s going to save it. I will hand it to him that he mostly ducked the allegations that have shadowed him, those accusations that his band members do the real writing, the real legwork. It’s been a rumor since his second album that his manager Jack Scratch started buying songs from the other band members at a hefty price if they’d make them good and keep their mouth shut. Whether this is true or yet another maneuver to keep J.K.’s name in the spotlight, who’s to say? I’m not sure what I believe anymore. I ducked out before I made an even bigger fool of myself, and apparently missed where Sons of Pandemonium returned for their own side of the story later on.
I don’t know whether fame has gotten to his head or if he’s trying to play the game, but I feel sorry for him. J.K. is definitely a superstar – everyone in the room was mesmerized by him at one point or another. Although the critics and promotional sponsors weren’t as easily entranced as his fans, it’s very clear that they understand that he strikes a chord. People either love to hate him or love to adore him, almost to the point of being mesmerized. That was something I was totally unprepared for – the level of sheer fanaticism that this guy from Clarksville, Indiana, this boy I went to school with, inspires. Even when he says the most over-the-top things (that seem to just burst out of his mouth uninvited at times), even when he gets up and starts dancing in the middle of a press conference, it only seems to cement his reputation as the new bad boy of rock n’ roll, the new breed of rock star. I can’t tell if the Sons of Pandemonium are playing along or if they’re that taken with him, too, but it was one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve ever had. And with the death grip J.K.’s manager Jack Scratch seems to keep on him…well, maybe it’s good for him to have a constant, guiding presence; maybe it’s not.
At any rate, if Jeremiah Kensington grew up feeling even a little out of his element, then that’s nothing compared to how I felt last week. It was obvious that as a small-town reporter, I wasn’t needed or welcome. What do you do when professionalism doesn’t work, when the one person in the room who could lend a friendly smile wants nothing to do with his background?
Call me catty, call me unprofessional, but I didn’t see a trace of the guy I grew up with. I saw a sharp-tongued, strung-out, opportunistic guy who may very well be the next great thing in music, but he sure doesn’t want much to do with us anymore.
And yet…I hesitate to admit it, but I almost forgave him for it. I stuck around in the hall, hoping to catch him after he left. He was in a hurry and looked unwilling to talk, his new wife and manager in tow. The childish things coming out of his mouth should have cemented my opinion on him, but instead I found myself looking away from the face I barely recognized and down at his feet. Those boots…it’s probably just a marketing ruse, but he’s so graceful in those boots that it almost drives one to distraction. If you could have seen the way he walked and danced his way out of that conference room, you might have been proud of him again. Seeing him that way was like seeing someone who’s so far above you that you know you don’t even have a hope of catching his eye, yet you can’t help but try. It was like seeing the biggest star in the world, someone who you wanted to put your trust and love into without any thought of what it would do to you. Our Jeremiah’s (or is that J.K. and only J.K.?) has got such a good angle, that I almost believed it, despite my anger and embarrassment. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to forgive him and go along with everything he said. After all, why shouldn’t he be the new face of rock music? Why shouldn’t we just say he’s bringing back a genre instead of repackaging it? Why shouldn’t we champion a man who’s worked hard to make something better of himself?
I wanted to say those things, and I found myself believing them…but only when I looked at those boots. When I remembered how I felt in the room, when I took a good look at his face, when I really listened to his voice…it was a different story entirely.
***
Miranda Cranston, Entertainment/Lifestyle
Miranda Cranston is a local journalist whose focus is on Clarksville residents’ impact on the arts, local entertainment events, and the impact of pop culture on the small town scene.
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