Title: The Bachmann Family Secret
Author: Damian Serbu
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: July 27, 2020
Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 82400
Genre: Paranormal YA, LGBTQIA+, YA, teens, first romance, gay, ghosts, clairvoyant, warlock, magic, grief
Synopsis
Jaret Bachmann travels with his family
to his beloved grandfather’s funeral with a heavy heart and, more troubling,
premonitions of something evil lurking at the Bachmann ancestral home. But no
one believes that he sees ghosts.
Grappling with his sexuality, a ghost
that wants him out of the way, and the loss of his grandfather, Jaret must
protect his family and come to terms with powers hidden deep within himself.
Excerpt
The Bachmann Family Secret
Damian Serbu © 2020
All Rights Reserved
I trembled at the thought of returning
to Nebraska for my grandpa’s funeral.
Even he told me not to return.
Of course, you can’t explain the
situation to your parents, or say your concerns out loud to anyone, without the
world thinking you’d gone bonkers.
Still, after my uncle called Dad to tell
us Grandpa died, Gramps tried for the past day to keep me at home.
Yeah, my dead grandpa warned me not to
go to Fremont, which meant no way I wanted to go either. I trusted him dead as
much as I trusted him with all my heart when he lived.
But what Gramps and I wanted did not
matter. Because we all planned to get into Dad’s Blazer and drive back to
Fremont, to the big Victorian house that had comforted me so much my entire
life as the embodiment of Gramps’s love, to the small town we’d left behind
years ago.
Unfortunately, none of these dreadful
thoughts took me away from the reason I shut my eyes a moment ago and worked
with all my power to keep them closed.
Sitting on my bed next to my suitcase
and hugging my knees close to my body, I knew Gramps still stood in the corner
with a frown. His ghost was upset, and his agitation had to do with my going to
his funeral.
Keeping my eyes shut, I reached over
next to me, at least comforted by the presence of my dog.
Then my mind played a fucked-up trick on
me, as I giggled at my thoughts. I wished for a support group. Hi, I’m Jaret,
and I see dead people. Like the frickin’ movie, with what’s-his-name acting in
it. The Die Hard guy. Not that I ever wanted to see ghosts. Nope, never did.
But ever since I was a kid, as early as I could remember, I saw them. And I
learned pretty quickly to keep my mouth shut about my visions, no matter how
many times I saw them. People would look at me like I went nutso if I told them
such stuff. The other high school kids would freak. My own parents signed me up
for the shrink farm when I was in third grade because I told them about the old
man ghost in my classroom who made mean faces at me when I got an answer wrong.
But could I blame them? My story sounded bonkers and scared the shit out of
them. For all I know, the ghost sightings proved once and for all I am nuts.
Back to my senses, I took a deep breath
and peeked over at the corner. Still there. Gramps shook his head, the way I
remembered from when he wanted to teach me a lesson when I was little. The love
had sparkled in his eyes even as he’d reprimanded me, and his ghost form
adopted the same demeanor, despite his displeasure with my insistence on
traveling to Nebraska.
I almost tricked myself into believing
he still lived, except I had watched him materialize out of nowhere in my
bedroom. One minute I stared at my hot picture of Captain America, the next
Gramps blocked the poster from view as he appeared to me.
“Gramps,” I whispered. “I don’t know
what you’re trying to say.” My head pounded with a headache, always a sign the
dead had arrived for a visit. “Please help me. I don’t know what you want. Or
how I’m supposed to do it. I’m not in charge around here! You know I have no
power.”
He shook his head again, and the word
“no” echoed through my skull.
“I got your message!” I yelled as a jolt
of pain crashed through my brain. “You don’t want me to go back to Fremont. But
I can’t not go. What would I tell my parents?” They’d scold me about making
stuff up about ghosts again. Or could I even mention the episode to Jenn and
Lincoln, my sister and brother? Too embarrassing. “Gramps, I’m sorry. I have to
go. Please understand.”
Again Gramps shook his head, but then
began to fade away.
“No. Please. I miss you—”
He disappeared, and Darth whined next to
me, her ears back, her big brown eyes worried. At least my head returned to
normal, except my stomach turned over in knots. A very, very bad force lurked
in Fremont, bad enough Gramps’s spirit left his house to warn me.
I pulled Darth into a tight hug, so she
pushed her snout into me. Even she tried to keep me from packing. She listened
to Gramps’s warning and took his plea to heart. Yeah, I’m a strange case. I
bond with dead people and dogs. I petted her and she whined again. “Don’t be
sad. You get to go too.” Of course, I figured my assurance might make the fear
worse for her.
I sighed as I stood, Darth mimicking me,
and then grabbed my suitcase and headed upstairs, Darth on my heels.
“Look at the bright side,” I told her.
“First we have a long car ride through Nebraska! And—Dad informed us no one can
take a cell phone. How cool, right? No contact with the real world the whole
time!” While Dad often flipped out about our being on our phones too much, he’d
lost it with total abandon today. He forbade any phones on the trip,
whatsoever. We all caved, though, because, well, first the order came from our
dad. We never won those battles. And I think we all figured the phone rage
related to his grief.
Darth tilted her head at me, trying hard
to understand my words. “Plus, Gramps doesn’t even have a computer!”
We always dealt with the old-world
nature of visiting Gramps, but we needed to bury him, which made the whole
thing feel like total bullshit. No phones. No computer. Like 1890 all over
again. Not to mention the ghosts fucking with me more than usual.
All these dreadful thoughts continued to
float through my head as one cornfield after another flew by on the trip to
Fremont. I stared out the window the entire time. But my mind kept reminding me
we hurried toward a black hole, with nothing good at the other end.
I stifled another inappropriate giggle.
The latest horror movie, starring Jaret! The dark stairs seemed foreboding, so
I headed right down them! The evil monster ran into the woods. I charged in
there alone after the beast! Every movie watcher screamed to go the other way,
but the idiot actor plodded right into the danger. Except I became the idiot.
Fuck me.
Plus, my head hurt like I got it smashed
between two elevator doors. No way to forget the bad premonitions when your
head reminded you of them every second.
Thankfully, we all stayed pretty quiet
for the entire trip, given the grief of the moment.
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Meet the Author
Damian Serbu lives in the Chicago area with his husband and two dogs, Akasha and Chewbacca. The dogs control his life, tell him what to write, and threaten to eat him in the middle of the night if he disobeys. He has published The Vampire’s Angel, The Vampire’s Quest, and The Vampire’s Protégé, as well as Santa’s Kinky Elf, Simon and Santa Is a Vampire with NineStar Press. The Bachmann Family Secret is scheduled for release July 2020. Keep up to date with him on Facebook, Twitter, or at www.DamianSerbu.com.
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