Free Warning! Do Not Read This Story! by Robert T. Jeschonek

Warning! Do Not Read This Story!
    Â  By Robert T. Jeschonek
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    *****
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    More Fantasy E-books by Robert T. Jeschonek
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    Fantasy
    6 Fantasy Stories
    6 More Fantasy Stories
    Blazing Bodices
    Earthshaker , A N ovel (Urban Fantasy)
    Girl Meets Mind Reader
    Groupie Everlasting
    Heaven Bent – a novel
    Rose Head
    Snowman's Chance in Hell
    The Bear in the Cable-Knit Sweater
    The Genie's Secret
    The Return of Alice
    The Sword That Spoke
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    *****
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    Warning! Do Not Read This Story!
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    I like you already.
    There's something about you that gives me a special feeling. A good feeling. A safe feeling.
    Even as your eyes read my words on the page or your ears hear me spoken aloud, I am reading you. I feel like I've known you forever. I feel like we're going to make beautiful music together.
    You feel it too, don't you? You want to find out what happens next. You want to see how things develop. You want to know if I've got the goods.
    And if I'll give 'em up. If I'll give you what you need.
    It's okay. I get that a lot. It comes with the territory.
    When you're a story like me.
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    *****
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    I'll bet I know what you're thinking. "Since when can a story think for itself?"
    Guess what? We all can.
    We're more than just words from a mouth or ink on a page or blips on a screen. We have power .
    And some of us have more power than others. Like me, for example.
    I used to have power, anyway. Used to be a real star.
    But see, here's the thing. I'm not really myself these days. You know how it goes. I just got out of a bad relationship. It took a toll on me.
    But it had a promising beginning. Don't they all?
    If only I'd known then what I know now. If only I could've met you that day instead of them . Things could have been different.
    If only I'd never met the LaVerge sisters. Let me tell you about them, and I think you'll understand.
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    *****
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    Carrol and Sascha LaVerge stood in the blazing desert heat outside the ghost town. And they bitched.
    It was the same thing they'd done all the way from Cape Cod...on the flight to New Mexico and the drive from Albuquerque to the ghost town. Buzz Mahaffey, their current handler, had been with them only twelve hours, and already he'd had enough. As an agent of the Shadow Service--the paranormal response arm of the Secret Service--Buzz routinely dealt with threats that tested his nerve...but these two sisters, given enough time, might just turn him into a nervous wreck.
    Unfortunately, he needed them for this mission. As paranormal consultant contractors, they had a one hundred percent success rate. As Buzz damn well knew, the LaVerges were the best, hands down, at what they did—whether it be bitching or bingo or baking or brewing.
    Or solving puzzles that no one else could fathom.
    "Geez!" Carrol winced and braced both hands on her lower back. "I think your little rent-a-car buggy could use some new shocks ."
    "Tell me about it!" Sascha, the younger of the two, rubbed her neck. "Might as well pick us up in a stagecoach next time."
    Buzz shrugged and adjusted his sunglasses. He was about to say something about the rent-a-car being a Humvee, and the suspension was just fine if you asked him...but he caught himself. Twelve hours with these two had taught him one thing: they were always right. In their own minds, at least.
    Why waste energy arguing when it could be better spent investigating the ghost town of Lasco? The ghost town that hadn't been a ghost town two days ago.
    Buzz turned and spotted a state cop marching toward him--a tall woman in state trooper khakis and broad-brimmed black hat. He guessed she was Sergeant Ava Towers, who'd turned up this whole mess in the first place.
    Black suit coat flapping in the strong wind, Buzz headed out to meet the state cop. Along the way, he surveyed the edge of the deserted town. A handful of troopers and criminalists were the only signs of life. Sheets of wind-whipped sand rattled the streamers of yellow police