Home for Horny Monsters (Book 04)

Mike stepped onto his front porch, a warm thermos of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. The wood creaked beneath him, and he sat on the porch swing overlooking the front yard, the chains squeaking under his weight. It was early, not even seven yet, and the house behind him was silent. He rarely used to get up so early, but had discovered that dawn was officially the quietest part of his day. The peace lasted for almost half an hour while he listened to the sounds of the front yard while reading. Singing birds whizzed back and forth, chasing the insects that lived in his yard. Eventually, he heard a loud crash, followed by the sound of Tink yelling at the fairies, and suppressed a laugh.Looks like his day was going to start early.His front yard consisted of a large, maze-like garden that was centered around a stone sundial in the middle. The shrubs grew up to waist height, and he navigated the maze from memory, working his way toward the center. Despite the fact that fall ha

Now, the former carriage house was home to Tink and Dana's workshop, and he crossed the garden and walked inside, wrinkling his nose at the smell."What is that?" he asked, squinting into the shadows. On the other side of the workshop, a lone figure could be seen silhouetted by a small desk lamp."Hmm?" The figure spun around, revealing a pale, college-aged woman with her dirty blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Dana wore a dirty white tank top with grease stains on it, and had a gnarly scar around the top of her left arm where it had been ripped off and then reattached. The zombie wore a pair of magnifying goggles on her face, and her gray eyes blinked at him through the thick lenses. "Oh, the smell? Combination of solder and a capacitor that I blew a few minutes ago. Not gonna lie, I kind of enjoy the smell.""What are you making?" He walked over to get a better view of her work table."Tink and I were working on building a couple of drones.""Any reason?""Yes, actually." Dan

Sofia scowled at him, so he took a step forward and threw his arms around her waist and hugged her. After a moment of resistance, the stubborn cyclops melted and hugged him back, her breasts pressing up against the sides of his face."I guess I'm not over how quickly she took the house down," she confessed, her voice bitter. "The house is adequately protected from the outside, but she reminds me that it would be easy for someone on the inside to turn on us, to ruin what we have here.""Yuki would never turn on us. Not anymore.""But you can't know that. Look at how much evidence we have that Emily turned her back on us, and she was the Caretaker. What's to stop anyone from doing the same thing?""Honestly? That's the real reason we have to look out for each other. If we push someone away, that's where those dark thoughts will find them. Even I'm not immune to temptation." Mike thought about the shadow figure who occasionally appeared in his dreams, tempting him with forbidden knowledg