Dusk Incarnate is Rising from the Grave (And She’s Meaner Than Ever)

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A couple of weeks ago, on one of those quiet December nights when the year is wheezing out its last breath, I opened a folder on my PC I hadn’t touched since 2017 (that’s traveled hdd transfer to hdd transfer to cloud transfer, and so on). Inside was 3000 Miles of Blood (now named Dusk Incarnate)—rough, unfinished, and somehow still reaching out from its bleeding pages.

I thought I was going to cringe. I expected to close the document and mutter to myself, “Yeah, what was I thinking, anyway?”

Instead, I couldn’t stop reading.

Morgan Karga—a consistent character who lives across a multiverse between this story and another I’m writing, Dissolution Protocol—was still there, scarred and furious, dragging her companions across a dying America while werewolves howled at their heels. The highway soaked in blood. And something in me—maybe the part that’s lived a little more, lost a little more, written a hell of a lot more—knew this story wasn’t quite done with me yet.

So I’m bringing her back. Sharper. Meaner. Truer.

Why now? Because the world feels a little more like the one I imagined back then, when my only reference point was the era of the iPhone—broken interstates, flickering neon, people running from things they’re unable to name. Because I’m not the same writer I was in 2017, and Morgan deserves the version of me who knows how to make her hurt properly. And honestly? Because this story never really let me go. It was just waiting until I was ready to finish what we started.

What’s different this time?

The dialogue snaps like a switchblade now—short, mean, alive.

Each state they cross shifts the tone the way the landscape does: sticky Southern gothic dread in Alabama, and dust-choked paranoia in Texas, and then to LA.

The blood-bond between Morgan and Celia is deeper, messier, more desperate—feral tenderness in a world that doesn’t allow it at all.

And the violence… God, the violence finally feels as heavy as it should. No more repetitive corner-ducking.

Here’s a raw taste from the new outline/draft—one of the scenes that’s been living rent-free in my head. (Very much still in progress, so forgive the rough edges.)

I vaulted the gutter in one bound, boots slamming shingles slick with rain and pine rot. The wolf waited—massive shadow, fur matted black, eyes glowing venom-green under boiling clouds. Partial shift: torso bulging muscle, snout elongating with wet pops of bone and cartilage. "Warning from Sabina," it snarled, voice like sulfur and gravel. Drool hissed where it hit the roof, eating metal. "Turn back, bloodsucker. Or we finish what we started with your pet." Celia's face burned behind my eyes—gold sequins, lips on my wrist, bond sealing warm and eternal. Rage flared cold and clean. I laughed. "One dog? She must be scraping bottom." It charged. We slammed together mid-roof—impact rattling the trailer frame. Claws raked my side, shredding blouse and dead flesh in long, wet ribbons. Black blood sprayed hot across shingles, steaming in rain. Pain bloomed white-hot, but I twisted under, fangs sinking deep into its throat. Artery tore like wet rope; bitter, demon-tainted blood gushed over my tongue—burning, electric, wrong. It roared—sound shattering eardrums—and hammered my ribs. Bones cracked. I flew, slammed the chimney. Brick exploded in dust and shards. Strength ebbed fast, unnatural. Limbs turning lead. Occult. Demon-possessed. Below: Rick burst out, shotgun thundering. Double-ought buckshot shredded the wolf's flank—flesh erupting in bloody craters, ribs gleaming wet. It barely flinched, leaping for me again. I rolled, came up inside its guard. Claws—my own now—slashed upward, opening its belly from sternum to groin. Guts spilled in a hot, stinking cascade—ropes of intestine slapping wet against the roof, steaming viscera sliding toward the gutter. It howled, clamped jaws on my shoulder. Fangs punched through muscle, grated bone. I screamed raw. Rick fired point-blank—blast taking the wolf's ear and half its skull in a spray of bone fragments, brain matter, and black blood. It staggered, swung blind—claws catching Rick full across the chest. Shirt and skin peeled back in bloody flaps. Sternum cracked open like a book; heart and lungs exposed, pulsing frantic in rain. He gasped once—wet, bubbling—dropped the shotgun, crumpled off the porch into mud. Eyes wide on the storm, life leaking pink froth.

This is the kind of story it’s becoming. No clean wins. Just survival, and the cost of it.

If you like your road trips soaked in blood, your anti-heroes scarred inside and out, your werewolves vicious and your humans barely better… stick around. Morgan’s got 3000 miles left to go, and this time we’re going all the way.

See you on the highway.