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That concludes "The Year of the Rat". Thank you for sticking with it for so long. I hope you found it worth your time.

When I first conceived this story, ten or twelve years ago, the concept was much simpler than it ended up being in this final version. Comicality had introduced a character, unnamed, late in Chapter 8 of his "Gone From Daylight 09: Pride & Prophesy" story, part of his "Gone From Daylight" series. I was intrigued by the young boy that Justin encountered in Grant Park. The quality of their interaction suggested, at least to me, that this character was likely to return later in the story. He never did.

I read many more chapters of GFD before I realized that the character just wasn't coming back. If there was to be anything more to his story, it would only be in my mind.

But I was still curious about him. How did a kid of about twelve years end up selling himself in the park? And what was it about his situation that caused him to plead with the john that he "need(ed) fifty" when the guy stiffed him?

From those musings a story began to take shape. How it happened is probably not important. But the story of such a young, inexperienced boy selling himself, and desperate to have enough money, piqued my curiosity. Some consideration of possibilities suggested the Mike-Rat relationship to me. I played with it for a while, found that it worked, and I thought it was interesting enough to pursue in greater depth.

First, I rewrote Comicality's scene in Grant Park from the young boy's perspective. When I had a better sense of him, I began to construct the immediate back story that led to that scene. The opening paragraphs of this story are almost identical to that original draft.

Since GFD is a series about vampires, having Rat turned to darkness seemed like a natural complication in the story of a growing love between him and Mike. Two neglected children, thrown away by their parents and by society, begin to find purpose and meaning in their lives together. Then — oh, no! — tragedy strikes. How will Rat resolve this complication?

As the story grew, a new wrinkle developed. I had been fond of the Dylan character since he was first introduced on the abandoned car lot. The idea of a vampire — a creature that most people consider powerful and frightening — being a young boy who is so timid and shy that he often disappeared from sight, struck a chord with me. And when Dylan died, I found it hard to just let him go.

So I decided that my Rat-Mike vampire-crossed love story really needed to pay at least some tribute to the Dylan character. I had originally planned a few brief encounters between Dylan and Rat, with Dylan feeling some empathy for the other boy and assisting him with small gestures of kindness. I also thought that Dylan's Sun Quest, viewed from a distance by a curious Rat, might be a good trigger for Rat's final decision about how to resolve his love for Mike, despite now being an entirely different species. That concept may have expanded just a little bit in the final form that this story took.

I picked away at this story slowly, over the course of several years. I hoped that it would be something that Comicality might appreciate enough to include in one of his GFD fan fic volumes. I hadn't completed writing it when he passed away around this time last year.

Rather than let the story idea die, I asked the IOMfAtS Webmaster if he would be willing to host the finished story as a tribute to Comicality and his work. He generously agreed. About six weeks ago, I started working in earnest to finish the story.

Obviously, Comicality's passing changed my original plans for the story. In addition to the plot and theme I had already developed, I wanted to include specific elements in this story to pay homage to the original author himself. That created some additional layers of complication.

Every time I completed a chapter, a new idea and chapter suggested itself. What I thought would be a two or three week effort — and a final story of twenty-to-thirty thousand words — turned into a frenzied six weeks and more than one hundred twenty thousand words. It was a story that just kept writing itself. If I didn't have a specific date, Dylan's Sun Quest, in mind to end the story, and a fairly rigid timeline, I might have kept writing into next year!

Fortunately, it's done now. I hope that it's both entertaining and satisfying reading for each of you, and a fitting tribute to an author who contributed so much to LGBT fiction over the past thirty years or more.

Finally, a few more notes acknowledging the efforts of the original author. Rat/Rad (except for that original seed planted by Comicality), Mike, Jebby, Marco and Father Maxwell (as well as their immediate family members and figures from their past) are all creations of my own imagination.

Most of the other named characters in this story were originally created by Comicality. With the exception of Dylan, I don't believe I have taken any great liberties with the characters that he created. Taryn plays a modest role in this story, but I believe that everything he does is consistent with the character that was originality created by Comicality. The rest of the characters that shared the abandoned car lot with Taryn and Justin, as well as Jeremy, play minor roles in this story in ways that I believe are also true to their original conception.

Dylan is the one character with whom I did take liberties. I think he was true to the character originally created by Comicality, but there is certainly more to this Dylan than Comicality ever revealed in GFD. I hope that Comicality's fans will find my treatment of Dylan respectful and consistent with the original character.

I also hope that fans of the GFD series find my treatment of Comicality's vampire world to be consistent with the original. I didn't re-read all one-and-a-half million or more words of the original series, but I did go back and research when I had questions in my mind about points I considered significant. I do hope that I got it right.

For fans of the GFD series, there may also be some interesting and evocative moments in this story. Several scenes (including Justin's Grant Park encounter) from the original are retold in this story, with varying degrees of detail. I also used allusions to incidents in the original series at a number of points in this story. I hope that may have added some interest for GFD fans who read "Year of the Rat".

And finally — and this time I really do mean it! — my thanks again to you, the readers, to Tim for hosting this story, and especially to Comicality and to his memory. May he rest in peace, knowing that seeds he planted are continuing to spread throughout the universe, and will continue to spread for many generations yet to come.

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