Archive for July, 2011

The Journal of Edwin Grey, by Scott A. Johnson

Posted: July 30, 2011 by Shaina in Mystery, Scott A. Johnson
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The Journal of Edwin Grey, by Scott A. Johnson

The Journal of Edwin Grey, by Scott A. Johnson

The Journal of Edwin Grey, by Scott A. Johnson
Available at:
Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble

Description:   The mysterious death of a benevolent recluse prompts his nephew to investigate the cause. But what he discovers in truth is by far stranger that what he’s led to believe. The old leather book that lies in the dead man’s study holds the key, he’s sure, but nothing can prepare him for what lies inside The Journal of Edwin Grey.

Excerpt:

The circumstances surrounding the death of my Uncle, and of how I came into possession of his curious journal, have forever changed my attitude on things unknown. I, who am not prone to flights of fancy and consider myself a rational, sane man, find myself staring more into conditions that cannot possibly be rationally explained, with the creeping dread that there may be more in our world that neither science nor faith can adequately unmask. And yet, now, I must relate the story and weather the notions that I am more moved by the superstitions of the uneducated than the logic that befits my station, for such a tale must be told, lest history repeat itself on some unfortunate.

I first recall meeting my uncle, the late philanthropist, Edwin Grey, in the waning months of the summer of 1923. I say recall, for, although I’ve been assured that I’d met him before when I was a boy, I have no memory of the occasion. My only impressions of the man came from newspaper clippings and family gossip, both of which painted distinctly different portraits of the same man. The former gave accounts of his seemingly endless generosity toward his fellow man by endowing poor houses, schools and the like. Great respect was given whenever there was mention made of his name. The latter, however, told tales of his reclusive nature, and of how he’d dismissed all but one of his serving staff, and that he’d not been beyond the walls of Grey House for more than a year. To the other members of the family, save for his only sister, my mother, he was the eccentric rich uncle who gave away the family fortune and shunned the daylight. There were those, cousins from my father’s side, who whispered that it was his dabbling in something arcane that had driven him quite mad, and away from the company of man. Those rumors were silenced, however, with a withering glance from my mother.

It was toward the end of July when I received word that my application to continue my studies at the prestigious Syracuse University had been accepted, and my mother joyfully sent a wire to her brother giving him the happy news. Edwin soon replied with warmest regards, insisting that I lodge at Grey House instead of the men’s dormitory on campus. Though we were quite well off, my mother was raised to believe in frugality, and since Grey House was near the university, it was agreed.

I arrived in mid-August by train and was met by the only manservant Grey House had left, a large African by the name of Molen, who greeted me formally and helped me place my belongings in the automobile, an arduous task for he ended up having to bind my trunk to the backend. He seemed something of a curiosity, as his manner of speaking denoted one of high education and breeding, a thing rare for a manservant, rarer still for a black one. But his thick-calloused hands told of a man no stranger to physical labor. Once my belongings were settled, and we were on our way, it took more than an hour to reach our destination of Grey House.

Its name of “Grey” would, if not for the owner’s last name, have been a great misnomer, as it was anything but in both appearance and personality. It was surrounded by a great stone fence with pink streaks in the grain of the rocks, broken only by the wrought iron gates that stood sentinel on the drive. Inside the gates, the house itself resembled more of a castle than a home in modern America, with its great peaked roofs and stretching arches. On first glance, it seemed intimidating by its sheer size alone. The grounds, I noticed, were badly in need of care, and it was no wonder, as Molen could not possibly be expected to maintain the house and the lawn.

As we pulled into the carport, Molen informed me that my uncle was, most likely, anxiously awaiting my arrival in the lounge, the second door on the right from the house’s main entrance, and that he’d bring my things to my room presently. I thanked him as I went inside, eyes agape in wonder at this place that was to be my new home. The interior mirrored the outer grounds in that, though still inhabitable, the hallway seemed neglected and dark, the only light coming from windows across the front of the house. Thick with dust, the hallway was congested with stacks of newspapers, some in languages I did not immediately recognize.

I nearly missed the second door, as it blended in with the surrounding walls. Only the tarnished doorknob gave a hint that this section of the hallway was meant to be opened. I felt my stomach flutter as I screwed up my courage to knock, having only the most vague of ideas of what to expect from this blessed lunatic. I was pleasantly surprised when it was a kindly voice that answered my report on the door and bade me enter. Edwin Grey fairly leaped from the chair as he saw me, seeming to instantly recognize my face from many years ago. He called me “dear Christopher,” as though I’d grown up under his watchful eye, and shook my hand vigorously. We then sat and chatted about his latest obsession, the Oriental game of MahJongg, my course of study, and anything else that struck his fancy.

When I retired, later on that night, I imagined that I would sleep well from having been exhausted, not only by my uncle’s inquisitiveness, but also from the day’s travel. Restful slumber was not to be mine, however. It was not that the bed was uncomfortable, nor that my accommodations were inadequate, but that I was awakened by the most peculiar sound of my uncle shouting in the darkness. So full of venom and hysteria were his shouts that, at first, I scarcely believed Edwin to be the source. I rose from my bed and, finding my robe and slippers, followed the din down the stairs to a door well past the lounge where I could distinctly hear Edwin arguing with someone.

His voice was shrill with rage and he spat curses and oaths at the unknown other in the room, whom I’d assumed to be Molen, but I could hear no other voice. I tried the door, only to find it locked. As the intensity of his shouts grew, my own fear for his wellbeing increased, and I took it upon myself to rap at the door, and call his name. The shouting ceased, and Edwin threw the door open before me. When I’d met him earlier in the day, he’d been dressed comfortably in a satin jacket and looked the model of his aristocratic station, but now, in the dim candlelight, he appeared gaunt and haggard, his hair standing on end in all directions and his eyes wide with what seemed to be an unabated rage. Upon seeing me, his anger did not diminish, rather it increased at being disturbed. He ordered me back to my room and instructed me to never again approach this door so long as I resided in his house, punctuating his growling by slamming the heavy wooden door in my face.

I stood there in shock, for how long I cannot say for certain, for when I had spoken to him earlier he did not seem capable of such ire. I spun on my heels, my every intent to return to my room, pack my belongings, and seek lodging elsewhere, when the ebon face of Molen emerged from the darkened hallway into the flickering candlelight. The suddenness of his appearance startled me and sent me reeling backward a few steps until my back was pressed firmly against the wall. My uncle’s protestations began anew from inside, softly at first, then growing in volume and intensity. Molen gestured for me to follow him back toward my room. Once there, and out of earshot of my uncle, he explained to me that Edwin was not a well man, and that it was his delirium that had driven the rest of the staff to seek employment elsewhere. Only Molen had stayed, though he would give no reason as to why.

He pleaded with me to stay, to not take the old man’s threats and oaths to heart, telling me that what he needed now was family and human contact to save his beleaguered soul. When I asked with whom my uncle was arguing, Molen made a dismissive wave of his hand and told me that there was no one there, that he took to that room every night, and some nights the house remained quiet. Most nights, however, the halls echoed with the madness that it seemed only Molen could bear.

Such dedication I had never seen before, nor have I seen since, as he seemed more of a worried friend than a manservant, and in the end, his persuasive nature convinced me to stay. He assured me that Edwin was harmless, and in the morning I would see again the man I met earlier in the afternoon.

When he was certain that I would not flee in the night, Molen left me to my own devices to try to sleep through the echoing tirade of my uncle’s madness. When morning came, Edwin Grey seemed himself again, with no sign of the menace from the night before. Before he served breakfast, Molen cautioned me to make no reference to the previous night’s events, and I complied with his wishes, though questions burned in my brain.

And so it was to be for the next two months. My uncle, who never left Grey House, seemed the picture of health and sanity during the day, but in the late night, behind the locked heavy door, he digressed into a frothing madman. I came and went as I liked, taking much time away for studies and always returning just before Molen set the sideboard for supper. Occasionally I would venture out again into the night to converse and carouse with my contemporaries, but always I returned to Grey House to find Molen watching guard over my uncle, and always seemingly grateful to see my return.

The Journal of Edwin Grey, by Scott A. Johnson
Available at:
Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble

Careless Talk, by John M. Dow

Posted: July 29, 2011 by Shaina in John M. Down, Thriller and Suspense
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Careless Talk, by John M. Dow

Careless Talk, by John M. Dow


Careless Talk, by John M. Dow
Available at:
Amazon

Description: “You saw the winged men – we did what we could. But mortals are fragile and the Opposition are not. I am not justifying what we have done, only explaining why we need a Treaty.” – Gabriel

“Drowning’s all fine and well, but it’s a grand day for a hanging!” – Belloq

“And here I am, older than the world, transfixed by a dream and brought to this low state by a being whose very existence is but a speck of dust on the glassy surface of eternity.” – James

The battle for the future of humanity has been raging for millennia.

A race of almost divine immortals, the beings identified as the Angels, Demons, Gods and Monsters of human legend, have laid aside their eternal conflict and formed an uneasy truce.

On one side are The Protectorate.

On the other, The Opposition.

The truce can only be upheld while the treaty agreed by both sides is held inviolate: There shall be no direct interference in the affairs of mortals unless they pose a threat to the supernatural world beyond the veil of mortality.

Not everyone wants the treaty to stand.

When James, performing his duty as an officer of the Protectorate, is sent to investigate the possible unearthly abilities of a mortal girl, something extraordinary happens – something for which he and his immortal companions are utterly unprepared.

Someone is manipulating James’ actions. And James is one of The First – in possession of The Name.

The Name which holds the power of creation.

The Name which holds the power to end everything.

Excerpt

London

The grandfather clock in the corner didn’t care that Annie Hopkins could talk to the dead. It was content to count away the last few minutes of her life, just as it had counted away the last of her father’s. A quarter to four. Only fifteen minutes left.

Annie sat in her usual position in the front room, her back to the heavily draped window and facing the door. Her grey hair was immaculately styled and her plain black dress disguised her bulk as well as it could. Under the table, she’d taken her shoes off and she fought an urge to rub her aching feet.

The large circular table in front of her shone with a deep gloss, reflecting the light of the five electric candles positioned strategically around the room to give the best balance of light and atmosphere. On the mantelpiece, beneath an ornate oval mirror, four sandalwood incense sticks smouldered. She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, preparing herself for the sitting.

The five people completing the rough circle around the table had filed in solemnly, as countless others had before them, stating their names quietly. This was the largest sitting she’d taken in months. Annie appraised them briefly, starting from her left.

Eric; portly, early seventies, his jovial face lined with care, watery eyes peering from behind thick glasses. His dark brown cardigan had seen better days and was badly in need of ironing. Probably expecting to contact his wife. He was very quiet – his type usually chattered nervously.

Jessica; tall, rake thin, late sixties, severe. Her hair was drawn back in an old-fashioned bun. Most likely looking for her husband – probably to tell him off about something, judging by the intense nature of her gaze.

Her eyes slid over James – he was a tricky one – she’d come back to him.

Alice was next; mid-forties, pretty, slim, dark, eyes full of hopeful longing. Looking for her mother, Annie thought. As she watched, the woman’s lip trembled. Definitely her mother.

Graham; mid-fifties, sceptical, self-assured. He was probably here with Alice, judging by the furtive looks he kept casting in her direction.

Annie smiled gently and glanced back to the centre. James, mid-twenties, raven haired, pale, his dark eyes never leaving her face. Definitely sceptical, most likely a student of some kind, judging by the rumpled leather jacket. She thought for a moment. Unlikely to be here to speak to anyone – except Annie herself.

tick-tock tick-tock.

The atmosphere in the room was dominated by the relentless counting of the clock. As a girl, sitting in this very room, the thing had grated on her nerves. Its endless counting of time seemed to accentuate the boredom she felt in the company of adults. But as she’d grown, so too had her appreciation of time’s swift passage. And the hated clock, at last, had become a comfort to her; an island of stability in the midst of life’s turmoil.

“Good evening,” Annie said, in her most reassuring tone. “I’m glad you have all come. When we lose someone dear to us, it’s expected that we simply accept the loss as part of the natural order of things and then move on with our lives. Sometimes, though, we need that final touch – that final reassurance that our loved ones are well and in good hands. That is what I hope to do for you today.”

She smiled around the table, noting the reactions. Eric, a hopeful smile; Jessica, a tight flicker of her lips; James, impassive; Alice was barely keeping herself under control; Graham’s eyes were fixed firmly on Alice.

“It’s perfectly natural to be a little sceptical about what I do,” Annie continued, “but I would ask that those who are less open to the Spirits suspend any disbelief out of respect for those who may be here seeking enlightenment.” Her eyes flickered over James and Graham, her smile never faltering.

She paused for a moment to give her words time to sink in and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This would be difficult; she preferred to work with at least one person whose history she knew – to get the ball rolling, as it were. During the course of the séance, details of the others would be slipped and Annie’s sharp mind would stow the information away for future use. But for now she was starting from scratch and the five people opposite were giving very little away.

She waited a few moments and then chanted her usual opening, concentration creating a small furrow between her eyebrows.

“Spirits from the air, from the water, from the fire and from the earth. I sit and I wait. I lay me as a bridge between the worlds. If you would commune with those you love come forward and speak.”

She opened her eyes and waited for a few moments, casting her gaze around the circle, trying to gauge the easiest mark. She saw James’s lips twitch with a smile as her eyes drifted over his pale face.

“I have a woman here,” she said, glancing quickly between Eric and Alice. “She is…”

“Really p****d off!” croaked a harsh, feminine voice in Annie’s ear. Her eyes widened in shock as she twisted her considerable bulk around toward the unexpected sound. Behind her the room was empty, as she already knew. She tried to regain her composure. It must be my imagination, she thought. The stress of the anonymous sitting.

“No such luck, you old fake,” the voice snarled.

Startled, Annie tried to stand but couldn’t.

“Ladies and gentleman, I apologise profusely. I am feeling unwell and….”

“I have a message for James,” the voice snapped. “And I don’t appreciate being sent to this hell-hole to deliver it.” The words dripped with almost palpable malice.

“James,” Annie said, gasping for breath. “There is a message for you. Do you have a loved one you’ve come to reach?”

“You’re the medium,” James said. “You tell me.”

Annie tried to breathe slowly, fighting the waves of panic which broke over her. “What is your name and message, spirit?”

“A name’s a powerful thing, Annie. Best leave that alone for now. As for the message, tell James to get his little show over and done with. I’m getting tired of waiting for him.”

Annie passed a hand over her face. This wasn’t right. “James, the spirit says you have to get your show over and done with – she’s waiting for you.”

James’s face split in a wolfish grin which never quite reached his eyes.

“Certainly,” he said. He fixed his eyes firmly on Annie, and held her in place by force of will alone.

The moment stretched. tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock. Annie trembled, writhing uncomfortably under the force of James’s gaze.

“We want you to stop it,” he said.

“Stop it?” Annie asked.

“Stop holding séances. You’re hurting people.”

Realisation dawned in Annie’s mind. A clever-clogs student, she thought, here to expose me – using a hidden speaker to frighten me. Her resolve hardened and she met his gaze fiercely.

“I merely convey messages from the dear departed to…”

“Oh, stop it, Annie. We know what it is you profess to do, but you don’t understand the consequences.”

“I give people peace…” Annie said.

“No. You drag people from where it’s safe and warm, and then you leave them here. You leave us here.”

“Now see here, young man,” Annie said, trying to regain her air of quiet authority.

“You have a daughter, don’t you Annie?”

Annie’s thoughts flashed to Linda. “What? Yes, but…”

“But you had another, didn’t you?”

Annie’s eyes flashed with fury. “How did you…”

“Have you conveyed messages to her?”

Annie tried to stand again, hands gripping the edges of the polished table. “This has gone far enough,” she snapped. She pushed down on the smooth table top and lifted herself from her seat with great effort.

“Sit.” James commanded, his gaze hard and intense.

She sat wordlessly, staring into James’s face, held by his dark eyes.

“Call her,” he said, his voice silky steel.

“This is absurd,” she said, “I won’t continue with this any longer. I want you to…” She looked around the table. The other guests sat quietly, attentively, showing no signs of alarm.

“You called her for Linda,” James said.

“Linda was upset. She was very young when… when she…”

Annie trembled as James’s eyes bored into her own. Dark eyes, blazing and burning. Dark eyes in a pale face. You leave us here, he’d said.

tick-tock tick

“Call her.” His voice was satin.

Annie whimpered, beginning to see. “She’s already here isn’t she?”

“She’s been here since you first brought her back, all those years ago. But she’s not as…” he paused. “Not as intact as we are.”

Annie looked in horror at the faces of her guests, only now seeing the pallor and the dark eyes.

“Call her, Annie. See what it is you do to us.”

“Oh, God, Jenny,” Annie moaned.

The door at the back of the room creaked. Annie sat back in her chair, trying to mould herself to the wood to escape from James’s cold eyes and the feeling of boundless dread emanating from beyond the sitting room.

A single pale hand came around the door and gripped the edge. A second hand on a slender arm shot from the darkness and hit the wall with a slap like cold meat on a chopping board. Annie jammed her fist into her mouth to stifle a scream as a face appeared in profile, moving too quickly, like a video tape on fast forward. A white face, slack-jawed, mouth gaping. A single eye, like a sucking black vacuum, staring lifelessly forward. Inclined at forty-five degrees, the head rotated up, looking sideways, fixing Annie with those bottomless pits of blackness. A plaintive cry wailed from the motionless, screaming face; “Maaaaaaaaaaaama!”

Annie cried out in anguish as the childlike form flopped forward onto its hands and knees. And then it was in the room, crossing half of the length in less than a second. Lurching and twitching, the grinding of bone syncopated with the wet slap of feet and hands.

Terror closed around Annie’s chest like a vice, squeezing the breath from her. She closed her eyes, holding them tightly shut with all the force she could muster and wincing at the hot, coppery taste of blood flowing from the fist at her mouth.

“Look, Annie,” said James, his voice quiet. “Look at what you’ve done.”

Annie shook her head violently in the negative, her whimpers failing to cover the grating, snapping, crawling sound which coincided with the creaking of the table. Tears burst from behind her clenched eyelids and she knew – knew – that Jenny’s empty sockets and yawning mouth were inches from her own.

“Make her go!” Annie shrieked, “Make her go back! She’s suffering!”

“We’re all suffering, Annie. But we can’t go back. We don’t know the way. We don’t know how.”

Jenny’s ghastly wail rang out again, from inches away. Annie whined and turned her head away as she felt cold and fetid breath flowing across her face. Her hands flew over her ears.

“I didn’t know,” she screamed.

“You didn’t ask!” James thundered.

“How could I?” Annie cried, spraying blood from her lips. “How could I ask?”

“You had no problem asking questions, Annie,” James said. “You were too busy inventing the answers to hear the screams. If you’d listened, you’d have heard.” His voice dropped a little. “You were too wrapped up in being a fraud to realise you were genuine. And the faith – the belief – you created was too powerful for us. We were drawn like moths to a flame – pulled from warmth and safety by the love of those we’d left. To here. To this grey desolation.”

“I won’t do it again. I’ll never…”

“Oh, I know that,” James said.

“What will you do to me?” Annie asked in a whisper.

“It’s not us you have to worry about. It’s Linda. See you, Annie.”

-tock tick-tock

The funereal toll of the clock counting its first chime of four went unheard, masked by Annie’s gasp for breath as crushing pain blossomed in her chest. Her eyes flew open, looking on the suddenly empty room, bulging and watering. Linda’s voice, laughing, full of joy, floated from her memory and covered everything.

I love what you do, mum. You bring so much comfort to people.

The clock sang its second of four.

It gets me through the dark times, you know? To believe that, no matter what, I’ll be able to get in touch – find out if you’re okay.

The third of four tolled in the distance and was drowned by the roaring in Annie’s ears as she fell to the side, clutching her chest convulsively.

Like you did with Jenny, mum. To know I can find you like you found Jenny again.

The fourth bell tolled, echoing gently around the walls of the empty sitting room.

London, beyond the Veil

The Veil, that metaphysical curtain which separates the mortal plane from the great beyond, pulsed lightly in reaction to James’s presence. The eternal world beyond the Veil was invisible to those bound in the chains of mortality but, like a two way mirror, everything on Earth – human triumphs and failures, kind acts and most desperate crimes – was visible from the other side. The Veil encompassed everything and everyone in the myriad worlds of creation, colouring and distorting the scurrying lives of oblivious mortals. Through the ages, those sensitive souls able to peer through in some way, saw the other world as a purgatory – a home to the lost and the damned. Their assumptions were closer to the truth than they knew. For immortals, the Veil was a permeable curtain – a gateway between the living and the dead, but for humankind it was the great division at the end of life.

James, one of the First among the Ciriath, older than almost everything in creation, looked sadly through the thin, rippling, curtain and watched the end of Annie’s life; saw the new Annie rise, shining, from the carcass of the old. She faded to a single point of glaring light, and then went where he never could.

“See you soon, Annie,” he murmured.

Beside him, the white, twisted, figure of ‘Jenny’ sprang to her feet, gave a shudder and rearranged herself into a more natural looking position.

James glanced down at her with a slight frown. “I’m not sure the horror show was entirely necessary, Emily,” he said. “And in the Maker’s name – do something about those eyes!”

Emily’s hands flew to her face, probing fingers finding dark and empty sockets where they didn’t belong. She laughed, her voice like wind-chimes, and shook her head briskly, sparkling eyes of the brightest blue suddenly popping into existence in her pale face. “Damn!” she said. “Why do I always forget the eyes? Anyway, you know me, James – no half measures.” She ran a tiny pale hand through her hair in a futile attempt to impose some order on the wild, dark, corkscrews. “What now?” she asked.

James smiled. “Back to the Depot and then on to the next one,” he said. “Same as always.”

Careless Talk, by John M. Dow
Available at:
Amazon

The Ghost Toucher, by Gerald Rice

Posted: July 28, 2011 by Shaina in Gerald Rice, Humor
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The Ghost Toucher, by Gerald Rice

The Ghost Toucher, by Gerald Rice


The Ghost Toucher, by Gerald Rice
Available at:
Amazon

Description:  In a world where ghosts are an accepted reality, Stout Roost, reality star and host of the Network’s The Ghost Toucher reality series has vanished. But Israel, the spiritual detective they hire, doesn’t exactly have a plan to find him. Kelly Greene, a customer service rep, is tapped to assist the detective, but he quickly realizes that as far as unconventional methods go, Israel’s are insane. He informs Kelly there is an afterworld and it was already populated by pesky ghosts. They also hate humans because they eventually become ghosts and are seeking a ‘clean’ way to exterminate us all. The two learn finding Stout is the least of their worries as they are pursued through metro-Detroit by obsessive compulsive wannabe warriors, mutants who worship an insane deity, weapons from the other side and a mysterious, perpetually pregnant, augmentative woman with a gender complex.

The Ghost Toucher – Excerpt

She stomped on the gas and raced around a green Taurus in front of them.  Kelly looked out the back window.  A single dark cloud had formed and was rapidly approaching.

“If you can go any faster, now’s the time!”

She didn’t say anything, but cut around a car crossing through the intersection.  A piece of the cloud shot out like a missile and hit the street right in front of them.  Anna swerved into the left turn lane to get around it.

“Are we fine?  Are we fine?” she shouted.

Kelly patted himself down.  He was.

“Taze, you all right?  Taze?”

The taller man had slumped to the side in the front seat, his forehead against the window.  He was making choking sounds and twitching as if he were in the throes of a seizure.  Kelly grabbed his shoulder and Taze’s hand latched onto his.

“Machín,” he rasped.  Kelly tried to pull his hand away but he was caught in an iron grip.

“Taze, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Hey, stop that,” Anna shouted.  “Stop it!”

“Machín!”  Taze leaned over to Anna and let out a ear-piercing screech.

And then he was gone.

The cloud was gone too.

Actually, all the traffic on the road was gone.

“Anna, what happened to Taze?”

Israel turned around and looked at Kelly.  Israel-Israel; not Anna-Israel.  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.

“How do I stop this thing?”

“The brake.  The-the pedal on the floor in the middle.”

Israel pressed down on it and the car spun to the side and bounced like a balloon in slow-motion.  The car eventually rested upside down.

“Let’s get out of here before that thing comes back.”

“Yeah,” Anna said.

“Anna?  That you?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to Israel?”

“What do you mean?”

Kelly kicked out the passenger side window and crawled out.  The engine was still running and Anna rolled hers down first before getting out.

“I’m probably going to have to pay for that,” she said, looking at the busted rear window.

“Hey, your eyes.”  Anna’s eyes had returned to normal.  “What the hell is going on here?”  Kelly looked around.  A fog had descended as far as he could see and there was nobody around, not even cars.

“I wish I KNEWWWW—”

The street folded ninety degrees and Anna fell over the edge.  Kelly caught her arm and saw.  The sky was bent at the same angle.  The car was gone.  She was perpendicular to him, but gravity had changed to vertical instead of horizontal where she was.  He lost his grip and she caught onto the street at his feet.

Kelly peaked over the edge and saw debris falling, literally, down the street to be swallowed up in an approaching wall of fog.  Wind whipped in all directions as he bent over and held his hand out to her.

“Take my hand!” he shouted.

“You’re nuts!” she screamed.

“No!  My hand!”

“Don’t you see that?”

“What?”  Kelly turned and saw a towering cylindrical mass that had not been there before, looming overhead.  The street behind him had collapsed away, making a thinning bridge of asphalt where he stood.  He couldn’t see the top or bottom as it came out of the wall of fog about two hundred yards away.  It bent in the middle as if made of rubber until it was about thirty feet from Kelly.

It was made of flesh.  Arms and legs and torsos all pressed together.  The tower was ragged in spots where the limbs that didn’t bend had broken, jagged bone protruding from gray wounds.  It had several rows of windows, each at least five feet wide and there was a giant white thing inside passing by the windows on the top floor.

No, that was its eye.  The tower had an eye.

Several stories down a crack appeared across the face at least twenty feet in length.  The tower opened its mouth and roared at them, a huge mattress-looking tongue slowly lapping across the strip of street and coming Kelly’s way.  He looked at it and saw it was made of torsos, but with thick, long quills sticking out of it.

“Come with me!”  Anna grabbed him by the pant leg and yanked.

“No!  Don’t pull me—I’ll fall!”

“That thing is going to eat you!”

Kelly looked over the edge again and saw the fog was a few feet beneath her.  Where the hell had Israel gone?  Anna’s toes dipped into the fog.

“It doesn’t really make a difference.” Israel clapped Kelly on the shoulder.  Kelly jumped and turned to see him smiling.

“Where did you come from?  What happened to you?”

“I’m in and out.  Picking out a good spot for us on the other side.”

“Other side?  What are you talking about?”

“We made it.  I didn’t think that thing in Downeck could do it, but it did.  And just in the nick of time too.  That patrol was onto us.”

“So what?  Are we dead?”

“No.  We can’t die.”

“What do you mean we can’t die?”  The flesh tower’s tongue was about twenty feet away.

“Do you know what a psychopomp is?  Never mind—I’ll explain more in a minute.  In the meantime, someone’s not coming with us.”  Israel peaked over the edge.

“How you doing down there, Anna?”

“I’m okay.  Are you coming?”

“No.  You go on ahead.”

“I’m-I’m scared.”

“Here, I’ll help you.”  Israel walked over to where her hands were and stepped on her fingers.

“Ow!  What are you doing?”

“You need to go back, Anna.  You’re not dead.”

“What do you mean, she’s not dead,” Kelly said.  “I’m not either.”

“In.  A.  Minute.”  Israel stomped on her fingers with each word.  Anna lost her grip and scrabbled to grab on.  She fell a couple inches into the fog and bounced, rising into the air.

“You’ll be fine,” Israel said.  “I moved you someplace safe.”

“What about you?  What’s going to happen to you?”

“We have to figure another way back!”

“How will I find you?”

“Don’t worry about it.  We’ll figure that out later!”

And then she was a dot in the sky, too far away for them to hear.

“I don’t think I can jump down there.  Will we bounce?”

“No, we won’t bounce.  We’ll go aaaaaaall the way down.”

“Down?”

The tongue was five feet away.  Kelly moved over a few feet and stopped.  The street had crumbled and fell away on that side.

“I don’t want that thing eating me,” Israel said.  He didn’t seem worried, though.  “Hurry up, already.  I want to get going.”

“I don’t know what to do.  I just—”

Israel picked Kelly up by the arm.  He floated into the air and then Israel threw him at the flesh tower’s mattress-tongue.  Kelly spun around and watched as Israel waved and stepped off the edge.  Kelly screamed as he clawed and kicked at the air until he stuck onto the tongue and was sucked into the tower’s mouth.

Everything went dark.  And stinky.

The Ghost Toucher, by Gerald Rice
Available at:
Amazon

Oogie Boogie Bounce, by M. Stephen Lukac

Posted: July 27, 2011 by Shaina in M. Stephen Lukac, Thriller and Suspense
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Oogie Boogie Bounce, by M. Stephen Lukac

Oogie Boogie Bounce, by M. Stephen Lukac

Oogie Boogie Bounce, by M. Stephen Lukac
Available at:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords

Description: In Oogie Boogie Central, department store detective Milo Tucker discovered he is a Gatherer: a being capable of housing the memories and abilities of the dead. Milo and his six passengers faced the horror of serial killer Theodore Munsch after he gained the talents of a Hunter, a creature of similar-but lesser-power. A year later finds Milo still adjusting to his new status, and things aren’t going well. His wife fears he’s lost his mind and his best friend thinks he’s having an affair. Meanwhile, West Virginia’s mystic community knows there’s a new player on the field, and are anxious to capitalize on Milo’s condition. After all, who doesn’t want to live forever? And in the Appalachian woods, a rogue mage known as Salomé and his terrifying companion, The Baptist, have taken command of a Mountain State militia; the first step in their plans for domination and control. There’s only one thing they need to complete their arsenal: A psychic entity to feed The Baptist’s power. Something like a Gatherer with room for one more passenger.

Prologue

The first cut is the most important.

Ken Chesterton begins his incision just above the genitals and stops at the sternum. He’s careful to control his cut, only going deep enough to penetrate the stomach muscles. Burying his knife to its hilt and tearing with all his strength might satisfy the deepest recesses of his reptilian brain, but the resulting smell of punctured intestine and ruptured bladder will stay in his nostrils for days.

Arlie Garrison twists his beer can until it rips in two, satisfying his own R-Complex in a less visceral manner. He sends the aluminum halves sailing into the darkness beyond the circle of their lantern, where they clang against the other severed castoffs of the evening. Ken whirls at the sound, fixing Arlie with a ferocious stare.

“Do you have to make so much goddamned noise?” he asks, turning back to his butchery.

“Calm down,” Arlie says, opening another beer. “Who’s gonna hear us out here in the woods?” He sucks foam from the top of the can. He doesn’t mind these late-night excursions with Ken; in fact, he looks forward to anything that takes him away from the missus and their mewling brats. Beer and guns wins over bitch and brood every time. Ken’s a bachelor, so Arlie figures he can’t truly appreciate the joys of escaping hearth and home for a night of drinking and killing.

Ken sheathes his knife in the soft earth and turns the body on its side. As the guts begin to spill out, Ken retrieves his knife and slices at the fat holding the intestines in. After several deft cuts with the large blade, a pile of steaming viscera lies next to the hollowed carcass.

“That’s gonna be some good eaten’,” Arlie says, toasting Ken’s expertise. His eyes shine from reflected lantern light as he wipes his tongue across his lips. Thoughts of fresh meat sizzling in a pan compete with the buzz generated by eight cans of Old Milwaukee.

“Don’t start drooling,” Ken replies. “This one’s not for eating; not by us.”

“How’s that?” Arlie nearly chokes on his beer, struggling to deal with this unexpected case of appetitus interruptus.

“We’re not eatin’ this one.” Ken cleans the blood from his knife. “I got us a buyer for it.”

“A buyer?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I heard what you said; I just don’t understand it,” Arlie mutters.

“What’s not to understand?” Ken asks. “I found us a feller willing to pay cash money for this. Don’t worry; you’ll still get a full belly out of the deal. You’ll just get to fill it with something different this time.”

“What about Hiram?”

“What about Hiram? What’s any of this got to do with him?”

“You know how he feels about freelancing,” Arlie says, hiding a frown with the aluminum can. “If it don’t benefit the community, it shouldn’t benefit anybody.”

Ken looks up from his cleaning. “Don’t go getting all converted on me Arlie. We were doing this long before we hooked up with the Brotherhood, and we’ll be doing it long after we’re gone.”

“Sure, sure,” Arlie says, avoiding Ken’s stare. “I’m just saying; we don’t want to wind up on Hiram’s bad side.”

“I’m not sure Hiram has a good side,” Ken muses, returning his attention to his blade. “I’m starting to re-think this whole Brotherhood nonsense.”

Arlie nods. “That’s fine. Whatever you think is best. I’m with you Ken. You think we need to get gone, then we’re gone.”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, you just let me know.” Arlie drains beer nine without further comment.

Ken wants to quit the Brotherhood? Arlie likes that idea just fine. The missus has been bitching lately about living in the compound, so he’ll go along with anything that’ll shut her up. Ken wants to go back into business for themselves? Well all right then. Wads of cash collected from some city boy lazy or stupid enough to pay for what’s free for the taking? That suits him just fine too, so long as the city boy don’t start asking questions.

Arlie doesn’t like folks asking him about his business.

Neither does Ken, so Arlie isn’t too worried. Ken tends to answer pesky questions with the point of his Spyderco, so if Ken’s buyer gets too curious, Arlie figures they’ll have new merchandise for a new customer.

Dancing dollar signs distract Arlie so much that he throws his empty can into the brush without ripping it in half first. He cringes as the missile flies, knowing Ken’s gonna yell about the noise when it hits the other cans.

But there’s no metallic crash, only a dull thud.

Followed by: “Ouch!”

Ken crosses the clearing to stand beside Arlie, now holding his Colt Peacemaker. Arlie’s not quite as fast with his Remington, but after fumbling a bit, has the rifle trained at the same spot as Ken.

“Who’s gonna hear us out here in the woods?” Ken mocks, sighting down the pistol barrel. “Is that what you asked me?”

“Shut up,” Arlie says, trying to remember if he still has a round chambered.

Ken swivels his head to work out the kinks in his neck and steps forward. “All right whoever you are. Get your ass on out here where we can see you.”

“Yeah,” Arlie chimes in, setting the stock against his shoulder. “Let’s get a look at you.”

The brush in front of them crackles and shudders as one gloved hand pushes through, then another. Ken and Arlie get several seconds to examine the hands as their owner attempts to pry the thicket apart. The lavender cloth offers little protection against the thorns and stickers covering the interlocked branches. Brambles stick to the small straps fastened across the backs of the hands.

These aren’t hunter’s gloves.

Eventually the thick brush parts and arms follow hands. A leg steps through, and in one final convulsion, the thicket gives birth to the intruder.

Ken lowers the Peacemaker and Arlie shoulders the Remington. Whoever the stranger is, he’s not going to cause them a lick of trouble.

“I don’t know where you think you’re headed,” Ken says, tucking his pistol back into its holster, “but I’d say you’re way off.”

“That’s for goddamned sure,” Arlie says.

“Trust me gentlemen,” the intruder says, brushing leaves and twigs from his arms, “I know exactly where I am, and I am exactly where I wish to be.”

“Is that so?” Ken asks. His hand strays back to the butt of his pistol. “Then maybe you’ve got some explaining to do.”

The stranger ignores the challenge, and walks over the lantern, continuing to clean debris from his coat. A cape made of fabric identical to his coat and gloves billows as he passes. His earlier awkwardness vanishes with every stride; he now moves as a violet specter, gliding effortlessly around the clearing.

“A magnificent specimen,” the stranger says as he examines Ken and Arlie’s kill. “Simply magnificent.”

“Hell of a shot too.” Arlie smiles. “Dropped him from a hundred yards. Maybe one-fifty.”

“Really?” The stranger looks up from under the brim of his lavender fedora, his eyes crinkling with the knowledge that Arlie is exaggerating the distance. “That is very impressive marksmanship Mr. Garrison; very impressive indeed.”

Arlie puffs out his chest, and casts a sly glance at Ken. The stranger may be a purple creampuff, but at least he appreciates good shooting. Ken shakes his head, imagining Arlie’s guts decorating the ground alongside the entrails already there.

Ken watches the stranger continue to admire the carcass. Making clucking sounds and appreciative “mmm-hmms” as he circles the kill, the stranger studies it from every angle, even bending down to sniff the carcass at one point. After several circuits, the stranger nods, adjusts his cloak, and walks over to Ken.

“Very good blade work, Mr. Chesterton,” the stranger says. “I can’t tell you when I’ve last seen such precision with a knife. Rivals some of my own actually, and I’ve a fairly steady hand myself.”

“Uh-huh,” Ken says, his fingertips stroking the Peacemaker’s polished grips. “You a knife man then?”

The stranger’s head bobs once. “I am, although I tend to favor a longer blade. Better reach, you understand.”

“I do.” Ken replies and brings the barrel of the Colt up to rest against the stranger’s right nostril. “But this here has the best reach I’ve seen yet, not counting Arlie’s Remington there, assuming he’s not too dreamy-eyed to use it.”

Arlie might not understand everything that’s happening, but he’s smart enough to back Ken’s play. The rifle’s back at his shoulder within a second, its muzzle aimed at a spot just below the brim of the stranger’s hat.

“What’s the deal Ken?” Arlie asks.

“The deal Braniac is that Mr. Fancy Pants here made two mistakes. First, Mr. Fancy Pants isn’t as smart as he thinks he is, are you Mr. Fancy Pants.”

“I think I’ll reserve judgment on that one, if you don’t mind,” the stranger says, his voice betraying no fear. “I’m much more interested in hearing what you think my second mistake was.”

Ken thumbs back the Colt’s hammer and twists the barrel a millimeter into the stranger’s nose. “Your second mistake was letting us know how stupid you are so quickly. Arlie and me have never set eyes on you before, cause trust me, we’d remember if we had. But here you are, prancing around in your Sunday best, calling us by name, which you’ve got no business knowing. How’s that for a second mistake?”

The stranger raises an eyebrow. “Very astute Mr. Chesterton. I’m very pleased that your rustic exterior doesn’t mask an equally rustic interior. I do so enjoy having associates with intelligence.” His eyes risk a glance at Arlie. “Although the other type has their uses as well.”

With a gloved finger, the stranger brushes the Colt away from his nose. From under his cape, he produces a lavender handkerchief and gently wipes it across his nostrils. He then takes the pistol from Ken’s hand and polishes the barrel, removing any trace of himself from the metal.

Ken watches this without comment, as if having his gun taken away is the most natural thing in the world, which it isn’t. The Colt’s been passed down for three generations, with the admonition it would always stay in Chesterton hands. Ken has always interpreted this literally, even denying Hiram a peek during his Brotherhood initiation. Hiram had smiled at Ken’s denial; he understood the demands of family and the burden of honoring an ancestor’s wishes.

This stranger is no Chesterton, nor is he the leader of the Brotherhood, but Ken remains unaffected by his handling of Granddaddy’s Peacemaker. As the stranger continues cleaning, he locks eyes with Ken, who suddenly realizes there are things worse than a stranger knowing his name.

Arlie also knows the history of the Colt, and the promise that accompanies its passing. He sees it disappear from Ken’s hand, only to reappear a second later in the stranger’s, and Arlie’s palms begin to sweat. He pulls the rifle tighter against his shoulder, ready to join in on whatever retribution Ken decides to unleash. His hands grow slick on the trigger and barrel as he fights to keep the stranger’s head atop the red dot on the front sight. “C’mon Ken,” he mutters into the stock, arms starting to shake with tension, “make your play.”

Ken does nothing, and Arlie experiences a revelation similar to Ken’s.

The stranger returns the Colt to Ken’s hand, gently hooking the trigger guard around Ken’s index finger. He snaps the lavender handkerchief like a chamois and returns it to the inner folds of his cape. Ken wraps his hand around the grips and wills his thumb to pull back the hammer. With the Peacemaker returned, his acceptance vanishes, and all he wants is to erase the stranger’s face from his sight, before that superior smile can burrow any deeper into his mind.

Arlie sees the gun vanish from the stranger’s care and rematerialize in Ken’s hand. He notices the tremor in Ken’s thumb and the perspiration beading on Ken’s temples. He wipes his trigger hand across his shirt, but once it’s dry, he can’t get his finger back inside the guard.

The stranger turns to Arlie and smiles. “I see my compatriot has finally arrived.”

The brush surrounding them crackles again, but this isn’t the tentative sound of the stranger’s delicate passage. The foliage erupts with a cacophony of broken limbs and trampled greenery, heralding the arrival of a new player.

“It’s important to watch your partner’s back, isn’t it Mr. Garrison?” the stranger asks, as the noise grows louder. “Here I was, so wrapped up in Mr. Chesterton’s firearm maintenance that I almost forgot about you.”

The clamor in the woods increases. The stranger sighs.

“I also subscribe to the buddy system,” he continues, nonplussed by the rifle aimed at his head, “and it appears that my buddy has demonstrated another example of his flawless timing.”

Ken and Arlie close ranks as the thickets at the edge of the clearing begin to undulate. The stranger steps to the side, a lavender midwife to the impending birth.

The brush doesn’t part, but evaporates as the stranger’s partner appears. Ken and Arlie gasp in unison; their minds, even under the stranger’s influence, are unable to process they are seeing.

The second intruder is half again as tall as the first; his girth roughly that of a mature elm. Massive hands, ending in squared-off fingers, hang from impossibly long arms that descend from shoulders towering two feet above their heads.

“Gentlemen,” the stranger extends his arm in greeting, “it’s time for introductions. My associate and I have had many names over the years, but I’m sure they would mean less to you than they do to me, and I’m quite a linguist by nature. For now, you may call me Salomé. Mr. Chesterton, Mr. Garrison: Meet The Baptist.”

“Oh my sweet Jesus!” Ken exclaims as his eyes roam the figure standing before them. “What is that?”

“That’s no way to talk about one of your new masters,” Salomé warns, chuckling at Ken’s reaction. “Be cautious Mr. Chesterton or you‘ll offend him.”

“How the hell am I going to offend him?” Ken asks. “He doesn’t have any f**king ears!”

“Well of course he doesn’t,” Salomé replies. “A psychic of The Baptist’s magnitude has no need for such primitive appendages, and it’s not like he needs a place to hang his spectacles.”

“He’s…he’s…” Arlie stutters, craning his neck in awe. “He’s got no head!”

Salomé nods. “That puzzled me at first too, but since it doesn’t seem to bother him, I decided not to let it bother me. I’d suggest you adopt a similar attitude.”

The monstrosity moves into the clearing, each footstep deliberately placed, as if every stride is an effort. Ken imagines a grunt with every footfall, enhancing the illusion of great exertion.

“The Baptist is momentarily taxed,” Salomé responds to the motions of the lumbering giant. “It is fortunate we found you when we did; even more fortunate that your evening’s hunt was successful. If not for your kill,” the stranger shrugs, “other steps might have proved necessary.”

The Baptist crosses the clearing and stands before the carcass, its entrails still steaming in the cool, nighttime air. Salomé’s lips move silently as he approaches his partner, head nodding along in a conversation only he can hear. Finally, he speaks aloud. “I’m not sure. I can certainly ask.”

He turns to Ken. “Mr. Chesterton, this buyer you spoke of earlier. Surely your contract wouldn’t suffer too badly if the merchandise was slightly altered.”

Ken stares at the twelve-point buck, calculating the bonus offered by the ignorant city boy for an impressive rack. At one hundred bucks a point, his and Arlie’s payday has nearly doubled, but only if they stay alive to collect it.

“Depends on what you plan to alter,” he manages to say, finding a remnant of his spine in the face of lost dollars.

Salomé winks and draws a long, narrow sword from under his cloak. “Nothing that will be missed, yet something vitally important for the next phase of our endeavor.” He grasps the hilt with both hands, faces the deer and with the blade, traces a line along the deer’s neck.

“Of course, if you object, there are always alternatives, although I’m not sure how Mr. Garrison will react to the proposition.”

Arlie reacts by fainting.

Oogie Boogie Bounce, by M. Stephen Lukac
Available at:
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords

The Kult, by Shaun Jeffrey

Posted: July 26, 2011 by Shaina in Crime, Mystery, Shaun Jeffrey
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The Kult, by Shaun Jeffrey

The Kult, by Shaun Jeffrey

The Kult, by Shaun Jeffrey
Available at:
Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Diesel

Description: People are predictable. That’s what makes them easy to kill.

Detective Chief Inspector Prosper Snow is in charge of an investigation into a serial killer called The Oracle who turns his victims into macabre works of art. But Prosper harbours a dark secret of his own. He and his old school friends were members of a group called The Kult who made a pact to dish out their own form of vengeance on bullies. Now a member of the group puts their friendship to the test when he makes a far darker request: that they murder someone that raped his wife.

To get away with murder, the friends decide to blame it on The Oracle, but events take a chilling turn when the instigator turns up dead, his body fashioned into a disturbing work of art. Now, one by one, the members of The Kult are being hunted down.

Just when Prosper thinks things can’t get any worse, his wife is kidnapped and he knows that if he goes to his colleagues for help, he risks his dark deeds being unearthed. If he doesn’t, he risks losing all that he holds dear.

CHAPTER 1

People are predictable. That’s what makes them easy to kill.

At least that’s what the Oracle hoped. He had studied and plotted Jane Numan’s routine over the weeks. Watched without her seeing, making note of every nuance, every step of her schedule until he had a complete diary of her movements, probably knowing more about her than she did about herself.

He crouched in the recessed doorway of the kebab shop opposite where she lived and gripped the handle of the knife in the sheath inside his jacket. His weapon of choice, he hoped the mere sight of the blade would instil terror in his prey, making it more personal, and putting him close enough that he could smell his quarry and see the fear in her eyes.

He looked at his watch; 6:29 a.m. and counting.

Any second now…

Like clockwork, the front door of what to anyone else would be a nondescript house opened and Jane walked out. The Oracle sank back into the shadows as he stared at the facial disfigurement that made it appear half her face was melting. Although only 23 years of age, she probably hadn’t had the easiest of lives, which made her all the more desirable as a victim as the more public sympathy his kill received, the more publicity he would generate, and as people were fond of saying, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, especially not for what he had planned.

The Oracle watched her check that the door was locked, pushing once, twice, then a third time, as she always did when she left the house. His pulse increased, a volcano waiting to erupt within his chest. He rubbed the sweat coated fingers of his free hand down his trousers. Everything was going according to schedule.

He knew that if he had broken into her flat to stage the attack, there was the potential to leave too much evidence that might be used to track him down, and he couldn’t have that. His motto was ‘leave no trace,’ which is why he planned to snatch her off the street.

Like many neighbourhoods clinging to the hub of British cities, the area Jane lived in was rundown, with discarded trash bags spewing their contents across the pavement – fodder for the rats and feral cats that prowled the streets once the sun went down. McDonald’s packaging and the remains of half eaten kebabs discarded by late night drunks littered the gutters, and the tang of rotten produce and sour piss permeated the air. Dirt and grime coated the walls of the buildings, many of which were boarded up and covered with graffiti, the culprits marking their territory like dogs.

No one took much notice of him in areas like these, and the distinct lack of community spirit associated with the modern generation meant that people ignored most of what they saw, just trying to make it through each day as best they could.

The Oracle watched the girl walk across Hope Street, dressed for the heat of another day in a yellow t-shirt and a black knee length skirt. She clutched a brown shoulder bag to her side, and kept her head bowed, eyes focused on her white Nike trainers.

It would take Jane ten minutes to reach the main road. There she would wait for the number seven bus, which arrived at 6:45. Today, she was blissfully unaware her journey would terminate early. As usual, she would take the shortcut down an alley between two buildings, which saved her five minutes of extra walking. It was a simple routine to follow. Too simple, and his reconnaissance had revealed that the dingy alleyway between the buildings was the perfect spot to stage the abduction – it wasn’t overlooked by any windows, there was only ambient light so much of it was in darkness, and the towering buildings would muffle her screams.

The Oracle followed Jane at a discreet distance of about forty feet, which he gauged to be far enough back so as not to appear threatening if she should discern his presence. He had parked his car near to the shortcut – not too close that she would notice the vehicle, because anything out of the ordinary might make her change something about her routine, but close enough that he wouldn’t have to carry her too far.

She reached the corner of the road and turned left. When she disappeared out of sight, the Oracle hurried to close the gap. His body throbbed with anticipation, all of his senses highly aware of everything around him. It had been a while since he felt like this, and truth be told, he had missed the feeling.

Pursuing someone always gave him a buzz. The thrill of the chase. But it didn’t come close to the euphoria he felt during the actual act of killing. That was something else. The biggest thrill ride in the world. Thinking about it made him smile; his balls tightened and goose bumps mottled his arms. Although the circumstances surrounding his choice of target were completely different now to those he had killed before, it didn’t lessen the feeling – it actually enhanced it.

Jane walked with her arms folded across her ample chest, a subconscious form of protection and the barrier of the weak. Not that it would help her today.

Her footsteps echoed along the road, the Oracle’s almost silent as he followed in her wake, well versed in covert manoeuvres as he matched her step for step, becoming as one with his victim. The anticipation was almost too much to bear and he took deep breaths to control the beat of his heart. His fingers tingled and he licked his dry lips.

As soon as she turned into the alley between houses, he would strike.

With mere seconds to go, he withdrew a pair of disposable latex gloves and tugged them onto his hands, then pulled the chloroform soaked cloth from a bag in his pocket, the sodden material feeling cold and spongy through the gloves.

Jane turned the corner to take the short cut.

The Oracle followed, cloth held tightly in his fist, senses attuned to the task at hand. Jane was about eight feet ahead, her footfalls echoing between the walls. The aroma of Chinese food filled the air, a pile of discarded boxes piled up outside the back door to the restaurant. Stalactites of grease hung from an extractor fan on the wall.

It was time to make his move.

The Oracle readied himself to strike, one hand on the cloth, the other about to withdraw the knife when a young lad with a pockmarked face walked into the alley from the opposite end, a Staffordshire bull terrier tugging at the leash in his hand. The Oracle clenched his teeth, released the knife, rammed the cloth back into his pocket and watched as Jane exited the short cut.

The dog strained at the leash as it approached the Oracle, its small, muscular body set to pounce, teeth bared as it looked up at him. The owner struggled to pull it away, using both hands to yank at the lead.

“He’s not usually like this,” the lad said.

The Oracle guessed that the dog could sense the bloodlust on his mind. He could easily take them both out, but they weren’t his target. If he killed randomly, then he’d be just a savage, and they weren’t part of his plan so he kept his gloved hands out of sight in his pockets so as not to arouse suspicion.

He wasn’t happy about it, but he had considered this scenario, like he considered everything.

There would be another opportunity to grab Jane Numan.

People are predictable. That’s what makes them easy to kill.

CHAPTER 2

The kitchen of the Hungry Hippo burger bar felt hotter than a heat wave in hell. The air conditioning had broken sometime during the morning, and the repairman was still trying to fix it, banging away like a manic woodpecker.

Jane wiped her brow on the sleeve of her uniform. When she looked up and peered through the cloud of steam originating from the deep fat fryers, she saw three lines of customers queuing in the restaurant. She hadn’t stopped for the last four hours – her feet ached, and their presence meant she wasn’t likely to get a break anytime soon.

She noticed her reflection in the chrome extractor cover above the grill and hurriedly looked away. It didn’t matter. The image never changed. Her left eye sat lower down her cheek than the one on the right, and her mouth curved in a permanent sneer. A port wine stain made the disfigurement appear worse; made it look as though that side of her face had been pressed against the griddle.

Most of the time she didn’t think about her appearance, but people had a cruel habit of making her remember that she didn’t look normal.

The repairman banged away on the air conditioning pipes, and combined with the heat, the noise gave her an almighty headache – he may as well have been hammering at her skull. Sweat rolled down her back, making her feel uncomfortable, and even though she’d used copious amounts of deodorant before coming to work, its effect had dissipated, and she was conscious of her natural body odour filtering through.

“Two more cheese burgers and fries,” Wendle shouted. He leaned through the hazy cloud above the fryers to make sure she heard him above the banging.

She threw two more patties on the griddle, and Wendle withdrew his head and turned away as the meat hissed and spat out steam. The patties were almost the same colour as her cheek, and she often wondered if that was why Wendle never ate at work, the revulsion often evident on his face.

“Three mega burgers,” Wendle shouted. “And easy with the mayo.”

Jane walked to the freezer and removed a thick wedge of burgers, a log of meat and derivatives. She basked in the chill that seeped out of the freezer and curled around her ankles. It was typical they were busy today. Two of the kitchen hands had called in sick – probably because most of the staff had been out the night before to celebrate Julian’s birthday, an event to which she hadn’t been invited, and they were now probably nursing hangovers – and Samantha and Justin were on their break. With a sigh, she closed the freezer door, checked the latch, and returned to the grill.

It was going to be a long day.

 The Kult, by Shaun Jeffrey
Available at:
Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Diesel

Rebirth, by Michael Poeltl

Posted: July 25, 2011 by Shaina in Dystopian, Michael Poeltl, Post-apocalyptic
1
Rebirth, by Michael Poeltl

Rebirth, by Michael Poeltl

Rebirth, by Michael Poeltl
Available at:
Amazon

Description: A year into a Post-Apocalyptic existence, where friendships are tested and new enemies emerge; talk of destiny fulfilled through a child offers salvation.

Could you believe?

Rebirth, is the second in the series of the popular post-apocalyptic coming of age tale, told at the end of an age.

Excerpt:

I can’t find my son. Anxiety overwhelms me. My heart pounds as I rush through the compound, in my panic it seems more like a maze than the place I’d called home the past eight years. Where is my son? The night comes alive as search lights expose the darkness between buildings, igniting the tight spaces a boy of eight might find himself. A sinister thought enters my head: My mortal enemy currently shares this space with us. A renewed sense of urgency overcomes me, my pace quickens.

*****

Your Father would have so loved you. You were a blessing when you were born; you were a mystery when you were conceived and a terrible struggle while I carried you seven months in my belly.

Seven months: it’s not really long enough, but you seemed to time your arrival eerily close to the date of another’s departure.

This place is like a concentration camp you’d see on TV, when there was TV. Something from a Second World War movie. Did we live through the Third World War? Hard to say. Color is absent here: the walls are a battleship grey, the floors a polished concrete. Not ideal surroundings for a baby to grow up in, but at least you grew up.

When we arrived you were very small and still at my breast.

Somehow we had escaped a plague that ravaged much of the surviving world.

Children are very important; so many died from this plague that took the very young and very old. Most adults over sixty years old and those under the age of twelve died soon after the Apocalypse, choked to death by fall-out, while those who survived were left to suffer this final indignity some months later. A plague, a flu of some design. I have worked closely with the doctors here, and they have not been able to succinctly label the disease that had methodically killed off so many.

The base was designed to train special ops and special forces in the war against terror. It has only a skeleton crew assigned to it, though it was expecting an influx of 1000 soldiers and their families the month following the end of life as we knew it.  The base is well protected, with steel walls reaching heights of 20 feet in places, outfitted with watch towers, a stockade, family housing, a mess hall, hospital and the central training and parade grounds. It even has a greenhouse.

The parade grounds are framed with civilian vehicles, RV’s, camper vans, cars and trucks of all shapes and sizes. They belong to those who fled the devastation to the south and came north. I recall the many motorcades we witnessed traveling north, right past Joel’s house, where we had hidden out. We were fourteen friends, caught in something as unfathomable as the end of the world. Teenagers, whose families had all been wiped out by one violent act against humanity. I remember talking to people as they stopped at the house. They said they were going on a feeling, going north.

The Sergeant told me that barely a year after the majority of civilians had arrived, the plague had hit the base, and hundreds were quarantined. Almost all of them died, eventually. The base lost many of their own to the mysterious plague as well. The army doctors worked day and night to suppress the disease, to stop it in its tracks. In doing so, the hospital lost over 75% of its staff.

Finally the plague had run its course. No more were dying, no more were feeling feverish or showing red spots on their necks and torsos. Those who had survived, roughly half including both the base personnel and civilians, would carry on, burn their dead and start again.

*****

I remember asking about the water planes my friends and I had seen putting out forest fires as we drove back to town, returning from our camping trip the day after the Reaper had followed through on his promise.

“They flew out of Kingston Air force base,” explained the captain. She removed her hat as she spoke.  Her short blonde hair fell around her high cheek bones. She was an attractive woman, but she’d suffered an unimaginable loss, and the lines in her face mapped that story. “It’s two days’ drive west of us. They were retrofitted to do that job, those planes. They would load up on water at Elle Lake, and run water dumps all over the area. Now, you said you were a good two hour drive south of here, Sara?”

“Yes, about that.” I replied.

“I’d say the planes would have penetrated just south of that, and then west.” She confirmed.

“We saw three or four at a time.”

“Yes, you would have. They employed thirty odd. They ran day and night for about 48 hours following the attack, and then, nothing.”

“Nothing?” My voice cracked.

“We lost contact with them.” The captain’s tone was thoughtful.

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“Fatigue. The pilots wanted to keep flying. Keep up the momentum. Best we could tell, two of the bigger planes slammed into each other and then into the control tower while attempting to land and fuel up. They wiped out everyone, and with them any chance for the other pilots to continue their work.”

“That’s so awful.”

“We sent a patrol to investigate, and this was their conclusion.” Her eyes met mine.

“No wonder you never came for us.” My friends and I had held onto hope of a rescue for weeks after the sighting, believing that they had seen us, and that they would come for us. But they never did.

“Even if we were made aware of your existence, it’s unlikely we would have come for you. We were undermanned ourselves and had been ordered to stay put.”

“Makes sense I guess.” But I wondered what my life would have been like had they come for us. Would Joel still be with me? Perhaps we would have succumbed like the others to the plague, like the captain’s husband and daughters had.

*****

The world wasn’t always like this, and perhaps one day it will be better. The military houses us now. They have graciously put us up here in the hope that you will survive, have children of your own and rebuild.
That may sound like a lot to put on a child not yet eight years old, but know that you are very special, and not just in the way only a mother can know.

You would have had it so good in life. That’s what we called it before the Reaper dropped the bombs: life. We were all someone else, kids barely out of high school. The Grimm Reaper as the media had coined him, was a mad man. A man, an organization, a country, no one really knew. The threat seemed almost laughable. But he wasn’t laughing. He had demands that were never met, he had crazy ideals that required religions and governments to disappear. The things he asked were impossibilities. So he showed us just how serious he was. The initial blasts killed our families. My friends and I had been spared, having taken a camping trip that weekend, the weekend. And when we returned, our worlds were changed forever. We, fourteen of us at first and within seven months only eight, managed to stay alive, at my boyfriend’s house in the country. We felt privileged, chosen to survive, to rebuild.

More than nine years ago my life was very different. Was I lucky to have experienced life in all its normalcy, in all its abundance? I think so, I still have my memories. Though sometimes my memories seem like little more than movies, something from someone’s imagination.

The people here, the soldiers, they believe that much of the planet has fared better than our little corner. To believe is a powerful thing. It can keep you from despair, it can offer you salvation. Belief is sometimes all you have, your faith. I lost it once…

Part One
Chapter One

You think you know someone. Really know them. You think they’re in control of their thoughts, themselves. You give them the benefit of the doubt, believe that they will make the right choices that they’ll make you proud. Do they sense that? And when you’re trusting someone to lead you in the right direction… are those who lead more susceptible to the expectations of those who would follow? We’re not all cut out to lead. Some don’t choose to lead. It is thrust upon them and when the burden proves too much to bear, they wish it away like a dead limb, weighing heavier each day the wish is not granted.

I’ve often asked myself, in Joel’s defense, how might I have performed under the same circumstances? Would I cloak myself in a drug induced haze, would I become paranoid with power? Would I finally kill myself, knowing so many would suffer for my actions?

Is it any different than what the Reaper had done? To paraphrase Joel’s note, scribbled on stationary from his mother’s hardware store, found in his room, our room, on his childhood desk; “I know now that a single action can put in motion a series of repercussions. Should that action be positive, the repercussions are rewarding, but when that action is negative, so too are the events to follow. A single action can change you forever. Sometimes, if the deed is large enough, if the intent evil enough, the results can be disastrous.”

I heard it in my head as though he were speaking to me, whispering in my ear, and I wept. What irony is this? What sadness this implies, such a good man, tormented and turned. Could this happen to me? Time will tell. I will tell. And only then will I know.

*****

The rains had returned. Connor was dead. Joel was holed up in his bedroom, and those of us remaining felt more victimized now than when the Reaper had unleashed his evil upon the world. The rain, a blessing to us, to the whole world, would take a backseat to our internal demons. Incapable of rejoicing in this miracle, we waited on Joel to emerge from his self-induced confinement.

“He’s in there,” I whispered to Earl as I paced just outside Joel’s bedroom door. “He’s quiet though. I’m really worried, Earl.” I picked at the skin peeling from my fingertips, the nails having been chewed to the quick long ago.

“Sara, let him be. Jesus, we’re barely an hour into Connor’s funeral. Imagine what’s going on in his head.” Earl could have been right; maybe he was just decompressing. But the look on his face, after what Gareth had done, after Connor had been shot… it was almost as devastating a sight as the execution itself.

I decided to knock on the door, lightly, so that he knew I was there. Earl shook his head in disapproval, but remained silent.

“Go away!” Joel shouted. I jumped. Such pain in his voice, such … regret. Earl threw his hands up and backed away from the door. “I’d let him be for a while, Sara. He’s obviously got to work through this on his own.”

“No one should have to work through this on their own, Earl. I’m worried about him.” My eyes flew back to the door as we heard first a thumping sound coming from within, then a murmur and another shout. “Not yet!” Joel repeated. My skin crawled and goose bumps overtook me.

Earl gently placed a hand on my shoulder and rubbed. I felt more anxious at his touch than comforted. I removed his hand and wiped away a tear. He smiled narrowly at me. I‘d never been able to read Earl. He was never my type: intelligent yes, but his intensity had always frightened me. His mind was like a runaway train.

“I have to get back to Sonny; just thought I’d see what’s what up here.” He turned to leave, but I stopped him.

“Earl, you’re not planning anything are you?” The idea that we might now go to war with the flags was not something I could stomach. Not so soon after losing Connor. Couldn’t we just bury our dead and mourn for a time? Earl shrugged and smirked as though there were little else to do. “Earl….” I trailed off as he went down the hall and into Skylab.

The flags (so-called because of the ominous flag they carried, declaring themselves an autonomous nation of survivors) had been a cruel interruption into an otherwise solid foundation built on the ashes of the past. We had survived a nuclear holocaust. We had built a life for ourselves, and then the flags showed up. Led by Gareth, a man possessed by the idea of weeding secret Reaper sympathizers from surviving groups like our own and executing them to further his twisted purpose, the flags posed a threat unlike anything we’d imagined. His group consisted of nearly sixty upon his arrival at our door, but after a third party attacked our house from the devastated woods, he was left with little more than twenty. We retook control of our home and our lives by ousting the flags, ordering them away, and relieving them of their weapons and morale, or so we thought.

But they had returned, executing Connor in front of us after they’d caught us unaware. A sympathizer, they called him – Connor, before they shot him in the head. A sympathizer to the Reaper’s ideals, as if anyone would claim such madness after the hell the Grimm Reaper had unleashed on us all.

Left alone to contemplate further what scheme Earl and Sonny were planning, my eyes fell again to Joel’s bedroom door. I pushed my hands against the frame and slowly lowered my head until my forehead gently rested against the door. My cheek made contact with the cool wood. Eyes closed, I listened for movement, a sound, something that would let me in. What horrors was he experiencing in there? “Let me in,” I whispered to the door.

A moment later, Caroline came up the stairs and took my hand. I resisted, hesitant to leave my vigil at the door. Her eyes were red and swollen. The sight of her made me break down. Caroline followed in turn. I pulled her close, and we hugged. And we cried.

*****

Caroline finally released herself from our embrace and rubbed her eyes hard. “What, what do you think he’s doing in there Sara?” she asked.

“I wish I knew. I wish he’d let me in.” My arms crossed defensively as I looked back at the door.

“Is Joel going to be alright, you think?”

“I don’t know, Caroline.” I couldn’t hide my own inability to read him anymore. God, we had grown so far apart in such a short time. It felt like a microsecond. From ‘I love you’ to a break up, separate rooms and a blow out that sent him off to who knows where, in search of who knows what! “I don’t have those answers.”

“Should we get back to the others?”

Reluctantly, I agreed. Sucking in a deep breath, I pushed my fingers through her long, somewhat greasy blonde hair, as though tidying her up for an interview. When I reached the ends I carefully patted them down on her shoulders. “Okay, let’s go see what they’re doing.” Holding hands, we walked down the hall and into the addition, where the rest of the house now gathered.

We walked into a fierce speech, told in unwavering absolutes. Phrases like ‘we must’, and ‘how could we’ and ‘how dare they’. It was an impressive rant, not unlike many of the one-sided conversations he’d mastered in the past. No one could put together an argument like Earl, and in this, he was making his stand.

“This is not how this is going to end!” He pushed on, while a captive audience of our peers stood in silence. “This isn’t an ending. This is a new beginning. Gareth and his flags cannot be allowed to just walk off into the sunset.”

“What are you proposing, Earl?” I blurted out, angry he’d gone and done exactly what I had feared. The room held a distinct sense of immediacy. It permeated the air and made it hard to breathe.

“I propose we fight, Sara!” He glared at me, the devil in his eyes.

“Why would you want to pull us all back into this now, after having lost so much!” I studied the group, panning the room while their eyes betrayed them. A perfect moment to rally the troops perhaps – to offer them a solution. On the other hand, an excellent opportunity for someone to take control, to give the group a reason, purpose. Did Earl know what he was doing? Did he see what he was becoming?

“Whoa, Earl,” Caroline broke in. She was shaken and it resonated in her voice. “What are we talking about here? Running after the flags? Hunting them down? Two wrongs don’t make a right.” She was pleading to the group now. “Right? I don’t want to fight anymore. How could any of you want to fight anymore?”

“What else is there to do?” Sonny phrased it as more of a statement than a question.

“Rebuild,” I said. “Rebuild, regroup. Jesus, anything but get into another fight!”

“What if they come back?” added Kevin. I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t much like Kevin. His allegiance would fall to anyone that took the initiative to lead. He was weak.

“Listen to me, Joel is still here, okay? He’s still our leader, by vote! It’s his call whether we send people to track down the flags, not yours.” I pointed at Earl.

“I’m allowed to have an opinion aren’t I, Sara? It may not be the same country anymore, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s still free.” He glared at me.

I readdressed the group. “All I’m saying is not to get caught up in Earl’s hype. We don’t need to throw away our lives. Connor wouldn’t want to be avenged.”

“Says you!” Earl may have respected Joel’s leadership, but he would not concede the point. “Connor was a good man and a good soldier. And he went to the grave for all of us! All he needed to do was say the word and we’d have all died that day in defiance. But he knew that, and he died for us!” He sat down on a stool by the west windows, exhausted. “And it’s eating me up inside…” His words were not falling on deaf ears. Freddy, Sonny and Kevin approached Earl and stood next to him.

Seth and Sidney did not move, positioned at the east wall, guns dangling from their uncertain grips. I approached Seth and knelt beside him. We exchanged looks. He was no more ready to go to war with the flags than I was. I recognized indecision in Sidney’s face. Admittedly, a small part of me cherished the idea of going to war with the flags. I was still reeling from the events that lead to Connor’s death.

I turned to watch as Kevin stood and stared out the west windows. The forest still resembled something from a children’s Halloween picture book. Stripped bare of their leaves, the trees stood as dark silhouettes against a grey-black background. It had been raining on and off since Joel had returned from the woods, after having left us at Connor’s graveside.

It was approaching 8:30 pm when I heard a door shut. Joel was moving. I rushed out of Skylab and across the hall. His bedroom door was open and the bathroom door now closed. I pressed my ear up against the door and listened. In my peripheral vision I could see the group gathered by the addition entrance.

There was a murmuring inside the bathroom, followed by a hard thump. Something broke. I jumped back. Looking for encouragement from the others, I slowly approached the bathroom door again. They were frozen in place, unable or perhaps unwilling to move.

I pressed my ear to the door and heard Joel inside rustling around. I knocked lightly and tried to speak but nothing made it past the lump in my throat. He was ignoring me. How long would this continue? How long could I let it continue? Seth was behind me, gently pulling me away from the door. I held up a restraining hand.

“I’ll be all right,” I smiled, although I felt like I was in a dream at that moment. My head swam with emotions and memories, making me dizzy. “I need to be alone right now.” Seth nodded and released his delicate grip. I walked into Joel’s bedroom and sat on the bed. A low rumble of thunder rolled through the clouds overhead.

I wanted to pray, but felt there was no longer anyone listening. My faith had been shaken by the return of the flags, and the devastation they left in their wake. I couldn’t bring myself to pray at Connor’s funeral. Should I have felt I’d let him down by foregoing a prayer? Will his soul not rest now? Crossing my heart I bowed my head in prayer. “Amen,” I muttered aloud after completing my appeal.

As I panned the room, I felt alienated and lonely. The foreign feeling I got from this place, where I first told Joel I loved him, where we shared so much of ourselves, hurt me deeply.

I stood and walked towards his desk, where three pages of stationary rested. The top page had been filled top to bottom with Joel’s handwriting. He’d never had a very attractive script. But this scrawl was especially hectic. This writing was done in haste, by a hand that wanted to write as much as possible as fast as possible and move on.

I sat down to read.

Rebirth, by Michael Poeltl
Available at:
Amazon

Letterbox, by Cameron Trost

Posted: July 22, 2011 by Shaina in Cameron Trost, Crime, Mystery, Thriller and Suspense
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Letterbox, by Cameron Trost

Letterbox, by Cameron Trost

Letterbox, by Cameron Trost
Available at:
Amazon

Description:  LETTERBOX is a dark thriller about how fragile the fabric of small town society really is and how one man, by pulling the right strings, can expose dirty secrets and trigger underlying tensions between neighbours.

Ian Carew left London to become a teacher in Mirebury, a town lost in the moors of Cornwall where everybody knows each other and life is quiet and pleasant. His elderly neighbour, Mrs Mary Hopkins, treats him like a son, and the local butcher, Jack Cochon, is his closest friend. All that is missing from Ian’s life is a good woman to share his bed with and a little adventure.

Little does he know, he is about to get a taste of both.

One day, when Mrs Mary Hopkins opens her letterbox, she makes a gruesome discovery and suddenly Mirebury is thrown into a state of shock and outrage.

At first, they assume it was a random act, but the horrible deliveries continue and, before long, the townsfolk of Mirebury are forced to acknowledge that they have become the target of a campaign of terror – and nobody’s letterbox is safe.

Is the dreaded “Postman” one of them, or is he an outsider?

Tensions grow and the solid communal values of Mirebury crumble as suspicion and accusations tear the town apart. Neighbour is pitted against neighbour and tempers flare.

The enemy only strikes at night and moves through the fog like a phantom as he makes his deliveries – it seems impossible to catch him. The fate of Mirebury will come down to one man.

LETTERBOX is a dark thriller about how fragile the fabric of small town society really is and how one man, by pulling the right strings, can expose dirty secrets and trigger underlying tensions between neighbours.

Prologue

Exeter, 1989

The boy pried at the bug. He was trying to loosen its stubborn grip on the rough mossy bark of a tree in a busy suburban park. But the creature wasn’t going to let itself be taken from where it clung without resistance. Its clawed limbs held tightly to the trunk.

The unfortunate insect had been randomly selected to participate in the boy’s latest study, just one of many in a long series of observations. The course of its simple and inconspicuous existence was to be irreversibly altered, and its chances of surviving until nightfall were extremely slim.

The boy didn’t pull too forcefully at the bug, it would be of no use to him if he maimed or killed it before its time was due. The subject had to be in working order. So, he pulled at it firmly but carefully.

Meanwhile, not far away—indeed much too close for his liking—dozens of other children occupied themselves with more typical activities. Some were swinging like primates from the monkey bars or playing football on the miniature field, laughing and shouting with the excitement triggered by being released from the classroom after hours of listening to the teacher and doing repetitive writing exercises.

The park was only a block away from his school, so most of the other youngsters there were fellow classmates. But they were not his friends. He rarely spoke to them inside the classroom or in the playground, and never beyond the confines of the school property.

Several mothers were also in the park, surveying their children while they chatted and gossiped about other parents and speculated about various aspects of their private lives.

Sometimes their words would reach the boy’s ears.

I heard from Jenny’s mum that Betty’s mum is getting her socks off with Timmy’s dad.

Oh, really! Well, I heard that Sarah’s mum has a drinking problem and that her daughter might have to be taken away from her. She really needs to get her act together.

The bug was determined, and the boy couldn’t help but feel admiration for it. Its tiny but powerful limbs continued to resist being ripped away from the tree even though there was really nothing that it could do against the giant hand harassing it. The boy thought for a moment that its six exoskeletal legs would be torn from its armour-plated body if it didn’t let go, but he had decided that it was taking part in his study and he certainly wasn’t going to be discouraged.

He was the one in control, not the bug.

‘Yeah!’ Several voices roared out suddenly. One of the boys had just scored a goal.

The winning team made fun of the losers as loudly as they could and for a moment it seemed as though a brawl might break out, but one of the boys quickly put the ball back into motion.

‘Come on, Paul, go it alone!’

The child’s hand finally forced the bug to loosen its grip without dismembering any of its six limbs. It struggled ridiculously, its limbs scratching at thin air.

He then dropped it into a glass jar that he had prepared that morning before going to school. He always organised his experiments in advance so that he would have everything he needed in his school-bag and wouldn’t have to go home before coming to the park.

In fact, he avoided going home as much as possible. His mum was always there with her new boyfriend, and more often than not he was either in the process of menacing her into submission or beating her black and blue. He also did other things to her, but the boy was only aware of the beatings at that point in time, that was already more than enough for him to know about at his tender age.

‘Good shot, Paul! I’ll take the corner.’

The boy looked disdainfully at the other children for a moment, as though verifying that they were a safe distance away and oblivious to his undertaking. He didn’t like them being close to him when he was occupied by his studies. So long as they were distracted by their silly football match, swings and monkey bars, they wouldn’t be tempted to bother him. The greatest risk of being noticed by them was if the ball was inadvertently kicked in his direction. They wouldn’t expect him to pass it back to them because he never did, but it would draw their attention to him, and perhaps even result in him being insulted. Not that he really cared about whatever idiotic remarks their simple minds were capable of thinking up.

Insects were not the only subjects of the boy’s studies. He often manipulated his fellow pupils as well, but of course, they were completely unaware of what he was doing. One of the best examples was that of Brad and Henry. That particular episode had taken place several weeks earlier.

***

The top position in the schoolyard hierarchy was occupied by the strongest boy, Brad, who, instead of using his advantage in order to help others, bullied anybody who resisted his dominance. So, naturally, most of boys tried to stay on his good side and went along with whatever he wanted.

Henry was one of Brad’s henchmen, that is, until he made the mistake of deciding that the weird boy who always stayed by himself needed to be bullied. In doing so he made himself the target of a simple but effective act of social manipulation.

One lunch-hour, the big redhead, in the company of Brad and in an attempt to impress him, towered over his designated victim who was sitting against a brick wall and reading.

‘What are you reading, loser?’

The boy looked up at him defiantly and then went back to reading.

Outraged at being ignored, and at having his authority mocked in front of Brad and the other henchmen, he snatched the book from the boy’s hands and started ripping its pages out.

The pages floated to the ground like the feathers of a bird shot in mid-flight.

‘Try reading it now.’

He tossed the twisted and torn book at the boy’s feet and laughed at him.

The boy looked down at his ruined book and then up at Henry.

He didn’t get angry and he wasn’t afraid, he simply said, ‘You’ll regret that.’

Henry stopped laughing, he had expected the boy to cry or to run away, maybe even to attack him, but he hadn’t expected the matter-of-fact threat that the boy had uttered with a cold expression of complete calm.

He could have hit him or spat on him, but instead he just walked away and joked nervously with his friends.

‘What a freak! He’s such a loser.’

***

The next day, at lunchtime, the boy saw Brad give Henry a dirty magazine and the latter slipped it discreetly into his schoolbag—but they hadn’t been discreet enough.

Once they had finished eating, the bullies went off to pick on other boys and left their bags unattended long enough for a certain someone to sneak over and remove the pornographic magazine from Henry’s schoolbag.

At the end of the lunch break, when Mr Dawkins went into the classroom to prepare for his next class, he was shocked to find an item of inappropriate reading material sitting on one of the desks. Since the other desks were clear, it stood out like a sore thumb. The offended teacher snatched up the magazine in horror and stormed out into the corridor where his students were arriving for their class.

‘Bradley! There you are, you’re coming with me to the head master’s office—you have some explaining to do!’

Brad saw what the teacher had in his hands, so did the other students. The girls looked at him in disgust and muttered to each other about how he was perverted. The boys tried to hide their smirks, they didn’t laugh openly at him because they knew that he would remember who had made fun of him and would make them sorry. Henry was, understandably, in a state of disbelief and as Brad was marched past him, dragged along by Mr Dawkins, he growled at him.

‘You’re dead meat!’

The boy had been very pleased with that manipulation. It had been a complete success and Henry never tried to climb the schoolyard hierarchy ladder ever again.

***

The bug stumbled around in the glass jar, trying to find its way back to the tree where it had been minding its own business. The captor held the glass vessel above his head and looked up at the bug through the base. He studied the way it was reacting to its changed situation. One of the aims of the project was to identify how basic lifeforms coped with unusual circumstances and to measure their capacity to adapt to such changes.

‘Good save!’ One of the fathers commented from the sideline.

The boy glanced briefly towards the miniature football field before turning his attention back to his bug, which was still moving clumsily around the circumference of the jar.

He had never really known his own father, he had some vague memories of him, but they had all been negative ones. He used to beat his mum even worse than her new boyfriend did, that was what the child remembered about him mostly.

She had broken her finger once; he could remember her hand being bandaged for several weeks. He didn’t know whether his dad had done that to her but thinking back he realised that it had probably been the case.

Then something changed. His father gradually beat her less and less often, then he stayed away from their tiny apartment more and more, then he just seemed to have disappeared from their lives altogether.

His mum told him that his dad was scum and always would be, and that he was better off not bothering to think about him at all. So he tried not to think about him. But sometimes he couldn’t help himself, especially when other kids’ dads came to the park and played with them while their mums sat around spreading rumours about each other.

The boy stayed among the trees, unseen by the other children and their parents. From time to time, he looked over towards them to see if anybody had noticed him. He hoped that they hadn’t, but occasionally he caught the gaze of a mother looking at him strangely, wondering why he was so weird and why his mum never came to the park. But these were just fleeting glances and he ignored them.

The grey sky threatened rain, but for the moment, it was holding off. The boy wasn’t concerned about that anyway. The others would rush away if a downpour broke out and he would have the entire park to himself, without anybody to disturb him. He didn’t care if he got wet, and under the trees he would be protected from the rain just as he was protected from the attention of the other children and their parents.

He looked again at the bug in the glass jar. It was still crawling around the circular bottom while the boy walked stealthily through the trees, further away from the others.

The destination was the ant castle.

He had fabricated an arena out of an old toy castle that his mother had once bought at a local garage sale.

He could still remember that Saturday at the garage sale, even though it was nearly a year ago. His mother had been better than usual at that time because she hadn’t had a man in her life then. The instant he had seen the old toy castle he knew that he wanted it but it had not been until several months later that he envisioned its potential as an instrument of social research.

The boy considered the trapped bug with curiosity. He suspected that it would not be able to integrate into the ant castle, but he needed to be sure of this assumption, and he had to know exactly how the ants would react to the presence of the outsider.

He slipped past the last tree before the ant castle. He was as far away from the football field as possible.

On the far side of the ant castle, a rusty wrought-iron fence separated the park from a main-road that was throbbing busily with peak-hour traffic. The headlights of the cars flickered through the bars of the park-fence as the vehicles went through the usual evening routine of mindlessly accelerating and braking.

Gathering the ants had been more difficult than taking the bug from its tree but they had been easier to find. Once he had located a nest he had placed the plastic castle next to it so that the transfer would be as direct as possible. He looked into the plastic castle, the ants were still inside, some were trying to escape but the water filled moat which surrounded the fortified walls prevented the insect occupants from fleeing their stronghold.

Letterbox, by Cameron Trost
Available at:
Amazon

Darklands: a vampire’s tale, by Donna Burgess

Posted: July 21, 2011 by Shaina in Donna Burgess, Paranormal romance, Vampires
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Darklands: a vampire's tale, by Donna Burgess
Darklands: a vampire’s tale, by Donna Burgess

Darklands: a vampire’s tale, by Donna Burgess
Available at:
Amazon

Description:  Twenty years ago, Susan Archer witnessed the brutal murder of her beloved twin brother.

Now, the murderer, Devin McCree, has returned. Although Devin is a “Deathwalker,” Susan soon discovers that he is not the monster she has feared for so long.

Leaving her old life behind, she joins Devin on his run from a crazed vampire hunter. Unwilling to let his love disappear, Michael soon follows.

Can Michael save Susan? Does she even need or want to be saved?

“Darklands: A Vampire’s Tale” is a violent tale of survival, bloodlust , and two people trying to hang on to the last shreds of their humanity, while teetering on the edge of immortality.

“Darklands: A Vampire’s Tale” is the first volume in the Darklands Vampire series.

prologue

“I’m completely wasted,” Peter announced, sounding more proud than he should have. He nodded to the server, an old Goth gal dressed as an even older vampire. After a moment, she appeared with yet another pitcher of something too red and too thin to be anything other than watered-down Kool-Aid tainted with a little cheap house rum.

He was already too drunk—he would be sick before the end of the night. Susan considered saying something biting, but instead, regarded her brother across the small table through the gray haze of smoke. It was almost like looking into the mirror, with Peter dressed as a dead and festering Raggedy Andy to her zombiesque Raggedy Ann. They were dizygotic twins and nearly identical in every sense. With their deep blue eyes and auburn hair, they were stunning, even in make-up that displayed their pretty mouths sewn crooked and their tanned skin grayed to the pallor of death. They fit well with their surroundings, especially on Halloween. The place was a retro-Goth club, patterned after the gloomy death-children of the 1980s, a dark sanctuary where the jocks and preps dared not go. It had no sign out front, and most of the kids referred to it as “The Hole.” An apt title, Susan determined.

Situated so close to the bay, the club’s windows were perpetually fogged with salty condensation. Inside, dark velvet swathed the walls in crimson, violet and inky black. Smoke curled up like ghostly fingers from the glowing ends of cigarettes. The air was a puzzle of odors, both good and bad, depending upon the proximity to the entrance to the restrooms: cloves, tobacco, pot, spilled vodka, a hint of dried vomit. Lights from a small dance floor flashed red, pink and purple in time with the electronic beat of the music. The rules of Halloween were the rules of The Hole year-round.

The damned costume itched in all the places that Susan would rather not scratch in a crowd, even in the questionable crowd that loomed in the shadows of The Hole. She would have been just as happy back at the apartment with a fat joint and a little wine. But Peter? Peter was a “party-guy” since leaving Reading. The rest of their little group of art college social misfits had departed an hour ago, with ideas of sleep or sex in the backs of their tired minds, leaving Susan and Peter at a booth in the back corner.

Susan was about to call it a night when she spotted the guy again. Charlestowne was a resort town, with a smattering of small colleges tossed in the mix. It was a transient city. People came to school or to hide, either way often vanishing overnight. She was not accustomed to seeing the same faces more than once. But this face she did not mind seeing again.

How many times had she encountered this particular guy in the past few weeks, though? The thought made her bristle. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was more than simple coincidence. She had seen him in the library, cutting through the park much too late, and even once, heading home long after sunset.

The first time had been nearly two months ago, back in the summer. Susan had become drunk with a strange girl named Mary Lei at the pizza parlor near campus and had almost been attacked as she walked home in the middle of the night. This man had intervened.

Her hero.

He looked her way, and she wanted to glower at him. That was the darkchild’s way, after all, but a drunken college-girl smile was all she could offer.

He seemed to materialize at their table. “May I join you?’

“No,” Peter said.

“Ignore him,” Susan said, scooting over to make room on the cigarette-burned vinyl. She shot Peter the scowl she had not been able to use on the guy.

“I’m Devin McCree,” the man said, sliding in next to her. Susan sipped her drink, trying too hard to act casual. She wanted to look at him, to stare, but instead stole glances when she thought they might go unnoticed. He was dressed all in black and had short, messy golden hair. His ginger eyelashes framed blue eyes much darker than hers and Peter’s. Close up, it was evident he was older than she originally thought.

The idea of an “older man” did strange things to the pit of her stomach. She took another, longer drink and then asked, “So, what are you? It is Halloween, you know.”

“What do you think I am?” he asked. He had an accent, British perhaps, but softened to the point it was almost indistinguishable.

Susan considered a moment before answering. “A guardian angel? Or, a vampire? I know a girl who says the city is filled with vampires.”

He laughed. “Maybe it is.” He glanced at Peter. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s fairytales and bullsh**,” Peter said pointedly. “And her friend’s a weirdo, anyway.”

When Devin suggested Susan take a walk with him, Peter nearly lost his head. “You’ll excuse us,” he said, climbing awkwardly from the booth.

Glancing at her new friend, she shrugged. Devin stood and let her out, smirking as Peter hooked his arm through hers and dragged her away toward the ladies’ room. “Don’t leave, okay,” Susan called over her shoulder.

The bathroom smelled even more like vomit and cigarettes than the bar. Susan shoved the door closed and yanked her arm from her brother’s grasp.

“Stupid! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“You can’t just leave with some guy,” Peter said. “You know better than that.”

“He’s the guy, Peter. The one who saved me.”

“He’s much older than we are. He might be a nut.”

Susan leaned over the sink and peered at herself in the mirror. She fingered a stray smudge of mascara from beneath her eye. “Maybe he’s the one taking the chance.”

Peter rolled his eyes and rested his chin on her shoulder. In the mirror, they appeared like double vision. “F**king please! You’re real dangerous.”

“A baby-faced killer,” Susan said, bearing her teeth at her reflection. “You wouldn’t be so concerned if you had met someone tonight, you know.”

“Well . . . that’s different,” Peter argued.

“If he wanted to hurt me, he’s already had the chance.”

“Still, I don’t feel good about it.”

“Give us forty-five minutes, okay?” Susan pleaded.

Peter clenched his jaw. “It only takes a minute for a crazy person to kill a girl. Or rape her. You never think about that stuff.”

“He’s hot, Peter.”

“He’s too old. And he’s weird. Mom and Dad would have a sh**-fit—“

“You’re gonna tell them?” Susan challenged.

“N-no. But—“

“But what? We came to here to get out from under their thumbs, Peter,” Susan said. “I should thank him, anyway, don’t you think?”

Peter frowned. “Sounds like you plan to really thank him.”

“You make me sound like a giant whore.” Susan smiled, then pressed her nose to his. “Forty-five. No more.”

Peter shrugged. “Forty-five. No more.”

Susan planted a kiss on the faux-stitches at the corner of his mouth, then rushed through the door.

“You’d better have your clothes on,” Peter called after her.

***

Susan’s Doc Martens clapped dully against the damp street, but her guardian angel or vampire, whichever, made no such sound as he strolled. When he gave Susan his threadbare pea coat, she slipped into and pressed it to her face, breathing in the scent of age.

They reached the apartment just as a light rain began to fall. Susan led Devin inside and up the creaking, slanting stairway to their room.

“Ah, very nice,” he said when she opened the door. She stepped aside to allow him to enter first, but he did not move.

“A decent Deathwalker must first be invited into one’s home,” he told her.

“Please come inside, Mr. McCree.” Then she asked, half teasing, “’Deathwalker?’ You’re not some kind of monster, are you?”

Devin kissed her more gently than she had ever been kissed. “Do I look like a monster?”

“N-no,” she stammered, taking a handful of his shirt and pulling him across the threshold.

The place was low rent and even lower square footage. If they were not twins, it was doubtful she would be able to live so amicably with Peter in such a tight space. The wood floors were scratched, the hot water did not always work and the kitchen was a two-burner stove and a refrigerator barely wide enough to accommodate a frozen pizza. Susan had bought a foldout love seat from the Goodwill store for ten dollars, and Peter had brought his thirteen-inch black and white television from home. They had painted the walls with murals of monsters, Goths, castles, mystic creatures and lands—the landlord would have a stroke when they moved out. It smelled of cheap patchouli incense and mold.

Susan peeled off the wool coat and draped it on the back of a desk chair. “Sit down. I’ll get us something to drink.”

Devin plopped on the loveseat. “That can wait. Come here and let me kiss you again.”

She obeyed. How could she not?

Devin’s warm tongue traced the line of her lips. With a tiny gasp, Susan opened her mouth slightly, eager to meet his tongue with her own. He tasted of marijuana and whiskey with a hint of something metallic; it was quite lovely. When he pulled back, she saw that her makeup was smeared across his lips and chin like a bruise. She thought of Peter. Would he return in forty-five minutes, as agreed? She imagined him still in the bar, or walking around downtown, sulking; that was just like him, anyway. He was the reason she seldom went out. Part of her hoped he would not return until dawn.

Devin pressed his lips to her neck.

She felt a little strange, as if there was an itch inside her skull. She decided that it was from the alcohol and tried to ignore it.

“I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then, the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer,” Devin whispered against her skin. “Tell me from where that quote is from, or I shall bite you.”

“Dracula,” she said. “Dracula. And you can bite me, anyway.”

“If you insist.”

Devin kissed her throat again, and Susan slipped her hand into his thick hair, pulling him to her. He groaned and pressed his hips against hers. She stroked his chest and then his stomach but stopped there, afraid to move lower.

“Here,” he said, taking her wrist and guiding her hand to his lap. His eyes were almost closed.

Susan shook her head, and a lazy grin spread across Devin’s face.

“Yes. I’ll not hurt you.”

She shook her head again, a little girl gesture, but still, she was unable to resist. She leaned forward and kissed him, tasting the saltiness of her own skin on his tongue. Her palm pressed the bulge in his trousers and then drew back.

“I’ve never—” she began. For some reason, she wanted to confess. She had only been as far as almost “doing the deed” with Ethan Walker, the boy she had dated for two years in high school. She hated to seem so dreadfully young and inexperienced with this man.

“Don’t worry. I know,” Devin said, as if he had read her thoughts. He stroked her cheek, and her face grew warm where he touched her. She could drown in his dark eyes. He leaned forward, his lips just brushing hers and then becoming more insistent.

“I’ve imagined this moment since the first time I saw you. I will make you mine.”

Fear uncoiled in the pit of Susan’s stomach. She now hoped Peter would indeed remember their pact. She glanced at the Felix the Cat clock that hung beside the refrigerator. Felix grinned widely and rolled his eyes. Peter was five minutes late.

Devin unbuttoned her ragged costume dress and pushed it off her shoulders; it fell to the floor in a soft, gray heap. He then unhooked her bra and carelessly flung it to one corner. Kneeling in front of her, he mouthed her navel, sending tremors of excitement through her belly and groin. Leisurely, he rolled down one leg of her tattered fishnet stockings, then the other.She stepped out of her panties and kicked them away.

Devin tugged his shirt over his head. Then, taking Susan’s hand, he kissed her fingertips and pressed her palm to his chest. “Touch me, Susan. Feel how quickly my heart beats for you?”

Susan wet her lips and ran her hands over the lean muscles of his chest and stomach. She pulled the sparse blond hair, and then moved closer to draw her tongue around first one nipple, then the other. He shuddered and pulled her into his body; his cock, still trapped inside the confines of his clothes, pressed into the soft flesh of her stomach.

They sank onto the bed together, with her lying beneath him. The night became a wicked, electric swirl of ecstasy as Devin’s hand slipped between her thighs, and his warm fingers kneaded the damp folds there. The muscles in her stomach tensed, and she felt as if she might explode.

“I promise I will not hurt you,” Devin murmured against her ear. He opened his trousers, and her hands found his feverish, hard flesh. She stroked him until he trembled, and then he pushed into her.

But something did hurt; something she was not expecting—something not down low, but higher. It was as though the tender flesh of her neck had ripped. She cried out as hot tears burned her eyes. She crushed her face against Devin’s shoulder, smelling soap on his skin. He cradled her against him, his movements slow and delicious. Shortly, that wondrous, slow-building tension settled in her middle once again, and this time, she did explode. Driving deeply into her, he groaned and then shuddered.

Afterward, lying in his warm embrace, Susan hovered at the threshold of sleep. Above her, incense smoke swirled and danced in the purple pinpoints of Halloween lights Peter had strung around the apartment. Smeared and out of focus, Devin’s face floated above hers. He kissed her eyelids and then her mouth. She thought she tasted blood.

The stereo played very low, something quite old, Jesus and Mary Chain, or maybe it was Echo and the Bunnymen. Some time later, Devin whispered to Susan a bedtime story.

“There once was a city built upon a bay. Now, this city was filled with ghosts; they lingered there because this city was built on history. Of all the American cities, this city held Europe in its breasts.

“Inside the walls of this city lived a princess with auburn hair and alabaster skin. Lips like the petals of a rose and thighs like silken pillows in which a rogue placed his sleeping head.”

Susan tried to respond, but she was not sure if the words poured from her lips or circled inside the haze of her brain. “. . . but we loved with a love that was more than love . . . in a kingdom by the sea.”


Darklands: a vampire’s tale, by Donna Burgess
Available at:
Amazon


GERARD: Le Garçon Vampire, by G. M. Frazier

Posted: July 20, 2011 by Shaina in G.M. Frazier, Genres, Posts by Author, Thriller and Suspense, Vampires
Tags:
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GERARD: Le Garçon Vampire, by G. M. Frazier

GERARD: Le Garçon Vampire, by G. M. Frazier


GERARD: Le Garçon Vampire, by G. M. Frazier
Available at:
Amazon, Smashwords
Available on paperback  - get it for 25% off at Gerard’s website


Description: Gerard de Vigors died in the fall of 1855 at “Ransom,” his family’s plantation just south of New Orleans. He was ten years old.

One-hundred and fifty years later, Jack Trask is facing a death sentence from cancer. Lured by the sales pitch of an online “vampire hunter,” he has spent a small fortune traveling around the world in search of the one being he feels can save him. Now, in the ruins of …that ancient and long forgotten plantation, Jack comes face to face with the creature he has been seeking for nearly a year. And it’s not what he was expecting.

Prologue

The phone call came as I was waiting in the reception area of the clinic. I had been on chemo for two months, and it didn’t seem to be making much of a difference. I was dying, and there wasn’t a damn thing the doctors could do about it.

It was Burt on the phone. It’s amazing what you’ll do to escape the inevitable. So far, I’d paid Burt $15,000 in “expenses” and spent another six grand on plane tickets flying the two of us to Hungary, Egypt, and Peru. Each time Burt had announced, “I found one!” What Burt had “found” was local folklore, but nothing that could help me. Thus, I was skeptical when I answered my cell phone only to hear Burt exclaiming once again, “I found one!”

Actually, I thought my business with “Burt the Vampire Hunter” was over. He had bilked me out of fifteen grand, and flown around the world on my dime to the aforementioned exotic locales. After the trip to South America, I felt like a complete fool for ever believing any of his nonsense. I was content now to chalk my losses up to the desperate attempts of a dying man to avoid going gently into that good night.

“Burt, I’m at the clinic. I told you not to call me anymore. I’m not giving you another dime. Peru was the last straw. This whole thing has been so ridiculous. You are a con man. I wish I’d never found your web site and got myself tangled up in your hocus-pocus baloney.”

My words didn’t seem to phase Burt. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked. “I found one.”

“Did you hear what I said? This con is over. Period.”

“Look, Jack, I’m not bullshitting you. I’ve found one. I’ve seen it. If I’m lying, you don’t have to pay me a thing. All it’s gonna cost you is a plane ticket to get here.”

Burt had my attention with that statement. Never when he had “found one” before did he call me from the place where he had supposedly found it. I glanced around the waiting room and realized that my conversation was drawing the attention of some of the other patients, so I got up and went out in the hall.

“You said ‘get here,’ Burt. Where are you?”

“Gator Lick, Louisiana.”

“Louisiana? As in the State of Louisiana? In the United States?”

Burt laughed. “Yeah, ain’t it something? I’ve heard about this one for years…never figured on there being anything to it. But I’s down this way for my sister’s second wedding in New Orleans, so I thought I’d check it out. And I swear to God, Jack, I’ve seen it. How soon can you get here?”

I couldn’t believe that I was falling for Burt’s line again. But he seemed so sure this time. Never before had he claimed to have actually seen one.

“I’ll be on a plane this afternoon,” I told him. “And, Burt, I swear, if this is some more of your bullshit…”

Burt laughed again. “It’s real this time. Just wait. You’ll see for yourself.”

“Alright. Call Margie at my office and give her directions to this town—what was the name of it?”

“Gator Lick. And it ain’t much of a town.”

“Whatever. Give her the directions from New Orleans. I’ll rent a car at the airport.”

“Okey-dokey,” Burt said.

I hung up on him.

Four hours later I was on a plane headed for New Orleans and looking at my watch for the umpteenth time. If we landed on schedule—I glanced down at the map of southern Louisiana on the fold-down table in front of me—I should be able to drive to the tiny town south of the Big Easy well before dark. But it would be cutting it close.

I reclined the first class leather seat and reached up and rubbed my eyes—and hoped I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life.

One

As I stood at the rusted gates of that ancient and long forgotten cemetery, Burt’s sincerity began to unnerve me. It was late afternoon, and the fall air was crisp. Bright sunshine and a clear blue sky were visible through the canopy of live oak branches draped in Spanish moss. Whether it was the long shadows, being surrounded by death, or the thought of my own imminent demise, something chilled me to the bone. The rays of light that touched my skin did little to warm me.

We walked through the open gate and waded through knee-deep weeds and grass, making our way among the tombstones to the large mausoleum still sixty feet or so away.

I listened to Burt as he told me what he knew of this place. We were in the De Vigors family cemetery, on the grounds of what was once the largest indigo plantation south of New Orleans. The old house was struck by lightning in 1929 and burned to the ground after having stood empty for nearly forty years. All that remained of this once grand mansion were the plastered brick columns still standing tall and majestic in the midst of jungle-like undergrowth.

“The day before I called you was when I first seen it,” Burt said. “I came out here at dusk and waited. It came out of the tomb yonder.” He pointed to the mausoleum.

I asked Burt how he had learned of this place and the creature we were about to visit. He explained the legend that had circulated around these parts since the late 1800s. Ransom, which was the name of the De Vigors plantation, was haunted—so the story went. Many local folk had claimed to have seen the “Ransom Ghost” in and around the community of Gator Lick.

“But I kinda figured it weren’t no ghost these people were seein’,” Burt said as we stood now before the entrance to the mausoleum.

As if cued by his declaration, the wind began to rise, moving the Spanish moss and rustling the leaves of the oaks surrounding us. I raised the collar of my jacket against the chill as Burt leaned on the heavy wrought iron door. It was not locked and finally yielded to his weight, opening with a loud squeak. We hesitated, then stepped into the darkness of the De Vigors tomb.

Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the minute slivers of light pouring in through the narrow slits in the marble walls chiseled there over a century and a half ago. Their purpose was no doubt to provide illumination and ventilation for the mourners who would come here to visit their departed loved ones. There was a peculiar odor to the place, almost sweet, and certainly not the stench of death I had expected.

Burt took a flashlight from his pocket, and it was then that I realized this was indeed a tomb in the Old World sense of that word. The most recent interments—the last one dated 1897—were encased in stone sarcophagi, and were in the front chamber of the edifice. But as we made our way to the back chamber, the unmistakable shape of coffins resting on catafalques began to emerge from the shadows. There were four in all, and none appeared to have been disturbed since being placed there well over a century ago.

“Did you come in here before?” I asked Burt, my eyes still trying to adjust to the dim light.

“Nope.”

“Then how will you know which one it is?”

“Well, unless there’s more than one in here, it should be easy.”

“More than one what?” I asked.

“More than one of those,” Burt said, pointing his flashlight at a casket to our left.

It took a moment for me to realize what Burt meant. The casket before us was smaller than the other three.

“Oh, Jesus, Burt. It was a child?”

“Yeah, and I guess this is it, too. I don’t see no more little coffins in here. Unless it’s in one of those vaults up there.” He jerked his thumb back toward the front of the crypt.

I don’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. A child? The creature I hoped would take my life and give me life was a child? And what manner of revenant would this child be? A sentient being with whom I could plead my case? Or a merciless monster who would take my life with no thought of bestowing upon me the curse with which she or he had been blessed?

I stepped to Burt’s side as he focused the flashlight on the brass plaque, now long green with age, fastened to the lid of the casket, Burt brushed the dust away and in silence we both read the name and dates.

Gerard de Vigors

Born April 25, 1845

Died November 22, 1855

“It was a boy you saw?” I asked, whispering now, I knew not why.

“Yeah,” Burt replied, his voice somber, too. “Look at the date he died. One-hundred fifty years ago today.”

I watched as he ran his hand around the edge of the lid releasing the latches that held it fast. “This thing ain’t got no hinges,” he said. “Help me lift the top off.”

The wood looked to be mahogany and was so dry from age that the lid was light as a feather. Once we lifted it, Burt took the lid and leaned it up against the wall.

I stepped back and waited for Burt to shine the flashlight into the open casket. When he did, I was not prepared for what lay there before us.

The boy had been buried in a perfectly tailored deep blue velvet suit, which still looked as fresh as the day it was made. His dark brown hair, long and wavy, fell with a preternatural shine on the satin collar of his jacket.

I was transfixed as I studied this long dead child lying there, looking as if he were merely sleeping. His arms were folded across his chest. He had rather long fingers and perfectly manicured nails. His lips were full, and so pink against his alabastrine skin. Delicate and long lashes graced his closed eyes. And for some odd reason I wondered what color those eyes would be.

I watched as Burt slipped a latex surgical glove onto his right hand. With his thumb and forefinger, he parted the boy’s lips, exposing brilliant white teeth. The canines stood just proud of the other teeth, and there was an unmistakably sharp point, but not the long protruding fangs Hollywood gives us.

“This is the real thing, all right,” Burt said as he took his fingers away from the boy’s lips. He sounded a little surprised, and I wondered despite his online “resume” if this was actually the first vampire Burt had ever encountered. He looked at me. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. What did I have to lose? The doctors gave me a year at most, while they were pumping me full of chemicals that made me feel worse than the cancer.

Burt looked at his watch. “You’ve got about two hours till dark.” He popped the latex glove off and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Two hours,” I said, as the reality of what I was contemplating began to set in.

Burt cleared his throat. “Well, Jack, you know what the deal was—I mean once I found you one.”

I reached in my pocket and withdrew the check. I had written it on the plane, and at the time I was still convinced this would be another of Burt’s wild goose chases and this check would be torn up before his eyes just like the rest. I unfolded it and handed it to him. “Twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said as Burt took the check from my hand.

He looked at the check and smiled. “Paid in full,” he said and slipped it in his jacket pocket. He handed me the flashlight. “Here, you’ll probably need this.”

“Thanks.”

Burt and I shook hands without further words and he left me to await the coming night and events I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

GERARD: Le Garçon Vampire, by G. M. Frazier
Available at:
Amazon, Smashwords 

Available on paperback  - get it for 25% off at Gerard’s website

Speed Dating with the Dead, by Scott Nicholson

Posted: July 19, 2011 by Shaina in Ghosts, Posts by Author, Scott Nicholson, Thriller and Suspense
2
Speed Dating with the Dead, by Scott Nicholson

Speed Dating with the Dead, by Scott Nicholson


Speed Dating with the Dead, by Scott Nicholson
Available at:
Amazon

Description:  A paranormal conference at the most haunted hotel in the Southern Appalachian mountains goes awry when the guests accidentally stir up demons. When Digger Wilson brings his paranormal team to the White Horse Inn, he is skeptical that his dead wife will keep her promise to meet him there as a spirit.

But when one of the conference guests channels a mysterious presence and an Ouija board spells out a pet phrase known only to Digger and his wife, his convictions are challenged. And when people start to disappear, Digger and his daughter Kendra must face a mysterious, sinister presence that views the hotel as a personal playground. Because soon the inn will be closing for good, angels can’t be trusted, and demons don’t like to play alone . . .

Chapter One

“And here’s our most haunted room, Mr. Wilson.”

The brass name plate over the hostess’s breast read “Violet,” an old-fashioned name that didn’t match her JC Penney pants suit. Early twenties and attractive, the make-up failed to hide the hard years around her eyes. But Wayne Wilson had logged his own hard years, and he hid them in the coffin of his heart.

“Call me ‘Digger,’” he said.

“‘Digger’?” Violet said.

“I have this little undertaker thing going on,” he admitted, feeling a bit sheepish under her blue-eyed stare. “The top hat and Victorian coattails. Part of the gig.”

Wow. Beth, if you really are here, you’ll see what a cartoon I’ve become.

But the dead stayed dead, and the best thing about them was they weren’t in a position to second guess. But the worst thing about them was they weren’t around when you needed them.

“So, have you ever had any experiences here?” Wayne asked, eyeing the décor and fighting the rush of memories.

“I’ve never had a honeymoon, and I would choose somewhere a little more exotic than the North Carolina mountains. Like maybe Dollywood or Paris.”

“I meant ‘supernatural experiences.’”

“Just those brain-dead zombies who hit on me at the bar.”

Wayne was only half listening. The master bedroom of Room 318 had changed little since his stay 17 years earlier. The roses on the wallpaper had yellowed, and each wall held an autumnal mountain landscape. Imitation Queen Anne furniture, chipped and scarred by cigarette burns, a plush purple carpet in which rodents could reproduce, and the king-size, four-poster bed were the same as his honeymoon night.

Even the throw pillows appeared unchanged, skinned in greasy satin and leaning against the headboard the same way his and Beth’s heads had leaned on a cold autumn night. Before they opened the door.

“The manager’s pleased you chose the White Horse for your conference,” Violet said.

I didn’t choose. I was chosen.

“You have quite a reputation,” Wayne said. “Nobody keeps their ghosts secret for long.”

“Ghosts are good for business. Especially in the off-season.”

“It should be good for both of us.”

“We booked about 50 for the weekend.”

“Too bad you can’t charge your invisible guests. You’ve got at least three here in 318.”

“Ah, you’ve been browsing the Ghost Register,” she said, referring to the journal at the front desk where guests and staff had faithfully recorded their encounters.

One of the victims had been a stock broker who had suffered a heart attack during his honeymoon, and though the urban legend maintained he’d died on top of his new wife, the Rescue Squad report said he’d been discovered on the floor with half a corn dog in his mouth and an empty bottle of champagne sitting in a tin bucket of water.

The second was a jumper, a documented death in which a distraught tool fabricator had launched into a frothing rant about a two-timing, backstabbing bitch before launching himself off the balcony in a fall that would likely have resulted in nothing more than a few fractures if he’d have missed the lamp post. You could call it coincidence, you could call it bad luck, but it made for a better campfire tale if you called it “the Wicked Hand of Evil.”

The third victim was the most interesting to Wayne, because it didn’t have the glib familiarity of the other deaths, which were not much different than those suffered at any of America’s century-old hotels. As the manager, a powder-dry walking mummy named Janey Mays, had put it, any building with a few generations behind it would end up with a slate of strange happenings.

Janey hadn’t recognized him from his long-ago visit. But why should she? He was young and happy then, a clean-shaven newlywed and 100-percent demon free.

“What do you know about Margaret Percival?” Wayne asked Violet.

“Just the stuff in the register.” Violet opened the television cabinet as if to make sure the maids hadn’t stolen the TV.

“West Virginia woman, checked into this room in February, 1948.”

“I don’t think the color scheme has changed since then.” She whacked the dark floral pattern on the velour curtain, and a lazy haze of dust spun in the sunlit window.

Margaret was a war widow, in town for a reunion of the Camp Creek Sisterhood, a collective of well-to-do white teenagers who spent the summers of the Great Depression in their one-piece, baggy swimsuits, canoeing, singing “Tomorrow” around the fire, and talking about boys, when they weren’t sneaking off in the dead of night to meet them at movie theaters and fumble in the dark.

Perhaps the reunion was an opportunity to recapture the lost innocence of youth, or perhaps Margaret was seeking a veneer of respectability after a notorious past. But she never made it to the reunion luncheon, because between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. early one Sunday, she vanished from the face of the Earth. Police reports hinted that she might have been in the “family way,” and a single mother and alleged prostitute might sneak across the border to get rid of the problem.

Hotel management built their businesses on reputation, and mysterious disappearances were the kind of publicity they wanted to avoid. It was a measure of how far the White Horse Inn had fallen that it was now cashing in on its seedier, supernatural side.

Just like me. We’ve both been ridden hard since our paths last crossed.

And there was a fourth case study, totally off the record, one that Wayne carried in his guts like a latex glove full of broken, bloody glass. He’d delayed his return as long as he could, but Beth might not wait forever.

Violet moved over to the bedside dresser, where the alarm clock was blinking. “Old wiring,” she said. “The radio cuts on by itself, too.”

“Let me guess. I’ll be awoken at three every morning by the theme song from ‘The Exorcist.’”

The room’s angles, like those of the rest of the inn, were off by two or three degrees in every joint. Sagging floors and ceiling joists, warped window casings, and uneven spaces between cracks in the crown molding projected a sense of decay and despair.

The unease came from an expectation of order, and the skewed geometry made a distinct impact on the brain. It added a pressure that caused skin to tingle and lungs to stutter, all tricks the mind played on the body. Combined with the out-of-whack wiring that scrambled the electrical signals of the brain, the structure made a wonderful laboratory for the living.

And a fun playground for the dead.

Violet reset the clock while Wayne examined the size of the room, calculating how many hunters the place would hold. He could have booked the room in private, set up some gear, and conducted his own private little tea party, but hosting a paranormal conference gave the necromancy the sheen of respectability. Plus it offered the fringe benefit of not facing his demons alone.

But he should have left her out of it.

He peeked through the curtains. Below, Kendra was perched on a concrete bench, pencil flying, lost in her own little fantasy world. She was portable and self-sufficient, and Wayne not only encouraged those attributes, he took full advantage of them.

“You don’t believe in ghosts?” Wayne asked.

“Do you?”

“Depends.”

“Talk to the maids. They know it all.”

“The honeymoon sheets keep no secrets, they say.”

“Depends on the secrets,” she said, opening the closet door.

There’s more to you than meets the eye. Too bad. This could have been fun.

He followed her, trying to detect her natural scent beneath the various aerosols the housekeepers had used to refresh the room. He kept a prudent distance, though the closet opening was tiny, and the best he got was a whiff of something that smelled like it had a celebrity’s name on the bottle. He had no intention of being one of those aforementioned losers, but he wanted to stay in practice in case he ever felt romantic again. Since Beth, the means and motive had rarely coincided.

Violet pointed to the closet ceiling, where an access panel was cut into the gypsum board. “You get to the attic here,” she said. “Miss Mays said you had all access for the weekend.”

Wayne passed up the chance for a lame double entendre, and he couldn’t recall the access from his previous visit. But they’d spent more time in the bed than in the closet. “Was this access in existence back in 1948?”

“You’re thinking Margaret Percival slipped though here, found another way outside, bypassed the front desk and her security deposit, left her Packard in the parking lot, and hitchhiked away to start a new life?”

“It’s one theory.” Wayne noticed black streaks on the wall, probably made by the shoes of people who had scrambled upward in search of the missing woman’s spirit. Margaret was an Internet urban legend, and Wayne had researched more than a few sketchy photos on various paranormal sites.

“The service stairs run along the back, to the kitchen and laundry rooms. Margaret could have used the side doors, except those were kept locked because the manager didn’t want the hired help to sneak out, either. This was back before excessive fire and safety regulations.”

“I noticed the sprinkler system was an add-on,” Wayne said, indicating the sprinkler system that hung suspended six inches below the ceiling. “These pipes don’t do a whole lot to promote elegance.”

“The White Horse gave up on elegance in the 1960s,” Violet said. “Since then, we’ve been selling ‘quaint.’”

“With appropriate rate increases along the way.”

“A hotel is like a woman, Digger.” Violet made a sudden turn and her face was eight inches from his, but for only a moment, and then she flitted back to the dresser, where the alarm clock was blinking again. “She not only gets better with age, she makes it an asset.”

“But her wiring gets a little more temperamental,” Wayne said. Blinking lights and power surges gave a thrill to those who accepted them as proof of visitation. If they needed so little to believe, then who was Wayne to question their faith? It was no different than seeing the Virgin Mary in buttered toast or the devil’s face in the smoke of a terrorist attack.

Or believing in the face that stared back from the mirror. Where was the proof in that?

“We undergo our annual inspections, and our hotel is up to code,” Violet said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have guests waiting.”

Wayne stepped into the bathroom, where a cast-iron, claw-foot tub sat off the floor. He and Beth had played there, soap bubbles, laughter, candles, and champagne. The dripping faucet, inaudible in the bedroom, echoed with a stony resonance. The bad lighting and the rippled, frosted mirror over the vanity would give suggestible people plenty of shivers.

“This will do,” Wayne called. “But I’ll need a cot brought in for my daughter. And some paranormal activity for my customers.”

“Sorry, we don’t have any Indian graveyards,” Violet said. “No axe murders, no hung preachers, no hillbilly vampires.”

Thunder rolled down the hall, accompanied by giggles of mirth. Wayne frowned. The hardcore purists didn’t like busy, noisy traffic that contaminated their evidence, and children were the worst. He didn’t recall anyone registering children for the conference, and while he didn’t forbid it, the ghost-hunting crowd generally followed an adults-only rule. After all, they tended to miss bedtime.

“I thought the hotel was blocked off for the conference,” Wayne said, tightening the faucet handle to no avail. “I didn’t know there would be small children here this weekend.”

“The children are always here,” Violet said, and by the time Wayne entered the bedroom, she was gone, out the door with not even a whisper of its closing.

Nice exit line.

Children underfoot or not, Wayne had picked the perfect place to stage his traveling freak show. But he’d already known that, because of the promise he’d made 17 years ago. Much had changed since then, including his view of promises.

He went downstairs to retrieve his gear and his daughter, dreading the weight of both.

Speed Dating with the Dead, by Scott Nicholson
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