Halloween is just around the corner and my latest horror novel has finally hit the shelves. If you are in the mood for something scary, take a peek at the first chapter of Blood of the Sixth. If it’s intriguing, grab a copy, turn out the lights, and prepare to get a little scared. No one is safe from the evil lurking beneath the stones.
Chapter 1
Rats
Year 1925—Port Bella Rosa, Louisiana. A wavering glow crawled between his eyelids, forcing them open. Above him, a soot blackened lantern swung in slow circles. Weak veins of light pulsed across the ceiling, doing little to scatter the room’s encroaching darkness. The shadows terrified him; those menacing black specters lurking just beyond the light. A blurred but familiar face swam in Noah’s peripheral vision. The old lady came into focus, but hatred contorted her features into someone he barely recognized. He yanked at the ropes securing him to the table but only managed to dig the twisted knots deeper into his bloodied wrists.
“I warned you,” she hissed.
Memories began to surface in his groggy, scattered thoughts. “Mrs. Hoffius, please, I never meant any harm.”
Turning her back, the old woman ignored him. She stoked the fire in the wood stove and flipped a slab of meat sizzling in a hot cast iron skillet. Noah slid his tongue over a split in his lip, gagging on the sharp bloody taste oozing from the bloated gash.
“I love her, she loves me. I can take care of her.” He lifted his head from the table, trying to reason with her, but a scorching pain ripped through his skull and tore down his neck, settling in his abdomen. “Oh God.”
The old woman sneered. “There is no God.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You ignored my warning, boy. You’re not fit for my Isabella.”
Smoldering meat thickened the air, its scent almost too dense to breathe, but Noah sucked in deep gulps and stared at the flesh carved away from his chest. His stomach churned, but he wasn’t sure if it was the sight of his mutilated torso or the large section of his intestines protruding from a jagged hole in his abdomen; their bloody mass piled on his pelvis, spilling in thick glistening ropes over the table’s edge. His body spasmed, vomit and blood spewing in a burning stream from his mouth. Acrid smoke curled into his nose but he choked from the stench of his own suffocating terror.
“Christ! You’re eating me!” Unconsciousness threatened to take him. Cold sweat beaded on his pale bloodless skin. Struggling to stay alert, each lung-filling breath twisted his body with waves of pain.
The old woman laughed.
“No, boy. This is my dinner.” She crammed a slimy pork skin between her gums and nodded over her shoulder. He followed her gaze to a line of rat-filled cages pushed against the far wall. “You belong to them.”
If you’d like to read more, you can find Blood of the Sixth at the links below.
Amazon UK
The Leaning Post 