Author: admin

Chapter One – FIVE My queen is scared as she looks out over our little lagoon in the Caribbean. I’m holding her hand, squeezing it tight, anticipating her emotions as they ebb and swell like the waves crashing on our private island beach. “It’s gonna be fine,” I whisper into her ear, trying to get […]

1 Coffee: A warm, delicious alternative to hating everyone forever. —TRUE FACT Few things in life were more entertaining than haunted houses. The people living in said haunted houses, perhaps. Or the time-honored tradition of watching paint dry because, sadly, most haunted houses were not actually haunted. I sat on a hardwood floor next to […]

Chapter 1 It was their normal routine, and it was awkward as crap. Cora Campbell bit back a smile as she sat in the passenger seat of the beat-up pickup truck. She didn’t think Sam Evans, her boss-of-sorts, would appreciate her humor. Or, like, any humor. He filled the driver’s seat beside her, his big […]

Prologue Ash When I was a child,I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned liked a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I […]

1 He chased his quarry up the ladder, launching himself onto a gravel-strewn roof in Hell’s Kitchen. Ducking under a broken scaffold, he followed the dark figure who threatened to elude him. She was half his size, dressed in a black hoodie and leggings. She moved like a cat in the dim, predawn light. She […]

Prologue David Henderson laughed as the cadaverous witch danced before him. The person—actor or actress or just-out-for-dress-up-fun person—was really magnificent. The costume was tight and black, with some kind of extra piece flowing around the body. The hat was big and black and pointed. The face… The face was the best. Green and mottled, with […]

December 15, Early Friday Afternoon Remember back when you were a kid, and there was no better feeling than the last day of school before Christmas break? And then you got older, and thought, “Man, those were the days. I wish I could have that moment of pure joy as an adult.” Pro tip: Become […]

“You know when you’re pressing every inch of yourself against that person, and while staring into their eyes, regardless if it’s pure lust or true love, there’s that tiny spark that’s strong enough to pause time? When the anticipation of what’s about to come next makes your heart pound so effin’ hard you hear it […]

1 Phoenix The helicopter blades whooshed over our heads as we flew away from the banks of the Cumberland River, away from Nashville, away from the place where the Ikimono myst had been created and nearly brought to fruition, only moments from being released on the world. A myst that took a creature, human or […]

PROLOGUE NOVA HAD BEEN COLLECTING SYRINGES from the alleyway behind the apartment for weeks. She knew her parents would take them away if they found out, so she’d been hiding them in an old shoe box, along with an assortment of screws, zip ties, copper wires, cotton balls, and anything else she thought might come […]