To start our foray in to the frightening, we'll start with a title that starts out nice enough: a man goes to help the woman he loves. Nothing wrong with that, is there my little fiends? Ah, but as things go along, we learn that things are not always what they seem...
Blurb:
When the love of his life, Alicia, calls him in the middle of the night to report she had been raped, Eric drops everything to come to her rescue. She takes him on an eerie ride through turbulent hours he can't quite comprehend. Alicia may need his help, but her situation is not what it seems.
Excerpt #1:
Eric ran into the emergency room waiting room. He paced in circles around a chair, worried about Alicia. Alicia still hadn’t appeared several minutes later. Worriedly, he walked to the nurse's station.
"I'm looking for a patient named ‘Alicia’. She just arrived," Eric said. "She'd been raped."
"Who are you, sir?" A middle-aged nurse looked over the top of her horn rims with a hard expression. Eric understood why. There was no telling who he was. He could have been Alicia's abusive husband for all she knew. Would Pete have the gall to follow her to the hospital?
"I'm a friend. Alicia called me and asked me to meet her here." He gripped the desk so hard with worry his knuckles turned white.
"She's being looked at now."
"How is she?"
"She's shaken up. It's good you're here. She needs a friend now."
"Does she need to stay?"
"No. She will be out shortly. Just have a seat over there, and she'll find you."
After what seemed like hours, Alicia walked into the waiting room as she’d said she would. Her face brightened at the sight of him, and she ran into his arms.
"Eric! I'm so glad you're here."
He caressed her pretty face. No bruises. No cuts. She smiled, revealing a perfect set of teeth. He held her close, not wanting to let her go. He never wanted to let her go. She was his Morning Star, the woman of his dreams. He rubbed his fingers against her scalp and hair as she cried quietly on his shoulder.
She lifted her head and searched his face. The tears in her eyes refracted light, but her eyes were reflecting calm beneath the churning surface. An ugly, red welt snaked around her neck. Her bastard husband had choked her.
"Are you alright?" Her voice sounded rough, like sandpiper on wood. Rage bubbled from his core, threatening to erupt in the waiting room. He stared at her, amazed at her compassion in light of her own injuries.
Here she was asking him if he was all right, and she was the one who had been raped. "Alicia, are you alright? You always think of everyone else but not yourself."
"I don’t want you to worry about me."
"I can guess what happened." Eric balled his hands into fists so tightly his fingernails cut into his skin. Rage overwhelmed the worry. He wanted to draw blood from the man who drew blood from Alicia. "Let me take him to the back of a shed and beat the shit out of him. He deserves much worse."
***
Not enough for you? Well, it just so happens that I have another excerpt to entertain you with...
Excerpt #2:
Eric stepped out of the shower and a foul stench—mingled with the crisp peppermint of his shampoo—smacked him in the face and left a coppery taste in the back of his throat. His stomach heaved. Confused, he looked around the room to figure out where the smell came from, but he couldn't pinpoint it. Dread clung to him, dark and sticky, ruining his relaxed mood. The light bulbs over the sink hummed, casting harsh yellow light about the room. He shaded his eyes against the glare, trying to see.
Why were those lights so bright? Something was terribly wrong in his peaceful world, and not knowing what it was frightened him.
His wife Alicia brushed her teeth as if nothing was unusual, while the stink of rot lurked beneath the cool mint of his shampoo. Why didn't she notice the smell?
He leaned towards her to place his hand on her shoulder, and she turned her face towards his for a kiss on the cheek. Ugly, purple bruises darkened her eyes. He pulled away, repulsed and alarmed, not quite sure what he was seeing. One side of her face had swelled to a dark mask, not unlike a pumpkin that had been left outside in the damp earth to rot. An angry red welt encircled her throat like a bloody ribbon wrapped around her neck. Frightened, he reached out one hand but he couldn't bring himself to touch her swollen face. Touching her would make the vision real and it couldn't be real.
Alicia spat in the sink. Two of her teeth bounced against the porcelain. Blood tainted the paste.
"The girls are running late again." Alicia's bloodied mouth leaked crimson and white toothpaste. Why did she act as if nothing strange was going on? He gaped at her, not understanding what was happening. The safety of his home evaporated as she spoke with her raw, torn mouth. "Make them wolf down their cereal, and toss them out of the house before they miss the bus."
***
Have to have this title in your trembling little hands? You can pick it up for yourself, here...
Nook/B&N: http://tinyurl.com/
Amazon US: http://tinyurl.com/kindle-
Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/kindle-
Mocha Memoirs Press: http://
Elizabeth Black writes erotica, erotic romance, speculative fiction, fantasy, and horror. She also enjoys writing retellings of classic fairy tales. Born and bred in Baltimore, she grew up under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. Her erotic fiction has been published by Xcite Books (U. K.), House Of Erotica (U. K.), Circlet Press, Ravenous Romance, Scarlet Magazine (U. K.), and other publishers. Her horror fiction has appeared in "Kizuna: Fiction For Japan", "Stupefying Stories", "Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad", "Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2", and "Mirages: Tales From Authors Of The Macabre". An accomplished essayist, she was the sex columnist for the pop culture e-zine nuts4chic (also U. K.) until it folded in 2008. Her articles about sex, erotica, and relationships have appeared in Good Vibrations Magazine, Alternet, CarnalNation, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Sexis Magazine, On The Issues, Sexy Mama Magazine, and Circlet blog. She also writes sex toys reviews for several sex toys companies.
In addition to writing, she has also worked as a gaffer (lighting), scenic artist, and make-up artist (including prosthetics) for movies, television, stage, and concerts. She worked as a gaffer for "Die Hard With A Vengeance" and "12 Monkeys". She did make-up, including prosthetics, for "Homicide: Life On The Street". She is especially proud of the gunshot wound to the head she had created with makeup for that particular episode. She also worked as a prosthetic makeup artist specializing in cyanotic blue, bruises, and buckets of blood for a test of Maryland's fire departments at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport plane crash simulation test. Yes, her jobs are fun. ;)
She lives in Lovecraft country on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four cats. The ocean calls her every day, and she always listens. She has yet to run into Cthulhu.
Visit her web site at http://elizabethablack.
Her Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/
Follow her at Twitter: http://twitter.com/
Want more shivers and screams? Hold on to your jack-o-lanterns, my little creepies, because there's more where this came from...
No comments:
Post a Comment