Tag: Horror

Book Review: Cellar

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover - Cellar

Book Cover from Amazon

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Cellar by Karen E. Taylor

Something’s not quite right about the neighborhood of Woodland Heights. Five years ago six children disappeared in this suburban heaven. When Laura Wagner moves into a house that had been vacant for most of those five years, this something comes alive.

Laura Wagner, divorced mother of two, addicted to alcohol and Valium, sees nothing wrong with her life; she sees nothing much at all. She gets by as well as she can, aided by the solace of her drugs and whiskey, until the day she backs into a police car in the parking lot of her favorite bar and is sentenced to involuntary rehabilitation treatments.

Returning home clean and sober is an eye-opening experience. The spirit dwelling in her house reveals its true, evil nature and begins to prey upon her, her friends, even her children, avid to spread its message of death and despair.

Laura must learn to control her inner demons before she can subdue these outside forces threatening to break free. She must learn how to distinguish hallucinations from reality, learn how to stop the spirit that requires her death and the deaths of her loved ones.

Author’s Note:
CELLAR is a re-issue of my previous published book (Twelve Steps from Darkness, Copyright © 2007 Karen E. Taylor.) The story, while essentially the same, has been edited and expanded upon in certain areas, resulting in several new scenes and an epilogue.

 

MY REVIEW

I finished reading Cellar by Karen Taylor at midnight last night – not exactly the best time to be reading this horror-ghost-recovering-addict story in a house with a damp, dark basement and parts of the house which knock at random moments. Yeah, bad idea.

First off, this is not my normal fare. I avoid horror and mental-health/addict stories, but it was in the Modern Magic pack where I knew a number of Urban Fantasy authors so I read it. It took a long time to get to the “modern magic” part. But in the meantime a solid character study was created for Laura, the Main Character – an alcoholic whose downward spiral included backing into a police car when leaving a bar. After coming home to the empty house following the sentencing, voices whisper in her head about how worthless she is – children taken by husband, loss of job, and soon to spend a month in rehab where they would take the one thing she loved from her – the alcohol. “She would be better off dead.” Again and again the whispers tell her, or is it her own mind spiraling down.

And that remains the question with each situation – it is real or her addiction altering her world? Is the depression external forces or an natural internal reaction to her situation? And the real kicker – should she even care? Every step forward she attempts is matched by a failure twice as great. But three people do not give up on her – her two daughters and one police officer who has already taken the journey back from the bottle.

Will it be enough to recover from her descent into the cellar of life with the alcohol and to fight whatever has decided to reside in her basement?

Not for the faint of heart. I’m not sure which is scarier: the “horror” story or the alcoholism whispering its siren song to her.

Author Spotlight: Jake Bible

Erin Penn

Z Burbia Amazon Cover

Book Cover from Amazon

If one combined all the energy of a four year-old, the charming arrogance of a sixteen year-old, and the plain crazy of an eighty year-old paranoid dementia patient and sprinkled in some ADHD, mech zombies, and medieval space stations, you may begin to understand who is Jake Bible. He writes from middle grade to adults, horror to fantasy, thriller to science fiction. Whatever comes out of his blender mind gets put on paper. A lot of it – the man publishes six (or more) heart-pounding books a year.

I am not kidding about the mech zombies, the Apex Trilogy starting with Book 1: Dead Mech. The blurb reads: “Hundreds of years after the zombie apocalypse decimates the world, human civilization has put itself back together again. Their secret weapon against the zombie hordes: the Mechs. Massive robotic battle machines. But what happens when a mech pilot dies in his mech and becomes a zombie?”

And the medieval space station can be seen in the Reign of Four. Other series include Dead Team Alpha, Z-Burbia, and ScareScapes (middle grade), just to name a few. Mr. Bible nails the horror, the gooshy, pus-flowing, zombie-filled horror, even if the bodies don’t stay down – you think the creatures had claw hammers to dig those nails out. 

He presently resides in North Carolina and can be seen at various conventions in the area. If asked on a panel how to fix a dragging portion of a book, his response is always “Blow something up.” with a gleeful grin.

His website is: Jake Bible Fiction and his podcast is Writing in Suburbia (unscripted, NSFW – has very mellow voice, tends to have rants about writing).

Flash: Waking up Dead

Erin Penn

Casket from EnvironmentalCaskets.com

http://www.environmentalcaskets.com/

You are born. You die. In between is when the world exists. Or that is why people say.

Maybe they believe in heaven, or hell, or reincarnation, but the only surety is the here and now. Between birth and death. That is what people say.

People lie.

Waking up inside a coffin can rearrange your world.

Trying to escape the top-of-the-line casket your family bought with the unused portion of your college fund can drive you half mad. Sure the adjustable bed and mattress are nice during the breaks between claustrophobia panic attacks, but the chemically treated interior isn’t exactly fresh air.

Eventually the white satin lining, cotton padding, strong metal interior and beautiful mahogany wood exterior gives way to your screams and pounding. To your sobs and clawing. To your whimpers.

It’s not like the fancy locking mechanism is on the inside.

You wonder if you would have to pay extra for that feature.

Of course once you break the casket, you got a pile of dirt to get through. Worms, roots and the flowers your family left. Hopefully you don’t loosen the headstone so it falls on you as you emerge.

And for that trip there is no adjustable bed and mattress to rest on. You only thought you knew claustrophobia in the casket. When you breathe dirt and can’t move your fingers because of the earth falling down, you go truly mad.

Rain fills the spaces between the dirt. Don’t even try to move after a downpour. The disorientation will make you dig in the wrong direction. But you won’t care. All you want is out.

Eventually your reach it. The surface. Hopefully it’s night, because after the endless dark of digging your way out, the sun bloody hurts. Hopefully no one is around, because after all the effort to get out, you are hungry beyond measure.

If you are lucky, you are a zombie and those worms were tasty snacks on the way up. You may be able to pick and choose who your grab.

Vampires have it much worse.

The madness makes it easier to do the first kill. But the nourishment heals you, body and mind. So you get to go mad again when you realize what you have done. What you have become.

You get to go mad every night for the rest of your life.

Vampires have it easier. Most walk into the sun before they hate themselves forever.

Zombies have to find someone to kill them.

Which is hard, because it ain’t exactly assisted suicide. The monster in your head has a will to live. It dragged you kicking and screaming through the casket, dirt and first kill. The monster that is you doesn’t want to die.

So you got to trick it. Trick yourself. Something only the mad can do. Fortunately you are already there. And if you are lucky, you have someone who loves you enough to kill you.

(words 496 – first published 5/24/2013; republished new blog format 10/2/2016)

Writing Exercise: Tools of the Trade

Erin Penn

Buffalo Skull Stock Photo

Image Courtesy of Witthaya Phonsawat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tools of the Trade

Writers, as all occupations, need to know the tools of the trade and be skilled in their use. For a writer, knowing the language is key. Most people have a fairly solid grasp of noun and verb by finishing primary school levels; a slightly less solid grasp of pronouns, adverbs, and adjectives; and a questionable grasp on punctuation and grammar. Language includes parts of speech, punctuation, structure (like paragraphs and sentences), and more esoteric items like figures of speech.

I’m going to concentrate on figures of speech today. These can also be called rhetorical devices or stylistic devices.

figures of speech

“any expressive use of language, as a metaphor, simile, personification,or antithesis, in which words are used in other than their literal sense,or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect.”
(from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/figure+of+speech – copied Feb 26, 2015))

Painting pictures with words is what writers do; becoming skilled with the various figures of speech will hone that skill.

Examples of figures of speech: allegory, allusion, analogy, antithesis, catachreis, euphemism, hyperbole, hypocatastasis, irony, metaphor, oxymoron, paradox, personification, puns, simile, tautology, understatement.

(from http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/writing-stylistics.php#.VO877_nF-2F and http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/20figures.htm)

… the most complete list for those wanting to go to the next level is here: http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/figures_speech/figures_speech_alpha.htm

“The four fundamental operations, or categories of change, governing the formation of all figures of speech are:

  • addition (adiectio), also called repetition/expansion/superabundance
  • omission (detractio), also called subtraction/abridgement/lack
  • transposition (transmutatio), also called transferring
  • permutation (immutatio), also called switching/interchange/substitution/transmutation”

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech – copied Feb 26, 2015)

WRITING EXERCISE: Ready for this month’s challenge? Write a five sentence description of a character from your WIP (work in-progress) without any figures of speech. Then do it again using a least one figure of speech per sentence.

*****

Severance

Sheriff Severance was a little less than six foot tall. His wrinkled face had been exposed to lots of sun and had a permanent tan. His clothes were always dusty from the desert, worn and faded. The only thing on his person shiny and well-kept was his gun. Roy had never had to draw it on someone from his town. (words 60)

*****

Tall enough to make most men look up in the 1800s, Sheriff Severance was just shy of six foot. His leathered face was well-tanned from years in the sun, but new wrinkles had been carved deep on a face aged from the badge since the curse had consumed his town. Ill-fitting, worn clothes hung on him; desert dust clinging to the fabric with skeletal fingers sucking shine and color from Roy. Only his gun was in mint-condition, oiled and cleaned daily before he left the jailhouse. He never had drawn it on someone he knew and hoped like hell he never would. (102 words)

  1. “Shy” – height cannot be shy
  2. “Leathered” “tanned”
  3. “carved”
  4. “aged from the badge”
  5. “curse had consumed”

(ect.)

(first published 3/14/2015; republished in new blog format 9/27/2016)

 

Flash: Beware the Fingers of Gods

Erin Penn

Lightning Dual Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Jennifer Ellison

Lightening flashed overhead, like the finger of one god reaching out to touch the finger of another. If lightning were fingers of gods, did humans arc between them like static arcs between two human who reached towards each other without quite touching? Were gods forever separated, not quite touching, imprisoned in their starry constellations, like Lester and her?

Why could her parents not see how much they loved each other? Lester was perfect ever since they met online. Skylar was forced to sneak out of the house to meet him. She had envisioned them meeting face-to-face for the first time at sunset, her perfect in her Junior prom gown and Lester in a tuxedo like Jace wore. Kissing, him offering her flowers, and then dining in candlelight at Olson’s Steakhouse private room.

Her dream was far from reality. Wind tried to tear her winter coat from her shivering body. The booming thunder hurt the ears, while the flashing lights rendered her effectively blind against the night’s darkness. Skylar could hear the approaching rain, including popping hail. She dashed for the bus shelter at Second and Oak, where Lester had told her to meet earlier today. She had texted him on a friend’s phone at school, letting him know her parents had grounded her computer time and taken away her phone. She didn’t want to lose him and begged him to wait; her parents always changed their minds, so she didn’t expect the month-long grounding to last a week.

He responded with his own request, one chance to meet her before her parents locked her away in an ivory tower. Lester offered to climb a thorny rose lattice to ascend into the tower her parents were building, if only for a second to gaze upon the beauty he so far had only witnessed through the inadequate photos she furnished. How could a girl resist such poetry?

“Maybe I should ask Lester the question about the fingers of gods when he gets here.” Skylar mused. The bus shelter started to rattle as hail hit. The Plexiglas walls kept the wind shear down; her feet remained freezing as rain driven by wind snuck under the raised plastic. Hail bounced in through the front opening, but the driving wind came from behind so the ice pellets carried no sting.

Her hair lifted from the rear and a voice whispered, “What do you want the fingers of a god to do?”

She jumped, nearly outside the shelter. Behind her was a man she had never seen before. Gray touched his temple, his cheekbones were harshly cut, his eyebrows shaded black eyes. “Lester?” Skylar whispered. Her voice drowned in the winter thunderstorm.

“If that is what you will delight in calling me, I will accept to be called such.” The man twitched his black wool coat like a cape and made a stately bow.

Skylar shook her head in confusion. “No, no. Lester is in school like me. A freshman at the University.”

“I was such once.” The man’s voice soothed, and Skylar found herself relaxing despite her underlying fear. “Time is such an imperfect master. Does one cease to be what one was when one develops into other things, or does that original being still remain within, a part of one’s past, present and future?”

“I…I don’t know.” The man spoke like Lester wrote. In her heart-of-hearts, Skylar was assured this was her forever love. She needed to let him know she understood. The two days past her eighteenth birthday girl reached to the older man.

Clasping her hand with his own, he brought her hand up to touch his cheek like it was the most precious action in his existence. The man who agreed to be called Lester then kissed her palm with reverence. “Yes, for the soul remains as young as it feels.” Skylar’s coat sleeve slipped down, exposing her wrist to his questing lips. “And the soul shall be as old as it thinks.” A flash of lighting caught a hint of teeth before Lester bit down.

(words 675 – first published 11/27/2013; republished in new blog format on 5/8/2016)