 Today's book excerpt is from R.H. Dixon's latest novel Emergence R. H. Dixon is a horror enthusiast who, when not escaping into the fantastical realms of fiction, lives in the northeast of England with her husband and two whippets. When reading and writing she enjoys exploring the darknesses and weaknesses within the human psyche, and she loves good strong characters that are flawed and put through their paces. Her favourite authors include: Shirley Jackson, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Joe Hill, Susan Hill, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King and George R. R. Martin. When not reading and writing she enjoys travelling (particularly wildlife-spotting jaunts involving bears, wolves and corvids), painting and drawing pet portraits, collecting skulls and drinking honey-flavoured Jack Daniels. R. H. Dixon primarily writes horror fiction, but also has a set of three light-hearted paranormal fiction novels published. The Sunray Bay Trilogy is a foray into the whacky world of vampires, werewolves and zombies, each episode coloured by her cheeky sense of humour. (See under ‘Paranormal Books’ tab) Her debut novel, Amazon UK Best-selling Horror Comedy ‘Slippery Souls’ (Sunray Bay Trilogy, Book #1), was short-listed for the Writing Magazine’s Self-publishing Award 2012. If you enjoy dark, psychological horror – inclusive of disturbing nightmares and ghosts – don’t miss this haunting story of a father’s downward spiral into despair and questionable madness. 'When his six-year-old daughter Seren starts talking of a ghostly woman who visits her room each night, young widower John Gimmerick isn’t too concerned. After all she already has an imaginary friend. But when his own nightmares begin to merge with reality and when unexplainable things start to happen around the house, he realises that by revisiting the home of his childhood he’s stirred up things he’d tried hard to forget – as well as something that should never have been stirred in the first place. In order to save his little girl from an evil that speaks only of death, reclusive John must now face up to the horrors of his past. And what he discovers runs deeper and is far more terrifying than he could ever have imagined…' Emergence Excerpt John slid the hot baking tray onto the middle shelf, looked at his wristwatch and set the oven’s timer for forty-five minutes. He slung the checked tea towel over his shoulder and called, ‘Coming, ready or not.’ Tiptoeing into the hallway, he listened. There were no creaking floorboards or door hinges. No creeping footsteps or muffled laughter. When a thorough search of each downstairs room and cupboard proved fruitless he went upstairs, checking first the sewing room. Emily’s large holdall was lying on the floor, items of her worn clothing and underwear scattered about the carpet next to it. The spare duvet he’d found in his mother’s airing cupboard was a messy heap on top of the futon. A perfect hiding place. He lifted it. Seren wasn’t there. Next he went to his mother’s room. ‘I’m closing in on you, kidda.’ His voice broke the brooding presence of the house which buzzed in his ears; a susurration of expectancy. He looked under the bed. She wasn’t there. Inside the mirror-fronted wardrobe. Not there either. Creeping back out onto the landing he went to the final room, the room with the mould, the room of his childhood, and put his hand on the doorknob. ‘I wonder where she can be.’ He grinned, expecting to hear a stifled giggle. None came. He opened the door and was confronted by a brashness of black, grey and red. Barcoded wallpaper wrapped the room on all sides, an attack on the senses, and bedding on two single beds, as black and degenerate as the Devil’s moustache, smelt of teenaged boys. His brother’s red Tamiya Hotshot was sitting in the middle of the room, facing him. He remembered it well because he’d got one of the biggest poundings of his life for having broken it, back in the nineties. He’d taken it without permission and accidentally smashed it head-on into Stuey Griggs’ Clod Buster. Stuey’s monster truck had survived the collision but the shiny plastic casing of Nick’s Hotshot had splintered and the front wheel alignment had been damaged beyond repair. Yet now here it was, good as new, purring beautifully as though talking to him on some animistic level. What the fuck is wrong with me? John gripped the door to steady himself and looked up. In place of the tasselled light shade there was a rectangular hole in the ceiling. A black opening into the nefarious oblivion of the loft, which had no business being in this room. The hole was wrong in its simplistic nature, it was too deliberate and square to be an accident. From this angle it was impossible for him to tell what horrors were living up there, or indeed what might come down to stay. But that’s okay because none of this is even happening. He rubbed his temple, not taking his eyes off the hole for a second in case it should change or disappear or swallow him whole. Just another episode. It’ll pass. The sound of scurrying overhead denoted small feet on wooden joists. ‘Seren?’ A short burst of excited laughter announced she was still playing hide and seek. ‘What the hell are you doing up there?’ he demanded. She didn’t answer. Clambering onto the bed, concern overruling any hesitancy he might have felt, John put his hands through the hole in the ceiling and gripped wooden boards at either side for leverage, managing to resist an almost insurmountable urge to pull away when grit and cobwebs settled around his fingers. He took a deep breath, bent his knees and sprung off the mattress, hoisting himself upwards. Old dust caught at the back of his throat, a layer of dry staleness that made him cough. Darkness greeted him wholly as he settled onto his hands and knees on unseen joists. All around him was a blackness that seemed to have substance, like the insidious dark inside the cundy. A blackness he thought might consume him if he stayed still for too long. ‘Seren?’ His voice came out an urgent whisper. He hoped it wasn’t loud enough to make grim things in the dark stir. He held his breath and listened. Nothing stirred. His eyes tried to adjust, desperately wanting to see, and after a while he thought he could make out the blacker silhouettes of rafters above him. Then he decided he was probably wrong and that his brain was playing tricks as it was wont to do of late. Then a light flickered on. He blinked rapidly against its abruptness. A small orange flame that tinged everything round about with insipid colour and texture blinded and disorientated him all over again. Seren was crouched in the corner furthest away from him, her face a sullen mask of shadows above the large burning candle she held in her hands. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, afraid to move away from the hole in the ceiling in case he got lost in the dark, dusty chamber that shouldn’t even be there. The toe of his right shoe was hooked below the ledge, anchoring him to the ceiling of the black and grey striped bedroom below. Seren didn’t answer. ‘Come on, kidda, let’s go,’ he urged, rubbing his face where silvery spider trails, imagined or not, tickled. She made no attempt to move and held firm to the candle even though hot wax ran down the backs of her fingers. ‘Our fairy cakes are almost ready.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Come on, let’s decorate them together.’ Her face tilted downwards so the flame chased away some of its shadows, and John saw her handicap: she wasn’t wearing glasses. Groaning at the prospect of what he must do, he brought his right foot fully into the darkness and began to shuffle along the two parallel joists towards her. ‘Stay there, sweetheart. I’m coming for you.’ ‘No. I have to stay here now.’ Her voice was eerily monotone, almost as expressionless as her face. ‘Stop playing games, it’s not funny.’ ‘It’s not supposed to be. I belong to Her now.’ John stopped crawling. It felt like an intrusion of insects was scattering beneath his skin, as though a stone in his mind had been disturbed, thus revealing their hiding place. He shivered. ‘Who?’ ‘You know.’ ‘I don’t.’ He started inching forward again, his arms leaden, knees hurting and the wood rough against his hands. ‘You should.’ ‘Pack it in, Seren, this really isn’t…aaargh!’ As John put his hand down something spiky pierced his skin and drove straight through the meaty flesh of his palm. For a moment he couldn’t move. The sensation of metal scraping against his bone rendered him paralysed. Then adrenalin kicked in and he slowly, quickly, agonisingly prised his hand away from the protruding prong in the joist. Hotness welled in his eyes and white flashes of pain blotted out the dark. Losing his balance he fell sideways, clutching his wounded hand to his chest. Blood poured freely, coating him with sticky warmth and dripping into darkness, feeding unseen monsters. He thought he might crash through plasterboard and into the bedroom below, but thin wooden slats supported him as he landed on his side in the groove between the two joists. He sucked in air through clenched teeth and looked up. Seren was still hunkered in the corner. She made no attempt to go to him and he watched in terror as she brought the candle up to her face and puckered her lips. ‘No, Seren. Don’t.’ She blew. The candle’s flame went out and John was surrendered again to a darkness that touched his soul with all the horror of loneliness. At almost the same time cold breath swiped his cheek in hoary swirls of rancid decay, and, as he retched at the smell, wet corpse lips brushed the outer rim of his ear. He thought he might die. Curling up tightly he willed the plasterboard beneath him to give out, wanting to see the noisy walls of the bedroom below because, even though they were wrong, he could deal with them better than he could deal with this. But the boards remained intact. He couldn’t imagine that he’d ever make it back to the hole, not without the halitosis of death breathing on him again. And he didn’t dare move in case witches’ fingers snagged his hair and clothes to pull him even further into their domain. This time, because of the noise he’d created and the excitement he’d caused, monsters had definitely stirred. He could feel the presence of evil just as surely as he could feel his own heart exerting itself, offering his blood up freely to the unknown. Clenching his eyes shut, preferring the darkness inside his own head to the darkness surrounding him, he waited and listened. Not daring to move. Not even to swallow. When nothing had breathed on him or touched him for a long while, finally he unfurled and opened his eyes. ‘Seren?’ But she wasn’t there. He could sense that now. Perhaps she never had been. He was all alone, with the scritchy-scratchy darkness that teased him with its swelling magnitude and threatened him with new horrors. He reached out and grabbed the joist his shoulder was wedged against, planning to use it to feel his way back to the hole. He had to get out. But as his hand gripped old, dry wood a crackle like that of a Geiger counter erupted, an animalistic growl that made his body shrink back and his skin bristle painfully. The throaty sound came from everywhere and nowhere, swooping down from somewhere amongst the rafters perhaps and bringing with it a strong smell of rot and decay. John found he could no longer breathe and was beyond all comprehension when a sickly, decrepit, old-woman voice croaked into his ear: ‘She’s mine.’  If you enjoy dark, psychological horror – inclusive of disturbing nightmares and ghosts – don’t miss this haunting story of a father’s downward spiral into despair and questionable madness. 'When his six-year-old daughter Seren starts talking of a ghostly woman who visits her room each night, young widower John Gimmerick isn’t too concerned. After all she already has an imaginary friend. But when his own nightmares begin to merge with reality and when unexplainable things start to happen around the house, he realises that by revisiting the home of his childhood he’s stirred up things he’d tried hard to forget – as well as something that should never have been stirred in the first place. In order to save his little girl from an evil that speaks only of death, reclusive John must now face up to the horrors of his past. And what he discovers runs deeper and is far more terrifying than he could ever have imagined…'  Comments are closed.
|
Archives
April 2023
|
RSS Feed
|
|