 Peter Caffrey is a writer creating neo-absurdist stories. Poking at the underbelly of life, he combines dark humour, bizarre imagery and twisted plots to reflect the absurdities in life. His work has appeared in, or will shortly appear in, Danse Macabre, Weird Mask, Infernal Ink, Schlock!, Literally Stories, Fleshmouth, Twisted Tongue, Sun and Moon, Marbella Times and other publications. He drinks too much, exercises too little and is unlikely to change. His novel, The Devil’s Hairball, is now available for pre-order. Taking the reader on a journey into the darkness of a man’s soul when beset by curses brought on by an act of sacrilege, it pokes an irreverent finger into the eye of normality. To celebrate the release of The Devil's Hairball we have an exclusive extract from the book to whet your appetite... At dawn, Victor dragged his bicycle to the road, mounted and set off. The fields stretched out all around. Nothing was familiar. The rising sun at his back confirmed he was cycling west, but it wasn’t the same road. On he cycled, the lack of familiarity a growing concern. His only option was to follow the road to wherever it led. The day grew hotter as the sun burned down from a cloudless sky. The treeless road had no end and offered no shade, a slithering snake of dust and stones writhing through a panorama of parched and browning fields. His mouth was dry; so dry his tongue felt like sandpaper, scraping away at the skin on his palette. With every mile the heat intensified, and as dehydration kicked in, his stomach cramped, tying itself in knots. He pedalled on, but there was no end to the road. It stretched to the horizon. There was not a single feature on the barren landscape; not a tree or bush, not a hill or dip. Victor stopped and looked back the way he had come. There was nothing to see. Peering ahead through the heat haze, there was nothing to see. Drained of energy, the journey became an increasing struggle. The sun had reached its zenith some time ago but now hung stationary in the sky, its full strength beating down. Something was amiss and unless he could fathom it out, he would fall and maybe die on this road, dried out by the sun and crumbling into dirt like the swirls of dust kicked up by his bicycle tyres. How many lost souls did the dust represent? Victor forced himself onwards, his face contorted with pain, eyes blurring and burning as sweat ran into them, mouth hanging open gasping for air. He looked up, convinced he was about to fall due to exhaustion, and in the distance was a black speck, a solitary item on the horizon. New belief surged through him. Tapping into a last reserve of energy, he drove himself towards the speck. Laughing as he pedalled, it grew as he closed in. On he pushed, his heart smashing itself against his rib cage, ready to explode. His lungs burned as he sucked in great mouthfuls of the hot dusty air. His leg muscles spasmed as he drove himself towards the growing speck. It was a signpost. Victor giggled. It would tell him how to get out of here, how to get off this damned never-ending road. It was close. He laughed aloud and used the last drop of energy his body could produce before he tumbled off the bicycle, spent. His weary body rolled in the dust, ending up beneath the signpost. He looked up. The sign read, ‘No Waiting’. Victor wept, but no tears came from his dehydrated body. He tried to wail but did not have the strength to push out any sound. Instead he let the searing pain pulse throughout his being, and he embraced it. The mental anguish hit him like a sledgehammer. He was slipping over the edge, into the darkness... A bluish light filled the space, accompanied by a smell reminiscent of juniper. Lifting his head was a struggle, his headache intensifying with every attempt. As he tried to rise, a woman's voice, calm and reassuring, told him to rest. He lowered his head back to the pillow and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the blue-tinged light was laced with fingers of smoke. It was not acrid, but sweet and relaxing. In the corner was an old woman in a wooden rocking chair, smoking a long clay pipe. She smiled, putting Victor at ease. ‘I am Victor Holycross and I—’ The woman quietened him and said, ‘I know who you are and where you are going, what you need and what you want.’ ‘How do you know about me?’ ‘I have the sight.’ Confused, Victor asked, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I have the sight, the sixth sense; I am a seer.’ ‘Do you mean you have the third eye? I thought such a thing was a myth, a lie told by charlatans, a claim made by conjurers and tricksters.’ ‘The third eye is a truth.’ Victor tapped the centre of his forehead with his trembling hand. ‘It's here, isn't it? The third eye, the all-seeing; that's what they say.’ The woman shook her head and gathered up her skirt. Between her thighs, hidden deep in a matting of pubic hair, was an eye, bloodshot and angry, blinking, studying him with the meticulous attention to detail of a predator.  When Victor Holycross commits an act of heinous sacrilege at the Festival of the Blessed Virgin, he unwittingly brings forth a curse that transforms his wife and daughter into living hair balls. To seek absolution and lift the hairy plague, a penance is given: the recovery of stolen religious relics. With a time frame of forty days and forty nights and a bicycle as his sole form of transport, Victor finds himself helped (and often hindered) by a one-legged whore, a talking dog with strange sexual proclivities and an attack-nun. Thrust into a maelstrom of demonic confrontations, unholy alliances and duplicitous relationships, he soon discovers that the world is a darker place than he anticipated. For more information on Peter please follow the links below Website: http://petercaffrey.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/P_Caffrey 
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