"Shipp’s clear, insistant voice pulls you down into the rabbit hole and doesn’t let go.
" —Jack Ketchum
"This is an intriguing, challenging, literate, provocative novel I’m not sure I understand and suspect I’m not meant to… I recommend it to those who find reality boring; it may make them see it in new ways.
" —Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series
"Jeremy C. Shipp’s Vacation is a surreal, bizarre, and utterly captivating tale. This ambitious story covers a lot of territory: it’s disturbing, funny, thoughtful, and even touching. A wildly unpredictable first novel from one WEIRD author.
" —Jeff Strand, author of The Sinister Mister Corpse
"Every once in awhile I read a debut novel that isn’t like anything else I’ve ever read before. Jeremy C. Shipp’s surreal fantasy Vacation falls into that category. Part Voltaire-like satire, part Philip K. Dick mind-trip. What could have been merely "gonzo" fantasy is instead both serious and deep. Shipp displays a fanatical devotion to taking his character and situations just one step further than most writers.
" —Realms of Fantasy
"It’s rare to find a work that claims to be a mind-bender actually live up to its claims, but Jeremy Shipp’s Vacation does just that. Imagine the finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey set in a deceptively everyday world that quickly— and effectively—jumps into William S. Burroughs territory by way of Donald Barthelme...and even that comparison won’t prepare you for the head-trip that awaits you in these pages. The mundane turned mystical turned metaphysical turned indescribable. This is a genuinely one-of-a-kind trip, and one you won’t want to miss.
" —Gary A. Braunbeck, Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-winner, author of Prodigal Blues, Destinations Unknown, and Mr.
Hands
"None of the usual accolades work for Jeremy Shipp’s Vacation. The reader is not amazed, astounded, or aggrieved - the reader is achingly curious, alarmingly moved, and at the end, astonished by the vision and darkness and redemption. No one writes like Shipp, and that’s a great thing.
" —Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales
"I’m convinced Jeremy Shipp is a little bit crazy, in the best possible way. Vacation is edgy, surreal, and original. This is one of those books that alters your brain in a way similar to Philip K. Dick. A very good first novel.
" —Jeff VanderMeer, author of City of Saints & Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword
"I don’t think there has been a more aptly titled book in recent memory than Jeremy Shipp’s Vacation. This sprawling psychological pseudo-fantastical surrealistic mind-trip of an adventure story demands that you step out--far, far, far out--of your comfort zone, and embrace the possibilities of a universe that may be a dream, a nightmare, or just wishful thinking. Vacation is a headfirst dive into the rabbit hole, assuming those rabbits lined their burrow with mirrors, because as bizarre as this novel ultimately appears to be on the surface, there’s very little here that we won’t find in ourselves, assuming we’re brave enough, and know how and where, to look. For now, we will have to content ourselves with author Shipp’s efforts to do that very thing on our behalf.
" —Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Currency of Souls, The Turtle Boy, and The Hides
"Vacation is a potent social theory, a spiritual hopscotch from start to finish. With interesting scenarios and thought-provoking dialog, it is a compelling reason for fans of psychological fantasy to look up Jeremy Shipp.
" —Jesse Gordon, author of The Reformed Citizen
"Jeremy Shipp delivers a first novel that is surprisingly readable and thought-provoking; one worthy of being included in a college course on dystopian fiction.
" —Dru Pagliassotti, The Harrow
"Vacation is a wild romp through the fertile imagination of Jeremy Shipp.
" —Bradley Sands, author of It Came from Below the Belt
"Vacation is a bold experiment in science fiction themes that pulls few punches, recalling the works of Burroughs and Ellison, but it has a deeper, more bizarre agenda, one that may be up to each reader who experiences it to decypher for his or herself. It starts at full-blast, then like some fever-dream cartoon freak-out, blows through the roof. In a genre filled with so many safe ideas and easy solutions, what Jeremy Shipp has done stands alone . . . or at least stands in rare, bizarre company.
" —Stephen Romano, author of The Riot Act
"Parts spiritual, psychological, and scatological, Shipp’s debut novel is a fast, blistering roller-coaster of a novel that never ceases to keep the reader running to keep up. Shipp’s "Fight Club"-esque narrative and unusually adept insight into the human psyche make this novel a must read for fans of in-your-face fiction.
The textual incarnation of an exploding rocket! Five stars!" —Ronald Damien Malfi, author of Via Dolorosa
"This is a headtrip worth taking, and a short, fast-paced one at that. There’s something energetic and purposeful about every string of words in here, telling the reader when to stop and go and pause for a minute. You’re in good hands with this writer who gets a lot out of these few words. Some of the bizarre turns of phrase are jarring until the realization sets in that these are the words best suited to the situation. Get your hands on this one now.
" —Horror World Reviews
"Vacation is a diverse, unpredictable, and intelligent read.
Two thumbs up!" —Midwest Book Review
"This is a fun book! It’s gruesome in spots, wildly psychotic sometimes, and yes, irreal, but also fun.
" —Kim McDougall, author of In a Wink
"Readers looking for light horror genre reading may be disappointed at the effort and attention required to explore this brief, yet dense book, but those who accept the challenge will be rewarded with an engrossing ’vacation’ into the world of post-modern, phenomenological, existential, but nonetheless truly enjoyable fiction.
" —Icons of Fright
"It packs a dizzyingly, stomach lurching, punch to the brain...It’s one of the rare books that once I finished it, I started to read it again pretty much straight away.
" —SciFi UK Review
"Some will find it too challenging, much like Mark Z. Danielewski’s The House of Leaves, only a hell of a lot shorter. But for those readers who are seeking something different in the current all too predictable genre fictions, Shipp delivers a vision of strangeness and truth, and a character who could be the everyman in all of us who sometimes find life too complicated and overwhelming. It is easy to feel the author’s confusion and cynicism with the real world, but it’s how he helps Johnson find his own sense of peace by tale’s end that displays the author’s maturity and compassion. I hope to see much more from this fresh voice in literature.
" —Hellnotes
"Jeremy C. Shipp’s Vacation takes you on a wild ride through dreams and puts your smack dab in the middle of a realistic world of underground organizations and corrupt governments. A hoot for anyone seeking a crazy wild mind melt.
" —Dayla Weskamp
"I think ’Vacation’ is a great example of philosophical-bizarro at its best...written by a very smart weirdo.
" —Ash Lomen
"’Vacation’ is so cleverly written and so intelligently unveiled, as Jeremy Shipp punctures the line between dream and madness so vividly, you aren’t sure which direction he is coming from. You do know you have gladly woken up on the side of his pen that surely wrote this tale before his feet hit the floor in the mornings.
" —Stephanie Curry
"Vacation is a surreal jaunt skittering across the calm surface of social norms (on an ocean that certainly doesn’t exist) hellbent on splashing waves of ever-disturbing rings disrupting the way one thinks: As if you could still think for yourself. And it deserves a fast read. Except that one might miss out on a rather grand experience that begs to be savored like an aged box wine. Read it like your life depended upon it. Then read it again; you’ll be both happy and uncomfortable that you did.
" —Keith Dugger
"If you were to throw William Burroughs, Harlan Ellison, Phil Jose Farmer and Philip K. Dick into a blender, Vacation would be the result. Smartly written, Vacation tells the story of one man’s journey. To say more than that is to take away the surprise and pleasure of seeing what happens next. And despite being a short 154 or so pages, Vacation packs more inventiveness, thought, and emotion than many books 5 times its size. A definite must have from an author I will now surely follow.
" —Scott Colbert
"Jeremy Shipp’s Vacation takes you places you didn’t intend to go. Once there, any psychological discomfort you may feel is quickly forgotten as you throw on your Bermuda shorts, black socks and open-toed sandals. Tour this bizarre vacation destination; you just might question your answers. Vacation’s an intelligent read that deserves a second go ’round, just to see what you missed the first time. Don’t miss the plane for this trip.
" —Sue Mattson
A review by Jesse Gordon
The world has, since the inception--intentional or otherwise--of humankind, always been a dubious plane of existence. You’d be hard-pressed to find an author, poet, artist, musician, politician, holy man, or everyman who has never spoken out concerning the human condition, from the tiniest fib to the most horrific act of genocide. Newspaper columnists, Sunday preachers, eastern philosophers all dissect the meaning of life in their various fashions--but Jeremy Shipp’s Vacation, a first-person tour de force that takes place in an alternate universe and/or future-in-the-making, actually takes the human condition and turns it inside out.
On the surface, Vacation is about a disgruntled English teacher named Bernard Johnson who goes on Vacation (yes, proper capitalization) with an ex-student, once-male, now-female friend and discovers the world is not what he initially thought it to be.
Okay. Simple enough premise--you see it all the time in various forms of literature (well, maybe without the sex change). Peel away that superficial layer, though, and you soon find yourself entangled in a labyrinth of spiritual testing and social commentary unflinchingly portrayed by Shipp’s characters. In this world, society exists in two major flavors: the Tics and the Meeks, the former being the well-to-dos of the industrialized nations, the latter being the poor, the exiled. Using this metaphor, it quickly becomes obvious the Tics are our own pop culture, the pill-popping, credit-card-wielding, overfed, and over-stimulated masses who have been shielded from the terrible truths of the world in a sort of global propaganda scheme to bolster big business. The Meeks are, well, everyone else--a grassroots conglomerate of militants who have cleansed their bodies and minds of all social poisons. Somewhere in between is the Garden, an external haven lead by Noh, who seeks to seed truth back into the world, one mind at a time.
Bernard’s adventure plays out in the classic escapist fashion--on crack. Indeed, much of his transformation has to do with the altering of his mind, the skewering of his perspective, so that he may glimpse the dream he’s been living from the outside. He goes on Vacation, falls in love, becomes a tool for the Meeks, and ultimately helps to realize Noh’s vision of social revolution--but don’t expect any of this to be A-B-C, for the strength of Shipp’s narrative lies in his ability to toss the ball to his characters and trust that their decisions, their reactions will guide the story true. The underlying meaning is present throughout, but it is quite obvious from the start that you, the reader, are just as responsible as Bernard in coming to your own conclusions.
Shipp’s style in Vacation demands an agile approach, as various scenes shift seamlessly between dreams and reality--often without warning. I’m reminded of S.P. Somtow’s Riverrun Trilogy: one quarter real, three quarters surreal. Considering the concept, I can’t imagine it any other way.
Vacation is a potent social theory, a spiritual hopscotch from start to finish. With interesting scenarios and thought-provoking dialog, it is a compelling reason for fans of psychological fantasy to look up Jeremy Shipp.
In late December of 2005 I was urged by Boyd Harris to join a group called +The Horror Library+. It was a workshop office where folks would posts their stories and other folks would read them and give you their input on what you’ve written. At Boyd’s urging, I joined the HL group and my writing life changed drastically.
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Now, I know this sounds like a lead in to a NiNe QuestioNs with Boyd Harris, but it is not. In my first couple of days perusing +The Horror Library+ office, I noticed several stories and immediately took to reading them. The very first story I read was one Called Momma’s Shadow. It was by Mark Deloy. After reading this story, I seriously considered giving writing up. Yes, a travesty, I know. I shook my head in disbelief and actually told myself, "These people are so far ahead of me. I’m way out of my league, here."
I reread the story and was completely blown away the second time around. I really felt like I was not worthy to give him my meager thoughts on this story. From that point on, whenever Mark posted a story for review, I’ve read them and gained a bit of confidence with my reviewing skills.
Since that first story back in December of 2005, I have come to know Mark very well. I even worked on a story collaboration with him that will hopefully be put out later this year or early next year. Ah, but that is for another day. For today, I want to introduce you to my good friend, Mark Deloy.
At the time of this interview, I learned something about Mark that I thought was really cool. To quote him, if I may be so bold:
"I print out all my covers on super glossy, frame them and put them on my brag wall. The result is pretty cool."
This made me think of how I have a copy of each story I’ve had published in notebooks, in order of publishing date. It’s not that it’s vane or anything like that. It’s motivation and it shows how proud Mark is to have been able to get his work in these publications. I’m strongly considering doing the same thing—when I have some covers to use, that is.
Having said all of that, Mark Deloy, I have NiNe QuestioNs for you.
AJ: First off, Mark, let me say it has been a pleasure working with you on a lot of things over the last year and a half. I will admit that I have become a fan of yours, but not just because of your writing style, but because of your ideas. Where do your ideas for stories come from?
Mark: Right back at you. You’ve been one of my favorite people on the HL and it’s been a blast working on the novella with you.
My ideas usually come from something I see. I’m a very visual person and I guess that’s why I’m a big movie buff. Most of the time ideas come from things I spot while driving, other times it’s just something inside me that clicks when someone says something. The idea for Momma’s Shadow came from a graveyard I see whenever my family and I travel to my wife’s parent’s house. The cemetery is right near the road in someone’s front yard. I wondered what it would be like to grow up with a cemetery in your front yard.
AJ:Stephen King has been a large influence on a lot of us in the horror genre. King is a story teller. I look at you in the same vein—a story teller who focuses on giving the readers a good story. Has King been an influence on, not only your and why you started writing horror, but on your style and why you write the way you do?
Mark:Stephen King’s ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />PetCemetery was the first "Adult" book I read and finished. I was ten, I think. I was hooked from then on. I try to keep my stories and novels as straight forward as possible. I tend to write in a very linear style that people seem to enjoy. I believe Brian Keene writes this way as well. I tend to gravitate towards these types of stories in my pleasure reading, so naturally, I use the same style. I think the reason many people put a book down after the first 50 pages or so is because they really don’t get what’s going on right away and many don’t feel like it’s worth their time to figure it out. I’ve always done the same thing. I’m a very picky reader and go through about fifty books a month, perhaps finishing ten of them. I try to write so that whoever picks up one of my books would not be able to put it down.
AJ: The Lightning Journal was your brain trust a couple of years ago. You have since relinquished the reigns to Lincoln Crisler, to focus on other things. Why did you start The Lightning Journal and do you have an appreciation for editors and publishers after working on the e-magazine for a couple of years?
Mark: The Lightning Journal started as a way for me to give new writer’s a way to hone their craft and get their stories published with an e-zine that offered more than black backgrounds and no individuality. I saw promise in many of the stories which were submitted and worked at getting them to a publishable level. I totally have respect for the people who edit magazines and e-zines, especially the ones who do so out of love for the genre. It’s hard work and takes up a huge amount of time. All I can say is good luck and have fun with it.
AJ: You are a member of +The Horror Library+ and a former Terrible Twelve. How did you become a T12 member and, more importantly, how was that experience for you?
Mark: I became a member of the T-12 after getting a few of my short stories published in various magazines, but I still felt no connection to the genre. I had no friends who wrote and I basically knew no one who even liked horror. I e-mailed R.J. after doing exhaustive searches for horror magazines to submit to online and although I found his submission process unorthodox, I decided to enter Zoetrope and submit a story. I put Summerfood up and hoped it was up to snuff. I got a few great reviews, many of them positive. The slushpile was a bit different back then, you posted stories that you wanted to be considered and then they went against two other stories and one was picked as the final winner. Summerfood was picked as the winner. The next month I submitted another story and that was picked as well. I started hanging out in the HL office and got to know a few people and eventually asked Boyd how to become a contributing writer. From there, I moved up to one of the T-12. It was one of my happiest writing/horror memories.
AJ: You have one novel in circulation, The Ghosts of Silence. Can you tell us a little about it and where we can find it?
Mark: Sure. The Ghosts of Silence mixes genres. It’s a supernatural detective/Horror tale set in 1930’s Tennessee. I got the idea from a forward that Thomas Harris wrote in one of his editions of The Silence of the Lambs. He talked about how when he was ready to write The Red Dragon, he went back to his home-town and rented a cabin in the middle of a huge wheat field. At night as he was imagining the character of Hanibal Lecter, he would hear feral dogs howling near the edge of the field. That was all it took for me, I had that cabin implanted in my head, feral dogs and all. I imagined what else might have gone on in that cabin and who may have lived there. I wondered how evil evil could be and how it became that way. The result was The Ghosts of Silence. I tried to pay homage to Harris in the title.
The premise behind The Ghosts of Silence is: a killer is hunting young girls in Lebanon, TN, taking their heads and leaving their bodies in ditches and along dusty country roads like demented road signs. The Sheriff of the town is overwhelmed and turns to an old friend for help, an old black Doctor named Benjamin "Bones" Dyer. Dyer, in his youth, could see ghosts, it’s a talent that has long since faded, but as he travels south to help his friend, his gift is returning and growing stronger than ever.
The Ghosts of Silence can be purchased on Amazon.com or Barns and Noble.com. There were copies floating around on E-bay at one time too.
AJ:You’ve sent your second novel, Life Suspended, out to try and get it published. How is that going?
Pretty slowly. This novel is purely a psychological thriller, which I’m finding is a hard genre to crack. Currently it’s with Christina Hogrebe and she’s had it for about two months. She deals with thrillers mostly, so I’m hoping that she’ll pick it up and get it published by a major publishing house. I’ve let people read it and they’ve said they couldn’t put it down, so I’m taking that for a good sign. - Note: Life Suspended has since been published by Dark Recesses Press
Life Suspended is based around the idea that you’re basically the same person you were when you were a child. In this book a killer is hanging people from trees and leaving them to be found by passers by. Three children encounter the Hangman and escape, but one is tortured and haunted by the encounter into adulthood. Then the novel flashes forward 20 years. Two of the children remained in town, one left but returns as the killings are starting up again. They reunite and relive their childhood fears while tracking down the madman who stole their innocence.
AJ: You let me take a peek at the beginning of your third novel. Can you tell us about it without giving too much away?
Mark: Ha, that’s the key. I’ll just say it’s a zombie novel with a twist. Here’s a hint, imagine the first fifteen minutes of The Dawn of The Dead remake, particularly the fast zombie little girl scene, going on for a whole novel.
I’m hoping it will be so unique and different that it’ll be the next Rising and will change the way people think of zombies and how much compassion they have for them.
AJ:I’ve also been one of those folks that have been fortunate enough to get my hands on 18 Wheels of Hell. It is a very enjoyable story, well worth the time to read it. It has taken a while to get this story out there but it looks like it is finally going to be published. Can you walk us through the trials and tribulations of 18 Wheels of Hell?
Mark:Sure, 18 Wheels of Hell was written specifically for Butcher Shop Quartet Vol 1. Boyd read it, said he enjoyed it, but said it moved a bit too fast for the BSQ. He wanted stories the built up gradually at a slow pace then hammered everything home. I could understand that, especially when I read the finished book. He’s found the perfect stories for that book, each one a tension filled masterwork. But, 18 Wheels of Hell starts out like..well an 18 wheeler filled with bodies, driven by a demon, barrel-assing down a hellish interstate, which is mostly what it’s about. So I had to find a different market for it. I just had one of my short stories accepted to the now defunct Meatgrinder Press. The editor asked if I had any novella’s to submit because he was planning on publishing several illustrated chapbooks. I told him I had just the thing. He emailed me back soon thereafter saying he loved it and would be speaking with Stephen Hurtack to do the illustrations. Everything came out great, but Meatgrinder folded before the finished product came out. So 18 Wheels… sat for another year and a half until I saw that C.D. Allen was looking for novellas for his new book, Dark Distortions. I subbed 18 Wheels of Hell and he accepted it. I’m really looking forward to this coming out, C.D. is super talented and has his own novella coming out as well, titled The Rector House, which I’ve read and totally loved.
AJ: You’ve stepped down from the Terrible Twelve to focus on writing novels and short stories. So, I’m guessing you have a few goals set for yourself. What are they and can we expect to see Mark Deloy’s name in lights in the future?
Mark: Yes, I stepped down, but Bailey, R.J. and the crew have graciously allowed me to continue hanging out with them in the T-12 office. My goals for 2007 are to get Life Suspended published by a major house and to finish the zombie novel which has no title as of right now. I also have set a goal which was nearly accomplished by a good friend of mine, (Fran Friel). I want a Stoker. I want to hold that freakin’ haunted house in my hand on stage in front of my literary idols and know that something I wrote got me there.
AJ:For a small tastes of Mark’s writing, he has graciously let me post this excerpt from Grief is a Storm Colored Egg.
"Cooper! You up there?" Ronald called, looking up at the weathered boards.
"Yeah, c’mon up," Cooper said, poking his head out of a small window.
Ronald started to reach for the rope ladder, but then stopped himself.
"Is everything alright up there? I saw blood."
"Yeah, everything is fine. C’mon up," he repeated.
Ronald climbed the rope ladder. When he was almost at the top, he could smell something thick and coppery, something dead.
He tried to climb back down but a large, blood smeared hand reached down out of the trap door, seized his shirt and pulled him up.
Ronald was thrown against the far wall with such force that his teeth rattled and the tree house shook. The smell of decay was stronger now. He gagged and looked around the small room.
There was blood everywhere. A cat’s head sat in the lawn chair, staring at him with its yellow eyes. Its skeleton had been picked clean and tossed into the corner. There was another pile of bones stacked next to the board games near the wall. Cooper sat in the other lawn chair petting the feline’s severed head. He had a great jolly smile on his face.
Cooper’s father was crouching in another corner feeding on a woman who had been cut in half. He was eating her intestines as if they were plump sausages. Her head lobbed to one side and there was a huge chunk of meat missing from her neck. Her eyes showed only whites and her mouth hung open like a cave. She was naked. Her breasts were slathered with ichor and grime.
Ronald stared, refusing to believe what he was seeing. His stomach flipped again, ready to expel its contents.
Cooper rose from his chair, walked over to Ronald and put his hand on his friend’s shaking shoulder.
"The cats and dogs just weren’t enough. Dad said that he needed something bigger so that he could develop. Mom was just what he needed."
"I’m a growin’ boy," the Dad-thing said around a mouth full of guts.
Cooper led Ronald over to a covered object near the window. It was the milk crate that his comics had been in. Cooper uncovered the crate. Inside, was another egg, this one was sky blue in color and swirled in a silent storm under the shell.
"Dad says that Mom will be even better when she comes back. You should stay for dinner. I’ll bet she’ll be starving when she hatches."
Mark, unlike so many people in this world, has been pretty giving of his time and resources. As talented a writer as he is, he is also a very good person. I’ve been very fortunate enough to have worked with him on a novella tentatively titled The Harris House. But, for Mark, he’s just reached the tip of the iceberg of his talents. As the next couple of years roll on, you’ll be seeing his name more regularly. Jump on the wagon now—later there may not be enough room for you to have a seat.
Be sure to check out the rest of the story for free at the link above.
The cobblestone driveway which led up to Elizabeth's family home appeared as a shadowed, bloody tunnel. Red maple trees lined the cobblestone way like crimson guards standing at attention. In a cul-de-sac, just before the house, was a dry fountain lined with dead, but colorful leaves.
They parked in the front and mounted the nineteen cracked, granite steps. Daniel, Elizabeth's husband, struggled with the luggage, but managed to get the suitcases up to the wide slab of marble which served as a front porch.
He opened the door to Elizabeth's late grandmother's house. The scent of mildew and roses flowed past them like a wave. They entered the house and marveled at their new home.
Their echoed footsteps followed them as they walked through the entrance hall into a vast dining room. A chandelier hung over the room like a crystalline bat from a tin-plated ceiling, and there was an oval-shaped spot on the floor, darker than the rest of the hardwood where a table had once been.
"This house is amazing," Daniel said. "How long did your grandmother live here?"
"As long as I can remember. We used to take a trip out here every summer and spend a week. I used to love playing hide and seek in these rooms with my imaginary friend."
"And what was your friend's name?"
"Cecile. He was a little boy about my age. God, I can still remember him. It's like he was real."
"I just had a Cabbage Patch Kid. Simon William Braddlebunk or something of that sort."
That got Elizabeth laughing. It had been forever since she'd heard herself laugh and was surprised by the richness of it, the sincerity of it. Even now, nine months later, it seemed cruel to be laughing when her son, Corey was deep in the cold ground. She stopped. Daniel saw exactly what she was thinking.
"Liz. Corey would have wanted you to go on. That's why we're here, right? To get a new start?"
The demon rolled down the four-lane highway in a big mother of a rig, full of power and pain, searching for his next victim. He lived for the hunt. Mortals were such easy prey.
He knew he would be pursued, hunted, by an angel and a madman. He put his foot to the floor. There was no time to lose. He watched the speedometer bear on toward 80 relentlessly. When the eighteen-wheeler passed cars and other rigs, their passengers felt the heat coming off his truck in waves of stinking despair.
***
John stepped on the accelerator, bringing his car up to sixty in a forty five. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his guts. It was the same kind of feeling he'd had when his wife died, four years ago.
He was due to pick up his daughter at her school. She was scheduled to get out for spring break today. He'd been trying to call her for the past three hours on her cell phone. Her voicemail was now full and had stopped taking messages.
God knew things hadn't been easy since Marcy died. Sara had been a handful before, but after the accident, she'd retreated inside of herself, rarely letting anyone, especially her father, in. She was a brilliant child and had even skipped a grade in high school but John thought she lacked the social skills to be a well rounded adult. He walked a thin line between trying to give her space and letting her know that he was there for her. When she came to him and told him that she was going to college out of state, he thought his heart would crumble in his chest.
"Dad," Sara had pleaded. "It's just three hours away. I could come home almost every weekend."
"There are plenty of great schools, right here. Besides, the extra money for living on campus is just going to be too much." "I'll get a job. It won't be so bad."
"Are you sure you're not just running away, from me, from your mother?"
"Mom's gone, Dad. I love her and I miss her just as much as you, but I think this is going to good for both of us."
Sara had a way of bringing you over to her side in an argument, just like her mother. It was endearing and infuriating at the same time. She had the same sly, knowing look in her blue eyes that Marcie had held in her brown eyes. The look told you everything may not be how you liked it, but in the end, it would be alright.
John sighed and shook his head. "Do you promise to come home at least once a month?"
Sara's squeal echoed through the house.
"Thank you, Daddy. Thank you. You won't regret it. I promise."
As school progressed, Sara had made it home less and less, first citing assignments, then a busy social calendar. John understood, but he missed his daughter's company. The old house felt hollow and cold without a woman's energy. When Sara called last week and told him that she was coming home for spring break instead of going to Daytona with her friends, John had been thrilled. He thought of all the catching up they would do. She seemed just as excited as he was and sounded homesick and lonely over the phone. John supposed the first year at college could do that to you. He'd never gotten along with his own parents and had been glad to be out of their house when he turned eighteen. He'd vowed to work hard at maintaining a relationship with his own kids and he thought that he did a pretty good job of that with Sara.
Now as he approached the school, panic set in, and he tried hard to control his fear. He had never considered himself to be psychic, but the gnawing feeling that something was desperately, terribly, wrong, would not leave him.
John pulled up in front of the school and saw the police cars lined six deep in front of the girl's dorm. He took the stairs three at a time, desperation pushing into the small spaces of his mind. As he reached the top of the stairs and knew his worst fears had come true.
"Can I help you?" a uniformed officer said as he put out a large hand to keep John from entering his daughter's room.
"Where's my daughter!" John demanded. "Where's Sara?"
"Sara Riley is your daughter?"
"Yes."
"Sarge!" the officer yelled over his shoulder. "The girl's father is here."
A cop in a suit came around the corner. John could see Heather, Sara's roommate, sitting on her bed crying. He could smell his daughter's sweet aroma wafting out of the dorm room. A smell which had always given him joy now made his stomach do a sick flip.
"Mr. Riley?"
"Yes."
"I'm Sergeant Grimes. We have reason to believe your daughter has been abducted. We're not sure—"
"Abducted! By who?"
"We're really don't know yet," he said. "Her roommate says she saw who did it, but she may be in shock right now. We're going to take her downtown. You'll need to come, too."
"Sure," John said. He was in a daze. Who would have done this? His mind spun through ex-boyfriends, teachers, or some random sicko with a fetish for seventeen-year-old girls. The truth ended up being even worse than he could imagine.
My Novella, 18 wheels of Hell is included in the massive volume called Dark Distortions from Scotopia Press.
18 wheels of hell is a dark, dangerous ride across a wasteland America infected by zombies demons and other assorted creatures from Hell.
When a girl is kidnapped by a demon, a father must cast disbelief aside and join forces with his daughter's guardian angel to get her back.
From the publisher:
Dark Distortions is a concept anthology that left its authors without a concept. It contains a diverse collection of dark fiction in a variety of styles. Frustrated by the narrow interpretation of many anth- ologies, Dark Distortions has chosen to include a taste for all palates that savor the dark. You will find poetry and flash fiction for the moments of whim, as well as short stories and novellas when the reader wishes a longer illusion. We have also combed the un- derworlds to bring to light a couple of promising young authors in our Featured Young Artists section. Blind in new territory, the first edition of Dark Distortions invites you into our cherished darkness.
Dark Distortions Volume 1
Over 580 pages of dark delights...
$21.95 + Shipping & Handling 7.5% Tax for Nebraska Buyers
Pre-Order Now! Receive your copy signed by the editors! Ships March 20th, 2008.
