M. Duda's Blog: The Cryo-Freeze II - Posts Tagged "m-duda"

There are two charming book formats that have held a spell over me for years: Big Little Books and the Little Golden Books series. While the two book types have different audiences, their formats appeal to me because of a similar characteristic–compact, illustrated text about fantastical characters and events. I’m not saying the two book series are identical–they’re not. The format and stories aren’t the same. Little Golden Books’ trim at about 7 inches by 8 inches, have art on every page, and contain short stories that are usually no longer than 25 pages, stories that are mostly fables, a poky puppy teaching young readers a lesson. Big Little Books were trimmed at about 3.5 inches by 4.5 inches and tell stories that are grittier and read more like a comic. The number of illustrations are more limited and usually on side recto (the right side) of the Big Little Book’s leaf. As a young reader, while growing up, I became interested in both fables and comics; therefore, both formats–Big Little Books and Little Golden Books– helped develop and maintain my interest in reading and writing.

Being thankful for these two book formats’ inspiration, I wanted to honor both series in my own way. (Technically, Big Little Books may be considered an imprint, not a series.) Bedtime for Seneca is my way of showing gratitude, although this book’s stories are tragic. Taking the idea of grittier elements and the limited number of illustrations from Big Little Books, combining this idea with the compactness of Little Golden Books, the result is a Shadow Book.

Now, Bedtime for Seneca is nothing like a Little Golden Book–my stories are dark and intended for older readers; but Bedtime for Seneca is a sort of compact, bedtime fable read. So I hope expectant readers manage their…expectations. This book will take you into darker places, but you won’t be accompanied by friendly creatures, unfortunately. I encourage interested readers to obtain a Kindle version on the book’s release, first, seeing for yourself if you enjoy this somewhat experimental form, before picking up a print copy. (Don’t get me wrong, I love print books.)

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with Shadow Books just yet. I’d like to develop this idea into an ongoing series or tie the stories into a much larger work. Regardless, I do hope you enjoy Bedtime for Seneca, the stories, and the book’s format. I hope it all charms you like I’ve been charmed by so many other books–or, at least, my book keeps you interested until the final page.

M. Duda

The excerpt is available to read. It's not in the soon-to-release book format; so, I don't like the excerpt. But it will let you peak inside the book--that's fair.

Getting Bedtime for Seneca to published print happened quicker than I expected. It officially released March 16. But the early release won't change the book giveaway. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

I lean back, sip coffee, and watch the rain beat down an empty cardboard box sagging outdoors. The movers left Monday and I scan the boxes still stacked inside my office. I’ve got to unpack this stuff.

Brown, elastic tape wraps over and around each folded corrugated top. A knife or scissors could cut through this chaos and I’d find a home for whatever’s packed inside. Probably lots of items tightly wrapped in paper.

My cat strolls in and lounges onto my lap. She purrs, saying, “What’s the rush?” I scratch her ear and her love motor cruises into a slow second gear. I sip more coffee and watch rain beat down that cardboard box.

-M. Duda

I pushed my legs to pump harder, like an overworked crankshaft. Behind me, the beast ripped out three more trees but never slowed down. I didn’t want to die alone and in so deep a jungle.

Two more palms crashed and splintered. A roar and hot breath filled the air. I smelled a red-eyed death that chased me. I smelled my own terror and piss. I jolted left.

Red stone buildings rose above the brush and trees. Sentinel-like walls surrounded and protected a nearby ancient city. A gnarled iron gate opened and a withered man stepped out. He smiled as I ran toward him. “Why the hurry, young man?” he said. I struggled to say something. To breath. He dismissed me with a hand gesture and mumbled. The jungle hushed.

Panting and sweating, I turned around and gawked. A surrounding thicket of smashing chaos was now just nesting birds murmuring somewhere within a calm Amazon. The creature that hunted me had vanished. Everything went black and my legs buckled.

-M. Duda

I woke, and the first sight my wide eyes rested on was her beautiful face.

She touched me tenderly.

Her almond-colored eyes studied me as she gently pressed a moist cloth to my thirsty mouth. She smiled when I tried to sit up, and her full, red lips playfully scolded me when my head dropped back onto a soft pillow. Her delicate fingers rubbed my temples, my face, and a fresh scar that ran down my neck. I wanted to hold her in my arms and smell her.

I wanted to kiss her.

“You’ve met my father,” she said.

I glanced around the room. Strange symbols marked the clay plaster walls. There was no other furniture except for the large bed I lay on. We were alone.

“Some creature almost tore me apart,” I said. She laughed. Her voice sounded like wind chimes. My skin tingled. "You should have been there.”

She made a low, “Tut-tut.”

“My father said that you passed out in his arms. Such a brave adventurer,” she said.

I smiled. “You must not think highly of me, then.”

She smiled back.

“I don’t think anything of you. For now,” she said.

“Tell me your name.”

Outside the open window, the golden sun suddenly sank, quickly casting shadows inside the room.

She stood up.

In the dim, I could make out that she was partially naked. Her firm breasts rested high on her petite body. Only an animal skin covered her loins.

“Please, don’t go,” I said.

“You have many questions. Maybe I can answer them later, brave adventurer. Maybe.”

And she quietly left the room.

The room grew dark. My body and my eyes grew heavy. I would soon fall asleep and dream of the beautiful woman who playfully scolded me.

-M. Duda

Author’s note: This is a continuation from “A Strange Encounter.”

The clay-plastered bedroom seem to be filled with an unnerving air. My eyelids lifted and my pupils focused. A light wind passed through a nearby window, riling gauze curtains into a twisting dance. A tapping noise sounded somewhere outside the closed room’s door. When I sat up, the symbols that marked the four walls faded into the wall itself.

Perhaps, the vanishing symbols were a trick of the late afternoon sun. I frowned.

“Your brave adventurer is awake,” I said to no one. And no one answered me. The tapping noise continued.

I pushed up from the bed. My naked body still ached as I stood up: Several deep cuts caused by the encounter with the jungle beast had not fully healed. I wobbled for a second and my feet protested about the cold stone floor. But I maintained my balance and hobbled over to the wall with the bedroom door.

The symbols had vanished. I rubbed my hand along the wall’s surface, only feeling gritty clay.

The tapping outside continued: tap-tap-tap. It was coming from just outside.

“Is that you? Are you teasing me?” I said. I smiled as if someone on the other side might know that I meant no harm in my questions.

The only response was the repeating blows. A light, metallic sound struck about every second.

I looked around the useless room. There was no tray of food left here for me. There was no dresser that could hold the clothes I had been wearing. There was only a bed with rumpled sheets. I’d have to leave these four walls if I was to find some personal attire and something to eat.

I frowned, again. But I worked up the nerve to open the door. Just outside in the hall and resting on a display table, it was the most grotesque thing I had ever seen.

A gilded beast statuette coupled with a silver woman bearing ruby eyes. A forked tongue licked her long neck. His claws sank into her back and arms. An enormous erection thrust into her, again and again. Tap-tap-tap. But instead of appearing terrified, the woman's mouth opened wide into a moaning ecstasy.

In front of this disturbing artwork’s base, a placard stood folded. “For you,” was written in black ink. I swallowed hard, but I looked down and spotted some clothes resting by the table’s legs. I lifted my head and reached for the placard, hoping to see if anything else was written on the stiff, cream-colored paper.

The gilded beast stopped moving.

-M. Duda

Author’s note: This is a continuation of “The Beautiful Creature.”

At least twenty rooms in this unoccupied “palace” sat silent and dark. Silver plates of moldering food waited on bedside tables for unseen ghosts to return to unfinished meals. A yellowing bust of a crowned man rested on a hallway pedestal, empty eyes gazing at nothingness. My bare feet pattered on marble tiles and violated a vacant waiting room. Layers of dust stirred as I ventured into a nursery that hosted several empty cribs. The silence and emptiness almost seemed alive.

Except for the old man and the beautiful woman I had met earlier, no one resided here. The place was like a tomb without the obvious sepulchers and sarcophagi. That made the empty rooms even more unnerving, as if some sort of life could reside here.

I’d explore for a short while longer before giving up. But there were no clocks anywhere, and I couldn’t tell how much time passed. Should I just leave? Did that beast that almost killed me still wait in the jungle? I wasn’t sure of anything. I began searching for an exit when a flickering light down another hallway caught my eye.

I peered around a carved door frame.

The study contained several wood shelves of large tomes. Symbols, like the ones on my bedroom wall and elsewhere, marked the wide leather bindings. Bottles, desiccators, and cylinders littered a corner bench. A padlocked box sat in some sort of ornate cage. Several clay cups of wax and burning wicks cast dancing shadows on the walls and a seated figure.

It was the old man that had greeted me at the city gates. He hunched in a leather chair, staring at the wall and babbling nonsense to himself, “Was it right? Should I have? Of course, I should have.” His withered fingers tightly clutched something in his right hand.

“I should thank you for saving me,” I said.

He cocked his ear as if straining to hear something subtle. He leaned forward, looking away from me, staring at an empty wall.

“I should thank you, great king. I’m humbled,” he said.

I shook my head.

“My name is Lanning Chebb. A beast nearly killed me. By the city gates. Do you remember?”

He chuckled, throaty and dry.

“Do not be so modest, great king. I wait for the call.”

“Don’t you remember the beast? I was on an expedition. It killed everyone but me.”

“Are you testing me, great king? I still wait for T’hal Kyun.”

The words T’hal Kyun froze my body and stopped my breath for a moment, opening the scab of my wounded memory of my search for a ceremonial relic in a suffocating jungle, how several of us had hacked away at seemingly impossible overgrowth to clear an insignificant path toward some ancient and still undiscovered archaeological site and stinging insects devoured our blood for weeks and one man died of sickness along the way but we failed to find the key of T’hal Kyun.

And then that damn beast had appeared.

My nostrils flared. I stomped over to the old man and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“The key of T’hal Kyun. Where is it?”

A disoriented head bobbled as unfocused eyes darted about. His old hands reached out and touched my face. “Oh,” he declared. For the first time since entering this room, the old man looked at me.

“You are not the king,” he said.

“The key. Where is the key of T’hal Kyun?”

He smiled.

“Key? Here is a key, Unk’yr.”

He opened my palm and placed in it a metal object that he had been gripping. The metal instrument was scored and weathered. A three headed creature formed the bow of the key. Engraved tentacles covered the shaft. Two jagged bits ended the tip like fangs.

The old man stood up and pushed me away, surprisingly strong. He walked to the room entrance and turned to me.

“Unk’yr, you will soon find what you are looking for.”

He laughed and then he was gone.

-M. Duda

Is it wrong to bring the dead back to life? I still wasn’t sure. From my room’s window, I watched an evolving moon wane behind passing clouds that hid illuminating rays, reflecting.

When first starting on my expedition to restore my deceased wife, Sonia, to find the key of T’hal Kyun, the answer seemed obvious. The other men killed by that brutal jungle beast had thought the search was worth any risk, calling the key, “A supernatural marvel that bridges science to mystical forces.” Each of us had a personal demon that tormented our minds. Randal Sudyam regretted a murder, an act of momentary rage. John Marstent, harmful neglect. My own crime was an accident that had caused a fire. But our burning curiosities were terminated in screams, blood, and gore.

And after two more days of investigations within this palace, the old man’s key didn’t open any doors or locks that revealed eldritch secrets of necromancy. The clouds above pooled into dark masses of ink, hiding all of the moon’s light.

Before questing, I had read numerous texts about ancient gods and the Evil Ones. These writings read like a myth or a legend or the ramblings of a psychotic. T’hal Kyun, a fiery element of loss and regret, had plagued mankind by granting the reversals of misfortune: The dead returned and acted out vengeance against the living who had caused harm. The Evil One was banished into some nameless dimension. His forces of loss and regret were concentrated and captured into a key that could release the dark being from behind a door that patiently waited to be opened. All nonsense. But when more documents surfaced, demonstrating maps to an ancient jungle civilization along with photographs of dated artifacts retrieved from a hidden city, there seemed to be more to the story of the key of T’hal Kyun than just a fantasy conjured up by a madman’s imagination.

I now search to resolve a personal cause. Surely, my quest cannot be a sin against a larger humanity. I am an individual, acting out in a self-interest that only affects myself. Sonia’s face appeared in my mind. I smiled and looked up. The clouds moved aside and I basked in white light.

The tapping sound of that bizarre statuette in the hallway reached my ears. Tap-tap-tap. And a voice rose up from below my window, moaning, “My children. My beloved children.”

I looked down at an open courtyard. The moon revealed several transplanted willows, their sagging leaves seeming desperate to touch the ground. A soft wind disturbed the sallow things. And a shadowy man moved among the dying plants, a gold crown atop a head of grey bristle. He flitted around fungus-covered trunks before vanishing through a closed iron gate.

-M. Duda

There is nothing in this dead palace but ghosts and a madman. Food is seemingly spirited to me on trays. A statuette of a twisted beast haunts me with its perverse tapping. An ancient, babbling man gave me an ornate key that is as cryptic as was his spoken nonsense. Do only phantoms hold answers to simple questions such as, “Where is everyone else within this place? Or this city? What waits just outside this structure’s closed doors?”

Something still eludes me that would set me on a path to discovery. What?

From the kitchen window at the back of this expansive building, I could see a large lychgate that the shadowy man had passed through last night. The iron bars looked heavy, and rust crawled undisturbed over its closing mechanism. Beyond this was a cemetery. And further beyond, I could make out a breach in a high stone barrier that opened up to waiting jungle foliage that prowled like a creature ready to swallow up those who ventured further. Someone could exit this city if they could manage to get through the lychgate. But cruel spikes covered a peaked roof and an inner fence that joined the obstacle at both sides.

I stepped outside among the sallow willows, breathing in the rotting scents of decaying wood and hungry tree fungus.

A lavish mausoleum appeared at the far right of the inner courtyard. Somehow, I had missed the tomb from both my bedroom window and the kitchen’s. Thick marble walls ran rich with blue veins. On decorated supporting columns, symbols carved out in convoluted patterns were gilded in flaking gold and silver leaf, casting dull light that made them appear to swirl in the humid air.

And that’s when I noticed the stone three-headed creature mounted above a locked door that could give entrance inside the burial chamber. I pulled the old man’s key from my pocket. The bow had the same three heads. Approaching the door, I saw raised tentacles that embossed the lock plate as if to swallow the hand of anyone who dared to insert the instrument to reveal what lay inside.

I dared, feeling like I had nothing to lose but jerking my hand away after turning the key. A hidden metal bar scratched against something. Hinges groaned and my stomach churned. I almost jumped back when the door swung open. I couldn’t see anything. My chest tightened as I stepped inside.

Surprising me, a black cloud materialized around me, clinging to me and grabbing at my limbs. Within the dark mass, a hundred faceless voices of both men and women implored. We are needing. We are. We are. They whispered in feverish tones. They cried. Some seemed to mutter. It was as if the inky vapor were alive, given life by the fears and desperation of the dead who still needed to be heard by the living.

The damn thing might kill me. When the cloud forced itself into my nostrils and throat, I choked and fell to my hands and knees. The cloying smell of many decaying bodies filled my nose. I tasted oily sweat and dried blood. I tried to shout at it, What do you need? But the words couldn’t come out. I gagged. As I felt something crawling into my gut, I retched all over the cold stone floor. Black vapor rose from my mouth with a steamy hiss. And then, the voices silenced. The dark mass was gone.

Standing back up on wobbly legs and wiping at watery eyes with trembling hands, my vision slowly focused. The tomb’s interior came to life. Excited by fresh air, large dust particles seemed to move about in a giddy dance before softly falling at my unsteady feet. The walls, a blurry jumble of objects, flowered into solid forms of stone placards of countless names and disturbing murals of smiling people that walked into open graves. And as my eyes finally cleared, a shadowy pyramid that stood tall in the center of the building soon revealed what had become of some of the city’s residents: A mass of twisted and entangled bodies reached up toward the ceiling like some macabre statue that symbolized lost hope. At the top point, a book waited in the clawed hands of one of the bony unfortunates.

I’d have to climb the cadaver pyramid if I would claim the book. There was no ladder, and so I clambered over dried flesh and crunching bone, remembering Sonia’s burned and flaking skin and her silent death grin and her empty eyes and how I cried as I held her limp body and had told her that it had been an accident and how I swore that I would find a way to reunite us. Something cracked and I started to sink into the bodies, but calcified limbs and chest cavities compressed to form a somewhat stable support. After several minutes, I manged to reach the top.

The thick tome was bound in bloodied skin. And burned onto the cover was the word Unk’yr, the same name the old man called me. I snatched the bulky and hideous book from a grinning dead woman. When I did, a click sounded from somewhere.

I looked down and toward the back of the mausoleum. A hidden door opened up to the cemetery beyond the lychgate.

-M. Duda