Geoff North's Blog, page 2

Baby Head - a little something to read before the next novel...

 Baby Head and other disturbing stories is a little collection of flash fiction and short stories I made available on Amazon this morning. These are mostly tales I wrote over the last few years and posted for free on my website. I thought I'd gather them together under one creepy cover and try to reach more readers.

Believe it or not, the Baby Head tale is actually based on a true story. My parents bought an old house in the country when I was a young lad, and a grisly painting of a baby's head was found in one of the small, windowless bedrooms. It was truly a horrific find. The cover of this eBook is not that picture - the real one was much, much more unsettling.  

Strange things happened in that room after the painting was removed. My older brother fell asleep and almost died of asphyxiation when the door became jammed shut. The electric heater inside was set to maximum (even though my brother swears to this day he didn't touch it), and my sister stepped on a six-inch rusty nail that went right through her foot while we were burning the cursed thing. 

It just goes to show that sometimes real-life events can be just as creepy and unbelievable as some of the fiction we read. A part of me wishes we'd saved the picture so I could share it with all of you....Nah, that would be too cruel. Baby Head is gone, and all I have left is the memory. Thank Heavens.

CRYERS - Part Four: Rites available April 24th

That time of year when men are pitted against each other in fights to the death is near. Lawson has been chosen to represent Burn as its champion in the ultimate event. The lawman is in no shape to challenge anyone. He's been beaten, bruised, and broken by the unforgiving and vengeful Lode. And just hours before the main event is set to take place Lawson discovers another secret from his past - a secret that will change everything.

But Lothair Eichberg and his dysfunctional family of Cryers are still making their way across the roller-infested plains, and through the dangerous forests of the Dirty Hills. These frozen survivors from the 21st century will have a say in how events unfold in the 31st century.

Grab your seat in the pit. The Rites are about to begin.

CRYERS - Part Four: Rites will be available for download on April 24th through Amazon, Kobo, and Google Play Store.

CRYERS - Part One: Thawed is now FREE on Amazon!

CRYERS - Part One: Thawed is now free on Amazon!

Yup, I just repeated the headline, but this is big news for me - and you! Click here or on the cover, head on over to Amazon, and download your free copy today!


Cobe sat in the dirt and Willem joined him. The boys remained silent and listened to the lawman tell them what the world was like. Trot stroked Dust’s coarse hair, watching and listening as well.

“There’s what you might call ‘remnants’ of an older town beyond them other shit holes. No one lives there anymore, but something tells me you could. It ain’t like the old days, when freaks and howlers claimed everything. This town is so old it ain’t got a name no more. But it was big at one time—maybe bigger than all the land between Burn and Rudd put together.”

Willem made a noise of disbelief with his lips that sounded like a fart.

“Ain’t no town that big,” Cobe said. “There never was that many people in the whole world that could’ve filled it.”

Lawson shrugged. “Not so sure about that. You put all the people, howlers, and rollers in one place at the same time. Who knows, maybe it would’ve been enough.”

“Howlers and rollers ain’t people,” Willem said. “They don’t live together.”

“Not anymore. But from what I’ve seen, I get the impression howlers and rollers—and all them other freaks you kids don’t know nothin’ about—may have been more like us. I suspect we all lived together in these bigger towns. They were called cities back then.”

Around 10 hours left to get Live it Again FREE

The promotion on Amazon has done well! Thank you to all for picking up Live it Again during its 2 day free run!

There are about ten hours left remaining, so if you haven't picked a copy up yet, head on over to Amazon and do so.

Live it Again - FREE on Amazon

The paperback version will be available next week for $9.99, and it looks great!

And for everyone wondering where part 3 of CRYERS is, fear not! I'm putting the finishing touches to it in the next few days and will have it off to the editor shortly after. It will be available for download in March.

Get Live it Again for FREE on March 11 and 12

The paperback version of Live it Again will be available for $9.99 later this month. To celebrate (and to make more readers aware) the Kindle version will be available on Amazon March 11th and 12th for free!

Tell your friends, spread the word. Download for free, and read Live it Again! And if you like the story, please leave me a review!

Hugh Nance used to think his wife whined too much—his three kids were spoiled brats that took everything for granted. Hugh is ten years old.

When an embittered, unremarkable forty-seven-year old man’s life is cut short on an icy highway, he receives the opportunity to try again. Hugh is taken back to 1974—back into the body of his boyhood—with all the memories of his middle-aged life in tow. Three and a half decades must be relived if he is to see his family again. The years have to be repeated carefully, or he may never be reunited with his future wife at all.

The memory of his first family fades as this second life proceeds; old habits kick in, and Hugh scrambles near the end to set things right. 

Two giveaways for joining the mailing list!

I have two full-length books ready to launch in the first half of 2014, The Last Playground, and Children of Extinction. Both are horror/science fiction, and both are YA. The Last Playground was written for a younger audience, but has a lot going for it that older folks will enjoy as well. Children of Extinction is harder hitting, more gruesome, and is aimed at that 'older' YA crowd.

I'll be giving out a signed copy of each book at release (random draw) for somebody out there - all you have to do is join my mailing list no later than April 30 to be eligible to win! The Last Playground comes out during April, Children of Extinction will be released shortly after, so there's plenty of time to join up. And if I see a lot of interest, I may even up the number of copies in the draw!

I'll be posting more news and excerpts from the books over the following weeks, but here's a brief overview of what they're all about.

                                         
         The Last Playground

When Brinn Adamm’s mother passed away from cancer, the fifteen-year old girl said to her imaginary friends. Two years later her best friend begins receiving messages from Brinn’s mother. The imaginary friends return—and they aren’t pleased.

Brinn always possessed the ability to bring make-believe characters to life. So did her uncle, Neal Stauch. The little boy died accidently three and a half decades before, but the world he created carried on. It’s a dying land populated with troubled characters desperately searching for a new creator—a modern-day keeper with the same incredible genes capable to start their world over again.

From Neal’s forgotten world comes a rag-tag bunch of washed up figures a generation out of time—rusted robots consumed with guilt, disillusioned super-heroes too far gone and far too fat to fit their spandex costumes, a bitter, homicidal lawman out of the Old West, and a Bible-quoting scientist abandoned in a distant galaxy. Brinn begrudgingly sets out to help, aided by her own band of imaginary twenty-first century friends—a sword-wielding barbarian woman, a sex-starved wizard boy, and his pregnant, vampire girlfriend. But Neal’s imaginary world is populated with other survivors. They have changed even more drastically. And they want what the little boy had—what his present-day niece still has—and they’ll kill to get it.

                               Children of Extinction

What’s first contact really like? In 2009 four teenagers discover something wounded in the wooded farmlands of western Canada. Forget extra-terrestrial invasion and conquest by a superior force—our ultimate demise lies eighty-thousand years in the past. All it will take to wipe out the last few thousand humans left on prehistoric Earth is a virus—a disease the alien intended to deliver—now unknowingly carried by two of the teenagers.

Abraham Feerce and Becky Turnbull are sent back in time to fulfill the alien’s mission, their bodies enhanced to survive the harshest of conditions. And to make matters worse, a super volcano is set to erupt in the South Pacific, plunging an already cooling world into an even darker Ice Age.

Sheila Feerce and Allan Bagara remain in the present, forced to guard over the injured being. They’re given extraordinary mental abilities—the power to manipulate and command everyone around them. A reign of psychological terror begins in their hometown as the teenagers take control—teachers and bullies go missing, abusive parents take their own lives...and the thing in the woods watches.

Breaking habits

My New Year's Resolution was to quit smoking. Today is day 36. I've attempted quitting many, many times before and ultimately found myself lighting up again - usually after the first three days.

I once went three years smoke free. I was very healthy then, and rarely thought about smoking. So why did I start again? I wish I could say it was stress-related, but that would be a lie. I started smoking again because I saw someone at an outdoor bar on a Caribbean beach smoking. He looked so happy and carefree - so did his wife, so did his friends. They were all smoking their faces off and sipping exotic drinks. The bartender saw me looking at them and offered me a cigarette. I took it, lit up, and was happy like those folks for about five minutes - the length of time it took me to smoke the thing.

I didn't have another cigarette for six months, but the seed had been planted. It hadn't killed me, it had tasted wonderful, and I hadn't started smoking immediately afterwards as a result. The defenses had been weakened. No. That's not true. The defenses had been smashed down completely. I could smoke socially whenever I wanted. The second cigarette (at a golf tournament) quickly turned into cigarette 3 and cigarette 4. I bought my first pack in three years the following day.

There are social smokers - a very rare breed of freaks that can smoke a handful of cigarettes one or two weekends every year without picking up the habit. I know a few of them. I hate them, and won't talk talk about them here. I sometimes believed I could join their ranks, but thirty plus years of trying and failing has proven me wrong. Once I start smoking, I will smoke every day. It's only a matter of time.

So the only way to quit smoking (for me) is to never, ever smoke another cigarette. Sounds easy to those that never smoked. It isn't. This is day 36 for me. It's the longest I've gone (not including the time I quit for three years). I have a feeling it will be permanent, but what the hell do I know? I started smoking after three years because I thought it would me happy. But just because we're bound to make stupid decisions well into adulthood doesn't mean we should quit quitting. I have many years ahead I want to share with my wife. I want to enjoy my children now that they're not children (the best time).

I'll let you know how I'm doing in another month or two. The last month has been FUCKING hard. Hopefully I'll make it to day 72!

CRYERS Update: Part 2 - LEVEL E (doesn't stand for easy)

Level E barrels right along after the events in Thawed. Cobe and Willem are alone once again, and Trot has got himself into a whole heap of trouble after releasing Lothair from his 1,000 year cylinder-tomb. And that howler Lawson tangled with? Yeah, it's still roaming about the facility.

I'm very pleased with the feedback I'm getting on this story. Thank you to all for picking it up and giving it a go! Trust me, there are plenty of big surprises and twists coming along that will keep your fingers riveted to those e-readers, tablets, and phones for months to come.

Part two is a wee bit shorter than part one. It will be priced at 1.29, as will subsequent parts. I hope to make part one permanently free at some point, so tell all your friends!

CRYERS Part Two: Level E will be available on February 1st for all you Kindle and Kobo readers. You can also find it on Google Play for those that like to read on Android devices.

CRYERS Part 1: Thawed - Chapter One free sample

CRYERS Part 1: Thawed went up on sale for $1.49 on January 1st. It's available at Amazon, Kobo, and Google Play Store. You can try free samples there too, but I thought it might be nice to offer the first chapter on my website as well.

CRYERS is a post-apocalyptic horror story presented in a serialized format. Each 'part' will be available on the 1st of every month until the story is finished.

So here it is! I hope you enjoy it. I hope it terrifies you.

Thanks, and Happy New Year to everyone!

1976

2,655 meters underground

253 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba

 

Lothair Eichberg was done running. He had just celebrated his seventieth birthday—with his son, his son’s wife, and his two grandchildren—the week before in Chicago, and he was tired. ABZE, the cryogenics corporation—short for Absolute Zero—had burrowed its latest installation, in 1974, beneath the ground of a small Canadian town called Dauphin. It was an ideal location for the specialized services ABZE provided. The terrain was flat and the ground was stable, consisting of kilometers thick bedrock. There was little seismic activity, and the region—known mostly for farming—was desolate, due to its cold, long winters.

Lothair hated the cold, and that was ironic, considering his ten-billion dollar empire was built on it. But he longed for the desolation. He wasn’t a young man anymore. Since 1945, Lothair had been fleeing from the past. His first move to Argentina had been the longest stay anywhere. He had met his wife there, and they had raised three children in the South American country. It was where he had built his initial fortune—developing and distributing a powerful cocaine-based drug that eventually found its way onto the streets in cities north of Mexico.

But the past eventually caught up with Lothair. The hunters had found him, and in 1957, the Eichberg family slipped out of Argentina and headed for Cuba. The country had been good to him for the short time that he was there. His drugs made millions in Havana—especially to the greedy Americans exploiting the country’s resources and generous nature. Fidel’s revolution in ’59 saw the Eichberg family running again. Communism was bad for the drug trade, and Lothair needed the capital to build on his new venture with research in the field of cryogenics. The Eichbergs ended up in California, and Lothair—his name had changed twice already since the Reich days—had settled in a country rich with opportunity and new ideas.

And ideas didn’t get much newer than selling life after death. Some people wanted to live forever, and those with almost limitless amounts of money were always the first in line. Lothair figured it was due to vanity, or, perhaps, a fear that their hard-earned cash would be squandered away by those that didn’t deserve it. Lothair could appreciate their concerns, and he could provide them with an alternative. There was an old saying—you can’t take it with you—that Lothair had liked to tell his early customers. But now you can, he would always finish.

He had used that line to seal the deal with his first two-hundred clients; each paying one-and-a-half million for the service of having their bodies frozen at the time of death. There was no guarantee they would be revived—ABZE Corp wasn’t in the business of curing cancer and heart disease—but there was a chance other companies might someday find the cures that these vain, self-centered millionaires so desperately craved.

Lothair called it ‘eternal peace of mind.’ People would pay any amount for that. Even for just the idea of it.

ABZE drilled into the ground of southern California and planted its first dozen clients. The decision to build cryogenic facilities deep underground was costly but deemed necessary by the corporation’s paying customers. In the event mankind obliterated itself to smithereens with hydrogen bombs, those already frozen wanted assurance they wouldn’t be atomized along with the rest of humanity. And during the height of the Cold War, no one could blame them. It was just more eternal peace of mind.

Lothair and his family had moved east and north, and the business grew. Additional installations were buried throughout the states of Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, Idaho, Illinois, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The land had grown colder, the ground harder and more stable. The population had thinned, but Lothair never felt safe. The cursed hunters were always closing in. His vast wealth had shielded him—for the most part—from extradition and other legal forms of capture, but Lothair always feared some hateful Jew sympathizer would attack him on a more personal level—drive a blade into his back, or slit his throat open—during those times when his security wasn’t around to help.  

The Canadian facility should’ve been their safest move, but the hunters wouldn’t be denied. They followed, and Lothair—now an old man and riddled with cancer—was about to meet his maker. Whether it was from a malignant brain tumor, or an avenging survivor, mattered little at this point. Lothair Eichberg would be dead in two weeks if he didn’t take the matter into his own hands.

His beloved Estay had died the year before. She had chosen to be buried in a coffin instead of a cylinder, much to Lothair’s dismay. She had believed in an afterlife; he believed life merely continued for as long as the individual decided.

His children and grandchildren couldn’t be prosecuted for the experiments he’d conducted during the war. The time was right to move on. After all these years, Lothair still couldn’t understand why his research into the effects of freezing human children was such a horrific crime. They would’ve died anyway—either shot through the brain or gassed—so why not take advantage of live test subjects? It was such a fascinating field of science.

 He had wrapped up some final loose ends a few days before at ABZE’s head offices in Chicago. Albert, the son he’d left in charge, hugged his frail body and told him the company was in good hands. He had said goodbye to his remaining family, and fled one last time—north.

Lothair lay naked in the cool, steel cylinder, and thought of all those children slowly freezing to death under his orders. He couldn’t help giggling nervously. The sound was muffled. His final order was to have himself frozen. How ironic was that? Some had said freezing was one of the most painless ways to go. Lothair wouldn’t experience the sensation. He would fall asleep, suddenly, in the next thirty seconds. He wouldn’t hear the gas. He wouldn’t feel the cold seeping into his tired, old bones. Not like the three-hundred-eleven children back in Nazi Germany. They weren’t gassed beforehand, or given drugs, to put them to sleep.

No. Freezing to death wasn’t a pleasant way to go—especially when you went at such a young age, without your parents. Without anyone. All alone.

Lothair’s tired eyes closed. Thoughts of the children he’d put to death for the good of science, over thirty years before, were his last.

He still couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

 

 

Cryers cover art revealed!

And I couldn't be happier!

It's dark, moody, and high contrast - just the sort of thing needed to let readers know I'm not messing around.

Each book in the series will be between 18,000 and 25,000 words, and books will be released on a monthly basis until the story finishes -  I still don't know how long that will be.

If you would like to get a feel for the story, check out the Stories page and read The Descent parts 1-5. Part 5 will be posted later today.

As stated on the cover, Cryers is a new breed of post-apocalyptic zombie. These 'zombies' crave more than just eating brains - they have brains, and they know how to use them...

Cryers Book One: Thawed will be available January 1st on Kindle and Kobo readers. I hope to have it in the Google Play store as well.