Come on, get down
"Slow your breathing, Casey," Paul said soothingly. "Allow every muscle to relax, from your head to your feet. Feel your eyes and your face relax, your neck and your shoulders. Can you feel it? I'm going to count back from ten to one, Casey. With each number you will become more and more relaxed. Slower and slower, deeper and deeper, until you're completely relaxed. Is that okay, Casey?"
Casey took a deep breath. "Fine."
"Good."
Paul's smile was audible. Casey exhaled. He felt himself begin to slip, loose inside his clothes and from the couch. The watery unbalance of his equilibrium told Casey that he was falling, sliding in liquid descent between the cushions and the upholstery of the sofa.
"Ten, nine, eight. Slower and slower…"
Casey felt limp like a ragdoll and falling through the floor. Through the cracks of the floorboards and the spaces between levels, all concrete and pink cotton candy insulation. His eyelids twitched. He took another breath.
"Seven, six, five. Deeper and deeper…"
He dropped freely through the floors of Paul's high-rise office, through the steel and wood. Gravity pressed down onto Casey's chest and caught in his clothes and hair, fluttering at his back. He fell through plaster and carpet, light fixtures and glass, through to the ground floor and everything underneath it.
"Four, three, two, one…"
Casey gasped and felt his back strike solid ground.
So, after over a year of work and sweat and tears and sleepless nights fretting over symbolism and faceless children and people with holes cut in their middles, Flesh Trap is done. 70,602 words, 147 pages, sixty-two chapters. It's a mystery book. A horror book. A psychological thriller. A psychedelic trip. A tragedy. A love story. It's a lot of things, about a man named Casey Way who sees death in his dreams and must tumble down a rabbit-hole of his father's design to stop a rash of deaths and disappearances that begin on the twentieth anniversary of his father's murder. It's a dark and bloody ride and everybody's invited.
The serial is coming, complete with illustrations, a soundtrack and supplemental materials. It's going to be a mixed-media experiment in fiction and terror, powered by me and my small army of volunteers. The official unofficial trailer, by soundtrack artist and atomic vaudevillian Reverend Civilian, is up for your viewing pleasure. More news to come this summer as I prepare for a September release, so watch this space.
You may not know about Flesh Trap yet, but you will.
