An Excerpt from my Horror Novel ‘Combustion’

Strange images filled her mind. Rachel was not producing them. They were simply appearing there, placed there by something else. Delivered from outer space.

 Faces. Flames. A centipede ripping apart. She saw it writhing, as it spontaneously split down its center. It was filled with eggs. Millions of centipede eggs. And then Rachel felt sure that she was filled with centipede eggs, and her belly burned and a crazed itching feeling danced over her, and with that, Rachel was finally able to rip her eyelids apart. 

 The sight of the darkened room met her. And in that darkness, a creature. 

 Somehow her eye was able to widen, as she realized the sight before her, but she could not close it. She also could not move. She could not scream. She willed her mouth to open and couldn’t. Her vocal cords did respond weakly, and with a mouth shut tight, she heard the broken squeaks creaking from her throat.

 Her body frozen in place, imprisoned in a cage of her own muscles and bone, she stared up at him helplessly. The man on fire at the foot of her bed. 

  She had to scream and wake her sleeping friend. She had to cry out for her grandmother to come. But no matter how she thrashed about internally, her body remained paralyzed.  All she could do was look up at the man engulfed in flames. 

 His mouth opened. A slit appeared in the smoke and crisping redness of burning flesh. And his mouth froze in a wide circle of suffering.

 Fear rippled through her body. Rachel fought to move and felt the same resistance that she felt whenever she tried to run in a nightmare where she was being chased. She felt the same tugging on her body, the same alteration of physics.

 It opened its mouth then, as if it were going to speak.

 Rachel’s brain felt on fire. Terror seized her, and it was so strong she was unsure how her body could contain it. It felt too large, too strong to be held within her. She knew that the man on fire was going to speak and she had no idea what she’d do when he did. 

 But it was then that the episode ended, and finally, miraculously, her fingers twitched and her body jerked upright. The moment her body moved, the man vanished, taking all of his flames and fright with him. 

 She was left staring at the shadowy scene of an empty room.

 Rachel ripped the covers over her head and lay on her side with a thumping heart, pressing her body frantically into the body of her sleeping friend.

 She tried to tell herself that it had only been a dream. She repeated it in her mind again and again. 

 It wasn’t real. I’m not going to spontaneously combust. I am NOT going to spontaneously combust. 

 But she couldn’t believe it. Because the man on fire had opened his mouth to speak, and she could sense the words he’d been about to say. He’d been about to tell her that her time was limited, that if she didn’t figure out how she spontaneously combusted the first time, it was sure to happen again. 

 She moaned into her pillow, imagining what his awful voice would sound like. You burned once. You’ll burn again.

I’m relaunching Combustion. There will be bonus chapters not in the original edition.