A sneak peek at my latest frightening release: "A Colonial Evil"...

Thanks so much for taking a sneak peek at my latest release: "A Colonial Evil, Episode One." My last few projects - "Her Yearning for Blood," "A Colonial Evil," and the upcoming "Dislocated Man" collaboration with Larry Donnell - definitely come from a darker place than some of my previous works. If you're a fan of paranormal, horror or dark fiction, I think you'll enjoy these 30-page episodes being released at least one-per-month in each series.
Someone once told me she fell in love with the Harry Potter stories because she enjoyed seeing a fictional character grow up to have a better life. As a real life boy who came from a different but similarly miserable childhood, I think these stories might be my way of excercising some of my own Muggle demons from many years ago.
I hope you enjoy the results.  

 
A Colonial Evil Episode One (Tendrils)  1  Feeling like Mary Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein, hair askew, sweat matting his platinum bangs to his forehead, Sedge heaved the bucket up and poured pale yellow liquid into the large pot he'd borrowed from Mrs. VanGasbeek on the first floor. The vile-smelling liquid hissed as it hit the hot metal. Steam roiled upward and spread like sewer gas throughout his tiny apartment. Fighting the urge to gag, he poured the last of the urine into the pan then rushed over the sink and puked up a pink liquid he assumed to be stomach acid and blood. He hadn’t eaten in several days.
Running trembling hands beneath the faucet, he splashed his stubble-covered face then scooped cold water into his mouth. It did not help. The sour taste of bile combined with the cloying scent of boiling urine sent his frail body into a series of dry heaves that made his ribs hurt. When the spasms finally passed, he slumped to the floor with his back against the sink cabinet. After a few minutes, he wiped the spittle from his lips and forced himself unsteadily to his feet. Wet fingers reached for the haphazard stack of old texts strewn across his table. Flipping to page sixty-seven of the top leather book, where a spoon held his place, Sedge ran a quaking finger along the text:
. . . and so the possessed would be brought into the room where a brisk fire was already ablaze. Then, while a priest whispered words of prayer and sprinkled Holy Water over the victim's head, urine would be emptied into a heated pot. While the possessed slept, the urine would boil completely away. If fortunate, upon awakening the victim would be free of possession.
Sedge read the paragraph three times before it finally got through to his sleep-deficient brain. He opened the cabinet above the sink and fumbled around the shelf, panic building inside him. Where had it gone? It had to be there! Finally, his hand closed around a small, square bottle of Holy Water he'd stashed there four days ago.
A trickle of relief washed some of the tension away.
When the priest had first refused to give him the water, Sedge ripped half a dozen hymn books from their cradles and hurled them across the chapel. It wasn’t until one slammed into a pair of gigantic candelabra and sent them crashing to the floor that the priest begged, “Please stop.”
Thankful the candelabra had not been lit, Sedge paused.
"I don't have a choice."
"This is a place of peace," the priest said.
"I need the water from you,” Sedge pleaded, “a priest who truly has faith!"
“But that is why I cannot give it to you,” the old priest said. “The Lord’s blessings cannot be given indiscriminately, not even if you were to tear every stone from this chapel.”
With guilt thick like mucus in his throat, Sedge collapsed into a pew, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. "I'm sorry,” he said. “This is wrong. I need the Holy Water so badly…but not—not like this.”
“How long has it been since you slept?” the kindly priest asked stepping close enough to pat Sedge’s bony shoulder.
“I’d like to say I’ll rest when I die,” Sedge said, “but that’s not true. He wants me and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.”
“Who, my son? Who wants you?”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
The old priest’s shoulders slumped and his wizened lips trembled.
“Wait here, son.” He turned and limped up the three stairs of the cathedral's stage and pushed the rich maroon curtain aside to reveal an archway to quarters behind. Reclaiming some of the majesty of his position, he stared sternly back at Sedge and said, "You will do no more damage and reverently await my return with the respect deserved by our Lord. Is that understood?"
Uncertain what he was waiting for, Sedge nodded and retrieved the hymn books to return them to their cradles. One of the candelabra had bent but he propped it up as best he could. The work was complete by the time the priest returned with a tiny glass vial in his hand.
“I don’t know if the Lord whispered his approval or if the sadness in your eyes got the better of me,” the compassionate priest said, “but here is your Holy Water. With it, I hope your soul can begin to heal.”
Now, four days later, holding the clear container a few inches from his eyes, Sedge wondered if the contents were indeed blessed. Was it possible that the elderly man had given him nothing more than tap water? Either way, it was too late to do anything about it. He pulled the cork from the flared glass mouth and placed the bottle on the counter. It was another tense moment as he threw two more books to the floor in search of the gift his mother had given him on his sixth birthday. That Holy Bible was the only thing that he had taken from his parents' home before running like a frightened hare five years earlier. As Sedge's fingers closed upon the heavy text, it occurred to him that he hadn't slept in three nights.
Soon, real soon.
He blinked away his blurred vision and struggled to read the finely printed words on the page:
. . . And if you desire to share in Satan's power you must—
Sedge snapped the book shut and glared at the red-embossed letters on the cover: EVIL INTENTIONS.
Disgusted, he threw the Satanic tome to join the other unusable texts on the floor. Finally, he fished out the correct black bound edition of the King James Bible. He glanced away and back several times to ensure that it was, in fact, The Holy Bible. Then, without regard to which page it was that he chose or even if it was from the Old Testament or the New, he began reading:
"The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all of their troubles . . .
And he read on for a full minute:
. . . The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servant: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate."
With finality, he uttered the last sentence and sprinkled the contents of the small vial onto his head. The warm water trickled down through his thick, unkempt hair. Was it possible that his need to run, to remain exiled, to fear might finally be over?
Whether fed by wishful thinking, an actual intervention from a power greater than himself or maybe for no other reason than pure exhaustion, Sedge's emaciated body slumped to the floor. Like doors to an underground tomb, his eyelids slid shut and, for the first time in many months, Sedge fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
A tiny mouse scurried from behind the heating strip, under the table and over a discarded copy of Murder Or Justice: The Salem Trials. The grey rodent stopped briefly to lick a bead of Holy Water and sweat from Sedge's brow before continuing its journey into the living room and beneath the tattered couch. Meanwhile, the evaporating contents of the pot continued to roil upward and fill the apartment with a stench that landlord after landlord would try unsuccessfully to eliminate for years to come.   2Thirty-five-year-old Wanda was in her Bragdon Maine home, only two blocks from where Sedge Delorme had grown up. On a shelf by the door, three thick black candles cast a flickering light on her unusual living room. All the shades were pulled, and the ragtag furniture had been pushed back to the walls or, in the case of the coffee table, relegated to the space under the kitchen table in the next room. Etched with a paring knife into the ugly green linoleum floor was a pentagram at the center of which she kneeled. The backs of her prematurely-wrinkled hands rested on her thighs, palms facing upward. Both creased eyelids were closed.
"Ohhhh, Master, guardian of my soul," she chanted, "please open the pathways and allow your humble servant access to your boundless knowledge."
The candles flickered, sending out three billowing streams of smoke. Wanda's eyes remained closed as the ribbons of greasy black crossed the room and danced above her head like snakes to an Arabian flute. She felt a menacing but also soothing aura embrace her.
Her breath caught.
It was as though she faced a vicious family dog that should protect her but could as easily have torn her to shreds. Feeling simultaneously helpless and secure, she bathed in the dark presence that had returned from many years in the past.
"Oh, Master, holder of my heart, show me what I must do next."
Suddenly, the smoke serpents scattered to three separate corners of the room then zoomed violently back together in a collision of solid blackness. The evil entity dropped down to envelope Wanda's frail body.
She winced as an icy vapor coated her skin, slid into her nose, her mouth and filled her chest with searing cold. Gasping, she heard faint sucking sounds that she knew was the sound of what little youth and vitality she retained being drawn away. Weeks ago, no longer able to bear the sight of her rapidly aging body, she had broken every mirror in her home. How much longer could this go on? Though it was a price she had willingly agreed to pay, doubts were always present.
Wanda felt the cold, hungry smoke pushing down on her, threatening to burst her feeble lungs. A great pain built deep in her ribcage where her haggard heart thrummed to keep blood pumping into the straining cells of her body. And then, suddenly, the pain was gone.
Faces, dark and ugly but full of power, flashed before her mind. She knew these men and women for who they were: witches who had gone before her, practitioners of the black arts who had died during a time when Wanda's craft had been commonly practiced and openly feared. She envisioned their mouths opened in pain and terror as stones were hurled against their bodies or piled atop their earthly flesh. She could see wooden mallets smashing their arms and legs, but still those who had gone before her struggled on. The fires of rebellion had burned so deeply inside those great hearts that not even death could defeat them. Yes, she could sense their pain but also their glory. Departure from life had not been an end for them, only their deliverance to the Master.
Wanda heard skin cracking as she imagined fires eating away at her own weak flesh. But in that same inspired vision, the flames failed to touch the essence of the spirit within her—
Suddenly, there was a bright flash as the flames burst outward in a fierce display of angry splendor. Wanda reeled back from the impact and intentionally moved outside of the pentagram. The connection was broken and the fiery vision was gone. But she had survived and now knew what to do next.
Her leathery face split into a frightening semblance of a smile.

3 

Rochester, New York: Sedge felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the hollow valley beneath his ribs when he awoke on the kitchen floor of his small apartment. A putrid smell filled his nostrils. For a moment he wondered if his malnourished and neglected body was finally giving out on him. Of all the horrors—daggers dipped in blood, limbs being brutally ripped from their sockets—he would never have imagined that a heart attack would be the cause of his death. He chuckled at the irony and a fresh bolt of pain bit into his rib cage.
Gasping, he rolled onto his back. The pain miraculously disappeared.
He saw his Bible laying on the floor beside him and wondered if it was as pleased as he was to no longer have his body crushing it into the hard floor. Sedge turned his attention upward. The light above seemed to descend in a cone as it reflected off a thick, grey mist between him and the ceiling.
The pot!
He scrambled awkwardly to his feet and pushed Mrs. VanGasbeek’s heavy pan away from the burner. He heard a sizzling sound and winced. Yanking his burnt palm away, he coughed in the foul smog and dropped to his knees then closer to the floor where the air was at least breathable. Had he fallen asleep on the couch, he might never have woken because surely the urine vapor would have killed him.
Sedge crawled to the living room, forced open all three windows and was somewhat surprised to see a dark sky and the few lights that only an early morning in Rochester could bring. Hanging his head out the window, he drew in several frigid breaths.
Vanessa was stretched seductively across the cigarette billboard on the roof of the four-story building across the street. Her soft, friendly eyes stared back at him. Sedge had never seen her in any other ads, which came as no surprise since he didn’t own a TV and seldom read magazines or newspapers. But she reminded him of a young Vanessa Williams, the woman who had lost her Miss America title because of nude photos. Though he often marveled at the way her narrow waist accentuated her curves and dark skin contrasted against her silky white dress, his fantasies about her were based in friendship not romance. At least he could talk to her without fearing she would wind up dead by morning.
“Maybe I could get a job with your agency, Vanessa,” he joked, his words coming out in puffs of condensation. He pulled on the stained, pink Disney World T-shirt that hung loosely from his emaciated frame. “I assume thin is in for male models, too.”
Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes suggested the tiniest hint of humor.
Sedge’s gaze dropped to the quiet street below.
"Do you think it worked?" he asked her.
He glanced up. All evidence of humor was gone from her expression. She didn’t believe it.
"I hope you’re wrong," he whispered. "This has to be over."
Kind but unconvinced eyes stared back at him.
Sedge spoke for a few minutes longer, mostly about what he would do if he were able to mingle with people again. Finally, the cold October air became too uncomfortable, so he said goodbye and drew his head back inside. The heavy smog had dwindled to a light haze. Unfortunately, the stench if anything seemed to be stronger. He didn’t mind, though. He would gladly have immersed himself in that terrible odor for the rest of his life if it meant he could finally live his life like other people. He didn’t want to have to fear every phone call or knock at the door. Leaning into the thin stuffing of the old couch, he allowed his thoughts to pause. The concept of freedom, true freedom, seemed overwhelming. Ichabod had never allowed him that luxury.
Sedge closed his eyes and allowed the tiniest hint of a smile.
The dark presence watched and waited.

End sneak peek. You can download the entire episode HERE .