A Number One Hit

Yesterday I was talking about a one­-day offer on The Haunting of Melmerby Manor, the first Spookies title. As I checked the title just a little while ago, it’s still priced at 99p, and yesterday’s offer has had its effect.

At seven this morning, it had risen from nowhere to NUMBER ONE!!! in the Amazon UK British Horror chart. It was also highly placed in two other charts, the Horror/thriller list and British Detectives.

As ever, this is nothing to do with me. I only write the thing, and along with publisher Crooked Cat, let people know it’s there. It is all to do with you wonderful readers, and my thanks go out to everyone now following the adventures of Sceptre, Pete, Kevin and Fishwick.

In the same way that my current series, the Midthorpe Mysteries, are experimental, so were Spookies. They were designed as a mix of crime thriller and horror, with a little humour thrown in for good measure. And like any experiment, they have their detractors, but overall the reception was good.

Melmerby was not the end of Spookies. A second title was released about a year later. The Man in Black is very much darker than Melmerby. The spirits angrier, the threat to the team that much greater, and the ending is designed to have you hanging on the edge of your seat.

I gave you a snippet from Melmerby yesterday, now here’s a little scene from The Man in Black.

The team are in the dining hall at the Ashdalean School. After an argument, Sceptre wanders away from Pete and Kevin to look at the Christmas tree.

***

Sceptre was not surprised to find that it was a real tree and not the plastic, store-bought variety. To schools like the Ashdalean, appearance mattered as much as substance, and they would never even consider an imitation tree.

Coming close to a branch, she sniffed. The scent was faint but still there: the tang of fresh forest on a crispy, winter’s morning.

A bauble nearby jiggled. Sceptre looked into its red and silver surface, its globular design reflecting a caricature of her face, drawn out until her chin ended in a sharp point, like the cartoon representation of a gnome or goblin; like the depiction of Loki she had shown Pete.

The scent, the decorations, the whole Christmas thing triggered memories of her childhood at Rand-Epping Hall, the excitement of coming down on Christmas morning to open the presents, the pure joy of being together with her parents, the pleasure of helping present the household staff with their gifts, and the delight of a game of hide and seek with Fishwick while the family watched the Queen on TV.

The bauble swayed again, tinkling lightly, bringing her back to the reality of a dark and chilly, school dining hall in the middle of a December night. Sceptre concentrated more closely on the image. Was that something behind her? She strained her eyes, staring into the near-mirror surface of the bauble. Her gaze fixed on the area behind her dwarf-like reflection where something appeared to be rising. It looked like a cloud. A cloud? In here? Impossible.

It grew until it threatened to engulf her. Sceptre spun and her heart leapt.

A mass of dark … something/nothing grew in front of her, its wispy vapour trails leading back into the stone floor. She tried to imagine what lay below but all she could think of was the crypt. The shape grew and grew until it reached the ceiling, swelling outwards, shifting tumbling, billowing. Amorphous protrusions grew from either side, like feathery arms, coming towards her, encircling her, closing about her drawing her into the dark heart of its mass.

She wanted to cry out, to alert her friends, but when she opened her mouth, no sound would come. All she could manage was a hoarse rasp.

Now the cloud surrounded her, suffocating her, its icy chill seeping into her blood, the stench of something decayed filling her nostrils, its poison invading her lungs. She gasped for air, choked on the stifling mass, and blackness slowly overtook her.

***

Ooh.Weird goings-on, but if you want to know what’s happening to Sceptre you’ll have to read the book

The Haunting of Melmerby Manor and The Man in Black are published by Crooked Cat and available for download for the Kindle from Amazon UK and Amazon Worldwide, and in all formats from Smashwords or any good etailers.