by J. Thorn
The Portal Arcane Series - Book III - COMING IN EARLY 2014
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If you enjoyed this title, you'll love The Seventh Seal. Find out why The Seventh Seal, is a best-selling, post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy thriller that has placed in the Amazon Kindle Top 100 Paid Best Seller lists in four different genre categories!
The Seventh Seal
John Burgoyne awakens from a Halloween party, with a hangover and a dead cell phone, on the first day of the End of Days. He's desperate, on the run, and fighting for his life. After a violent coup, the Father, the figurehead of the Holy Covenant and the commander of a new military order, pursues John through the post-apocalyptic wreckage of Cleveland, Ohio, in search of the hidden knowledge he believes John holds. Burgoyne escapes and aligns with the resistance until Father orchestrates a final showdown.
In the words of author Vicki Keire, author of Worlds Burn Through...
"...an edge-of-your seat apocalyptic adventure full of twists and turns. I couldn't put it down!"
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If you enjoyed The Seventh Seal, you have to read the novella sequel, Man's Ruin.
Man's Ruin - A Dark Fantasy Novella (The Seventh Seal Sequel #1)
A band of revolutionaries fights for survival in the urban decay of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, thirty years after the First Cleansing brought an end to civilization. Their enigmatic and seasoned patriarch, John Burgoyne, protects the clan until a man on horseback delivers an ominous message. John decides to lead his tribe on a grueling march down the treacherous highway stretching from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, unaware of the forces aligning against them. When the clan faces a major decision on the road, John will be forced to do whatever is necessary to ensure their survival.
In the words of reviewer, Gordie, on Amazon.com...
"I started this in the morning and had it finished by lunchtime as I could not put it down..."
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If you like tight and fast-paced short stories, you'll love J. Thorn's horror and dark fantasy collection, Voices from Beyond: Volume 1 as well as The Hunt, Lost Track, and Tunnel.
About the Author
Embrace the entire spectrum of human emotion – especially its dark realms – for a more meaningful story. Welcome to J. Thorn’s world, where the ultimate escape from reality is the horror novel.
J. Thorn is a Top 100 Horror Author (Amazon Rank 2013). He is a supporting member of the Horror Writers Association, a member of the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers, and a writer for disinformation.com.
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Eternal: Blood Curse
(Book 3 of The Hidden Evil Trilogy)
By J. Thorn
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Acknowledgments
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About the Author
Copyright
Table of Contents
Eternal: Blood Curse
(Book 3 of The Hidden Evil Trilogy)
First Edition
Copyright © 2013 by J. Thorn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by:
Talia Leduc
Katy Sozaeva
Laurie Love
For more information:
http://www.jthorn.net
[email protected]
Dedicated to The Keepers.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Acknowledgments
Other Works
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter 1
Robert wanted to make sure the video camera captured her facial expression at the exact moment he strangled the life from her. He moved the tripod four times, pointing the eye of the lens at Kelly. Robert checked his gear and noticed that the battery held three quarters of a charge. Given the amount of bright sunlight coming through the broken windows, he thought that would be enough.
“You’ll be gone by sundown,” he said to Kelly, bound and naked in the corner.
Robert let his eyes hang on her for longer than necessary. The scrapes she had received in the van and the dirt covering her skin did little to hide her stunning beauty. He laughed and licked his lips.
“It’s like that Winger song from the Eighties. You don’t know what ya got till it’s gone.”
“Cinderella,” Kelly said.
“No,” Robert replied, tightening the wing nuts on his tripod. “Pretty sure it was Winger.”
Kelly bit her bottom lip and did her best to use her arms to cover her bare breasts.
“It didn’t have to be this way, Kelly. You had a chance to make things right, and you had to go and be a fucking cunt just like all the other women in my life. You’re no different, and now you’re about to realize what ya had, like the Winger song.”
The dilapidated house was a location of circumstance, not convenience. He set the camera bags in the corner of the room, where the remnants of a sheer curtain hung by a single eyelet. The fabric swayed back and forth across the broken window, occasionally drifting to rest on the sill. Years of foul weather had pushed dirt and debris into the room, where it accumulated in corners like ancient dunes. Dust filled the wood grain in the old oak floor, and Robert left footprints as he moved about the room.
I’ll have to throw out my underwear. It’ll be covered in filth, and I can’t have the wife asking me why.
“Please, Robert. You don’t have to do this. If you stop now, I promise I’ll never tell anyone about this. It’ll be our secret.”
A giggle escaped through his tight lips as he pushed a wisp of hair over his bald spot. “You’re right about one thing,” he replied. “This is definitely going to be our secret.”
Robert walked over to the window and looked up into the brilliant blue sky. He inhaled, drawing the strong aroma of pine into his lungs in hopes of masking the smell of death in the old house.
“First settlers to Pine Valley owned this land. I’m not sure about the house, but the acres around it for sure. I think they built this one in the early 1900s.”
Kelly squirmed in the bonds, tears scurrying down her face in silent lines. Robert had no idea who had built the place or when, but he spoke to Kelly as if they were on a historical tour. He preferred to sound impressive rather than knowledgeable.
“My pappy used to tell me that they raised tobacco here on the back fields, but the climate wasn’t quite right, so they planted other, less legal crops.”
He walked over to the camera and made sure the red light was blinking. Robert had never made his own snuff film before, but he realized you only got one chance at getting the money shot on tape. He looked out the window again to make sure the news van was the only one in the drive. Judging by the debris scattered across the long, crumbling driveway, he did not believe another vehicle would be parking there any time soon.
He stared at Kelly and back to his camera for the seventh time. “Your hair!” he said.
Kelly bit her bottom lip as Robert walked out the door, through the living room, and to the van. The van door slammed and he reappeared a few moments later, holding her purse.
“You got some fancy hair ribbons in here?” he asked, holding it by the str
ap so the purse hung askew in front of Kelly’s face.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she replied.
Robert grabbed her chin and squeezed until her lips puckered into a forced oval. “Yes. Clearly I am out of my mind.” He let go of her chin and took a step back.
“Women don’t carry fancy hair ribbons in their purses, asshole.”
Robert laughed. He turned the purse upside down, shaking it until all of Kelly’s personal items lay scattered upon the faded, warped floorboards. He used his foot to push them around, taking no interest in the wallet or compact. His eyes lit when he saw two hair wraps tangled in the tines of a brush.
“Two! Perfect!”
Kelly looked at him with a puzzled frown. Robert picked up the brush and plucked the ties from it.
“I can’t do braids, but I think two ponytails would work. It’ll make you look like a little girl.”
She moaned.
Robert leaned over, his saggy man breasts hanging loose from an unbuttoned shirt. He used the ties to pull Kelly’s hair into crude ponytails, one streaked blonde clump of hair on each side of her head.
“There. That looks great.”
“You have a wife. Children.”
“I have sons.”
Kelly sighed and leaned her head back against the wall.
“I’m hungry,” Robert said.
Kelly looked at Robert and shook her head.
“Yes. I think I need a quick snack first. I’m going to head to the van, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. You wait here.”
Robert ran over to the camera and turned it off to preserve the battery. He didn’t think he would last more than a minute or two once it began, but he did not want to risk running out of battery before he finished. Or before Kelly was finished.
***
She waited for him to leave before visually cataloging the contents of her purse, now lying on the floor. Kelly knew she didn’t have much time before the fucking slob filled his gut with processed sugar and fake-baked treats, so she put her mind into overdrive.
Think, Kelly. Think.
Most of the items were completely useless in her current predicament. It was nothing more than a bag of tissues, stale chewing gum, and loose change. She blinked back the emerging tears from her eyes with a glimmer of hope.
Robert had tied the bungee cords tightly around her ankles, but she could still tilt her toes downward toward the floor. Kelly looked at her red toenails, now chipping away, and pushed her legs outward as far as they could go. She used her big toe, moving it like an inchworm closer and closer to the nail clippers leaning against a tube of lipstick. Kelly felt the coldness of the stainless steel on the end of her toe as it touched the clippers, pushing them off the lipstick and out of her grasp.
“Goddammit!”
Kelly heard the door slam on the van. Robert would be finishing his snack soon. She had mere minutes.
She pushed her legs out again with cramps rolling up and down her calf muscles like an electric charge. Her legs shook, and she let the tears flow down her face, holding her breath and waiting for the cramps to subside. The gripping pain faded to a dull ache, and Kelly breathed again, hoping another round of spasms would not hit her. She had no idea what bungee cords were made of, and even less faith that a pair of nail clippers would be able to cut through them in time to escape. Kelly pushed the improbabilities from her head and focused on her feet.
“One thing at a time,” she told herself, gaining confidence from her own words and the memories of the tough life she had survived until now. Kelly promised herself that she would not go out like this, not after everything she had been through and all of the hard work it took for her to reach this point. She would not die like this.
With a renewed surge of optimism, Kelly pinched the nail clippers between her toes and retracted her legs enough to pull them within reach. Surprisingly, Robert had used a flimsy piece of wire around the bungee cords on her wrists to hold her to the wall. One end went through the bonds and the other looped around the outlet of a dead electrical circuit, hanging low and loose from the hole in the wall. She yanked both arms to her right and heard the plaster surrounding the outlet dropping to the floor. She wiggled her arms back and forth until the wire no longer held her bound wrists to the wall.
“Fucking A,” she mumbled, allowing herself a small victory in hopes of scoring a big one.
Kelly slid her bound wrists beneath her body and pulled her legs back through her arms until her wrists sat on her lap instead of behind her back. Her mind raced, trying to decide whether it would be best to use her fingers to try to untie the bungee cords on her ankles or use the nail clippers to cut them.
She wiggled her fingers and felt like untying her ankles was her best chance. After all, Robert was a cameraman, not a sailor. His knowledge of knots and ropes could not be much better than hers. She could feel her fingers, thankful that the bungee cords were not so tight that they cut off all circulation in her hands. Kelly picked at the green and black bungee cord and felt the first knot begin to loosen. She winced as the nail on her middle finger snapped off. She blinked and ignored the pain that would have normally had her in tears.
“No time for girlie shit now,” she muttered. Her fingers went back to work, tugging and loosening the knots. She could feel the fibers in the cords and kept at it. The metal hooks on the end of the bungee cord posed a problem, so Kelly had to twist the ends to feed them back through the knot, careful not to tangle the hooks on the cord.
The van door slammed shut.
“Fuck.” Kelly’s breath began to hitch, and her fingers fumbled on the bonds. She felt them loosen but not enough to pull her feet apart and stand. She snapped another nail, which made her wince. “C’mon, Kelly. C’mon.”
The old house shuddered as Robert came up the steps and onto the front porch.
“Fuck, fuck!” Kelly tried to keep her hands from shaking while tugging at the two remaining knots.
The rusty screen door slammed shut in the frame, and Robert’s boots reverberated in the empty living room.
Her pointer finger dug beneath the last knot. Kelly’s hands pulled the cord apart as fast as she could. The bungee cord dropped to the floor like a dead snake as she instinctively spread her legs apart, kicking at it. Kelly closed her eyes as the blood surged through her legs.
“A fighter. You need to save that for your final act.”
Kelly could not stop herself from crying as Robert stood in the doorway, holding a belt and a pair of pliers.
***
Robert knew she would fight for her life, and he was curious as to how far she would go. Leaving the contents of her purse on the floor had been a risk, but a calculated one. Even if she had somehow broke free of the bungee cords, where was she going to go? As they said in the scary movies, “Go ahead and scream. You’re miles from where anyone can hear you.”
Robert laughed as he stood in the doorway with flaky icing on his upper lip and a belt and pliers in hand. The pastry had been moist and sweet, and he knew she would be, as well. He had taken a few extra minutes sifting through the toolbox in the back of the van and was rewarded for his patience. The pliers would make for an interesting experience, and the belt would keep her right where he wanted her.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Kelly scuttled on her bare buttocks, ignoring the rough floorboards tearing at her soft flesh. She moved across the floor with a soft moan until she reached the corner.
“Please, Robert. Please don’t.”
He turned his head sideways and smiled. “Either you have to go back to where I had you or I have to reposition the shot. You know how much I hate setting up, Kelly.” Robert wrapped the belt around his right fist and held the pliers in his left hand. He took two steps toward Kelly and stopped. “I can use the belt to hold you down, or I can strangle you with it. I know strangulation may not sound pleasant, but it’s clearly your best option. If you comply, I’ll do my best to make sure you
don’t suffer for long. If you fight me, you’ll die a long, slow, painful death. Your call, hon.”
Kelly nodded but did not say a word.
“Great! I’m going to need you to come back over here so I don’t have to move the rig.”
He nodded to the wall where Kelly had been secured, the electrical outlet now lying on the floor amongst the detritus of her purse. She slid back over, wincing as the wooden floorboards continued to bite at her.
“Good. Now slide your hands behind your back again.”
Robert bent down after waiting for Kelly to follow his order. He took the pliers and yanked the old knob and tube wire from inside the receptacle until it stopped. He was able to pull a foot of wire from the box, which would be enough to wind through her bonds and then twist tight with the pliers. Robert figured that if he could not pull the wire out any farther, she wouldn’t be able to, either.
He looked at her bare back and the way her tangled pigtails hung across her shoulders, and he became hard. As much as he enjoyed the game, he would have to finish soon to satiate the demon within. Robert inhaled, tasting her perfume and the scent of fear.
“You really are incredible,” he said to the back of her head.
With the copper wire through the bungee cord on her wrists and twisted several times with the pliers, he stood back and admired his work. Kelly sat with makeup smearing her face, her legs spread in exhaustion, no longer concerned about the dignity he had sapped from her since the ordeal began. With her arms secured behind her back, Kelly’s firm breasts sat high on her chest, her blonde hair caressing their sides.
“That’s better. I think we’re going to leave your legs free so I can get it in there, if you know what I mean.”