Walk the Sky

by Swartwood, Robert

The Shadows of Kingston Mills

  Bram Stoker Award winner David B. Silva explores the dark streets, family secrets, and troubled residents of Kingston Mills, a small Northern California town that tourists drive through with barely a notice.

  • In “It’s All Happening On Fillmore Street” one of those tourists, Wes Hardee stumbles onto a back street of unusually generous shopkeepers who know just what he needs.

  • In “Darkness and Light” Wendy Meeker escapes unimaginable horror by preparing for one of the most exciting days in a young girl’s life.

  • In “Max The Magnificent” nine-year-old Peter turns to his neighbor, a small-time stage magician, for answers about the death of his mother.

  • In “The Itching” Nicholas Benson discovers his dark side and his place in the world.

  • In “The Most Painful Companion of Death” James Miller must face a family curse that has already cost him his parents. Can he put a final end to it?

  • In “Love Never Lost” Evan Gunderson receives a call from his high school girlfriend who has been missing for forty years. She wants to see him, and she has a strange request.

  • In “Reclamation” Lenny is obsessed with the growing disposable society we live in and how our garbage is going to overrun the countryside sooner than we suspect. But will it overrun him first?

  • In “In Your Head” twelve-year-old Josh must find a way to protect himself when new Kingston Mills resident Mr. La Plante begins whispering in his head.

  The Shadows of Kingston Mills collects eleven new short stories and one reprint by Bram Stoker Award winner, David B. Silva. Set in the small, Northern California mountain town of Kingston Mills, these stories range from psychological horror to the serial killer to the vampire and beyond. Stop and visit for a day or two. Just be careful you don’t stumble upon the dark side of Kingston Mills. You may not survive.

  ALSO BY ROBERT SWARTWOOD

  NOVELS

  No Shelter

  Holly Lin is living two lives. To her friends and family, she’s a pleasant, hardworking nanny. To her boss and colleagues, she’s one of the best non-sanctioned government assassins in the world.

  But when a recent mission goes wrong causing one of her team members to die, she realizes she might no longer be cut out for the work—except the mission, as it turns out, is only half over, and to complete it will take her halfway across the world and bring her face to face with a ghost from her past.

  Things are about to get personal. And as Holly Lin’s enemies are about to find out, she is not a nanny they want to piss off.

  No Shelter is 65,000 words long and recommended for fans of Lee Child, Barry Eisler, and Duane Swierczynski.

  “Excellent—memorable and something I’ll read more than once.”

  — HTMLGIANT

  “No Shelter is part mystery, part thriller suspense, and all kinds kick ass!”

  — The Man Eating Bookworm

  Man of Wax

  Ben Anderson goes to bed Sunday night, lying next to his wife in the comfort and safety of their Pennsylvania family home, to wake up the next day in a rundown motel in California — alone.

  He doesn't know how he got there, he doesn't know where his family is, and written in dried blood on the bathroom door are the words LET THE GAME BEGIN.

  Soon Ben is contacted by Simon. Simon knows all there is to know about Ben, more than he cares to remember himself.

  If Ben wants to save himself and his family, he will have to do everything Simon says.

  As the game begins — with stakes much higher than either man can imagine — no one knows where it will lead or how it will end.

  Only one thing is for certain: this time the game will change everything.

  Man of Wax is 80,000 words and the first book in a thriller trilogy where every day men and women must fight a power that threatens to destroy the world.

  “Man of Wax grabs you by the throat in the first chapter and never lets go. A suspense-filled thrill ride with plenty of shocks along the way. Read it!”

  — F. Paul Wilson

  The Inner Circle

  Two years ago Ben Anderson woke up in a rundown motel, three thousand miles from home, his family missing, and the words LET THE GAME BEGIN written in blood on the back of the bathroom door.

  Now, with his past life gone, Ben has become a soldier in Carver Ellison’s army against Caesar.

  But when a mission goes wrong and one of their team members is murdered, it’s the last cryptic word spoken that will lead Ben and the team one step closer to the Inner Circle — a step that may bring them salvation ... or get them all killed.

  With his trademark action and suspense, Robert Swartwood has delivered his most ambitious thriller yet.

  The Inner Circle is over 120,000 words long and the second book in a trilogy where every day men and women must fight a power that threatens to destroy the world. Recommended for fans of Harlan Coben, Lee Child, and Dean Koontz.

  “The Inner Circle is a crafty, clever, white-knuckle thriller. If you haven’t yet read Swartwood, you’re missing out.”

  — Brian Keene

  The Serial Killer’s Wife

  Five years ago Elizabeth Piccioni’s husband was arrested for being a serial killer. Her life suddenly turned upside down, she did what she thought was best for her newborn baby: she took her son and ran away to start a new life.

  Now, living in a quiet part of the Midwest with a new identity, Elizabeth is ready to start over. But one day she receives a phone call from a person calling himself Cain. Cain somehow knows about her past life. He has abducted her son, and if Elizabeth wants to save him she must retrieve her husband’s trophies—the fingers he cut off each of his victims.

  With a deadline of one hundred hours, Elizabeth has no choice but to return to the life she once fled, where she will soon realize that everything she thought she knew is a lie, and what’s more shocking than Cain’s identity is the truth about her husband.

  The Serial Killer’s Wife is a 80,000-word thriller in the vein of Jeffery Deaver, John Sanford, and Thomas Harris. It includes a special foreword by Blake Crouch.

  “This is a scary, thrilling, page-turning, race-against-the-clock novel if ever there was one, with a true shocker of an ending. Miss this one at your own peril.”

  — Blake Crouch

  The Dishonored Dead

  In a not-so-distant future, the world has devolved and most of the population has become the animated dead. Those few that are living are called zombies. They are feared and must be hunted down and destroyed.

  Conrad is one of the animated dead. A devoted husband, a loving father, he is the best zombie Hunter in the world. But when he hesitates one night in killing a living adult, his job is put in jeopardy. Instead of being outright dismissed, he is transferred to a program so secretive even the Government would deny its existence—and where Conrad soon learns a startling truth about how his own son might be in danger of becoming a zombie.

  As living extremists become more emboldened and blow up a Hunter Headquarters, as a power-hungry Hunter becomes more enraged and will stop at nothing to gain absolute power, Conrad begins to question not just his profession, but his own existence. And before he knows it he is on a journey of self-discovery, remembering a past he was forced to forget, and soon finding himself not only a hunted man, but a man who must now save both his son and the entire world.

  The Dishonored Dead is a 100,000-word zombie thriller that includes the 3,000-word short story “In the Land of the Blind,” which won 10th Annual Chiaroscuro Short Story Contest and was the inspiration for the novel, plus the 3,000-word short story “The Hunter” and a bonus interview with the author.

  “The Dishonored Dead is simply brilliant, and its telling a superb achievement. Robert Swartwood has given us a wonderful twist, not only on the zombie novel, but on the dystopian tale as well. It’s like Brave New World meets Logan’s Run, but with a bite all its own. Strongly recommended!”

  — J
oe McKinney

  “The Dishonored Dead is one of the most original and gripping zombie novels I have ever read, offering a glimpse into the life of a zombie in a world turned backwards, where zombies live and humans are feared. Highly recommended!”

  — Jeremy Robinson

  The Calling

  When eighteen-year-old Christopher Myers’ parents are murdered, something is written on his bedroom door, a mark in his parents’ blood that convinces the police the killer has targeted Christopher as the next victim. To keep him safe, he travels away with his estranged grandmother and uncle to the small town of Bridgton, New York. And it’s in Bridgton that he meets an extraordinary young man who has come with his father to stop an unrelenting evil. Soon Christopher learns of the town’s deep dark secret, and how his parents’ murder was no accident, and how he has been brought to Bridgton by forces beyond his power—forces that just may threaten the destruction of all mankind.

  The Calling is a 100,000-word supernatural thriller in the vein of Peter Straub and Dean Koontz.

  “The Calling is a powerful, gripping and terrifying novel, the sort that possesses your whole life while you’re reading it; it’ll stalk you through the day, and inform your dreams. Swartwood has delivered a novel that will become a classic.”

  — Tim Lebbon

  “Robert Swartwood’s The Calling is a diabolical rocket sled of a psychological thriller. Told through the vivid, almost druggy point of view of a young man on the edge, tangled in a web of tragedy and surreal horror, Swartwood’s novel gets under the skin and stays there. Highly recommended.”

  — Jay Bonansinga

  NOVELLAS & SHORT STORIES

  Real Illusions: Stories

  A mysterious man appears in town ... a man only children can see. A young boy’s heart does not beat ... just like everyone else’s in the world. A group of teenagers find an old woman in a cavern ... and a tunnel that leads to another dimension. Two boys on the run from an abusive father stumble across an empty farmhouse ... a farmhouse haunted by more than just memories.

  As Robert Swartwood proves in his first full-length collection, illusions are all around us.

  Some are real.

  Some are terrifying.

  Real Illusions is 80,000 words long and contains ten stories (including the novellas The Man on the Bench, Through the Guts of a Beggar, and The Silver Ring), as well as a special author introduction and story notes.

  Phantom Energy: [Very Short] Stories

  From Robert Swartwood, the editor of the critically acclaimed Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, comes a collection of twenty-six very short stories, ranging from the real to the surreal.

  Phantom Energy is 11,000 words long.

  “The zip fictions of Robert Swartwood’s gorgeous Phantom Energy are as much about silent spaces as the inky depths of text, cluttered as they are with the disturbing exhaust of endless afterthought. These are overly animated pixels, antic antics, hyper-real really real reality on the sly sent reeling into the intimate spaces between the blanking stars.”

  — Michael Martone

  “The stories in Phantom Energy might look like little windows onto characters trapped in strange other worlds; but read on, and you’ll find something magical happens — they turn to mirrors, and there’s you behind the glass.”

  — Ben Loory

  The Man on the Bench

  In the summer of 1922, nine-year-old Ethan’s only worries are chores, having fun, and keeping out of trouble.

  But a shadow soon falls over the tiny backwater town of Benton, Pennsylvania that threatens to change everything.

  First the cats disappear.

  Then the little girls.

  After that, the real horror begins.

  The Man on the Bench is a 24,000-word coming-of-age story in the vein of Stephen King and Robert McCammon.

  “I absolutely loved The Man on the Bench. It was wondrous, intriguing, sweet, scary, surprising ... everything a good story should be.”

  — David B. Silva

  Spooky Nook

  A writer whose wife has been missing for eight months encounters a familiar old woman with an odd request—a request that will introduce him to a surprising evil.

  Spooky Nook is a 10,000-word “prequel of sorts” to The Calling, a supernatural thriller by Robert Swartwood. The prologue and first three chapters of The Calling are included in this ebook.

  In Solemn Shades of Endless Night

  In Solemn Shades of Endless Night is a 14,000-word story about a man trapped in perpetual Halloween night who must make the ultimate choice: to save himself or the world.

  “Halloween night. A battle between good and evil, darkness and light. The blurring of reality. A touch of trust and betrayal. The burden of the past on present and future generations. Robert Swartwood’s In Solemn Shades of Endless Night has it all. A classic Halloween tale that will keep you turning the pages.”

  — David B. Silva

  The Silver Ring

  David Beveridge is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  When a gunman storms into a convenience store demanding money, he ends up shooting both the counterwoman and David. Only David doesn’t die. Neither does the counterwoman. David is able to bring her back to life with the help of a mysterious silver ring he found earlier that night—a ring that the darkest evil in the universe wants for its very own.

  The Silver Ring is an 18,000-word novella that contains a special afterword and a bonus short story.

  “Robert Swartwood’s The Silver Ring is a full-tilt no-holds-barred bobsled of a ride, absolutely engaging and a hundred percent fun. If this one doesn’t grab you, it’s time to up your Ritalin.”

  — Joe Schreiber

  Through the Guts of a Beggar

  Josh wakes up one morning to find his ten-year-old brother filling in a grave in the backyard. From there, the day just gets worse.

  Through the Guts of a Beggar contains the original 10,000-word novelette, a 3,000-word alternate ending, and two bonus short stories of pulpy horror goodness.

  AS EDITOR

  Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer

  A story collection that proves less is more.

  The stories in this collection run the gamut from playful to tragic, conservative to experimental, but they all have one thing in common: they are no more than 25 words long. Robert Swartwood was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's possibly apocryphal six-word story—“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn”—to foster the writing of these incredibly short-short stories. He termed them “hint fiction” because the few chosen words suggest a larger, more complex chain of events. Spare and evocative, these stories prove that a brilliantly honed narrative can be as startling and powerful as a story of traditional length. The 125 gemlike stories in this collection come from such best-selling and award-winning authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Ha Jin, Peter Straub, and James Frey, as well as emerging writers.

  “The perfect story collection for all of us with too little time on our hands is a brilliant reminder of the magic that happens when you string the right words together. A must-read for anyone who is or wants to be a writer.”

  — Jodi Picoult

  Walk the Sky copyright © 2013 Robert Swartwood and David B. Silva

  This book was previously published as a limited edition hardcover from Thunderstorm Books.

  Cover design copyright © 2013 Jeroen ten Berge