Fatal Consequences
Page 6
The words echoed in his consciousness but he had no way of knowing if they went any farther. He had no form that he could see, no mouth, no ears. He just was.
Am I a ghost?
“No, Father, not in this place.”
Alec turned his non-existent body at the sound of Nick’s voice, unsurprised that his thoughts were audible. Why not? He was in Heaven, or at least his version of it. A shape appeared, formless lumps and bumps that rapidly transformed into the outlines of Nick’s face. Alec’s heart surged at the thought of spending eternity in the arms of his loved ones.
“Nicky! You’re here! Where is everyone else?”
The head moved back and forth and Nick’s lips curled up in a weird grin that sent a twinge of cold fear through Alec.
“I’m here. Susie’s here. Everybody else is just plain old dead.”
As Nick spoke, his face transformed again. Alec recognized the new shape before it finished.
A bear.
He spun himself around with the intention of getting as far away from his son as possible.
Another bear stood before him, a gray shape that somehow he recognized as Susan.
“Hello, Father.”
Pain exploded in his back as razor-sharp claws carved through his incorporeal form. He cried out and raised invisible arms to defend himself. More claws raked his flesh and something that felt like a spike-filled vise clamped on to his leg with excruciating force before ripping away. He shouted Casey’s name over the sounds of insane laughter.
Claws and teeth attacked his arms, his legs, his chest and his neck, each assault as agonizing as the last. Alec found himself praying for death, and then a terrible thought came to him through the pain.
He was already dead.
And his eternity was just beginning.
About the Author
JG Faherty is a Bram Stoker Award® and ITW Thriller Award nominee and the author of five novels, seven novellas, and more than fifty short stories. He writes adult and YA horror/sci-fi/fantasy, and his works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness. He enjoys urban exploring, photography, classic B-movies, good wine, and pumpkin beer. As a child, his favorite playground was a 17th-century cemetery, which many people feel explains a lot. His personal motto is “Photobombing people since 1979!”
You can follow him at www.twitter.com/jgfaherty, www.facebook.com/jgfaherty, about.me/jgfaherty, and www.jgfaherty.com.
Look for these titles by JG Faherty
Now Available:
Castle by the Sea
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Legacy
How did they get here? Will they ever get out?
Castle by the Sea
© 2014 JG Faherty
Jason and Erika are having a wonderful time at the Halloween carnival...until their swan boat in the Tunnel of Love capsizes amid heavy waves and blaring, maniacal laughter. When they come to they are no longer in a carnival in Ohio, but standing at the edge of a sea in a raging storm. In the distance, atop a high, barren hill, looms an enormous castle.
Instead of answers, Jason and Erika find only more impossibilities within the stone walls. The lavish rooms are lit only by torches and fireplaces, the decorations and furniture are a century out of date, and the mysterious host claims to not own one of those newfangled telephone inventions. Outside, in the storm and the dense mist, lurk strange, threatening figures. Inside, another couple seeking refuge think it must all be a nightmare. Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s something much, much worse.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Castle by the Sea:
The carnival appeared without warning, as it has always done and always will. This time it was the residents of Cannonsville, Oklahoma, who woke up on October 30 to find a Halloween carnival set up just outside town. Signs proclaiming Carnival of Fear—One Night Only! covered telephone poles, windshields and fence posts everywhere, as if magic elves had spent the entire night doing PR work.
By noon, there wasn’t a man, woman or child in Cannonsville who hadn’t made plans to attend the festivities that evening.
After all, how often did a Halloween carnival come to town?
The setting sun was no more than a crescent of fiery orange atop the horizon when a tall, skeletally thin man in a multicolored suit entered the Tunnel of Love through a back door. A black stovepipe hat with a sunflower tucked into the band perched jauntily atop the bald dome of his head. Worm-pale lips stretched from one side of his moon-white face to the other in a hideous smile as he stroked a bony hand across the animal-shaped boats waiting for riders.
He stopped at one, a graceful white swan with two seats. “Perfect,” he whispered, and the swan nodded in agreement, its eyes glowing red for just a moment.
The Proprietor’s impossible smile grew even wider, the ends of it rising past the bottoms of his ears.
“Ah, what fun Jason and Erika shall have tonight. What fun, what fun indeed.”
Flashes of white arced across the night sky, leaving red afterimages in Jason Phillips’s vision. In the lightning’s wake, thunder crashed with bone-jarring intensity, as if the world were floating inside a celestial kettledrum. Jason gripped Erika’s hand and helped her struggle up the steep slope. Each step was an adventure; the freezing, drenching rain had turned the narrow path into a deadly torrent of mud and water that threatened to wash them away at the first careless moment.
Jason tried to keep his mind on finding the right footholds and handholds in the brief bursts of light provided by the aerial pyrotechnics, but his thoughts kept returning to the reality—or unreality, he thought—of their situation. The suddenness of their displacement from the carnival, and the ferocity of the storm they’d found themselves in, had prevented them from discussing what had happened, but he knew they’d have to face the facts sooner or later.
The evening had started so innocently. A romantic night at the carnival—they’d intended to see the sights, go on a few rides, maybe grab a candy apple or a corn dog and then head back to Jason’s apartment for a very different—but much more enjoyable!—kind of ride. Erika hadn’t stopped smiling and Jason, loath to ruin what was turning out to be an amazing time, had gone on ride after ride with her, each one more exhilarating than the last, despite the hour getting later.
Then they’d decided to try the Tunnel of Love. Ordinarily, Jason would have objected—after all, it cost three bucks a ticket and all you did was float in some smelly water for five minutes. However, he recognized it as a chance to make a romantic gesture, something he probably didn’t do enough of. So he’d paid the six dollars and they’d let the rough-looking carny with the ragged scar on his face help them into their swan-shaped boat.
Hidden speakers delivered the soft strains of “Muskrat Love”—the perfect corny love song for a corny ride—as the boat slipped away from the dock, taking its place in line behind the other swans. Jason pictured the other riders, some, like him, demonstrating they did have a romantic soft spot. Others trying to recapture their youth. Teenagers looking to perhaps get a little further than usual, cop a feel of a soft, young breast or experience the thrill of that first kiss.
Smiling to himself, he wished them all good luck and hoped that thirty years from now it would be he and Erika reliving their younger days, clasping wrinkled hands and saying how much they still loved each other.
He put his arm around Erika. She snuggled up against him, and in that moment everything was perfect. The music was no longer trite, the water didn’t smell like a mud puddle, and the cheap murals on the walls became as picturesque as a summer garden.
Perfect.
And then the entire world went to hell.
The moment their boat slid into the pitch-black tunnel, the previously calm waters turned rough. Erika had cried out and grabbed on to him as the boat dipped and rose with stomach-churning intensity. Fo
ul water splashed over them, soaking their clothes. Insane laughter burst from the loudspeakers, drowning out the soft melodies with painful intensity. Jason shouted for someone to stop the ride, but the only response was more laughter. The waves grew stronger and stronger until they thought the boat might overturn.
And then it did.
The world tumbled around Jason for an instant before his face hit the water and he went under. He tried to push off from the bottom but his hands and feet touched nothing. Another wave hit, spinning him over and around at the same time until he was so disoriented he couldn’t think. Water filled his nose and ran down his throat into his lungs, forcing him into uncontrollable coughs that quickly led to choking when he was unable to find the surface.
There was a moment where he felt pure terror, knowing he was about to drown in a stupid carnival ride.
Then, in the next instant, he found himself kneeling in waist-deep water, Erika on her hands and knees beside him, a horrific storm battering them with rain and wind. Flashes of lightning lit the sky like a giant lamp turning on and off, and he caught sight of land only a few yards away.
“C’mon!” he’d shouted, grabbing Erika’s hand. Tumbling and falling in the pounding surf, Jason had led Erika to a beach made mostly of black stones and giant hunks of rock.
That was when they saw the lights at the top of a long hill. Confused and disoriented, Jason had instinctively headed for them.
Erika screamed, pulling Jason’s attention back to the here and now. She’d fallen again, her hand slipping from his. He wiped water from his face in a futile attempt to see better; the heavy rain hid everything behind a curtain of gray.
Jason stumbled back down the path until he found Erika clinging to a rock with both hands as a miniature river swirled over her. He said a silent prayer of thanks that she was still with him. More than once during their climb he’d seen strange shadowy shapes moving through the rain, their forms rendered indistinct by the storm. Each time, the dim figures had faded back into the wall of rain and mist that blanketed the unfamiliar landscape, disappearing before he could get a good look at them. Even when they weren’t visible, the feeling of being watched remained.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Fatal Consequences
Copyright © 2014 by JG Faherty
ISBN: 978-1-61922-513-8
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Scott Carpenter
All Rights Are 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.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2014
www.samhainpublishing.com