His primary interests are his wonderful wife and his three amazing children, and though he realizes that every author’s wife and children are wonderful and amazing, in this case the cliché happens to be true. You can learn more about Jonathan at www.jonathanjanz.com. You can also find him on Facebook, via @jonathanjanz on Twitter, or on his Goodreads and Amazon author pages.
Look for these titles by Jonathan Janz
Now Available:
The Sorrows
House of Skin
The Darkest Lullaby
Savage Species
Dust Devils
Savage Species
Night Terrors
The Children
Dark Zone
The Arena
The Old One
Coming Soon:
The Nightmare Girl
Something is trapped in the castle, and it wants to feed!
The Sorrows
© 2011 Jonathan Janz
The Sorrows, an island off the coast of northern California, and its castle have been uninhabited since a series of gruesome, unexplained murders in 1925. But its owner needs money, so he allows film composers Ben and Eddie and a couple of their female friends to stay a month in Castle Blackwood. Eddie is certain an eerie and reportedly haunted castle is just the setting Ben needs to find musical inspiration for a horror film.
But what they find is more horrific than any movie. For something is waiting for them in the castle. A being, once worshipped, now imprisoned, has been trapped for nearly a century. And he’s ready to feed.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Sorrows:
On the way up the mountain, Ben Shadeland flirted with the idea of killing Eddie Blaze. The problem was, Ben could barely breathe.
“Good lord,” Eddie said. “You sound like an obscene phone caller back there.”
Ben ignored him. Between ragged breaths, he asked, “We still on your dad’s land?”
“Only a small part is residential. Sonoma County owns the rest.”
Ben looked around. “So we’re not supposed to be here?”
“Not after dark,” Eddie answered, and in the moonlight Ben saw him grin.
Great, he thought. Trespassing on government land at one in the morning. Trekking around the wilderness was fine for hardcore fitness freaks, but for out-of-shape guys in their late thirties, this kind of hike was a surefire ticket to the ER. If a heart attack didn’t get him, a broken leg would.
As if answering his thoughts Eddie said, “You want me to carry you?”
“Go to hell.”
When Ben risked a look ahead, the toe of his boot caught on something. He fell awkwardly, his outstretched palms pierced by thorns. He lay there a moment, riding out the pain but relishing the momentary rest.
“You still alive?”
Rather than answering he rolled over and examined his torn palms. The blood dribbling out of his wounds looked black and oily in the starlight. He rubbed them on the belly of his shirt and pushed to his feet.
When they reached the cave Ben had to kneel for several moments to avoid passing out. This was the price he paid, his only physical activity lifting weights and chasing his three-year old son around the yard.
Of course, that was before the divorce. Now he only played with his son on weekends, and when he did he was haunted by the specter of returning Joshua to his ex-wife. The lump in his throat caught him off guard.
He spat and glanced up at the cave. “So what’s the story?”
“It’s a good one,” Eddie answered.
“It better be.”
“Come on,” Eddie said and switched on a large black Maglite.
“You had that all along?”
Eddie started toward the cave.
“What, we’re going in?”
“Don’t you want to retrace Arthur Vaughan’s steps?”
He stared at Eddie, whose face was barely visible within the cave. “You’re kidding.”
“I knew that’d get your attention.”
Hell, he thought and cast a glance down the mountain. It wasn’t too late to go back. He thought he remembered the way, though he’d been too busy trying not to break his neck to thoroughly memorize the terrain.
“This is perfect,” Eddie was saying. “One of the most prolific serial killers in California history?”
“I’m not in the mood for a cannibal story right now.”
“The deadline’s in two months.”
“I know when the deadline is.”
“Then stop being a pussy and come on.”
With a defeated sigh, he did.
Immediately, the dank smell of stagnant water coated his nostrils. As he advanced, he couldn’t shake the sensation of sliding into some ancient creature’s gullet, a voluntary repast for its monstrous appetite. The cave serpentined left and right, and several times branched into different tunnels. Ben was reminded of all the horror movies he’d seen with cave settings.
They never ended well.
At least the tunnel was large enough that he could stand erect. In addition to his fear of heights, sharks, and his ex-wife, he was deathly afraid of tight spaces. He remembered fighting off panic attacks whenever he ended up on the bottom of a football pile.
So why the hell was he going to a place where his claustrophobia could run amuck?
Because they were desperate.
“Arthur’s first two victims,” Eddie said, “were a couple of teenagers named Shannon Williams and Jill Shelton. They were out here hiking and decided to explore the caves.”
It was actually Shannon Shelton and Jill Williams, but Ben let it go. Eddie was a good storyteller as long as one didn’t get too hung up on facts.
“Little did they know,” Eddie said, “they’d wandered into the den of a beast.”
Despite the fact that they’d mined for inspiration in eerie places several times, Ben felt the old thrill. Sometimes the tale inspired him, sometimes it was the setting. Often, the music didn’t come until days later, when a specific memory triggered his imagination.
Lately, it didn’t come at all.
“Who was murdered first?” Ben asked.
“Don’t rush it,” Eddie said. “I’m coming to that.”
They moved up a curving incline that, to Ben’s infinite dismay, narrowed gradually until he had to shuffle forward in a stooped position. When the tunnel opened up, he groaned.
The gap between where Eddie stood and where solid ground resumed couldn’t have been more than five feet, but to Ben the space yawned terrible and forbidding, an impassable expanse.
“This was where she fell,” Eddie said, gesturing with the Maglite into the darkness. “Jill made it over, but Shannon ended up down there.”
Ben stood next to Eddie and peered into the chasm. The flashlight’s glow barely reached the bottom. He estimated the distance was sixty feet or more.
The image came unbidden, but once it settled in his mind, it dug in with the tenacity of a tick. He imagined the poor girl leaping and realizing halfway she wasn’t going to make it. The hands scrabbling frantically on the grimy cave floor. The amplified scraping of her body as it slid downward. A fingernail or two snapping off. Then the endless, screaming tumble into the abyss.
He hoped it killed her. Goodness knew being eaten alive by Arthur Vaughan was a far worse fate.
“You ready?” Eddie asked.
“Hell yes,” he answered. “Ready to go back.”
Without another word, Eddie leaped over the expanse and landed with room to spare.
“Your turn,” Eddie said.
“I’m not jumping.”
“Scared?”
“I don’t have a death wish.”
“It’s only a few feet.”
“And a hundred more to the ground.�
��
“Stop letting fear rule your life.”
Classic Eddie. Put him in a bad situation and mock him for reacting sanely. Like last month, the double date that turned out to be a pair of hookers. What’s the difference? Eddie had asked.
So Ben sat there listening to one girl’s stories about her clients’ sexual quirks while Eddie got it on with the other in a hot tub.
“Look,” Eddie was saying. “I went first so you’d know it was safe.”
Ben turned. “I’m going home.”
The cave went black.
Beware when the vampires come to town!
Dust Devils
© 2014 Jonathan Janz
When traveling actors recruited his wife for a plum role, Cody Wilson had no idea they would murder her. Twelve-year-old Willet Black was just as devastated the night the fiends slaughtered everyone he loved. Now Cody and Willet are bent on revenge, but neither of them suspects what they’re really up against.
For the actors are vampires. Their thirst for human blood is insatiable. Even if word of their atrocities were to spread, it would take an army to oppose them. But it is 1885 in the wilds of New Mexico, and there is no help for Cody and Willet. The two must battle the vampires—alone—or die trying.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Dust Devils:
New Mexico, 1885
Cody peered over the rim of the cliff and felt his throat tighten. Jesus Christ, he thought. Jesus Christ Almighty.
There, cupped in the rocky basin far below, were the devils. Stripped of their acting garb, the five powerful men capered about the fire like cackling demons. Blood slicked their chests, their rugged chins glinting like sloppy jewels. Over the broad, seething fire revolved the corpse of an old man, spitted from anus to mouth on a cottonwood pike. Price, their leader, was thrashing something on the basin floor, pounding it as though in the thrall of some childish tantrum. And though Cody’s mind revolted at the very thought, he realized the object Price wielded was a human leg. As the scene wavered out of focus, the fire heat shimmering the naked men, Cody saw the ragged bone stub jutting out of the severed leg. It was all he could do to keep his gorge down.
He was so transfixed by the grotesqueness of the scene that he hardly noticed the boy on the ledge below him. Small, frail-looking, aglow with moonlight, the boy resembled some creature of the desert, a lizard or a scorpion washed pale by the sun. The boy crawled forward, toward the lip of the outcropping, and Cody realized how skinny the kid was. A slender cage of ribs stood out under a shirt that might once have been white. The wool pants didn’t come close to touching the ratty shoes. Cody figured the pants for hand-me-downs.
Below, one of the men—Horton, Cody now saw, the youngest of the devils—kept time on a metal wash drum, dust puffing from his strong hands as he slapped out his arrhythmic tattoo. It was a damn good thing the men below were occupied, for the boy on the ledge was sitting straight up and peering openly at them now, making no attempt at all to conceal himself.
Cody thought, What’re you doing, kid? Get down before they see you.
But the kid didn’t, only continued taking in the scene, his legs dangling over the ledge as if he were watching a carnival sideshow. Jesus, if the boy didn’t watch out, he’d lose his balance and plummet straight down at them, and if the impact didn’t kill him—which was nearly a sure thing; the drop was a hundred feet easy—the devils sure as hell would. They’d enjoy it, too. Cody had seen them slaughter ones almost as young.
The distance between Cody and the boy was only fifteen feet or so, yet it was a sheer drop down bald sandstone. He could no more make it to the boy unobserved and unhurt than he could bring Angela back from the dead.
The thought of his wife blurred his vision, made his nose run. He ran a savage wrist along his upper lip and choked back the tears. No, by God. Now wasn’t the time for that. He’d come all this way to study them, to learn their tendencies. Not to shed more tears over the woman who’d betrayed him.
The little boy below—the stupid son of a bitch—had rolled over onto his stomach, head toward Cody now, clearly intending to slide down the verge on his belly. And then what? Cody’s mind demanded. Become their next meal? Serve yourself up on a platter? If they spotted the kid, they might well spot Cody too, and he knew once they saw you, there was no escaping.
Not knowing why he was doing it but knowing he had to do it just the same, Cody mimicked the boy’s movements, lay flat on the stone ledge and lowered himself down, hoping to God the drop wasn’t as sheer as it looked, hoping he’d slide down and land gracefully instead of free-falling toward a broken leg or much, much worse.
As Cody’s hips grated over the scabrous edge, he did his best to cling to the rock wall, but the perpendicular drop eluded his reaching legs. Damn it all, he thought. Here I go.
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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
Castle of Sorrows
Copyright © 2014 by Jonathan Janz
ISBN: 978-1-61922-034-8
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Angela Waters
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
Castle of Sorrows Page 41