Dead of Night (Extract)

Greetings!

Just in time for Halloween, below is an extract from Dead of Night (Revised edition).

At some point, Nick dropped something, Maggie heard it hit the floor with a soft, hollow thud. She didn’t know what it could be, but guessed it must be pretty important because the moment it fell, Nick stopped in his tracks. They didn’t have time for this shit, they had to find cover. Now. It wasn’t safe outdoors, and Nick was fading fast. If he collapsed out here in the open, she would never be able to move him. They would be sitting targets for whatever prowled these fucking woods after dark.

She instinctively reached down to pick up the object Nick had dropped, then immediately put her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. It was Nick’s severed hand. Pale now, almost translucent in the moonlight. It felt clammy to the touch. He’d carried it with him all the way from the camp.

It was still warm.

Dear God.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Pick it up and get going again. It’s just flesh and bone, just flesh and bone…               

Grimacing, she tucked the bloodied appendage into the waistband of her sweatpants, took Nick by the remaining arm and resumed the journey.

Bizarrely, cruelly, in her fractured state, Maggie found that she couldn’t stop wondering how the hell they were going to carry the tent and all the rest of their stuff back to the car if Nick only had one hand. It would definitely be a struggle. They might have to make two trips, or even leave some stuff behind. She started mentally listing all the things they had taken with them, and then the things they could afford to leave behind. Anything to keep her mind working, keep it sharp and focused. If she stopped to think about the nightmare they were in, she would go to pieces.

Under normal circumstances it would only have taken a couple of minutes to get to the cabin, but in the dark and with Nick the way he was, it would probably take three times that long. At any moment she expected to see movement in the trees, or feel an arm reach out of the undergrowth and claw at her feet.

Things were going too well.

It was almost too easy.

But if she remembered correctly, Nick had put a tent peg straight into that thing’s eye. And didn’t it only have one eye to begin with? In that case it was probably still walking around in circles a mile or so away.

Maggie could feel exhaustion setting in. The muscles in her back and arms were screaming in protest from shouldering Nick’s extra weight and her second wind had come and gone. Probably her third and fourth winds too, if such things existed.

With grim determination, she pushed on. No time to stop, not here, not even for a second.

Finally, they arrived back at the cabin.

Dead of Night is available now on paperback and ebook.

Dead of Night is available now on ebook and paperback. If you’re interested in the book’s background and publishing history, check out this post I wrote about it.

Where did that Human Waste come from?

I was going to use this post to explain a few things about my recent release Human Waste. In particular, I was going to clarify exactly what my intention was. It shouldn’t be necessary, but in this case it kinda is. I get that fucked up ending could throw a few people. They do say the best art is art you have to think about a little, but I wanted to make it crystal clear.

But then I realized I can’t pull it apart and lay it bare without dropping spoilers left and right. And if I do that, there would be no reason for anyone else to read it. The secret would be out. So rather than break it down for you, I’ll have to let you do that bit for yourselves and tell you why I wrote it instead.

Anyone who knows my fiction will know that I usually prefer to stay in the shadows. By that, I mean most of it is old-school. Traditional. Haunted houses, alternate realities, creepy ghosts, the odd dude going mental and not realizing it. You know, the usual stuff. I always tended to shy away from the more explicit, in-your-face kind of horror, the same way I used to shy away from writing explicit sex scenes.  Reading a lot of other authors, I came to realize that most of it was unnecessary. Schlock, gore and sex for the sake of schlock, gore and sex. Not much of it advanced the story very far, or added to it in any way, which is what I‘ve always been most invested in.

But I must admit there was always a small part of me that longed to get my freak on from time to time. I often put graphic scenes in my stories, only to have a change of heart and remove them afterwards. Then I saw a submission call from Blood Bound Books for an anthology called DOA 3, which actually invited writers to get freaky. As freaky as they could and then some. I let the shackles off and knocked out a story called Subject #270374 which is, admittedly, fucking gross, and afterwards I realised how much I enjoyed that walk on the wild side. I began to think I’d gone as far as I could with the ‘traditional’ horror route, and splatterpunk was my new vocation. At least for the time being.

I’d had a few ideas floating around for a while. I’ve always been interested in prepping and survivalism. Not just the practicalities of it all, but the ethos behind it, too. There are a lot of people getting ready for the end of the world, whether it be the result of a solar flare, a world war, a meteor strike, another ice age, a global financial meltdown, an alien invasion, or a zombie uprising. As well as getting ready for a mass extinction, I get the impression a lot of them are also getting ready to say, “Look! I told you so!”

When I finished Human Waste, I didn’t even bother submitting it to any publishers. I wanted to self-publish it. That way, I could maintain complete control. I am aware of the stigma often attached to self-published writers. We self-publish because our work isn’t strong enough to be traditionally published, right? Wrong. My first six books were traditionally published. I turned indie through choice, not necessity. I haven’t submitted a novels or novella to a traditional publisher since 2012. One bad experience too many . This way, I might get slightly fewer sales and less respect, but at least I know where the money is going.

For argument’s sake I’ve called Human Waste a short story, but at around 10,000 words it’s technically a novelette. Stories of this ‘middling’ length are notoriously hard to place, anyway. The bonus content was selected on a thematic basis. Til Death Do us Part is a short story revolving around a similar end of the world scenario originally published in Morpheus Tales magazine, while I also include a short extract from my recent novella No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches, which substituted WWI-era German soldiers for modern-day zombies. War is war, regardless of the arena it’s played out in, and to those fighting in the trenches it must surely have seemed like the end of the world.

Human Waste: A Short Splatterpunk Story is available now via Deviant Doll Publications.

And why not check out a few stops on Human Waste Blog Tour?

Human Waste

My latest release, Human Waste: A Short Splatterpunk Story, is available exclusively on ebook now from Deviant Dolls Publications…

Dan Pallister is a survivalist and a prepper. Much to the chagrin of the people around him, he’s been surviving and preparing since childhood. He just didn’t know what for. When he wakes up one morning to find the world outside his flat overrun with bloodthirsty zombies it all becomes clear, and despite the fall of civilisation, he can’t wait to get started. He just needs to stock up on supplies from the local supermarket first.

But is everything what it seems?

Bonus Content:

Til death do us Part (short story)

No Man’s Land: Horror in the Trenches (exclusive extract)

WARNING: This book contains descriptions of graphic violence and/or sex, and is not suitable for children.

UK Link

US Link

Human Waste – Cover Reveal

Greetings horror fiends! My next release, Human Waste, will be arriving on the 5th October. More details to follow, but for now I wanted to give you a sneak peek at the awesome cover art produced by the inimitable Greg Chapman.

Impressive, right?

Human Waste: A Short Splatterpunk Story, is available for pre-order now at the special discounted price of 99p. After its release it will return to normal price.

Film Review – Darkest Day (2015)

“British zombie horror at it’s best!” screams the blurb on the poster, which is a bit of a leap. Whoever said that has obviously never seen Danny Dyer’s Doghouse. Anyway, it is customary when writing a film review to summarize the plot, to help the potential viewer decide whether it’s worth their time, effort and money or not. With that in mind, here goes…

Dan (Rickard, also the writer and director) wakes up with amnesia on a beach in Brighton, that weird yet strangely hip little outpost on the south coast of England made famous in Quadrophenia. He wouldn’t be the first young man to do that, but Dan manages to do it in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. So now he isn’t being threatened by the assorted shenanigans of lively groups of mods and rockers, but rather hordes of crazed, blood-soaked zombies, who run around flapping their arms and screaming a lot. To make matters worse, it appears there’s a bunch of soldiers on his tail, too.

DVD Cover

Luckily for Dan, he soon runs into a small group of survivors, who are shacked up in a student house drinking Stella, as you probably would be when Armageddon comes. There’s even a stereotypically brash American, which is one of the more outlandish parts of the entire film, never mind the zombies. Apart from the awful accent, even in this brave, new globalized world of ours, Americans still don’t go to Brighton. Why would they? If she wasn’t trying to be American, I apologise, but that’s what it sounded like, and it sucked.

When the group of student survivors run out of booze and fags, they are forced to tool up with a selection swords and bludgeoning tools and leave the sanctuary of their squat. You can probably guess the rest.

Bearing in mind there’s only so much you can do within the confines of a zombie film, Darkest Day does at least make an effort to break the mould. It took seven years to produce on a non-existent budget, and the majority of the dialogue is unscripted, a very brave (or very stupid, depending on your point of view) decision when working with a cast of unknowns. Truth be told, this doesn’t lead to much more than a few extra swear words but it’s a big ask to keep the thing going, especially as the lack of budget means the whole thing has to primarily be character-driven. There isn’t much in the way of a plot and it probably won’t win any awards, but to give credit where it’s due, Dan Rickard and his mates achieved a lot with very little. There are fires and zombies and explosions and guns. Even a couple of helicopters. What else do you need? The special effects and CGI are pretty impressive. At times, you are left wondering just how they managed it all if the budget really was as minuscule as we are led to believe. An impressive underground effort well worth 90 minutes of your time.

Dead of Night

 

Maggie and Nick, two suburbanites who long for a break from the hustle and bustle of the city, drive out to the rural Deep South for a camping trip. Everything goes smoothly, until they come face-to-face with a renegade band of long-dead Civil War confederate bushwhackers and are plunged headlong into a ruthless battle for survival.

(Click on the cover for more information)

 

 

“The surrealism within this story is something I haven’t personally experienced in literature since H.P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood. If you like being frightened by the bump in the night or the monsters that may lie in wait in the darkness then I wouldn’t read this story. For this story will only leave you believing they surely exist…”

 

 

(Review from The Monsters Next Door)

Dead of Night is out now on Damnation Books, available as trade paperback and ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most other online retailers.