Sweet & Scary Flash Fiction Blog Hop!

Ready for the scary ghosts and the sweet pumpkin pies?

 Join us for the Sweet & Scary Flash Fiction Blog Hop!

October 31st, 2016

Come read some delicious flash fiction from 200 to 1200 words to make us go “eek!” or “mmm!”

Follow the Hop HERE

Alex couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. That simple and that terrifying. Pressure. Pain. His chest on fire. Another step down, this one harder. Air like thick molasses stopped his mouth, nose, throat. The next step, his feet landing in icy water, quickly rising to his knees, his chest. He held off panic as it covered his head.

“Hello?” he called, able to speak in that strange way of dreams. Only this wasn’t a dream, and something answered from the depths of the basement, frightened, heartbreakingly lonely, a child lost. The voice reverberated in Alex’s mind, ran in circles, a growing echo that became the toll of a heavy bell, hurting his teeth, bones.

He felt warmth on his face and put up a hand, fingers coming away sticky.

“Christ, he’s bleeding.”

The voice came from far away, out of time from the dark cellar. Justin, his best friend. Almost his only friend. One of a few who understood him and liked him anyway. He clung to that undertone, a tether to reality, just as the weight of Doctor Reid’s hand on his shoulder kept him grounded to that room far away from this terrible place.

“I’m okay,” he assured them, not knowing if they could even hear him.

Limbs weighted with dread, he pushed through the thickening air, each step an agony shooting up his body, splintering in his mind in a burst of light and pain. He cried out as the migraine sliced into his head, behind his eyes, pulling him from the vision.

“No!” The scream tore from his throat, and there was a listening stillness in that dark place smelling of damp earth, cold air. Alex’s eyes adjusted to the faint light pressing through the cracks in the boarded up windows high overhead.

The stairs creaked behind him and he twisted around, catching a glimpse of a shadow made of darkness, hate, cruelty, as it slipped into the kitchen far above. The slam of the door made him jerk, heart pounding. Utter silence followed, then the catch of a breath, a shuddery, small sob.

“Hello?” he voiced again, gently this time, heart bleeding. No answer, but he swallowed a startled curse when a fragile, cold hand slipped into his, a child’s slim fingers gripping his. Alex knelt, chest squeezed tight with grief. The faintest shimmer of a boy, maybe five or six years old, stood there, eyes deep pools of fear and a hope so fierce it shattered him.

“Honey, why are you here?” Alex whispered, throat choked with tears. “You should be home. Why don’t you go home?”

The boy’s gaze drifted across the shadowy room, up the rotting steps. His breath was a sigh of despair. “He won’t let me.”

Oh god. Alex’s heart constricted, anguish a knife’s edge through him, the pain unbearable, yanking him brutally from the vision. He thrashed on the bed, fought against the arms holding him down. “No! I can’t leave him there—”

“Alex, snap out of it, man.”

The voice calmed him and he blinked his eyes open. Justin’s anxious face came into focus. He looked at Doctor Reid. “Scott?”

“You’re all right, Alex. You’re back with us.”

“Never mind that,” Justin put in impatiently. “Did you see the boy?”

Alex looked at his hand, bruised where a lost child had clung so desperately. He closed his hand into a fist. “I don’t know where he is,” he said, anger building inside him. “But I will.”

This is a small snippet from THE CELLAR, my third book in my ALEX series. I’ve just started the WIP so have a long way to go, but am really excited about it. The house pictured here is the one I grew up in, full of its own dark hallways and secret rooms, back staircase and frightening basement. Creepy and beautiful in its own way and my inspiration for this story.

 

ALEX  –Amazon

Alex is twenty and confused. He always is. Severely abused as a child, he’s left with scars on his body and even worse scars within his mind. But from this pain he receives his gift of empathy, his ability to see and react to the strong emotions of others. When a serial killer moves into the area and begins to threaten those around him, Alex is compelled by his visions to rescue them. When he can, he helps the police, yet some detectives suspect he’s the cause of the problem, not the solution.

As Alex comes closer to uncovering the killer’s identity, his visions turn to nightmares. He hears the cries of the children, the screams of the tortured. Will the support and love of his friends be enough to get Alex through this summer of terror, or will he lose himself in his dreams and become yet another victim to the killer’s gruesome games?

THE SHED –Amazon

As a Certified Mental Health Therapist, Scott Reid has his share of interesting experiences, though nothing compares with the time he spends with the psychic, Alex Elson. In this sequel to the novel, ALEX, Alex is once again plagued by terrifying images and dreams. He turns to Doctor Reid in the hopes of learning to control his visions. Instead, Scott’s own demons are roused, flashbacks of childhood sexual abuse and rape, and he’s pulled into Alex’s world, where dreams and reality mix with terrifying results.

Two young men, brothers, have been abducted from the lake outside of Oakton without a trace of who took them. That is, until Alex receives a silver pocket watch in the mail belonging to the elder brother, a taunt from the kidnapper for Alex to come find them. Alex’s visions become nightmares. Images flash in his mind of an abandoned well and a terrified, lonely boy slowly dying at the bottom. The shed looms close by, holding a horrifying secret, a dark place Alex’s frightened mind refuses to go.

With the help of Scott Reid, Alex endeavors to control his visions and find the brutalized victims before death claims them. But the watch is ticking away and time’s running out.