For this week’s Teaserday, we’ve assembled a few especially creepy passages for you to…enjoy.
We’re working on some special BestSelling Reads combs for those whose hair is still standing on end.
Awake
From Ricket Row By Elyse Salpeter
Pain. I felt like I was being sliced in half.
Shadows loomed over my head. A nurse’s face, her eyes concerned, stared into my unblinking eyes. She pinched my cheeks. “You sure he’s out, Doctor?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
More slicing. My screams so loud that blackness clouded my vision.
The nurse pursed her lips. “His pulse is high, Doctor.”
“Not surprising. Guy took an upper and then got into a car crash. He’ll be high for hours. Now let’s get this piece of Camaro out of his gut.”
“No, I’m not high. Awake! I’m awake!”
Knife blades in my side. I continued to scream, but no one noticed.
“Doctor, I think he’s crying.”
Blood Tears
The blood flowed down my cheeks in rivulets, the way rain streaked down glass panes during a storm. I thought I couldn’t shed tears any longer.
I was wrong.
That fateful night, the bite that took my life left me craving the death of others. My victim’s mortality was no more than a fleeting thought on my subconscious. Although I now had strength, immortality, and beauty, the pain of existence persisted. As I touched my hand to my silent chest, I knew I was as much a victim as those whose lives I took on the darkened streets. And so, I cried.
HauGHnt
Dark Shapes, Dark Shadows, Book 1
By David C. Cassidy
The illustration showed a grotesque creature in the form of a tall, thin man, its black body covered in thick, bristly hair. Its shoulders were wide, and were so matted with hair that the thing seemed to have no neck; its bald head was sunk in a hollow burrowed into its shoulders. The scalp was the color of alabaster. Dark scratches ran across its forehead and mouth like two zippers. Its eyes were large round sockets, as deep and as empty as the blackest ocean.
Paul cupped a hand to his lips. The thing held a clawed hand to a naked, pregnant woman’s throat. In the other, it held Haughnt’s cane at the midpoint with long-nailed fingers. The handle was a sharp, curved blade dripping with blood. The woman’s womb had been sliced open, revealing an unborn child.
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On Unfaithful Wings
Book 1 of the Icarus Fell urban fantasy series
By Bruce Blake
My body tensed as the knife entered me like a rough lover, but while my energy disappeared like air escaping a balloon the first time I’d been stabbed, this time my limbs swelled with inexplicable power. The priest wrenched the blade free, twisting it on the way out, its edge grinding against my spine. I sucked in a shuddering breath, gritted my teeth against the burning sensation in my back, and savored the rage exploding through my body.
Dark Clouds, Part 1: The Mandrake Ruse
From Book 1 of The Witch’s Son
By Scott Bury
“You didn’t know I would come,” said Matt. His voice was hoarse. “You attacked me to draw me out.”
Helen smiled even more smugly. “I knew you would come when you saw the clouds over the city. And I knew you would take the talisman. That’s why I chose mandrake root. It’s poisonous, even to you. But it’s not the source of my power. And now, you’ve cut your life-string shorter, sacrificed years—for nothing.”
Matt slumped and looked up at his mother from under his eyebrows. “Not for nothing. For your knife.” In one movement, he pushed her hands away, pushed her to her knees and grabbed a fistful of her hair in one hand and the wooden blade with the other. He began to hack at her hair until it piled on the floor and writhed like dying worms.
Helen screamed so loudly that the glass in the patio doors shattered. The coven shrieked along with her until the air vibrated against his ears. They gathered around him. Some tried to pull Helen away, but he held onto a handful of hair as he hacked the rest off. Helen’s blood hissed when it hit the ground, but Matt did not care.
Other members of the coven cast spells at him, or tried to push him off their queen. But if Matt did not want a witch to touch him, she did not touch him.
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