It’s October, and you know what that means:
It’s Haunting Time!
Some of your favorite BestSelling authors love writing scary, spooky stories. Here are some tastes, just to get you in the mood for Hallowe’en.
On Unfaithful Wings
By Bruce Blake
Halfway across the churchyard, I noticed two men blocking the path ahead. They wore jackets with hoods pulled up to hide their faces, keep the rain from their heads. At first glimpse, the sheets of rain gave them a ghostly quality, a glow, and made me doubt my eyes. My gaze flickered sideways to the graveyard beside the church, with its broken, moss-covered headstones canted at odd angles, but I quickly dismissed the thought. A trick of rain and poor light.
There’s no such thing as ghosts.
Return of the Ascendant
Ascendant Series #1
By Raine Thomas
Kyra watched the shadows take shape, growing ever taller. Five feet, six feet, seven feet tall…like a creature advancing and casting a longer and longer shadow. Her heartbeat accelerated. The voice in her head ordered her to flee.
Run now!
Before she could command her limbs to move, she felt her arm taken in a firm grip. She barely avoided issuing a terrified shriek over the contact.
Her head whipped to the side. She realized the man who had grabbed her was a good eight or nine inches taller than her, even in her heels. She got a sense of a chiseled profile and broad shoulders as he urged her to move. Had he been the one who had cast the shadow?
“It isn’t me you need to worry about,” he said in a deep voice. “You were right to fear the dark.”
Dark Clouds: The Mandrake Ruse
The Witch Queen’s Son, book one (planned)
By Scott Bury
A dull reddish light spilled from the gaping front doors. Matt could hear women’s laughter and jazz music inside. He shook his head. “Oh, mother.” He took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.
Inside, the air was hot, dry and smoky. He could barely see in front of him, but he followed the sound of laughter. Yes, that was definitely his mother’s cartoonish cackle, but there was another laugh, too, shrill, gleeful and evil. Matt shuddered. There was something familiar about that sound.
Open double doors led to a large meeting room. The only illumination came from a dull red glow hanging over the centre of a long board table. Patio doors looking out to a flower garden let in no light from the roiling sky.
Men and women sat around the table, unmoving. Their eyes were unfocused and their mouths hung open. In the dim light, Matt thought he recognized some of them: politicians and diplomats from other countries. He had read something about the Prime Minister holding a conference to prepare for a diplomatic initiative he had cooked up. Matt could just make out dozens of other bodies lying still on the floor or crumpled on top of each other against the walls.
And at the head of the table, in the biggest chair, Matt’s mother, Helen sat on the Prime Minister’s lap. She was stroking his chin, and he was looking toward her, but his eyes were unfocused and his jaw was slack.
Behind Helen was a group of women of different ages, sizes and races. They laughed and pointed at the people at the table, and at Matt as well, shrieking with their own amusement. Matt could not understand anything they said.
Helen spoke without looking at Matt. “You took your sweet time getting here. I hope that I wasn’t too rough on little Teri, was I?”
All Alone
From the Ricket Row collection
By Elyse Salpeter
The ward is but a tomb, the screams silenced. A lone gurney rests against the wall; its top sheet flutters in the breeze blowing in from the broken window.
I push forward, the wheels of my chair shrieking against the linoleum tiles.
Where is everyone? Why am I utterly alone?
Sniffling. A pair of eyes peeks at me from around the corner. Red rat eyes.
And, they’re hungry.
I push my wheelchair backwards, back towards the room.
The rat follows me and he’s not alone.
I slam the door.
Maybe one day, they’ll come back. Maybe one day, someone will remember I’m still here. Maybe one day, someone will remember I’m still alive.
Crimson Vale
By Jennifer Harlow
He envelops me in his arms, hugging me so tight no space remains between us. He kisses my hair, my forehead, down my cheek until his hungry lips find mine in a deep, probing kiss. Perfect.
His taste, his fit, the hard press followed by the tender caress of those lips. Perfect. My body responds, lust escaping my every pore. He clings to me, fingers digging into the flesh of my buttocks hard enough to leave bruises.
I don’t care. He could flay me alive right now as long as he doesn’t stop kissing me. Because I was made for this. For him. Even when I taste the blood, even when his fingernails slice through my skin, even as the porch crumbles underneath my stinging feet, I cannot pull away. I wouldn’t dare. If I do, all is lost.
He breaks our kiss first, all but tearing my soul from my body. When I open my eyes, he’s gazing down at me as streams of blood pour from his red eyes to the gray cracked veiny skin of his cheeks and out his mouth. “Finally. You’re home.”
Enter to win
Don’t forget: you can win nine books by these and more bestselling authors, all loaded onto a brand new Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. Just sign up to get BestSelling Writers Connect in your email every week, and your name is entered in the draw.
Already subscribing?
Send this message to a friend, and send a copy of your recommendation by email to connect@bestsellingreads.com, and we’ll enter your name into a draw for the same nine e-books.
Happy spooking!