Monsters in the Closet

The day has finally arrived!  Monsters in the Closet is finally out on Amazon Kindle and can be found HERE so what are you waiting for?  Read the book!  Here's what people are saying about it:

“Patrick Rahall’s style is masterfully chilling.  Prepare for a doors locked and lights on all night experience.”- Thomas Amo, author of An Apple for Zoe

“If you’re a horror fan, you won’t read anything better.  Patrick Rahall is an amazing writer, terror drips from every syllable…get ready to be scared.  Everything he writes is a sheer terrible treat.:- Christian Jensen, author of tons of stuff.


"The stories in this stunning horror collection run the gamut, from grisly to amusing to poignant. And they obey Edgar Allan Poe's short story law of being brief enough to be read in a single sitting. Patrick Rahall shows that less is more, and the short lengths are a plus for today's busy readers. In addition, the author's voice is fresh and real, and his style is perfect for the horror genre--lean and punchy. And terrifying! Highly recommended."- Amazon Review

At last check I was ranked 19,750 in sales on Kindle, which is awesome!  Tell your friends, tell your family, shout out the window at strangers as they walk by your room!

Monsters in the Closet

Finally, finally, FINALLY almost done with Monsters in the Closet, which will be available exclusively on Amazon Kindle shortly.  It's my first collaborative project with Justin Graves and Ashes von Nitemare (@Justin_Graves_ and @MissvonNitemare on Twitter - follow them if you don't already!) and we are very excited for it!  It includes a few of the short flash stories I've posted on here and on other blogs.  I'm hoping to get some positive feedback on it and I'm really excited for its release.  It will be available for only 99 cents, so please help me out and pick up a copy and tell your friends!

Latest in a Line...

So here is another flash story.  I am trying to put a bunch together for an anthology that I am writing with Justin Graves.  Here's one that I think you'll like.  It's called Home Early, about what happens when a cheating wife's husband comes home from work unexpectedly during a zombie outbreak.
Enjoy!

Home Early

Allison was horrified to hear the front door open.  She had no idea what had been happening as she was far too busy with the pool cleaner to have her television turned on to the news reports of the carnage and mayhem that were rampant on every channel.  She was more concerned that her husband was home early.  She was half right. 

            As she and Gregorio scrambled to put their clothes on her husband Jeff made his way up the stairs toward the bedroom.  Allison was getting nervous; her and Jeff’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs so there was no way for Gregorio to sneak out of the house unless he attempted to go out the window.  They were debating the merits of this versus Gregorio hiding in a closet or under the bed when the bedroom door swung open.  Jeff’s mouth was wide open.  Too wide open – he was missing his lower jaw and his left eye was torn out.  His tongue was stuck to his throat with caked blood and saliva.  The front of his shirt was soaked to his skin and he was missing two fingers on his left hand.  Jeff looked from his wife to her lover and shuffled towards the man who was sharing the marital bed with his wife.  Gregorio screamed something in Portuguese and leapt from the window.

            He never hit the ground- he landed on top of a horde of Walkers and they snapped his legs like two kids splitting the wishbone of their Thanksgiving turkey.  His left leg was ripped sideways at the knee and torn off.  His entire right leg was ripped out at the ball and socket joint of his hip.  He would have screamed except for the fact that a Walker had sunk its fingers into his eyes like a bowler gripping a fourteen pound ball and ripped his head from his lower jaw.  All that remained was his tongue that wagged with involuntary nerve impulses and his ragged stump of broken spine.

            Allison was frozen in fear.  She had literally lost her mind at the sight of her mangled husband shambling into the room.  The only thought running through her mind at the end was the registration of terror and agony as her Jeff ripped ragged mouthfuls of flesh from her prone body like a shark tearing sustenance from the carcass of a whale. 

Another Flash Story!

This is a story I submitted for publication but it was after the deadline expired so it was denied.  I think it's a fairly good story,maybe not as good as my Pot Roast story, but still pretty good.  Let me know what you think!

Hide and Seek

“The woods are haunted you know,” Josh said as they walked.

“Bullshit,” Bob said grumpily.  “There are no such things as ghosts.  Don’t be so stupid.”

“You guys are so stupid.  Why do you have to argue all the time?” Tanya said, rolling her eyes.  “We’ll just go into the woods to where the house is supposed to be and see for ourselves.”

“Fine with me.  How are you feeling, Josh?” Bob asked.

“I’m not scared if that’s what you’re asking,” he said but didn’t sound too convincing.

“Yeah right.  If we need to find our way back we can just follow your urine trail.”

“Shut it, Bob,” Josh said.

They walked in silence through the woods to the shack where the ghosts of the murdered children were supposed to be.  They opened the door and went inside.  Everything had a thick layer of dust…everything but the toys that were scattered around the floor.  There were no footprints anywhere except from the three of them.

“This is creepy.  I want to leave,” Tanya said.

“You can’t leave.  Now that you’re here, you have to stay,” Bob whispered.

“What?” she asked, her voice almost a scream.

“The children need playmates,” he said, and looked her in the face.  “And you’re here.  Time to play.”

Josh grabbed Tanya by the arm and pulled her back through the door.  His face was pale as a sheet and he was terrified.  A wet spot manifested itself on the front of his pants.  The two of them ran, Tanya chancing a glance over her shoulder saw Bob standing in the doorway of the shack looking out at them.  A second later she fell to the ground hard on top of Josh.  He had tripped over a root and tried to use her to maintain his balance. 

A shadow fell over them.  Two people wearing dirty, ragged clothes were looking down at them.  They each wore crooked smiles that were short several teeth.  The one on the left brought a rock down on Josh’s skull.  There was a cracking sound like an egg being dropped on a tile floor.  Josh’s body began to shake like it was electrified and the horrible creature brought the rock down again and Josh was still.

Tanya saw hands reaching for her and she screamed and passed out from terror.

                                                            ***

“Be careful with your new ball, if you break that one it might be a long time before I can get another one,” Bob warned the children.  They grunted something unintelligible that he took to mean that they understood him.  They gently rolled Tanya’s head back and forth between them, her face locked in a frozen expression of fear.  Bob shook his head.  He warned them.  There were no ghosts.  Just the grown up children everyone thought were dead.  And they needed playmates.  Bob left the shack, eager to find more playmates for the children. 

They tired of their toys so quickly…

New Flash Fiction

So I need to post more often, clearly.  So I will be posting some of my new flash stuff that i'm working on so I can get some opinions on my work.  I just want to know how people are feeling about this stuff before I try to publish it.  So you can tell me what you think after you read it.  I will be adding some more soon.  Feel free to be honest.  I can take it, haha.  

Here's my most recent, entitled Rose From the Dead

ROSE FROM THE DEAD

Hungry. 

Hungry!

HUNGRY! 

HUNGRY!

HUNGRY!

The only thought going through her head was that of the need to eat.  She stumbled, nearly fell, righted herself and trudged on in a more or less straight line.  She had no idea where she was, or where she was headed.  Her need for nourishment was the only thing that drove her forward, kept her feet moving one after another.  To look at her you might think she was intoxicated.

HUNGRY!

She saw something move in the periphery of her left eye, but it was hard to find a proper direction in which to turn because her eye was dangling from the optic nerve from her eye socket and was bouncing against her cheek as she walked.  She turned and stared with her good right eye, but the view she expected was not what she got.  If she was capable of being nauseated she would have been.  Seeing two different points of view at the same time would do that to almost everyone, but she was far beyond that.  For Rose, it was just confusing.  And with her limited capacity to understand her surroundings and sensory input it just made her angry and upset.

HUNGRY!

She staggered along because she could hear something.  She would have hoped it was food if she was capable of any emotion other than basic, primal urges.  She staggered towards the direction of the sound, her bad eye causing her to walk in circles because her perspective kept changing.  She slowly reached up and pulled on the optic nerve and strands of muscle still holding the eye.  There was a small popping sound like a rubber band that broke after being stretched too far and Rose was in possession of only one line of sight.  Now she was able to see where she was going and follow the sound with greater ease.  She was able to sidestep a trashcan that had been knocked over and walk around a stalled car that was still smoldering. 

She approached an alley and the sound was getting louder.  A few days ago she would have recognized the sounds as a child calling for help but today it was like the ringing of a dinner bell.  Without realizing she was doing it, she began drooling at the thought of her impending meal.

HUNGRY!

HUNGRY!

HUNGRY!

She got into the narrow alley and saw the child, his mouth open and sound coming out.  She no longer recognized words so she did not hear the child call out to the woman on the fire escape above him.  All she knew was that she was finally about to get nourishment.  Of course all she got was a .22 caliber rifle bullet through her recently vacated left eye socket.  She fell down next to the child, who smiled up at the woman. 

Rose’s head was added to the others on the white picket fence surrounding the house where the child and his mother lived.

Rock and Shock Summation

So for the first time, I didnt go autograph seeking at this year's Rock and Shock convention.  The first thing that I noticed that was AWESOME was our booth had doubled in size, credit TJ May for that one.  I went around and checked out all the kickass vendors.  Everyone from Thrill Me Entertainment (rare/hard to find movies toys and memoribilia - find them at filmfurie.com ), Lightbeam3D.com (3D printing is their specialty) and of course the answer to the riddle What's black and white and red all over? The answer of course is ZombieInAPenguinSuit.com which is a short but awesome zombie film that was being marketed by people walking around hanging out small fliers and buttons.  I watched it and was blown away with how well-done it was, especially the awakening scene at the beginning.  Very awesome.
Know what else is awesome?  The artwork of Kristilyn (kristilyn.com , zombie-romance.com , kristilynINK@gmail.com ).  She did an awesome caricature of Ashleigh and me that we went crazy over!  She refers to herself on her business cards as a "Supremely Skilled Southpaw" and that's an understatement!  In addition to the caricatures she also does a lot of artwork depicting horror characters as well as turning well-known stories into zombie pictures.  Bambi, Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding hood are zombified, but to find out how, check out her sites!  That's all for now, just had to get this down before I didn't have time to do it.  Check out all the stuff I listed above.  You'll thank me later.

*REVIEW* Seed by Ania Ahlborn

Okay this is my first book review since Tamworth Grice's Listening to Ian Magick came out, for which I also wrote a review.  This book was suggested to me by my Kindle app on my Android phone.  I had just finished reading some Lovecraft stuff, and I recognized the author name as one of the people I follow and who follows me.  Here goes...

So I cannot say enough about how creepy this book really is.  It takes you into the world of Jack Winter who seems to be your run of the mill Louisiana resident.  His life is a typical American story - his in-laws don't like him because they feel like he isn't good enough for their daughter who is used to the best in life because she comes from money.  But she marries Jack because she loves who he is.  Things are tough but it's okay, because they havce everything they need, even though things get tight here and there.  The story starts off with Jack bringing the family home from a Chuck E. Cheese type of place because it is his daughter Charlotte's birthday.  She turned six, and the family is on their way home from the celebration.  Jack is driving a beat up old saturn because, like I said, things are tough and he and his wife Aimee are saving for a new one and are almost there. 
Then the headlights go out just as Jack sees something in the road - a pair of black eyes looking back at him.  He flips the car in his instinctual aversion of the car - he jerks the wheel to avoid hitting whatever was in the road.  Everyone is okay but Aimee is beyond upset because she thinks that Jack fell asleep.  However Charlotte (who likes to go by Charlie) wanders off, eventually revealing to her father that she saw something in the woods, and that she saw the pair of eyes right before the car flipped.
I will not get into too much detail but suffice it to say that you find out who the eyes belong to as you go along.  Ania does some flashing back and you learn why Jack loves Charlie more than his other daughter, Abby and maybe even more than he loves his wife.  She tells the story perfectly, giving you just enough information from the past and the present that you begin to more and more be sucked into the story, praying for a happy ending. 
Jack's a good guy, you can relate to him.  Charlie and Abby are good kids, and their dog Nubs is even a likable character.  All in all I would say that this is one of the better books I have read in a long time.  Ania Ahlborn does not pull any punches, nor does she take her foot off the gas once she steps on the accelerator.  She forces you to hang on and enjoy the ride, even if you begin to suspect that you may be headed for a cliff.
Ania Ahlborn can be found on Twitter - @AniaAhlborn and her website is http://www.aniaahlborn.com/ so go and sign up for her newsletter and be ready when her next work comes out this winter!