Monsters in the Closet

So I couldn't help but notice that my short story collection Monsters in the Closet is ranked #693,741 in Kindle sales.  That's atrocious!  How can I be ranked so low with reviews like this :

Patrick Rahall and Justin Graves have teamed up on a creepy Kindle horror book. Consider this a "USA Today" for horror junkies. It's filled to the gills with short blasts of horror gore that will raise the hair on your neck and keep you flipping the pages. A satisfying and captivating read!

and this:

Ok I found this collection of short stories very entertaining. The first story plays on the fear of being trapped, powerless and incapacitated add to that mix the fear of fire and you have the fist story.

The first story is shocking and very well written and well thought out. The authors have fantastic imaginations, or are very good researchers or both.. Having set a high standard with the first story, time soon passes as you read from story to story and all too quickly the end.. leaving the reader wanting more. It's good value for money at 99 cents. Recommended for horror fans only. This is dark stuff and not suitable for those of a nervous disposition.

This was a review of the kindle edition

and this:

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.

and this:

Much like Pill Hill Press's Daily Frights books (Of which the 2012 edition features two works from this collection), this is a great read for those who want to finish a story but don't have a lot of time on their hands. Interesting, well paced, horror stories ranging from creepy to gruesome and nightmarish in their scope, each of these stories manages to pack environments, scenes, characters, plot development, and truly unique and sometimes startling endings into a very small bite.

I want YOU to help rectify this oversight and get your copy today!  For only $.99 you can own a piece of awesomeness that has gotten spectacular reviews and as a bonus contains the prologue of my upcoming novel, Cycle of the Hunter!  Help me afford my wedding this year (September 13th) by picking up your copy either in Kindle form HERE or the print version for $5 HERE.

Over and Over

So I'm torn.  I don't know if I should try and finish my re-write of Cycle of the Hunter or if I should shelve that for now and concentrate on my short stories and get to work on Monsters in the Closet Volume Two.  The issue is that I have been stagnating on Cycle.  Haven't written anything in a few months.  It's sad because for a while I was flying through it.  I know the story.  I know what I want to happen.  I also have the sequel ready to go.  My issue is getting the story out of my head and onto the computer so I can finally have it all out there and I can edit, re-write and get going on other stuff.  I HATE when I get stuck.  I love writing.  Thankfully I have the paranormal-association.com site that keeps me busy.  Seriously, if you like the stuff I've written, make sure you check out the other contributors, or if you would like to start a conversation/topic do so in the forum!  We welcome that stuff!  And if there is a topic that you would like to see me write on, please suggest it!  I am thinking of the following:

Hell's Gate at Bobby Mackey's
The Jersey Devil
Peter Stubbe - An actual account of a werewolf?
Porphyria - the disease that gave birth to the vampire legend

Please vote on what you think you would like most!

Paranormal Activity!

So my first article went so well on Paranormal-Association.com that they asked me to do another!  I did, and it can be found here.  The first one is on the deeply disturbed Sarah Winchester's attempt to keep the spirits of the people killed by the guns that bear her name from haunting her by building the Winchester Mystery House.  As you can see from the picture it is massive.  It was built 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 38 years.  Non stop.

The second one is about haunted/possessed dolls on an island just outside Mexico City.  The dolls were said to keep evil spirits at bay...but some say it failed miserably.  Spend a night there, just don't expect the locals to be waiting with their boats to take you back until the sun comes up.

The hut built to house the nicest dolls.

Dolls hung from trees.

There will be more articles in the future.  I am already working on more!  If you enjoyed reading my articles, please check out my collection of short stories Monsters in the Closet available on Amazon Kindle and/or the paperback.  Both are available on Amazon.
Thank you and I look forward to adding more stuff for you!

Tagged! I'm it!

So I was tagged by my friend, the very talented Alyn Day (@z0mbiegrl on twitter- check out her blog here) so now I have to get into this "The Next Big Thing"...thing.  Right now I'm working on a couple of projects.  I'm rewriting my original novel, Cycle of the Hunter.  I'm making it better, getting into more detail than I did with the first one.  Also I am working on the second installment of my short story compilations, Monsters in the Closet.  Volume one can be purchased for Kindle here and the paperback here.  I do have an excerpt that I would like to share however.

PROLOGUE

There were three of them in the house that night, all dressed in black and wearing ski masks...  Their orders were simple: slaughter everyone in the house.  Make sure they die, nothing less would be acceptable.  There were two men who were under the command of the third.  The first two men were Rudy Davenport and Terrell Jackson – low-level thugs who occasionally dabbled in drug sales.  The third man was referred to simply as ‘Boss’; they were not to know his real name.  All things considered, they preferred it that way.  Considering what they were planning to do, they wanted to know as little as possible about the people who hired them and the man they were now reporting to.  They had been paid ten thousand dollars cash, and as a result they were not inclined to ask questions.

            Rudy and Terrell followed the Boss into the bedroom on the first floor where they found a sleeping couple.  Rudy was unnerved by the Boss.  He didn’t seem to make a single sound as they moved through the house.  Floorboards didn’t creak under his feet and papers did not rustle as he passed by them.  It was like he was a ghost.  He also didn’t carry a gun.  He had a long silver dagger instead of the Glock complete with laser sight and silencer that Rudy himself carried.  He had a feeling that the Boss liked being up close and personal with his prey, liked the connection you could only get with a knife.  It was surpassed only by the feeling you got with bare hands.

            And teeth.

            They went over to the sleeping couple on the bed.  The Boss had a wide smile across his lips and his teeth shone in the limited light of the bedroom.  He walked over to the side of the bed where the man was gently snoring and looped his rope around the man’s wrists and tied him to the bedpost.  Then he handcuffed the man’s ankles around the post at the foot of the bed. 

            “Hey, asshole, wake up,” he whispered and lightly slapped the man’s face.

            “Huh?  Wuzzat?” he said.  Then he tried to move.  His eyes opened wide when he couldn’t move and he struggled against his bonds.  “What the fuck is going on?” he screamed.

            “Mark?” The woman was awake.  Rudy and Terrell grabbed her.  She struggled but the two men were powerful and she had no chance of getting away.

            “You may not know why we’re here, but that doesn’t matter anyway.  The only thing that matters is you’re both going to die.  Normally we would have to be quiet and hurry up, but unfortunately for you we have plenty of time.  I haven’t decided who will be first.  I have a few ideas.  I’ve thought about cutting your eyes from your head so you have to listen to your wife scream and you have to imagine what we’re doing to her.  But then you wouldn’t be able to watch her die, so you can see the difficult position I’m in.”

            “Why are you doing this?  Please, just take whatever you want.  We haven’t seen your faces!”  Mark said.  The woman was blubbering.

            “We’re not here for your stuff, Mark.  We’re here for the sole purpose of killing you and your wife and then when we’re done we’ll go upstairs, get your son and give him a choice.  He can either join mommy and daddy in Heaven, or he can join us and fulfill his destiny the way he ought to.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I told you it doesn’t matter why we’re here.  All that matters is that this is going to happen.  And there is nothing you can do about it.  You’re going to die.  Your wife will die.  And your son…well that’s up to him,” the Boss said with a smile.

            The Boss took off his coat and revealed his muscular arms.  He was wearing gloves and holding his knife.  He walked over to the woman and grabbed her by the hair.  He told Rudy and Terrell to move so he could enjoy himself.  He sliced her nightgown off and pulled her over in front of Mark.  He slid the knife gently against her body.  He started at her right hip and began drawing a thin line of blood with the incredibly sharp knife.  He cut across her stomach and up her sternum between her breasts.  She was begging and pleading and felt her bladder let go and hot urine flowed down her legs and made a puddle on the floor.  The Boss was disgusted.  He jammed the knife into her windpipe and she started coughing.  He yanked the knife sideways, tearing the flesh of her throat.  He was scarcely able to contain himself as her arterial spray covered her husband.  Mark screamed, tears running down his face.  The Boss let go of the woman and let her drop to the floor where she coughed and wheezed as her life flowed onto the carpet around her.

            The Boss stuck the knife into Mark’s stomach.  He screamed even louder as the Boss pulled the blade towards himself.   A hole like a grotesque mouth opened up in his side, Boss used the flat side of the blade next, spilling Mark’s entrails onto the floor on top of his wife.  Mark’s screams rapidly faded and became less intense as he slowly died.  The Boss turned to Rudy and Terrell, who were shocked into silence.  They were just looking at the two dead people and the Boss, who was covered in their blood and guts.  The Boss had a huge grin on his face. 

            “What the fuck?” Terrell whispered.  The Boss’ grin faded.  There was a hint of movement that Rudy detected and the next thing he knew Terrell had the hilt of the knife protruding from his chest.  Terrell looked at it, as if to say ‘Who put this here?’ turned to look at Rudy and then slowly slumped to the floor.

            “Looks like old Terrell didn’t quite have the stomach for this job.  Well he shouldn’t have taken it,” the Boss said as he shook his head.  “But not you, right Rudy?”

            “N-no Boss.  I can handle it.”

            “Excellent!” the Boss said, his happy grin returning.  “Then by all means help yourself to Terrell’s share.  You’ll find it in his jacket pocket.”

            Rudy had no problem rifling through the dead man’s jacket to find the stack of cash.  While he was busy the Boss looked over and saw the kid standing in the doorway.  He had what looked like a slingshot in his hand.  The cup was drawn back and pointed at the Boss.  At first he thought Oh how cute! but there was something in the kid’s eyes.  Something that wiped the grin off the Boss’ face.  Rudy looked up and saw the Boss standing still. 

            “What’s the matter, Boss?  Isn’t that the kid you wanted?  Want me to grab him?”

            “Shut up!” he hissed.  Something wasn’t right.  The kid was supposed to be docile, weak.  The kid standing in the doorway was neither.  The Boss changed tactics.  “Why don’t you put that down before someone gets hurt, huh kid?”   

            The kid responded by pulling the cup back a little further.  He had a look of focused fury and rage in his blazing blue eyes.  He looked straight into the Boss’ eyes.  He refused to look at his parents’ mangled corpses.  The Boss opened his mouth to say something and took a step forward at the same time.  The kid let go of the cup and a fraction of a second after the Boss heard the twangg! sound of the elastic he felt a burning pain across his face.  He put his hand to his face and howled in anger.  Whatever the kid had shot at him had not only torn through his ski mask but it ripped his face open from the left corner of his mouth to his hairline.  His eye was obliterated and the shredded flap of his cheek hung grotesquely against his neck.  The Boss dropped to his knees in agony and intense hatred filled his mind.  He wanted nothing more than to tear the kid apart with his bare hands.

            Rudy was saying something but it sounded like he was at the top of a deep well calling down to the Boss.  No one had ever hurt him like that before.  He looked at Rudy, who was pointing wildly in the direction of where the kid was standing.  Fearing, for the first time in his life that he would be attacked and hurt again, he raised up his right hand (the one not pressed against the wound that was pouring even more blood onto the floor, adding to Mark’s and his wife’s)  and braced for more pain.  It didn’t come.  He opened his eyes. 

            The child was gone.

Smashwords...interesting...

So i just started a Smashwords account.  I guess that means I should get going as far as getting some goddam writing done.  I've been stagnating.  Of course, I haven't had time to even write anything here, and this really just requires me to spew/vent.  So what's been going on?  Well I have just been named Godfather to my friends' first born.  That's right - someone trusts ME enough to take care of their child in case the unthinkable should happen.  Guess I'm not all that bad, eh everyone that said I wouldn't amount to anything?

We had a hurricane and luckily for us it wasn't so bad.  We did lose power for a few hours, but nothing too terrible happened as a result.  None of our food spoiled and we were not forced to resort to cannibalism.  At least for the time being.

I just want to direct anyone who reads this to check out not only the folks who follow my blog but to check out the highly skilled OM Grey.  Her blog is here so do yourself a favor and go check it out.  She's incredibly talented and can wield words the way a surgeon wields a scalpel - with great skill and extreme precision.  Do it now!  And while you're at it, follow her on Twitter because she's full of the insight, poignancy and humor you would expect in such an awesome wordsmith.

What?

So I've been working on my re-imagining of Cycle of the Hunter, and I'm hoping to have it out by the end of the year, but I've been running into issues.  Like the other day for instance.  I'm writing, chilling with Miss von Nitemare and all of a sudden my cursor starts backtracking through my entire book!  It was like I was holding the back arrow, but I wasn't.  Not so awesome.  By the time I was able to stop the goddam thing, Word had shut down and I was forced to restart my laptop.  Aaaaaaand....everything I had written was in the black abyss of nothingness.  Gone.  I still had what I had saved up to that point (which is awesome because I have lost everything before) but I was really on a roll and was getting quality work done.  Pissed me off.
PS
Please pick up a copy of Monsters in the Closet HERE
I am trying to save up for a wedding here!  It's 360 days away!

I am finally back on here after an extended absence.  I was shocked and dismayed to read the blog of fellow horror writer Alyn Day. You can check it out here but I can give you the gist of it.  Someone published her work under false pretenses.  They hacked, mangled and butchered her story until it was unrecognizable.  Obviously, she was enraged, which was totally understandable.    I don't blame her.  I would be too.  Please read her blog and do what you can to help spread the word!