Releasing October 25 - On the Edge of Nowhere

 

Cover Image: Erin Dameron-Hill Graphics

A centaur war is no place to be in the middle of.

* * * * 

The fighting spread everywhere but the ruins where the drunken audience clapped and cheered the increasing bloodshed. Gina winced when two centaurs took down another a few feet away. “We’re supposed to get through this?”

“It’s your only opportunity to not face the man-eating tree again. That should inspire you.” Amy peered at the woods where the shallow stream bisected it. Between the girls and the trees, at least a dozen combatants swung swords and clubs at each other. “Our best chance is through there. Then we’ll jog to the west, pick up the trail leading to the door. Ready? Come on.”

With little warning, she was off and running. On the way, she snatched up her sweater with its stupid pin.

Gina and Mattie exchanged a brief glance. They came to the same decision at once, no conversation required. They raced after her.

A confusing kaleidoscope of fear and desperation followed. Noise walloped Gina with physical force. Howls and screams of the combatants deafened her as they fought and killed each other. The thunder of hooves pounded the ground. High-pitched notes of bows twanged, and arrows flew. Closer was the splash and hiss of water disturbed by the girls’ passage as they veered in and out of the stream, dodging the centaurs who battled nearby. Gina’s heartbeat boomed. Her breath sobbed in and out, the loudest sound of all.

Her vision in those endless seconds of flight came in snapshots: the glitter of sunlight on the water, the drops flung by Mattie’s sneakers as she fled before Gina, the shocking closeup of a sword diving into a centaur’s horse stomach, the spray of cherry-juice blood arcing almost close enough to strike her. The woods up ahead, never coming any closer no matter how she ran.

The scent of unwashed animal hung heavy. She noted no other smell.

What struck Gina clearest were the sensations. The shiver that shot from whatever foot hammered the ground as she ran, racing from her sole up to the top of her head. The hundreds of small pebbles and sharp edges of larger rocks that dug into the bottoms of her feet. The pressure on her chest warning there wasn’t enough air, though great draughts of it flowed through her gaping mouth and down her throat. The sting of a horse tail slapping her cheek.

If she had a coherent thought in those moments, she wouldn’t recall it. She recognized only the instinct to get away, to weave around the struggling behemoths staggering in her path, to keep up with white-faced Mattie, to reach the stand of trees, to find safety.

Even when Gina’s ankle turned on a stone and sent a flash of pain through her leg, she didn’t remark on it. The animal part of the human beast had taken control. There was just flight. The sole instant she remembered herself was when a sword flashed before her. It cleaved the air inches from her face.

* * * *

Those who step inside Hungry House never return. But when the abandoned house on the edge of town is ready to feed, it won’t be denied. 

Inquisitive Gina and her impulsive best friend Mattie know better than to enter the abandoned Victorian. The mansion on the edge of Nowhere, Georgia, has a reputation for ‘eating’ those who dare to step inside. Yet when another friend and her younger brother disappear after last being seen heading toward Hungry House, Gina and Mattie have no choice but to follow.

Inside, they find every door is a gateway to a new nightmare. Even death is no escape—it only sends the unlucky trespassers back to the start of Hungry House’s gauntlet. Their only hope is to survive long enough to confront the house’s mistress, an inhuman being whose lust for vengeance is as immortal as she.

Releasing October 25. Pre-order now: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Smashwords.

Print on sale now: print