The 13th Demon by Bruce Hennigan – FIRST Wild Cards

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

 

Today’s Wild Card author is:

and the book:

The 13th Demon, Altar of the Spiral Eye (The Chronicles of Jonathan Steel)

Realms (October 4, 2011)

***Special thanks to Kim Jones | Publicity Coordinator, Charisma House | Charisma Media for sending me a review copy.***

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bruce Hennigan wrote his first short story at age thirteen and knew he wanted to become a full-time writer by the time he was a senior in high school. He is the author of numerous Christian dramas and the coauthor of Conquering Depression. He has a medical degree from Louisiana State University Medical Center and lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, with his wife and daughter.

Visit the author’s website.

 

 

 

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Do You Dare Look Evil in the Eye?

When Jonathan Steel wakes up on a beach in a raging thunderstorm, naked, beaten, and bleeding, he has no idea who he is or how he got there. But just as he starts to make progress in his slow journey to recovery, tragedy strikes again, taking everything in his new life that he has come to love and rely on.

Filled with rage and a thirst for revenge, he searches the countryside for the entity responsible—an entity called only the Thirteenth Demon. His quest brings him to Lakeside, Louisiana, and a small country church where evil is in control and strange writing on the walls, blood-soaked floors, and red-eyed spiders have appeared in the sanctuary.

As he faces the final confrontation with an evil presence that has pursued him all of his life, he must choose between helping the people he loves or destroying the thirteenth demon.

Product Details:

List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Realms (October 4, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616382805
ISBN-13: 978-1616382803

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Lakeside, Louisiana

Along the western horizon the sun settled, bloodred—the very eye of Satan glaring down upon
the man who stood in front of the horror that had once been his church. Alone on the second floor balcony, his voice echoed into the coming night.

“God, what have I done to deserve this?”

He backed up to the wrought iron railing, then gasped as he realized he was leaning against the bent, misshapen portion of the railing where it had all begun. He pushed away, bit his thumbnail, and looked around at the huge white columns and across the empty balcony. In front of him were the two intimidating wooden doors that led into the foyer of his church. Four windows were on each side, coated with caked dust. No one had been inside the church in weeks. But that did not mean it was empty.

He had to get to his office.

A squeaking filled the silence. The man watched in horror as the doorknob began to turn. He backed away until he felt his heels at the top of the stone stairs. Sweat poured down from his forehead, and he felt his dress shirt sticking to his ribs. The squeaking stopped. Silence descended.

“Is someone there?” he whispered. There was no answer. He sighed and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. His heart slowed, and he wiped his coat sleeve across his forehead. The coat swallowed him. He had lost twenty pounds in the last month. “I’m not walking away this time,” he said to the lifeless door. “You won’t scare me away!”

The door burst open with a rush of wind, and a red mist engulfed him. He could taste the red liquid in the air; it was coppery, salty. Blood! Through the tiny red droplets on his glasses, he watched a river of it surge through the open doorway. His foot slid as he tried to stumble away, and he fell backward, bouncing off the stone banister, rolling down onto the steps. He slowed his fall halfway down the stairs and looked up at the open doors. Blood cascaded over the top step and poured down the steps, tendrils of crimson coming after him.

He slid back, tumbled once again until he came to a halt on his back on the sidewalk in front of the church. The blood came down the stairs, pooling at the base just inches from his feet. He scooted back away from the pool, watching it grow into a large circle of shimmering red.

“Do you think this is going to scare us away?”

He watched as the girl and her child appeared around the corner of the stairway. The girl’s yellow hair rested on her shoulders, and she wore the same cotton dress with sunflowers as on the day she had wormed her way into his life. She couldn’t have been over sixteen, but that didn’t seem to matter to the toddler who held her left hand. The boy was dark-headed and somewhere between a year and two years of age. His nose was running, and he wore only a disposable diaper. The young woman picked up the child.

“No! This is not my doing. Don’t you know what is going on around here?” The man pointed a bloody hand up the stairs.

“You know what I want. Time is running out,” she said. The toddler smiled.

“It’s in my office, and I can’t get inside because of ”—he gestured at the pool of blood—“this!”

“I’m not leaving, Thomas. We’re in the nursery.” She disappeared from sight, back toward the door under the stairs that led into the basement of the old church.

A fly buzzed by his head and landed on his glasses. He swatted at it. Another fly circled his head. He shook his bloody hair as more flies appeared and moved toward the pool of blood. One landed on the shiny, crimson surface and instantly burst into flame. More flies dove into the pool until a circle of flame hovered above the blood. It gently floated higher, growing larger with each dying fly until it was the size of a beach ball. More flies filled the evening air, circling in dizzying arcs, until they surrounded the ball of flame. A hole opened in the front of the fly ball, and the flames showed forth from within. The man blinked as the opening turned toward him. It was a huge flaming eye! More flies arrived and flew about the flaming
eye to form a spiral that pulsated and spun around it.

“We know about the girl,” the raspy voice proclaimed as the eye lifted higher in the air.

At that, the man lost all reason, all civility, and scuttled backward like a crab into the road in front of the church. The hot asphalt blistered his palms. The buzzing grew louder as the voice spoke the words over and over. His heart pounded. He heard a high, keening whimper and realized it was his own voice.

Suddenly, against the insane noises, there came another roar, approaching fast, and then the sound of squealing brakes, the whoosh of hot wind, the smell of burning rubber, and the grill of a recreational vehicle as it stopped just inches from his face. The man glanced back at the flaming eye with its pulsating spiral. It had disappeared, leaving only a pool of blood behind. The doors of the church were shut. The sudden silence was punctuated by the creaking and popping of the RV to his left. A long shadow fell over him as a figure stepped into the man’s sight.

He was six feet tall with wiry muscles and dressed in a V-neck T-shirt, blue jeans, and work boots. His hair was reddish blond and short, his face tight and expressionless. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.

“How long has it been bleeding?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“It just started.” The man wiped blood from his face. “Are you Steel?”

“Get up.” The figure disappeared into the RV.

He grabbed the grill of the RV with bloody hands and pulled himself shakily to his feet. He walked around the vehicle and entered through the open door. Inside, a table with two laptops and one large monitor sat where he would have expected the kitchen table to be. The man he presumed to be Jonathan Steel reappeared with a black backpack in one hand and a plastic container of disinfectant wipes in the other. He handed him the wipes.

“Clean up. You stink.”

“Hey, I asked you a question.” He pulled wipes from the container and wiped the blood from his hands. “Are you Steel?”

Steel opened a cabinet and took out a huge flashlight. “Are the lights working inside the church?”

The man wiped blood from his glasses. “I don’t know. Listen, you haven’t answered my question.”

The mirrored sunglasses turned in his direction. “Yes. I am Jonathan Steel.”

“I’m . . . I’m Thomas Parker. And this is my church.” He tossed the bloodstained wipes into the sink.

“I know,” Steel answered.

“What are you going to do?”

“We are going inside.” Steel pushed past him toward the open door.

“But don’t we need to sit down and talk about this?” Parker followed the man out of the RV. “Maybe over a cup of coffee? Maybe after I’ve had a shower?”

Steel ignored him and paused at the pool of blood. A fly landed lazily on the surface of the pool and then burst into flames. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

Parker grabbed the man’s arm to turn him. He swallowed. “No one has been inside for six weeks.”

Steel took off his sunglasses, and Parker was shocked by his bright, turquoise eyes. Steel glared at him. “Whose blood is this?”

Parker looked at the blood and then back into Steel’s penetrating gaze. “I don’t know. It just appeared.”

Steel nodded and slid the sunglasses into a pocket of his T-shirt. “Then we need to find the source. Let’s go.”

Parker watched in horror as Steel squished through the puddle of blood and started up the stairs. He hurried after him, trying his best to avoid the rivulets of blood on the stairs. They arrived at the upper level, and Steel paused in front of the closed doors. Blood still trickled from the threshold. His head turned as he studied the walls, the windows, and finally the wrought iron railing that ran around the huge balcony. Parker followed the direction of the man’s gaze and felt a chill when it stopped on the far railing. He knew that if Steel went to the edge and looked down he would see the impression where the body had landed in the soft, grassy soil. The grass still had not grown back. Steel reached for the doorknob and paused.

“Wait a minute!” Parker said. “Do I have to go with you?”

“This is your church.” Steel frowned. “You cannot be afraid.”

“I asked you to come help with the church. To clean up all of . . . this.” Parker motioned to the blood on the portico. Steel just stared at him with those intense eyes. Parker wiped his forehead and sighed. “Look, you didn’t see that blood gush out of that door like a living thing. You didn’t see the eye of flame with the swirling spiral that came out of that puddle of blood . . . ”

“Spiral?” Steel interrupted him. He grabbed Parker by the lapels of his suit coat and pulled him up onto his tiptoes. “Are you sure the eye was surrounded by a spiral?”

“Yes, down there.” Parker slid down into his suit. “It came out of the puddle, and the flies flew around like a spiral.”

For a second Steel’s skin relaxed; his gaze seemed to settle on a distant memory. His hands relaxed, and Parker slid back down onto his feet. Then just as quickly as the change had come, the stony face returned. Steel’s gaze returned to Parker. “We are both going in. Now.” Steel turned and pulled the doors open. They flew outward toward them, and Parker hid behind Steel’s bulk to avoid the mist of blood. As they stepped inside, the temperature plummeted, filling the air with a chilling, icy vapor. Steel stepped into the church’s foyer, his breath misting in front of him. Parker hurried after him. He glanced around at the chunks of ice that covered the offering table and icicles that hung from the old chandelier. Everything was frozen and smelled like freezer-burned meat. The outer doors slammed behind them, engulfing them in darkness.

“What is going on?” Parker huddled up against Steel’s back. Steel’s voice seemed calm and unchanged. “Someone is trying to scare you, Reverend Parker.” Light gushed from Steel’s flashlight, and Parker screamed.

Huge, red spiders hung around them, suspended from the ceiling, their scrabbling arms coated with frost, their multifaceted eyes black with menace. As the light burst through the darkness, the nearest spiders retreated along their spindly webs into the dark shadows of the foyer corners.

“Where did they come from?” Parker shouted.

Steel walked toward the inner two doors that would lead into the sanctuary. “Ignore them. They don’t like the light.” Steel pushed open the doors, and the cold, bitter air was replaced with a hot, fetid wind redolent with the fragrance of vegetation. Parker stumbled over something and looked down at a huge vine stretching across the center aisle. Huge roots and vines covered the pews, the aisle, the walls, and the stainedglass windows. They stretched upward to the edge of the roof.

The inner doors slammed behind them, and Parker bolted forward against Steel’s unmoving back.

“For a man of God, you sure are skittish,” Steel growled at him over his shoulder.

“Are you kidding?” Parker stammered. “Who wouldn’t be?”

“I’ve seen worse,” Steel said.

“You’ve seen worse? How could it be worse?”

“Never ask that question.”

Parker fought off his trembling. He should be the strong one. Not Steel. He tried to stand up straight and smooth out his coat. “Now that we’re here, I need to find something.” A huge curtain of vines was draped across a door leading out of the right side of the sanctuary. “My office is over there.” He pointed.

“We’ll get there.” Steel passed the flashlight beam over the ceiling. Strange writings covered the old acoustic tiles. He fumbled in his backpack and retrieved a digital camera. The darkness was interrupted by flash after flash as Steel took dozens of pictures of the ceiling. Parker saw ghostly figures in the afterglow of each flash. Finally, he closed his eyes until Steel was finished.

“Pictographs of some kind. I don’t recognize the language,” Steel said as he slid the camera back into his backpack and pulled out a small video camera. “We’ll need a linguist.”

“A linguist?”

Steel motioned toward the front of the sanctuary. An altar table sat in front of the pulpit. It was covered with blood that dripped and ran in tiny threads to the floor. A huge, dead flower arrangement sat in the middle of the puddle of blood. Behind the pulpit and choir loft, something glowed with an orange light. “What is that?”

Parker pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Something is in the baptistery.”

Steel hopped over the low choir rail and weaved his way through the three rows of chairs in the choir loft. He stood on a chair and glanced into the baptistery. Parker hurried after him and climbed up on a chair next to Steel. Inside the baptistery, where there once existed the warm, welcoming waters of baptism, a pool of radiant energy filled the deep chamber. Its surface moved with eddies of orange and red energy. Steel switched on the video camera and began recording.

“Baptism by fire?”

“Of course not. What is it?” Parker felt himself drawn into the mesmerizing ebb and flow of energy currents.

“An energy field. Something in this church is manipulating other dimensions of space and time,” Steel said.

Parker glanced at him. “Dimensions?”

Steel turned off the video camera and looked at Parker. His face was bathed in the reddish glow of the baptistery. “We’ll need a physicist.”

“We need a linguist and a physicist. What about a florist for that dead flower arrangement?” Parker threw his hands in the air.

“Reverend, you have no idea what you’re up against.” Steel played the flashlight beam over the choir rail. “Who else is in here?”

“No one,” Parker said.

“I thought I saw someone move in the choir loft.”

Parker shook his head. “If you could just help me get through those vines over there, I need to get something from my office . . . ”

“You’re lying to me.” Steel flicked the beam into his face. Parker put up his hands to block the light. “I’m not lying. There is no one in here but us. No one has been in this sanctuary in weeks.”
Steel pointed the light toward the vines over the door. “So, what is so important in your office?”

“Records, paperwork, uh . . . ” Parker mumbled, stepping back involuntarily. Something squished beneath his feet, and immediately the air filled with the sound of soft chittering, the sound of a thousand tiny legs tapping and moving. Steel focused the beam of light on the floor. Spiders were all around them, scuttling along the vines converging on Parker. He backed into the altar table, and blood splashed down his legs. He bounced away and ran toward the door leading to his office. A curtain of red spiders converged on the vines and blocked his way. “Mr. Steel, do something!” he screamed.

“The light isn’t stopping them,” Steel said. Suddenly a gust of wind swirled to life behind Parker, swallowing him in a tornado of debris and dust. Parker felt himself lifted helplessly into the air. Wind buffeted him, spinning him upside down until he hung in the center of the vortex ten feet above the floor. Steel backed away from the funnel of air as bits of glowing energy spun from the baptistery, coalescing into a tumbling mass of gleaming metal slivers.

Parker watched the tiny metal flecks hurtle across the loft to pause just outside the vortex. Slivers of metal tumbled and spun and assembled themselves into tiny, metal spiders. The metal arachnids swirled into the vortex. Sparking and flashing in the glow of the baptistery, they ripped at his clothing, shredding his suit coat, ripping his pants, even tugging off his shoes. Parker’s open mouth finally found sound, and his scream tore through the roar of the wind. Suddenly Steel was beneath him, pulling him down. Together they fell out of the vortex of wind. Parker pushed himself off of Steel and, without pausing, ran down the aisle, flung through the inner doors, and pushed through the outer doors onto the portico. He tumbled down the stairs and came to rest in the parking lot, his eyes filled with sweat, blood, and dead leaves. Bruised and scratched, in only his underwear, he stood up and ran down the hill to the parsonage where he lived, his mind filled with unspeakable horrors.

The 13th Demon by Bruce Hennigan – CFBA

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
The 13th Demon
Realms (October 4, 2011)
by
Bruce Hennigan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bruce Hennigan was born and raised in the isolated countryside of Shreveport, La., a place full of possibilities for the active mind of a young boy. The fertile imagination he cultivated while playing deep in the Louisiana woods would lead to a lifelong love of creative writing.

In 2006, Hennigan pursued the Certified Apologetic Instructor Certificate from the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He has become a frequent speaker at regional and state events on apologetics and his strong point is in making these sometimes hard to understand issues easily approachable for the average Christian. Hennigan’s experience in apologetics inspired him to write his new novel, The 13th Demon: Altar of the Spiral Eye, a supernatural Christian thriller that combines science and faith. Now, combining his love for apologetics and his love for the art of writing, Hennigan is pursuing a career as the “Michael Crichton” of Christian fiction building powerful, fast paced stories around the truths of Christian apologetics.

Hennigan currently resides in Shreveport with his wife and daughter. He continues to write and to practice radiology at the Willis Knighton Health Care System. He has secured Jeff Jernigan of Hidden Value Group (www.hiddenvaluegroup.com) as his literary agent and has signed a five book deal with the Realms imprint of Charisma Media for “The Chronicles of Jonathan Steel”.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

When Jonathan Steel wakes up on a beach in a raging thunderstorm, naked, beaten, and bleeding, he has no idea who he is or how he got there. But just as he starts to make progress in his slow journey to recovery, tragedy strikes again, taking everything in his new life that he has come to love and rely on.

Filled with rage and a thirst for revenge, he searches the countryside for the entity responsible—an entity called only the Thirteenth Demon. His quest brings him to Lakeside, Louisiana, and a small country church where evil is in control and strange writing on the walls, blood-soaked floors, and red-eyed spiders have appeared in the sanctuary.

As he faces the final confrontation with an evil presence that has pursued him all of his life, he must choose between helping the people he loves or destroying the thirteenth demon.

If you would like to read the first chapter of The 13th Demon, go HERE.

Learn more about Bruce on his Website.

Darkness Follows by Mike Dellosso

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

 

Today’s Wild Card author is:

 

 

and the book:

 

Darkness Follows

Realms (May 3, 2011)

***Special thanks to Anna Coelho Silva | Publicity Coordinator, Charisma House | Charisma Media for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Mike now lives in Hanover, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Jen, and their three daughters. He is a regular columnist for AVirtuousWoman.org, was a newspaper correspondent/columnist for over three years, has published several articles for The Candle of Prayer inspirational booklets, and has edited and contributed to numerous Christian-themed websites and e-newsletters. Mike is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers association, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance, the Relief Writer’s Network, and FaithWriters, and plans to join International Thriller Writers. He received his BA degree in sports exercise and medicine from Messiah College and his MBS degree in theology from Master’s Graduate School of Divinity.

Visit the author’s website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Sam Travis lives in a Civil War era farmhouse in Gettysburg, PA, where he awakens one morning to find an old journal with an entry by a Union soldier, Lt. Whiting…written in Sam’s own handwriting. When this happens several more times, both at night and during waking “trances,” Sam begins to question his own sanity while becoming obsessed with Lt. Whiting and his bone-chilling journal entries. As the entries begin to mimic Sam’s own life, he is drawn into an evil plot that could cost many lives, including his own. Can the unconditional love of Sam’s daughter, Eva, break through his hardened heart before a killer on the loose catches up with them and Sam’s past spurs him to do the unthinkable?

Product Details:

List Price: $13.99
Paperback:
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Realms (May 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616382740
ISBN-13: 978-1616382742

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Prologue

Gettysburg, 1863

Captain Samuel Whiting removed his gloves and sat on the cot in his tent. It had been a long, grueling day of battle, and his clothes were soaked through with sweat. He’d lost more men, good men, family men. Men who would never return home to their wives. Boys who would never again cross the thresholds of their parents’ homes.

He leaned forward, removed his boots, and stretched his legs. The air in the tent was still and muggy. At least outside there was a light breeze to carry away the stench of the wounded. In here, the smells hung in the air like a haze. Beyond the canvas walls the sounds of soldiers—heroes—in the throes of agony wandered through the camp like the souls of dead men looking for rest. But there was no rest in a place like this.

A single oil lamp sat on the floor, casting an orange glow about the tent’s interior. Samuel turned the knob on the lamp, giving more wick to the flame. The light brightened and the shadows darkened. From a writing box he removed a leather-bound journal, the one his mother had given him before he left to join Mr. Lincoln’s army. At the time he thought he was doing the right thing, thought he was fighting for a noble cause.

Now he thought differently. There was nothing noble about this war, nothing honorable about the way it was being fought nor the reasons for which it was being waged.

After dipping the tip of his quill into an inkwell, he put the tip to the paper and began to write. The words flowed from his hand, though they were not born of him but of something else, something dark and sinister, something to which he had finally given himself.

In the corner of the tent a shadow moved. He saw it from the corner of his eye. It was a shadow cast not by the oil lamp’s flame but by some other source, a source Samuel did not fully understand but felt.

The shadow glided along the canvas, following the angles of the tent, and came to a stop beside the cot. There it seemed to lurk, to hover, as if curious to see what was being written on the pages of the journal. A chill blew over Samuel, penetrated his clothes and flesh, and settled into his bones.

The shadow began to throb in rhythm with Samuel’s beating heart. His quill moved across the paper more rapidly now, the point carving words—vitriol—at an alarming pace. His heart rate quickened and, with it, the pulsations of the shadow.

At once a strong wind ruffled the canvas and brought with it a low howl that sounded more like a moan. It did not originate from outside the tent, from wounded and homesick boys, but rather from within, from the shadow. The wind circled the tent’s interior, stirred the pages of the journal, Samuel’s hair, his clothes, and finally, as if in one final great sigh, extinguished the light of the lamp.

Captain Samuel Whiting was engulfed by darkness.

One

Present day

Sam Travis awoke in the middle of the night, cold and terrified.

The dream had come again. His brother. The shot.

You did what you had to do, son.

He sat up in bed and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Next to him Molly stirred, grunted, and found his arm with her hand. “You OK, babe?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna go get some water.”

“You sure?”

He found her forehead in the darkness and kissed it. “Yeah.”

The house was as still and noiseless as a crypt. Sam made his way down the hall to Eva’s room, floorboards popping under his feet. He cracked the door and peeked in. The Tinker Bell night-light cast a soft purple hue over the room, giving it a moonlit glow. Odd-shaped shadows blotted the ceiling, like dark clouds against a darker sky. Eva was curled into a tight ball, head off the pillow, blankets at her feet.

Sam opened the door all the way, tiptoed to the bed, and pulled the covers to his daughter’s shoulders. She didn’t stir even the slightest. For a few hushed moments he stood and listened to her low rhythmic breathing.

The past six months had been hard on them all, but Eva had handled them surprisingly well. She was just a kid, barely seven, yet displayed the maturity of someone much older. Sam had never known that her faith, much like her mother’s, was so strong. His, on the other hand . . .

He left the door open a few inches. Farther down the hall he entered the bathroom, where another night-light, this one a blue flower, reflected off the porcelain tub, toilet, and sink. He splashed water from the faucet on his face. Remnants of the dream lingered and stuttered like bad cell phone reception. Just images now, faces, twisted and warped.

After toweling off, he studied himself in the mirror. In the muted light the scar running above his ear didn’t look so bad. His hair was growing back and covered most of it. Oddly, the new crop was coming in gray.

From downstairs a voice called Sam’s name. A chill tightened the arc of his scar.

He heard it again.

“Sammy.”

It was neither haunting nor unnatural, but familiar, conversational. It was the voice of his brother. Tommy. He’d heard it a thousand times in his youth, a hundred ghostly times since the accident that had turned his own brain to mush. The doctor called them auditory hallucinations.

Sam exited the bathroom and stood at the top of the staircase. Dim light from the second floor spilled down the stairs into the foyer below, and the empty space looked like a strange planet, distant and odd. Who knew what bizarre creatures inhabited that land and what malicious intentions they harbored?

He heard that same voice—Tommy’s—calling to him. “Sammy.”

Sam shivered at the sound of his name.

A dull ache had taken to the length of the scar.

Descending the stairs, Sam felt something dark, ominous, present in the house with him. He stopped and listened. He could almost hear it breathing, and with each breath, each exhalation, he heard his own name, now just a whisper.

He started down the stairs again, taking one at a time, holding the railing and trying to find the quiet places on the steps.

From the bottom of the stairway he looked at the front door, half expecting it to fly open and reveal Tommy standing there, with half his head…

You did what you had to do, son.

He looked left into the dining room, then right into the living room. The voice was coming from the kitchen. Turning a one-eighty, he headed that way down the hall.

At the doorway Sam stopped and listened again. Now he heard nothing. No breathing, no whispers, no Tommy. The kitchen held the aroma of the evening’s meal—fettuccine Alfredo—like a remote memory.

“Tommy?” His own voice sounded too loud and strangely hollow.

He had no idea why he said his brother’s name since he expected no reply. Tommy had been dead for—what?—twenty-one years. Thoughts of his death came to Sam’s mind, images from the dream. And not just his death but how he’d died.

You did what you had to do, son.

From off in the distance Sam heard a cannon blast. Living in Gettysburg, near the battlefields, the sound was common during the month of July when the reenactments were going on. But not in the middle of the night. Not in November. Another blast echoed across the fields, then the percussion of rifle shots followed by a volley of more cannons.

Sam walked back down the hall and opened the front door. He saw only darkness beyond the light of the porch lamp, but the sounds were unmistakable. Guns crackled in rapid succession, cannons boomed, men hollered and screamed, horses whinnied and roared. The sounds of battle were all around him. He expected Eva and Molly to stir from their sleep and come tripping down the stairs at any moment, but that didn’t happen. The house was as still and quiet as ever.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Sam stepped out onto the porch. Three rotting jack-o’-lanterns grinned at him like a gaggle of toothless geezers. The air was cold and damp, the grass wet with dew. Nervously he felt the bandage on his index finger. He’d slipped while carving one of the pumpkins and gouged his finger with the knife. Molly had thought he should get stitches, but he refused. It was still tender, throbbing slightly, healing up well enough on its own. Here, outside, the loamy smell of dead wet leaves surrounded him. Beyond the glow of the porch lamp, the outside world was black and lonely. The sky was moonless.

Across the field and beyond the trees the battle continued but grew no louder. Sam gripped his head and held it with both hands. Was he going crazy? Had the accident triggered some weird psychosis? This couldn’t be real. It had to be a concoction of his damaged brain. An auditory hallucination.

Suddenly the sounds ceased and silence ruled. Dead silence. No whispers of a gentle breeze. No skittering of dry leaves across the driveway. No creak of old, naked branches. Not even the hum of the power lines paralleling the road.

Sam went back inside and shut the door. The dead bolt made a solid thunk as it slid into place. He didn’t want to go back upstairs, didn’t want to sleep in his own bed. Instead he went into the living room, lay on the sofa, and clicked on the TV. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was watching an old Star Trek rerun.

Sam’s eyes opened slowly and tried to adjust to the soft morning light that seeped through the windows. He rolled to his side and felt something slide from his lap to the floor with a papery flutter. He’d not slept soundly on the sofa.

Pushing himself up, he looked out the window. The sun had not yet cleared the horizon, and the sky was a hundred shades of pink. The house felt damp and chilly. The TV was off. Leaning to his left, he saw that the front door was open. Maybe Molly had gone out already and not shut it behind her.

“Moll?” But there was no answer. “Eva?” The house was quiet. Sam stood to see if Molly was in the yard and noticed a notebook on the floor, its pages splayed like broken butterfly wings. Bending to pick it up, he recognized it as one of Eva’s notebooks in which she wrote her kid stories, tales of a dog named Max and of horses with wings.

Turning it over, he found a full page of writing. His writing. Before the accident he’d often helped Eva with her stories but had never written one himself. He’d thought about it many times but had never gotten around to doing it. There was always something more pressing, more important. Since his accident he’d had the time, home from work with nothing to do, but his brain just wasn’t working that way. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t concentrate. His attention span was that of a three-year-old.

Sitting on the sofa, he read the writing on the page, the writing of his own hand.

November 19, 1863

Captain Samuel Whiting

PennsylvanIa Independent Light Artillery, Battery E

I am full of dArkness. It has coMpletely overshadowed me. My heart despairs; my soul swims in murky, colorless waters. I am not my own but a mere puppet in his hanD. My intent is evil, and I loathe what the dAy will bring, what I will accomplish. But I must do it. My feet have been positioned, my couRse has been set, and I amcompelled to follow. Darkness, he is my commander now.

I can already smell the blood on my hands, and it turns my stomach. But, strangely, it excites me as well. I know it is the darKness within me, bloodthirsty devil that it is. It desires death, his death (the president), and I am beginning to understand why. He must die. He deserves nothing more than death. So much sufferiNg has come from his words, his policies, his will. He speaks of freedom but has enslaved so many in this cursed war.

See how the pen trEmbles in my hand. I move it,not myself but the darkneSs guides it, as it guides my mind and will. Shadowy figures encircle me. I can see them all about the room, specters moving as lightly as wiSps of smoke. My hand trembles. I am overcome. I am their slave. His slave.

I am not my own.

I am not my own.

I am notnotnotnotnotnotnotno

my own

Sam let the notebook slip from his hands and scrape across the hardwood floor. Gooseflesh puckered his skin. He thought of last night’s battle sounds, of Tommy’s voice and feeling the darkness around him—the darkness. He remembered the grinning jack-o’lanterns, the click of the sliding dead bolt. He had no memory of turning off the TV and opening the door, nor of finding Eva’s notebook and writing this nonsense.

What was happening to him?

He stood and went to the front door, barely aware of his feet moving under him. With one elbow on the doorjamb he poked his head outside and scanned the front yard, listening.

“Moll?” His voice was weak and broke mid-word. There was no answer. If Molly was out here, she must be around back.

Then, as if last night’s ethereal battle had landed in his front yard, a rifle shot split the morning air, and the living room window exploded in a spray of glass.

MY REVIEW:

Mike Dellosso has done it to me again. He has written another book that makes me want to slam the covers shut because I fear what will happen next but it is also one that I can’t put down because I have to find out how it will end. Each time I pick up one of Mike’s books, I soon remember just why they are so addictive. His books bring back childhood memories of telling each other scary stories until we were afraid to cross the hall alone for a trip to the bathroom – except Mike’s stories far exceed what we found scary in those days.

Darkness Follows is further proof that Dellosso is a master at building suspense line by line and page by page until it is almost unbearable. Characters are developed through both their present circumstances and their past with even their history being offered up just one enticing bit at a time. In Samuel’s case, the reader just knows something devastating happened to him as a teen but must wait for the complete story to be revealed. As the title implies, Darkness Follows is a very dark story in which evil seeks to destroy. However the darkness is balanced by the light of the Lord as Samuel’s daughter constantly reminds him how much she and Jesus love him.

I cannot say more about this book without revealing major plot spoilers. Suffice it to say, if you are a fan of deep, dark suspense, Darkness Follows will grab you and won’t let you go.

The Strange Man by Greg Mitchell

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!


Today’s Wild Card author is:

 

 

and the book:

 

The Strange Man

Realms (February 1, 2011)

***Special thanks to Anna Coelho Silva | Publicity Coordinator, Book Group | Strang Communications for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Greg Mitchell likes monsters. So much, in fact, he has written this trilogy about a small town learning to take a stand on faith and challenge the dark forces creeping in. Greg is a Christian who believes that the Bible is 100 percent true, and he does his best to live his life according to its principles and write things that help teach others about Jesus Christ. Back in 2001, he co-wrote the novel Time Changer, published by White Harvest Books, with his friend and Christian filmmaker, Rich Christiano. In 2002, Time Changer was made into a theatrically released motion picture, and it is now available on DVD. Greg lives with his wife and daughter in Paragould, Arkansas.

Visit the author’s website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Dras Weldon is a twenty-two-year-old unemployed washout. He lives in a world populated by horror movies and comic books, content to hide in the shadow of adolescence. Under the scrutinizing eye of his older brother, Jeff, a pastor, Dras lives a life of professed Christianity with very little observable spirituality. He must change. However, when a demon known only as “the Strange Man” comes to his small town of Greensboro and threatens Dras’s best friend, Rosalyn Myers, Dras discovers that only by putting his faith into action can he save his friend from danger. Suddenly he is thrust into a race against the clock and forced to battle demonic forces in an effort to convince Rosalyn to accept Christ and turn away from the coming evil.

Product Details:

List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Realms (February 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616381949
ISBN-13: 978-1616381943

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

MY REVIEW:
The Strong Man is a pretty intense and scary tale about the small town of Greensboro. Evil forces have been restrained for years by the praying saints who live there. But the time has come when the numbers of saints has decreased and unimaginable evil has once again been released against the town. When backslider Dras, son and brother of pastors, comes face to face with the “strange man”, he endeavors to confront these forces in order to save his best friend.

Mitchell paints a vivid picture of what can happen when Christians let down their guard and become desensitized by the world. He stops short of sensationalizing blood and gore but the reader’s imagination can easily fill in the blanks. The plot moves at a frantic pace, yet the primary characters are well defined. The Strong Man makes some powerful points about spiritual warfare but has a darker perspective than Peretti’s novels. This is not a book for the faint-hearted or those who expect a happy ending.