Monday, January 31, 2022
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Monday, January 24, 2022
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Thursday, January 20, 2022
Monday, January 17, 2022
Saint Bartholomew
This statue depicts Saint Bartholomew, an early Christian martyr who was allegedly skinned alive. If you look closely, you’ll notice that’s not a robe that he’s holding. It's actually his dissected skin hanging around him. This stunning statue is by the Italian sculptor Marco d’Agrate, c.1562. It is currently on display at Duomo di Milano in Italy.
Saturday, January 15, 2022
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Monday, January 10, 2022
Check Out "The Haunting of Black River Forest" by Jaydeep Shah
by Jaydeep Shah
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Jaydeep Shah
Date of Publication: 12/14/2021
ISBN: 978-1-7349826-3-3
ASIN: B08V4ZY7QY
Number of pages: 86
Word Count: 8611
Cover Artist: Jaydeep Shah
Tagline: A spine-chilling story in which adventurers struggle to survive on the land of a cold-blooded psychopath who enjoys slashing humans.
Book Description:
A forest of blood and corpses. The land of a cold-blooded psychopath.
In Black River Forest, it’s best not to wander too far off the beaten track. There’s no telling what you might find.
Mia and Oliver have long wanted to explore the forest, and one cold, rainy October day, a week before their fifth anniversary of the day they met, they finally make the trip.
But they’ve heard the rumors as well. The haunting. A psychopath hidden somewhere amidst the towering trees. Too many missing. Too few answers.
It’s only rumors, though. Stories. And stories can’t hurt you. Yet as Mia and Oliver venture deeper into the Black River Forest, they’ll soon discover that there’s more haunting this quiet woodland than hikers and bears.
The psychopath is very real. And he’s excited to meet them.
From Jaydeep Shah, author of Tribulation, the first book of the Cops Planet series, “The Haunting of Black River Forest” is a bloody, spine-chilling story best read with the lights on.
Excerpt 3:
Before Lucas could make another attempt at her, she raised her axe and swung it.
She hit her target and the axe made a deep cut on Lucas’s hand.
He let out a scream.
The machete quivered in his grip, but he managed to regain a firm hold on it.
Mia dodged Lucas’s next swing and wielded her axe at his face, making a deep cut on his cheek.
Lucas screamed once more. His voice was full of pain but also wrath. He wanted to kill Mia more than he had ever wanted to kill anyone.
Sheila saw the blood pouring from Lucas’s face and began to feel hope blossom in her.
Jany and Nancy kept watching the fight, terrified still.
Oliver looked at Mia, the woman he loved. Then his stare became fixed on Lucas.
Mia was watching Lucas hissing in pain while touching his hand to his wounded face. He slowly dragged his hand away, red with blood. He switched the machete to his other hand and tightened his grip.
His eyes were red in fury.
Mia sensed another attack coming as he raised his machete.
She tried to raise her hand to retaliate.
Oliver’s eyes widened, sensing the Ripper could succeed in this attack.
Alarmed, he leapt forward and grabbed Mia’s shirt, pulling her back.
Lucas’s weapon passed a mere inch away from her, making a slashing sound in the air.
Surprised, Mia jerked hard and pushed Oliver away from her.“Why did you pull me away from him?” she raged.
Oliver tried to get a hold of her again, but she pushed him away once more.
She shifted her look back to Lucas and swiftly stepped forward, keeping the axe near her chest, and then swung it up with all her might, twisting her wrist as she did so. It made a deep cut on Lucas’s elbow, and he screamed in pain.
The machete fell from his hand.
Keeping his head down and clutching his elbow, Lucas turned and ran away from them up the hill.
Enraged, Mia followed him.
“Stop!” shouted Oliver, running after her.
“Stop following him,” shouted Jany, running after Oliver. “We must leave here now.”
“He has killed so many innocents,” yelled Mia. “I can’t let him escape.”
Lucas glanced behind and then increased his pace. Mia was close behind him and he could see the others following after her. He pushed on, running even faster.
Mia increased her speed, but before she could reach him, Lucas turned right after a gigantic tree about twenty steps away from her.
Mia ran past the turning point, then turned back to follow him. Oliver reached her and forced her to stop.
“Please leave here right now,” he said, shaking her by the shoulders. Blood from his wound was staining his shirt red.
“No. I want to kill him today,” said Mia in fury.
“This is his land. We don’t know where we are. He has disappeared—”
“I saw him turning right.”
“I saw him, too,” added Oliver quickly. “But it’s too risky to follow him. He may have hidden somewhere, waiting to ambush us.”
“I’m ready for him.”
Jany reached them, and Nancy and Sheila after her.
“We have a chance to escape! Stop following him! We need to leave here right now!” said Jany.
Sheila and Nancy stood there, breathing heavily.
“If we continue straight, we will find the path to the correct trail after about half an hour or so,” said Nancy. “We came from that way.”
“Did you listen to her?” said Jany quickly. “Let’s go!”
“If you guys want to leave, you’re free to go,” said Mia. “I’m following this Ripper to end his terror.”
She turned right where Lucas had just turned a few minutes ago and slowly walked farther on that path, glancing around as she went.
Oliver watched Mia walking away, his face wearing a blank expression.
Jany glanced at Oliver and then sighed in disappointment.
Sheila and Nancy exchanged a look of worry.
Then Oliver walked after Mia.
Jany stepped forward and stepped back in an instant.
“What’s happening?” asked Sheila.
“We can escape. I so desperately want to run away from here. However,” said Jany, “they saved my life. I don’t want to leave them with the Ripper. I think we should stay with them. At least, together, we may defeat the Ripper.”
About the Author:
Jaydeep Shah is an avid traveler and the author of gripping horror, thriller, and romance stories. As a bachelor’s degree holder in Creative Writing, he aims to entertain as many as people he can with his stories. He is best known for Tribulation, the first book in the “Cops Planet” series.
In addition to those books, The Shape-Shifting Serpents’ Choice, Jaydeep’s first young adult flash fiction written under his pen name, JD Shah, is published online by Scarlet Leaf Review in their July 2019 issue. Currently, he’s endeavoring to write a debut young adult fantasy novel while working on a sequel to his first apocalyptic thriller, Havoc.
When Shah is not writing, he reads books, tries new restaurants, and goes on adventures.
Website: https://www.jaydeepshah.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/imjaydeepshah
Newsletter Signup: https://www.jaydeepshah.com/newsletter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/jaydeepshah
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imjaydeepshah/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imjaydeepshah
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jaydeepshah
Saturday, January 8, 2022
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Check Out Witches of Wildwood: Cape May Horror Stories and Other Scary Tales from the Jersey Shore by Mark W. Curran
Cape May Horror Stories and
Other Scary Tales from the Jersey Shore
by Mark W. Curran
Genre: Horror/Speculative Fiction
Publisher: NMD Books
Date of Publication: Sept 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-936828-51-7
Number of pages: 300
Word Count: 83,365
Cover Artist: Robert Gonzales
A Collection of Contemporary Horror Fiction
Book Description:
Werewolves... vampires... swamp beasts... zombies... even a Jersey Devil... all of these chilling creatures and more await you in this haunting collection of 11 contemporary horror fiction stories by Mark Wesley Curran. Uniquely set 'down the shore' in South Jersey's Cape May County, these scary tales are sure to terrify and entertain both adult readers as well as young adults.
The spooky offerings include:
- An abrasive radio talk show host is stalked by an angry werewolf in 'Werewolves of Dennis'
- A Fun Pier boardwalk worker falls under the spell of a strange attic dwelling girl in 'The Girl In The Attic'
- An ancient sailing ship filled with bloodthirsty zombies crashes into the Jersey Shore in 'Night of the Wildwood Dead'
The cornerstone of the collection is 'The Witches of Wildwood,' the harrowing and suspenseful tale of a witch-hunting preacher hell-bent on killing four teenage sisters determined to destroy the world from their Wildwood boarding house.
This collection contains:
The Girl In The Attic - Dante's Inferno At Castle Dracula - Neptune's Revenge - Night of the Wildwood Dead - Captain Harvey's Wildwood Seafood Palace - Showdown In Anglesea - The Fortune Teller Machine - Jersey Devil - Werewolves of Dennis - Swamp Beast of Grassy Sound - The Witches of Wildwood [novella].
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/-fHOAUbK0xc
Custom Autographed Clothbound Edition with Gold Tassle Bookmark
Excerpt:
Dante snapped out of his flashback in a startled daze.
He tried shutting the images out of his brain as he swam through the smoke and flame – peering forward as the shaft of white lantern sliced through the smoky darkness. As he walked the creaky floorboards, he heard the groaning and falling of smoky timbers in the unseen floors above him; he knew the ceiling could give way at any moment. His radio crackled with warnings to exit the building immediately. He reached down to his radio, switching it to off, then fought his way through the haze and flame.
He fought hard against the images; the memories as ghosts floated around him; he saw visions of his father, a fifth-generation firefighter, his tough, angry face floating disembodied on a thin veneer of white smoke. Then the image of his father: lying in a casket in a Northeast Philly funeral home, looking like some strange wax figure from a horror movie. The embalmers and makeup people had done the best they could but there was only so much that could be done with burn victims. It had been a fire in Manyunk, a section of Philly, that had taken his life.
Dante fought against the exhaustion and inertia he’d been feeling for months now; tried putting it all out of his mind; the divorce from Kathy; losing the custody battle; losing their home to the mortgage crisis. Guilt and depression had dogged him for the better part of his life, but a man had to remain strong, to fight his way through it, that’s what his parents and friends had told him.
It’ll pass, they said, in the meantime, man up.
But they could not know the debilitating effect of depression, how it freezes you and turns your life into a living nightmare of psychic pain. He’d tried sleeping it off, twelve hours a day; he’d tried drinking it away but it only made matters worse.
Snap out of it, they all said. Tough it out, Petrillo, suck it up. Yeah, he thought, if I don’t snap first.
The roar above his head was an angry crescendo; it sounded like a thousand railroad trains thundering over his head. He pushed forward into the oily black smoke and the ominous arms of orange and yellow flames that reached out all around him like angry beckoning spirits.
There was crashing overhead as sections of the burning roof fell into the floor above him. It did not slow his resolve or lessen his courage, he simply pushed the fear down below the surface He heard voices ahead of him. He stopped dead and tried to ignore the ghosts. Ahead of him in the glow of flame and smoke was Gracie-Lynn, his mother – the strong, silent pillar of strength that had endured so much before she’d died.
For years she’d dealt with his father’s unspeakable anger, the deep bouts of depression, the unexplained rage that would erupt in a split second into violence.
Mark Wesley Curran is a writer of contemporary fiction, specializing in the horror and suspense genre. Born and raised in Suburban Philadelphia, he spent many summers living and working in Wildwood, New Jersey during its heyday. He now resides in Los Angeles where he enjoys creative pursuits as a writer, filmmaker and musician. He moderates the Horror Fiction Central website and edits the weekly horror fiction Newswire, resources for fans of horror fiction.
Website: http://www.witchesofwildwood.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkWesleyCurr1
Horror Fiction Central: www.horrorfictioncentral.com
Monday, January 3, 2022
Saturday, January 1, 2022
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)