Halloween Special
Like buses – nothing for ages, then three at once …
To help round off the Coffin Hop with a grand finale, I got together with a couple of publishers to hold a (nearly)week long giveaway (Monday to Sunday), with the chance to win 3 titles together: Cass McMain’s Watch (vampirism) and two ghost tales: Summers’ End by V.RChristensen with a rather sinister pair of spectacles and my sorry excuse for a ghost tale, Ungentle Sleep which is a tongue-in-cheek take on haunted houses, with attics and, well, things going bump in them ….
Owing to WordPress’s layout, the giveaway page is again reduced to a link, however, it will be posted elsewhere and tweeted not infrequently. And there is the tale of the Red Footprints in A Night at the Theatre meanwhile…
Simply click on the link here below, or top right (on the main page), and choose how you want to participate (via tweeting, FB-ing, visiting the Coffin Hop!); there will be 5 prizes and around 10 runners-up… (if anyone joins in…)
About the Coffin Hop: this is the annual Halloween blog hop with over 60 authors & artists participating, each with something to offer, whether giveaways or contests as well as some fun tales of terror.
The Coffin Hop Bumper Giveaway
Coffin Hop Divertissement 2
Update:
Giveaway plus a Flash Fiction Writing Competition (with Amazon gift vouchers for prizes!)
1) Giveaway ! Going live at midnight (click here to enter or on image below) : one prize of a free e-copy of the following anthology:
This anthology is available for purchase here; all proceeds go to the charity LitWorld.org to help encourage children’s literacy throughout the world and is a first collection of stories from the annual Coffin Hop online horror extravaganza.
All the links to the Coffin Hop participants can be found here – do pop along to see what they’re up to!
2) Flash Fiction Competition run by Lost World Press:
For those keen to flex those scribbling muscles, why not try out the Flash Fiction competition on Lost World Press (with Amazon voucher for prizes!) : Flash Fiction Halloween 750 max, all things Halloween in Speculative manner (full details on the site) Happy Spooking ! Don’t forget to hop along to all the others taking part in the Coffin Hop (links on the site)
Here instead: a little bit of nonsense in celebration of the Coffin Hop…
Artwork by Red Tash
The Mist
He opened the door a crack and peered out. The snow had not quite melted away, and still streaked the muddy earth. He peered and strained and finally poked his head out. He paused to sniff the air, looked over the ground and finally relaxed. One step forward. The light was grey and uninviting, but clear enough. He might after all be able to take a turn about in the fresh air. A few more paces however, and he stopped, groaned, and rushed back indoors. Before he had moved two feet forward, he found what he had been dreading : the prints in the muddy slush.
He locked the door, and checked through the windows, one after the other. Now he saw clearly what his mind had forbidden him : a clear set of prints, trailing around the house – nothing to show where they came from, nothing to show where they disappeared to. It was the third day now, and each time, a little closer to the house.
He had tried to fight it off at first, walking down almost as far as the village, when the pattering behind him started. Whirling round, expecting – he knew not what – he had found . . . nothing. And again. And again. He pursued when perhaps he should have retreated, but the pattering had increased, grown louder, closer, close enough for him to hear panting – and each time he turned to face an empty horizon, devoid of life.
He returned to the house very quickly, and stayed within, peering out, listening, listening, then as no more was heard, and time drew a veil, he shrugged his shoulders and decided he had imagined it. Overwork, over study . . .he retired early to bed.
Sleep was however denied him. A restlessness in the early hours prompted him to wander about the room, until looking briefly out of the window, he saw, or thought he saw, a trail of white mist curling its way across the land directly in front of the house.
Intrigued, he watched, as it rolled and heaved past, gathering itself up, hurling itself forward – one could almost imagine there were legs and heads forming from those clouds.
Then the howling began. Far off at first, moving increasingly nearer. At the best of times disturbing – but the incident of the afternoon comes back to him tenfold, and he creeps back to bed there to spend a wakeful night until towards dawn, the howling fades away and he is permitted oblivion.
On waking, he has little or no recollection, it is only on realising he needs supplies form the village that he steps out – and sees the trail of prints around the house.
The pattering begins again as he walks down to the village. He will not be deterred this time . . . he will not be . . . he will not . . .A few minutes later he finds himself back in the entrance hall to the house, trembling, shaking, pressing against the door of this virtual dungeon. Fear holds him fast and will not let him go.
The same again the third day – it is by some fierce combination of necessity, courage and outrage that he makes it as far as the bridge leading to the village.
He does not return that night to the house. The misty wraiths continue their noiseless tread around it, leaving behind yet more paw-prints, this time close up against the walls.
The villagers find him in a state of collapse in the street – muddied, for he has fallen more than once, his clothes torn (by thorns?), there are scratch marks even on his hands and neck – a puzzle, this, as it is clear enough countryside, there are no thickets for him to get caught up in.
He is at first incoherent, and it takes a few brandies to give him speech – on discovering the name of the house he has left, several of the older residents purse their lips. ‘The House of Wolves,’ mutters one of them.
Eventually, a small party of them accompany the visitor back to his ill-chosen winter abode. They find the paw-prints, this time on the inside of the door, leading through the entire house, as if hunting something out . . .
The visitor packs his bags and returns to town, vowing never to visit the countryside again. He still sleeps but fitfully, and cannot abide two things : the sound of dogs and the sight of mist.
Coffin Hop Divertissement
Update:
Giveaway plus a Flash Fiction Writing Competition (with Amazon gift vouchers for prizes!)
1) Giveaway ! Going live at midnight (click here to enter or on image below) : one prize of a free e-copy of the following anthology:
This anthology is available for purchase here; all proceeds go to the charity LitWorld.org to help encourage children’s literacy throughout the world and is a first collection of stories from the annual Coffin Hop online horror extravaganza.
All the links to the Coffin Hop participants can be found here – do pop along to see what they’re up to!
2) Flash Fiction Competition run by Lost World Press:
For those keen to flex those scribbling muscles, why not try out the Flash Fiction competition on Lost World Press (with Amazon voucher for prizes!) : Flash Fiction Halloween 750 max, all things Halloween in Speculative manner (full details on the site) Happy Spooking ! Don’t forget to hop along to all the others taking part in the Coffin Hop (links on the site)
Here instead: a little bit of nonsense in celebration of the Coffin Hop…
Artwork by Red Tash
‘Evenin’, Gladys.’
‘Evenin’, Penny.’ (Purl one, cast two)
‘Coming along nicely, ain’t it. (Purl two, cast one)
‘I see young Tommasina’s nearly finished three already.’
‘Never one to hang about is our Tommy.’ (Cast one, purl three)
‘Our Mabel’s sorted out the business with the daddy-long-legs, by the way.’
‘Mmhmm. ‘ (Cast two, purl two)
‘Oh, look who’s arrived….’
‘Ah. Him. On His own, is He?’
‘Hang on – just peeking – no, got a couple of lady guests with Him.’
‘Ah.’ (Cast two, purl one)
‘Oh, – there’s more of them.’
‘A party.’ *Sigh* (Cast two, purl one)’Can’t remember the last time he had one of those ….’
‘Nor me, neither.’
‘It’ll be an all-nighter by the looks of things.’
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Offering wine. Food. The usual.’(Cast one, purl three)
‘Maybe that’s why the manservant was in earlier, polishing up the goblets, setting the cutlery straight.’
‘Don’t miss a thing, do you.’
’I don’t.’
‘Proper little gossip, you are.’
‘That’s me.’ (Purl two, cast one)
‘They’re getting sleepy already.’
‘That manservant – he’s never around in the evening, is he?’
‘No, never.Oh look , one of them’s dropped off. (And purl three, cast two)
‘And that one in blue, as well.’
‘Works fast, doesn’t it.’
‘Indeed.’ (Cast two, purl one)
‘Are they all asleep now ?’
‘They are.’
‘Has he drunk yet?’
‘He’s just about to, I think.’
(Cast one, purl three, cast two, purl one, cast one, purl three…)
‘Where’s he gone now?’
‘To feed the Children.’
‘Oh yes, of course. Got so used to the howling, I’d forgotten why.’
‘T’is gone midnight.’
‘Yes, yes, nearly done.’
‘You know He likes it all finished before dawn.’
‘Yes, yes, don’t fuss.’ (Cast one, purl three) ‘There – finished.’
One by one the spiders swung down to spread out and admire their handiwork, while outside the Children of the Night continued their demand for nourishment.
The candles burned low.
Come dawn the late guests were barely visible beneath the thick coating of cobwebs. Deep in the bowels of the Castle, a faint squeal could be heard, as a lid was lowered.
‘That manservant – still hasn’t oiled the hinges on the thing.’
‘Getting rather lax, ain’t he.’
‘I wonder the Count keeps him.’
‘I’ve heard, good servants are hard to come by these days …’
Bustling along bookshelves . . . 