Whispers of the Hallow Night (Editingle Halloween Anthology Vol.4)
Publisher: Editingle Indie House
You have been warned before, but there will be no more.
So one must pay and become the prey.
As you holler and plead, they might make you bleed.
But, alas, your voice will not be heard while you take in the horror that occurred.
Oh, you sorrowful soul, should have listened to my warning, for you might have made it till morning.
Give up the fight; you’re a victim of Whispers Of The Hallow Night!
Here's an exclusive first look into the sample chapters of each story...
A Samhain Night’s Scream by J. D. Edwards
Chapter 1:
The Wages of Sin
Hatred
burned in the old crone’s eyes beneath her hooded cowl. She watched from a
shadowed alley as boisterous teens traipsed through the town, disregarding
others and their property.
Vermin… filth! she hissed,
glaring at them in disgust. Each
generation is worse than the next. They come here each year on my birthday and
defile my home with their lude and vulgar antics.
Dipping her head, the
crone reached within her cloak and clutched a ruby pendant connected to a
golden necklace. Within seconds, her aged infirmities faded, revealing a tall,
attractive woman with smooth olive skin and flowing auburn hair. She flipped
open a compact mirror, surveying her new body and dark, sultry eyes.
Yes… very nice. Time to get to work. I’m not getting any
younger… yet.
Stepping from the
shadows of the vacant alley, the crone scanned the bustling village of Pluckley
for her first victim. Her dress swayed in the cool night breeze. A waiter and
his twin caught her eye at Pisano’s Kitchen. She sensed their duplicity, which
she confirmed when one of them swiped another server’s tip from the table.
A sly grin played at
the corners of her mouth.
Oh yes… this should be fun.
Crossing the street,
the crone reached for the door when it flew open, and a hulking young man
plowed into her, knocking her to the ground. “Oi! Watch out, young man!”
He glanced down at
the crone, his lust-filled eyes lingering on her chest. “Oh, pardon me!” He
extended his hand to the crone, his gaze tracing the woman’s voluptuous contours as he helped her to her
feet.
Gripping his hand
with strength belying her slender frame, she exhaled a fine golden mist.
I claim
you for my own… The mist hung in the air before dissipating into his chest.
Forget me for now…
The Autumn of 1690
Somewhere in the Hudson
Valley
The ropes cut painfully into Emma's wrists. Though her eyes
were bleary with tears, she could still make out the masked figures that
encircled her. These figures held torches in their hands, the flickering lights
casting a surreal illumination on the proceedings going on around.
Emma knew that under the masks were friends and neighbors,
people she had interacted with since she was a small child, people who she had
always greeted with a smile and kind words. Many of them, she was sure, she had
grown up with, played with as a child, laughed, and learned with.
It was, after all, a small settlement.
Beyond the torchlight, Emma could barely see the poppetje, carefully built and lined up
by the villagers as part of the ritual. They were simple things, really, just
bits of cloth and corn husk, with sacks of potatoes as rudimentary heads. The
craftsmanship was not very good, but Emma knew it didn't need to be. They would
suit the ritual just fine the way they were, and the ritual would protect
everyone in the village.
Everyone
except her.
One of the figures broke through the circle of torches, tall
and strong, and stood in front of her. While the other members of the
procession wore their everyday clothing, this figure was dressed in a long
white robe, its mask more detailed than its brothers' and sisters'. Yet,
despite the mask, Emma recognized it at once as the colony's governor.
Surely he won't go
through with this. Emma thought to herself. He, of all people!
Surely he will take pity
on me and cut me down. We can always find another way to end this nightmare, a
way that doesn't involve bloodshed.
The governor started to circle the pole that Emma was lashed
to, intoning a prayer softly under his breath. It wasn't a prayer that Emma had
heard before, and no matter how much she struggled to hear, she couldn't make
out the words. Once the circling stopped, the governor pulled something from
his belt, something that glistened and glimmered in the torchlight. Only when
he brought the object to Emma's neck did she recognize it as a blade, the same
blade that had cut her countless meals of lamb, pig, or game fowl.
“Please,” Emma whispered, gathering every inch of sadness
and desperation she could muster into her eyes. Surely it would be enough.
“Please, father...”
“Forgive me, daughter,” The governor apologized with a heavy
tone. “I am truly sorry for what I am about to do. Still, it must be done.”
With a tear in his eye, the governor slit his daughter's
throat.
The Suicide
Everyone knew Johnny Lang was a good
kid. Of course, he got in trouble from time to time like other kids in
high school, but all in all, he was a good citizen and a hard-working
lad.
Johnny was a senior at Mill Grove High
School. He played football for his school team, the Wildcats, and helped
his father on the farm whenever possible.
In nineteen hundred, his great-grandfather,
Jonah Lang, built the family farmhouse. It was a substantial three-story
house to accommodate a large family. Many children would be needed to run
the farm in the future, and this house would ensure plenty of room for them. Now
there was no large family. It had dwindled down to only Johnny and his parents.
Other
than playing football and helping out on his father’s farm, Johnny liked to go
hunting. But, mostly, he liked to spend as much time as he could with the love of his life, his
girlfriend Christina Blanchard, who also attended Mill Grove High.
Johnny was six feet tall with a large
frame. He had deep blue eyes, the color of an island ocean on a white
coral sand beach, and wore
his brown hair in the new style that Elvis Presley had started. When Love
Me Tender came out, he began to slick his long locks back as Elvis
did. The pomade made his light brown hair dark and shiny. He was a
sensitive soul, but he hid it well lest anyone think him not manly.
However, what's more impressive was the girls were attracted to his solid physic,
formed from the hard work of a farm boy and football player. But, as far
as he was concerned, he belonged to Christina and no one else. Of course,
he noticed other attractive girls, but his devotion was to her alone.
Deenya Vaughn stared at the front page of the Covenstown
Press. She scowled at the picture of Officer David Hine on the page. She really
hated that man. The headline above his head made Deenya want to laugh out loud.
OFFICER DAVID HINE SAVES THE LIFE OF
A YOUNG GIRL.
And in the
subheading:
CONSIDERED A HERO.
Deenya groaned at the unfairness of it all. That case was
hers, and she almost cracked it. But, thanks to Officer Hine for duping her,
she lost out big on this one. She gasped and looked around the pumpkin patch in
frustration. Her feet were freezing, and wisps of fog came out of her mouth in
huffs. She wanted to toss the newspaper on the ground and stomp on David’s
stupid face, but the patch owners probably didn’t want her littering, and they
didn’t deserve it anyway.
“Deenya?”
Her mom Elena called and came over with a cart full of
pumpkins. Deenya’s eyebrow raised in question instantly. Now what? She hoped that her mom wasn’t expecting her to carve all
these pumpkins. Unfortunately, she had been given the boot by Chief Vaughn, her
dad, and superior. Well, not exactly the boot, but he didn’t want her coming to
the station for at least a week. So with Halloween in the next two days, she
decided to head to a party with two of her friends. Tucking the newspaper under
her arm, she ran over to help. The older woman smiled and thumped one of the
pumpkins.
“Which one do you want? Do you want them all or just one… or
two?”
“Mom, are you serious?”
Surveying the cart, Deenya picked out the smallest one and
another that was easier to carry. Elena gently sat the pumpkins on the ground,
and with a hand on her hips, she gestured towards the pumpkins in her
daughter’s arms with a frown.
“But you know your father wanted us to get the biggest one.”
“Well, Dad isn’t the one that has to carry these big lugs back
to the car and get them into the house, is he?”
Elena giggled silently as Deenya went to the owners and paid
for the pumpkin. All the while cursing David the whole way back to the car.
Thanks to him, she was sure that she would be doing desk work for the rest of
her life once she returned to work. And was convinced she probably wouldn’t be
able to work on high-profile cases again. As usual, her mom wanted to enjoy the
experience of having her daughter drive her around and quickly got into the
passenger side. This fueled Deenya’s annoyance even more, and she sighed while
putting the pumpkin in the backseat.
“Where to now?” Deenya asked, getting into the car and
hooking her seatbelt.
“Well, I have to go pick up my medicine from the pharmacy,”
Elena replied with a sweet smile. “Then I have to get the beef for the stew
tonight.”
“Yeah, Yeah.”
Deenya sped out of the parking lot. She would head to the
pharmacy first. For some reason, she thought she’d need medicine for migraine
in a couple of days.
Since their freshman year started, Tina had been
arriving at school early, knowing Jason Marman took the bus and always arrived
at eight-thirty. It was only a quarter after eight when Tina threw her
overstuffed backpack to the floor in front of her locker
and started twisting the dial on her locker door.
Her head moved to one side as the metal on her headphones
pulled at a few strands of hairs and ‘White
Wedding’ blared in the earpiece.
Tina jumped, and her headphones slipped off, but
got caught halfway to the floor in her frizzy curls. Someone had slapped her hard on the back. Then, before she could catch her breath and turn, she heard a voice.
“You know Halloween is still a week away. Why do
you look like that Diarrhea?”
It was Jason Marman.
Tina had her hand on her hip, and one toe pointed toward him, ready to lay it all out. Jason Marman had been calling her Tina
Diarrhea for as long as she could remember. Even though she had never
had diarrhea at school, her name only barely rhymed with it, and they’d both
officially been in high school for a full month. Hadn’t she suffered enough?
How immature could he be to keep her ridiculous nickname going for the next
four years?
“Eat a dick, Braceface,” Tina threw back.
But Jason was too quick, a master at bullying
and teasing since kindergarten.
“At least one day my braces will come off, but
you’ll always look like Diarrhea,” he said with a ridiculous, wet smile. It almost didn’t matter what he said anymore, his
high-pitched screeching voice mocked you no matter what.
Tina felt her face getting hot and her lungs
filling with anxious pressure, making her want to scream. But instead, all she could do was spin one
hand and flip him off. “How do I look li––”
But it was too late. Principal Stewart was steps
away and had definitely not missed Tina’s flying middle finger.
“Excuse me, Miss. Do you mind telling me what
has you breaking school rules first thing this morning?”
“He started it. He won’t leave me alone.”
Normally Tina wasn’t such a tattletale, but she was determined to not get in
trouble at her new school. Not yet, anyway.
“What’s this?” Principal Stewart asked
Jason. Her mauve pencil skirt
stayed straight and barely moved as she turned to him.
Jason Marman put his head down and didn’t talk back.
Tina would have given anything to have the power to make him do that.
“Are you harassing this young woman? You know we
have a zero tolerance for bullying here, young man. Both of you, come with me.”
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus,” Jason
Marman mumbled from the side of his mouth as he and Tina walked behind
Principal Stewart.
“I’d love
to throw you under a bus anytime.” Tina wanted to say, but they were entering the quiet atmosphere
of the Principal’s office. ‘Beast Of Burden’ queued
up in Tina’s mind.
“I see
here you’ve both joined us from Northcrest. So you two know each other. Is
that correct?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Jason Marman was laying it on thick. Tina had
never heard him be so polite in his pathetic life. But she was thankful he’d answered first before she said something snarky
like, “Unfortunately, yes. We’ve been in
the same class since kindergarten, and the murder fantasies have gone on for
just as long.”
“Well then, I believe this has gone on long
enough. You two are going to work together on a project of healing for me.
You’ve heard that song on the radio, ‘Heal the World, make it a better place?’” The
Principal sang the melody of the title with a wide-eyed grin.
Tina tried to not to laugh but
desperately hoped she wouldn’t sing the entire
song. When she looked over at Jason she could tell he was thinking the same,
but trying really hard to not look disrespectful and get himself into more
trouble.
“I’d like a presentation that you’ll both
present to the freshman class at the next assembly. It will serve to both
welcome our new students and inform them of our bullying policy. We need to be
sure everyone feels welcome, don’t we Miss Jeneaux?” The
principal’s drawn-on eyebrows were raised and pointed.
Tina nodded back to her, wordlessly.
“And Mr. Marman, I trust going forward, you will
treat Miss Jeneaux and all our other female students with respect for the
remainder of your time here and onward in life.
“Yes ma’am.”
Tina and Jason both got up from their chairs and
walked together to the office doors. Jason opened and held the door for Tina on
the way out.
“We can work at my place if you want. I have the
album at home and a whole set of encyclopedias,” Jason suggested,
and Tina gave a single nod with
her eyes closed.
“After dinner?” Jason asked.
1816 – Geneva
The rain outside seemed to double with
intensity, and a single, mighty fork of lightning illuminated the heavy clouds
above. A rare event had heralded the storm; a Purple
Moon that threw its weird light
across the landscape around us, firing conversations about how peoples of the
prehistoric past gathered around campfires and created tales about their world.
This led to a strange little competition that would echo throughout the ages.
I sat in a dark room lit only by some
candles and a roaring blaze in the fireplace. Along
the far wall, a group of other shadowy figures
were also just enjoying the night and the fire.
“I still cannot believe there were really ice
giants!” exclaimed
Lord Byron.
I smiled at the poet. “I was there, and your
grandfather swore black and blue that he and those shipwrecked with him had seen giants walking around Patagonia. Just so you know, one
of Captain Cook’s officers also claimed to see the same thing a few years
later.”
Proving he had studied the world of his famous
grandfather, Byron pointed out—“I believe the French
voyager Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville claimed he’d seen the bones of
these Patagonian giants, but believed they were just the remains
of elephants.”
I had only recently met this strange group of
friends and found them witty and warm. The oppressive weather would typically sour most holidays, but this party
had decided to use the brooding atmosphere to their great advantage. The poet Lord Byron was the one who
suggested each should come up with a horror
story they would later recount while the weather howled outside.
The first night a young physician, Dr John
William Polidori, had told an amusing story about a vampire. Then, having
failed night after night to tell her tale, the very pregnant Claire Clairmont
had finally begged our forgiveness and permanently abstained, claiming she had
just been unable to think of anything worth retelling. And to cover her
absence, I had agreed last night to pass on some of the true stories of horror
I carry with me from the past. Some had become legendary tales or even stories
from mythology, while others were known only to me. One was about watching the
siege of Troy and how I had helped encourage Odysseus to enter the battle.
Another was about watching early humans harness fire
for the first time.
When someone
pointed out this meant I was claiming to be both
Prometheus and Palamedes, it was Byron who moved the conversation forward. “Storytellers should never be called on to tell the truth
because the truth is stranger than fiction.” The poet looked like he’d been
struck over the head and began furiously scribbling.
Tonight we got onto the idea of dangerous giants
living in remote areas as we had just heard a story by Miss Godwin, the stepsister of Claire, who had taken something from
everyone’s stories, including mine, and came up with a tale that would still be told centuries in the
future.
“It was on a dreary night of November that I
beheld my man completed …”
It was a hell of a start to a tale.
On this
astonishing holiday, Byron, Godwin—or Shelley as she would become known—and the others had created not only the first vampire story but
Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus. Of course, these tales would be
duplicated, plagiarised, serialised, and reinvented hundreds of times. I personally like to
think Shelley had been inspired to create and name her creature after me and
that I had more than a little to do with Polidori’s vampire creation as well.
>>The Beast<<
The Minotaur Princess, Kiretana, rushed into the atrium room
in the center of the Minotaur Heir’s labyrinth prison, where he spent most of
his time. “Tauran, the witch found her!” The princess looked around in dismay
as he struggled to his feet.
Lowing in pain, he told her, ‘She is in the labyrinth somewhere.’
“What did you do?” Kiretana demanded with her hand on her
hip, and head tipped in judgment, her expression accusing with her lips pressed
together in a twisted scowl.
‘What did I do?! I
don’t know. I smiled at her because I was happy, and she attacked me,’
he mooed in the language of his beast, remembering how his One crouched in
terror, then punched and kicked him before throwing him across the room. His
clawed hand cupped his bullness gently. It would be bruised for days.
“With your smile, she probably thought you were going to eat
her.” Snorting, Kiretana laughed in a very un-princess-like way, then gasped
when they heard the stone door moving. “I’ll try to find her. Keep Mother
busy.”
She sprinted in the direction where she could smell the
terrified female, grinning to herself because she was happy his Daisy was a
fighter. A strong and compassionate queen was just what the kingdom needed
after her mother’s cruel reign. She followed the scent back and forth as she
listened to the murmurs of her mother and her brother’s bellowed denials. After
a few turns around the circling corridors she was shocked to find herself at
the crevasse that led to her room. Quickly, she squeezed through the gap and
tumbled out to find her father and a wizard talking in her bedroom.
“Who are you?” she demanded, halting the discussion between
them.
“I am Oren Oleander. I came about your mother’s petition,
but find what she wants to be done abhorrent. It cannot be accomplished without
erasing your brother’s mind completely.” The wizard bowed to her. “Princess
Kiretana, if you are seeking your brother’s soul-half. I sent her to the home
of my mother’s family. She will be safe there until the autumn equinox.”
“Can you send me to join…” Kiretana started to ask as her
mother, and another wizard rushed in.
“Where is she? Where is that common cow?” Queen Dejanira
shrieked as she glared at Oren. “Wizard Oleander, what are you doing with my
family? You refused my request.”
“Queen Dejanira, the thing you are requesting is too
dangerous.”
“More dangerous than my son losing himself to his beast as
my husband did? I do not think so. Tauran may choose from the royal stable;
there are many heifers of high status families in his harem.” She glanced at
the guards and her warlock. “Seize them.”
The king bellowed and lowered his head, pulling his daughter
behind his bulk as the queen’s warlock pointed a wand at them. “Sominatosa
minotaurus!”
“Stop!” Oren shouted as the two minotaurs collapsed
unconscious, then Dejanira shattered a potion bottle at the warlock’s feet and
Oren yelped in surprise. Within a second, he was engulfed in flames. A few
moments later, only a pile of ash remained.
“Seal him in a bottle,” Dejanira ordered, “And toss it in
the sea.”
“Yes, my queen.” The warlock scooped up the ashes, putting
them in a blue glass bottle, and retreated as two burly minotaur guards hefted
the king.
“Put my husband in with our son,” the queen ordered.
“And what about the princess?” A third asked as he picked up
Kiretana gently.
“Put her in the harem. If she doesn’t choose a mate from
among the royal lords by the summer solstice, she can join her father and
brother.” Dejanira hissed, then turned around the room. She opened a secret
drawer and pulled out one of Tauran’s sketchbooks, flipping through the pages
until she found several of the common cow’s human face. She tore the pages out.
“Show these to the guards. Find this girl and bring her to me. She is in the
palace somewhere.”
Trigger Warning: Pregnancy Loss
Chapter 1
She was late. She had been for three weeks now. But she
wasn’t really holding her breath after seven years of dashed hopes. It was only
a few weeks back they had decided to stop trying, which is why this came as a
shock more than a surprise.
She hadn't
taken a test and didn't have the two lines to validate what she already knew.
But knew she did.
Despite herself, her heart started to pound, and with a
shaky hand, she swept the liner on her eyes. Her lips were compressed, her
mouth grim. She had stopped smiling ages back.
But what terrified her were her eyes. Bright and soulful,
full of hope.
Taking a deep breath, she looked at the bathroom floor. Hope
was a terrifying thing. She didn't want to be hopeful again; she didn’t want to
hop onto the roller coaster of soaring ecstasy and crash into her soul-crushing
reality. So instead, she learned to accept her fate.
But now, she was late. Sooner or later, she would have to
bear the consequences.
She resisted the urge to cover her womb with her hand to protect
the new life inside her.
Suddenly, the hair on her nape stood up as she felt it, the
shadow always lurking behind her.
She had felt its presence before, a dark figure just out of
the periphery of her vision. But she didn't know what the shadow wanted with
her. Why did it always find her when she had new life growing inside her?
And never left her until she was alone.
Again.
She squeezed her eyes shut at the unfairness of the
situation and dug her hands into her scalp, pulling her hair with all her
might. “Stop! Please!” she implored the shadow. “Please leave my baby and me
alone!”
She collapsed on the bathroom floor,
sobbing like a baby.
The tap dripped a staccato as it echoed throughout the empty house.
About the Authors
Asa Swift
Asa Swift is a police officer in Indianapolis and
has been in law enforcement for thirty-four years. He is married to his wife Janet
and they have three sons. Ready for something new and having a creative side,
he took to writing horror, his favorite genre of books and movies. Born in
Hartford, Indiana, despite getting a late start in writing, he improves every
day. Swift enjoys fishing, firearms, cooking and his grandchildren, and of
course, HORROR! As a means of continue writing, he keeps his grandparents close
to his heart and mind for always encouraging him to not give up.
Brandon Ebinger
Brandon Ebinger is a horror/dark fantasy author
who lives in upstate New York with his fiancé and two cats. He holds a BA in
creative writing. He enjoys horror films,Gothic rock and punk music and video
games. He is a huge fan of haunted attractions, and spends October as a haunt
actor. Brandon has written four horror/dark fantasy novels, Ash, Hollow Hills,
The Afflicted and Rose. He has also published a handful of short stories within
the genre. He has recently finished his most recent novel Broken Night and is
at work on a new one.
Phil Hore
Phil likes to point out he was one of the last
children born before man walked on the moon. He’s worked at Australia’s
National Dinosaur Museum, the Australian War Memorial, National Film and Sound
Archives, the Australian National Botanic Gardens, London’s Natural History
Museum, the Field Museum in Chicago and The Smithsonian’s National Museum of
Natural History. Published in newspapers and magazines across the globe, Phil
is the paleo-author for the world’s longest running dinosaur magazine, The Prehistoric
Times. He’s also been a comic shop manager, a cinema projectionist, a theatre
technician and gutted chickens for a deli. All of these influences seem to make
an appearance in his writing, especially the chicken guts bit. His first novel
Brotherhood of the Dragon contained another Amun adventure, while 2020 sees the
release of his WW1 trench murder mystery, Golgotha.
Draven
Draven is an author who writes
paranormal/supernatural which includes vampires and werewolves, and ghosts. Her
works include The Immortals Saga vampire series and the Bane Werewolf Colony
series. She’s working on a revenge crime series of short stories and a science
fiction series. She’s a graduate of Full Sail University with a Bachelor of
Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment. She has experience with
script-writing, comic writing, and game writing. When she’s not writing, she
enjoys reading books, specifically paranormal romance novels and watching
anime. She loves to listen to classical music, rock music, and kpop.
M.M.Ward
M.M.Ward - Mama Magie Ward- Farm mom and author
who writes as part of my stroke recovery. My stories are a walk between shadow
and light. I write stories about and for those who have been through much.
There will be triggers for survivors, things I would wish on anyone, but sadly,
these are the trials many face in today’s world. Some of will overcome, some
will succumb, and I encourage all to seek help. Weep, cope, reach out. You are
not alone. There is always the choice... Become Better, not bitter. #MMWard
J. D. Edwards
J. D. Edwards is the award-winning author of The
Faerie Chronicles, Killing Time, The Soul Reaper, Dry Bones, and Indomitable.
His writing awards include The Charl Ormond Williams Fund, The Ohio
Genealogical Society, Notebook Publishing’s #IndieApril, and Lulu’s Share Your
Scare Writing Contest. Since 2012, J. D. Edwards has published over 60
genealogical articles in the United States and Great Britain, winning over a
dozen historical writing competitions internationally. Future projects include
historical fiction books set in the 18th to 19th centuries and
further fantasy series regarding Faerie and Celtic Mythology.
Sayali D.
Sayali (who cannot pronounce her own last name),
has been writing from childhood, starting from poems and essays that won her
acco- lades to writing murder mysteries for her gang of girls. Embarking on a
technical career after college made her appreciate her world of mystery and
make-believe even more. She dove into romance as a teen and mostly writes
stories about strong, relatable characters who meander their way into love. Her
books also contain suspense and mystery, with a lot of plot twists that keep
the readers engaged. Sayali is married to her college sweetheart and has a cute
kid. She writes when her imagination gets the better of her and her charac-
ters demand to be written about. It’s the only way she can stay sane, though
anyone who has seen her daydream and talk to herself, will disagree. Sayali can
be found on FB, Twitter and Instagram, chattering away to all within earshot.
Ashe Woodward
Ashe Woodward is a horror writer from Ontario,
Canada. She has been writing spooky stories since she was old enough to type on
a Commodore 64. She lives with her husband and their menagerie of pets and
poisonous plants.
For more information visit: Editingle Indie House
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