For today's post, I thought I'd put up an excerpt from my novella, The Island. The Island loosely ties into Nightshade, my most recent werewolf novel. In the excerpt below, Rick and his wife Julie get a glimpse of some of the creatures that inhabit the island. You can get The Island Here (e-book and paperback). Also available on other e-book platforms.
It's the horror fan's ultimate dream. A tour of an island where legendary monsters are real. Escorted by armed guards, lifelong friends Rick and Nate travel to the island as a birthday surprise for Rick. They soon find out that the island's inhabitants are hungry, and the tour turns into a fight for survival.
A an action-packed horror novella loaded with monsters and gore from the author of The Dead Land Trilogy.
Back in the room, Rick jumped a little as the air raid siren Sutherland had mentioned began its mournful howl. It reminded Rick of old war movies. And Sutherland hadn’t been kidding. It was definitely an old-time air raid siren.
Rick was standing at the window overlooking the high concrete wall and the lush view beyond. Julie came up beside him, gripped his hand.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Wondering what Nate’s gotten us into,” he said.
“It’s not dull, that’s for sure. I feel bad for him sometimes.”
Rick said, “Why’s that?”
“Because Eve’s got a stick in her twat half the time about something or other.”
Rick laughed. The wine had definitely loosened her tongue. “Sounds like that’s all that’s been in her twat lately, according to her.”
She laughed. It was a big laugh with no hint of self-consciousness. He’d always loved her laugh. Didn’t matter where they were. She’d break out a belly laugh anywhere, fuck who was listening to them. He turned, slipped his arms around her waist. She slipped hers around the back of his neck, stroked his hair.
He kissed her hard and she pressed against him, backed him up against the window.
As he kissed her harder, she pulled away and gasped.
“Jesus Christ!” she said.
“What?”
“Something huge just swooped across the sky.”
She broke away from him and looked out the window.
He turned and looked, palm on the glass. He tapped it. “This is some thick glass.”
It was a few inches thick, perhaps designed to stop a bullet. Or something else. “Okay, so you saw a big bird. There could be big birds up here. Eagles, I suppose.”
“It wasn’t just a bird, Rick.”
The air raid siren was still going in the background.
On the wall outside, he saw two men come running, one with a high-powered rifle, and the other with what looked like a pair of night-vision goggles. The man with the goggles pointed to the sky.
He saw what Eve was talking about. Something roughly the size and shape of a man swooped across the sky. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? It had leathery wings and a misshapen skull. It rose high in the air and then dove down, heading for the men on the wall.
The crack of the gun startled them both. They flinched.
The flying creature turned away, spun out of control, and dipped beneath the wall. He watched the man with the rifle lean over and fire two more shots. He then turned and signaled to someone out of sight.
“What the fuck was that?” Rick asked.
“I don’t know. But let’s get away from the window, huh?” Julie said.
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