“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting
for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats
Working on a new promotional poster, I’ve peppered it with the strange and unusual — symbols representing the broad strokes of my obsessions — spirits, praeternatural intelligences, ufology, cryptids, magick — all those stranger things that demand my attention here in the haunted hinterlands.
Demons come out at night.
I’d known that since I could first talk. I remember this because I watched my first horror movie when I was three. Scared the crap out of me. Most fun 90 minutes I’d ever had in my young life. But the information was clear. The night was a bad and scary place. Everything came out at night: vampires, monsters, ghosts, and especially demons.
It was not a good time to be alone, which was why when my parents suggested that at 12, I was old enough to babysit my younger brother Tim, who was 10, and my little sister Egg, who was 8, I told them it was a bad idea. Too many monsters.
So says twelve-year-old Dylan Holcomb, moments before he and his younger brother and sister disappear from their home without a trace. Special Agent Dani Cerra is assigned the case, and to her chagrin, the children’s parents also hire Sean Ryan, a former Catholic priest who now works as a paranormal investigator. Together, Cerra and Ryan follow the clues in a case which begins with the disappearance of three children from their home with no sign of forced entry or exit, continues into the lurid arena of child abduction, and ends with a journey into the supernatural world of demons, a hellish realm filled with unceasing fires and tortures.
Michael Arruda has written a novel in which the human villains are every bit as horrifying as their demonic counterparts, maybe even more so. Demon at the Door is a tale of the supernatural, a story of three children fighting for their lives against both human predators and demonic, while a flawed FBI agent and a troubled paranormal investigator put their differences behind them and leave no stone unturned in their efforts to find and save the children.
Demon at the Door is horror author and movie critic Michael Arruda’s second novel, following his science fiction adventure Time Frame.
I’d been aware of Michael Arruda’s work at Cinema Knife Fight, but I wasn’t really sure what to expect of his sophomore novel, his first foray into horror, when a pdf ARC for Demon at the Door arrived in my inbox from Macabre Ink (Crossroads Press). What I didn’t expect was to be reading a pretty decent occult detective novel.
This is just the sort of set-up I crave in a good supernatural mystery — imperiled kids (gets me every time) is a good touch to generate the sort of emotions you’re going for here, and they are compelling kids. Cerra and Ryan though, our erstwhile occult detectives, are the stars of the show. I enjoy their characterization, and this is true of all the characters populating the novel. Every one feels real and grounded. And the supernatural elements are tastefully done. Not all demons smell of brimstone. I’m glad we get some great variety in our villainy.
Arruda has some skills, to be sure. Some of the dialogue is a little rough in places, a little too “TV”, but he understands pacing and the old bait and switch, managing both like a pro. I think he shows a lot of promise and I would certainly recommend Demon at the Door. While I feel there are some growing pains evident in the prose, it’s a solid page turner and well worth the time spent with it.
Here’s to hoping for more from this world in the future.
Demon at the Door by Michael Arruda is available in pod trade paperback on Amazon for just $16.99
Nick Kaufmann’s one of those writers who I’ve always thought deserved a larger audience. I really enjoyed Chasing the Dragon, Dying Is My Business, Die and Stay Dead, In the Shadow of the Axe, and Hunt at World’s End. With that sort of track record, I was really looking forward to reading the ARC for The Stone Serpent he and publisher David Naill Wilson sent me for review. I should point out, The Stone Serpent is book two in the Dr. Laura Powell series and I have not read the predecessor, The Hungry Earth.
Before I continue, here’s the blurb from Crossroad Press:
“Nicholas Kaufmann offers up an unputdownable blend of gruesome body horror and fast-paced suspense.” – Ray Garton, author of Live Girls and Ravenous
Medical Examiner Dr. Laura Powell didn’t think anything could be more frightening than what she uncovered in an autopsy a year ago. Yet, in this chilling sequel to Nicholas Kaufmann’s bestselling The Hungry Earth, the cause of death is literally petrifying.
When a completely petrified corpse ends up on her autopsy table, Laura is convinced it must be a fossil, but the evidence says otherwise. Impossibly, the man on her table died in a car crash earlier that day. But what could cause a human body to transform so quickly from flesh to a hard stonelike substance?
Laura’s investigation takes her out of her hometown of Sakima, New York, and into dangerous new territory. From the streets of Valley Grove, home to a fundamentalist religious sect under the thumb of a brutal, vindictive leader, to the bowels of Thurmond Biotech, a secretive pharmaceutical company hellbent on developing the first anti-aging miracle drug, what she unearths is far more terrifying than she could have imagined.
Vicious, deadly creatures are preying on the people of Valley Grove, killing them with a highly toxic venom that ravages and transforms their bodies in horrifying ways. As the creatures claim more victims, striking from out of the darkness with lightning-fast speed, Laura must find a way to stop them before they spread to the rest of the Hudson Valley. But will her search for answers put her in even more danger by sending her into the heart of the creatures’ den?
With The Stone Serpent, multiple award-nominated author Nicholas Kaufmann delivers another gripping thriller in the Dr. Laura Powell series.
Let’s get this out of the way first. You definitely do not need to read The Hungry Earth before tackling The Stone Serpent. Kaufmann tells you everything you need to know throughout. That said, I now want to read The Hungry Earth because Dr. Powell is a terrific protagonist.
Nick navigates pacing like a pro. The Stone Serpent is suspenseful without ever becoming bogged down by plot. It’s a roller coaster ride from the outset, with a unique body horror twist that keeps you glued to the page. While I think some of the subplots fall a little flat, the characters all make up for it. Powell and Booker are a great team and there are some truly despicable bad guys they find themselves up against.
The real winner here is the amount of research the author did to keep the book moving and not bury the reader under an avalanche of info-dumps. He juggles this perfectly, keeping the information flowing organically. That’s a neat trick I wish more authors could wrap their heads around.
The Stone Serpent is solid FOUR out of FIVE STARS Horror. I highly recommend it. Hell, I’ve not even read the first one and I’ll go ahead and recommend it too. Laura Powell is a great character. I hope to read more of her in the future.
The Stone Serpent by Nicholas Kaufmann is published by Macabre Ink, an imprint of Crossroad Press, and available via AMAZON.
And, while I have your attention, as an occult detective fan, I recommend the two Trent novels — Dying is My Business and Die and Stay Dead. You won’t be disappointed except to learn there are only the two.
Michelle Belanger is an occult expert and author of more than thirty books on paranormal topics. You probably know Michelle best from appearances on A&E’s Paranormal State and the Travel Channel’s Portals to Hell. In addition, Michelle also creates tabletop games.
Michelle’s Ouila Board Scramble is a lot of fun (and a great tool for any horror themed rpg), Midnight’s Kiss is a solid gothic rpg, and I also have read Michelle’s work on World of Darkness: Ghost Hunters. All to say, Michelle does solid work in the gaming community, in case you weren’t aware.
Michelle’s latest is an immersive storytelling rpg, billed as “a solo game of collaborative fiction”, called Lonely House. It is a storytelling game, which tend to be really hit or miss with me (usually miss), but right out of the proverbial gate I could tell Lonely House was something special.
The…
View original post 309 more words
The anthology Running Home to Shadows: Memories of TV’s First Supernatural Soap from Today’s Grown-Up Kids is now available on Amazon, and for less than $10. Invited to submit my history with the famed cult classic, I was also able to introduce Jim Beard, our esteemed ringleader, to both Mark Rainey and Elizabeth Massie, two of my favorite authors, and who co-penned my favorite Dark Shadows novel, Dreams of the Dark.
Dark Shadows meant everything to me as a child, and being given the opportunity to share my love for Shadows and Dan Curtis was a thrill. The fact that this anthology was put together to honor Jim’s late wife, author Becky Beard, made the experience all the more poignant. And I got to share a Table of Contents with some of my favorite people.
If you’re a fan of Dark Shadows, then this anthology is the love letter you’ve been waiting for.
School’s out, Barnabas is IN!
They were a generation all their own, the army of children who ran home from school to watch Dark Shadows, TV’s very first supernatural soap. A breed apart, they set aside the worship of mundane pop stars to follow vampires, witches, and werewolves. From 1966 to 1971, they were daytime Monster Kids…and today they have stories to tell.
Writer-editor Jim Beard has gathered these grown-up kids together in this tome to tell those tales. Their experiences are sometimes tragic and terrifying, yet also uplifting and inspirational, but above all, Dark Shadows touched them so deeply as to leave an indelible impression on their lives that lasts to this day.
Return to Collinwood to brave the stormy nights and rainswept days of yore to listen to this coven of writers spin yarns of childhood encounters with Barnabas, Angelique, Quentin, Vicky, Maggie, and their compatriots. Cross the threshold of the Old House, take a seat by the crackling fire, and make yourself comfortable to the strains of maudlin music issuing forth from the gramophone—the ghosts of the past are about to arise in RUNNING HOME TO SHADOWS. Won’t you join us?
Edited by Jim Beard with Charles R. Rutledge
Cover Illustration by Mark Maddox with Logo Design and Formatting by Maggie Ryel
Foreword by Kathryn Leigh Scott
Featuring Essays by Greg Cox, Mark Dawidziak, Dave Dykema, Bob Freeman, Ed Gross, Nancy Holder, Tina Hunt, Katherine Kerestman, Mark Maddox (with Ed Catto), Elizabeth Massie, Kimberly Oswald, Martin Powell, Dana Pride, Mark Rainey, Michael Rogers, Charles R. Rutledge, Chris Ryan, Frank Schildiner, Duane Spurlock, and Jeff Thompson.
Afterword by Rich Handley
Addendum: A big shout out to our editors. Jim was great to work with and extremely communicative (and he delivered a heartfelt introduction), and my pal Charles Rutledge was a lifesaver, catching a slight error that really improved my essay. Cheers to both.
Here’s a list of questions I’m seeing answered on youtube (first via Michael K. Vaughan). Up for the challenge?
1. A horror story that scared or disturbed you.
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
I read this in 1976, a few years after I had seen the film. Yeah, I think disturbed would be the right word here. Watching the movie as an eight year old gave me nightmares. When I read the book at ten, those nightmares returned, but dialed up to eleven. Needless to say, I was far too young to have seen the film or read the book.
2. A horror story that depressed you or made you cry.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Masterfully written, I received this book from my wife for Christmas not long after its release. I tore right into it and subsequently sank into a funk for the next month after.
3. A horror story that made you laugh.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Pratchett is the master of comedic prose and Good Omens is littered with great characters and complex plot, all with a diabolic backdrop that makes this the very best of both worlds.
4. A horror story that made you angry.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
Based on a true story, this could have easily been the answer to either of the first two prompts, but having read this in my early twenties, I think anger fits the bill. Being a Hoosier, I knew the story of Sylvia Likens all too well, but the graphic nature of Dallas’ prose brought all that to life. I felt tremendous sadness for the victim, but the rage I felt toward her tormentors eclipsed that and then some.
5. A horror story that is important to you.
Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard
I had been a Conan fan for years, but it was my classmate Laurie Klein, whom you probably know better as Laurell K. Hamilton, who turned me on to Howard’s horror fiction. The first of those I read, Pigeons from Hell, opened up a whole,new world to me.
6. A non-horror story that you consider horror.
This a hard category, mainly because labels are often disingenuous. I thought of Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, but I think it IS horror. So I’m trying to think of something that is more obviously one genre, but clearly steeped in another. I think under those terms, George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire series fits the bill. It is most certainly a fantasy series, first and foremost, but the White Walkers chapters are clearly horror and chillingly written.
Girls and boys, come out to play,
The moon doth shine as bright as day;
Leave your supper, and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows into the street.
Come with a whoop, come with a call,
Come with a good will or not at all.
Up the ladder and down the wall,
A halfpenny roll will serve us all.
You find milk, and I’ll find flour,
And we’ll have a pudding in half an hour.
Still feeling the weight of my recent bout with COVID and some other unfortunate events over the past 40 days, give or take. I will, if the gods are willing and the creek don’t rise, see to publishing some reviews on Tuesday.
I leave you with this shot of the lovely Michaela Tippett modeling Amber Petty’s Tarot Tea House merch featuring “The High Priestess” from a Tarot Deck I designed what feels like a lifetime ago.
I quite liked the image above. So much promise contained within its simplicity. And the idea started out well enough, with the serialization of “Dreams of Winter”, a Landon Connors tale that was fresh to most eyes, buried as it was in an anthology that, while it had a slate of solid authors, didn’t sell exceptionally well. This, you’ll find, is the general case with most anthologies that do not include authors like King, Gaiman, Martin, and the like. But I digress.
I had intended to spend December sharing ghost stories with you, my friends, in that most time honored tradition. I have my fair share of those both real and imagined, but I ended up involved in a different sort of holiday horror story. I caught the dreaded COVID, and shortly after a protracted ear infection that laid me quite low.
COVID has been everything I feared it might be. And I say “has been” because I am still snookered by it. More than 20 days of it, and each moment I think I’ve turned the corner, I find myself hit with another debilitating bout of coughing that leaves me exhausted beyond all measure.
It’s been a struggle, for me and my family. My son, thankfully recovered fairly quickly. My wife has not been as lucky, I’m afraid. As for me, I did receive a monoclonal infusion, but it didn’t seem to take.
I am better today than yesterday. At this point, that’s good enough.
So, apologies for Yuletide Spirits to largely be a bust this year. I had such hopes, but we look now to a brighter year ahead. Next week I plan to post my annual Occult Detective Awards, and I will follow that with some smashing reviews, then it will be time to hunker down and figure out a way to navigate these pandemic waters.
I fear this is the world we shall be living in now and as such we will all need to make more permanent adjustments.
Cheers, dear sleuths. Pray these dark gods notice us less as we roll into 2022: Electric Boogaloo
Dreams of Winter
(originally published in Vampires Don’t Sparkle)
IV
I stagger through the thick snow, following the vampire’s trail into the woods that run alongside Pipe Creek. My vision is blurred and I’m losing too much blood. I cast a quick spell, but it’s a mere band-aid. My whole world is pain. I set it aside and press on. The cruor geminus will not go far. It can’t. The smell of my blood will be too much for it to ignore. It will come for me and most likely finish me off, but not without a fight.
My head is swimming now. I’m in someone’s backyard. I can hear the creek behind me, smell the pine of the woods. I don’t know how I got here. Everything’s coming and going in flashes. The bite on my arm isn’t deep, but it’s poisonous. The vampire’s foul venom is working its way through my system. I have to find it. Have to end this. A shadow ahead. I see a manger scene, the baby Jesus surrounded by its mother and father, animals and wisemen. The shadow is framed by a Christmas Angel hovering above the manger, its lights blinking in an eclectic rhythm. My heart thunders in time with those angel wings.
“Landon.”
The voice is coming from the angel.
I stagger toward it, lumbering, limping against the pain in my ravaged knee, cane dragging along through the snow loosely, carving a snaking trail through the fresh powder. The shadow comes forward revealing a different angel.
“Sarah,” I choke. I taste blood on my lips. “You shouldn’t… be here. Run, young one. Be safe.” I lose my footing and descend to the ground onto my hands and knees. “Run, damn it.”
“No, Landon,” she says. She lowers herself to me, cups my face in her hands. “I’ll not abandon you, my dear sweet Doctor.” I’m lost in her eyes. In her youth… her beauty. She leans in toward me, lips parting, coming dangerously close to mine.
This is how it ends for the occult detective? With a kiss from a fiery-haired angel, bled out in the snow with the failed dream of winter on my lips? I rise up on my knees as she lays my head to the side. Her lips brush mine on her way to my neck. I feel her hot breath on my cold flesh. Then she’s gone… an explosion erupts across the lawn and I see two Sarahs — one struggling up from the ground, a spray of blood across the virgin snow — the other holding a smoking Ruger .357.
“Get away from him, you monster!”
The beast transforms before my eyes. Sarah no more as it assumes the shape of Edward and marches toward her. Sarah fires again, and once more, but the fiend shrugs them off. I reach deep down inside me and rise, raising my cane and swinging it with all my might. It connects with the back of the cruor geminus’ head. The beast spins about and I charge.
With the cane before me like a knight’s lance, I drive the shaft home, straight through the vampire’s chest, piercing the foul thing’s heart and driving it back into the manger. The angel overhead comes crashing down and the cruor geminus becomes entangled in the wire frame and blinking lights. As the sun rises, the fiend dies before our eyes, its body bound by the illuminating lights of a Christmas Angel.
“Huh,” Sarah says, “I guess sometimes vampires do sparkle.”
The End
occultdetective.com 