A real shame she hadn’t been able to do her proper work, particularly on the woman and her little devil spawn. Maybe another time.
Her feet shuffled across the dirt, tapping into bodies wherever she ventured. Most of them weren’t worth ushering into Heaven, of course. Quite obvious from the night’s events and all the sinning she’d witnessed.
But near the green room’s door, she found something interesting. The accountant’s body. And more money than she could imagine.
Carefully, she gathered it, stacked it back into the briefcase. Money to continue her work. Across the country. Maybe even the world. She might even buy some fancy new white teeth since the vile bitch knocked out most of hers.
Once again, God had seen to her needs.
The Lord gives.
Across the street, she unlocked Mabel’s car. From far away, sirens cried. No doubt clean-up crews for the mortal remains. But her work here was finished.
She began her trek across Heaven’s Highway, singing joyous hymns as the sun rose.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stuart R. West is a lifelong resident of Kansas, which he considers both a curse and a blessing. It’s a curse because…well, it’s Kansas. But it’s great because…well, it’s Kansas. Lots of cool, strange and creepy things happen in the Midwest, and Stuart takes advantage of them in his work. Call it “Kansas Noir”. Stuart writes thrillers tinged with horror and horror tinged with thriller, both for adult and young adult audiences. He writes at the crossroads of horror and sneaky humor. Dread & Breakfast is Stuart’s fourteenth published novel and Stuart feels funny talking about himself this way. Stuart spent twenty-five years in the corporate sector and now writes full time. He’s married to a professor of pharmacy (who greatly appreciates the fact he cooks dinner for her every night) and has a twenty-two year old daughter who’s still deciding what to do with her life. But that’s okay. It took him twenty-five years to figure that out.
Stuart’s blog can be found at http://stuartrwest.blogspot.com/. Drop in on him at Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/stuartrwestwrite
Press
Presents
Deep beneath the streets of Detroit, someone — or something — is picking off the miners working the Detroit Salt Combine’s salt mine. The company refuses to do anything, so the miners turn to the Attican Detective Agency’s Jasper O’Malley to get to the bottom of things. Teamed with Sadie Dupree, a geologist, and Amelia Rio, a getaway driver for the local mob boss, Jasper delves into the secrets of the mine. Will they be able to unearth the truth, or will they suffer the same unfortunate fate of the Detroit Salt Combine’s workers?
Something lurks beneath the surface of Cooper Lake. Something hungry. Something intelligent. Something that preys on those who venture too close to its domain. The native Indians had a name for it. ONIARE In 1939, its victim was a young drifter. Dave Longo fought and killed it then, but it won’t stay dead. It returned in 1956 to claim the lives of two young men. For Dave, its return was a reunion in Hell. It’s now 2014 and the creature has returned again, but Dave Longo is not around to face it a third time. The task becomes the responsibility of Ryan Lowell, a child the oniare had terrorized back in ‘56, but can he overcome his childhood fears to vanquish the oniare once and for all.
There’s something in Troughton’s Moss that speaks to the people of Ellsford; it whispers in their ears, burrows into their minds, like a Brainworm, and tells them what to do.
THE MADONNA
Twenty years ago it spoke to Paul Cunningham and set the wheels in motion.
He brutally murdered, then raped a young woman.
A short while later, within the narrow confines of her grave, she gave birth to …
THE CHILD
Grown to young adulthood, it moves undetected among the people of Ellsford with only one purpose.
THE END TIMES
The time has come. The Moss is beginning to give up its dead,
sacrifices made in its name throughout the ages.
THE CHOSEN ONE
Dobson Heather, a child of the Moss himself, has been marked. But is he Ellsford’s salvation, or their damnation?
The Caribbean Sea, 1708 AD. In Port Royal many have heard the legend of the Black Brig, a ship of the damned bringing a fate worse than death to the isolated colonies of the Caribbean Sea. But few know the true story behind the tavern tales. As the war between the Northern Alliance and the League of the Antilles looms on the horizon, an old captain is ready to embark on a venture to cease the blight of the Black Brig once for all and have his revenge. Set in an alternate historical setting, where a supernatural plague caused the fall of the European powers and where what was left of humanity struggles to survive in the New World, Dead Men Tell No Tales narrates the ghastly voyage pirate captain Daniel Drake Davies underwent in 1676, and the events that will force him to confront those same horrors thirty years later. For the dead do not rest peacefully in the Devil’s Sea. Pirates, voodoo, and seagoing undead await you in this fantastic journey in a land that never was.
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