Cosmic Forces: Book Three in The Jake Helman Files Series
Page 30
With my interest in reaching the roof dissipating, I glanced over my shoulder at the river and stiffened. The water churned white and foamy in at least a dozen places. The creature inside roared again, and the things in the water moved towards the dock . . . and me. Good Lord, whatever they were, they were responding to the call of the thing inside.
I descended the ladder, but after only a few rungs, I decided it was going to take too long to reach the dock, so I pressed the insteps of my sneakers against the outside of the ladder, moved my hands onto the supports, and allowed myself to slide down like a sailor or a fireman. It may have been my finest moment. The metal burned my palms and fingers, but before I knew it the soles of my feet slapped the dock hard, the impact shooting through my ankles and knees. I could no longer see the things in the water, which meant they were close to the dock. I ran to the edge and peered over the railing. At least two dozen of the things moved within ten feet of the dock’s ladder. I knew that whatever they were, they weren’t human divers any more than the creature inside the warehouse was a whale.
With my heart pounding in my chest I fled, my shoulder bag flopping against my right hip. I didn’t give a damn about motion detectors any longer. I just wanted to get the hell out of there, so I cut a direct path for the fence at the property’s edge, a quarter of a mile away. The beast in the warehouse continued to roar behind me, and I imagined humanoid creatures with gills climbing onto the dock. Emergency lights flared behind me, casting long shadows on the ground ahead. An alarm filled the night, and the thing in the warehouse stopped bellowing.
I slowed as I neared the fence but collided with it anyway and scrambled along it, searching for the opening I had cut. I heard voices behind me—human voices, thank God—as my fingers located the jagged gash I had made. Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawled through the slit and felt metal scratch my cheeks. On the other side I rolled across the ground and lurched forward into a staggering run, never looking behind me.
I took a taxi straight home. The driver tried to engage me in small talk, but I ignored him. Instead, I pressed my fingers against the gashes in my face and wondered if Patch had even a clue when he died that he had sent me into the den of monsters.
Stumbling into my apartment, I twisted the locks and ran to my desk. I threw myself into my office chair, jerked the paper shredder forward, and whipped out Patch’s research. I fed the pages representing Patch’s obsession with Reichard into the shredder five at a time.
Fuck this story, fuck Reichard, fuck Mr. Big, and fuck Patch.
There will be no Pulitzer for me, no glory. But at least I have my life.
Halfway through shredding the research, my cell phone rang.
Who the hell—?
I checked the display on my phone: unavailable.
Cold sweat dampened my forehead as I took the call. “Hello?”
Click.
Just what I needed for reassurance. I returned to the task at hand, destroying the evidence of Patch’s work. Men like Reichard are beyond justice. Justice works for them. And they work for—
I shut down that thought.
Forget it. Forget it. Forget it!
When the shredder had consumed the last of Patch’s research, I ran my hands through my hair. I know I’m not a hero. Hell, I might even be a coward. But I think I’m just a regular guy, with regular ambitions and regular failings. I’m not the kind of man who exposes secret cabals and metes out justice. So Reichard is safe for now. Someone else will have to take him on, not me. I just want to live my life as I did before Patch visited me for the last time not so long ago.
The buzzing of my door caused me to jump in my seat.
I wonder who that could be.
I’ll be right back.
In every hardened cop’s worst dreams there lurks a nightmare waiting to become reality. Captain Mace has encountered his. When a string of raped and dismembered corpses appears throughout New York, the investigation draws Mace into an interactive plot that plays like a horror movie. Taking the lead role in this chilling story may be the challenge of his career, testing his skills and his stamina, but even a superhero would find the series of terrifying crime scenarios daunting.
Unlike anything Mace has experienced, every blood-spattered scene filled with body parts and partially eaten human remains looks like an animal’s dining room strewn with rotting leftovers. Only Satanic legends and tales from the dark side of spiritual oblivion resemble the mayhem this beast has created in his frenzy. In the wake of each attack is the haunting premonition of another murdering onslaught.
As Mace follows this crimson trail of madness, he must accept the inevitable conclusion. Whoever—or whatever—is responsible for this terror does not intend to stop, and it’s up to him to put an end to the chaotic reign of a perpetrator whom, until now, he’s met only in the annals of mythology. The mere mention of the word would send New York into a panic: werewolf.
ISBN# 978-160542099-8
Trade Paperback / Horror
US $15.95 / CDN $17.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
Jake Helman, an elite member of the New York Special Homicide Task Force, faces what every cop dreads—an elusive serial killer. While investigating a series of bloodletting sacrifice rituals executed by an ominous perpetrator known as The Cipher, Jake refuses to submit to a drug test and resigns from the police department. Tower International, a controversial genetic engineering company, employs him as their director of security.
While battling an addiction to cocaine, Jake enters his new high-pressure position in the private sector. What he encounters behind the closed doors of this sinister operation is beyond the realm of human imagination. Too horrible to contemplate, the experimentation is pure madness, the outcome a hell where only pain and terror reside. Nicholas Tower is not the hero flaunted on the cover of Time magazine. Beneath the polished exterior of this frontiersman on the cutting edge of science is a corporate executive surrounded by the creations of his deranged mind.
As Jake delves deeper into the hidden sphere of this frightening laboratory, his discoveries elicit more than condemnation for unethical practices performed for the good of mankind. Sequestered in rooms veiled in secrecy is the worst crime the world will ever see—the theft of the human soul.
ISBN# 978-160542072-1
Mass Market Paperback / Horror
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
Nominated for a 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel by the Horror Writers Association
The upstate village of Red Hill is about to learn the meaning of fear.
Johnny Grissom, nicknamed “Johnny Gruesome” by his high school classmates, is a heavy-metal hellion who loves to party, watch horror movies, and get into fights. His best friend, Eric, admires him, and his girlfriend, Karen, loves him.
One winter night, Johnny’s car, the Death Mobile, is discovered submerged beneath the icy surface of Willow Creek, with Johnny’s waterlogged corpse inside. The residents of Red Hill believe that Johnny’s death was accidental.
Then the murders begin—horrible acts of violent vengeance that hint at a deepening mystery and terror yet to come. A headless body is discovered at the high school. A priest is forced to confront his own misdeeds. And a mortician encounters the impossible.
One by one, Johnny’s enemies meet a grisly demise, as the sound of a car engine and maniacal laughter fill the night. The students at Red Hill High School fear for their lives—especially Johnny’s closest friends, who harbor a dark secret.
If people thought Johnny had a bad attitude when he was alive, wait until they encounter him when he’s dead!
Johnny Gruesome is a valentine to E.C. Comics, Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula, and such gory 1980s splatter flicks as Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead. The novel is a horror fan’s nightmare come true!
ISBN# 978-193475545-7
Trade Paperback /
Horror
US $15.95 / CDN $17.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
They’re not breathing. That’s why they’re so still. But that’s not possible . . .
Eleven months after battling Nicholas Tower and the demon Cain, Jake Helman has set up shop as a private investigator in Lower Manhattan. When a woman hires Jake to prove that her dead grandson is dealing a deadly new drug called “Black Magic” on a Brooklyn street corner, Jake uncovers a vicious drug lord’s plot to use voodoo to seize control of the city.
While panic grips New York City, Jake Helman battles gun-wielding zombie assassins, hallucinations, and betrayal at every corner. But voodoo creates more terrors than zombies, and Jake finds himself poised on the edge of insanity as he fights to restore the soul of the one person he trusts.
ISBN# 978-160542170-4
Mass Market Paperback / Horror
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.slimeguy.com
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