To get you in the mood for #Halloween: The Haunting of Dr. Bowen #novella

by

C.A. Verstraete

Gruesome deaths haunt the industrial city of Fall River, Massachusetts.

Dr. Seabury Bowen—physician to the infamous Lizzie Borden—swears he’s being stalked by spirits, though his beloved wife thinks it’s merely his imagination. 

But the retired doctor insists that neither greed nor anger provoked the recent sensational axe murders in Fall River. Rather, he believes the city is poisoned by bad blood and a thirst for revenge dating back to the Indian and Colonial wars.

Now, two years after the Borden murders, Dr. Bowen is determined to uncover the mysteries stirring up the city’s ancient, bloodthirsty specters.

Can he discover who, or what, is shattering the peace before Fall River runs red? Or will he be the next victim?

Excerpt

The Haunting of Dr. Bowen, A Mystery in Lizzie Borden’s Fall River 

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Prologue

“Never did I say to anyone that she had died of fright.

My first thought, when I was standing in the door, was that she had fainted.”

—Testimony of Dr. Seabury W. Bowen, Trial of Lizzie Borden, June 8, 1893

“Why won’t anyone believe me? Why, Phoebe, why?”

Dr. Seabury Bowen shoved back the shock of white hair hanging over his forehead and wiped a wrinkled hand across his stubbled chin.

His appearance, like his surroundings, could stand a bit of major housekeeping, not that he cared a whit.

“Here, it’s here somewhere,” he mumbled.

The old man rummaged among the giant pile of documents, books, and what-not littering the large walnut desk in his study. Several minutes later, and after the search through dozens of loose papers, he saw the faded red book lying beneath a tottering pile. He pulled at it, sending the rest of the stack falling like so much unwanted garbage.

The good doctor, but a shadow of his once-robust self, flipped the pages. He stared at the offending journal entry before setting the book aside with a heartrending sob. 

Chapter One

“I saw the form of Mr. Borden lying on the lounge at the left of the sitting-room door. His face was very badly cut, apparently with a sharp instrument; his face was covered with blood.”

—Testimony of Dr. Seabury W. Bowen, Trial of Lizzie Borden, June 8, 1893

The man reached toward him with long, lean fingers. Dr. Seabury Bowen blinked and tried to make out the features of the unknown figure standing in the corner. The unexpected visitor had a broad, dark face and what looked like a band across his forehead. Bowen stretched out his arm in turn and jumped when their fingers touched, the jolt surging through him like the electricity he knew would soon replace all the gas lights.

“Seabury, dear, are you all right?” His wife, Phoebe, sounded concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Bowen breathed hard. He bolted upright and held a hand on his chest, trying to catch his breath. Still stunned, he gazed about the room, disturbed at the odd shapes until he recognized familiar things… the bureau, the armoire, the paintings on his bedroom walls. He swallowed and nodded.

 “Ye-yes. I-I’m fine. A bad dream, that’s all it was. Just a dream.”

“A bad dream? Dear, you’re breathing so hard, your heart must be pounding like a drum in Mr. Sousa’s band! Are you sure you’re fine?”

The doctor took his wife’s hand and kissed it, relieved to feel his heartbeat return to normal. He had to admit his reaction worried him for a minute, too. “I’m fine now, Phoebe. Really, it’s all right. Go back to sleep. I’m too wrought up to rest. I think I’ll go downstairs and read awhile.”

He gave her a loving smile before he rose, and slipped on his robe, his thoughts in a whirl. To tell the truth, these dreams or hallucinations or whatever they were, appeared to be getting stronger and more frequent.

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Halloween –A Good Time To Remember Ray Bradbury

by

Seb Kirby

Halloween in a good opportunity to remember Ray Bradbury. Though he’s been thought of more as a science fiction writer in recent years, right from the start and throughout his writing career, Ray Bradbury was interested in the macabre, the bizarre and the unusual, all seen through the lens of his uplifting poetic imagination.

Ray Bradbury
Attribution: photo by Alan Light

The true story he recounts in the Introduction to Volume 1 of his collected short stories sets the scene. He takes us back to 1932 when, as a twelve year old, he met a remarkable performer who was part of a ‘seedy, two-bit’ carnival that came to town:

‘Mr Electrico sat in his electric chair, being fired with ten billion volts of pure blue sizzling power. Reaching out into the audience, his eyes flaming, his white hair standing on end, sparks leaping between his smiling teeth, he brushed an Excalibur sword over the heads of the children, knighting them with fire. When he came to me, he tapped me on both shoulders and then the tip of my nose. The lightening jumped into me, Mr Electrico cried: “Live forever!”’

Making excuses to go back there the next two nights, the twelve year old got to know the entertainer who told him he was a defrocked Presbyterian minister out of Cairo, Illinois. Then, Mr Electrico came up with the really surprising news. They had met before, he said, on the battlefield of the Ardennes in 1918.  “And here you are, born again, in a new body, with a new name. Welcome back!”

Ray Bradbury concludes that he had been uplifted by not one but two gifts from Mr Electrico – the gift of having lived once before (and of being told about it) …and the gift of trying somehow to live forever.  He continues: ‘A few weeks later I started writing my first short stories about the planet Mars. From that time to this, I have never stopped. God bless Mr Electrico, the catalyst, wherever he is.’

As a young boy myself not much older than Ray Bradbury was then, I began reading his stories. His science fiction stories came later for me; what captured my imagination first was the macabre mystery of the stories in ‘The October Country’, ‘I Sing The Body Electric!’ and the story that turned into a novel, ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. In these stories he draws on the surreal imagination set off by that carnival encounter back in 1932, producing quirky, challenging encounters that stretch the imagination. But this is a forgiving horror. As in all of his writing there is an optimism that rises despite the most difficult of odds and cuts through the darkness.

So, have a good Halloween!  Banish those monsters!  Ray Bradbury will be with you every step of the way.

Sadly, Ray Bradbury failed in one thing – he didn’t find a way of living forever as Mr Electrico had demanded. He died last year, aged 91. But he lives on in his wonderful stories, written in that clear, inspirational voice that is a model to so many authors today.

Here he is, talking about his writing and his hope of inspiring others.

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I Evil

by 

Bryan Cassiday

I, Jefferson Bascomb, the “Chosen One” who reigns over Alcatraz Island in Sanctuary in Steel, do believe that the main character in a work of fiction can be evil. Look at William Shakespeare’s play Othello. The play is named after the character Othello, who is ostensibly good, but the fact of the matter is, Iago steals the show. The most evil character in the play is Iago and he is the one who controls the action with his conniving subterfuges. The play should, in point of fact, be called Iago.

I, Jefferson Bascomb, am a character in Bryan Cassiday’s zombie apocalypse thriller Sanctuary in Steel. The good guy in this creepy book, and I cringe in disgust when I think of his goodness, is Chad Halverson. He wants to be the star of the show, but, in actuality, he is not. I am. I control the action. I control the entire island of Alcatraz and permit him to stay on my island. It turns out that was a mistake, but I did not know he was a troublemaker.

I am not as evil as people might think after they read Sanctuary in Steel. Would an evil man order fair trials to be held for infected zombies? I presided as judge over these trials, and if a zombie who committed crimes, such as murders and robberies, was found guilty, he was sentenced to do time or to pay for his crime with his life. If I’m so evil, why would I believe in equal rights for zombies? 

Of course, I do admit I raped women on the island and tortured and mutilated defendants if they were found guilty of murder. But they deserved it. I also used the residents of the island as bait for the zombies when I tired to implement my escape from the island. Those sacrificed were burned alive in a fire that consumed Alcatraz prison. I had to escape, didn’t I? After all, which is more important? Hundreds of innocent residents or yours truly? That’s a no-brainer.

How gruesome is too gruesome?

Horror-writing tips

by

Mary Twomey

In my opinion, if the horror serves a purpose, then it’s the right amount. If you’re just being gross to shock us, let’s get real for a minute. We live in the post-Tarantino era. Most of us just sigh at the tedium of violence for shock value.

How can you tell the difference? Ask yourself the following questions: Does the vicious bloodbath serve a purpose? Is it there to move the plot forward? Does it give us a greater insight into our hero or our villain? If the answer to at least one of these questions is yes, then the gore serves a purpose, and therefore, should not be cut. So long as your novel or movie has the appropriate filters attached (i.e. – “contains adult content”), then censoring yourself will do your audience a disservice. There is a big difference between gore implied and horrors witnessed.

It’s important to keep your reader in the moment. That’s why I try to avoid flashbacks and past tenses in my more disturbing scenes. Let them experience the terror as your characters do. The best horror books, in my opinion, spend equal amounts of time describing the blood and guts as they do the emotional reaction to the crime scene. If it’s all action and no heart, eventually we will grow numb to the thrill of the scare. If you plant a visceral response by letting us in on how your characters are negatively affected by every slash, then you’ve got both a visual and an emotional story. In my book, that adds up to a home run.

One of my main characters is a man named Baird. For me, it was important to make Baird unbearably cruel, while placing him in an impossible situation. I don’t want a character everyone hates without question. That’s too easy. I want my Severus Snape – someone the reader feels torn about. Baird is responsible for raising his sister in an incredibly violent and racially tense environment. To keep her safe, he turns her into a serial killer so they can pick off the bad ones before an attack comes upon them. He trades in her childhood so that she has the possibility of living to adulthood. Baird is unmerciful and unkind in every circumstance, but there’s always the lingering thought that he’s doing all of it to keep his sister alive. The death scenes are gory, but to truly hate the monster that Baird is, they must be brutal. The horrific ways he teaches his sister to murder cements his “no apologies” policy. In the end, the battle becomes not to stay alive, but to hold onto the shreds of their humanity as they turn into unflinching killers.

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