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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If you like #horror #suspense novels, check out this extract from The Dead Letter

Excerpt from the book

THE DEAD LETTER

by

Finley Martin

It’s night. Always night. Dreams guard against the evil forged by nightmares. Infinite shooting stars illuminate a moonless sky. A city stands alone, surrounded by a darkened field. On its fringes, a man watches one star separate from the masses and fall. What survives the crash will unveil a secret centuries long hidden.

Molly hasn’t slept well since the night of her twenty-fourth birthday. Being struck by lightning might have something to do with it, but then again, her chicken did look a little undercooked at dinner. Whatever the culprit, her life quickly catapults from mundane to insane as, night after night, Molly is transported through her once dreamless sleep to a mysterious land illuminated by shooting stars.

There she meets the captivating but frustrating Dev, and together they discover Molly possesses a power coveted by his people—the ability to conjure almost anything she desires into existence. Seduced by the possibilities of this gift, Molly shifts her attention from waking life toward the man, the magic, and the world found in her dreams.

But Molly must ask herself—does something truly exist if you only see it when you close your eyes?

Faced with the threat of losing everything—her job, best friend, boyfriend, and most importantly, that little thing called her sanity—Molly will learn just how far she’ll go to uncover what is real and what is merely a figment of her imagination.

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The DEAD LETTER

It is 2001 and the police constable's girlfriend is murdered in a fit of jealous rage. When the constable realizes what he has done, he manages an elaborate cover-up. Only one person knows the truth. Flash forward to 2012. Anne Brown is still running her late uncle, Bill Darby's, detective agency after spending four or five years as his assistant.

 One day, the postman delivers an eleven year-old letter. The letter is addressed to her uncle from a woman named Carolyn Jollimore. She says she has evidence about a murder and begs for help from Darby. But Bill Darby is dead. And when Anne looks up the letter's author, she finds that Jollimare too is now dead. Troubled with the evidence at hand, Anne must decide if she should investigate this eleven-year old murder.

 

Finley Martin was born in Binghamton, New York and grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  He received a B.A. degree in English at the University of Scranton, and during the 1960’s he served as an officer with the United States Marine Corps at posts in America, the Caribbean, and Asia.

After he returned to civilian life, he worked as a free-lance writer, p.r. consultant, and photographer and became public relations director at International Correspondence Schools.
 
In the 70’s he received an M.A. from the University of Ottawa and a B.Ed. from the University of Prince Edward Island.  For many years he taught English literature at high school and writing courses at university.  He has also worked as a truck driver, labourer, carpenter, boat builder, and deckhand aboard commercial fishing vessels and passenger ferries.
​
During his writing career he published numerous magazine and newspaper articles, poetry, and short stories in Canada and the U.S.  He produced a mini-series for CBC Radio and has given numerous poetry readings.
 
He authored three books: New Maritime Writing, Square Deal Pub., Charlottetown, PE; A View from the Bridge, Montague, PE; and The Reluctant Detective, The Acorn Press, Charlottetown, PE.

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Bad Author Interviews Revisited and it's...

the turn of
Robert McCarroll

What’s so great about your crap book?
Other than the fact that it's my book?  Mad Science, Magic, Aliens,Superheroes, and no cardboard cut-outs masquerading as main characters.  Oh, and Masquerade.  Everyone loves Masquerade.

What do you really think about erotica?
As a writer or a reader?

Is it the low of the lows for writers?
No, that distinction belongs to those who ghostwrite for celebrity and/or politician ego projects.
Oooh, I've never thought of that group being at the bottom. But that's what keeps the bricks and motor book stores afloat, I guess.

If you didn’t have your book professionally edited: What made you think you’re so perfect that you didn’t need to pay a professional?

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What if I have had it professionally done? 
Then don't answer the question, doh!

After all my re-writes, after the editor was done, led to all the proofing error complaints.  I am so error prone that I've had to hire yet another proofreader to deal with the fallout from my fat fingers.
Yeah, been there, done that. Now I've leant you don't get an editor until your typescript is perfect.

Yawn, so basically you're the same as all the rest of the authors on Amazon and you’re the Next Best Thing. I don’t think so. Come on, tell me why should I spend time reading YOUR book over more well-received authors?
Because I'm holding a puppy hostage, and bad things will happen if you don't read my book.  Or was I making an army of puppy bombers?  Let me check my notes.

Is there an author who inspires (perspires) you?

No.  Not really.  I write to fill the gaps in my entertainment.  If there's someone providing that, I'd have no reason to write it.
So you write because there are no other books out there that you like? That's a good reason to write, and probably means there's a niche for your book.

Do you think you write better than them?
Yes, of course.  If they were better than me, I wouldn't be writing.

Is your aim to out-sell them?
Who were we talking about again? 
The writers who inspire you. Keep up!

In the writing world, have you ever regretted anything i.e written your own review (or written a bad review on a competitor's novel), argued on-line, copied someone else's idea?
I released an e-book before it was ready, and ended up unpublishing it out of embarrassment.  It's not for sale anymore. To the five people who bought it, I'm sorry.
Ha! 

What qualifications do you have for writing in your genre?
A lifetime of geekdom.
Top qualification, or so I've heard.

Many authors use their qualifications to show off their so-called talents i.e. crime writers are often coppers (police, for the non-Brits present) and the book becomes boringly technical. How have you managed to keep your knowledge low key? Or haven’t you bothered?
I have to keep it at bay or I'd be sued for copyright and trademark infringement.  I don't have that kind of money.
Must be difficult. Do you wear your cardigans and braces only after dark? 

If I were to read your book would I have to scroll through lots of acknowledgements saying how wonderful your book is before I got to the meat of a story?
Acknowledgements, yes, praising the book, no.  Though you may want to be sure your sanity score is high enough.

What part of the world do you come from?
New York, the real New York, not that city that keeps impersonating New York and sending corrupt politicians to Albany.

What do you think of your government?
Which one? The corrupt state government, the inept federal government, the totalitarian bureaucracy or the local yokels?  I guess I answered the question then.
Don't sit on the fence!

If your book is set outside England would I understand your jargon? I mean, fanny means lady front parts NOT backside, car hood is a car bonnet--everyone knows that, right? Are British Englishisms/Americanisms/Australianisms etc important in your book? It's all about identity, isn't it?
It's in America, where pants are trousers, not underwear.

Why that shitty title?
I hit 'save' and it asked me to name the file.  I had to name it something, so I named it after the Main character's codename.  Then I promptly went and changed the codename in story, making the title obsolete before part 5.

Did you run out of ideas?
Yes, how could you tell?  I never found a real title to replace the working title.

If you were me (you know, perfect) and knew nothing about a person and you were told to interview them, what’s the one question you would ask? (answer it).
Would you vote Disestablishmentarian or Bull Moose?  Zombie Teddy for the win!

How long did it take you to complete your book (from idea to publication)?
One year.  One month to write it, eleven to edit it.

If it took under a year to write: It didn’t take you long to write so does that mean it is poorly researched, edited and written on a whim?
Research? Pshaw.  It was written because I get fed up writing a serious take on the Superhero Genre, so I wrote a light and fluffy embrasure of the conventions.  Only I'd been writing Grimdark to sell to the Black Library, and 'Light and Fluffy' turned into "First person narrator tried to console abused child while the narrator is dying from being impaled on a steel rod."  Yeah... I missed the lighthearted romp target by a mile.

If it took over a year to write: Does that mean this book is boringly long and laborious to read?
Not at all, it's only 107,000 words.  Those 11 months were pure, unadulterated laziness.
Yeah right, I'm a writer too remember, so I know what it's like. Those eleven months were full of pacing, tearing out hair, drinking, sitting bolt upright in bed with a sudden idea and waking your partner, punching walls, forgetting to eat, forgetting you have kids. My scenario: Child: 'Mummy, what time's dinner? I haven't eaten in a week.' Me: 'Eh? Who are you and how did you get into my house?'

Do you have any bad habits, or stupid rituals you HAVE to do in order to write?
I have to have a computer, I have to be alone, and I have to have background noise, preferably music, because anything with a plot will distract me.

Authors are usually labelled as ‘dreamers’ and ‘loners’. Have you been labelled as such? And what implications do you think that has on a writer?
No, I've been labelled as a crumudgeon, or cantakerous, because I only interact with people at my day job.  I say 'people' but we're more like drones.


What do you think of social media (pick one answer): 

1. Somewhere to advertise my book.
2. Somewhere to interact with other writers.
3. Somewhere to find information.
4. All of the above.

5. ***None of the above***
I find social media to be *redacted* and *expletive deleted**redacted* and a place where *redacted* *expletive deleted*


Does ‘being a writer’ make you feel like an outsider with normal, everyday people such as your family and friends?
Normal?  You think those people are Normal?  They willingly associate with me for crying out loud, how 'Normal' could they possibly be?
Guess not then. 

Give me the first, middle and end line in your book.

1. Bureaucracy.  I'd rather take a fist to the face than have to deal with the Bureau of Hero Affairs, but then I'd end up having to fill out one of the innumerable BHA forms.
2. "He's sixteen," Torquespiral said, "Could you pitch a two million dollar project at that age?"
3. After all, what would I do with myself?

Thanks, Robert, for being a brilliant amazing thrilling shit interviewee! 

Zombie sex

by

Stephen Kozeniewski

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what topic, exactly, to write about in my WWBB guest post.  I actually wrote a post here pseudonymously last year because I was still hiding my shame at being an unpublished author.

What a difference a year makes!

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Since then I’ve gotten a new day job, a new cat, a bunch of other blah blah blah new stuff that you don’t really care about, but most importantly and excitingly: I found a small publisher willing to take on my horror/mystery novel BRAINEATER JONES!  I immediately thought of trying to get a spot on Louise’s schedule and when I saw her call for ‘orrible covers for the month of October I knew it was kismet.  (Sorry, other challengers, but you can’t deny it: my cover is the ‘orriblest.)

But that still left me with the quandary of what topic to write about.  Louise writes chick lit…or possible chic lit…or possibly Chiclets, although I’m not sure exactly how one would go about writing on little pieces of gum.  How could I make my little gorefest appealing to her readers?  Then it struck me:

ZOMBIE SEX

Not only would zombie sex be a great topic for Halloween AND a great topic for this blog, but it would also suddenly make that “long and hard” phrase in my first sentence seem like a deliberate authorial choice.

I’ve actually been noodling this topic a lot lately, which sounds weird, but, come on, I’m a horror writer.  We think about weird stuff for a living.  Last week I went to a midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead at my local hipster theater, which was an awesome choice because, amongst other reasons, I got to re-watch the granddaddy of all modern zombie stories.  And while I was watching it I noticed something I had either never caught before or had deliberately repressed from my memory:

THERE WAS A 100% NUDE ZOMBIE IN THE HORDE!

Seriously.  Go back and watch it.  How did I miss/forget about that?  I mean, I knew horror films in the ‘70s were exploitative with, I want to say a seventeen naked breast minimum mandated by the  MPAA.  But how did Romero manage to slip that nudie zombie by in a black and white film in the late ‘60s?  Bad for puritanical society, I guess, but an auspicious start for this blog post.

Of course, no actual zombie sex took place in that picture.  (Nor was the word “zombie” ever used.  Seriously.  Go back and watch it.)  The first contemporary example of actual hot dead-on-dead loving that springs to my mind comes in the classic 1992 New Zealand import Dead Alive.  Haven’t seen it?  Go.  Right now.  Shoo shoo.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Seriously, how awesome was that?  Anyone who says The Lord of the Rings were Peter Jackson’s greatest films simply haven’t seen Dead Alive yet.  What you probably forgot about in light of the whirling lawn mower blade of death that concluded the movie is that early on the zombie priest and the zombie nurse, urm, well, got it on.  (Yes, I said zombie priest and zombie nurse.)

And here’s where we get into an intriguing bit of erotica esoterica.  THEY HAD A BABY BECAUSE OF IT.  That’s right, apparently even zombies need to worry about the consequences of not using proper birth control.  Er, well, I guess they didn’t have to worry about it, per se, since they were zombies, but somebody sure had to take care of that baby.

Researching death and the dead...

by

Valerie Laws

Several of the people in this room are dead. Their heads are shaved, their mouths open. Some have missing teeth, the lip collapsing into the gaping mouth, the chin bristles erect. Drained of blood, the flesh shows its true colours - cream, shell pink, beige, mauve, mushroom, taupe, yellow. A boy is slicing into an old man’s scrotum, his face intent, while a girl scrapes at the abdomen of a woman of ninety, the turned-back skin flap backed with creamy, fat-like, wet sheepskin. 

The cadavers lie on steel tables, with lids opened, like metal sarcophagi, while brightly coloured youngsters cluster round them with their scalpels. The bodies are dignified, massive and beautiful in an austere way, their muscular thighs, solid genitals, jutting chins, unselfconscious as the living now cannot be, as the young medical students gradually reveal the intricate beauty within them.

©Phil Date | Dreamstime Stock Photo

I am Writer in Residence at this anatomy department, and at the attached pathology museum full of human specimens, and at a brain institute, and I’m privileged to be here among the dead and those who learn from their ‘silent teachers’. 

I, and my artist colleague, lead workshops in drawing and writing in the dissection rooms, with the dead as subjects. At the end of the sessions, wearing purple nitrile surgical gloves, we help to put away the bodies and parts of bodies. A pair of thighs lie on a table, the sawn-off ends showing a button of bone, small discs of femur. A head in a steel bowl looks through the parted legs. A disembodied face lies on another table, peeled from its skull, looking more expressive than before: wise and innocent at once. It’s like a deflating balloon, its attached windpipe like the string. 
I’m learning about the science of death. I am funded to learn, to write, to interpret neuroscience and pathology for the public, to understand for myself what death is, as far as I can. 

I am a poet, playwright, but a crime novelist, too, and what I learn enters all of my work. I am given tours round slices of brain, shown the signs of dementia which could be already eroding our own brains long before the outward signs appear if we but knew it. 

I study the floating foetuses in the museum’s big jars, babies with bizarre syndromes, two heads, split spines, Cyclops eye, mermaid tail-blades - beautiful babies who couldn’t live once born. This is an incredible journey for me, and several books result from several years of in-depth research, which itself follow personal experience - being present at the deaths of loved ones. 

Death is the great mystery, even more now than in Victorian times, it’s now shameful, a failure of medicine, hidden away, but inevitable and we are fascinated by it. It might seem gruesome, but being among the real dead, I feel respect, affection, empathy. They are just people, like me, like you. But like you, I wrestle with the meaning of death, and in the crime fiction I read and write, with murder, the ultimate crime. 

There are different kinds of evil. Another side to the respectful students and professors of the anatomy department, and those who gave their bodies so that we can have surgery in order to live, is the suffering of the living, and that is much more gruesome in my view.

I spent months in hospital with multiple fractures, large steel pins like six-inch nails sticking out of my bones, bolted to bars, an arm, a leg, both feet smashed. I’m still disabled decades on from the crash. I know how it feels when thirteen of your bones shatter, I know what being helpless in hospital is like, and how the helplessness of the cared-for can bring out kindness, empathy, in the carers - and how it can also bring out sadism, cruelty, or cold indifference. 

Doctors, surgeons, well-paid, respected: we find ourselves at their mercy when our lives are smashed up or in the balance. Sometimes they hurt us, and don’t seem to care if they do - what if a doctor was a clever sadist, who enjoyed hurting patients with broken bones, able to keep on doing it, be paid for it, be venerated for it? And what happens when someone strikes back at him, and others? 

And so I’ve created the sadistic surgeon in my second crime novel (and twelfth book) THE OPERATOR, followed by a series of murders of surgeons left mutilated to mimic the operations they perform on others. The first book, THE ROTTING SPOT, focused on skull-collecting. I used to collect skulls, hack off dead heads of roadkill or dead beached birds, rot them, boil them in bleach. Some of them are looking at me now - a horse, a deer, a badger... A gruesome hobby some would say, yet to me bones are beautiful, my fascination with anatomy intensified by my own broken bones. And no creatures were harmed... 

Pain is more gruesome than death. We will all die, we will all know pain, we fear loss of autonomy or power over our own lives, so we read (and write) on, attempting to understand, enjoying the ‘safe danger’ of crime or horror fiction.

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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.