Trick or Treat
Free ebook - it's a treat!
October only, visit Smashwords and enter code WH88D for a free terrifying stroll in the woods with Our Lady of the Trampled Beast
Enjoy a sneak peek:
"Our Lady of the Trampled Beast
Four live-long days of tramping scrag brush, getting scratched to hell like I'd tripped into a bushel of cats, an d I won't lie. All this hypnotic waving green had somehow along the way switched from idyllic to downright spooky. Whether it'd be mysterious and ooky remained to be seen. The signs weren't good.
I paused on trembling calves that felt like sticks had been rammed in. Ostensibly tugging my shirt to let sweat dry; actually, trying to get my head around another night in this sloppy organic purgatory.
When considered from high rise safety the jaunt had seemed a golden opportunity. Just land this one outdoorsy trick, and all those hunched meaty backs between me and the corporate horizon would become leapable.
Given ninety-six hours' worth of heel blisters spelling "ouch" in braille, and counting, I was willing to concede I'd been slightly too starved for promotion.
Garry and Jackson, my knights in white satin, chose that stupendously unhelpful moment to start in. We're lost, aren't we. Lost! Lost in these fucking trees!
Nanny state here rolled my eyes, although they weren't wrong. "Fucking trees" scarcely did these behemoths justice. More like the legs of scaly fossilized dinosaurs looming silently all around us. They had a repulsive muscularity, as though they might shift any moment. Resume a march aeons in the making.
Even the modest specimens were too broad for my trio to stretch our arms around. We tried, back on day one. When we still had energy for pissing about. I thought it would make a nice promo shot, the corporate logos on our windbreakers crisp and clear.
Ended up reeling, and frantically brushing to dislodge pissed off ants riding shards of diseased bark down our fronts like little surfboards. The photograph perfectly froze our moment of horrified revulsion as the first volcanic stings hit.
Muggins here even received a touch of good Old Mother Nature in her mouth the moment she opened wide to swear, because of course I fucking did. A jabbing finger of fuzzy rot that sent bile foaming past my molars. Sole consolation was that Gary copped it, too, his yap trading twenty-four seven. 'There's your promo,' he gagged and spat.
Come evening I lay like a limp rag tangled in my sleeping bag's fetid embrace. My clammy skin knew more than I did, flickering like a mule's rump. Paranoia prodded dentition and swore it could still feel some tacky tree residue, in defiance of a whole tube of toothpaste.
I squirmed uncomfortably. Wood blight scratching at my gut ..."
A big thankyou to Bo Chappell for putting the idea to write a Wendigo story into my head, and for being so supportive. Happy Halloween!
