Attention Horror Fans...
Greetings and Salutations. Welcome back to the Rock 'n' Romance Blog! it's been a hot minute but you'll hopefully hear from me a little more often now, especially when my pals have book news to share!
As you may or may not know, I frequently contribute horror-infused music reviews to HorrorAddicts.net. I love hearing new bands, and I've contributed two short stories to HorrorAddicts.net Press anthologies. Over the years I've become creepy friends with horror addict mistress Emerian Rich and some of the many talented authors in the HorrorAddict world. Today I'd love to share with you an announcement about another writing project from the addicts...
When Jacob and his brothers discover the ability to capture fog from the marsh behind their house, they bring it back with them. The fun game turns to danger as they realize perhaps something else accompanied them home. Is it too late to escape the Deathly Fog?
Available now on Amazon Kindle
*****EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT BELOW*****
Deathly Fog
by Adam Breckenridge
Not long after Jacob released the fog into the house, he started dating a girl named Jenny who soon became a regular presence in our lives. In fact, she was at the house so often, I sometimes wondered why her parents were okay with it. She was a slender, silver-haired girl with pale skin and green eyes. Beautiful and mischievous, she would mock us endlessly for our anxiety over the marsh and the fog we released into the house.
“You guys are so stupid,” she’d say. “What, do you think? The fog has evil powers or something?”
That was actually what we had thought, but none of us were going to say it out loud.
Releasing the fog into the house had killed a lot of our passion for the marsh. We didn’t go out there much anymore but at Jenny’s insistence we visited it again. The three of us hoped to try to instill some sense of the place’s dread in her but she had no fear of it. We watched with some horror as she walked straight into the marsh, deeper into it than any of us had ever been willing to go. She walked until the fog enveloped her and she was gone from our sight.
All three of us were terrified but none of us were willing to show it. Jacob in particular was struggling to maintain his poise. I tried to emulate him but felt sick at the thought of her disappearance. None of us were ever willing to go past the visible edge of the marsh, even as a trio. Mattie was too youthful to try to play it cool like Jacob and I were.
“She has to come back.” He was near to tears and started crying. “It’s too dangerous to go out there.”
Her laughter echoed all around us.
“It’s beautiful so deep in here,” she said.
I couldn’t place the direction her voice was coming from. She emerged from a place different from where she went in, the fog curling over her shoulders. She held up a finger to tell us to wait a moment and then she unleashed a long, fog-filled breath, blowing it from her lungs like smoke.
“I heard once that in a lot of languages ‘breath’ and ‘soul’ are the same word,” she said. “Isn’t it stupid that’s not true in English, too? We should call our souls breaths or when we’re breathing we should call it souling. That’d be a lot better.”
“You breathed the fog in?” I asked, shuddering at the thought.
“I souled it in,” she said. “You guys are all wrong about this place. There’s no death in there. In fact, it’s more alive than anywhere I’ve ever been.”
It took some coaxing to get her to go back to the house. She wanted Jacob to teach her how to cup the fog in her hands as he had done. He claimed not to remember the secret to the trick anymore. All the same, she grasped at fistfuls of the fog, trying to stuff it in her pockets. When that proved ineffective, she tried breathing it in again.
“I want to bring as much of it back to the house with me as I can,” she said between breaths.
“But why?” I asked.
“Don’t you see? You didn’t bring the marsh’s death into the house. You brought its life.”
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Adam Brekenridge is a traveling professor for the US military who goes around the world teaching US soldiers stationed overseas. He has eighteen short story publications and most recently his work has appeared in Visions Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and Clockwork, Curses and Coal from Worldweaver Press. He's currently based in Seoul.
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Horror Bites Series
Short horror stories at an affordable price.
When he met Alice, he wasn’t prepared to go down the rabbit hole. His love for her pushes him into the uncomfortable realization she might be mad. He wants to keep her safe, but what if that’s not what Alice wants?
Dear Reader,
You’ve been invited to a very special night of Campfire Tales, hosted by HorrorAddicts.net. Meet us at Old Bear Creek, just past Dead Man’s Curve. Dress warm. We’ll be waiting.
Four scary tales told by Next Great Horror Writer finalists and woven together by a trek through the woods you’ll never forget.
HorrorAddicts.net is proud to present our top 14 contestants in the Next Great Horror Writer Contest. The stories, scripts, and poems are the result of the hard work and dedication these fine writers put forth to win a book contract. We hope you enjoy the writing as much as we did.
Volume 4: #NGHW Winner
BLACK METAL LIVES! When Ingrid and her mother move into a home in the deep frostbitten woods of Norway, they are haunted by extreme metal musician, Skansi Oppegård. Hoping to exorcise Skansi’s ghost, she talks her mom into being part of a metal band. Oppegård’s last musical creation awakens forces beyond Ingrid’s understanding and causes Skansi’s murderer to resurface. In the battle between a madman and zombies, metal may be the only weapon she has.
Thanks for helping me celebrate this new release that promises to be spooky and fun! I'll be back next week with my review for my good pal Sera Taíno whose Harlequin debut drops, A Delicious Dilemma. It's sooooo good. Also, I'm beta reading a tasty morsel from M.D. Neu that you're going to want to get your hands on! Are you looking for your next read? Looking for fresh new music to listen to? Follow me on Instagram. I post my music recs on my stories.
Stay Tuned for more hits coming your way...
