Erik Handy (15 page)

Jillian bit her lip and looked up, trying to come up with anything to quench Desiree's curiosity. "I gave him a hand job while waiting for his mom to pick us up the other day."

More comic disgust. It's all good fun.

"I want my beer," Jillian said. "What is she doing? Playing with it?"

"Is that what Mark said?" Desiree asked.

"Ha. Ha. No, I meant Sabrina. I want some beer, damn it."

Jillian got up to go to the kitchen. When she was out of sight and earshot, Desiree and Megan sat back and enjoyed the quiet.

"So Megan, how are you? We never get to talk one-on-one anymore."

"I know." She sighed. "I'm doing okay, I guess. It's just tough listening to you guys talk about your boyfriends when . . . ."

Desiree nodded in sympathy.

***

Jillian rummaged through the fridge. "Beer, beer, beer. Where are you? A-ha!" She popped up with an armful of beer.

Someone creeped up behind her --

-- and grabbed her arms.

Jillian jumped out of her skin, the beer in danger.

"Sabrina! What the fuck?! Really!"

Sabrina laughed and almost instantaneously, Jillian lightened up. "You're still a bitch."

Sabrina stuck her tongue out, grabbed a couple of beers from Jillian, and swished back to the living room.

Sabrina and Jillian went back longer than anyone else in the group. They met in sixth-grade homeroom where they were assigned seats next to each other. They instantly bonded over cute boys and the rest was history. They were rarely apart from one another. When they were, they each could be found with their boyfriends.

Something caught Jillian's eye. A jumbo bag of cheese puffs on the counter. Now that's a great idea, she thought.

Something moved behind her.

Towards her.

She noticed a presence behind her. "Sabrina? Really?"

She turned around --

-- towards the figure in the shadows --

-- who grabbed her.

Also by Erik Handy

a new direction . . . .

OPEN THE HELLGATE!

One of seven hellgates has accidentally been opened. Demonic radiation pent up for untold millenia has been unleashed -- transforming people into beasts with varying powers.

The radiation has also changed Tommy Rider into the only person who can stop the irradiated monsters -- he is the DEMON HERO!

Reeling from his first traumatic transformation, Rider must come to terms with his new powers in order to defeat the thirty-foot tall Triaxis, a monster bent on unleashing ultimate carnage upon the world.

Here's an excerpt:

"Because the world needs another bank." That was the reason the lot east of Blue Creek Library was being cleared off; the tall pines cut down, freeing precious land for the sake of modern progress.

The three men working on the western side of the acreage didn't care about all that. They just wanted to finish for the day and head home before rush hour. And they would have been if not for the mound of stone their bulldozer revealed.

"What is it?" Rodney asked.

Marty shrugged. "A cave."

"It's too small to be a cave," Burt replied. "Too low to the ground. Maybe it's a tunnel."

"Tunnel?" Marty saw as well as the other two that the mound's opening -- a few feet diameter -- was blocked with rocks and dried mud. "To where? Looks like a cave." He peered through the few cracks, but couldn't see anything but black.

"There are no caves in this neck of the woods," Burt countered.

Marty was about to argue, but Rodney cut him off. "Look. It doesn't matter what it is. It's solid except for this opening. Marty, grab me a shovel. Let's see if we can break it open."

As Marty walked over to their work truck, Rodney tried to figure out what this protrusion was. Burt was right -- there were no caves in this area of the state. Maybe the facts were wrong. Or maybe it was man-made. Maybe it was the den of some wild animal.

But why would what looked like the entrance be stuffed with rocks, closing it off?

Marty came back and handed the shovel to Rodney. "You break it open."

Rodney shook his head. "Chicken."

He held the shovel a foot from the rocks. Marty and Burt stepped back, unnoticed.

Rodney hesitated for a moment. This isn't right, he thought. But what is it?

One blow was all it took to dislodge the blockage.

Marty stepped behind Burt, even farther from the tunnel.

Time seemed to stop.

The breeze stilled.

Nearby traffic noise was muted.

The three men felt like they were in a bottle, well-shielded from the outside world.

A hot wind erupted from the tunnel, blasting Rodney first, then his scared friends. An electric charge was in that wind. Rodney felt a crackling in his gums. Burt, in his eyes. Marty, however, didn't feel anything at all.

"Guh. Guys," he said.

Then he was off, running like an Olympic sprinter to where they were parked. He could run, but he couldn't flee from the changes already taking place within himself.

Cluj-Napoca, Romania -- a man is found brutally murdered in his apartment. His roommate, Nicolae Slavici, flees the scene; a police detective on his trail.

Meanwhile, a tiny island off the coast of Greenland is experiencing unexplainable gravity loss. A team of scientists investigates and slowly finds that science has been supplanted by some unnatural force.

Both threads will merge with deadly consequences for all, savior and victim alike!

Terror Rising
is horror at its most bonechilling.

Here's an excerpt:

The room looked as if the day's overcast sky seeped into the morgue. Any colors other than the cold metallic gray of the cadaver drawers stood out with strained effort.

 Blaga walked inside the cold, spacious room. Just behind Blaga was empty-armed Slavici. He uneasily shuffled behind the inspector. The morgue attendant met them halfway.

He didn't want to know what happened to The Hungarian. Yes, the man died, but the particulars weren't important. Knowing would not make this day any better.

The attendant walked the men over to a table with a sheeted figure on it. He knew the routine and did so without a word.

Slavici stopped a few steps from the body. His mouth went dry. His heart thundered in his chest.

"Nicolae," Blaga said. He eyed the young man with disdain. It was only a dead body. Nothing unique in the least.

Slavici raised the strength to move one step closer to the table.

The attendant pulled the sheet down to the deceased's chest.

The Hungarian. An elderly man who simply appeared to be sleeping.

Blaga looked to Slavici for confirmation. Slavici nodded and looked away. Bile rose in his throat. Seeing the dead man wasn't affecting him. No, there was something else.

Blaga motioned to the attendant to redraw the sheet. They were done there. Now it was time to tackle the stack of pointless paperwork. Dead was dead. There were no twists to be navigated here.

The attendant reached for the sheet.

The Hungarian's left hand shot up and grabbed the attendant's hand.

Blaga stood in shock. This was no post-mortem reflex. There was menace in that grip.

Slavici looked on in terror -- he would have to face this head-on soon -- as the old man's eyes opened, revealing black orbs.

The Hungarian turned his head toward Slavici. A purple, forked tongue darted in and out across his pale lips.

The attendant’s arm broke as The Hungarian's fingers slipped into the poor man's flesh and beyond the bone. Blood gushed from the punctures onto The Hungarian and floor below. Finally, the dead man let go.

Blaga shoved the attendant away.

The old man was still staring at Slavici, who couldn't move. He opened his mouth to reveal a mouth of slithering fangs to Slavici and Blaga.

Blaga recoiled. There was no form to fill out that dealt with this.

"The walls are weak," The Hungarian spoke to Slavici. The words from his mouth were low, guttural, wet-sounding, and meant for Slavici only. "I am coming through."

The old man's head erupted in a burst of red.

Blaga lowered his gun. He tore his eyes away from the corpse, if it could be called that, and looked up.

Slavici was already running out the door.

Alex and Isabel Martin aren't acting like a brother and sister should be. Is the hellacious heat getting to them? Or is some deep-rooted desire finally rearing its awful head?
Rabid
is the latest terror excursion by Erik Handy, the man who took you to
The Web
and
The Creeping City
.

Includes the bonus ebook,
A Meticulous Absence
.

Here's an excerpt:

Alex had received the TV for his birthday from his mother six years ago. The TV accompanied him to college, to an apartment shared with a girlfriend, then finally to a house on Dogwood Road shared with his older sister and her seven-year-old son. And now it was dead.

“The TV’s broken,” Isabel told him as he entered the kitchen to down a bowl of cereal before heading off to work.

Alex’s eyebrow lifted a bit. “Okay. What’s wrong with it?”

Isabel was sitting at the kitchen table dressed in a white belly shirt and torn jean shorts that rode up her ass like a line of dental floss between two teeth. She was busy writing checks for bills that never seemed to go away and stay away. Jacob was already on the school bus and she’d have the day to herself -- as usual. She didn’t look up from her work as she said, “It doesn’t work. It’s broken.”

“Well,” Alex said as he poured milk into his bowl of puffed wheat or puffed corn or puffed something. “A new one will have to wait until payday. Not like we watch it much anymore with the power outages.”

She looked up and her deep-sea blue eyes met his eyes and he felt his heart drop like an anchor to the bottom of his stomach. He loved her not only because she was his sister and siblings are supposed to love each other, but also because of her eyes and the way she used them. She wouldn’t have to bat her lashes like an antiquated slut to get what she wanted and she didn’t have to throw in any emotion into her stare to get her way. The blue did the begging. Alex thought she knew this, but then thought if she did, then she wouldn’t be living with him. She would be with some other guy some other place, happy.

He broke the stare and went back to his breakfast. He didn’t see her smile at him. She knew they had some thicker connection than a simple brother/sister connection. She had always felt it, the first time when she was fifteen and he was twelve. She had just broken up with her first real boyfriend -- Roy Jenkins, a real jerk -- and he was there to comfort her. At first she wanted to be alone; she was angry, sad, and confused. And she felt so alone. But Alex had knocked on her door, seen her leaking blue eyes, and went to her. He held her for hours and she cried against his arm and chest.

She shook her daydream out of her head and turned her attention to the present. “Don’t get milk on your tie.”

He looked down at his tie.

***

Alex stepped outside into the heat and felt the back of his shirt already dampen. He heard a hose in action and knew it was his next-door neighbor Earl Henning. He looked over and Earl, in his work clothes similar to the shirt and tie Alex was wearing, was there watering a spot on the lawn. He looked beaten, but not from the heat. He looked like a kid whose dog ran away.

“Hey, Earl,” Alex half-shouted to the scrubby looking man. Earl still needed to shave and run a comb through his thin black hair.

Earl looked up at him and weakly smiled. He waved in acknowledgment and turned his attention back to the spot of the lawn that must’ve needed a serious tending to.

As Alex unlocked his car door he looked over past where Earl was standing to the carport. The Hennings’ car was gone. Alex understood. Either there was a family emergency or Mrs. Henning had left again. Alex started up his car, flipped the air conditioner to its maximum setting (it never did get cool inside the car), and then pulled out of his driveway.

In his rearview he saw Earl roll up the hose carefully as if the task was being monitored by the hose police whose power and influence surpassed Big Brother’s. Then he saw his own cream and brown trim house and immediately thought about Isabel, almost involuntarily like a blink or a breath.