Available FREE for just two days - Paskagankee

After the almost unimaginable (by me, at least) success of THE LONELY MILE in the Kindle Select Program - somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 sales after giving away over 46,000 downloads, I was chomping at the bit to enroll my new supernatural suspense novel, PASKAGANKEE, in the program as well.

No offense to all you Nook owners out there, but Amazon knows how to sell books, and for me to achieve 14,000 sales of THE LONELY MILE outside of the Kindle Select Program would have taken...well, let's just say I'm pretty sure I won't live that long, and neither will my children or my children's children.

So I approached StoneHouse CEO Aaron Patterson with the genius idea he had probably already thought of weeks ago, and he enrolled PASKAGANKEE in the program, setting up today and tomorrow, March 10 and 11, as Free days for PASKAGANKEE in the Kindle Store.

I have no idea what to expect. I know it's unlikely we will match the results of February 4, 5 and 6, when THE LONELY MILE spent the better part of two full days as the #1 Free download in the Kindle Store, and then tore up the Paid charts when we began charging for it again, but you never know unless you try, right?

Anyway, I would love to see everyone who has supported me get the chance to download this book for free. I'm proud of it, it was a long time in the making, and I think it tells a pretty cool story.

But you gotta hurry. I can't say it won't eventually be free again, but why take the chance? Download it now at the Kindle Store, and if you don't own a Kindle, don't worry, Amazon has free Kindle Apps for every conceivable device, and probably a few that haven't been invented yet. Like I said, Amazon knows how to sell books.

Thanks again for your support and I hope you enjoy PASKAGANKEE...

PASKAGANKEE Excerpt - Chapter Six

Day Seven of my free PASKAGANKEE excerpts brings Chapter Six. If you're here for the first time you might want to check out the first six posts before reading this one:

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Now here's Chapter Six:


6


The auditorium on the University of Maine campus was big, old, drafty and, at the moment, nearly empty. Professor Kenneth Dye looked out at the smattering of college students seated in a more or less random pattern throughout the room and wondered if even one single person was paying the slightest bit of attention to his lecture. Judging by the bleary looks on most of their faces, he guessed not.

It was 8:30 on a stormy, icy morning, which meant it was roughly four hours too early for most of these kids to be awake. The few that did seem chipper and bright-eyed, large Styrofoam cups of coffee fueling their engines, seemed much more interested in text-messaging, game-playing, and whatever the hell else kids could do on their cell phones these days than in paying much attention to Professor Kenneth A. Dye.

The professor paused in his lecture, looking up from his notes, not even really needing them. He had been giving the same stock presentation for more years than he cared to remember. The only reason he was still teaching at this institution of higher education located in the middle of nowhere was that he needed a reliable source of income so he could afford the purchase price on his next bottle of Tennessee Sippin’ Whiskey. In fact, now that he really thought about it, Professor Dye decided he probably looked more bleary-eyed than most of the kids slumped in their seats in the unnecessarily large auditorium.

Lecturing in the monotone he had perfected over the past two decades about material he had been teaching for nearly that long, Ken Dye reflected on the incident that had become the turning point in not just his career but his life.

At one time, he had been an up-and-comer, an aggressive young teacher and researcher rocking the academic world with controversial theories based on extensive research in his chosen field of Native American studies. Dye didn’t just peruse historical accounts of life in North America prior to the European invasion of the 1600’s and 1700’s, he traveled extensively in the field, interviewing Native American tribal elders all over the United States and even going so far as to live with a number of different tribes in different regions of the country for several illuminating years.

After completing his research and reaching some controversial conclusions regarding the mysticism inherent in virtually all Native American cultures, Kenneth Dye made the fateful decision which would change his life forever and not for the better. He wrote a book detailing his findings and almost overnight was reduced to a laughingstock, both in his beloved academic community as well as the real world outside the ivied walls of academia.

Dye came to consider publication of the textbook the biggest mistake of his life. Publish or perish indeed, he thought wryly. More like publish, then perish. Following the book’s release, other professors gradually stopped coming by his office to discuss campus politics, invitations to academic affairs dried up, and colleagues began crossing to the other side of the quad when he approached so they wouldn’t have to be seen with him. Ken Dye became a pariah; the guy no one wanted to get too close to, lest his disease of insignificance rub off on them as well.

He had never married—who had time for romance when there was so much research to be done?—and after the release of his book, the professor became such a celebrated kook that the only women interested in dating him were either a little unhinged themselves or curious to discover whether he was really as loony as he was portrayed in the media.

Eventually, Professor Dye retreated into his solitary prison of semi-academia, lecturing bored kids who needed an easy elective with which to pad their schedules without expending too much effort. Administrators at the University of Maine at Orono were only too happy to let him keep his job—in the beginning—because he brought a measure of welcome attention to the out-of-the-way school.

After becoming the subject of near-universal academic scorn, though, the administration felt it even more prudent to retain the man, if only to keep an eye on him. Out on his own in the world he could potentially do real damage to the school’s academic reputation. Better to keep him under wraps.

Outside, the storm pounded the centuries-old building with high winds. Rain pelted the campus, freezing solidly on every surface within minutes. Professor Dye tried to convince himself that the low turnout for today’s lecture was due in large part to the treacherous weather—college students will take advantage of any excuse to ditch a class—but he knew from long experience that even if the conditions were seventy degrees and sunny, there wouldn’t be many more bodies in the lecture hall than were here right now.

Dye shot a glance at the portable alarm clock he had placed on the podium. It was important to track how many more minutes he had to suffer through before he could get home and dive back into his bottle of Jack. Eight-fifty-five. Ten more minutes and the day’s first class would be in the books. Only three more tedious, boring, mind-numbing lectures to go. He wished he had poured some whiskey into his water bottle before leaving for work this morning. A powerful thirst was starting to build, and it was barely past breakfast.

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PAKAGANKEE is priced at $2.99 and is available here. Have a great day!

PASKAGANKEE excerpt - Chapter Five

Day Six of my free PASKAGANKEE excerpts brings Chapter Five. If you're here for the first time, you might want to check out the first five posts before reading this one:

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Now here's Chapter Five:


5


Ida Mae Harper had lived in Paskagankee her entire life. Eighty-six years and counting, all spent in the little town a few miles south of the Canadian border, and Ida Mae was still going strong. She had gotten married at age 16 to a young man by the name of Wallace Harper, eight years her senior, a laborer at the leather mill located hard by the Penobscot River. The couple spent nearly fifty years together before Wallace’s sudden death more than two decades ago turned Ida Mae into a widow.

A stroke, they had told her after Wallace buckled and fell to the floor one Sunday afternoon over boiled dinner. Ida Mae thought to herself that they could call it a stroke if they wanted to, but she knew what had really killed Wallace—too many decades of sixty hour work weeks at the mill. Regularly scheduled double shifts, the occasional triple shift, week after week of working without a day off, you name it, and Wallace did it because he wanted to provide the best life he could for his Ida Mae.

The couple had never been able to conceive children, so Wallace’s death meant Ida Mae was all alone for the first time in her life. She had moved from her parents’ home straight to Wallace’s tiny but comfortable house when they married, and in that little house she still lived. Their inability to conceive had been a blow to Ida Mae and Wallace, but they had come to terms with the heartbreak after years of trying and had been happy for the most part ever since.

After Wallace’s death, Ida Mae bought a golden retriever puppy, Butch, for company, needing a living, breathing subject upon which to lavish all her love and attention. When the first retriever passed away, Ida Mae bought another, naming him Butch II. Now, Ida Mae was on the phone to the Paskagankee Police Department, sobbing and requesting assistance immediately.

“What’s the nature of the difficulty, ma’am?” the dispatcher asked.

“It’s Butch, something’s happened to my poor Butch,” she wailed into the telephone receiver.

“Who is Butch, ma’am, and what has happened to him?”

“Just send an officer, please, and tell him to hurry,” she said, tears running down her face. She provided her address to the bewildered dispatcher and hung up.

Now the cruiser moved slowly up the long dirt driveway, sliding and lurching from one pothole to another, nearly bottoming out in spots but making steady progress, finally easing to a stop in front of the house. Ida Mae opened the front door and shivered violently as a gust of cold air blew freezing rain into her home, soaking her housecoat and plastering her silver hair to her head.

Two police officers exited the cruiser, simultaneously pulling the collars of their jackets up against the wind and rain and running clumsily on the icy ground for the shelter of Ida Mae’s small porch. She opened the door further to allow them to enter the house, then quickly slammed it shut, moving to the thermostat and cranking up the heat, despite the fact the temperature inside the house already hovered around seventy-five degrees.

She turned to see the two officers, a man and a woman, holding their wet hats in their hands and dripping water on to the hardwood floor of the foyer. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “Where are my manners? Please, come in. Have a seat on the couch, officers.”

“We’re fine, ma’am,” the male policeman said. “What seems to be the problem? The only information we were given is that something has happened to someone named Butch. Is that your husband?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” she said. “My husband was named Wallace, and he’s been gone since probably before this little thing was born,” she said, nodding at Officer Dupont, who smiled back at her. “No, Butch is my dog. It’s actually Butch II, but I just call him Butch. It’s easier for me, you know, and he doesn’t know the difference.”

“I understand,” said the man, who seemed to be in charge. It only made sense, thought Ida Mae; the young man looks to be at least ten years older than the young lady. “So, can you tell me what has happened to Butch?” he asked.

“Oh, dear,” sniffled Ida Mae. “I put Butch out to get some air and, you know, to do his doggie business, earlier this afternoon, and when he hadn’t returned within a couple of hours, I went to the back door to call him and, well . . .” The elderly woman burst into tears, leading the two officers through the kitchen to the back door. She opened it and gestured bleakly toward the yard.

The two police officers crowded into the doorway, hips and elbows touching. They cringed simultaneously at the sight that greeted them. In the elderly woman’s back yard, just visible in the waning grey light of the late afternoon, were the gruesome remains of a golden retriever dog. The animal had literally been ripped apart; its body parts strewn around a circle roughly ten feet in diameter. A portion of a foreleg had come to rest midway up the wooden steps leading to the door, and blood was everywhere. The dog’s head was nowhere to be seen.

The petite, young female officer placed her hand on Ida Mae’s elbow and guided her back into the small living room to the couch. She sat her down and held her hand, doing her best to console her. The other officer, the man who seemed to be in charge, closed the door and stood uncomfortably as Ida Mae wrapped an afghan tightly around her shoulders. The little house seemed to have gotten much, much colder.

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PASKAGANKEE is priced at $2.99 and is available here. Have a great Super Bowl Sunday!

PASKAGANKEE excerpt - Chapter Four

Day Five of my free PASKAGANKEE excerpts brings Chapter Four. If you're here for the first time, you might want to check out the first four posts before reading this one:

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Now here's Chapter Four:

4



Mike McMahon and Sharon Dupont buckled themselves into the cruiser and Sharon prepared to drive out of the Paskagankee Police station parking lot. “So,” Mike said, “What was that all about?”

“What was what all about?”

“That guy we just tossed into a holding cell, the one you called by his first name even though you never looked at his driver’s license; he taunted you about your father. You two know each other.” Mike phrased it as a statement, not a question.

Officer Dupont was silent for a moment, making a show of checking both directions for oncoming traffic before pulling out of the lot and turning north on the tiny town’s Main Street. The rear tires spun on the slick pavement before gaining traction, then the cruiser accelerated slowly along the mostly empty thoroughfare. Finally she answered. “Yes, I know Earl Manning. He was a couple of years ahead of me in high school. After he graduated—a minor miracle in and of itself—he became a regular at the Ridge Runner where my dad used to spend most of his time.”

“The Ridge Runner is a bar, I assume.”

“That’s right. Out on Ridge Road. Original, huh?” The young officer flipped her hair behind her ear in what Mike McMahon was already beginning to recognize as a subconscious reaction to stress.

“Is this something you’d rather not discuss?”

Another hesitation, shorter this time. “No, it’s okay. It’s just that I’m not used to talking about myself, that’s all. Besides, this is a small town, in case it had escaped your notice. Eventually you would hear all about my dad anyway. And about me, too, I suppose.”

Mike watched two cars slide partway through a four-way stop a couple of hundred yards ahead. The storm was worsening as temperatures continued their downward spiral. The driving conditions were iffy now and weren’t going to improve any time soon. He hoped people would have enough sense to stay off the roads, this being a Saturday, but doubted that would be the case. “So your dad is pretty well-known around here?”

Officer Dupont coughed out a laugh, short and bitter. “You could say that. He held down a bar stool pretty much twenty-four hours a day at the Ridge Runner for most of the last ten years, starting the day after we buried my mother.”

Mike looked down at the cruiser’s bench seat and then across at Sharon Dupont. She stared straight through the windshield, concentrating on navigating the slick streets. If she noticed him looking at her, she didn’t give any indication of it. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“No reason why you should.”

“How old were you at the time?”

“Twelve.”

“So you went through your teen years with no mother and a father too busy drinking Budweiser to raise his daughter properly?”

“Yeah, that pretty much covers it,” she said. “My dad was always an enthusiastic drinker, but after mom died, alcohol took over his life. I think he single-handedly kept one shift working overtime at the Anheuser-Busch plant down the road in New Hampshire.”

The big Crown Victoria police cruiser slid to a stop in front of the Unitarian Church on the corner of Main and Elm Streets. Officer Dupont angled into the parking lot and turned the car around so they could monitor traffic on the two cross streets and stay off the increasingly dangerous roads for a while. She cranked up the car’s interior heat to combat the chill permeating the vehicle.

Mike turned in his seat to look at the pretty, young officer. “Sounds like the sort of situation you’d be anxious to escape.”

“Oh, I couldn’t wait to get out all right, and eventually I left Paskagankee to attend the FBI Academy, but of course you know all of that from my personnel file.”

“True enough,” Mike answered. “But your file doesn’t explain why you suddenly came back to this tiny, little place in the middle of nowhere. Nothing against Paskagankee, but it seems to me you wouldn’t be too quick to return, especially since you were doing well at the academy. I saw your performance scores, and you were kicking ass down there. What happened?”

“My dad was diagnosed with liver cancer a couple of years ago, and for a while he did okay. About six months ago, though, he started going downhill fast. I have no brothers or sisters, and with my mother gone . . .” She lapsed into silence and stared out the windshield at the empty streets, now rapidly glazing over with a thin coating of ice. Something like defiant regret hardened her features.

“You came back to care for your father.”

Sharon nodded. She fiddled with the turn signal and looked everywhere but at Mike. “I made a promise to my mom before she died that I would look after my dad. She knew he would have trouble coping after she was gone. I came back for my mom, not for him.”

Mike said nothing, and she continued. “Then my dad died a few weeks ago, after I got hired by Chief Court, your predecessor, and I haven’t gotten around to leaving town for good yet. I don’t know why. Inertia, I suppose. So now you know the sorry, little life story of Sharon Dupont, some of it, anyway. Would I be out of line asking my boss what you’re doing here? Why you gave up a real career in a thriving city where you could actually make a difference to come here and take over a little Hicksville police force?”

Mike laughed. “Subtlety doesn’t work for you, does it, Officer Dupont?”

“My friends call me Shari.”

“Okay, Shari then. Yeah, it probably would be out of line, but I guess it would only be fair to dish a little dirt on myself since I have the scoop now on you.”

The cruiser’s radio crackled with an incoming call. Mike shook his head in mock remorse. “Looks like my little sob story will have to wait. It seems we have work to do.”

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PASKAGANKEE is priced at $2.99 and is available here. Have a great day!

PASKAGANKEE excerpt - Chapter Three

Day Four of my free PASKAGANKEE excerpts brings Chapter Three. If you're here for the first time, you might want to check out the first three posts before reading this one:

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Now here's Chapter Three:


3


The drizzle turned to freezing rain and began falling more steadily as George Hooper crossed the uneven muddy track and approached the log cabin. The temperature seemed to have grown noticeably colder during the time he spent studying the granite foundations scattered around the deserted village. It stood to reason, though. George wasn’t sure how long he had been standing motionless in the cold rain, but he knew it had been a while.

For some irrational reason, he was having trouble forcing himself to complete the short walk to the cabin to ask for help. The sense of dread and foreboding, which had begun gnawing at him almost the moment he stumbled into this clearing, had grown rapidly until it threatened to freeze him—literally—where he stood.

“Just do it, you freakin’ wimp,” George muttered to himself. His voice sounded somehow foreign and his breath crystallized in the chilly air, swirling into the rain and disappearing. He reluctantly resumed trudging through the mud and weeds, the footing becoming more treacherous. The ground crunched under his boots and George realized for the first time he was shivering violently. How the hell long have I been standing out here?

The entire area seemed deserted but George felt certain it was not. Someone had started a fire inside that cabin, and George was positive no one had left while he was standing out here. Oh really? Are you sure about that? You were zoned out; you don’t have the slightest clue how long you’ve been staring at those gigantic granite blocks, now, do you?

The feeling of dread mushroomed, worming its way through George’s intestines and growing in inverse proportion to his distance from the cabin. Finally he reached the front porch, and as he mounted the steps, the panic exploded, threatening to overwhelm him. He looked frantically from window to window, certain someone (something) was staring out at him, waiting and biding his (its) time until George wandered close enough to launch an attack.

No one was visible in any of the windows; George could see that quite clearly because the glass in all of them had been cleaned to a smudge-free shine, and the rooms inside were as empty and vacant as the eyes of a zombie, a shambling undead monster intent on cracking his skull open like a coconut and devouring his brain.

Where in the hell did THAT come from? When have you ever watched zombie movies?

George’s hands were shaking violently, and he knew it was not just from the lousy weather conditions. There was something evil about this place, he could sense it. Sense it, hell, I can almost taste it. There was no point in kidding himself. He wanted desperately to leave, to run somewhere, anywhere, to get out of this cursed place while he still could, but he had no choice but to continue. If he turned around now he would freeze to death, his soaking wet clothes stealing his body heat and inviting hypothermia.

A couple of loose floorboards in the porch creaked and groaned as George worked his way hesitantly to the closed front door. He thought it odd that the otherwise immaculate and solidly constructed log cabin would have loose floorboards for him to trip over. Had it been built that way on purpose?

George thought the only way things could get any worse at this point would be to fall through the porch on one of those loose planks and break an ankle. That would leave him at the mercy of the malevolent force stalking him. Stalking and preparing to attack— watching with red-rimmed eyes and stinking dead breath redolent of rotting flesh, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to rip your throat out.

After what felt like an eternity George reached the front door. His movements were becoming slower, clumsier, a sure sign of the onset of hypothermia; it was imperative that he shed his wet clothing and begin to raise his body’s core temperature.

The cabin door stood before him and still George could not shake his conviction that something evil was lurking on the other side, inches away. It was listening intently, just as he was, separated from him by nothing more than a slab of oak with hinges on one side and a shiny brass knob on the other.

George raised one gloved hand and banged on the heavy wooden door and was surprised to see it swing slowly open. It creaked loudly, as if only reluctantly complying with the laws of physics. The noise sounded eerily like a scream. George was certain that when he had examined the house from a distance the front door had been tightly closed. Or had it? His mind seemed to be working just as slowly and clumsily as his body. Maybe he only thought the door had been closed; maybe he had never really even checked at all; it was so hard to remember, so hard to think.

He eased his head warily through the partially open door. “Hello?” His voice sounded fearful and hesitant, even to him. Clearing his throat and putting a little more conviction into it, George tried again. “Hello, is anybody in here? I got lost hunting and I could use some directions . . .”

By the time he finished speaking, George’s voice had diminished until it was barely more than a whisper. If the cabin’s owner was here, he clearly did not wish to reveal himself.

George took a few hesitant steps into the house, finding himself in a large open room, a combination kitchen/living area with a short hallway branching off to the left. The hallway featured three doors placed side by side, presumably opening onto a bathroom and maybe a couple of bedrooms. The entire home appeared empty now, but it was plain it hadn’t been for long. To George’s right, a massive fieldstone fireplace took up most of the side wall, and inside the fireplace red-hot ashes still glowed, the flames only recently having been extinguished.

But where was the person who had been warming himself in front of the fire? There was only one entrance to the cabin, at least as far as George could tell, and he had been standing in front of it for a long time. Had the cabin’s occupant departed just prior to George discovering the tiny abandoned village? Or was he even now hiding in one of the rooms behind the three closed doors lining the hallway?

And if he was hiding, why? Could it be he was afraid of George? Certainly he couldn’t be any more fearful of George than George was of him at this very moment. A strained chuckle forced its way out of George’s constricted throat. He wasn’t sure whose voice rang in his ears, but it sure as hell didn’t sound like his.

Scattered throughout the interior of the cabin was the spoor of various small animals that had apparently taken up residence, and George was forced to step around their droppings as he made his way cautiously toward the hallway. He couldn’t see any animals—or any living thing at all, for that matter—but it was clear the embers cooling in the fireplace across the room had not been built by any wild animal, large or small.

George hesitated, unsure of how to proceed, unsure whether he even wanted to proceed but unable to stop himself. He had to see who or what was in here with him. His intuition screamed he wasn’t alone, and he was not about to strip off all his clothes and spread them out in front of the fireplace without fully scouting the interior of this creepy house first.

The question was simple—a cliché, really—but perplexing: which door should he open first? The crushing silence weighed on George with an almost physical presence. The only sound he could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears. He felt (knew) if he chose the wrong door he would be trapped inside a room with no escape and some God-awful, red-eyed, foul-smelling monster closing in to do who knew what to him Oh, you know what; yes you do, don’t kid yourself Georgie boy. It’s a cold-blooded killer, and it will rip your head right off your body, and the last thing you hear will be your skin tearing and your bones breaking, and the thing will drink your blood and snap off your limbs one by one, and you will never be found, not ever.

Every fiber in George’s terrified body was telling him to run, to sprint out of the cabin NOW into the freezing early evening drizzle and take his chances with a slow death from hypothermia. The only reason he didn’t bolt was he felt (knew) that if he tried to run, he would be pursued by the creature and taken down from behind; that he would never see it coming. The die was cast, George thought, with the emphasis on die. He had no choice but to confront the monster now.

George unconsciously shrugged the Mossberg 464 lever-action hunting rifle off his shoulder as he stood in front of the three closed doors, holding the gun in front of his body like a shield with two stiff arms, knuckles white, hands shaking.

Decision time.

He chose the middle door to open first for no particular reason other than it was the one directly in front of him. Grasping the knob in one sweating, shaking hand, George turned it slowly, listening intently for the slightest hint of a sound from the other side of the door, something that would give him an indication whether anyone (anything) was inside the room.

Silence. Deathly silence, George thought to himself as a hysterical laugh bubbled up from his gut. He choked it off in what sounded like a sob.

Predictably, the door creaked as it opened. George thought it was the most terrifying sound he had ever heard. It swung wide to reveal a bedroom, devoid both of furniture and of people. In fact, beyond the straw, animal droppings and other detritus of wildlife habitation, he could see nothing inside the room at all.

Relieved, George stepped into the bedroom and poked his head warily around the door, and when he did he leaped back, a strangled scream escaping his throat, as he found himself face to face with . . . something. His panicked eyes registered a massive form, a mountain of shaggy hair covering a head placed atop a gigantic body. Straw and leaves and dead grass stuck at odd angles out of the filthy, unkempt head of hair and small worms or maybe even maggots appeared to be wriggling inside it as well.

And the smell. It was horrific. A stench of death, of rot and decomposition, assailed George with an intensity beyond anything he had ever experienced. In the back of his racing mind he wondered why he had not noticed it when he first opened the door, and he realized he had been holding his breath in fear.

He had to escape, to get away, to run. George tripped over his own feet and fell to the floor, heels scrabbling as he scuttled backward, his rifle useless and now forgotten after dropping it in his mindless panic. One of his fingernails ripped off as he grabbed at the pine floor, and he didn’t notice. A splinter embedded itself deep into his palm, and he didn’t notice that either.

A whimpering sound filled George’s ears and he realized it was coming from him. He couldn’t stop it and didn’t care. His only conscious thought was to get away from that horrible thing stepping out from behind the door. He shoved himself desperately across the dirty floor as the monster shambled after him, and he kept going until he smashed into the far wall of the empty bedroom. The thing followed, eyes red as George had known they would be, breath stinking and foul as George had known it would be, and George now knew he was going to die; he was going to die all alone somewhere deep in the northern Maine woods at the hands of something foreign and inhuman.

The massive creature kicked the Mossberg across the room, whether on purpose or by accident George couldn’t tell. It clattered against the wall and fell to the floor. For one brief moment George thought the shotgun might go off when it struck the wall, blasting the creature to kingdom come and saving his sorry ass. But of course it did nothing of the kind.

The thing turned and advanced on George, a blood-chilling growl of fury issuing from deep in its monstrous chest. It grabbed George, slapping one meaty paw onto each ear and shaking his head violently from side to side. George heard a terrifying SNAP and knew it was the sound of his own neck breaking. He felt one instant of the most incredible pain he had ever experienced, and then a tingling numbness filled his extremities.

He began to drift, to lose consciousness, and was amazed to discover the fear was gone. He could see blood splattering the floor, lots of it, and although he knew it was his own blood, he found he didn’t care. George’s last conscious thought was that the creature’s putrid breath wasn’t quite as disgusting as he had thought it would be.

Then he was gone.

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PASKAGANKEE is priced at $2.99 and is available here. Have a great day!

PASKAGANKEE excerpt - Chapter One

Day Two of my free PASKAGANKEE excerpts features Chapter One, which makes no sense at all until you realize Day One featured the prologue. Anyway, here we go:

1

Present Day

George Hooper was lost. He was also hungry and wet, thus completing what he had come to think of as his own personal trifecta of misery. A steady drizzle fell silently from the slate-grey skies, making George shiver and long for the warmth and comfort of his living room. He tried to take his mind off the chill by picturing himself sitting in front of a roaring fire, three fingers of bourbon warming his insides as he sat in a rocking chair doing nothing in particular, maybe watching the Yankees on TV or reading a good book.

George didn’t own a rocking chair, nor did he have a fireplace in the living room of his small house in Teaneck, New Jersey, didn’t even like to read all that much. But he figured, what the hell, it’s my daydream, I might as well enjoy it. He knew he should not have come hunting alone in the dank, desolate woods of Northern Maine in late November, but none of his buddies could make it this weekend, and George was damned if he was going to let his five-day break from the job at the paper mill pass by without getting out and enjoying some fresh air and solitude.

Going off by himself in the woods was a piss-poor idea, George knew that—common sense dictated that you always take at least one person with you as well as let someone else know exactly where you will be when you’re traveling into thousands of square miles of mostly uninhabited forest—but he had hiked and hunted his entire life in some of the most remote and rugged areas this country had to offer, so it wasn’t like he had no outdoor experience. Besides, with his trusty hand-held GPS, how bad could things get?

Pretty bad indeed, George now decided. The goddamned GPS had crapped out on him two days ago for no particular reason that George could determine. It simply made the decision, somewhere inside its freakin’ soulless solid-state electronic guts, to take a break from operating, maybe a permanent break; George didn’t know. What he did know, though, was that without a working GPS and after his map book had been washed away during a river crossing, he was more or less totally screwed.

George unzipped the right front pocket of his insulated hunting jacket and pulled out his cell phone for what he guessed might be about the two hundredth time in the last two days, knowing what he would see when he powered it up but doing so anyway. The device clicked and whirred, eventually awakening from its slumber and informing George that, so sorry, there was still no cell coverage in this part of the God-forsaken northern Maine woods, and furthermore, its battery was getting dangerously low, so if he wished to make a call, this might be a good goddamned time to do it. He cursed under his breath. The damn thing was about as useful to him as the broken GPS. Two electronic paperweights.

His hands were shaking as he shoved the cell phone back into his pocket and re-zipped it. He had only removed his gloves for a couple of minutes, and his fingers were already stiffening and losing feeling. Dammit, it was cold!

George stopped in a small clearing and tried to get his bearings, knowing it was pointless but not having the faintest clue what else to do. The lowering sky was a dark grey, almost black; the sun a distant memory even though it was the middle of the day. Orienting himself direction-wise was a no go. The drizzle which had fallen pretty much constantly since, incredibly, just about the exact moment his GPS had given up the ghost was now increasing in intensity from a soft mist to a steady, slanting rain. The temperature was falling, too, and George knew he needed to find shelter and hole up until the weather cleared.

He had been walking nonstop for almost two days now and exhaustion hung on him like a cloak. Conventional outdoor wisdom dictated that when someone got lost they should stay in one place and wait for help, but George knew while that was good advice for a twelve-year-old who had become disoriented during a Boy Scout hike, it would do nothing to help him in his present situation. No one knew he had even come here, and as far as George could remember from his map book before it decided to go for a swim and never return, there was only one small town within twenty miles in any direction, so the chances of some random hiker or hunter stumbling upon him and helping him out of this mess were pretty slim. Almost nonexistent, when it came right down to brass tacks.

That being the case, George figured he might just as well keep moving. Maybe he would get lucky and stumble upon the little hamlet, and if he didn’t, well, he would be no worse off walking when the sun finally came out than he would have been had he stayed in one place. Either way, if he didn’t find that town, he was going to have some serious hiking to do once he was able to determine which way was south.

But now, hungry, tired, depressed and drenched, with a steadily lowering body temperature as an added bonus, George Hooper decided the number one priority was to seek shelter and wait out the rest of the storm, at least until he could get warm and dry. But where? Most of the trees in this thickly forested area were towering pines, their branches sagging from the weight of all the water collecting on their needles the past two days. Perhaps he could burrow under the branches toward the middle of one of the mammoth firs in the hopes of finding some dry ground.

George looked around for the most likely tree to begin burrowing into, and as he did, he again glanced up at the dark sky, at the clouds roiling high above the treetops. His breath caught in his throat as his brain at first refused to believe what his eyes were telling him. He stared without moving for a good sixty seconds at a thin column of smoke rising above the forest and disappearing into the rain and mist. A fire!

Whether the smoke was coming from a fireplace or a campfire or a cook stove, George had no way of knowing, but one thing he did know was that someone was near, and if someone was near then that meant food and warmth and directions out of here and maybe even a ride back to civilization if he got really lucky.

He couldn’t believe his incredible good fortune. He almost laughed out loud at the thought that he had been seconds away from crawling on his belly through the mud under a tree where he would have spent the next twenty-four hours or more cold and miserable, and now, because he just happened to look skyward at the right time, he might just be on his way home with a full belly and warm, dry clothes within hours.

Hefting his pack, which had started out heavy but was now even more so thanks to the water soaking the canvas, George angled in the general direction of the smoke, zigzagging through the trees, ducking under branches and putting up with ice-cold water dripping down his neck. He kept his eyes on the prize: that thin column of nearly-invisible wispy smoke, fearing that if he lost sight of it he might never relocate it.

After roughly twenty minutes of struggling, he trudged through a particularly thick line of trees into a large clearing and stopped dead in his tracks. Spread out before him was what had once been a tiny village, clearly abandoned years ago, probably decades ago. Hell, maybe even centuries ago. The remnants of about a half-dozen small granite foundations lined each side of a narrow, rutted dirt trail, which was barely wide enough to accommodate a car, not that any car would be able to navigate this rough terrain; even a four-wheel drive vehicle would get stuck trying to make it out here.

In addition to the ancient stone foundations, which George assumed had at one time held houses, a couple of similar but larger foundations—perhaps supporting a general store and maybe a police station or jail—sat in disrepair at the far end of the clearing. Weeds and scrub grass and even some fairly large trees sprouted out, around and through the foundations, giving the area a look of utter abandonment. The forest had nearly completed its reclamation of the lonely and isolated village which had been hacked out of it at some point in the distant past.

In his shock at stumbling upon this tiny deserted village, George had almost forgotten the trail of smoke he had been tracking and now looked around to see if he could find the person or persons responsible for the fire. At first he could see no sign of the smoke—he thought for a moment he had lost it completely and almost panicked—but after a few seconds caught sight of a wisp drifting lazily up and out of a red-brick chimney sprouting from the roof of a small log cabin off to George’s right.

The home was tucked into the very edge of the abandoned village and was clearly not part of the original town; it looked almost brand new. The construction looked square and shipshape, with windows and a door and a farmer’s porch running the length of the house.

George’s heart leaped with the thought that he was about to get out of this mess, then he was struck like a hammer by the obvious question—who in the hell builds a home way out here in the middle of nowhere, at the edge of an old housing graveyard? Even Ted Kaszinski, the old Unabomber himself, the guy with the grudge against modern technology who had terrorized the country for a time in the 1990’s with bombs delivered through the United States Postal Service, had lived in an area that was at least accessible to some conveniences. What had George stumbled upon? Some antisocial lunatic who might chop him up into little pieces and then feed them to his equally antisocial dog?

George laughed uneasily to himself at such a ridiculous notion. He just needed a little help, that was all, and undoubtedly whoever lived here would be happy to provide it.

Of course they would.

Jeez, get a grip.

But his nervous body refused to cooperate with his calm, rational brain. His breath came rapid and shallow and sweat dripped down his back as he stared at the strange village laid out in front of him, not a pleasant sensation considering he had been wet and freezing cold to begin with. George couldn’t imagine why he was so nervous and jumpy. He wasn’t a guy who spooked easily, and he should be jumping up and down screaming his damn fool head off in delight at the prospect of getting out of this mess, not standing motionless in the rain like some four-year-old kid afraid of his own shadow.

Grunting in disgust at himself but still unable to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong, George forced himself to slow his breathing and made a concerted effort to calm his frayed nerves. “Get ahold of yourself, dumbass,” he muttered and began slowly walking toward the only recent construction, the log cabin. The smoke from the chimney had now almost completely disappeared, and George hoped the person or people who had been burning the fire inside the house wouldn’t mind lighting it up again for him.

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Tomorrow will feature Chapter Two. If you like what you've read, please consider buying the book!

PASKAGANKEE excerpt - Prologue

When THE LONELY MILE was released last July I ran a chapter a day of the book on my blog for a week to give readers an opportunity to check it out before deciding whether it was something they might want to spend their money on. People seemed to think that was a pretty good idea, so here we go again.

My new release is a supernatural suspense thriller titled PASKAGANKEE, released two days ago in ebook format, at least for now, by StoneGate Ink. Here's the book description featured over at Amazon:

"An isolated village, remote and vulnerable.

A series of brutal murders.

And a vengeful spirit born of tragedy, reawakened after a centuries-old massacre.

Three distinctly different people must come together, racing against time and their own personal demons in a desperate attempt to stop an unstoppable killer and save their town.

Welcome to Paskagankee, Maine. You may not survive the visit."

Over the next week or so I will be featuring a chapter a day right here. If you like what you see, I would love it if you buy the book and consider leaving an honest review when you've finished reading.

Here we go!


PASKAGANKEE

Prologue


November 16, 1691

Stephen Ames shivered in the gathering darkness, a bone-chilling cold seeping into his body as he sat waiting for the girl’s arrival. The wind whispered and moaned through the bare trees as the Great North Woods prepared for winter. The silence was all-encompassing, unrelenting. He wondered if the bronzed young Abnaki woman would come as she had promised and if she would bring the child whose existence he had discovered just yesterday—his child—to meet him for the first time.

Stephen was a member of a small group of missionaries traveling up and down the eastern seaboard of this strange, wild country; their mission, to convert the native savages to Christianity and thus save their souls. It was a difficult and dangerous life, nearly impossible at times, but also incredibly rewarding when he was able to make a positive impact on the lives of the people he converted.

It was also a lonely job. The dedicated band of missionaries numbered roughly a dozen; though the exact total was constantly in flux as men joined the group or dropped out, unable to handle the stressful life, difficult travel and unrelenting physical danger. The last time the missionaries passed through this remote area, working with a tribe located in a small village hard by the Penobscot River, he had met a Native girl, roughly his own age of twenty-two, and had taken refuge in her arms from the constant, crushing loneliness.

That was two years ago. The missionary group spent a couple of months working with the savages and then moved on, converting no one but making what they felt were potential inroads with a small number of the tribe’s more influential members. Unfortunately, the chief, an older savage with a deeply lined face and decades-old battle scars crisscrossing his body, had been unreceptive to the well-intentioned band of young men, eventually dropping all pretense of civility and forcing them to move on under threat of violence.

Now the men were back in the area, nearing the northernmost portion of their territory, and had decided to pay another visit to the village to see if the situation with the tribe had changed. Perhaps the old chief had died and a new warrior had taken his place, one more receptive to the missionaries’ soul-saving message.

It was during this visit two days ago that Stephen spotted the Native girl walking through the village and signaled her. She had run to him, recognizing him immediately, and in a curious combination of English, French, and the strange Abnaki native tongue, the two had worked out a time and place to meet the following night. She seemed nervous and anxious, glancing around furtively as if fearful of being observed, and after getting her message across to Stephen, disappeared quickly into the bustle of activity in the village.

At their meeting last night, Stephen received the shock of his young life when he learned he was the father of a now eighteen-month-old baby girl. The Native woman had become pregnant by him and given birth long after the band of missionaries had been forced to move on. She related to Stephen how she had nearly been sacrificed by the tribal elders when they learned she was with child, but had been spared due to her age and the fact that the baby’s father had left the area, never to return. The child would be raised as a Native in the customs and traditions of the Abnaki.

Shocked by this development, Stephen knew immediately he could never allow his child to be raised as an Abnaki. The heathen savages refused to permit the introduction of Christianity into the community, and Stephen was well aware of what that meant for his child: suffering in the fires of hell for all eternity. Although he had never met his baby, although he had only known for twenty-four hours that he even had a baby, Stephen realized he must do something to give his little daughter the opportunity to experience eternal salvation.

So he had begged the Native girl for a chance to meet the infant, to see his child if only once, and she reluctantly agreed. Stephen thought how strange it was to have fathered a baby with a savage girl whose name he didn’t even know. They had tried numerous times two years ago to relate their names to each other, but the language barrier was simply too wide—the savage girl’s name sounded like nothing more than guttural nonsense to Stephen, and he assumed his name sounded the same to her.

Stephen was surprised the Native girl had agreed to his request, as she was clearly suffering tremendous pressure from the village elders. The savages had never expected to see the band of traveling missionaries again, and the Native girl was obviously worried that either she or her baby would suffer some horrible fate Stephen could not comprehend thanks to their return.

All the more reason, Stephen thought, to rescue my child from this primitive land, to give her a chance at a real life back in England. His parents would be shocked by the baby’s arrival, but he knew they could provide proper care for her until Stephen could return home following his missionary calling and raise her himself.

Now, the night of the promised meeting, Stephen sat perched on a mammoth boulder, body heat leaching away in the freezing cold of the Great Forest. He feared the young mother had changed her mind about allowing him to see his baby. Perhaps the elders had somehow learned of the meeting and were even now holding her captive, forbidding her to leave the village. He hoped not; it would make a bad situation that much worse.

But at last the girl padded silently down the narrow hunting path. On her back a sling made of thick animal fur had been fastened and buried deep inside it, swaddled in still more fur to ensure warmth, was Stephen’s child. The baby was fast asleep, and the Native girl was reluctant because of the cold to lift her out of the sling, but Stephen glimpsed her luxurious head of jet-black hair peeking through the top of all the fur. Her hair was thick and full and had a sheen and color identical to that of the Native girl.

The Native girl’s entire body was shaking but not due to the temperature. If there was one thing the missionaries had learned about the savages in this strange land, it was that they knew how to keep warm in the winter. They survived in this harsh and unforgiving climate by utilizing skills perfected over the course of centuries to overcome the frigid winter temperatures. No, this was something else—the girl was clearly terrified. Stephen was glad he had decided to rescue his child from the clutches of these savages; it seemed obvious to him that something was very wrong.

As he admired the baby—or at least the top of her head—the remainder of the close-knit band of traveling missionaries appeared, stepping out from behind trees, bushes and rocks and surrounding Stephen and the Native girl. He watched tensely as she turned a full three hundred sixty degrees, looking from face to face in terror, understanding instantly she had been tricked, that this late-night meeting was not going to go as planned.

Stephen hated having to ambush the frightened Native girl like this, but he could think of no other way to wrest his baby away from clutches of the Abnaki savages. After meeting the girl in this isolated location last night—a good two miles from her village and at least another mile from the missionaries’ camp—and discovering that he was a father, he had requested council with the rest of the group.

The men had been unanimously shocked by Stephen Ames’s admission of having lain with the savage two years ago, but they quickly agreed that action must be taken to remove the innocent child from the heathens, that she be provided the opportunity to grow to adulthood in civilized society. In a strategy session lasting deep into the night, a plan had been hastily devised. Stephen would meet the Native girl as agreed, and the remainder of the missionaries would show themselves upon her arrival. The resulting show of force, they reasoned, should be sufficient to intimidate the frightened girl into handing over the baby.

After that meeting had broken up, however, Stephen had learned from his closest friend that the missionary leaders convened a second session, one to which Stephen Ames had not been invited. They suspected separating the child from her mother might not be so easy and knew they might require a second, more forceful plan, to be utilized in the event the young savage resisted. That was all the information Stephen had been able to pry out of his associate but was more than enough to cause him grave concern.

Now, as Stephen watched with his heart in his throat, the young girl turned on her heel and began hurrying as quickly as she was able with a sleeping baby on her back down the narrow hunting path. She found her passage blocked almost immediately by two of the missionaries. They approached her with their hands held out, palms up, in identical gestures of supplication, speaking to her calmly, telling her she had nothing to fear. Stephen knew she did not understand and could see things were spiraling quickly out of control.

He rushed up from behind, hoping to avert disaster, but as he did the rest of the group closed in on her as well and now she had nowhere to go, nowhere to run. The young mother tried to shoulder her way past the man nearest her as Stephen reached for her elbow and missed. The missionary shoved her roughly, and she tumbled into the forest ringing the path. Stephen shouted and the man grabbed for the baby and that was when all hell broke loose.

***

Abnaki war cries pierced the air as savages seemingly materialized out of nowhere, rushing to protect their tribal member. They moved quickly and within seconds had fully surrounded the missionaries. One warrior struck the man who had pushed the girl, hitting him in the face with his fist. Blood spurted and bone cracked and the man fell to the ground with an anguished cry.

This seemed to panic the missionaries, and one of them pulled a strange-looking silver cylindrical device from the pocket of his long overcoat, pointing it at the Abnaki warrior who had rushed to the girl’s defense. Fire erupted from the end of the cylinder and a frighteningly loud boom shook the woods as the side of the warrior’s face disappeared in a pink and grey stew of blood, bone and tissue. The warrior dropped to the ground and lay still.

Immediately bows were drawn and arrows launched by the Abnaki tribal members and knives and hatchets appeared. More silver cylinders were drawn out of more missionary pockets, belching more fire; the awful booming noises crashed through the forest and men on both sides of the conflict fell.

***

Stephen screamed and tumbled to the ground as he was struck in the shoulder by a hatchet thrown from he knew not where. He had known the missionary group would be armed; they always carried weapons when dealing with savages, but they had never before been forced to use them against this particular tribe.

His left arm felt numb and his hand tingled violently; he knew he was badly injured. Blood covered his shoulder and ran down his chest in a great wave. He looked for the Native girl, the mother of his child, but could not find her. Smoke from the missionaries’ guns hung thickly in the air, obscuring the moonlight and casting the scene in an eerie nightmarish hue. Screams rent the night, whether from missionaries or tribesmen Stephen could not tell.

His vision began to narrow; he found himself peering down a long tunnel and soon the black edges of that tunnel began squeezing his vision into a steadily shrinking circle. The screaming and the cries of anguish now seemed to originate from a point much farther away than they had previously, although Stephen knew that was not possible. He was lying in the middle of the battle zone. He guessed he was dying and wished he could hold his baby daughter just once.

Then nothing.

***

Stephen Ames opened his eyes. He was still lying on the frozen ground of New England in November. He felt incredibly, bone-chillingly cold, colder than he ever had in his entire life. He was surprised he was not dead and wondered how long he had been lying in the forest unconscious. He attempted to stand up and only then realized he could not move. Stephen knew that unless someone helped him, and soon, he was going to die. He was surprised to discover the prospect didn’t frighten him.

Moving his head, which seemed to be the only part of his body he could convince to work properly, Stephen scanned as much of the area as he could see. Bodies littered the forest, some of them Abnaki tribal warriors and some of them missionaries; men Stephen had lived and worked with for the past three years. A few of them were moaning softly, but most lay unspeaking and unmoving. Stephen suspected the majority of them were dead. Blood was everywhere, congealing on every surface, more blood than Stephen would ever have imagined possible.

His most pressing thought—his only clear thought, really—was for his baby. Was she still near? He didn’t think so. None of the bodies he could see on the ground appeared to be those of women; although he knew he could not see all of the dead. He hoped fervently that the Native girl and his child had somehow escaped the carnage, as unlikely as that seemed.

Motion in his peripheral vision caused Stephen to peer down the hunting path. The smoke from the gunfire had by now cleared, and the moon shone brightly in the frigid November sky. Struggling up the path was an elderly Abnaki tribesman. Stephen had never before seen the man and that was strange; until now he thought he had met everyone in the small tribal village at least once. The man looked older than anyone Stephen had ever seen—ancient even. Lines etched his face which was haggard and drawn. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He took slow, measured steps and remained utterly silent as he reached the scene of the bloody conflict.

The old tribesman’s arms were laden with strange-looking items like roots and cloth sacks filled with what Stephen could not imagine. At last the man reached a point roughly in the center of the carnage and set all his accoutrements on the ground in a neat pile. He still had not said a word as far as Stephen could tell.

Stephen thought briefly about crying out and alerting the ancient Native to his presence. He knew that by doing so, he would probably seal his fate. The man would certainly kill him after what had been done to his fellow Abnaki tribal members. But Stephen didn’t care if the man killed him; he decided he would welcome death after this tragic night had gone so horribly wrong, but he was curious as to what the old man was doing all by himself in the middle of the night in this place that reeked of treachery and death and destruction.

He remained quiet and watched the scene unfold. The elderly Abnaki sat cross-legged on the cold, hard ground, arranging his materials in a tight semicircle. It appeared to Stephen that the man was chanting under his breath—his lips were moving but Stephen could hear nothing.

Stephen knew enough about the customs of the Abnaki and about Natives in general to know the elderly man was performing some sacred ritual. He was a tribal medicine man, an individual possessed of incredible power and mysticism. His voice was now intelligible to Stephen, strengthening in volume as he continued to chant. He mixed ingredients into a great bowl placed on the ground in front of him. The man added water to the mixture and stirred slowly for a long time, staring into the distance and chanting. Tendrils of steam rose lazily from the bowl, clearly apparent in the bright moonlight, despite the fact there was no fire beneath it.

Eventually the elderly Native stood, moving ever so slowly, and walked among the bodies littering the forest floor. He stopped at each of the Abnaki dead, smearing some of the mixture on the foreheads of the men and ignoring the missionary dead.

Stephen’s vision began to waver and he knew he would soon be joining his fellow missionaries in whatever afterlife awaited them in the wake of this disaster. He hoped God understood he had not planned this slaughter and prayed he would still be permitted entrance into heaven. He prayed also that his daughter, the baby he had met just once, was alive; although he knew that was unlikely in the extreme.

As the ancient Abnaki medicine man padded silently among the Native bodies, performing his mysterious ritual, Stephen Ames slipped into unconsciousness for the last time. The freezing cold vanished and the world went black, and Stephen was grateful there was no pain.

----------

Tomorrow I'll feature Chapter One. PASKAGANKEE is available for now at Amazon...

Winner of the Free Kindle Fire!

My "Win a Free Kindle Fire" contest ended Monday at 9 a.m., and I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to enter. My goal in running the contest was to introduce my work to some new readers and maybe gain a little exposure prior to my new supernatural suspense novel, PASKAGANKEE, being released by StoneGate Ink later this month.

In conjunction with the running of the contest, I lowered the price of THE LONELY MILE to 99 cents for six weeks, a savings of 67% off the regular ebook price of $2.99, so even if you weren't the winner of a Kindle Fire, I like to think you took a little something out of the contest, anyway.

So here we go. Just in case you weren't glued to Twitter or Facebook to find out the results of Tuesday's drawing, I thought it might be nice to post them here, too. Congratulations to Karen Maria of Rollinsford, NH, the winner of the Kindle Fire! Hopefully you get lots of use out of it...

If you're curious, the way I ran the drawing was to assign a number to every entry. I then went to http://www.random.org/ and fed the numbers into their random number generator. The number that was spit out belonged to Karen.

It was a lot of fun doing the contest, and while I don't have immediate plans to run another, I fully expect to do more promotional stuff in the future. If that sounds enticing to you, be sure to follow me on Twitter, @AllanLeverone, on Facebook, or sign up for my (very sporadic) newsletter under the "Contact" tab at my website, http://www.allanleverone.com/.

Thanks again to everyone who entered!