Loren Rhoads
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction,
Dark Fantasy Short Stories
Publisher: Automatism Press
Date of Publication: September 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1735187600
ASIN: B08HHNQ6XV
Number of pages: 174
Word Count: 55K
Cover Artist: Lynne Hansen
Tagline: Once you’ve done the most unforgivable thing, what will you do next?
Book Description:
In the first full-length collection of her edgy, award-winning short stories, Loren Rhoads punctures the boundaries between horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction in a maelstrom of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
Ghosts, succubi, naiads, vampires, the Wild Hunt, and the worst predator in the woods stalk these pages, alongside human monsters who follow their cravings past sanity or sense.
Something
brushed her leg. Violet kept treading water, legs pedaling below her, but
wondered: did the pool have leeches in it? Snapping turtles? Her thoughts
darted into paranoia: were there sharks? Piranhas? Anything that might bite?
Not that it
mattered. She would stay in this water and be gummed to death by goldfish
rather than get out and take her chances with the mountain lion watching her
from the side of the pool.
Whatever it was
below her tangled in her toes. It felt for all the world like hair. Violet
shuddered, losing her rhythm momentarily, but then forced her legs to scissor
once more.
She peered down
into the murky water. Something below her glowed an icy white color, like
moonlight. Like the moon had fallen into the old swimming pool. The temperature
of the water around her plummeted. A cramp knotted her left calf. Violet
whimpered.
Her head dipped
toward the surface of the water. Violet fought to calm herself, to hold herself
up by the determined stroking of her arms. She tried to stretch the charley
horse from her muscle.
Something very
much like a hand touched her thigh.
She shrieked.
The sound echoed from the hills surrounding the pool and repeated from the
mountain peak on the other side of the valley.
The mountain
lion narrowed her eyes and stared at Violet.
Then a girl’s
voice said in her ear: “Don’t be afraid.”
Ice flooded her
veins and Violet lost the ability to control her limbs. Her head slipped under
the surface of the water and she took a breath…and something caught her in its
arms and lifted her, coughing, back to the surface. And held her there, safely,
until she could breathe again.
Violet’s heart
fluttered in her chest, struggling to regain its rhythm. She could see arms
around her ribs, holding her up in the water. They were a pale grayish white.
Not a natural color. She wondered if it was possible to die of fear.
“Don’t be afraid
of me,” the ghost said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m afraid to
look at you,” Violet whispered. She didn’t trust her own voice, didn’t want to
hear the sound of her own terror.
“I’m not
horrible,” the ghost promised.
“Did you drown
here?”
“A long time
ago.”
Violet swallowed
hard. Her throat was sore from the water she’d inhaled. She coughed once more,
but it didn’t really help. Tentatively, she started to dog paddle.
The ghost
released her. Violet turned slowly, to find a girl her own age bobbing
alongside her. Her long, long hair was blond, where Violet’s was dark. It was
slicked to her skull and green with streaks of pondweed. Her eyes were pale
blue, maybe, or green, where Violet’s were brown. The drowned girl wasn’t
horrible, even if her skin had gone the color of something kept from sunlight
for a long, long time.
“Are you alone
here?” Violet asked. The quaver in her voice unnerved her even more, if that
were possible. She swallowed again and tried to concentrate on her kicking.
“My boyfriend is
here, too,” the ghost said. “He doesn’t like to talk to people.”
“Did you die
together?”
“We thought it
would be romantic,” the ghost said. “We didn’t realize we’d be trapped here.
That’s why I don’t want you to die. You will be trapped here, too.”
“Why are you
trapped?”
“A creature
roams these woods. A monster. It is hungry for company. It collects us.”
“How many of you
are there?” Violet asked, even though she didn’t want to know the answer.
“Lots,” the
ghost said sadly. “Lots.”
“I don’t want to
be trapped here,” Violet said, “but I don’t know how to get past the mountain
lion.”
“There is no
mountain lion,” the ghost said. “That’s the monster. It takes many forms.”
About
the Author:
Loren Rhoads is the author of the In the Wake of the Templars space opera trilogy, co-author of a succubus/angel duology called As Above, So Below, and editor of Tales for the Camp Fire: An Anthology Benefiting Wildfire Relief. She’s also the author of a nonfiction travel guide called 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die. Unsafe Words is the first full-length collection of her short stories.
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