Halloween Haunts 2013: Night Terrors by Heather L Reid

Nightmares are the stuff of dreams­­-the subtle edge of darkness that creeps across the sleeping mind, evoking inner demons to dance macabre behind the shuttered windows of the soul.

I don’t remember when they started, the dreams of faceless entities, of black figures standing by my bed whispering in the deep shadows of my childhood room. Sometimes I would wake from their dark grasp and find my six-year-old self standing at the end of my parent’s bed, or in the kitchen, or walking down the hallway. Other times I would suffer from sleep paralysis, trapped between dream and reality, a scream trapped in my throat.

Some nights, fear gripped me so tight I thought my lungs were being crushed under the weight of it. Books kept me company, kept me awake, kept me from falling into the arms of the monsters waiting for me on the other side of sleep as I huddled under the covers with a flashlight, stuffed animals standing guard around my bed. A bible stayed tucked beneath my pillow, a cross around my neck, anything to ward off the evil stalking my dreams. The darkness both terrified and fascinated me and as I grew, I found myself drawn to all the shadowy terror my dreams were made of. Childhood stories were replaced with novels by Christopher Pike, Lois Duncan, and V.C.Andrews. Soon, I started writing scary tales and dark poetry. My mother would often catch me reading non-fiction about the occult, hauntings, demons, tarot, spirit boards, anything mystical, but she never made me feel ashamed of my obsession. Perhaps she sensed I was seeking a way to make sense of it all, to rationalize the irrational.

By age twelve, All Hallows’ Eve had become my favorite holiday. A time to become my own monster, a vampire, a witch, and howl at the moon to ward off roaming ghosts like the ancient Celts on which our modern Halloween is said to originate. Horror movies played on the television the entire month of October, it was the 80’s after all, and the sound of Freddy Kruger’s knives scraping across the metal boiler brought a smile to my face and a tingle down my spine. I looked forward to the change of the leaves from green to golden brown, longer nights, crisp autumn air and the promise of candy and scares. In lieu of my December birthday bash, friends were invited to my annual Halloween party. No gifts were expected, but costumes were mandatory. So were spooky sound effects, gravestones on the lawn, and a trip through my cheesy, low-budget haunted house. Looking back, celebrating Halloween helped me take control of my fear and turn it into something magical. I’m not sure when the nightmares finally stopped, but the faceless entities gradually faded into the recess of my imagination, leaving vivid shadows in my memory and a fondness in my heart for classic horror movies and dead man’s punch.

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Heather is offering one free print copy of Pretty Dark Nothing.

Giveaway Rules: Enter for the prize by posting in the comments section. Winners will be chosen at random and notified by e-mail. You may enter once for each giveaway, and all entrants may be considered for other giveaways if they don’t win on the day they post. If you would like to comment without being entered for the giveaway, include “Not a Giveaway Entry” at the end of your post. You may also enter by e-mailing memoutreach@horror.org and putting HH CONTEST ENTRY in the header.

HEATHER L. REID is both American and British and has called six different cities in three different countries, home. Her strong sense of wanderlust and craving for a new adventure mean you might find her wandering the moors of her beloved Scotland, exploring haunted castles, or hiking through a magical forest in search of fairies and sprites. When she’s not venturing into the unknown in her real life, she loves getting lost in the worlds of video games or curling up by the fire with good story. Her debut young adult paranormal, PRETTY DARK NOTHING, was published in April of 2013 by Month9Books with a sequel releasing in spring of 2014.

Book Links

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Dark-Nothing-Heather-Reid/dp/0985327812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378775258&sr=8-1&keywords=pretty+dark+nothing

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pretty-dark-nothing-heather-reid/1109686541?ean=9780985327811

The Book Depository: http://www.bookdepository.com/Pretty-Dark-Nothing-Heather-L-Reid/9780985327811

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15768498-pretty-dark-nothing

Where to find Heather.

Website: www.heatherlreid.com

Twitter: @HeatherLReid

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeatherLReid.author

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6448958.Heather_L_Reid

Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/heatherlreid

Read an excerpt from Pretty Dark Nothing by Heather L. Reid:

Quinn hadn’t slept a full night in twenty-three days. She couldn’t. Not with them waiting on the dream side. Shadows lingered in the corners—unhindered by the burning lights—waiting for her to grow careless. She yawned, eyes welling up in an attempt to wash away the boulders that lived beneath the lids. Pressing the headphones against her ears, she upped the volume as high as it would go and let Metal Mania Six shriek her awake. On the offbeat, she banged her head against the antique headboard, a quick pinch of pain to ensure she hadn’t nodded off.

She checked the clock on the bedside table for the thousandth time willing it to race through the remaining minutes until morning. Six thirty. Half an hour until sunrise. She wasn’t sure she could last that long. Maybe she should rest her eyes, but not long enough to fall asleep. Metal Mania Six wailed a warning as her eyes flickered and shut. The rocking slowed, and then stopped. Quinn slumped to one side.

A creeping cold inched its way across her exposed skin, dotting her flesh with goose bumps. Something dark and sinister pushed against the dead weight of her sleeping body from the other side of the headboard. The wood shuddered and groaned as something evil reached out, searching for the portal that would open with a deep sleep. Quinn’s breath quickened with the thought of what was coming, but it was too late. She was helpless, already suspended in a state of torpor between waking and dreaming and no energy left to fight.

It only took a second for the veil between reality and nightmare to rip. Tendrils of fog splintered through the headboard and coiled around her neck. She screamed, the music screamed. The noose pulled tight, digging into her windpipe, cutting her cry short. She clawed at her throat as the tendrils snaked across her neck and mouth. Whips of fog were everywhere at once, twining around her body, binding her inch-by-inch with living rope. She kicked and flailed, but the fog entombed her. Dragging Quinn through the splintered void, the fog suspended her in its web across the black abyss of the tunnel below, until, one by one, the tendrils unravelled and dissipated into the walls, leaving gravity to pull her into a long, terrifying free fall. She twisted and tumbled as she fell, hoping this time would be different, that her fingers would find something to stop the descent. But they grasped only air, and the ground rushed to meet her. Within seconds, she hit the cold, hard earth, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped. The familiar smell of damp and decay warned of where the darkness had taken her.

She stumbled to her feet. Enormous trees stood sentry around a small clearing, their gnarled and twisted trunks mirroring the feeling inside her stomach. Broken patterns of moonlight illuminated a narrow trail across the clearing. Dry leaves littered the forest floor; their brittle veins crunched under her black leather boots as she inched toward the path.

She tried to stay quiet, but her breath came in sharp spasms. Heart hammering against her chest, she glanced over her shoulder, searching for them. They were always there. Perspiration trickled down the small of her back, and she shivered as heavy fog weaved through the maze of trees, devouring the trunks until it blocked the way out. Panic moved from her stomach to feet as she backed into a sturdy oak, its rough bark catching at a strand of long hair.

The dark ring of fog surrounded her, moonlight eerily absorbed by its gray green mist. Something cold and damp brushed her leg. It felt like a human hand, a dead human hand, the moistness of its earthen grave still clung to its rotting flesh. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. She shuddered as the corporal mist found her palm, inched its way between fingers, and seized both of her wrists, binding them together. Jerking away from the smoke’s grasp only succeeded in it tightening the grip of living rope until pain danced across every nerve.

Before she could blink, two new wraith vines shot from the darkness, grabbing her legs and slamming her to the forest floor. She clawed at the ground as the tendrils dragged her into the fog. Dirt lodged under her fingernails. The earthy decay, disturbed from its winter slumber, filled her nostrils.

“We’re coming for you, Quinn,” the fog hissed.

Earth to earth. The image of her parents throwing a handful of dirt over her coffin as it was lowered into the ground came unbidden to her mind. Tears slid from her eyes. She didn’t want to die.

More tendrils slithered toward her, swirling and changing into dozens of dark shadow masses. They crowded around, their bodies blacker than the surrounding night.

“You can’t get away. He doesn’t protect you anymore.” The dark shadows reached for her. “There’s no escape, Quinn. Earth to earth. Everyone dies. Some sooner than others.”