Again, hi to all the Goddesses out there!
I'm going to give you one last excerpt on my romantic horror March 1 rerelease (it was originally a 1989 Leisure paperback) Blood Forge-Revised Author's Edition (http://damnationbooks.com/people.php?author=79 and Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Blood Forge Kathryn Meyer Griffith&tag=risinetsciefi-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 ) before I check out for the day.
This book has a long, interesting history. Parts of it are based on some things that I was actually experiencing around me (not to me) in my real life between the years of 1973-1977 and again in 1985-1989. Back in those days (and my first five novels held true to this truth) I tended to write what I knew and wrap it in the supernatural. I was married to a cop in a small town and there always seemed (at that time) to be scandals and romantic dramas going on. Ah, youth! If I only knew then what I know now... And being young, of course, there was always romance in those books somewhere, ha, ha.
Anyway, without much more ado, here's the next and final excerpt. Hope you all like it. Warmly, author of 40 years; 14 published novels and 8 short stories and 2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS FINALIST NOMINEE for her romantic end-of-the-world horror novel THE LAST VAMPIRE-Revised Author's Edition, Kathryn Meyer Griffith rdgriff@htc.net www.myspace.com./kathrynmeyergriffith www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith
BLURB: Blood Forge-Revised Author’s Edition. An ancient snake-demon lays trapped behind the stone walls of an Incan prison, for centuries demanding blood sacrifices and scheming to escape. Then it discovers a pathway into the world of men, forging itself into a malevolent 357 Colt Python, and making itself capable of incomparable destruction and misery. Through decades it torments, decimates, the unfortunate people whose lives it comes into until a loving married couple, Emily and Sam Walters, have enough love and faith–and the help of a mysterious priest who’s much more than he appears to be–to fight against and destroy it forever…and to send it back to hell where it belongs.***
EXCERPT:
From bed she looked at the illuminated clock on the nightstand. 3:14 A.M.
At least there was some time left until she had to get up.
She tried to return to sleep, but the noises downstairs continued to irritate her, though she couldn’t understand why. Scraping noises. Loud. What kind of eating made those kinds of noises? she wondered, and suddenly knew she wasn’t going to be able to recapture sleep until they stopped. Sam should know better, she thought irritated, sitting up in bed and scrambling for her robe. He knows I’m a light sleeper. He must know that racket would wake me up.
Half asleep and unsteady on her feet, she made her way downstairs to tell him off.
The first thing that met her startled eyes was her husband’s form hunched over the kitchen table. He was doing something; she couldn’t tell exactly what it was at first. He was stark naked.
“Sam?” She laughed nervously, coming up behind him, thinking she would surprise him with an affectionate hug. “What the heck are you doing down here in your birthday suit? You’re going to catch your death of cold it’s so drafty in here.
“Kind of racy, too, don’t you think, roaming around like that. Where’s your robe? How about turning that racket down a tad ‘cause some people are still sleeping, you know?” She voiced good-naturedly until she came close enough to see what he was doing.
There was only the night light on over the kitchen sink. In the dim room, the shadows hung huge on the walls around them.
Outside the ice-glazed windows the winter wind raced and howled.
He wasn’t eating.
He was cleaning that new gun. It lay in pieces on a newspaper in front of him, and he was doing something to one of the handles; she couldn’t tell what. Her eyes took in a sharp whittling knife in his hands. The pungent smell of cleaning oil lay heavy around him. Scraps of torn cloths, spotted with it, were tossed over the table like little dirty ghosts.
“Sam?” Her voice broke; she couldn’t help herself. She knew right off that something was wrong. Even before Sam looked up at her with those haunted eyes, she knew it. His face was lined and etched with pain. His hair uncombed, matted with grease and wild. His hands were dirty with grease. A gray smear ran along one cheek.
“Isn’t it kind of late to be cleaning your gun, sweetheart?” she asked softly, something warning her to go easy, to be careful. “Couldn’t you do that tomorrow after you’ve had some sleep?” Her throat had gone tight and dry.
Then she saw it.
Sam had shifted in his chair to glare at her over his shoulder, and when he moved it came into view.
The bottle of booze he kept in the lower cabinet to remind him of the alcoholic he was. What he’d almost lost once. Remind him so he’d never forget.
It was opened and half empty. A glass was sitting patiently beside it. Full. The place reeked of alcohol. It was a miracle she hadn’t smelled it before. It was everywhere.
“Sam, you promised,” she cried in genuine dismay, clutching at the table for support as she moved around to face him. “You promised you’d never drink again!” That old despair she remembered all too well crept in and sucked the life out of her. She wasn’t angry, oh, no, she was plain scared. Scared at the bizarre changes in her husband and at what that half-empty bottle of booze meant to them. The end of their dreams. The end of the happiness and peace of mind that the sleepy, long years of sobriety had created.
Emily saw it all slipping from her grasp, escaping into the air through her fingers.
It meant trouble in capital letters. It meant the beginning of the crazy times again...and this time Emily wasn’t sure they’d survive. Not again.
Long buried memories of the terrible days when Sam had been drinking washed over her in a flood, and she felt like screaming. She couldn’t go back to that again.
What was she going to do? How was she going to stop it?
Swallowing, she implored, “Sam, please? If you don’t want to talk to me, just come to bed. You don’t need any more to drink tonight. Tomorrow you can—”
He sneered up at her and snarled, a craziness flickering in his expression, “No, you go to bed. Leave me alone. It is tomorrow and I’ll do what I want, when I want to do it, woman, ya hear me? No more you telling me what to do and me jumping through hoops for you. No more. I got work to do.”
In the feeble light he reminded her of some cornered animal. His lips had curled back to reveal his teeth, like a mad dog.
“Just buzz off!” Going back to his tedious task, he ignored her. “Go the hell away and leave me alone. Can’t you understand English?”
Emily stared at him. Waiting. He didn’t look up again.
“Gonna be the fanciest wooden handles I’ve ever carved, for you, my lovely gun. Gonna make you the prettiest set I’ve ever made. This is the best wood I could buy. You wait and see. Hmmm, trim this a little here and cut a little there. You’re gonna be so beautiful when I get done. A real showpiece and I’m never gonna give you back to Walter, I promise. I’m keeping you forever.” He was caressing the gun and acting as if he were talking to someone.
It gave her the creeps.
He was actually talking to it. “Cause you’re mine. Never gonna give you back. Never!”
What was the matter with him? Was it the booze talking?
She stared at the gun and some vague memory sparked inside her brain. Something about a gun...but what? She couldn’t remember.
“Sam, look at me!” She felt the fear building inside her and couldn’t control it any longer. She had to know why he was doing this. Why was he drinking again? She’d been lulled into a false security and waking up like this was like getting a pail of ice water thrown in her face. Yet all she could think of to say was, “How could you do this to me Sam? To us? Why? Just tell me why.” Her voice a moan. Tears began to trickle down her face. She hated feeling this way again.
She was in shock. That’s what it is, she thought. I’m in shock. I can’t believe this is happening. Again.
Sam glared up at her, tired of being disturbed. “Because I want to, that’s why, you stupid woman.” He reached for the bottle of booze and defiantly poured himself another drink and gulped it down in front of her, his expression gleeful.
“How about you? You want a drinky, too? You look like you need one,” he told her, his words slurring as he held out the empty glass toward her. His left eyelid drooped a little further, and he looked as if he was about to fall out of his chair. He that drunk and his attitude was becoming more antagonistic with every sip of booze.
Then, Sam had always been a belligerent drunk. When he drank even a wrong look, or a wrong move, could make him come out fighting.
“No!” She cringed.
“Figures.” He humphed sarcastically, pouring himself another drink as she watched in growing horror. “You’re so good. Too good to drink, too good to be a little human. Goody-two-shoes is what you are. You pompous, nagging bitch.
“Excuse me,” he simpered. “Of course you don’t want a drink. You’re too busy being my little watchdog, aren’t you? I fooled you, didn’t I? Look, I’m drinking! Ha, ha, ha. Bah. You make me sick.” With a trembling wave of his hand, he sought to push her away.
“You’re no fun at all, wife. Do you know that? So just go away. Leave me alone with my beautiful gun here.” His fingers traced the disassembled gun lovingly. “And my bottle. They’re all I need.”
He’d resumed working on the gun, forgetting her.
“Sam,” Emily whispered one more time. Her hands reached out to him. No reply; only a quick, cold stare as he stood guard over his gun and his booze.
Frustrated, she tried to grab the bottle away from him. He sprang at her and snatched it back after they’d played tug-of-war with it for a few wild moments.
When he had it again he clutched it protectively against his chest. “Leave me the hell alone, didn’t you hear me?” He suddenly stood up and screamed at her, knocking over his booze glass on the newspaper and spilling the little left in the bottom of it, his face turning so ugly she could feel the fear cutting into her.
He raised his hand at her threateningly.
Emily froze, her frightened eyes locked with his crazy ones. She thought he was really going to strike her. She stood in their kitchen in her robe in the middle of the night feeling the winter’s chill draft on her bare feet and legs, facing a drunken husband, knowing in her bones that he was probably beyond reasoning or help. ***
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