My story "Hooked" is this weeks feature on Strange Story Saturdays. Check it out!
"Hooked" was inspired by a troupe of performers I saw at the bay two summers ago. I won't tell you what they were performing, because that would ruin the story. I will say that they were featured an a TV show called Taboo, and their performance became good fodder for my imagination.
Enjoy!
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Welcome to the Church of Speculative Fiction
I wrote a guest blog post that was featured on Dark Moon Digest's Last Writes blog. Head on over there and have a read. When you're finished, do me a favor and pick up a copy of my latest novel In Black. It's still only .99 cents for an ebook and $9.99 for a good ol' dead tree copy. The link is at the end of the blog post. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 8, 2015
IN BLACK on Sale for .99 Cents!
My publisher had dropped the price on my latest novel to only .99 cents for a limited time. Get your digital copy now and dig into some horrifying summer reading.
The first 5-star review is in: "I received the book on Thursday and read it by Friday cause I couldn't put it down..."
Available for kindle HERE.
The first 5-star review is in: "I received the book on Thursday and read it by Friday cause I couldn't put it down..."
Available for kindle HERE.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
In Black is Now Available!
In Black, my latest novel of horror from Eldritch Press, is now available in ebook and trade paperback.
Chase Little thought he’d been hired to do some painting, but when the paint dried, it created a black void that leads to a dungeon. Appalled yet fascinated, he flees, burning down the house and stealing the inky liquid. Fearing that he will be arrested for arson, Chase and his girlfriend Leah flee to the rundown town of Needles in the Mojave Desert.
Leah soon disappears, leaving him alone, learning too late of the true nature of the black paint and the evil that lies beyond the veil of darkness it creates. He was warned about the black paint, but didn’t listen. Now he has to find and destroy it before more innocent lives succumb to its unfathomable darkness.
Here are a few links to buy the book, only $2.99 for an ebook or $9.99 for print: Amazon & Nook: Barnes and Noble.
Chase Little thought he’d been hired to do some painting, but when the paint dried, it created a black void that leads to a dungeon. Appalled yet fascinated, he flees, burning down the house and stealing the inky liquid. Fearing that he will be arrested for arson, Chase and his girlfriend Leah flee to the rundown town of Needles in the Mojave Desert.
Leah soon disappears, leaving him alone, learning too late of the true nature of the black paint and the evil that lies beyond the veil of darkness it creates. He was warned about the black paint, but didn’t listen. Now he has to find and destroy it before more innocent lives succumb to its unfathomable darkness.
Here are a few links to buy the book, only $2.99 for an ebook or $9.99 for print: Amazon & Nook: Barnes and Noble.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
The Smell of Memory
Sometimes things happen in a way that beg for them to be spoken of or written about, as was an experience I had the other day while walking up the stairwell at a complex where I was doing some painting. What happened is something that I have experienced before, each time having a greater or lesser degree of submersion into the past, and it all starts with a smell.
Yesterday I began reading Robert R. McCammon's Boy's Life for the first time. The beginning of the book has a sort of forward by the narrator where he discusses life. In that small intro our narrator mentions how a song or sight can illicit long forgotten childhood memories like a trigger to launch one directly into the past if only for a fleeting moment. This I know is true. I too know that any one of the five human senses can act as such a trigger. For me, the most potent of such triggers is smell. Always has been.
Have you ever smelled a perfume that brought you back to an earlier day? Perhaps it was one your Aunt wore when you were a child, perhaps a neighbor. Have you ever smelled the perfect mingling of food odors that made you feel like a youngster playing with toys as your mother cooked dinner? Have you ever smelled something indistinguishable, yet so alluring and mysterious that you could actually feel the brilliance and joy of youth?
I have. In fact, I did the other day and it started me on a thinking path, as these sort of things often do. Mostly I thought about how precious youth is and how quickly the experience is extinguished and all but forgotten, preserved in photographs and remembrances of monumental events. We don't know any better as we are always told to think about the future and college and a career and what we're going to be when we grow up, and before we know it, it's gone and will never come back except for when triggered by an old song, a once favorite TV show or perhaps a cryptic smell, something to unlock memories buried deep in our minds.
I smelled one such fragrance in the hallway of a milti-unit complex. I was instantly brought back to the little library at my elementary school, to the shark book I liked so much, to the Halloween books I found so fascinating. I was brought back not only to the memory of it, but the feeling of sheer joy and happiness that my childhood was willed with. Random fragments of memory invaded as if some chasm had been opened. It only happened for a moment and was gone, but it left me with a sense of melancholy that had me yearning for a Ray Bradbury story or two. The experience had me thinking about life in general, but more importantly, it had me thinking about the life of a child, any child.
There were two tragic stories in the news the other day. One was about a woman in court for child endangerment after leaving her children in the car on a hot day. While in court, it was found that she had left her children in the car. Another story local to San Diego was about a three-year-old left on a balcony for hours in arms reach of a knife. The mother claims the child's grandmother was supposed to be watching, while the grandmother says the mother often neglects the child to go out and party. Last year the same child was found abandoned on the streets of Chula Vista (I don't even like being on those streets and I'm a grown man!). He was supposed to have been being watched by his grandfather, but gramps was off somewhere shooting heroin. Now the child is in protective custody.
These children will not have beautiful flashes of memory conjured at a random tingling senses. Not the way I do at least. That parents make such egregious decisions breaks my heart, and it happens all over the world. This kind of parenting certainly makes a case for implementing a license to bear children, not that I want to venture into that kind of brave new world. It is sad, though. Childhood can be great whether poor or filthy rich and just as easily, in either condition, be just as bad if not worse than the examples above. What it hinders on are the parents. Right here I could say, "Go hug your children," but you should be doing that anyway. You shouldn't have to be reminded by some blog post.
When I smell something or hear the right tune that brings me back to my wonderful childhood I get a little sad that I didn't better preserve my memories. I realize now that no one does. In youth we're too fresh at mind and eager to experience life to waste time even considering how important those formidable years are not only to our development, but our psyche in general. As it turns out, those memories have been preserved. In the taste of sorghum molasses over buttered biscuits, in the smell of some long forgotten perfume, in the melody of a golden oldie. You can't choose to visit these memories and when you do get the opportunity they might not even make sense, but they are there, waiting to be released, to elicit melancholy, sadness, happiness and longing all at once. Cherish those memories and cherish your children so they too can experience such flashes of memory.
Yesterday I began reading Robert R. McCammon's Boy's Life for the first time. The beginning of the book has a sort of forward by the narrator where he discusses life. In that small intro our narrator mentions how a song or sight can illicit long forgotten childhood memories like a trigger to launch one directly into the past if only for a fleeting moment. This I know is true. I too know that any one of the five human senses can act as such a trigger. For me, the most potent of such triggers is smell. Always has been.
I have. In fact, I did the other day and it started me on a thinking path, as these sort of things often do. Mostly I thought about how precious youth is and how quickly the experience is extinguished and all but forgotten, preserved in photographs and remembrances of monumental events. We don't know any better as we are always told to think about the future and college and a career and what we're going to be when we grow up, and before we know it, it's gone and will never come back except for when triggered by an old song, a once favorite TV show or perhaps a cryptic smell, something to unlock memories buried deep in our minds.
I smelled one such fragrance in the hallway of a milti-unit complex. I was instantly brought back to the little library at my elementary school, to the shark book I liked so much, to the Halloween books I found so fascinating. I was brought back not only to the memory of it, but the feeling of sheer joy and happiness that my childhood was willed with. Random fragments of memory invaded as if some chasm had been opened. It only happened for a moment and was gone, but it left me with a sense of melancholy that had me yearning for a Ray Bradbury story or two. The experience had me thinking about life in general, but more importantly, it had me thinking about the life of a child, any child.
There were two tragic stories in the news the other day. One was about a woman in court for child endangerment after leaving her children in the car on a hot day. While in court, it was found that she had left her children in the car. Another story local to San Diego was about a three-year-old left on a balcony for hours in arms reach of a knife. The mother claims the child's grandmother was supposed to be watching, while the grandmother says the mother often neglects the child to go out and party. Last year the same child was found abandoned on the streets of Chula Vista (I don't even like being on those streets and I'm a grown man!). He was supposed to have been being watched by his grandfather, but gramps was off somewhere shooting heroin. Now the child is in protective custody.
These children will not have beautiful flashes of memory conjured at a random tingling senses. Not the way I do at least. That parents make such egregious decisions breaks my heart, and it happens all over the world. This kind of parenting certainly makes a case for implementing a license to bear children, not that I want to venture into that kind of brave new world. It is sad, though. Childhood can be great whether poor or filthy rich and just as easily, in either condition, be just as bad if not worse than the examples above. What it hinders on are the parents. Right here I could say, "Go hug your children," but you should be doing that anyway. You shouldn't have to be reminded by some blog post.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Hell Awaits is FREE over Memorial Day weekend!
Available for free kindle download HERE.
After an ancient tribe of sentinels disbands, the realm between Earth and Hell devolves into a land where vile beasts roam free and corruption reigns. In this aberrant land time is only relative, and pain can last forever. On Earth there are three strangers in search of something tangible, something real, something that gives meaning to their lives. Little do they know that a grisly murder in San Diego will mark the beginning of a series of events that will draw them to a world of madness, torture, and lawlessness where they will be forced to fight for their desires and their lives. Once in the realm of the In Between will they ever be the same again? Is there a way back home to Earth, or does Hell await?
“For fans of down and dirty horror!” - Daniel I. Russell, author of Samhane
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
What Happened to Our Butcher Knife?
Before you read this little story about what happened last Sunday in the Essig household, I would advise you to hop on over to Armand Rosamilia's blog and read my guest post from about a year and a half ago. Go ahead, and come back here when you're finished.
Okay, I hope you made it back. Here's the story:
Last Sunday my wife, son and I went to the park to kick around the soccer ball and swing on the swings and do all those things you're expected to do after paying three bucks just to park your car in the lot. The place was crawling with people. It was like an aggravated ant pile. There was a baby shower, some kind of company barbecue, birthday parties, a dog owner who shamelessly allowed their pet to take a shit right in front of the swings and didn't even bother to pick it up. And, of course, their were folks like us who just wanted to spend a few hours in the park. It was fun, but too many people for my taste.
We headed for the 99 Cent Store after that, got some groceries, had to wait in line so long I thought the the frozen goods were going to melt, and then we were back home for the rest of the afternoon into night. On walking into the house our son made a B-line for the back yard. He opened the sliding glass door and was off to play with sticks and immerse himself into worlds only LSD could possibly illuminate for us adults. After unpacking our fifty bucks worth of groceries, I decided it would be a good time to prep the chicken wings we planned on eating for dinner. I wanted to get them into a bag of seasoned flour for maybe an hour before frying them up and soaking them in butter and spicy Buffalo sauce.
I grabbed the bowl of wings from the fridge and began to pull them out when I realized that they were whole, which meant I would have to chop off the tips and then half the rest of the wing into little drumsticks and wingettes. I pivoted and reached out my hand to a butcher block that was missing the most important knife. The big knife. The Micheal Myers knife.
The butcher knife.
I looked in the dish drainer. No knife. I looked in the sink. Nothing there. I looked under the dish drainer and all around it. I looked in the silverware drawer and large utensil drawer, on the counter on the floor (this is starting to read like a Dr. Seuss book!).
I asked my wife if she knew where the butcher knife was. She looked in all the places I had already covered. I even looked in ridiculous places, thinking maybe the knife had somehow been placed in the wrong spot after being washed. No dice.
That's when something occurred to the both of us pretty much at the same time. I could see it in her eyes that she was thinking exactly what I was thinking. One of us said, "What if there's someone hiding in the house with the knife?"
One half of my mind said, "Oh hell no. That's the kind of stuff that happens in movies," and the other part of my brain said, "Oh yeah? That's also the stuff that happens on Investigation Discovery. That's the kind of thing that can happen to anyone."
Passing by the sliding glass door I glimpsed my son outside playing in the dirt, laughing, talking to himself, happy. I went into the garage, knowing no one was in there because I had already gone into the garage to put some frozen good in our freezer. I went in there for an old poorly crafted metal shop sword that I have, but I decided on an impromptu garden tool. One side has two long prongs like that of a small pitch fork and the other side a flat edge similar to a miniature hoe, but sharper. I didn't want to think of what this weapon could do to someone, but what could I do? The butcher knife was gone and there was no explanation.
My wife remained in the kitchen and my son in the backyard. I went though the house systematically, opening every door to every closet and every room. It all seemed so crazy, you know (as if there really would be someone hiding with my butcher knife???), but I had to be prepared, because what if?
The house was clear. But the butcher knife was still missing. My wife took the filled garbage bag out of the trashcan and was headed outside to see if maybe we had accidentally thrown it out. That sounded plausible to me. I mean, there had to be a logical explanation, right? I sudden;y remembered that several weeks ago my wife had switched out butcher blocks and the old one was sitting in the garage. Let me explain: We had a butcher block with steak knives, a paring knife, butcher knife, etc. that we used for years before the tips of some of the blades had begin to break off and the butcher knife became dull and chipped. We bought a new block of knives and put the old one in the garage where we stack all kinds of things to either sell at a garage sale or give to Goodwill. recently the butcher knife in the newer set broke. Me, I use the butcher knife for everything in the kitchen (can't cook without it), so my wife brought back the old set of knives that were all chipped and put the newer set, sans butcher knife, back in the garage. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.
Just as she opens the front door and walks out with the bag of garbage I have a crazy thought. The chances were fewer than slim, but I just had to check, so I went into the garage and looked at the butcher block sitting on the floor next to a pile of old clothes, books, dishes and miscellaneous bric-a-brac and there it was, sitting in what had been an empty slot: the butcher knife.
I reached down and pulled it out. I examined the chipped edge, the handle, even the weight of it as if analyzing a possible impostor knife, but no, it was the exact same butcher knife we had been using in our kitchen for a good three weeks. The one that should have been in the kitchen. The one that had no reason to be in the garage.
I rushed into the house and caught my wife before she began the unpleasant job of rifling through the bowels of a couple days worth of garbage. I told her where I found the knife. We looked at one another in disbelief. We tried to think of some kind of rationale for how it could have ended up in there. Even now when the subject comes up we shake our heads. We're convinced that there is perfectly rational explanation, and yet we're not completely convinced that there wasn't something else at play...something that perhaps we cannot understand.
Okay, I hope you made it back. Here's the story:
Last Sunday my wife, son and I went to the park to kick around the soccer ball and swing on the swings and do all those things you're expected to do after paying three bucks just to park your car in the lot. The place was crawling with people. It was like an aggravated ant pile. There was a baby shower, some kind of company barbecue, birthday parties, a dog owner who shamelessly allowed their pet to take a shit right in front of the swings and didn't even bother to pick it up. And, of course, their were folks like us who just wanted to spend a few hours in the park. It was fun, but too many people for my taste.
We headed for the 99 Cent Store after that, got some groceries, had to wait in line so long I thought the the frozen goods were going to melt, and then we were back home for the rest of the afternoon into night. On walking into the house our son made a B-line for the back yard. He opened the sliding glass door and was off to play with sticks and immerse himself into worlds only LSD could possibly illuminate for us adults. After unpacking our fifty bucks worth of groceries, I decided it would be a good time to prep the chicken wings we planned on eating for dinner. I wanted to get them into a bag of seasoned flour for maybe an hour before frying them up and soaking them in butter and spicy Buffalo sauce.
I grabbed the bowl of wings from the fridge and began to pull them out when I realized that they were whole, which meant I would have to chop off the tips and then half the rest of the wing into little drumsticks and wingettes. I pivoted and reached out my hand to a butcher block that was missing the most important knife. The big knife. The Micheal Myers knife.
The butcher knife.
I looked in the dish drainer. No knife. I looked in the sink. Nothing there. I looked under the dish drainer and all around it. I looked in the silverware drawer and large utensil drawer, on the counter on the floor (this is starting to read like a Dr. Seuss book!).
I asked my wife if she knew where the butcher knife was. She looked in all the places I had already covered. I even looked in ridiculous places, thinking maybe the knife had somehow been placed in the wrong spot after being washed. No dice.
That's when something occurred to the both of us pretty much at the same time. I could see it in her eyes that she was thinking exactly what I was thinking. One of us said, "What if there's someone hiding in the house with the knife?"
One half of my mind said, "Oh hell no. That's the kind of stuff that happens in movies," and the other part of my brain said, "Oh yeah? That's also the stuff that happens on Investigation Discovery. That's the kind of thing that can happen to anyone."
Passing by the sliding glass door I glimpsed my son outside playing in the dirt, laughing, talking to himself, happy. I went into the garage, knowing no one was in there because I had already gone into the garage to put some frozen good in our freezer. I went in there for an old poorly crafted metal shop sword that I have, but I decided on an impromptu garden tool. One side has two long prongs like that of a small pitch fork and the other side a flat edge similar to a miniature hoe, but sharper. I didn't want to think of what this weapon could do to someone, but what could I do? The butcher knife was gone and there was no explanation.
My wife remained in the kitchen and my son in the backyard. I went though the house systematically, opening every door to every closet and every room. It all seemed so crazy, you know (as if there really would be someone hiding with my butcher knife???), but I had to be prepared, because what if?
The house was clear. But the butcher knife was still missing. My wife took the filled garbage bag out of the trashcan and was headed outside to see if maybe we had accidentally thrown it out. That sounded plausible to me. I mean, there had to be a logical explanation, right? I sudden;y remembered that several weeks ago my wife had switched out butcher blocks and the old one was sitting in the garage. Let me explain: We had a butcher block with steak knives, a paring knife, butcher knife, etc. that we used for years before the tips of some of the blades had begin to break off and the butcher knife became dull and chipped. We bought a new block of knives and put the old one in the garage where we stack all kinds of things to either sell at a garage sale or give to Goodwill. recently the butcher knife in the newer set broke. Me, I use the butcher knife for everything in the kitchen (can't cook without it), so my wife brought back the old set of knives that were all chipped and put the newer set, sans butcher knife, back in the garage. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.
Just as she opens the front door and walks out with the bag of garbage I have a crazy thought. The chances were fewer than slim, but I just had to check, so I went into the garage and looked at the butcher block sitting on the floor next to a pile of old clothes, books, dishes and miscellaneous bric-a-brac and there it was, sitting in what had been an empty slot: the butcher knife.
I reached down and pulled it out. I examined the chipped edge, the handle, even the weight of it as if analyzing a possible impostor knife, but no, it was the exact same butcher knife we had been using in our kitchen for a good three weeks. The one that should have been in the kitchen. The one that had no reason to be in the garage.
I rushed into the house and caught my wife before she began the unpleasant job of rifling through the bowels of a couple days worth of garbage. I told her where I found the knife. We looked at one another in disbelief. We tried to think of some kind of rationale for how it could have ended up in there. Even now when the subject comes up we shake our heads. We're convinced that there is perfectly rational explanation, and yet we're not completely convinced that there wasn't something else at play...something that perhaps we cannot understand.
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