Passing Time: Nine Short Tales of the Strange and Macabre
Today I am delighted to welcome the 'out of this world,' Ellie Garratt.
Ellie is here to tell us all about her new ebook PASSING TIME. Congratulations!
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Don't you just love this cover? |
BOOK BLURB
Nine dark fiction stories that may just give you nightmares.
A man lives to regret Passing Time. A father will do anything to save his son in Expiration Date. An author finds out her worst nightmare is back in The Devil’s Song. A woman gets more than the claim fee when she takes out vampire insurance in Luna Black.
In Dining in Hell, the Death Valley Diner becomes the wrong place to stop.
A serial killer wants to add another file to his collection in The Vegas Screamer. In Eating Mr. Bone, an undertaker could meet an unfortunate end. A con man meets his first ghost in Land of the Free. And will truth finally be set free in The Letter?
Excerpt from Eating Mr. Bone
When I entered the room, a female colleague let out a gasp and hurried away.
Something was wrong, and that something made itself clear the moment I gazed upon my reflection in the mirror. Gone was my silver-white hair. Instead a dull, lifeless mat of grey had replaced it. My eyes were cloudy and lacked their usual vibrancy, and like Hilary, small mottled patches had appeared on my neck and face. I turned my attention to my hands, and they too had taken on this new hideous complexion. It seemed I had aged twenty years in just one morning.
And there was the same smell of rotting food.
I turned away from the mirror and thought of one person–Mr. Bone. Was this his final gift to me–a perverse present for my retirement? I decided he would not be allowed to get away with it. He’d taken enough from me over the last fifty years. I’d done as he’d instructed, working under his rules and those of his father before him since leaving school. No longer.
It was early afternoon and Mr. Bone was a creature of habit. He would be cleaning the show coffins for the afternoon’s appointments.
I entered the show room with its dozen display models. Mr. Bone was hunched over his favourite, the deluxe mahogany coffin, thumping his fist to his abdomen in repeated movements. I walked up to him, prepared to spew a torrent of pent-up emotion in his direction, but as he turned towards me he pointed to his throat. His face was scarlet and his lips blue, and I realised from the rasping sounds he emitted, he was choking. He reached out his arms towards me, begging me to save him.
I admit I was tempted to leave him to suffocate, but the desire was beaten by an overwhelming urge to use the Heimlich Manoeuvre–I did not need a first-aid course to teach me such a simple first-aid technique.
Stepping behind him, I placed both arms around his torso and clasped them together before pulling inward and upward with as much force as I could maintain. His breath crackled as the object obstructing his airway moved and then flew out of his mouth. He began gasping mouthfuls of air, but I continued the Heimlich Manoeuvre. I could not stop.
About The Author
A life-long addiction to reading science fiction and horror, meant writing was the logical outlet for Ellie Garratt’s passions. She is a reader, writer, blogger, Trekkie, and would happily die to be an extra in The Walking Dead. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and online. Passing Time is her first eBook collection and contains nine previously published stories. Her science fiction collection Taking Time will be published later in the year.
Book Links
Amazon.com
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