Now live!
Hey bookworms!
Craving a spooky read amid the summer heat? Last Rites is now live and free to read in Kindle Unlimited!
Keep reading below for a peek inside!
Don't let the ancient, dark, long-forgotten words feast on the void of your loneliness...
Excerpt
At last, Eli entered the church. He sank to his knees in the mud, ignoring the churn of earthworms and beetles attempting to escape the torrential rain. Unzipping his backpack, he pulled out the book.
A crashing crescendo of thunder made the earth shudder, trembling beneath him. There was no dry ground in the church, no shelter from the downpour. All he could do was hunch over the book to provide some measure of protection.
Gently, Eli peeled open the cover, turning the pages until he reached the fresh ink he’d written last night.
The words were boiling. Spinning and sliding and sloshing around on the old, yellowed parchment. What happened to the neat lines he’d printed before? What happened to the regimental columns like toy soldiers lined in a tin?
As he watched, the words swirled into a vortex like a whirlpool. Frothing, twisting, until they created a black pit on the page.
Eli lifted his hand—still stained with words marching in ant-like formation up his muddied arm—and placed his palm in the middle of the black pit.
Instead of meeting the musty, raspy surface of aged parchment, he felt slick, oily liquid, cool to the touch. He pushed deeper somehow, well beyond the depth of the book’s pages. He sank further and further, up to his elbow. The black liquid sloshed at the sleeve of his T-shirt, staining the fabric black.
Up close, Eli could make out letters, tumbling and disjointed in the black pit. Like the words had fallen apart and disintegrated to create this sloshing soup.
A gust of wind blasted a wall of rain against Eli. He bent closer to the book.
The sudden urge to taste those black words came over him. What would the ink feel like on his tongue? He wanted the jagged shape of the words melting in his mouth. He knew how to write them—he even had proof that he could do it in his sleep—so they were already burned into his muscle memory.
But that wasn’t enough. He needed to consume them.
Read this snack-sized short story for a taste of some spine-tingling chills this summer!
Happy reading!
Aubrey