Author: E. Seneca

Kickstarter for The Monsters We Forgot

The Kickstarter for the anthology where my new story “It Lives In The Mineshaft” is featured is live! (My story will be in volume 2.) You can pre-order here and if you so choose, contribute to funding. Please share it around to all horror and fantasy lovers you know!

An oppressive summer.

The air is thick with moisture. Breathing deeply is physically painful. The sky is clouded with darkness, promising more water despite the saturated earth below your feet. Water squelches between your toes, and the sand is still loose from the last rain, dull golden grains floating in a pool that refuses to drain.

 

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and even the amphibious wildlife is still in the sodden underbrush, waiting with bated breath for the oncoming storm. The slimy skin of toads glisten, and the rough scales of alligators blend into the murky water beneath the growths hanging suspended, eyes glinting. The smell of salt and decomposing plant life hangs in the air, seeming to plaster itself to your skin with the sheer humidity.

 

You stare wearily at the swollen sky, pregnant with an impending storm, before you melt back into the ground. This place is not fit for human life.

In the October spirit.

There’s a soft rustling at the window. This is normal, commonplace. You don’t turn a hair, don’t look up from the book at your nose. There’s no reason to, and the curtains are drawn, the light low and soft and comfortable. You’re too cozy to make any movements other than turning the page, even lifting your head being too much effort. It’s probably just the neighbor’s cat outside again, the one who keeps leaving dead mice and birds on your back door step; the poor thing is old and perhaps more than a bit forgetful.

There’s another rustle, and a hiss; a sad, wailing meow. It’s enough to make you pause and lift up your head, but you can’t see anything beyond the faint shimmer of the curtains as they waver slightly with the blowing of the air conditioning. It is the neighbor’s cat, isn’t it? Does it want to come inside? Maybe you should go let it in until morning comes, then you can go bring it over tomorrow.

Reluctantly, you stretch out one stiff leg, then another, then fumble for your lost bookmark under the chair. Even more reluctantly, you get to your feet, and that’s when there’s a shrill scratching at the window pane, making you freeze. It doesn’t sound like cat claws, not when it came from the middle of the window.

It’s only a few steps to the window, you tell yourself reasonably, just a few paces. There’s probably nothing there, and even if there is, the glass is thick. Nothing can get inside here. You’re perfectly safe inside the house, right?

With tentative steps, you approach the window, and with a sweaty palm, grip the edge of the curtain. You’re not entirely sure why you’re so nervous; is it because you’re home alone, because it’s so late, because it’s so quiet, because you have the strange and unsettling feeling that there’s something on the other side?

You waver with hesitation where you stand, then muster your courage and yank the curtain aside, peering out into the gloom, beyond the reflection of the lamp on the glass and your own uneasy face.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

You exhale slowly, irrationally annoyed with yourself for this paranoia. You let the curtain flutter back into place and turn back to your chair, only for something to twitch in your periphery on the outside. You pause, but when you look, there’s nothing there either.

There’s nothing, you insist. Nothing. But it suddenly seems like a good idea to turn up all the lights and retreat to the safety of upstairs, for reasons that you don’t want to think about.

There’s another scratching, and your blood turns to ice.

DeadSteam Release Date

DeadSteam Trailer Still

Some updates to share.

First, the release date! October 1st. Pre-orders can be placed on the website now, and for those who use GoodReads, added to your shelf. The anthology will be available both in paperback and hardcover for those who prefer it (I’m partial to hardbacks myself).

And for something else to spread about, here is the brand new book trailer! Please watch and share!

Wet. Rain.

The rattle of the windowpanes with the vibration of thunder; the pitter-patter of raindrops against the glass. The blessed relief from the heat as water soaks into the parched ground. The pound against the rooftop, and the distant, savage snarl of thunder.

Summer may be brutal and oppressive, but the rains alleviate some of the worst. The wilting grasses perk up once more; the weeds flourish and thrive despite one’s best efforts to keep them down. But they are offset by the vibrant green of the leaves and the intensity of the flowers that lift their heads once watered, and the intermittent landing of birds picking at the dirt and cocking a beady eye, be their cries noisy and irritating in the morning.

The sound of rain at night soothes the soul; makes one’s slumber deeper; drowns out the rest of the world and blots out the painful brightness for a short time into a relaxing monotone.

Summer. Hot.

Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that if you’re in the northern hemisphere, as it’s the middle of August. But I suppose it bears repeating: it’s stiflingly hot.

Times like this, one thinks about sitting on the doorstep or edge of the veranda around dusk, to catch the breeze, with a slowly trickling popsicle in one’s mouth, watching the dying rays of the sun sinking down beneath the horizon, perhaps to alleviate the heat if one isn’t blessed by the presence of air conditioning, or merely to feel the softer edge of what one has been hiding from, and the relief to return to the chilly embrace of indoors. Much like removing one’s sunglasses to see the heat shimmer, it can be mildly horrifying yet morbidly fascinating to see what one’s been avoiding.

But–hopefully–soon, the heat and the blaze of the sun will taper off, replaced with cooler breezes and the darkening and shriveling of the leaves as they tumble to the ground to cover the greenery of the grass, or perhaps clog up the gutters of the roads and the roofs, more of a nuisance than a beauty. (Is there such a thing as a beautiful nuisance? Is it possible to find beauty in a nuisance before it’s disposed of?) Hopefully soon, the days will grow shorter, bringing a respite from the blistering sunlight, before it grows too distant and cold during the frigid darkness of winter and we begin to long for its warmth once again.

But that moment of relief in between will be beautiful.