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hopefulfuturenovelauthor · 2 years ago

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A Reunion

Request: Daryl will reunite with my oc in the apocalypse after not seeing each other for years the last time was before she ran away from home from her abusive parents. They were the best of friends they save each other form their abusive parents.

I’m so sorry this took so long and that it is kind of shitty at parts. Life has been a roller coaster this entire year. I started this and then had to come back to it which was difficult and I think you can tell in my writing, but I hope you like at least some part of this.

warning: swearing, violence, abuse, neglect, possibly triggering, canon typical violence, canon typical language.

Growing up in Georgia was fine for me. There were good and bad parts to it, which is an indisputable fact. I had good friends, bad parents; good classes, bad grades; bad food, good hunting skills; and bad people skills, but one damn good best friend.

That was the past though. Now all I got is a small group, traveling north, avoiding the rotters. They ain’t anything special really. They’re all decent people, decent people get dead pretty quick though. They are only alive cause of me. Those lucky little shits would’ve starved to death if not for me.

I can hunt, scavage, kill, whatever the hell kind of survival skill is needed. I do so fairly effortlessly, but I haven’t always been so great at this sort of stuff.

I learned from the best damn shot I’ve ever known. And by shot, I don’t mean from a gun. Nah, those things are far too loud for this day and age.

“Everybody, quiet,” I whispered to my group, slowing down to determine the damn dead thing’s location. I raised my bow and shot at it’s damn head.

“Nice shot,” Edward praised, looking at my handy work.

“Yeah, yeah. Grab the bolt while I reload.” I set up the crossbow again, preparing for more of the dead to come our way.

“We need to find shelter,” Alice pointed out the obvious, “we have maybe one more hour of daylight.”

“There’s this little house Ed and I scouted out earlier, it should work for the night,” Louise suggested.

Edward handed me my bolt and we all continued on our way toward the little house.

We made it before the sun started to fade. Alice heated up some canned soup the group had found under some rubble and handed it out to everyone.

Stephen and Chrissy got the most food, both were still kids that needed the nutrients to grow. Louise got the next largest serving as she is the oldest. Alice, Ed, and I had the least amount out of the group, but it was still a nice bowl full, and we all enjoyed it.

The kids always went to bed first, before one of us adults even thought about closing our eyes. Chrissy was 13 and Stephen was 17. Sometimes we let him help with watch, but most of the time we made sure he stayed with his sister.

“Can we share stories before bed?” Chrissy asked. She always liked hearing about our lives, even the most mundane of things kept her happy, which makes sense based on how we live now.

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Ed replied. I’ll be honest, I’d never known a better parent in my life. He and Alice were real good with their children, especially since Alice wasn’t even Stephen’s real mom. His dad got remarried after his mum died. They were good to their kids. Hell, they let Louise and me stick around and they barely knew us at first. Louise was the pesky old lady down the street, and I was just their non-talkative closed-off neighbor.

Only let us stick around at first cause Louise was old and I’d saved their lives. Now though, I couldn’t think of being anywhere without them. Especially after we lost Matt, that damn idiot put himself in harm's way with a couple of dickhead humans. The idiot couldn’t even fight. We all miss him though, saved the whole lot of us.

“Who’s turn is it this time?” Alice asked.

“It’s miss Y/n’s,” Chrissy jumped up and down from her seat on the floor.

“Well you're right it is,” I said back, smiling at the girl, “but you remember what I said, right kiddo? You can call me just Y/n, the miss isn’t necessary.”

“Okay, Y/n. Can you tell us a story?” She was so sweet I couldn’t help but nod and smile.

“Sure thing kiddo. But what to tell, what to tell. How about a little tale from my childhood, how about that?” The little girl smiled more.

“Okay, well, let's see. I was about your age, 13 soon to be going on 14. I was a stubborn little kid. I never wanted to be stuck inside.” Especially at my home with my parents. “You see I loved the outdoors, it was so freeing, and it was my favorite place to hang out with my best friend.” Daryl Dixon. “Now, my best friend was so interesting, he was the bravest and coolest person I knew. In fact, he taught me how to use that bow over there. I never liked it that much, I much more preferred a bow and arrow to a crossbow, but he loved it with all his heart. He liked to use it to hunt, just like I do for us. He also made the best squirrel stew.

“There was this one day that I had gone out into the woods alone, I just wanted to run around and climb trees. I ended up seeing my best friend on my adventure through the woods. He blamed me for scaring away all the animals with my loud chaotic running. I said sorry and then asked him if he wanted to jump across the creek. He joined me, of course, and we jumped back and forth on the rocks. We did this for hours. Silly me though, jumped and slipped into the water. I stood up, but could barely walk because I twisted my ankle. I was freezing from the water too. My best friend helped me back home though and let me use him as a crutch. It was nice of him to make sure I was okay, but the water had left me so cold that I ended up getting sick for the next couple of days. Thankfully though, I got better in a couple of days and went right back out to the woods to play by the creek. Never sprained my ankle there again though, I learned from the last time.”

Chrissy had already fallen asleep on her brother who looked just about ready to pass out too. I looked over at their parents and offered to take the first watch. They accepted and said thank you with kind smiles. I sat outside on the house's porch and kept lookout for a few hours.

Story time was always great, I loved that it comforted the kids so much, but it was difficult to come up with stories and memories that were okay for them to hear. I ran out of those long before I ever told them that story and most of my others. Eventually, I just came to the conclusion that I would leave out the sad and bitter parts. I didn’t mention that Daryl went hunting because his dad was a drunk that barely worked and his mom died when he was young. I didn’t tell them that my mom had slapped me and thrown me into a wall by my hair when she saw me dripping in the living room with a swollen ankle. My face was yellow for days, one of the main reasons I stayed home from school. My dad wasn’t too awful, it was more the things he said and what he let happen that made him a terrible father. My mom was the one that resorted to physical violence as parenting. My dad just didn’t fucking parent. Hell, he was never fucking there, always somewhere else with another woman by his side.

My inner monologue was paused when I looked up at the sky. I had definitely done at least an extra hour of watch. I got up and woke up Ed, letting him know it was his turn. I decided to turn in, attempting to get a good night's sleep. I never can, it's either nightmares with zombies or nightmares with parents.

***

We made our way further north up along the east coast. We had thought it would make more sense to head more up north in the summer and head back down south in the winter. We lived day by day, with nowhere to stay and no exact location to go. The green vegetation was nice and all. The days were cooler than in the south. We happily enjoyed basking in the sun with the slight breeze. We hopped house to house searching for any leftover goods and resources.

We found one house that for the most part was untouched. Setting up camp we thought sticking around for a couple of days would be good. As we thought, it was. Day one was easy. Day two was nice. Day three was good.

Day four had a speed bump. They had appeared out of nowhere. The hoard came down the street dragging their feet. The grunts and grumbles of the group had all of us staying silent. We hid from windows and blocked as many doors as we could. The adults had their guns raised and the kids kept their weapons close. I had my crossbow ready to shoot anything that came too close.

None of us had suspected the back door to slam open. It was so loud and so sudden we all jumped at the bang.

***

Bang!

The door flung open as my mother dragged our things to her car. She screamed and cried at my drunken father. She had caught him again. It seemed this time she had enough. He stood in the doorway trying to calm her down, but she wouldn’t have it. She was hysterical.

I tried to stop her, but she chucked my small suitcase at me. I stumbled back as I caught it.

“Get in the car, Y/n,” She said. My mother looked back at me standing still, unmoving, “Get in the damn car, Y/n. I ain’t saying that shit again, get in the damn car!”

I scurried over to the trunk, hurriedly putting my things in.

“Y/n?” I turned around. Daryl stood right behind me, his eyes broken and concerned. He reached out to wipe some of the tears I hadn’t even realized I had shed. It was like I flinched away. It wasn’t that I was scared, I was overwhelmed. My body was on overdrive and seemed to have broken down. “Y/n,” Daryl stepped forward again. I retreated again, escaping his touch.

“Please don’t,” I begged.

“Y/n, you don’t got to do nothin. You don’t got to go with her,” he tried to assure me.

“Daryl, it won’t change anything,” I told him.

“Of course, it will,” he said, “You just got to fight this.”

“Daryl, no matter what I do she’ll get custody. My dads a drunk that sleeps with other women. The case will be over before it’s even started.”

“You're 17 Y/n. Fight to be your own adult.”

“Daryl, I don’t have the money or resources to do that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I broke down. He tried to bring me in, to comfort me but I just kept stepping back.

My mother grabbed me and pulled me towards the car. “Don’t you touch her!” Daryl yelled. My mother turned immediately, stepping in front of him.

“What the hell are you going to do about it?”

“She doesn’t want to go with you-“

“Shut up, you disgusting piece of trash. No Dixon kid is going to tell me what I can and can’t do with my daughter. Go run home to your drunk father and your high ass brother you piece of redneck shit.”

“Mom, please, please stop,” I cried more.

She pushed me to the car.

Daryl begged me to stop and to get out, but it was like I couldn’t hear. My ears were ringing and my vision was blurring.

My mother drove me away from the security of the home I once had. It didn’t take long for me to run away from her, but I certainly should have done it sooner. I should have ran from her that day.

***

The door was shut again and then a man ran into the room followed by two others. I moved the kids behind us to hide them from the newcomers who had yet to register us. I raised my bow at the man in front once he turned around, “who the fuck are you?”

“Wow, wow, hold on there. We aren’t here to hurt you.” He held up his hands, and the man and woman behind him did the same.

“Now that’s not what I asked,” I said before holding my bow up higher, “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Aaron, okay, I’m Aaron.”

I steadied my grip, “Okay, Aaron, you and your friends following us?”

“No, no, we were just doing a run, gathering supplies, that’s all.”

“Why should I believe you?” I asked.

“My bag. My bag has a list of what we came out here to get, I swear.”

“Take it off. And don’t open it or anything, just toss it on the ground.”

The man reached to remove his bag and dropped it in front of him with a thump.

“Hands back up,” I told him while Ed grabbed the bag. Ed opened it up revealing a bag of canned goods and the equivalent of an apocalypse grocery list.

“Where you from?” I asked.

“We can’t tell you that,” the woman said. She looked ready to attack if something went wrong or if I decided to shoot. She may not have been holding her weapon, but the sword on her back would certainly slaughter the group.

“Aaron, Michonne, let me handle this,” the man in the back tentatively took a step forward. “My name is Rick. Look, we have a community and food if you want some, but we have people waiting for us back at home. We don’t want any trouble, alright?”

“No, not alright. I still want to know why the hell you are here. There were plenty of houses on this street. I’m not one to believe in god damn coincidences, so why the fuck were you following us?”

“We swear, we didn’t know you were here. This one just seemed safest. The doors were locked and the windows were shut and covered,” Rick explained.

“Mommy, are they going to hurt us?” Chrissy asked. I stiffened up while Rick and his group faltered.

“We don’t know sweetheart,” Alice replied, “just stay behind us.”

“You, you have kids with you?” Rick asked.

Suddenly defensive again you stepped closer to the man readjusting your aim, “yeah we do, so don’t think I won’t shoot you if I find it goddamn necessary.”

“How many walkers have you killed?” He asked.

“Excuse me?” I questioned.

“Rick-“ the woman seemed to be trying to stop him.

“How many zombies have you killed?” Aaron spoke.

I fell back a little, barely lowering my bow, “this is initiation, isn’t it? We answer your questions, you think of letting us in right?”

“Yes,” Rick nodded.

“How safe is your community?” I asked while looking back at my group.

“We have walls surrounding the houses we stay at,” Aaron offered.

“How much food you got typically?”

“Enough to feed everyone if we keep searching and farming,” Rick responded.

“You got kids at this place?”

“Yes,” Rick said.

“More than I can count,” I replied.

“What?” Rick questioned.

“Zombies, I’ve killed more than I can count.”

***

We all sat inside, eating some of what we could. It was night, but everyone was reluctant to sleep. Chrissy was the only one of us that felt safe enough to do so.

“How long have you guys been traveling together?” Rick asked.

“Basically from the start,” I replied, glancing at our group, “we don’t really let people in. It’s dangerous.”

Michonne nodded, “yeah, but it’s nice when it works out. Rick let me in even when I showed up and Aaron let us in when we made our way around here.”

“Yeah, we had one person join us. He died though. He was a good guy and a good friend,” I said.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Aaron responded.

“It’s fine, can’t keep thinking back to that. You guys a got a lot of people I’m guessing if you got walls and all?”

“Yeah, quite a bit,” Aaron chuckled, “even have a hot-headed archer like you.”

“He’s not wrong,” Rick smiled.

“Nah, I ain’t hot-headed, just protective.”

“He is too,” Michonne commented.

“You good with that thing?” Rick asked.

“Yeah, been using it most my life,” I told him.

“Good, we could use more hunters,” he said back.

“I’ll help any way I can.”

***

An hour after the sun came up we started our walk to their community, Alexandria. A unique name for a unique place. It wasn’t too far from the house we had squatted in the night before. The others in my group even became a little more comfortable with the group we had met just the day before. Alice and Ed, with Chrissy stuck between them, talked to Rick more than the other two because he also had a kid back at the community. Louise remained next to Aaron asking him questions about housing and the people there. Stephan and I walked together with Michonne. We talked simply about weapons and the defenses of the people in the town. I even asked if there was a classic bow at the weapons facility, explaining that it was my preferred weapon of choice.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we reached the walls of Alexandria. Rick and Michone walked in front while Aaron stayed in the back with us. They let us in easily. Others at the gate even came down to welcome us to the community. A woman named Rosa made her way to welcome us. The others happily smiled and conversed with the others, but I remained behind scouting out the area that was deemed safe. Sadly, with the life I have lived I always thought of something so spectacular as too good to be true.

More people came over to introduce themselves. It allowed others to give their introductions.

“Rick, you get the medicine?” A gruff voice just too familiar made my heart soar and then sink all in the same moment.

“Yeah, I got the pain killers and cold medicine should be enough good enough to keep us stocked till the end of winter.”

I stepped to the side to look at who Rick was speaking to. He looked different of course. The apocalypse had changed him, but at the same time he looked more like himself than he had ever before. I guess the biggest difference would be his hair which was now shoulder length.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered out, “Daryl.”

The archer looked toward me, his head turning faster than it did when he would hunt squirrels for me.

He breathed out my name, only staring. The second he took one step forward I moved quickly wrapping my arms around him.

“Holy shit, Daryl,” a few tears escaped my eyes as I pressed my face into his shoulder. Daryl wrapped his arms around me in return, reciprocating the hug.

“Y/n,” he mumbled into the fabric of my shirt as his hands grasped it. The hug we shared was one of desperate relief. I didn’t want to let go and it was clear that he felt the same.

It wasn’t until a little hand tugged at the hem of my shirt that I returned to what was going on around me. “Y/n,” Chrissy’s small voice pulled me out of focus which had been on Daryl.

Slowly I pulled myself away from the archer and kneeled down next to Chrissy. “Hey there little one,” I smiled kindly at the young girl.

“Is that him?” she asked with big round eyes.

“What do you mean sweetheart?”

“He’s the friend you had when you were a kid. He had a crossbow just like you said he did,” she pointed at the weapon Daryl hand strapped to his back.

“Oh um,” the little girl's perception was impressive and caught me off guard, “that’s my childhood best friend, Daryl Dixon.”

Edward and Alice both stepped forward and extended their hands to Daryl. Through all of this, both of them remained very civilized and polite people. I honestly found it impressive that they kept insisting their children be just as polite. Hell, I even made sure that they all knew when being polite wouldn’t help them in this life. “Hi Mr. Dixon, Y/n has told us so much about you,” Alice told him as he returned the handshake.

Daryl took Edward’s hand next and gave it a firm shake. “It’s true,” Edward chuckled and released Daryl’s hand. Edward turned to everyone and introduced our whole group. It was actually quite a shock to realize that Daryl seemed to talk about me with his group about as much as I talked about him with mine.

“You’re the oh so fantastic Y/n L/n?” Rosa asked with a teasing smirk on her face as she walked over to you, “he wasn’t exactly wrong when he described what you looked like, but you are definitely more badass than he led us to believe.”

“Yeah, I assure you that only has to do with the shitty circumstances of present day life.”

“I must say, you do not disappoint,” Rick joked, smiling my way as he clasped Daryl’s shoulder.

I laughed, and watched Daryl as his face remained tinted red. Of all people, I would know when Daryl Dixon could get a little flustered.

“You most certainly have a reputation to live up to,” Aaron added, “but I doubt that’ll be an issue for the incredible Y/n.”

“Wow, Dixon. You really talked me up, didn’t you?”

“Oh my god,” Rosa beamed, “Carol has to meet her.”

***

Settling into one of the many houses was pretty easy seeing as I didn’t have much with me anyway. We were able to find a house just big enough for our whole group. Well, I would be taking the couch till I was certain we were safe, but I wasn’t planning on leaving them all by themselves anytime soon.

Speaking of not leaving them, the group had accepted going to the welcome party for all of us. Though social situations aren’t my favorite, it would feel wrong not to keep an eye on my group and meet Daryl’s friends. According to the ones I had met, it was necessary for me to interact with Carol at some point tonight at the very least.

The party seemed fine, but it was never my thing. I didn’t care much for social gatherings. I never had, seeing as it was only ever me and Daryl. I escaped to the back deck with some lovely homemade alcohol in hand. It seemed that someone had noticed. Another person had joined me. She smiled slightly at me, like I was familiar to her but she didn’t want to scare me off.

“Hi, your Y/n, right?” she asked as if she already knew.

I nodded and smiled back, “you must be Carol.”

“Oh, yeah, I am,” she chuckled a bit, “this is honestly a little awkward, seeing as I know so much about you but you know so little about me.”

“Trust me, it’s fine, really. My group knows all about our favorite bowsman. The kids always loved to hear stories and the ones with Daryl were always a hit” I sipped from the glass I held loosely in my hand.

“Daryl would always tell stories about you too. He started telling them to Carl and Judith. But with time he spoke about you because he enjoyed it. He always shared funny little stories. He told a great one about that time you both tricked Merle and soaked him in mud.”

A genuine laugh escaped me, “I remember that, we stole the keys to his truck and splattered the shit all over him. God, he was so pissed. He made me wash his truck and made Daryl do his laundry for a week so that he wouldn’t tell. It was fucking worth it though.”

“You seem like a good person,” it was a sudden statement that caught me by surprise. She was assertive with her words, but it came out almost disappointed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I questioned.

“I’m sorry, it’s just. Around all of them he shared all the good things, but,” she stopped for a moment, “but without the others around he shared the bad. He had nightmares consistently. He worried about you constantly. It was hard for me to see him holding on so hard to someone who had left.” She took a sip of her own drink.

I leaned back, “you wanted someone you could blame, someone to be angry at for hurting him, for haunting him.”

“Yes,” she admitted solemnly, “but I’ve heard about your group and how you take care of them-“

“We take care of each other.”

“Yes, I understand that, I just mean that you protect them, you provide for them, you keep them safe. They are a responsibility, and you care for them deeply, just like you care for Daryl.”

“I was 17. I was a kid. I didn’t know anything and I didn’t know any better. I didn’t just leave. You think I never wanted to escape. I had a bag packed, filled with water, crackers, cash, and clothes in the back of my closet when I was 12. My mom found it a year later. She asked me why I had it. I told her the truth and the next day I went to school with half of a swollen face and bruises. I asked Daryl to run away with me everyday for a year. Age 14 to 15 and he always said no. He stayed for Merle. I stayed for him. I lost all hope after that one year. I was desperate and alone. So I left and then immediately left her behind. I had to get out. He just didn’t want to come with.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” she seemed sincere enough.

“He didn’t know either. I mean, I grew up. I got to her size, but she was prepared. She could hurt me however she wanted because if I didn’t let her, if I didn’t listen to her she was going to destroy the Dixon’s. Merle kept selling drugs, even after probation. She knew what their dad did to them. Daryl would have been left with nothing. The second we left that town, she had no leverage over me anymore.”

“Daryl doesn’t know any of that, does he?” she seemed taken aback by the new information I had told her.

“Not unless my dad offered it up, which is highly doubtful.”

“You should tell him.”

“And say what? Not a day went by that I didn’t miss him. But I couldn’t go back,” I turned toward Carol, “you seem to be a genuinely good person as well. I just need time, and I think he does too.”

“Take all the time you need,” Carol placed her hand on my shoulder before returning to the party. I quickly drank the rest of my beverage and joined my group. They all smiled at my arrival while Daryl watched from the sidelines with an unreadable expression on his face.

#daryl dixion imagine #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl imagines #twd #twd x reader #the walking dead #the walking dead x reader #rick grimes #michonne #twd carol

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vintage1981 · 4 years ago

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George Romero’s The Living Dead Out Soon from Tor Books

“A horror landmark and a work of gory genius.”—Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman

New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus completes George A. Romero's brand-new masterpiece of zombie horror, the massive novel left unfinished at Romero's death!

George A. Romero invented the modern zombie with Night of the Living Dead, creating a monster that has become a key part of pop culture. Romero often felt hemmed in by the constraints of film-making. To tell the story of the rise of the zombies and the fall of humanity the way it should be told, Romero turned to fiction. Unfortunately, when he died, the story was incomplete.

Enter Daniel Kraus, co-author, with Guillermo del Toro, of the New York Times bestseller The Shape of Water (based on the Academy Award-winning movie) and Trollhunters (which became an Emmy Award-winning series), and author of The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch (an Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year). A lifelong Romero fan, Kraus was honored to be asked, by Romero's widow, to complete The Living Dead.

Set in the present day, The Living Dead is an entirely new tale, the story of the zombie plague as George A. Romero wanted to tell it.

It begins with one body.

A pair of medical examiners find themselves battling a dead man who won’t stay dead.

It spreads quickly.

In a Midwestern trailer park, a Black teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family. On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic makes a new religion out of death. At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting while his undead colleagues try to devour him. In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.

Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

We think we know how this story ends.

We. Are. Wrong.

Tor Books

Tor/Forge

On Sale: 08/04/2020

ISBN: 9781250305121

656 Pages

George A. Romero’s (1940-2017) classic zombie movie cycle begins with the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, which are followed by four sequels. Romero directed two Stephen King projects, Creepshow and The Dark Half, and created the TV series Tales From the Darkside. Originally from New York City, Romero attended Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. He and his wife, Suzanne, lived in Toronto for over 10 years. George A. Romero died in 2017.

Daniel Kraus is the author of numerous novels, including Rotters, the Death and Life of Zebulon Finch duology, and Bent Heavens. With Guillermo del Toro, he wrote the New York Times bestselling The Shape of Water (the companion novel to the Academy Award-winning film) and Trollhunters (the inspiration for the Netflix series). His novels have been Odyssey Award winners, Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Parent’s Choice Gold Award winners, Bram Stoker finalists, and more. He lives with his wife in Chicago.

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tallstales · 4 years ago

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Day 4 Books (13 Days of Halloween)

There are so many books perfect for reading in the fall. Many people read with Halloween in mind at this time of year and I happen to be one of them from about July through mid November. At this time of year, we gravitate towards Stephen King and now Joe Hill or the latest big name. Sometimes we forget about the classics that started it all or we don’t think to look in our own backyard for new favorites.

Today I’m going to share a list of 13 of my favorite spooky classics mixed in with brand new hits on my to read list. And as a bonus, I’m including a list of Rhode Island authors of Supernatural fiction, Mysteries, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Thriller, and more to keep you enthralled as we get closer to Halloween.

Let’s check them out!

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

For those who know me well, they know the special love I have for The haunting of Hill House. Last year I even got the crazy opportunity to direct the play at the Rhode Island Stage Ensemble because they knew of my crazy obsession. I might talk about this book too much. That being said, I will keep it brief today. Read it! Go! No, you have not experienced it through Netflix or even the play. They’re wonderful, amazing interpretations, but they are very different.

To truly know Hill House and the people staying there to study it, you need to read this book and get trapped in the mind of its not quite reliable narrator.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Speaking of Netflix, on this list is another psychological haunted house thriller that has just been made into a streaming hit in The Haunting of Bly Manor.

The Turn of the Screw is a short but not so sweet story with an atmosphere of slowly growing tension. This is a great quick read for a rainy day home alone to get your nerves just the right amount of frayed for when the trick or treaters start knocking.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Another classic is the travelogue Dracula! With any other title, people would question how a travel journal could be scary, but Dracula needs no introduction. If anything, time and popular culture has added so much to this story that when we go back and look at the original tale we are terrified all over again by the simplicity of atmosphere and characterization over props, costumes, and all the other added layers.

There’s a scary bit of truth to this tale as well, one that even connects back to Rhode Island! Did you know that Bram Stoker was inspired by the story of Mercy Brown? Yes, news of her tragedy and horrific exhumation made it all the way to London! Stay tuned this week for our 13 Haunted RI Tales for more on Mercy.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

While we’re in the Victorian Era and talking about classic monsters, we can’t forget about Frankenstein’s monster! This is another one that’s been taken apart and put back together by so many different writers, directors, and actors that we forget how terrifying the original is.

What really makes this story stand the test of time even past the language changes that can make other stories written in the same period slog along, is Shelley’s understanding of human nature.

We all question the meaning of life and death and Frankenstein has a way of helping our imagination come up with the most terrifying answers.

Edgar Allan Poe

How could we discuss Horror classics without the twisted tales of Edgar Allan Poe? I can’t even pick a single story to discuss for this list, just trust me and get a collection of his stories if you don’t already own one. You won’t be disappointed.

Haunted houses? Evil animals? Disease? Death? Human Nature? Poe has covered all of the best horror tropes and even invented a few himself. If I had to choose a favorite to start with… one that sticks with me and makes me shudder to even think about is The Lighthouse. It’s the rats. They get me everytime and unlike the suspense they bring in The Pit and the Pendulum, the rats in The Lighthouse just bring terror and an overall sense of disgust. Happy reading!

His Hideous Heart Edited by Dahlia Adler

While we’re on the subject of the laste, great E.A.P. I bring you a fairly recent edition to his fandom.

His Hideous Heart is an anthology put together by 13 well known YA authors for a new, contemporary audience. Edgar Allan Poe may be gone, but his works and their themes have stayed with us and in our classrooms with a love their surprising and unsettling nature.

Contributors include Dahlia Adler (reimagining “Ligeia”), Kendare Blake (“Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), amanda lovelace (“The Raven”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Continuing to move forward in time, I find myself thinking of Ray Bradbury. Bradbury has a wonderful way of slowly seeping discontent into the reader but with Something Wicked he seems to put pedal to the metal.

This is the only book on my list to feature a nightmarish carnival and Bradbury might be why. I somehow walked away without a fear of clowns or carnivals but reading about them… still gives me the heebie jeebies. Now that I think about it, this book might have something to do with why mirrors creep me out too.

Readers be warned. Something Wicked This Way Comes has all the marks of a beautifully written coming of age tale, but the themes stick with you like a shadow well into adulthood.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

If you haven’t read this book, you have definitely heard of it. That book with the weird typography, with the backwards words and print in the margins and all that weird stuff? Yes, it’s House of Leaves and “all that weird stuff” makes for one exciting and unsettling ride. People I give this book two either firmly LOVE it or HATE it, but I recommend it today because 8 out of 10 are on the love side and passing around their copies to others because it’s hard not too.

As you read, you follow two stories. The main story is about the Navidson family moving into a new home where some very strange things begin to happen. The second story takes place in the footnotes where we follow a man named Johnny as he finds, reads and obsesses over the first story which is referred to in the book as The Navidson Record. Now, I have set out with the mission of not spoiling anything for anyone today, especially since most the books on this list are of the thriller or suspense genre so I will stop here, but know I really, really want to tell you everything that happens and everything I think of it! Go read this crazy work of art and message me. We’ll talk.

Twelve Nights at Rotter House by J.W. Ocker

I said it earlier and I’ll say it again, I have a soft spot for a good haunted house. Now, haunted by people or haunted by spirits… I think both are the best kind. Those who have started reading my series The Monsters Within can probably guess that I love the “Humans are the Monsters” horror trope. And, well, nothing brings out the monsters in humans faster than the particular fear that comes with staying in a haunted house. Or at least, a house perceived to be haunted where your mind can play such glorious tricks on you.

Twelve Nights at Rotter House is admittedly slow to start, but I like and recommend this title because that slow pace is there for a reason. We get comfortable when nothing much is happening, when the pace is slow and friendly. I think it makes everything that comes next that much more exciting. Give it a chance and let me know what you think.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

The Twisted Ones is a delicious cocktail of Suspense, Thriller, Horror fiction, Psychological Fiction, Occult Fiction. It’s everything I wanted M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village to be when the trailers came out back in 2004 and everything it wasn’t for me. Add into it the the main character is cleaning a hoarder’s house in the woods… yeah! Sold, this is creepy and gross and sets off all my alarms, I’m reading it with ALL the lights on.

And somehow, through not being able to put it down and finding myself breathlessly speed reading , I still found time to laugh. There are these little gems in the main character’s personality and the story telling that are so relatable and likeable that it adds an effortless humor on top of the effortless horror. This is the only work I’ve read by this author, but she is absolutely on my follow list and I hope she makes yours as well.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Some might recognise the name Leigh Bardugo from popular YA fantasies but fear not (or do for that matter) Bardugo can write the hell out of terrifying adult themes. Ninth House is almost impossible to out down in its fast paced, constantly twisting and turning mystery and terrifying ghost story.

[Now, I feel the need to mention before we move on that this is an award winning piece and it is loved by too many to count, BUT if you are on my blog then you may be here because I write about mental health and mental illness and all the emotions dark and light that come with psychology. I try my best to do so in an educated and realistic way that relates back to what I’m going through with good intentions. I try my absolute best to write realistically without including triggers. That being said, as someone who has mental health issues, this story did trigger me. Did I still enjoy the read and do I think you would too, absolutely! I wouldn’t have it on my list otherwise. But if you have anxiety, depression, ptsd, or are overcoming assault you may want to do some further research into the adult topics of this novel before reading. Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments regarding this topic. Thank you.]

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Moving into this year’s releases there is the ever popular The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. This is another one that seamlessly works in some brilliant comedy into the spooky plot.

Some have compared this to Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula and I’d just like to throw in Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the cherry on that brilliant summary sundae.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

I had the pleasure of studying under Emily Danforth while going after my BA in Writing at Rhode Island College. At that point, she had just published The Miseducation of Cameron Post and I was completely enamored. That being said, I have kept up with her writing and oh man am I glad because Plain Bad Heroines was GREAT!

There are so few great additions to their horror genre that I just want to paste gold stars all over this beautifully written, funny, sexy, and utterly disturbing coming of age hit. I hope you love it as much as I did and if you do, be sure to review! This book is brand spanking new and new book sales depend on reviews to help audiences find them. Get out there and post what you liked or even what you didn’t about everything you read. In the end, even negative reviews help new readers find something they will enjoy.

Supernatural/Paranormal

Lorne J. Therrian Sr.

Jeanine Duval Spikes

Alexander Smith

Elizabeth Splaine

D. R. Perry

Sheryl Lynn Kimball

Lisa Jacob

Paul & Ben Eno

Christine Depetrillo

Roland Comtois

Daniel Cano

J. C. Brown

Horror

Alexander Smith

H.P. Lovecraft Lisa Jacob

Christa Carmen

Science Fiction

Rachel Menard

Tabitha Lord

R. K. Bentley

Fantasy

J. Michael Squatrito, Jr.

Lorne J. Therrian Sr.

Angelina Singer

Scott William Simmons

C. K. Sholly

Heather Rigney

Rachel Menard

Paul Magnan

M. A. Guglielmo

Heather Dunn

Susan Catalano

A. Keith Carreiro

Daniel Cano

Noel Anne Brennan

Tim Baird

Mystery

Anne-Marie Sutton

Elizabeth Splaine

Dusty Pembroke

Risa Nyman

Rick Marchetti

Jean Kelly

Sam Kafrissen

Ilhy

Daniel Currier

Judy Boss

Julien Ayotte

Thriller

Heather Rigney

Glede Browne

Judy Boss

David Boiani

David Aiello

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THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING AND BEST OF LUCK!

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xhxhxhx · 5 years ago

Photo

I removed some books today.

I think of myself as a minimalist, but that doesn’t happen to be true. I have acquired more books than I will ever read. They still sit, stacked and unreachable, in piles by the walls, two dozen books tall and sometimes two books deep.

I don’t think I know where they all came from. I think more came from online than from any physical store. I bought them from Abebooks, the sales search platform that Amazon owns now. Abebooks tell you the names of the sellers, but they seem unconnected to any real place.

From Better World Books. From Thrift Books and Bookbarn. From Silver Arch Books, Motor City Books, Free State Books, Sierra Nevada Books, Yankee Clipper Books, and the Atlanta Book Company. From Green Earth Books and Housing Works Books. From Goldstone Books and Powell’s Books and Kennys Bookshop and Art Galleries. From Satellite Books and the Orchard Bookshop. From Blue Cloud Books and Hippo Books and Wonder Book.

They’re from all over, from places you’ve never been, places you’ll never be. They’re names on a box. But then there are the books from more intimate places, intimately connected

From library’s old bookstore, which sold paperbacks for fifty cents, hardcovers for a dollar. From the basement of the old independent bookstore down on Front Street, where they sold remaindered and overstocked books marked down with red-orange tape. From the thrift store across the street, which charged too much.

From the Chapters at the mall in your hometown, or the Chapters and Indigo in the places you’ve been to, from the shelves of marked-down items where you looked for bargains, for the books you knew you should read, and all the books you never would. Places where you could drink sweet cream and coffee and pretend to read.

From the Borders in Syracuse, where you idled while the family went to the fair, where they always said they were going to build the largest mall in America, but never did. There was another Borders in South Florida, where they were stripping fixtures from the walls because the books had not sold, and so the Borders had to be. They still have bookstores. I’m not sure what they sell now. Postcards, I think.

The books still in my room had postcards from people I will never know, dedications to people I will never see, business cards from people who have moved on to other work. But their spines are unbroken, their pages unmarked. I guess I wanted them that way. I bought them like that.

I sometimes worried they would break through the floor. I would wake up to the collapse of everything I have ever owned as I plummeted a few short feet to my death. I guess it would probably take longer than that. I would have to wait for them to crush me. That mass of books would fall on me, blotting out the light. Crushed beneath nearly everything I have ever owned.

That’s what happened to the clerk Toshiko Sasaki in John Hershey’s Hiroshima, who was seated at her desk on August 6, 1945, in front of a couple of bookcases from the factor library:

Everything fell, and Miss Sasaki lost consciousness. The ceiling dropped suddenly and the wooden floor above collapsed in splinters and the people up there came down and the roof above them gave way; but principally and first of all, the bookcases right behind her swooped forward and the contents threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted and breaking underneath her. There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.

Miss Sasaki made out alright, although not so well as to not ask the question “If your God is so good and kind, how can he let people suffer like this?” But then, I have more books than she did.

I removed some books today. I still have more I want to remove. I just don’t have the boxes for them. I took the boxes I did have in the back of my car to a mass-market thrift store, where they will end up on the shelves by the leather jackets.

Perhaps they will end on some other shelf, like a postcard from somewhere unknown, in someone else’s memory. But I don’t think they will. I don’t think they’ll sell. There aren’t enough people here who spend money pretending to read.

I don’t know what will happen to them. I suppose they will pulp them. Or perhaps they will end in a landfill, crushed beneath their own weight, suffocating beneath the earth we have made for them until life reclaims them.

I wrote out a partial list of the books I threw out. I don’t know what it says about me. There’s a double significance here: These are books I bought, for some amount of money, but these are also books I am throwing away, because I asked the question the woman told me to ask, which was whether they sparked joy, and I answered no.

Those books in the photo are the books that have not yet been thrown away. Here, below the fold, are the books that have:

Judith Fitzgerald’s Sarah McLachlan: Building a Mystery

Mordecai Richler’s Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!

Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club

Misha Glenny’s McMafia

Joinville and Villehardouin’s Chronicles of the Crusades

Michael Ignatieff’s The Lesser Evil

Russell Dalton’s Citizen Politics in Western Democracies: Public Opinion and Political Parties in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, and France

Richard Finn’s Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan

Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi

Fox Butterfield’s China: Alive in the Bitter Sea

Anthony Sampson’s The Changing Anatomy of Britain

Masanori Hashimoto’s The Japanese Labor Market in a Comparative Perspective with the United States

Donald Keene’s Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era: Poetry, Drama, Criticism

Andrei Shleifer’s Without a Map: Political Tactics and Economic Reform in Russia

Peter Newman’s The Secret Mulroney Tapes

Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital

Lesley Downer’s The Brothers: The Hidden World of Japan’s Richest Family

Harold Vogel’s Entertainment Industry Economics

Stephen Goldsmith and William D. Eggers’s Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector

Donald Harman Akenson, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus

Philip Ziegler’s King Edward VIII

David Wessel’s In FED We Trust

Robert Dallek’s Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961--1973

David Halberstam’s The Reckoning

David Bell’s The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It

Kevin Phillips’s The Cousins’ Wars

Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Adventures of Immanence

Michael Oren’s Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Lawrence McDonald’s A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

Richard Posner’s The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy

William Chester Jordan’s Europe in the High Middle Ages

William Cohan’s House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

Bryan Burrough and John Helyar’s Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

Linda Lear’s Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature

Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

Allan Brandt’s The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America

Garry Wills’s Head and Heart: American Christianities

Sarah Bradford’s Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain’s Queen

Andrew Gordon’s The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853--1955

John Ardagh’s France in the New Century: Portrait of a Changing Society

Bob Woodward’s The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House

John Julius Norwich’s Byzantium: The Early Centuries

Taylor Branch’s Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963--65

Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker

Tim Blanning’s The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648--1815

Robert Fagles’s translation of Virgil’s The Aeneid

Karl Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism

P. D. Smith’s Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon

Richard Rhodes’s Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race

Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street Years

Alistair Horne’s Harold Macmillan, 1957--1986

Taylor Branch’s The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President

Ian Kershaw’s Hitler, 1936--1945: Nemesis

David Grossman’s To the End of the Land

Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

Philipp Blom’s The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900--1914

Jacob M. Schlesinger’s Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan’s Postwar Political Machine

Peter Jenkins’s Mrs. Thatcher’s Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era

Martin Lawrence’s Iron Man: The Defiant Reign of Jean Chrétien

Marin Lawrence’s Chrétien: The Will to Win

Alastair Campbell’s The Blair Years

Tony Blair’s A Journey

David Kennedy’s Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America

Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End

Kate McCafferty’s Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl

Martin Wolf’s Why Globalization Works

Charles Fishman’s The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works -- and How It’s Transforming the American Economy

William Easterly’s The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

Karel van Wolferen’s The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation

Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime

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