Spots by Stephen Helmes

ATTENTION HORROR FANS! Stephen Helmes here. My new book From 12 to 6 (More Nightly Visits) is set for release at midnight on July 5th. In celebration of its upcoming release, I have decided to post one of my favorite short stories from it. The complete story is right here if you’d like a taste of the new Nightly Visits. Just click the link to Lisa’s Writopia and enjoy “Spots.” This story is absolutely free so click the link, read it, tell a friend to read it, share it all you want, and please let me know what you think. Most important, enjoy it! It’s about a 20-minute read, so put on your rubber gloves and your germ mask and enjoy “Spots.”

 

Spots cover by Stephen HelmesThe place was crawling with filth. He’d already washed his cereal bowl and spoon. He put them both away just as he did every morning, but that damn counter. Its bright, solid white surface showed everything. No wonder no one came around, besides Mannie that is.

Jacob took one of his new cloths from the plastic pack and grabbed the disinfectant cleaner from the shelf under the matching white island. He began spraying the surfaces. After wiping them down, he folded the cloth and pressed it tightly into the creased edges and followed along the wall, digging out the muck hiding in the tightest of tight places.

He looked at his watch. It was almost time for her to show up. She hadn’t said that she was coming today, but she didn’t make it yesterday. The idea of her missing two visits in a row was unheard of. And this place looking the way it did was even more unheard of. It was not a good time for a casual visit. That much was certain.

But he did like her visits. There were times this lonely apartment tried to get the best of him. Sure, he had his television. He loved watching Jeopardy, and occasionally he’d stumble across a good documentary that would catch his attention. But the television couldn’t take the place of human contact. He’d lost most of that when he moved to Madison Springs nearly four years ago. Looking back, he didn’t know what possessed him to move here in the first place. He had no family here and no one he knew; so why did he move here? Oh yes, it was because there was no family here and no one he knew.

His brother had called a few times since he left the fine city of Bryson, but his mother and father had never lifted the receiver, not even once, to check on him. The time between his brother’s calls grew more and more distant until they’d finally stopped all together. But it didn’t matter. If he wanted to talk to them, he wouldn’t have left Bryson in the first place. All was quiet on the western front, or in this case, the eastern front.

Mannie had once brought up getting him a dog, but he quickly shoved the idea away. It was hard enough keeping the place clean without an animal multiplying his work by fifty or maybe even a hundred if it wasn’t trained for indoors. Besides, her occasional, and sometimes daily, visits were enough to keep him from going insane and talking to the shadows.

He squatted, bringing his eyes down even with the countertop, and looked as the morning sun shone through the window. The sunlight reflected across its somewhat clean surface. At least it looked better. But the floor! Every footprint that he left was like a ghost, haunting him, reminding him that it was time to clean that kitchen.

He reached into the broom closet to pull out the mop and a disposable wipe, along with a spray bottle of ammonia. He began spraying the floor as he walked backward toward the living room entrance and then carefully made his way back across the slippery floor to the mop. That’s when the knock came at the door. It was Mannie. She never once thought of showing him the courtesy of being a few minutes late.

Jacob leaned the mop against the island and headed into the living room.

He opened the door. There she stood in her black, silky flowered top that he had bought online for her a couple of weeks back. The neon green stems wrapped around the bright red peonies pattern like the legs of a spider webbing its next meal. Those bright colors against the blackest of black silks offered the protection of never being run over by a car while crossing the street. Her round face and nerd-framed glasses seemed to work well together in creating the perfect geek. Her smile and frizzy hair only complemented a personality that was almost as colorful as her new shirt. Its vibrant colors made her almost pretty, but not quite.

Jacob stepped back, opening the door wide. “Come inward,” he said and motioned her in with his hand.

She took two steps in and then a quick step back. She squinted, turned her head to the side, and began fanning her hand in front of her face. “Good lord!” she screamed. The potent fume of ammonia invaded her nostrils like the vapors of a gas chamber. “What are you trying to do, peel the paint off the walls?”

“You caught me cleaning,” Jacob said and quickly closed the door behind her.

“Cleaning? You’re going to kill yourself is what you’re going to do!”

She walked into the kitchen and picked up the mop.

I’ll do that,” Jacob said. He held his hand out to her.

“No, you do whatever else you need to get done, and I’ll take care of this. If I know you, you’ll be working on this apartment all day, and I won’t get a bit of your attention.”

~

Forty-five minutes later, Mannie fell onto the couch, red-faced and exhausted. “That’s it! All done!” Her body was splattered across the center of the couch like the shot from a paintball gun.

“Yeah, I just need to-”

“No,” Mannie interrupted. “You’re finished too.” She patted the cushion next to her. “Come sit down.”

“But I really need to do something with the bedro-”

“Shush! You’re out of cleaners, young man! You used them all up and nearly poisoned me in the process. This is the cleanest apartment on the face of the planet! There are surgeons that don’t keep their forceps as clean as you keep your toilet bowl.”

Jacob smiled. Mannie certainly had a way of looking at things, and she could bring out that hidden side of him that no one else was able to find. She made him feel young, not that he thought of twenty-six as old. But she made him feel really young, a kid type of young. She, at her ripe old age of thirty-one, was older than he was, but she always stated that age was just a number. “Everybody’s got one,” she had said on many occasions, finishing with her cocky smile that he loved so much.

“So, what are you going to do today?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” he said. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Good. No plans mean that you’re mine for the afternoon.”

Jacob looked at her with concern in his eyes. What had he just gotten himself into?

“Don’t look at me that way,” she said. “I’m going to take you out to lunch, and then I’ll bring you back to your hole.”

“But I ate some cereal a little more than an hour ago, and I’m really not hungry.”

“Okay then, we’ll wait about fifteen minutes before we go. How long do you think a bowl of Poopy Puffs are going to last after the job we just did on your ‘already clean’ apartment? Yes, sir, I’m getting you out of these walls today.”

Jacob’s knees grew weak, but he tried not to let on as he sat down beside her on the sofa. “Look, Mannie, we don’t have to go out to dinner. I have things we can fix here. It’ll be a lot cheaper.”

“Nope,” she said, pointing her nose into the air. “You’re going to put on your jacket and get out for at least an hour, maybe two. Look at you, sitting there in your pj’s! Your skin is pale, and you look sick! How many days has it been since you’ve been outside?”

“I go out nearly every day to get my mail.”

“Yes, and then you bring your weird little butt back in here and close the door. I know you’re crazy! Everybody around here knows it! But even crazy people like you need daylight and fresh air!”

Jacob gave a weak but sincere smile.

 

~

 

The restaurant was crowded with mostly afternoon lunch breakers and senior citizens. People crowded each other at the buffet bar, leaning over one another’s shoulders, breathing down each other’s necks, and even physically touching on occasion.

Jacob hated buffets, but it was a well-known fact that Mannie loved them. “You get more for the buck,” she always said. But was it worth it? The risk of getting sick by catching some sort of gross, nasty germ from some careless person ahead of you was a constant threat in these places. It wasn’t worth the risk to him, but apparently the way she thought, it was worth it. After all, she had brought him here.

He looked at the sneeze guard. If you don’t know what a sneeze guard is, it’s the clear plastic window around buffet bars to prevent people’s germs from getting into the food if they sneeze. It hangs about a foot, give or take two inches from the top, not nearly low enough to stop a real doozy of a sneeze. It might stop a booger if someone had their head aimed upward when it blew out, but who does that? When someone sneezes, they lose control for only a moment, but that’s the moment that counts the most! Their neck bends back as they wind up for the pitch, “Haaaa-fbfoof!” right over the fried green tomatoes. Who would ever know?

It was a good thing Jacob had ordered a fresh box of masks the week before because he had been out. And when Mannie went off on one of these outing spasms, it’d be easier to kiss a grizzly on the lips than to talk her out of going.

But maybe she was right. Maybe he was crazy. Here he was, standing in the restaurant in a germ mask, afraid to shake hands with anybody, afraid to touch anything, especially doorknobs and, of all things, sink faucets! Yes, he was even afraid to wash his hands in a public restroom. He feared all these things, but Mannie wasn’t a threat.

She came into his apartment nearly every day from the busy street outside and never left footprints when she walked. It didn’t bother him if she put her hand on his shoulder, even if she hadn’t washed it first. He knew that all of this was in his mind. Still, he couldn’t get past it.

Things hadn’t always been this way for Jacob. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it went back to a very young age when his brother planted a seed of fear into his brain. He couldn’t remember how old he was at the time, but he did remember that it was before he started going to school. His mother had shouted from the kitchen for everyone to wash up for dinner. His older brother told him that if he didn’t wash his hands well enough before he ate, worms would grow inside his stomach.

He remembered his first years in school, playing with the other kids at recess and eating in the cafeteria like everybody else. Of course, even at the age of six, he remembered washing his hands whenever he was about to eat something or had been playing outside. Most adults have to tell their children to do such things, but not his mother, no way. He did it on his own. He didn’t want worms growing inside of him!

As he grew, the seed his brother had planted grew with him. He was older now, and he knew the worm story was just a tale his brother got a giggle out of, but there was the truth of germs. They were dangerous. They could cause diseases, sickness, and even death! They were everywhere, in everything, on everyone, and they would take advantage of the slightest contagion. He could see them, so why couldn’t everyone else?

Why was Mannie different? Why could he talk to her without wearing his mask? Why could she reach out without him shying away? The answer was as plain as the nose on his face. He must be crazy.

He was a dashing young man, if not a little on the thin side, and had a good mind for internet work. He’d been earning a modest living online for the past few years designing websites and offering support. He must have been somewhat fun to be around because Mannie never seemed to get bored by coming to see him. But when she tried to get him to leave the apartment, it was like trying to talk a tooth into crawling out of its gums. To Mannie, this dark side kept him from living, but in his eyes, that side kept him alive.

Jacob stood, watching the crowd and the uncovered food at the bar. He watched as the cooks dumped the fresh food on top of the old, instantly contaminating it while Mannie slid her debit card through the reader. He looked like a mannequin on a department store sales floor: stiff, cold, and lifeless. He was watching and dreading. Mannie did, however, order his food special from the kitchen. She thought that would put his mind at ease. But in his mind, who was to say that it hadn’t actually come off the bar itself? That it hadn’t been that small amount of food left in the bottom of the pan when the server switched it with the full one? Jacob didn’t ask his questions out loud. She was trying to make it easier on him, and he appreciated her for that. But the questions remained in his head.

A man walked out of the restroom and stood talking to another man that was wearing a similar suit. Jacob thought that they must have worked in the same office. Judging by the way that they were dressed, they were probably attorneys or bank managers. The man that had just exited the restroom had spots on the crotch of his grey dress slacks. It looked like orange juice splatter, only it was oozing down the material toward the floor. There were more orange/yellow spots on his fingers. How could he not see them? He shook the other man’s hand, and some of the spots transferred to him. These spots slithered like leeches up the unsuspecting man’s wrist and disappeared under the buttoned sleeve of his shirt.

Jacob looked around the crowded dining room and saw more spots: brown spots, orange spots, yellow spots and green spots. There were spots covering everything. The sneeze guard was coated as well as the edge of the bar.

A waitress walked over with a towel and began wiping it down. Maybe she saw them too. But no, she walked away and the spots were still there, only now there were more of them. They were on her towel as she began wiping down a table someone had just left. Multiplying and spreading like the diseases they contained, spots were filling the restaurant.

“C’mon!” Mannie said as she walked toward the empty table, the freshly wiped one that was covered in spots.

Jacob followed with an unconscious snarl. He sat in the chair across from hers. Instead of sitting, she took her empty plate and headed straight for the bar while humming an old Carpenters’ tune.

He sat with his chair pushed back a foot from the table, eyes shifting from one stranger to the next. Some were laughing, some smiling, and some held more solemn expressions. But they all held one thing in common: not one of them could see what he was seeing.

Mannie returned with her plate stacked like Mount Everest. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to her choices as she piled it on. It was all compounded together like table scraps you would feed to a dog. He could see the meatloaf clearly on top, beans, peas, a piece of chicken buried down near the bottom, and something that resembled barbecue sauce oozing out of one side of her plate, but he couldn’t be sure. There was one thing on her plate that he could be sure of: spots.

They were in the food, so visible that they were almost glowing. Their bodies swelled and shrank like heavily breathing ticks as they fed from the food on her plate. They were revolting.

Jacob’s throat tightened and he felt like he was going to be sick, but he looked away and fought to regain control. After all, it was all in his head, and he knew that.

Mannie looked at him with concern. She knew what it was though she couldn’t see what he was seeing. She knew him and his weakness. She had been trying to help him by getting him out of the apartment. If he faced his demons, maybe he would see that things weren’t so bad in the outside world. Maybe he would start getting out. Who knows? Eventually, he might even take off his mask. But that obviously wasn’t going to be today.

Jacob jumped and almost fell out of his seat as a voice invaded interrupted his thoughts. “Can I get you anything else?” the waiter asked with a friendly grin.

This guy had come out of nowhere! Jacob sat in a state of shock, staring at the yellowish tick-like creatures, feeding in his plate, breeding in his plate, owning his plate.

“No, thank you,” Mannie answered politely for him.

“Alright, hope you enjoy,” the waiter answered with a smile and walked back toward the kitchen.

“Jacob, are you okay? Jacob… Hellooo, is there anybody in there?”

Her distant voice echoed as if in a tunnel while he glared, hypnotized by the plate. They were crawling overtop of one another, trying to bury themselves in the mashed potatoes. Some had already burrowed in his Salisbury steak and were almost hidden by the gravy, but he could still see their mild glow. They were growing stronger as they fed.

“Jacob!” she said, finally capturing his attention.

He looked up at her and she saw, for the first time in their three years of friendship, just how serious things had become. He was crying. His arms were curled to his chest, and his limp hands hung freely from their wrists as he sat trembling like a frightened child.

Without another thought, she snatched two dollar bills from her purse and slapped them onto the table.

“C’mon, we’re leaving,” she said. She got up from the table, took him by the arm, and led him out of the restaurant.

 

~

 

He had calmed somewhat when she got him home. She walked him into his apartment and went to the kitchen to fetch him a bottle of water while he sat on the living room sofa.

The nauseous feelings had passed for now. At this point, he was trying to deal with the embarrassment of the situation. But it couldn’t be as bad as the embarrassment he had put her through as everyone watched her lead the crying masked man out of the restaurant.

All he could say as she drove him home was, “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? What is wrong with me?” He repeated that same question over and over as he rocked back and forth in the passenger seat.

It was clear that something really was wrong. What made it even worse was that he could see it himself. Something was very wrong, but it just wouldn’t stop! It was eating him alive!

There had been a time when those things hadn’t been as vibrant: for example, when he first moved to Madison Springs. At first, he had no washer or dryer, so he had to use the laundry room down on the first floor of his building.

That would be unheard of now. He hadn’t liked the idea of it then.

Luckily for him, the door was always unlocked. He found that the best time to go was in the wee hours of the morning, usually around two or three. There was never anyone in there at that time.

Even back then, while in the earlier stages of his craziness, he would pour a cup of detergent into the empty washing machine and run a complete cycle with the temperature set to hot before putting a single piece of his laundry into it.

While his clothes sloshed back and forth in the soapy suds, he would spend his time spraying the folding table with disinfectants and cleaning the inside of the public dryer.

He saw the spots in the laundry room, but they were fewer and much smaller then. Their color had been darker, more like bugs and less like radioactive parasites.

“I’m taking you to a doctor tomorrow,” Mannie said as she entered the living room. She handed him his bottled water and sat beside him.

Jacob nodded in agreement and sipped his water. He needed it. He needed her, and at last, he accepted that he needed help.

If it wasn’t for Mannie living only three doors down, he would have no one. She had become far more than a neighbor over the last few years. She had become his best and only friend. She was his family now, and he appreciated her.

He wondered how she felt about him now. Her face looked angry, but he knew that she wasn’t. She was concerned, maybe even scared for him. Who wouldn’t be?

The conversation had dried up. Neither of them knew what to say, so he stared at the living room’s white curtains glowing in the afternoon sun. She sat staring at him, sometimes staring through him, as her mind drifted in and out of the day’s events. They sat that way for nearly an hour before she asked if he was okay. Of course, he said yes to the question.

“Mind if I raid your kitchen? Somebody didn’t let me eat, and I’m still hungry.”

She held a smirk on her face. That relaxed him. Her half-joke meant she hadn’t lost her sense of humor with him at least. It was her way of poking fun at the situation without poking fun at him.

“Sure, help yourself,” he said.

Mannie got up and walked into the kitchen.

He continued to sit for several minutes, collecting his thoughts. In the background, he listened to her clinking and clanking around, searching through his kitchen cupboards.

His head ached, and he felt weak. He too needed to eat something, but he didn’t want food. Instead, he turned and pulled his feet up onto the couch and closed his eyes.

 

~

 

The clicking woke him. He had heard the sound in his dream before it finally brought him back to consciousness.

He glanced around the dark room and realized that he was alone. Apparently, he had fallen asleep. Mannie, being the friend she was, knew he needed the rest, so she had turned off the lights and went home. That part of the puzzle was easy, but what time was it? And what was that noise?

The outside light sent its mild glow through the curtains and into his living room, allowing him to see the lamp’s brass socket and the on/off switch. He reached over his head and turned on the light.

Blinded by the sudden brightness, he squinted and shaded his eyes with his hand, allowing them to slowly adjust.

Click-clack, clickity-clack.

The sound was faint, but it was loud enough for him to know that it wasn’t a lingering hallucination from his dream.

For the past four years, the apartment had been quiet, but he had never made a habit of falling asleep on the living room sofa either. Perhaps it was a sound that he couldn’t hear when he was in his bedroom. Maybe it was nothing to worry about. But no, this was something he’d never heard before. For all he knew, it could be a mouse or a rat. This sound was completely foreign to his ears, and it was coming from the kitchen. Maybe Mannie had washed her hands and hadn’t turned the water off all the way. The faucet could have been left dripping. If he played this guessing game all night, he would never find out for sure what it was.

He got up from the couch and staggered sleepily across the living room toward the kitchen. He stepped into the open doorway and clicked on the light.

There it was: a half-eaten piece of chocolate cake in all of its glory. Crumbs covered the countertop. Mannie, understanding Jacob’s situation, had always done well at cleaning up after herself while in his apartment, but this time she had slipped. She had gone home with leftovers sitting on the island counter.

It was a scene from his worst nightmare. The glowing soldiers of disease were crawling everywhere. They were covering the cake, devouring the crumbs, mating, and multiplying on the counter. They were crawling down the sides of the island to the kitchen floor, legs clicking as loud as breaking sticks. They were bigger than he’d ever seen them. They had been like small bugs, but now they were the size of sand dollars. Giant crawling shadows danced along the walls, the floor, and the cabinets. He looked up at the overhead light and watched as a colony crawled out of the fixture. There were thousands of them. Their numbers continued to grow as they crawled out of the cracks of cabinet doors and out from under the refrigerator. In every direction that his eyes darted, there was another colony. No longer interested in the cake, they were now coming toward him.

Jacob’s eyes bulged almost out of their sockets, and he stumbled backwards into the living room. He watched in terror as the six-legged tick-like creatures gathered on the white tile floor of his kitchen and began to tap their way toward him.

Click- clack, clickity-clack was the sound of their mechanical legs. The tapping grew louder as they drew closer with their filthy, disease-carrying biters snapping wildly.

He turned toward the front door, but they were dropping from the curtains down to the hardwood floor, cutting off his escape.

Like horrible wind-up toys, they vibrated across the floor on their splintered, hairy legs. They were alive, and they were coming to feed. There was only one place he could go.

He ran into his bedroom and slammed the door, but he could still hear them, their legs clicking like a hundred clocks. Multitudes of shadows danced in the crack of light at the bottom of his door. He backed away, watching and waiting for the inevitable. He knew they were coming, and they weren’t going to stop until they sank their clattery teeth into his flesh.

The clicks grew louder and louder. Tiny wooden taps filled his ears as several of them climbed up the outside of his bedroom door.

Click-clack, clickity-clack. He covered his ears, but the sound grew even louder. It was as though they were in his head, eating at his mind.

They couldn’t speak, but if they could he would hear them saying, “We’re coming to get you, Jacob. We’re coming for you, and we’re going to eat you alive.”

“Go away!” he screamed in a cracking voice. He squeezed his cupped hands tighter and tighter to his ears, going into full panic mode. “Go away!”

The nightlight glowed just enough for him to see the dark rectangular shape of the single twin bed, but he didn’t notice it as he continued his backward steady path without taking his eyes from the door. He slammed the heel of his right foot against the chest at the foot of his bed. The rest of his body kept going and sent him off balance.  He clawed frantically into the open air. His weight shifted. His left foot tried to step back and catch him, but his sock slid along the smooth waxed surface and out from under him. He came down hard on the wooden floor. A bolt of pain pierced through him like lightning, and he had to gasp for every short breath.

He lay on his back in the floor only a moment before realizing that he didn’t have a second to spare. He shuffled himself back to a sitting position, wheezing with every shallow breath and pressing his right hand against his lower back to ease the burning sensation from his fall. But the pain and lack of oxygen were the least of his worries.

He could see them now. He was on the floor, only feet from the door. From this angle, he had an almost perfect view.

They were lining under the lit crack of the door like an army ready for the march, and soon after that, the charge. They glowed brighter than he’d ever seen before, meaning they were getting stronger. They were like wounded fireflies with their nonstop glowing tails, lighting the path across the shiny hardwood floor leading to Jacob. It was true; they were even brighter than the nightlight now.

He shuffled his slippery socks on the clean floor, pushing his way back toward the far wall of the room.

“Stop! Go away!” he shouted again. But of course they didn’t hear, or more likely, they didn’t care.

They were ready now. The leaders crawled under the door, tapping their way across the hardwood floor, narrow board by narrow board, closing the distance between them.

Jacob began to shake uncontrollably. His fingers clenched and his knees spasmed, kicking at the empty floor again and again. His heart chugged in his chest like a freight train.

More were coming under the door now. Click-clack, clickity-clack. The insects’ tiny feet tapped against the floor as they closed in. There were hundreds, no, there were thousands of them, and they were almost to the bed.

There was nothing left to use against them. His resources were used up, all except one thing. There was one last item he’d been saving for the final battle. The ultimate weapon, the nuke to all of these deadly little monsters, was all he had left. He had hoped he would never have to use it. But now that he was backed into the corner, it was the only chance that he had left.

He reached up to his right and blindly slid his hand across the shelf, feeling for it in the dark. There it was, right where he left it. He clenched the box in his shaking hand and curled himself into a fetal position against the wall and waited.

 

The next morning

A knock came at the front door, and then there was silence. Moments later another knock, this time accompanied by Mannie’s muffled voice. “Jacob, are you in there?” Pap-pap-pap. “Jacob, are you okay?

There was a long silence.

After several minutes had passed, there was another knock, only this knock was louder, more sure.

“Jacob, are you home?” This time it was the landlord’s voice muffled outside the door. “I’m coming in!”

The knob wiggled and rattled as the key slid in, turned, and opened the door.

The landlord stepped into the spotless living room with Mannie close behind. Once inside, she stepped past the older man holding the key.

“Jacob, where are you?” she yelled.

There was no answer, but there was a sound coming from the opposite side of the bedroom door, a swishing sound.

She cautiously approached and placed her ear to the door. She could hear it plainly now.

Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.

Jacob, sweetie, are you in there?”

She thought she heard a mumble but wasn’t sure. Something was happening behind that door.

She turned the knob and slowly pushed it open. The room was gloomy and dim, its blue curtains only allowing a fraction of daylight to bleed through. More and more, inch by inch, the area came into view: first the clean hardwood floor, then the wet area next to a small pile of clothes, then Jacob, sitting on the floor with his back to her. She tried to focus her eyes to the dimness. It was clear that he didn’t have anything on except his boxers. He was scratching, scrubbing at something that she couldn’t see from her angle.

“Jacob,” Mannie said as she slowly entered the room. She clicked the light switch to her left. Instantly, she could see everything.

Jacob turned to face her. Layers of peeled, shredded flesh soaked in the puddle of blood in which he was sitting. He looked at her through the eyes of a torn, red faceless skull. His lips had been scraped away except for two narrow strips of flesh, which dangled freely down his bleeding chin. The flesh of his arms and legs had been ripped and torn, as well as most of his chest, revealing the partly scraped away muscle. The scouring pad he clenched in his blood-dripping fist was worn smooth, and several others lay scattered around the room. He continued swishing it across the open muscle of his thigh with one convulsing hand.

“I go-t the-mb,” the thing sitting in the middle of the room said. His tongue escaped the bloody opening of his mouth, and he pulled it back between his exposed teeth. “I’mb o-kay dow.”

His fleshless body shook uncontrollably as he laughed.

 

Come on a journey of horror, suspense, and fantasy that brings you witches and ghosts, and reflects on the much scarier side of the human mind. We all have that monster inside us that lies dormant. Some may not realize it, and others may deny it, but it’s there waiting for us to let down our guard so it can take over. Come take the ride down the Trail of Dreams and experience the nightmares in true focus.

Release at midnight, July 5th… Link to pre-order From 12 to 6https://www.amazon.com/12-More-Nightly-Visits-ebook/dp/B01HFORJCA/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466640876&sr=1-3&keywords=nightly+visits

 

Link to original Nightly Visitshttps://www.amazon.com/Nightly-Visits-Stephen-Helmes/dp/1493165526/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466640937&sr=1-1&keywords=nightly+visits