Horror / Collection
Date Published: 07-22-2025
Publisher: Anuci Press
Evil lurks in the darkness, clawing its way towards unsuspecting victims . . .
A woman living with fibromyalgia finds an artifact that unleashes a reality she never thought possible . . . at a steep price.
Hold your breath as you immerse yourself in five harrowing stories written by bestselling author, Mallory McCartney. Fans of her gripping Black Dawn series will be kept on the edge of their seat by this horror collection inspired by real life events!
“I shut the mirror with a click and froze. Fear
dripped through me, starting at the crown of my head and dousing my body so
completely, my mind went blank. A scream lodged firmly in my throat—I couldn’t
utter a sound. Fire and ice raced through my veins, churning my stomach, and
bile rose in my throat.
Fingers had appeared from thin air, and they grew and
morphed into inky claws. They curled over my shoulder and gripped it hard.
Then, with pallid skin, the rest of the intruder appeared.”
“The creature’s grip only hardened.
My eyes rolled back. My lungs screamed for oxygen, for
release. In our reflection, which I caught in blurred moments, my face was
purple, my mouth hanging open in a silent scream. The creature pulled me
closer. Its other arm wrapped around my waist. Where before it had no defined
eye sockets, there now sat two massive orbs.
And they burned red.”
“Something moved to my left. My steps faltered, and my
response faded. It was the middle of the day, but in the hallway, the shadows
deepened. On the wall in front of me, the painting was of a man wearing a
collared shirt and a serious expression. His gaunt cheekbones made his eyes
look more sunken. The bland yellow background with nothing in it drew the
viewer in, but cast a greenish hue to the whole picture. He looked sick. The
whole painting did.
My bottom lip trembled and I bit it so hard, the
metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
Stepping closer to the painting, I watched as
blood—real blood—poured from this man’s eyes, words appearing to write
themselves along his chest:
You are mine now.”
“And that simple fact was that was pure human
instinct. I hadn’t wanted to be in pain every single day for the rest of my
life. I hadn’t wanted to navigate my white blood cell count going up to a mono-level
infection for absolutely no reason, or allergic reactions that no one could
explain why it was happening. I hadn’t wanted to feel with every movement like shrapnel
was embedded between every single joint in my body. And my days? An endless
Groundhog Day, waking up feeling like I hadn’t slept since I first fell ill,
trying to go through the once simple daily tasks but instead each feels like
climbing a mountain, only to fall back asleep for most of the day. In a matter
of months, I had become unemployable, had to leave my career, go on disability,
which took six months of approval and that was working with a disability lawyer
to convince the government I wasn’t working the system as people love to
say. Six months without income for food, for anything.
I went from making a $50,000 salary a year to $14,000
a year when I did get approved.
I went from having friends, to not having any.
I went from enjoying my life, to having to dissociate so
hard that frankly normal emotions I had locked down so hard because my
reality wasn’t one I could come to terms with. I went from not seeing the
doctor basically at all, to seeing mine every two weeks.
But it’s just fibromyalgia, right? It’s just all in
people’s heads, right? It’s a made-up illness, right?
So yeah, I was fucking mad.”
“One by one,
they sat in a semicircle around the board.
No. Had none of
these idiots ever watched a horror movie? It was dangerous to use this here in
this house.”
“Fear. It was the foul, bitter taste flooding my
mouth, the ice that rippled out of my nerve endings. It coursed through me. I
knew I was in danger, but all I could focus on was the girl. Her bloodied
state, her jerky movements, her grin that held no kindness but a madness so
defining, it held me within its grasp.”
““Then you missed catching this?” Bryson asked.
Yes, but I don’t know how, I thought before saying, “Yes.”
I didn’t need the red outline that popped up, and
Bryson’s voice turned to a whine as he asked Drew questions. Because on the
frozen screen, standing behind me in the corner of the room, was a looming
shadowy figure.
The only clear feature was its razor-sharp grin.”
Mallory McCartney currently lives in Sarnia, Ontario with her husband, their dachshunds Link, and Leonard and their sphynx cats Luna, Legolas, Ivy and Lily. When she isn’t working on her next novel or reading, she can be found day dreaming about fantasy worlds or bingeing her favorite horror movies.
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