At the apex of the Fire ritual, Prometheus demanded that each of us make a vow to act, to pursue an ambition which he would help us achieve. The ritual was written in such a way that all of the fascilitators could participate, and make vows of our own.
I vowed that my novel, The Mark of the Wolf, would be in print in time for the next festival.
My first step, taken less than 24 hours home from the festival, was to reproduce that goal in miniature by self-publishing one of my other, smaller, stories on Amazon.
My first published novelette, Bad Trip, is set in 1968, and follows a group of four friends as they explore a haunted house somewhere near Athol, MA. It’s not the first “haunted” house they’ve explored on their celebratory road trip, but it proves to be full of more than bad vibes and cheap thrills. As the four friends make their way the Whitley manor, room by room, they find first mystery, then horror, and finally doom.
The story offers, I hope, an intriguing introduction to my fictional world of occult horror, with a hat-tip to Lovecraft country on the way down. It’s $3 for 8000 words, which is more fun for less money than a trip to the cinema.