Psycho Thrill - Unholy Night E-Book

Timothy Stahl

• Herausgeber: Bastei Lübbe
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Psycho Thrill: Chilling Tales of Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 96

Beschreibung

After a horrific accident, Adrian watches as his pregnant wife, Marie, clinically dies for several minutes. By some miracle Marie regains consciousness and finds that the unborn baby is also unharmed. But something in Marie has changed. She's cold and animalistic. Something evil has taken control. Then suddenly Marie disappears. Desperate to find his wife, Adrian tracks Marie down to her childhood home only to discover that her idyllic hometown carries an ancient, dark secret...

-- PSYCHO THRILL is a series of horror novellas - from classic ghost story to psychological thriller and dark fantasy. Each of the novellas was first published in German and has now been published for the first time in English. Among the writers are popular German authors, as well as newcomers to the scene. Each story is self-contained. PSYCHO THRILL is produced by Uwe Voehl.

-- For fans of Stephen King: Dark Tower series, Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things, and the American Horror Story TV series.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

What is PSYCHO THRILL?

The Author

Psycho Thrill — Unholy Night

Copyright

Prologue

I. O Tannenbaum …

1

2

II. It Will be Dark Soon

1

2

III. I’ll be Home for Christmas

1

2

3

4

5

Epilogue

What is PSYCHO THRILL?

PSYCHO THRILL is a series of horror novellas — from the classic ghost story to the modern psychological thriller and dark fantasy. Each of the novellas has been first published in German and has been translated into English for the first time. Among the writers are popular German authors, as well as newcomers to the scene. Each story is self-contained. PSYCHO THRILL is produced by Uwe Voehl.

The Author

Timothy Stahl was born in 1964 in the United States. He grew up in Germany, where, among other things, he worked as editor-in-chief at a weekly magazine as well as a youth magazine. He moved back to the States in 1999 and has been focused on thrillers ever since. In 2003, his horror series, WÖLFE (Wolves), won top honors in Bastei’s cross-media contest. Stahl is also a sought-after translator. He lives with his wife and two sons in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Unholy Night

TIMOTHY STAHL

BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

Digital original edition

Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

Copyright © 2014 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

Written by Timothy Stahl

Translated by Conor Dillon

Produced by Uwe Voehl

Edited by Bill Glucroft

Project management by Lori Herber

Cover illustration: © shutterstock/Malgorzata Kistryn

Cover design by Christin Wilhelm, www.grafic4u.de

E-book production: Urban SatzKonzept, Düsseldorf

ISBN 978-3-7325-0212-7

www.bastei-entertainment.com

Prologue

The cleaning specialist carried the final box from the attic of the old house in which the owner, an elderly gentleman, had violently taken his own life. Apparently it wasn't enough for the man to hang himself or slit his wrists. Oh no, he had even used a makeshift guillotine to decapitate himself. To make sure he got the job done right.

On the street below, the cleaner tossed the box onto the bed of his semi-truck. This box, like the others from the attic, had been gnawed at by rodents and reeked of mouse droppings and mold. All the cleaner really wanted to do was shove the box back in its place and shut the door, but an old journal tucked between yellowed books caught his attention. Its title was in Gothic script and stood out because it wasn’t a published book and looked as if it’d been hidden away among the faded books. Seeing something like that made the cleaner curious.

In beautiful, antique handwriting, a tab attached to the journal’s cover read: Told in the mountains. Underneath, a touch smaller: Collection of Histories. No author was named.

The cleaner lit a cigarette and opened the journal. It contained handwritten entries scrawled in black or blue ink, many hard to make out due to water stains. While he smoked, he began to read one of the unmarred stories …

A man must have suffered something terrible in his past to flee so far from his homeland. He was from the Orient, said those who had met and spoken with him. The look in his eyes, which were as pitch black as his hair and beard, revealed something haunting, as if he’d been pursued relentlessly, perhaps by Boanlkramer himself.

The mountains were his destination, but everyone told him he shouldn’t go, not in winter when he could so quickly get stranded, and the wolves would be so starved in the snow they’d pounce on anything they could.

But the man refused to listen and fled anyway to the mountains so he could be alone with and get as close as possible to the Lord, with whom he had something to talk about. He had a complaint he wanted to be sure would be heard.

But the others were right. At the entrance into a high valley, a pack of wolves descended upon him. He put up a fierce fight with his walking stick, but was overwhelmed. Soon after he lay lifeless in his own blood.

Just as the wolves were about to feast on the man’s warm flesh, still steaming in the cold, four men from the village entered the valley to hunt game. They saw the stranger lying in the brilliant red snow and scattered the wolves with mighty shouts. They went to the stranger, whose garments hung in tatters soaked in fresh blood, blood that had covered the stranger’s face like a mask, sealing his eyes like wax.

The four village men lifted the rigid body. The man had died so gruesomely, they felt he deserved at least a respectable burial.

They carried the haunted wanderer halfway to the village. As they approached its welcoming lights, however, the two holding the dead man’s feet suddenly cried out, lost their grip, and dropped their end. This frightened the other two so much that they dropped him, too, the body falling hard on the frozen soil. But he was no longer dead. With a jerk, he flung himself up into a seated position and looked at his saviors from eyes whose bloody seals had burst open and shone against his dark face like the snow in which he sat, his body full of gaping wounds …