“68% of the Universe is dark energy. It is a complete mystery what it is.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Demon Rift Cover
The Demon Rift–where dreadful magic meets retail
The Demon Rift begins in Victorian England, snaking through New York and San Francisco. On the Christmas of 1900, it lingers on the bleak grounds of a Cleveland orphanage. In 1965, it destroys a prison and hundreds of inmates die in the flames.
From 1882 to 2004, several women will fight to stop the carnage, the result of an unfortunate invitation beckoning an ancient evil.
In 2004, there are no smart phones, no Facebook, no Snapchat or Instagram. “The Mall” is the new town square. Celebrating the Grand Opening of the Redhill Mall, many hope it will revive the Ohio town’s dying economy. As Christmas approaches, it seems they may be right. Then the murders begin–all of them a necessary prelude to the Mall’s main event.
On Christmas Eve, the Rift will become a door. Nineteen year old, Madonna Bedonne, is psychic. A food court employee, Madonna is terrified because she knows what’s coming. Reaching across the boundaries of Time, beyond her dreams, she calls for help. Unless she can find a way to stop them, the swarm will flood through the Rift and they will feast. Soon, the Mall’s last minute shoppers will scream as the flames consume them.
The child stepped into the light. Curious, the eyes . . . their color looked almost yellow. Perhaps it was the lamplight. One would think them hazel, then a sort of green with flecks of gold . . . Red pools swirled in the yellow eyes as the boy began to smile, his mouth widening into an impossible grin. Crispin had seen that grin once before, at Regents Park. There was a hyena at the London Zoo . . . The boy cocked his head. “What were you thinking?” Thinking? I’m thinking . . . his feet were caught in ice. Not possible . . . ice. His body was a BLOCK OF ICE. The bottle was part of him. Knock him hard, and he would smash into a million bits, slivers and shards. The ship tilted and he began to slide . . . his feet paralyzed . . . stiff . . . a bloke in ice, a block of ice . . . tilting/listing/ swinging, up and down . . . rolling on the rail . . . what kind of splash . . . His heart slowed, the blood hesitating . . . still a drop left for a hungry shark.
The Demon Rift is available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. Here’s a link to the Kindle version: The Demon Rift
About me:
I live in Southern California. After working as an actress and then, as a casting director, I became a credentialed English teacher. While teaching English, I began to write. I have always loved a good horror novel.
My tablet is full of stories of ghosts, vampires, witches, werewolves and inexplicable evil by established writers and some less known.
Family stories include Great Uncle Arthur, who had been an inmate at the Ohio State Penitentiary, which famously burned to the ground in 1930, killing 320 prisoners. No one knows what caused the prison to burn, but there are stories of ghosts–prisoners still trapped where the prison once stood. The early part of the 20th century was a hard time to be poor, especially for children.
I remember my grandfather’s description of being a “charity kid” in an Ohio orphanage during the early 1900’s.
These family stories led to The Demon Rift. When I was fifteen, we moved from Kentucky to a small house in Glendale California, where I discovered a treasure–a cardboard box filled with science fiction paperbacks. Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit Will Travel was the only sci fi novel I had come across in the small Kentucky library I left behind. It was a blissful summer. There were stories by Asimov, Sturgeon, Bradbury and eerie novels like The Circus of Dr. Lao. I have loved science fiction since the house in Glendale.
Tales from Babylon Dreams, a novel taking place in virtual reality is my second novel.
Another short story, “The Seventh Folding of Willow Sprite,” is about an online romance gone wrong. Here’s a link to my interview on Ginger Nuts of Horror: Five Minutes with Marjorie Kaye I’ve also co-authored articles on the science of dreams published in the Huffington Post. Currently, I’m working on The Daevas, a novel chronicling the life of a woman who is stalked by demi-gods and Shemathra’s Realm, a sequel to Tales from Babylon Dreams.
Links to my Huffington Post Dream articles and my short stories, "The Why of Denise," and "The Seventh Folding of Willow Sprite" published on Strange Fictions-zine:
Why Do We Believe Dreams Are So Real While We’re Dreaming?
To Sleep, Perchance to Lucid Dream