The Witch of Seven Gables

Book excerpt: The Whiting family has no idea what hell is in store for them. They are drawn into a downward spiral of psychological and supernatural torture . The Great Beast has turned its will against all that would stand in the way of the immolation of all mankind. Unwittingly, John Whiting built his home and brought his family into the lair of The Witch of Seven Gables. In this excerpt from Chapter Two, Remember the Maine, you get a taste for what will follow. (WARNING: graphic description to follow, may not be suitable for younger readers).Somewhere deep in the primitive part of his brain, something compelled him to look over his shoulder and be prepared to fight. He felt a shudder in his spine. To lay eyes upon the thing turned his blood to sleet. Impossibly fast, the blue apparition charged from the distance toward him, bent on murder. Stricken, he watched the horror close in on him. A corpse woman wrapped in its awful shroud cast in a blue light from a hellish place bore down on him faster than anything could possibly move. Paralyzed, he begged his leaden arms and legs to move, but to no avail. The closer the wraith came, the more urgency he felt. The awful, scorching heat of terror burned his flesh until he unlocked somehow and began to move, but he could only scramble back, reeling with affright. Stumbling backward over a rotten log he fell, never taking eyes off the ghoulish figure overtaking him. Down he fell on his ass. Then a flash of light following the blow to the back of his head from falling against an unforgiving surface. His eyes closed, and he was out. One, two, then he slowly returned to his senses. 'Fight dammit, ' he thought, forcing his eyes to open. The corpse woman was face-to-face with him. He could feel the cold of her skin near his face. Trying to perceive what his eyes were seeing, staring back into his eyes were the dimly veiled, white opaque eyes of the dead. Her mouth was open to bite his face, she moved in now and he could smell the s***-smelling foulness of her corpsey maw. Rotten flesh, grey gums and inky teeth all showing from the grimace of decay and ferocity. An inch from his face she paused above him and arched her back as if to draw breath, and then the scream smashed his brain like a hatchet. The sound made him scramble to his feet wincing from the bite that he knew was coming.