Book Spotlight: Plank Children

Today I have a book spotlight on the horror novel, Plank Children by Michael Schutz, plus an excerpt. Enjoy.

Plank Children by Michael Schutz

Miles Baumgartner lost his boyfriend. His house. His job. Worst of all, he lost his nephew when Ian—his almost-son—died, crushed to death in a car accident nine months ago.

So how is there a recent photo of Ian on Facebook?

A series of lies and half-truths leads Miles far north to a long-abandoned orphanage. Secrets slink within St. Hamelin’s shadowed halls, and when Miles starts piecing the truth together, the horrors that walk within its rooms tighten their grip.

They say that time heals all wounds, but time is running out for Miles. How can he start his life over now, knowing what really happened to Ian and the children of that unholy place? To have any chance, he must escape before dark forces curse him to walk eternally with the evils inhabiting St. Hamelin’s.

You can check out Plank Children on

Amazon or Three Furies Press

Excerpt

The door whisked shut, sealing Miles into a dark cavern of a room. On the one side, ten metal bathtubs ran the entire length on dappled vinyl flooring, each one growing less distinct farther down the line. At the nearest tub, he bluffed. “I see you guys.”
His voice evaporated into the high ceiling.
What looked like high-sided, steel kiddie pools stood in the gloom on the other side. Goose-neck faucets.
Why did an orphanage or reformatory need a hydrotherapy room?
In the shadows at the far end, indistinct shapes rose and fell—the kids climbing into tubs and scooching down.
He summoned his teacher voice. “Stop fooling around.”
But what if they weren’t just messing around? Starting toward them, his stomach flopped with that sinking feeling he always got whenever stepping over that little gap from a jet bridge onto a plane.
“I mean it.”
That didn’t even convince himself. He passed empty tubs and tanks, and his teeth chattered as the temperature dropped. A figure slumped in the steel tank next to him, and Miles jerked backward, cursing. A shirtless boy stared with hollow eyes; shuddery breaths shook the slats of his ribcage.
“Are you okay? Kid?”
From the front of the room came a squeak like a shoe on a gym floor.
The tubs he’d passed had been empty, but now another emaciated boy stood inside of one, watching him. Across the aisle, a youngster with skin the color of sour milk planted his hands on the lip of a high-sided tank. As he pulled himself up to climb out he slipped, and again that squeal as his feet skidded on the smooth inner sides.
How had he missed these kids?
Both the others swung their legs over and out from the tubs. Their skin had a grainy quality like old Seventies’ films. The boy with struggling breath lurched away from his tub, his hips and legs misshapen as if they’d been broken and put back together wrong.
Beastly thing: and he looked as if he was wet all over: and I’m not at all sure that he was alive.
Three new boys in strappy tee shirts and boxer shorts emerged from between tanks, and limped on malformed legs toward him. Some weird interplay between light and shadow gave the illusion of transparency as they advanced, dripping on the floor.
Impossible.
Overtired, that’s all. He wasn’t actually seeing through them.
Except he was. Right through the boys’ bodies to the walls.
Will-o’-the-wisp flickered over the remaining tubs, the tanks, and through that spectral light incorporeal boys sat up, stood up, climbed out. A waif two tubs away turned his tousle-haired head.
Miles froze. “That’s a really good trick, guys.” He sounded stupid. This wasn’t a trick.
A kid in the tank next to him blinked rapidly. Dark bags under the boy’s eyes distorted his face into a skull with gaping empty sockets. His voice croaked. “Tear us apart.”

About the Author

Michael Schutz was born and raised in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, where the macabre tales of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King kept him warm at night. He’s seen way too many horror movies to be healthy. He is the author of the novels Plank Children, Edging, and Blood Vengeance. His short fiction has been featured in Crossroads in the Dark II, III, and IV, Ravenwood Quarterly, Dark Moon Digest, and Sanitarium. He lives with his naughty cat-children in northern California. You can keep tabs on him at http://michaelschutzfiction.com

Book Spotlight: Edging

Today I shine the spotlight on the horror novel, Edging by Michael Schutz. I have a look at the book, an excerpt, plus the book trailer. Enjoy!

Edging by Michael Schutz

Intenze is the newest designer drug. Take it, and nightmares come alive. The fears of all those who “edge” summon the Thirst—a living miasma that thrives on terror. Rick Carlson needs to protect his family and dear friends from the horrifying storm that’s coming, but they don’t all want to be saved. And time is running out.

Edging is available at Amazon

Excerpt:

Steven loved scary movies, same as his girlfriend, Trish. Horror fiction not so much, she had confided to him, though she’d read all the bestsellers. No, she liked to see the faces full of terror, watch movement in the shadows of good cinematography, and hear the heartbeat thumps of a menacing score.

That’s why Steven thought she’d love to edge.

His upstairs neighbor had come knocking just as Steven was heading out for the gym. Kenny’s dark unlined face and retro Jheri curl placed his age anyway from twenty to forty. In the past they’d struck up a friendly rapport at the mailboxes out front. He invited Kenny in, feeling underdressed in his own apartment. Kenny was decked out in an olive green suit with red shirt and red pocket square while Steven wore his blue track suit with his Brewers cap hiding his unkempt shaggy brown hair.

Facing each other on the couch, Kenny stared at Steven with red-ringed brown eyes throbbing with intensity while the gentle cadences of his pitchman’s speech lulled Steven into a sort of trance.

“It’s a further distillation of lysergic acid diethylamide.” Kenny sounded like a marijuana aficionado waxing philosophical about strains of Kush.

“L.S.D.”

 “Yeah. Paired with a particular strain of psilocybin. The drug targets the fear center of the brain to induce mild panic, hallucinations, stressed heart rate—”

“It gives you a bad trip.”

Kenny shrugged. “What’s ‘bad’? People shell out millions of dollars a year at Six Flags. Every summer, some new Destination or Scream movie rakes in at the box office. All to scare people who can afford a hundred bucks to take the family out.” He held up a flat, tiny white disc on the tip of his finger. “This baby’s just twenty bucks for the same thing. It’s called edging.”

Steven took the little pill into his hand. It weighed nothing and looked so innocuous lying in his palm that he found it hard to argue with his neighbor’s rationale.

“It looks like aspirin.” He turned it over. The imprint on the other side read 1N10Z.

“Actually,” Kenny said, “it was. Now it’s the delivery mechanism. That there,” he pointed to the imprint, “is where this baby gets its name—Intenze.”

“Listen, Kenny, I don’t do drugs.”

Kenny shrugged again and reached to take the pill away. Steven pulled his hand back an inch.

“But you say it’s just, like, entertainment?”

Kenny smiled. “Its physical effects are like riding that big coaster at Disneyland. The hallucinations are like walking through a Halloween haunted house: spooky faces, shadows stalking around. But it’s different for everyone. Auditory sometimes—voices, you know?”

“That doesn’t sound fun.”

“This only lasts half a minute.”

Steven laughed. “And that sounds like a rip-off!”

“Brother,” Kenny lowered his voice, “you take this, it’s the most intense horror movie you’ve ever seen. Because you’re in it. It’s all around you, and you’re participating. It’s one freight train of a rush. But, c’mon, if that kind of high lasted too long, you’d blow your circuits.”

Book Trailer

 

Author Bio:

Michael Schutz was born and raised in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, where the macabre tales of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King kept him warm at night. He’s seen way too many horror movies to be healthy and blogs and podcasts about them on Darkness Dwells. He is the author of the novels Edging and Blood Vengeance and the novella Uninoch. His short fiction has been featured most recently in Crossroads in the Dark II: Urban Legends, Dark Moon Digest, Sanitarium, and the anthologies Beasts: Revelations, Beyond the Nightlight, and Cranial Leakage: Tales from the Grinning Skull. He lives with his three naughty cat-children in northern California. You can keep tabs on him at: http://www.michaelschutzfiction.com