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DAY 4 / Urban Fantasy author Ivan Amberlake takes over BHB! - FUTURE WORK - Diary of the Gone!

5/16/2013

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Diary of the Gone is a Novel to be released at a future date!

Callum Blackwater thinks his life can’t get  any worse. But he’s wrong. 
 
     
Callum never felt like seeing the dead, but they kept haunting him. The only thing that  helped him not see them was a diary he had found in the basement of his house.
        
When his friend Nathan is reported missing and a  severed hand is found in the forest, Callum gets a hint as to who might be  behind it all.  
 






 EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK 
        
Chapter1

Entry #4

April 8

I step inside a Shadow. It’s a black-and-white movie  with no sound. I watch those who have only a few moments to live. While the rest  of the world passes by sightless, I see them dying, screaming into silence as if  they call for me to help them, and I just stand and watch death taking them.
        
The Shadow lasts for only a few moments, and then the movie is over.  Everything becomes colorful again, but I know the people I just saw will soon be dead.
        
Darkness closed in on Nathan and me as we trudged through the mush of  fallen leaves. The ground was a mosaic of vibrant red and yellow, with a few  patches of brown here and there. Sponge-like moss shriveled under my feet, and  as I took another step, icy cold water trickled into my new sneakers.
        
“Dammit!” I jerked my leg up but the sneaker was already soaked.
        
“C’mon, Callum,” Nathan urged, exasperated at my slowness. “We’re nearly there.”
        
Nathan hadn’t told me what he wanted me to see. As usual, he’d said, “You  have to see this, Callum.”
        
Did I have any other choice? As we threaded our way through  the darkening swamped forest I wondered why I’d listen to him and go wherever he  wished. 
        
“How much farther are we going?” I asked, with as much irritation as I  could muster.
        
He rolled his eyes and pointed ahead with his index finger.  “It’s there.”

I hadn’t been to the forest very often, but each time I  approached it, goosebumps popped all over my arms and back. This time was no  exception. My heart began racing like mad, as if warning me we’d encroached on  someone else’s territory. Someone we shouldn’t disturb.

Nathan turned his head left and right,  then exclaimed, “Here it is at last!”  
 
Twenty yards ahead of me, he crouched and started inspecting something,  and I still couldn’t see a thing. When I reached him, I gulped, cold fear  sliding down my limbs.
     
“Holy crap!” I muttered. “What the hell is that?!”

It looked like a pool of blood. Not just a few grass blades  flecked with it, but—as I looked farther—a whole field filled with dark, crimson  liquid. I gulped another time and the hairs on my neck stood on end. I turned  around to check no one was watching us—I’d had a feeling someone’s eyes were on  me, and I didn’t appreciate it that much.
        
“I came across it yesterday. Wicked, right?” Nathan looked up at me,  fascination sparking his eyes. “Seems to have grown even bigger.”

“Looks like blood,” I voiced my fear at last, a shiver traipsing down my spine.

Nathan stood up, his eyebrows knotted. “Oh, come off it. There’s too much  of it in here. And where’s the body? Or bodies?”

I let out a nervous laugh, trying to soothe my nerves—I hadn’t seen a  Shadow so far, which was a good sign. But why was I afraid to see one? They only  happened when someone was about to die, not any other way.

I picked up a dried stick from the ground and poked the crimson substance  with it. Nothing happened at first, but when I tried to retrieve the stick, it  wouldn’t budge. The liquid around it started gurgling.

“Uh-oh,” I said, letting go of the bloodstained piece of wood.
        
“What have you done?” Nathan hollered.  
        
“N-nothing,” I stammered. “We’d better go, man.”
        
“You think?” He gave me a sarcastic look.
        
I took a step back, watching the stick sinking slowly into the syrupy  liquid. When it was about to disappear, a bony hand shot out from where a stick  had just been and gripped my right ankle in a fierce vice.
        
I screamed like never before. Raw instinct to survive spurred me to  wriggle the leg out of the grip, but the skeleton fingers were too strong for  me, felling me to the ground. Nate tugged at the sleeve of my jacket, and  instead of helping me set free, he was sliding into the pool of blood together  with me. I raked the ground with my fingers, soil getting under my nails, yet I  sunk deeper and deeper. 
        
When I thought there was no hope for me, I saw my chance.   
        
“The  log! Take the log!” I pointed to a dried bough lying within easy reach of us.  Nate let go of me, sprinted towards the log, picked it up, hopped back to where  I writhed, and thrust it into the place
where the thing manacled around my ankle  was supposed to be. To my disbelief, after a few thrusts the hand let go, and I  scrambled out, helped by Nate’s trembling hands.  
        
We  bolted away from the place without looking back. I couldn’t care less about my  sneakers or jeans covered with dirt. All I could think was: Get away from that fricking hand.

After a few minutes we slowed down a bit, breathless and shaking.
        
“What was that?” I asked in between gasps as we entered Craven Street, my  voice raspy.
        
“No frickin’ idea,” Nate replied. “Right before this thing grabbed you, I  think I saw a face.” 
        
I raised an eyebrow at him. Judging by his restless eyes  and ashen complexion, I knew he was holding something back.
        
“And?”
        
“Do you remember the missing boy I told you about?  Greg Thornby?”
        
I didn’t like where this was going.
        
“Yes.”
        
“I think it was him there.”
        
I vaguely remembered the story. A boy had gone missing a month before  Mom, Beverly, and I moved to Whitecross Town, but now it caused goosebumps all  over me. His body hadn’t been found after a few weeks’ search, and the inquiry  was dropped. What if Nate was right? What if it was Greg there?
        
We walked down the street in silence. I was a real mess, with the blood  stains and dirt over my jeans.
        
Now I’ll have to come up with something to tell  my mom, I thought grimly.
        
My thoughts were interrupted by the voice I hated more than the sound of nails screeching against a whiteboard.
        
“Well, well, well, little Callie’s got poop all over himself. Did you do  it to him, Rushmore?” 
        
Cheering and clapping followed the remark.
        
I turned around, my teeth clenched. A group of teens were catching up  with us. I knew they were only half a year older than me, but they were a gang  of thugs compared to me and Nate. Stan Crosby, the boy who spoke, was in the  center, flanked by four boys and girls on either side. They made my life a  living hell. During the short time I’d been in Whitecross, he’d given me a  couple of black eyes, tripped me whenever he saw me, and humiliated in every  possible way. The son of the school principal, he easily got away with it, and I  didn’t feel like blabbering about every one of his
pranks to my mom. Just had to  live with it.

 “Back off, Stan, or—” Nathan snarled, taking a step towards  the group.
        
“What? Are you going to kick me?” Stan’s group produced another round of  cheering and
whistling.
        
“I’ll make sure you will.” Nate balled his fists and took  another step. 
        
I grabbed him by the sleeve and whispered, “He isn’t worth  it. You’ll only get another detention.” To my relief, Nate didn’t argue.
        
“Right, Nate, listen to the loser.” Stan folded his arms, a lopsided grin  playing on his face. “You are lucky we are not in the mood for kicking your  sorry asses today. But we will next time, I promise.” He turned to his cronies.  “Come on, guys, let’s go.”
        
They rushed past us, Stan giving me a hard push with his  shoulder. I tried my best not to flinch, even though the push hurt as if his  shoulder was made of rock.
        
As their silhouettes and voices retreated into the  distance, Nate and I stood watching them.  
        
For  a few minutes, I even forgot about the hand that tried to drag me into the  swamp. But something told me my bad luck for the day wasn’t over yet. If all the  bad things were bound to happen to me all at once, they would, and today would  be the day.
        
“Let’s go,” Nate said. “Wayne and Audrey are waiting for  us.”
        
*
        
Whitecross Town was a small godforsaken place, fringed for the most part  by an ancient forest. The old townsfolk said it used to be a village whose first  two streets formed a cross. They added “white” to the name because of the soil  rich in chalk. As time passed and the village turned into a small town, a few  more streets appeared here, but the name stuck.
        
The two-story cottage where my mom, me and my sister, Beverly, moved to  was perched on what Whitecross people called the Crossroads. That was where  Nathan and I headed right now. As the horrors of today played back in my mind, I  decided to break the silence. 
        
“Are we going to tell the guys what happened?” I asked.
        
“Sure. What if it was Greg there? We’ve got to find out what the  hell’s happening there.” He offered me a humorless smile, a sign he was being serious.
        
That was Nathan. Never reasonable, always dragging me into trouble.
        
“You don’t think he’s alive, do you?” I couldn’t help myself.
        
“We’ll have to make sure first.” He was serious, I had to admit to myself.
        
I started tsking and snapping my fingers, which I knew irritated him, but  at least helped me distract myself from the haunting images of the blood in the forest.
        
“By the way, here they are."
        
Wayne and Audrey. Perhaps the two people I envied most of all in the  whole world. Only a year older than me, they already held hands in public,  kissed at the back of our school, and did who-knew-what-other things that I, the  loner of Whitecross as I called myself, couldn’t afford because for starters I’d  never even had a girlfriend. For a fifteen-year-old I had way too many things  wrong about me, yet this one made me probably the most miserable.
        
Wayne and Audrey. Everyone at school compared them to Romeo and Juliet,  and now that I saw them holding hands I wished it was me with Audrey instead of Wayne.

“Hey, guys!” Nathan called.  
        
I  shot an uncomfortable look at Audrey, mumbling a hardly audible ‘Hello’ then  looked down as if in shame.
        
Well, did I mention I felt like a total loser when  girls were around? With Audrey I was a real mess. She was special, a flawless  angel with perfect auburn hair, and an aroma of peaches around her. I
turned  into a vegetable. But what chance did I have to date such a girl? Zilch.
        
We set off going down the Hill, towards our secret place—the  Underground—that was not far from my home. Located in the wood, it was a cellar  from a long demolished house that Nathan had found a year ago. We used it as our  regular meeting place during the nights.
        
“You won’t believe what we just saw in the swamps,” Nathan started his  story, but I didn’t want to hear the continuation of it. As we were about to  turn left, into Montague Street, the thing I feared
most in my existence  happened. 
        
A Shadow crept over me.         
        
Nathan, Wayne and Audrey crumbled like dust in the wind, and the world  faded to black and white in the blink of an eye.
        
At first I heard them. A low growling sound reverberated in my  head. My throat lodged, as I watched them coming for me.  
        
They  whispered something I failed to make out. My insides wobbled with fear as I saw  their mutilated faces; limbs broken and hanging limply. Rotten flesh failed to  cover their uneven, yellow teeth. Drooling, they watched me with a hunger I’d  never seen in a sane person’s eyes.
        
“Callum!” someone called out for me from a distance, and the Shadow was gone.
        
Nathan yanked me by the shoulder; I was shaking against his steady hand.
        
“Are you all right?” He looked at me, his eyebrows knotted.
        
I swiveled around to check if there were monsters behind me.
        
“Erm, yeah, sure,” I replied. “I just realized … I think I’m gonna go  home. Just remembered I promised Mom I’d return earlier today.” That was a  downright lie, but no one seemed to mind.  
        
Letting go of my shoulder, Nathan shrugged. “Sure. If you change your  mind, you know where to find us.”

I nodded, turned around and ran home as fast as I  could.

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