Think of my book as a cross between the TV shows, The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. It also contains murder and mystery, similar to Elementary.
If you enjoy supernatural, mystery, and murder, then you should enjoy my book.
If anyone has comments on how to make my book even better, then please post away. Nothing is perfect and there's always room for improvement. I wrote for you, the readers, so let me hear your thoughts.
ENJOY READING!
PROLOGUE
END HOUSE AT OASIS
Five Years Earlier
Diane ran through
the heavy darkness—darkness that she could feel pressed against her cold,
sweaty skin. She raced for her life. Dodging flying chairs, tables, lamps…she dashed
to the wide staircase looming before her, watching and waiting for her. The
beautiful marble staircase had become her bitter enemy. As she stumbled up its
red carpet runner, the staircase heaved its massive, slumbering weight against
her to dislodge her unwanted presence and to thrust her into the never-ending
darkness.
Why had she been so
stubborn? Why had she turned a
blind eye to the obvious evil that had been living in the house? Why
had she remained so long in this malevolent house? In her heart, she’d always
suspected the worst. The house had its own hidden agenda: After ridding itself
of her and her family, the powerful evil lurking behind its walls, beneath its
stairs and floors, and deep down below its earth-bound foundation would be free
to be unleashed on the poor unsuspecting residents and tourists of Oasis.
But no one or nothing was
going to stop her from saving
her terrified children from the horror surrounding them all. Panting,
she heard her husband’s footsteps pounding up the stairs behind her. They were going to make
it in time…they had to.
At the top of the
staircase, she stepped into an alternate
reality as an unnatural and surreal scene opened up before
her. With the hall lights flickering on and off, pictures and
lights flew through the air to land crumpled at her feet.
Loud moans filled the hallway—moans that seemed to be
emanating from inside the walls. She shrieked as skinny
arms pushed their way through the shuddering walls: long
arms with long jagged nails jutting from the tips of their
scrawny fingers.
She didn’t know where to
turn or to run. The awful sounds didn’t sound human, and those grabbing arms didn’t
belong to a human being. She was being hit by mangled pieces of furniture, so
she had to keep moving. Taking a deep breath, she charged down the dark
hallway.
Her head hit something
hard. She looked up to come face to face with a gruesome creature that had
managed to push its enormous face through the concrete wall. Startled, she stopped
dead in her tracks. Then she realized that it wasn’t even looking at her. Its
long mouth was open wide, roaring without sound; its oblong head thrashed back
and forth, struggling to break free from its confines. An anguished grimace
seemed to be frozen into its misshapen
features. It turned to her. She gasped. It was facing her but
not seeing her; its eye sockets were dark, empty holes staring into
the distance. Scrambling away from it, she felt cold hands in her hair and around her neck, grabbing at her from
within the walls, touching her with their slimy fingers.
After freeing herself from
the creatures, she ran into her son’s bedroom. A dark shadow was approaching Tim’s crib. A loud noise boomed from inside the room. She watched as the crib lifted into the air—with Tim
huddled inside—and then crashed down hard against the wood floor. A huge crack
traveled down the middle of the room, threatening to split the floor wide open.
With Tim in her arms, she fled the crumbling room. Behind her, she heard the
room rumble and quake. She turned to watch in horror as the bedroom folded into
itself, crashing down to the floor below.
In the hall, she heard her
husband’s shout and watched
him emerge from the thick darkness with their seven-year-old
daughter, Serena, clasped against his chest.
While she was fleeing for
her life, Diane thought back to happier times at End House—at the beginning.
At first sight the house
had seemed to be just another
dark, run-down mansion left to decay into the ocean. However, after her initial visit Diane had already known that this
house was special.
To visit End House was like visiting a page
from the past: a joyous time of grand parties and luxurious lifestyles. An
elegant staircase swept upward past marble pillars, cradling intricate statues
of gargoyles.
The house was fit for a
prince or a princess, which was how Diane had felt in her new home. The parlor was complete with
elaborate moldings and a marble fireplace. It wasn’t furnished—none of the
rooms were—but its past elegance was still apparent. An enormous crystal
chandelier hung in the grand ballroom, filling the room with sparkling rainbows
of light. The white marble staircase in the main hall had been her favorite
part of the house, complete with opulent red carpeting running down its center.
Descending these stairs had made her feel like an actress in a classic movie.
After the massive
construction that she and her husband had conducted on the mansion over the
past year, End House appeared beautiful once again. The spacious rooms had been
repainted and modernized. Red rose
bushes and a thick forest of tall trees had been planted around the outdoor
pool. The indoor pool had been updated with a sauna and Jacuzzi in a white-tiled
room.
About two months ago, the
mood of the house had turned malevolent. The staircase had flattened itself out
during her descent, causing her to fly down their steep slope. Each day
afterward brought with it another evil prank against her family.
In the middle of the
night, she would often find herself
roaming through the wooded grounds—without any memory of how she’d gotten there. As she passed through doorways, she never knew which room she would be stepping into,
since the rooms often switched locations. Once she’d walked into her daughter’s
bedroom and had found herself in a flamboyant boudoir, furnished in red with
ornate tables and brocade draperies from a long-gone era.
Yesterday her husband had
entered their bedroom and had become lost in a field of daisies. It would have
been a pleasant experience for him—if the daisies hadn’t transformed themselves
into man-eating plants with long, sharp teeth. She’d found him running through
the house, shrieking about killer daisies chasing after him. If she hadn’t been
so afraid she would have found it funny, but nothing was ever funny about the
house’s long list of evil pranks.
After his heart-stopping
experience, John had agreed that it was time for them to pack up their
belongings and leave their home.
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