The
Shade
The
Shade Trilogy, Book 1
by Matthew
Tallman
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Date of Publication: March 9th
2014
ISBN: 9780991619207
Number of pages: 340
Word Count: 105,494 words
Cover Artist: Pixel Pixie Design
Book Description:
James Langley's life is over.
After an automobile accident leaves him comatose, James' body lies vulnerable
in a hospital bed. However, his mind is lost, drifting between life and death,
into The Shade.
Trapped in a world shrouded by
the unknown, he meets Virgil, a mysterious stranger that informs him that his
car wreck was no accident; that the man responsible has imprisoned them both,
intent on keeping them there. Together they must race against time to get James
back to his body in the real world before he becomes the next victim of a
malevolent psychopath.
Enter the world of The Shade,
where the boundaries of the human psyche are pushed to their limits and
survival is not guaranteed. A place where death isn't the end, but only the
beginning.
An intense wave of pain shot its way
up my spine, telling me I needed to get up. The hard hospital tiles had broken
my fall with the gentle care you would expect. Slowly I opened my eyes, getting
my first look at the ceiling of the room I had been thrown into. My bloody fist
clinched a hand full of tile fragments and crushed them into powder.
That
didn’t go as expected.
My hands shook as they slowly lifted
my body back to an upright position.
Once on my feet, I scanned the empty
room quietly. There was nothing significant about it; the room looked just like
the hundreds of others in the abandoned hospital. The paint on the walls was
cracked and peeling from years of neglect, along with a floor covered in a
thick layer of grime. However, I wasn’t scanning the room to look at the
scenery; my eyes were looking for something far more—sinister. My legs quivered
as they tried to keep me from doubling back over.
Then I felt a presence in the room
with me.
It wasn't something tangible that I
could see with my naked eye, but I knew that something was there. My breath
remained slow and steady.
The
fall must have been harder than I thought.
My hand rubbed the back of my head
as I tried to get my bearings. Then it happened, coming out from the wall in
front of me, the specter emerged.
It looked like a man in shape only.
Truly, it was more like a cadaver that had been charred in an unholy fire. I
gazed in horror at the creature, black as pitch. As I stared into the blackness
that comprised it, the darkness seemed to swallow me up, almost like falling
through space with nothing to grasp onto. Flesh from the specter's body was
peeling away, matching the paint on the walls. Its eyes, if you could call them
that, were as black and deep as the ocean depths. It moved closer to me, with a
twisted look on its face that seemed to say. "You, you're screwed, and there's nothing you can do about
it."
With my fists balled tightly,
readying myself for an attack. I could feel the color draining from my clenched
fists as the creature leapt at me, its arms opened wide, ready to take me to
the ground. I instinctively ducked, letting my body slam against the hard tile
floor, causing my assailant to vault over me. I rolled forward—creating more
distance between the creature and myself—and then sprang back to my feet.
The specter landed softly, only a
few feet behind me.
I spun around to face the creature.
It turned to face me, but before it
had time to attack; my fist was already rocketing towards its face. The power
encapsulated in my closed hand crushed itself against the creature's face and
as the two forces made contact, a thunderous boom erupted in the room.
Take
that you piece of—
The specter recovered quickly, and before
I knew what was happening it had latched its arms around my waist and we were
tumbling towards the ground. We slammed against the floor, rolling a few feet.
When we stopped, my legs heaved upwards with all their strength, breaking the
specter's grip on me, hurling it across the room.
The creature hit the floor as I quickly
found my way upright. Using the confusion to my advantage, I ran for the door.
I made my way through the door and immediately turned right, heading down the
long hospital hallway. My breath was stuck in my chest, as if my lungs refused
to work. My heart thumped quickly inside me as I ran. I felt the side of my
body begin to burn as the pain the specter had inflicted became apparent.
Halfway down the hallway, I found a room and ducked into it to avoid the specter.
My hand met my mouth to stop myself from breathing too heavily. My heart
pounded so loudly in my chest I thought that it would give me away.
From down the hallway, I could hear the specter
moving closer towards me. My eyes shut tight as the sound of footsteps came
closer towards me. Closer and closer the footsteps of the creature passed by
the room. It breathed heavily as it searched the hallway for me.
My muscles tightened.
I could feel the creature as it passed by
the room.
One,
two, three.
I counted in my head and then took off down
towards the opposite end of the hallway. I ran back down the hallway, leaving the
specter behind me. I had only fooled the creature for a moment, because almost
immediately after I emerged from the room the sound of heavy footsteps running
towards me echoed down the hall. I would have looked back, but I knew what
chased after me, I knew the unending horror of what a monster like the specter
could do to a man. I tried with all my might, to will my legs to move faster,
but with no success. The noise from the creature behind me grew closer, and
closer. Each step that I took down the hallway the creature gained another few
feet on me, I knew that within a few seconds it would be on top of me again.
So in a split-second decision, I stopped
to make a stand.
About
the Author:
I am currently a part time writer
and full time government employee. Reading and writing books is one of my
favorite hobbies as I enjoy every part of the story telling process. I have
been working on three full-length novels for the last three years. I grew up
all around the world because my father was in the United States Air Force, the
past ten years I have lived just outside of Dayton, Ohio, which is where I now
reside with my wife and stepson.
Giveaway:
5 ebook copies of The Shade by Matthew Tallman
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