Thought Threads and Emotion Puddles
The song darkened, and the creatures of the trench rose in Rain’s mind, cunning and quick. Magic as deep as the sea, but they too would waste away with the rise of modernity until three half-human children were all that remained of the Old God’s blood.
- Genre: Contemporary Fantasy Horror
- Status: Drafting 90/100k
THOUGHT THREADS AND EMOTION PUDDLES is a dark urban fantasy with strong elements of horror. The dual-POV manuscript explores a city ruled by a witch syndicate through the experiences of those at the margins of society: a homeless teen and a male prostitute who work together to escape a siren serial killer.
Runaway Brigid survives the streets of Threeharbor City by squatting in an abandoned coal vault and committing petty theft. Deaf and mute, she perceives other people’s emotions as color-changing puddles and thoughts as threads floating in the air. She avoids witches and cops equally, but most of all, she stays far away from the serial killer stalking the city. She doesn’t know who or what it is, but the killer’s emotion puddle leaks, leaving behind burgundy slicks that ooze with hunger and glee. The murderer’s tacky black thought threads linger around streetlights and carry the memories of the awful things they have done.
Rain, a recovering alcoholic and “joy boy,” trading kink for cash, is about to become the next victim. He has no idea that complimenting a teenager’s chalk drawing would lead to his best chance of escaping the clutches of the siren serial killer. However, when Brigid proves to be immune to the siren’s song and helps Rain resist it with his latent magic, she becomes the killer’s primary target. Now, Rain and Brigid need to figure out their magic and work together to stop this sweet singing death coming for them—or anyone else.
Shattered Creatures
- Genre: Horror
- Status: Revising 85K
SHATTERED CREATURES is a dual-POV Little Red Riding Hood retelling with the monsters of Slavic and Greek folklore set in the forests of Siberia.
The Stranger is a possessed, liver-eating monster called a vourdalak that looks like a normal young woman. She wants to keep it that way. After all, hunting is easier when you appear like your prey. She sets off for a Siberian monastery to avoid the fate all vourdalaks share. There, she hopes to find a book that may hold the key to keeping her body before it mutates into something grotesque.
Londoner Nate Shah is part of a team investigating sightings of a humanoid creature in Siberia. An empath, he senses hungry predators stalking their expedition just before a pack of enormous monsters with spindly fingers and gray skin attacks. The Stranger comes to his rescue and assaults the creatures. When she hesitates to give him a name, Nate calls their savior Ann.
When Ann tells Nate and his friend they just survived a vourdalak attack, Nate asks Ann to guide them to a nearby research station to call for a rescue. She knows the smart play would be to move on, continuing her search for the book, but agrees to help. However, the voices that possess her would rather make snacks of them. They do smell really yummy.
Once again, Nate senses the icy hunger he associates with the vourdalaks, but when he turns around, it’s Ann silently watching him from the shadows. He could run, but Ann isn’t the only monster in the woods, and Nate needs her more than he fears her. The Vourdalaks are still hunting them, and in the mountainous taiga at the onset of winter, both make a gamble. One could lose the last vestiges of her humanity, the other his life.