Jonathan Dunne's Blog - Posts Tagged "jonathan-dunne-drive"
'Drive' prologue (Coming May 2024, fingers crossed)
Prologue
The Blackest Grimoire
Her fingers stroke the ingredients laid out before her on the table, relishing how the neat row of items feels to the touch, delighting in how the cold, sharp edge of the knife contrasts with the tickling brush of the sage. Shapes and textures have become more prominent while colour drained from her world long ago.
She lights the herb and chants lost words, weaving back and forth with every hushed syllable. Her shadow dances and shimmers on the walls of the gloomy basement as the candle flames sputter. Electricity was never intended to illuminate this incantation. This malediction was written by candlelight five hundred years ago and meant to be carried out by the living light of the candle. The aromatic woodsy scent of smouldering sage rises in her nostrils. It is strange to think she has waited a lifetime for this moment. Now time is of the essence and the essence of time has already gone into this dark concoction she has been brewing…brewing…breeewwwing during the hours when the house sleeps and a monster creeps. Nobody would ever understand her reasoning; this is something that has been bubbling in her cauldron for years and she justifies her actions as she creates the perfect storm in a fine bone china teacup of burning sage.
Well, there is one person who understands her reasoning and she, too, has had her whole life to ponder this. But what that one person might not understand is why she was concocting a second curse when they had already planned everything out with meticulous precision. She thinks about a tendril of smoke finding its way through the keyhole to the nostrils of the sleeping inhabitant next door. After all, burning sage means only one thing in this household. How would she explain herself? She would think of something to say if it came to that. Anyway, there isn’t time now.
Before her, on the table, lays an ancient opened book — a banned tome. She has parted these very pages so many times that the two dog-eared folios have come away from the cracked spine, left hanging on spindly threads. Rather than reading the strange symbols and words, she gently caresses the vellum pages. She doesn’t need to read them because she memorised them a long time ago. It is the last volume of its kind and she paid a pretty penny for it. Oh yes, she did. Some would say she paid with her life. Strange to think she bought this book once upon a time to bring a loved one back from the dead. Oh, how the times have changed. Or have they? Not really. She is still summoning a spirit, just not the spirit she intended to summon.
Thinking about the twisted version of herself she has become, she carries out the next step of the summoning. She scoops out the finely chopped hairs and sprinkles them into the glowing bone china teacup of sage. The blonde hair hisses and sizzles, leaving a sulphurous stench to permeate the basement. Spitting into the little smoking pile, she then makes a paste between her thumb and forefinger. With a broken stick of hamamelis growing in the back garden, she stirs the mixture with the cracked end, allowing the heart of the stick and its sap to mix with the brew.
And now to the next step…the step she has been fearing; she never liked pain — who does? — and though she has been living with it, she never got used to the pain. She feels for the knife, its blade glinting in the candlelight. With a wince, she drags the sharp cutting edge across her left palm, so sharp that she can barely feel it as it cuts through her epidermis like razor grass. She tightens her fist until droplets of blood flow freely from her clenched hand and into the cooling pasty ash.
Looming over the homemade potion, she waits for the last ingredient to be added, the one ingredient not on the table before her: tears. Her tears are never far away and a single salty tear falls from her left cheek into the ashes, fuelling the potency of the mixture.
She daubs the ashen blend onto her lips, then her fingers find the photograph on the table next to the heavy old book and she draws it to her lips, kissing the smiling occupant looking out from the picture — offering the kiss of death.
She lays down the picture with the smudged grey lip print, then scoops out more of the mixture and smears it across her own face at an angle from right to left, starting above her right eye socket, crossing down over her nose, lips, and chin, to below her left earlobe with her three middle fingers. Once the pasty streaks reach the point below her left ear, she continues down the left-hand side of her throat and ribcage, then stops over her heart which might or might not be beating — she isn’t sure these days.
She raises the handheld mirror and whispers to her reflection: ‘In the light, I am nobody. In the dark, I am somebody.’
Quenching the candles, she is left alone in the darkness she no longer sees because the darkness consumed her long ago. A smile cracks on her lips and a devilish grin comes back at her from the darkness, though she doesn’t see it.
The Blackest Grimoire
Her fingers stroke the ingredients laid out before her on the table, relishing how the neat row of items feels to the touch, delighting in how the cold, sharp edge of the knife contrasts with the tickling brush of the sage. Shapes and textures have become more prominent while colour drained from her world long ago.
She lights the herb and chants lost words, weaving back and forth with every hushed syllable. Her shadow dances and shimmers on the walls of the gloomy basement as the candle flames sputter. Electricity was never intended to illuminate this incantation. This malediction was written by candlelight five hundred years ago and meant to be carried out by the living light of the candle. The aromatic woodsy scent of smouldering sage rises in her nostrils. It is strange to think she has waited a lifetime for this moment. Now time is of the essence and the essence of time has already gone into this dark concoction she has been brewing…brewing…breeewwwing during the hours when the house sleeps and a monster creeps. Nobody would ever understand her reasoning; this is something that has been bubbling in her cauldron for years and she justifies her actions as she creates the perfect storm in a fine bone china teacup of burning sage.
Well, there is one person who understands her reasoning and she, too, has had her whole life to ponder this. But what that one person might not understand is why she was concocting a second curse when they had already planned everything out with meticulous precision. She thinks about a tendril of smoke finding its way through the keyhole to the nostrils of the sleeping inhabitant next door. After all, burning sage means only one thing in this household. How would she explain herself? She would think of something to say if it came to that. Anyway, there isn’t time now.
Before her, on the table, lays an ancient opened book — a banned tome. She has parted these very pages so many times that the two dog-eared folios have come away from the cracked spine, left hanging on spindly threads. Rather than reading the strange symbols and words, she gently caresses the vellum pages. She doesn’t need to read them because she memorised them a long time ago. It is the last volume of its kind and she paid a pretty penny for it. Oh yes, she did. Some would say she paid with her life. Strange to think she bought this book once upon a time to bring a loved one back from the dead. Oh, how the times have changed. Or have they? Not really. She is still summoning a spirit, just not the spirit she intended to summon.
Thinking about the twisted version of herself she has become, she carries out the next step of the summoning. She scoops out the finely chopped hairs and sprinkles them into the glowing bone china teacup of sage. The blonde hair hisses and sizzles, leaving a sulphurous stench to permeate the basement. Spitting into the little smoking pile, she then makes a paste between her thumb and forefinger. With a broken stick of hamamelis growing in the back garden, she stirs the mixture with the cracked end, allowing the heart of the stick and its sap to mix with the brew.
And now to the next step…the step she has been fearing; she never liked pain — who does? — and though she has been living with it, she never got used to the pain. She feels for the knife, its blade glinting in the candlelight. With a wince, she drags the sharp cutting edge across her left palm, so sharp that she can barely feel it as it cuts through her epidermis like razor grass. She tightens her fist until droplets of blood flow freely from her clenched hand and into the cooling pasty ash.
Looming over the homemade potion, she waits for the last ingredient to be added, the one ingredient not on the table before her: tears. Her tears are never far away and a single salty tear falls from her left cheek into the ashes, fuelling the potency of the mixture.
She daubs the ashen blend onto her lips, then her fingers find the photograph on the table next to the heavy old book and she draws it to her lips, kissing the smiling occupant looking out from the picture — offering the kiss of death.
She lays down the picture with the smudged grey lip print, then scoops out more of the mixture and smears it across her own face at an angle from right to left, starting above her right eye socket, crossing down over her nose, lips, and chin, to below her left earlobe with her three middle fingers. Once the pasty streaks reach the point below her left ear, she continues down the left-hand side of her throat and ribcage, then stops over her heart which might or might not be beating — she isn’t sure these days.
She raises the handheld mirror and whispers to her reflection: ‘In the light, I am nobody. In the dark, I am somebody.’
Quenching the candles, she is left alone in the darkness she no longer sees because the darkness consumed her long ago. A smile cracks on her lips and a devilish grin comes back at her from the darkness, though she doesn’t see it.
Drive supernatural horror coming 22nd April 2024!
Jonathan's supernatural thriller Drive is coming 22nd April 2024 in all formats plus audiobook read by the author! s in all formats plus audiobook read by the author! Pre-order a Kindle copy for only .99c!
Supernatural horror Drive OUT NOW!
Jonathan's creepy horror Drive is OUT NOW!
Free to read on Kindle Unlimited.
Audiobook narrated by the author coming to your favourite platform real soon.
https://a.co/d/6S1xe7z
Free to read on Kindle Unlimited.
Audiobook narrated by the author coming to your favourite platform real soon.
https://a.co/d/6S1xe7z
#1 New Release on Amazon horror...'Drive'
Sincere thanks to all who drove my new horror Drive to #1 New Release on Amazon Horror
https://a.co/d/9k6QWKo
https://a.co/d/9k6QWKo
