Monday, May 14, 2018

House of Sighs by Aaron Dries

Release date: May 11, 2018
Subgenre: Horror

About House of Sighs:

 

Board for free. But the cost might be your life.

“This taut, grisly thriller reads like a sick and twisted extreme horror SPEED. You don’t know who, if anybody, will make it. Catch this bus at your own risk.” – Eric Red, The Hitcher and Near Dark

In House of Sighs, Local bus driver, Liz Frost, pulls the gun from her mouth and decides to live with her loneliness for one more day. She dresses, combs her hair, and goes to work. Nine souls board her route that fateful morning in rural Australia, nine souls who Liz drags back to her home against their will. She wants to build a new family from these passengers, men and women who are willing to kill to avoid becoming her kin. The bus leaves a trail of carnage in its wake as it rockets towards a house that has held its secrets for far too long, a place where crows now gather, ready to feed on whatever is left behind.

This award-winning, psychological experience is back in print, and includes the exclusive sequel The Sound of his Bones Breaking, a novella that will leave you leave you truly shaken.

“Prepare to be blown away.” – Dread Central

Includes the sequel novella The Sound of his Bones Breaking:

Trauma has teeth. Big ones. And it’s always hungry for seconds.


Aiden and Danny down their beers in the open bar overlooking the road, legs brushing together, about as far as they let their public displays of affection go in that part of Australia. The warm breeze and pounding music—their last happy memory. Everything changes when the taxi pulls up and its drunken driver stumbles out, starting a street brawl that leaves Danny broken and bleeding on the ground. In an attempt to give his lover the space he needs to heal, Aiden accepts an employment opportunity in Thailand, and the two men set off overseas, their fates sealed air-tight within the confines of the airplane. But in the claustrophobic hush of their tiny Bangkok apartment, and while Aiden goes off to work, instead of mending, Danny’s old scars begin to sing.

The lonely walks. The woman cooking bones in a vat of broth, whispering at him to eat the parts that hurt. The flies nobody but Danny can hear.

A burning desire to trace his heritage of hurt back to ground zero, and there, find someone to blame.

The Sound of his Bones Breaking 
is the dread-infused sequel to House of Sighs.

 

Excerpt:

 

Julia dipped low in her seat again, drawing a ragged breath. The driver hadn’t moved after all. It struck her as almost impossible that the woman could be both there and not there at the same time. Though then again, possibly not. Because when Julia closed her eyes, she could see the posters in her bedroom far away, could hear music crooning from the cassette player on her dresser.
Pulling something close to her chest, assuming it was one of her teddy bears. Only it wasn’t. The baby in her arms was a viscera-coated, half-dead creature clambering for breath.
She clenched her fists as hard as she could, refusing to resign to the worlds of hurt on either side of her blink. Two places at once, and neither of them safe.
“Look,” Jack started again, his voice like a shake in the dark. Julia didn’t know why she feared him so, yet fear him she did. She watched the way he held up his large strong hands, both as big as trashcan lids, and shivered. “I’ve got these. I can—” he mimed a kind of strangling, “—from behind.”
“And lose control of the bus, killing us all in the process?” Sarah tapped her forehead in a think, man gesture. “Not in this life, Jack. You grab her and she’ll jerk the wheel. We flip, who knows?”
“But if we all go at her together,” Jack said, cracking his knuckles.
Kids, Jack. This is a bus of kids. Those guys up the front are terrified, and I don’t blame them. I’m scared, too. We’re not an army.”
“She’s right,” Diana said. “We wait. The driver will stop eventually and when she does she’ll let us go. It’s simple. Either that, or the police will come. Whichever happens first. A dead girl in the middle of the road doesn’t go unnoticed, you know. Not even in James-a-fuckin’-Bridge.”
“She has a gun, woman! What you think she’s gonna do when the police show? Jesus.”
“We should fight,” said a voice.
They turned to the speaker.
Julia.

 

Amazon

 

About Aaron Dries:

Author, artist, and filmmaker Aaron Dries was born and raised in New South Wales, Australia. His novels include House of Sighs, The Fallen Boys, A Place for Sinners, and Where the Dead Go to Die, which he co-wrote with Mark Allan Gunnells. His short fiction and illustration work has been published world-wide. Feel free to drop him a line at www.aarondries.com. He won't bite. Much.

 

Website | Crystal Lake Publishing


 

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