For the Stalkers Book Blast hosted by Itching For Books I have Bart Hopkins here to talk about his story: Donations.
Take it away, Bart!
Guest
Blog Post – Bart Hopkins
Many thanks for letting me do a guest post
today!
The bare minimum intro: I’m an indie author. A little luck, and friendly people, brought
me to this blog, and if you don’t mind, I’ll cozy up, and tell you a story from
my childhood. I haven’t shared it with
many people, but I find it (strangely) fun.
One time, when I was a kid, my mom and I were
staying up late watching a movie. I was maybe five years old. The
lights were dim and the sound was down on the television because my dad was
asleep.
We heard a strange scratching sound at the
window in our living room. My mom turned on the light and spoke loudly at
what she thought might be an intruder. There was a clatter, then the
sound of retreating footsteps. We rallied the troops and inspected our
front porch.
There was a glass-cutting device on the ground;
a semi-circle was carved on the window. We'd gotten lucky and thwarted a
break-in.
After that, I had this recurring dream
(nightmare) that would pop up every month or two for the next several years.
The frequency of the dream eventually tapered off, but it’s visited me a
few times in adulthood.
I'm back in that childhood apartment, alone,
and I hear scratching at the living room window. In typical horror movie
fashion, against logic or rational judgment, Dream Bart pulls the cord and
opens the curtains wide. Standing just outside is a bear, big and
muscular, on his hind feet. He walks and
moves like a large man—not a bear. He opens his mouthful of razor-sharp
teeth and smiles at me ... taps his index finger claw on the window.
Tap.
Tap. Tap.
Dream Bart runs, through the apartment, to the
dining room. There are no curtains on the window. There should be, but there are not. I
stare for a moment through the glass, scared...
And—out pops the bear.
I continue running through the house and reach
my bedroom. I shut the door and lock it. There is the sound of
breaking glass in the house, and then silence. I look around and the
first thing I notice is that there are no curtains on this window either.
Dream Bart's blood runs cold as he waits for the bear to show his face.
But he doesn't.
I run to the closet and hide there.
Shrink into the corner. Try to make myself invisible—part of the
wall—and wait.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
And then awful laughter comes from just on the
other side of the closet door. It builds to a deafening volume and the
door opens...
That's when I wake up—shaky—glad it’s over.
And, you’re thinking, what's the point of this
story? I don’t know. Maybe that it
scared the hell out of me for years. In
some twisted way, perhaps it even led to the pleasure I find in horror and
thriller stories. Which, maybe, just
maybe, eventually led to this short story I wrote called Donations.
An
Excerpt From Donations by Bart Hopkins
(Available
in the anthology: Stalkers)
While
Clarissa was at the library waiting for a patrol car to arrive, he was
parked, waiting patiently, down the street from her townhome.
He
pushed his right hand into the pocket of his jeans, let his fingers caress the
treasure he had waiting there, and smiled salaciously. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and
removed two silver keys.
The
first key was a copy of the other key.
He’d had it made earlier that same day…
…the
other key opened Clarissa’s front door.
He
smiled again. He couldn’t believe his
good fortune.
After
watching her leave for work, he’d done a little poking around. Most people kept a spare key hidden near
their home. He did. So, he figured, maybe Clarissa did, too.
It
only took him a few minutes to find it.
It was in a Ziploc bag, pushed into the loose soil of her potted plant;
she hadn’t even buried it all the way.
He saw it almost as soon as he looked there. It was as if she were begging for something
to happen…
He
knew her routines. He knew she would be
gone for a while. Having her key copied
was a walk in the park. Like taking
candy from a baby.
Placing
her key back into the clear baggie, he jumped out of his car, and walked to her
door. Nobody shouted at him when he
stooped down and pushed the key back into its pathetic hiding place. No sirens sounded. His actions went unobserved.
He
took his copy and put it into the keyhole.
It twisted easily.
He
couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face, stretching it so taut
that wrinkles of concentric half-circles dominated his cheeks. He was giddy from the excitement he
felt. The fact that she could come down
the street any second only made it all the more exciting.
BIO
Bart
Hopkins is originally from Galveston, Texas, but currently resides in Germany. He has been an Air Force weatherman for nearly
20 years.
He
feels that his background in weather bridged naturally into the world of storytelling. He hopes to one day achieve global peace
through his writing—one individual at a time.
Bart
has written two novels—Texas Jack and Fluke—and has a book of
short stories, Dead Ends. He
blogs. He’s on a permanent quest to find
the time to be lazy. Stalk him at www.barthopkins.com or
www.facebook.com/barthopkinsauthor.
Release date: November 26th 2013
Publisher: Indie Style Press
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Shadows follow you in the darkness of the night and the eerie sensation of being watched crawls up your spine. Your sanity pulls apart at the seams as the terrors stalk their victims, leaving you too frightened to turn off the light.
These twisted stories will leave you breathless, dreading the horrors lurking around the corner.
Seventeen authors. Seventeen tales of terror. Infinite nightmares.
GIVEAWAY!
