Horror

370

The Gatekeeper on CD by Dana Reed
Limited First Edition Only 7 Copies Cut
Signed by Author
$11.95 Each, Postage Within U.S. Included

PROLOGUE
Father, Son, and Holy Beast
Amelio Rodriguez lay in bed and tried to remember when it was that things had gone sour. It was close to impossible though; the room was noisy, full of sounds that didn’t belong. After all,he was in the privacy of his own home, with the cold, motionless body of his wife beside him. It
should’ve been quiet!
Night had fallen hours before, bringing a terrible amount of activity; the house was alive with madness. Furniture moved. No! It slammed across the altar room with fury. But no one was present in that room. And there were noises, all sorts of noises. The low-throated groans of an enraged beast had filled him with dread at first until something far worse assaulted his senses.
It started with heartbeats—several of them—letting Amelio know they were there. And the whisperings—a chorus of creatures with harsh, gravelly voices told him about death, promised
him pain, and took the breath from his wife!
He shuddered spasmodically when the door to his bedroom opened—locked and bolted though it was—and a black, swirling mass of raging hatred drifted in to greet him.
Julio! This was his father Julio’s fault. Julio—master of the Black Arts—turning his only son into a prodigy. But in all fairness, Julio had seen the error of his ways. He became enlightened when daemons from the lower order of Acheron gouged an inverted crucifix an inch deep into
his chest, leaving a raw, painful wound. Then they wrote the name of their master, Mephisto, over the altar with Julio’s blood.
And to think the altar had been placed in a room with blue walls and blue carpeting to pay homage to the beast because blue is the color of evil. But the Beast turned, the Beast demanded payment for past favors, and Julio ran back to Puerto Rico.
The black, swirling mass floated in a dizzying pattern until it reached the foot of Amelio’s bed. He was frightened beyond belief; these were his friends, but they were turning . . . turning
on him. Then perhaps, he thought, it was only fitting and fair if he did the same. But where would he begin? The words were stuck in his throat. He had never used them before.
“Dear Lord,” he moaned--


Henry Wittaker reread the last few pages of the novel and shuddered. The story, especially the ending, ran on a plain parallel to what he had recently experienced.
Particularly the part about the house being theirs—