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Connections

by Michael S. Twist

320 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0229; ISBN 1-4120-2401-3; US$26.00, C$28.99, EUR21.50, £15.00

Suppose everything depended on you?
Suppose everything depended on you and you were only seven years old?
The dreams of a child...
...or a nightmare for us all?

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Connections: Four people with nothing in common. A young girl dreams of the fairground; a woman needs to quit smoking and a detective drinks too much as he listens to tales of dead men who walk. Dr Harrison waits in the dark place for a sign. He has little else to do having passed away over thirty years ago. Elsewhere, a hypnotist's light blinks its slow soporific beat in a darkened room off a Kings Cross back street and somewhere, in another world, a dead man shields his eyes from the glare. Connections: A journey that starts with a young girl's dreams and a young woman's hopes and finishes across time and across reality into the very darkest of wastelands. A place where demons walk and the light cannot exist and where a seven-year old girl, dressed only in pyjama's, must stand tall and fight for us all.

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About the Author Michael was born in 1970 in St Helens, Merseyside, but has lived and worked for the last seven years in the Isle of Man. He currently lives in Onchan with his wife Gillian and children Stephanie and Matthew. He has many hobbies, including playing football averagely and guitar badly. Michael has previously had several short stories published in magazines and e-zines, but Connections is his first full length work. A second novel is almost completed and is expected out early 2005.

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Excerpts

Prologue:

In the tower, the dark was all encompassing.

More than black, much more and much worse. This was total, a colour that man could not even imagine let alone create. A million miles removed from our own perception of black, this dark lives and breathes and taunts and tortures...

He did not know how long he had been in this place. There was no possible way to know although he had a pretty good idea how long he would be here for.

Eternity, unless...

Months, years, decades, it didn't matter. Nothing did. How could it in a place like this? 'Am I in Hell?'

He had asked himself this constantly in the early days and although he was pretty damn sure he wasn't in Heaven, he didn't believe he was in Hell either. The agonised screaming and wailing that frequently penetrated the dark confirmed that just a couple of floors down was a far, far worse place. Although simply hanging around in the totality was certainly torturous, he would take the mental pain over the physical being inflicted on the poor souls who were apparently his close neighbours.

Hanging around was a pretty apt description as although he had nothing to get his bearings with, he had, over time, decided that he was suspended in a 'Christ-like' position, arms spread and feet together. He had initially been so disorientated by the totality, blinded by the darkness in effect, that there was no way of really knowing for sure. It just felt that way.

Every now and again he had the sensation that he was moving or rather the thing that he was suspended in was, and fear would strike, as he was sure that he would be joining the others in the Hall of screams but he never did. Just hung around. A man with nothing to do and nowhere to go and all the time in the world to do it in. Unless...

Unless there was a reason for him being here.

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The screaming started again. A hideous symphony that would surely freeze the blood of any living creature unfortunate enough to hear it and would more than likely kill a human stone dead. Being neither, the ex Dr Harrison simply smiled. Then he began to laugh...

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A fearsome thunderous rumbling commenced in the dark place but Dr Harrison was not scared. He had been expecting something to happen although he did not know why or what. The noise was getting closer and had completely drowned out the cacophony from the Hall of screams. Harrison knew that they would still be screaming though. Those fuckers always screamed, cried, begged, as if it made any difference.

He felt wind, just a breeze at first but growing until he felt his body being battered by a tremendous gale that howled around him and then incredibly, a flicker of light. Although just a faint glimmer, Harrison found the light blinding. He had been trapped in the darkness for what felt like forever and now there was something up ahead.

He had been aware of sensations before, the feeling that he had been moving and on one occasion, the feeling that something had been moving past him. He shuddered at the memory. Hanging in the darkness something phenomenally large had swept passed him: close very close. He had felt it and sensed that this was a creature that was unfeasibly large. He couldn't comprehend how large but he had felt like an ant must feel when a human stepped over it. Pure terror had swept over him as he thought that what ever it was had come for him. But what ever the giant creature had been, it had thankfully kept going.

The wind subsided and the light ahead continued to blink like a giant eye in the darkness. Harrison was not afraid. In fact with every pulsating emission he felt stronger, powerful. The light began to fill him and then to slowly draw him in as the eye winked its message, its confirmation that a connection had been made. Harrison could feel fear but it wasn't his. He thought of blood and the thought pleased him greatly.

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Catalogue Information

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