A third very brief excerpt from Gamble's Run, coming soon from Hellbound Books Publishing.
www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

    

     He was in a nightmare from which he could not escape.  Great waves of boiling darkness closed in on all sides, dragging him down into oblivion.  A tiny part of Garrett's mind understood that he was unconscious.  He fought against the darkness that imprisoned him, tearing at it.  Finally, a dim light flared in his mind.  He reached for it, knowing that it was his only way out of the darkness.  He grabbed the light with his mind and squeezed.  Slowly, the darkness receded.  It was a long, painful process, but finally he managed to open his eyes. 

     He was still reclined in his chair, only now the late evening sunlight poured through the living room window, forcing him to squint.  He glanced at his watch and saw that it was just after six.  He had been out for at least an entire day.  The sun's warm autumn glow mocked him.  He felt dirty...defiled. 

     “Melllllllll.”  He could barely manage a raw hiss.  His throat was parched, and his dry tongue felt as if it had doubled in size.  He moved it around in his mouth, trying to get his saliva flowing.  After a few seconds he succeeded.  He tried to turn his head but his neck was stiff and sore.  Every muscle in his body ached.  He groaned and tried to sit up, but suddenly his damaged leg made itself known.

     “Arrrrrrgh.”  Tears squirted from his eyes.  It felt as if molten metal was being injected straight into his knee.  Suddenly he began to weep and in an instant he lost all control.  He sobbed, gulping in the air and expelling it almost immediately. 

     It wasn’t the physical pain.  He had dealt with that for over a year and had its measure.  His spirit was in torment.  A raging darkness, much like the darkness of his dream, had somehow rooted itself deep inside of him.  He could feel it gnawing at his soul, or life force, or whatever it was that made him a unique being.                

       In the course of a single night, Garrett’s world had been turned inside out.  He had encountered something that was not only beyond his experience but beyond his belief.  He had never been able to acknowledge the existence of anything beyond the limits of his physical senses.  In an instant, that belief had been turned into a pile of rubble that now lay at his metaphysical feet.        

Off topic, and only indirectly related to Gamble's Run, but this quote has been a constant source of encouragement for me.
"It's not what a man is, but what he can become that matters. And it's never too late (or too early for that matter) to start becoming."
Lionel Barrymore

Where do story ideas come from?  The answer to that question is unique for each story.  In the case of Gamble's Run, the idea began in 2006 with a short article in The Ledger, a small local newspaper.  It featured a little known historical site called the Slave Canal.  The only reason it was in the news at all was because legislation had been introduced to rename it the Cotton Run Canal.  The name Slave Canal had been deemed 'racially insensitive'.  The idea was strongly opposed by the local residents, many of whom were descendants of the slaves who dug the canal.  Their reply...Don't Mess With Our History!  The idea was quickly abandoned.
That article resulted in a short story called The Slave Canal.  A few years later, the idea for Gamble's Run was fully formed.  If you're interested, here's the link to the original article.http://www.theledger.com/news/20060115/residents-dont-rewrite-slave-canal-history

The Gamble's Run Tagline?
The Waters Run Deep.

Here's the back jacket blurb for Gamble's Run.

     Reeling from the tragic loss of his infant daughter Molly and the disappearance of his wife

Melody, Garrett Webb begins a journey that will ultimately bring him to a place called Gamble's Run, a long abandoned canal hidden deep in central Florida.  If he has any hope of finding his wife he must penetrate the mysteries surrounding the canal and confront the evil that has festered there for uncounted centuries.  He will make deadly enemies, but he will also gain steadfast friends and allies.  Together they will confront a power that exists beyond time and space.      

      Unearthly forces clash in ancient conflict with a single question hanging in the balance: What dwells beneath the waters of Gamble's Run? 

Here's another brief excerpt from Gamble's Run, coming soon from Hellbound Books Publishing.  www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

     Waking up was always devastating, but for a few brief moments, in some distant reality, he would be reunited with the only two people he truly loved.  He reached down, grabbed the recliner’s lever and pulled it forward.  The footrest slid down and his feet touched the floor.  He grabbed his cane and made to stand...        

      …and froze.

     His apartment was small; a cramped living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.  The bathroom was off of the bedroom and the kitchen was to the right of the front...and only... door.  There was not much furniture; just his chair, a cheap couch and a couple of end tables.  A small dinette set was placed next to the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.  He could easily see the front door and just as easily see the human shaped silhouette standing there.  His heart slammed against his chest as he realized that he was not alone. 

     I’m being robbed, he thought wildly.  He gripped his cane, knowing that with his bad leg he was defenseless against a determined attack.  He opened his mouth…whether to scream in terror or challenge he would never know…but all that came out was a raspy hiss.  His throat was bone dry. 

     The dark figure did not move.  Neither did Garrett.  I’m dreaming, he thought, trying desperately to believe it.  Of course I’m still dreaming.  He concentrated, trying to bring himself to full consciousness.  Nothing changed.  His aching leg throbbed in time with his heart.  That was enough to tell him that he was awake. 

     And still the dark figure did not move.  Garrett knew that whoever it was could certainly see him.  The glow from the parking lot was dim but adequate.  The seconds ticked away.  Finally, he managed to speak.

     “I don’t have much,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  “Just take what you want and go.  Please.”  His voice was weak and shaky and he winced in shame.  He took a deep breath.  “Just get out.”  He glanced at the table and then remembered that his cell phone was in his jeans pocket.  He eased his left hand toward it but suddenly the figure moved and Garrett had to gulp down a scream.  It did not come forward, or step backward or even sideways.  It shifted.  Garrett suddenly got the insane idea that it had stayed in the same place while the entire universe moved past it. 

     “Please,” Garrett pleaded.  Something was very wrong with this intruder.  “What do you want?” 

Ever since I can remember, I have had a love for ghost stories, but at the age of 13, I stumbled across a volume of short stories called The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and other tales of horror by H.P. Lovecraft.  I was blown away!  Gothic haunted houses gave way to lurkers in shadows that were connected to incomprehensible (and unspeakable) cosmic horrors.  To say that this collection had an influence on my writing would be a gross understatement.  All of my work, including Gamble's Run, can trace its lineage back to this trade paperback. 

Here are some pictures of the actual Slave Canal as it is today.
Source: Green Wave Forum

A short promo for Gamble's Run, coming soon from Hellbound Books Publishing.  www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

Gamble's Run is being published by Hellbound Books Publishing.  My thanks to owner James Longmore and the entire Hellbound family.  They do it right.  www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

Here's the first page or so from Gamble's Run.  Interested?  It's due out in July, 2018, from the good people at Hellbound Books.www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

     

     Garrett Webb awoke with a start, his heart pounding.  He wiped away the thin sheen of sweat that covered his forehead as he struggled to regain full awareness.  The nightmare that had been tormenting him vanished in a dark puff of dream smoke, leaving him with nothing more than a fading impression of being slowly smothered. 

     The only light came from the glowing red numbers of small clock perched on the nightstand beside his queen sized bed.  He barely had time to see that it was 4:05 a.m. before they winked out.  An instant later, his bed lurched sideways and slammed into the wall.  His left shoulder struck the wall at an awkward angle, causing him to cry out in both pain and shock.  Instinctively he reached out for the woman sleeping next to him.        

     “Mel?  MEL!”  An instant later, his wife Melody cried out as she too was brutally dragged back into consciousness.  Her arm flailed out, slapping him hard on his stomach.  He was shirtless and her fingernails scraped along his ribs, leaving four thin bloody scratches.  The bed lurched again.   

     “MOLLY,” she screamed.  Of course her first thought was for their ten month old daughter.  On cue, Molly started crying.  Husband and wife struggled to get out of bed, but suddenly the floor tilted.  The bed slid along the wall, away from Molly's bedroom, and stopped under the window that overlooked the lake just outside their petite home.  The lake had dried up during the long drought that gripped central Florida and all that was left was a hard, cracked bed.     

          “MOLLY,” screamed Melody again.  The house answered them with another groan and suddenly the window shattered.  Shards of glass pummeled them.  If they had been looking up, they would have been blinded.  As it was, they sustained dozens of painful, shallow cuts.

    “Garrett!  What’s happening?”  Garrett opened his mouth to say that he had no idea, but suddenly a wall of dirt followed the glass.  He covered his eyes and mouth and rolled sideways as the dirt piled onto the bed.  Melody screamed again.  She scrambled off the bed and fell to the floor.  Then she began to crawl toward the bedroom door. 

     “MEL!  WAIT!” 

     “MOLLY!”  Melody’s only thought now was for her daughter.  In the next bedroom, Molly’s cries became screams.  The tiny wood frame house shook as dirt continued to pour through the bedroom window. 

The slaves that dug the canal were transported to the site via riverboat, much like this one.  One of those boats, the Shamrock, figures prominently in Gamble's Run. 
Source: Florida Memory

Gamble's Run is based on a short story I wrote years ago called The Slave Canal, which in turn is based on a real placed called, surprisingly, the Slave Canal.  Hidden away in central Florida, the canal was the brain child of a wealthy plantation owner named John Gamble.  Gamble was a part of a loose consortium of landowners and businessmen who needed a faster way to get their cotton to the Gulf of Mexico.  Poor roads made transportation difficult and often impossible.  The Wacissia, the nearest river, had a bad habit of disappearing underground for several miles at a stretch.  It ended in a maze like swamp that the locals called, charmingly enough, The Warriors.

     Gamble commissioned the canal in 1831.  The plan was to link the Wacissia with the Aucilla River, which flowed unobstructed to the Gulf.  The canal would be about two and a half miles long and deep enough to allow the barges to pass.  They could then make the run to the gulf in record time.

     It was a devastating failure.  The canal had to be dug by hand, and that meant that it had to be dug by slaves.  From the beginning, the canal did not work, mainly because it was not deep enough.  During the dry season, the water level sank so low that it was next to impossible to get the barges through.  They kept getting hung up on the canal bed, not to mention the constantly falling branches from the trees that lined both banks.  

     Not long after the canal was finished, the railroad appeared and took over the transportation duties from the barges.  A few decades later, the Civil War broke out, after which Gamble was finished.  The canal is still there today, a silent indictment to his folly.
     Gamble's Run uses the Slave Canal as a setting for a tale of horror, loyalty, hatred, redemption and above all, unconditional love.