Nothing Will Be Left , livre ebook

4 Horsemen Publications, Inc. - October Kane

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97 pages

English

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Description

Albert Turner was only supposed to be visiting Quill Point, but now he may never leave.

Quill Point, Illinois, used to be like any other small town. Most of its citizens have lived there their entire lives. Each of them is a part of a larger community of friends, neighbors, and coworkers.

When the sky changed, no one saw it for what it was: the beginning of the end. Now, as horrors and monsters rise, and the population of Quill Point dwindles, the remaining citizens must try to survive the evil machinations at the heart of this new apocalypse. They are in the middle of something beyond human understanding. Something primal and hostile.

Nothing Will Be Left is the first book in the terrifying Quill Point Chronicles. A cosmic horror anthology series told from multiple perspectives. It’s full of existential terror, body horror, and unknowable destruction waiting to be unleashed.

Sujets

Policier & Thriller

Thriller

Fiction

Dark

Hurlements 2

Horror

Informations

Publié par	4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
Date de parution	08 juin 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781644507483
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Table o f Contents
Ackno wledgments
Part 1 The Warped Sky
C hapter O ne
C hapter Two
Cha pter Three
Ch apter Four
Ch apter Five
C hapter Six
Int erlude One
Charley
Part 2 Immortaliz ed in Clay
Cha pter Seven
Cha pter Eight
Ch apter Nine
C hapter Ten
Chap ter Eleven
Chap ter Twelve
Int erlude Two
To wn Meeting
Part 3 Emptied- Out People
Chapte r Thirteen
Chapte r Fourteen
Chapt er Fifteen
Chapt er Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapte r Eighteen
Chapte r Nineteen
Book Club Questions
Author Bio

Nothing Will Be Left
Copyright © 2023 October Kane. All rights re served.

4 Horsemen Publication s, Inc.
1497 Main St. S uite 169
Dunedin, FL 34698
4horsemenpublicat ions.com
info@4horsemenpublicat ions.com
Cover and Typesetting by Niki Tantillo
Edited by Kristin e Cotter
All rights to the work within are reserved to the author and publisher. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please contact either the Publisher or Author to gain per mission.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used ficti tiously.
Library of Congress Control Number: 20 22951293
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-746-9
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-747-6
Audiobook ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-749-0
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-644 50-748-3

For everyone who finds comfort in th e macabre.
Ackno wledgments

Despite popular myths, most books are not just one person’s efforts. Sure, I wrote Nothing Will Be Left , but it wouldn’t exist without so many people helping me along the way. I want to thank my early readers, my editor, and everyone at 4 Horsemen Publications who helped make this possible. I’ve spent hundreds of hours daydreaming about this series, and I can hardly believe the first boo k is real.

“I have tried to hold to the fracturing sights and sounds long enough to witness the truth. My life may be forfeit for the simple looking, and I know I have seen only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the myriad things out there—and barely a kernel of their origins.”
– The Cacophono us Layers

Part 1 The Warped Sky
C hapter O ne

Albert hadn’t even intended to be in Quill Point, Illinois, when everything started. He had planned to leave the day prior. The only reason he was still in town was that his clunker of a car had stopped working.
Not that he hated Quill Point, just that it was boring. The only thing to do after nine o’clock was to go to the inexplicably still surviving roller rink. It was the kind of small town made for retirees, not someone in their mid-twenties. He was pretty sure that growing up here was the whole reason he’d felt compelled to leave for the bustle of C alifornia.
He’d caught up with his parents as best he could, but there wasn’t that much to catch up on. They’d never met his girlfriend before the breakup. Neither of his parents knew enough about software and coding to truly get what he did at work. It was nothing but dead-end conver sations.
So, mid-afternoon on a warm Thursday, he found himself walking to the cluster of restaurants near the highway acc ess ramp.
A free-standing coffee shop seemed the most interesting. It had been a long time since he’d gone to anything other than a chain. His apartment was next to quite a few franchises, and they all knew hi s orders.
As he walked across the blacktop, the wind changed. A breeze turned to a cold burst. Albert’s blazer whipped ar ound him.
He turned to look, frowning. A storm cloud was rolling in from the eastern horizon. It wasn’t like anything he’d heard of in Quill Point before. Illinois had tornado season, but this looked like a tropic al storm.
It was far away, though. No raindrops, no thunder. The only thing that changed was the temperature. The clouds heralded a drop of almost ten degrees. It went from summer warmth to a fa ll chill.
With every step, the coffee shop seemed more appealing. Albert pulled the blazer around himself and walked faster. He kept looking at the clouds, expecting them to burst with lightning at any moment. Bells chimed when he opened the door to the Quill Point Café. The barista looked up as he entered and didn’t hide her befuddled look. Albert had been getting a lot of those since he’d been in Quill Point. He was an unfamiliar face in a routine that was older than him.
“Hey there.” The barista was short and small, with mildly tanned white skin, not-quite gray hair, and seemed maybe in her early sixties. “Haven’t seen yo u before.”
“I’m Georgina’s kid,” Albert replied auto matically.
The woman’s fa ce lit up.
“Oh, well, of course you are,” she said with a faint Chicagoan accent. “You look so much like her. You even have your mother’s black hair, now, d on’t you?”
“Yeah, and my father’s gray eyes,” Alb ert said.
“Such a small world. I think I saw you once or twice as a toddler.” She smiled with her eyes as much as her mouth. “Well, my name’s Cynthia. What can I get for you?”
“Something warm,” Albert said. “Cold spell just came in.”
Cynthia pursed her lips slightly. “That so? That’s weird. Well, the menu’s up there—just tell me what yo u’d like.”
Albert looked. It was drawn in dark blue chalk on a chalkboard suspended above the counter. The fare was the usual: espresso, latte, some sugary stuff—except for a “Mug of Ink,” which didn’t even have a list of in gredients.
“Ah, I see my special concoction has caught your eye.”
“Yeah, it has,” Albert said. “What is it, exactly?”
“Oh, it’s something for the busy people. I know a lawyer who swears by it. It’s my wife’s concoction—she’s never been much of a mornin g person.”
Albert looked over the name again as though it would reveal its secrets. He was no slouch when it came to caffeine. Coming out of college, he’d chugged enough energy drinks to rot his insides.
“What’s in it?” he asked.
Cynthia smiled mischievously. “Well, the better question is, what’s not in it? Would you like a free cup? Got to get you hooked on the stuff, a fter all.”
Albert made a small sound in the back of his throat. “Uh, I still think I want to know what I’m drinking.”
“Well, I can’t tell you everything, but it’s mostly ristretto and dark chocolate syrup. I recommend you sip it slowly. Unless you want to live on the moon the next time you jump.”
“Uh … sure, I’ll try it.” Albert let out a little breath. “Sure, may as well. I have a lot more walking to do today.”
“That a fact?” Cynthia said. When she took out a bag of beans from behind the counter and loaded it into the machine, Albert wondered if his order was a good idea.
“Yeah, I’ve been looking around the town, seeing how the place is.”
A soft bell sounded behind him. Albert turned to see an older man stepping into the store. He had dark brown skin, a pale beard dominating most of his lower jaw, and noticeable laugh lines. He used a roller and was also holding a leash. His dog strained against it, sniffing at Albert’s leg. Albert wasn’t great at identifying breeds of dogs, but it was small, fluffy, and blond, with a tiny pink tongue lapping a t the air.
“Some weather out there,” the man said.
“Hey there, Henry. How have you and Saanvi been?” Cynthia called from behind the counter. She’d started the espresso machine, filling three small metal cups with ristretto.
“Somehow, someway, that wife of mine gets more gorgeous every year. So, I can’t complain. I came by to get the household some beans for the mornings—we’re getting low. I thought I’d get some before dark. I guess I was psychic with my timing. Those clouds look ready f or rain.”
Albert frowned at that. The dog still followed him as he walked to the café’s closest window. His eyes went wide. The sky had gotten wilder. The clouds were much closer. Colors were leaking along their edge. Ribbons of orange and red spread from them like streamers. Something about it made his pulse quicken. It reminded him of a poison ous frog.
“Is that normal here?” Albe rt asked.
“Not anything I’ve seen,” Henry replied.
Henry’s dog made a small whine and backed away from the window. The noise made the hairs on Albert’s neck stand up straight.
Cynthia walked over to stand next to him. She took one look and whistled.
“That’s one heck of a thing.”
As if it could hear her, the clouds finally released a deep purple lightning bolt. It was massive, forking into several stabbing points. No thunder came yet, but it made Albert blink. The afterimage stayed in his vision for severa l seconds.
“I think maybe I need to get home.” Albert’s voice was quieter than he expected. His legs felt weak.
“Didn’t you say you were walking?” Cynt hia asked.
His stomach dropped. “Uh … yea h, I did.”
Cynthia frowned slightly. “Hey, Henry, mind giving this boy a ride to his parents’?”
“That depends,” Henry said, walking over. “Who is this myster y person?”
“This here is Georgina and Terry’s kid, Albert. He’s here for some reason—hadn’t tol d me yet.”
“Uh, hi,” Albert said, tearing his eyes away from the storm cloud. It was widening now. Spreading the length of his peripheral vision. “…I’m just visiting.”
A faint rumbling of thunder came from seemingly everywhere at once. The dog whimpered again,