Monday 31 October 2011

A bargain with Death

It's that time of year again, when the veil between life and death is so thin that to stray off the path could easily take you on a detour via the Twilight Zone.

Martin and I cooked up this Warren-style short story "A Wrong Turning" a couple of years ago. I had spent a week at Shute Gatehouse, a place you find by turning off the main road, passing between two half-collapsed stone posts, and finding yourself on a narrow route that seems to take you a couple of decades back in time. The mist closed in and Roz and I spent a few days exploring the local woods, pubs, and footpaths. One afternoon we came across a line of pumpkins, puckered and caved-in on themselves in the week since Halloween, but which must have marked out the way to a party. The story arrived just like that, in one piece, a gift from the otherworld.

And so...

Guy Wasserman has already suffered one bereavement, and when his car is forced off the main road, he finds Death waiting with an impossible offer: "You, or your son."

Find out if Guy can cheat Death in the free PDF right here.

2 comments:

  1. A wonderfully entertaining example of subverting reader expectation, changing genre mid-stream. Very enjoyable!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you liked it, Tom. Genre? What's that, then? ;)

    ReplyDelete