But can I?
Spencer looked around at the things before him. Could he go home? It hadn’t felt like home when he’d been there before. What was waiting for him? A life of growing up, learning to pretend to be like his parents? Working a job and buying a house and living like he was part of a world where the true sun shown down from the heavens, when he alone knew of a world where it didn’t?
He didn’t care about his parents, missed them less than ever because he’d seen what life with them would be like now. The only person he really cared about was Suzie, and she could stay here with him.
I can take care of her just as well here, he reasoned. There’s no one left here who can stand against me. Nanny Gurdy wouldn’t dare, and my army of Rejected Things can take care of any Hollow Men. We can steal our food from the real world, and I can do whatever I want with the Perfects. Maybe even another Perfect Girl Julie…
Spencer stood there thinking. Weighing his options, deciding his fate. The claustrophobic comforts of the real world, or the terrifying wonders of Nowhere Blvd. It wasn’t a decision to take lightly. He was finally free to do whatever he wanted. Go wherever he wanted.
Anywhere except home, because for Spencer Williams there was no such place.
Maybe stay, he wondered. Maybe go.
“Mommy,” said Suzie quietly, head leaning against his chest.
It was enough. Without a glance back, he stepped over the remains of Smiling Jack and into the closet.
Thank you for purchasing Nowhere Blvd. I hope you enjoyed it, and now have to sleep with the lights on for a week. If so, please consider posting a review. It’s the best way to ensure you keep getting access to indie books, instead of just what big house publishers think you should be reading. And you’d be surprised how much stock a stranger puts in your opinions.
About the author:
Ryan Notch lives in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a town evacuated by the Federal government due to a coal mine fire burning beneath it since 1962. The only town in America ever to have its zip code revoked. During the day he wanders the empty streets and houses as if in a dream, looking for something he lost but can’t remember where or what it was. At night he writes his horror stories by lying down next to a burning fissure along main street and placing his ear to the ground, transcribing what he hears coming up from below.
Discover other titles by Ryan Notch at
www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RyanNotch
Or look at his photography at www.areographers.com/
Or see a trailer for his feature length horror movie at www.lastnightofapril.com/
Or read his comics at www.themsgoodcomics.com/
Or just say hi to him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Paulie-Gatto/1697635947
Check out these other terrifying titles available from Ryan Notch!
Praise for the epic novel The Abyss Above Us,
“There is almost never a moment in which the reader is not compelled to ask himself, ‘Yes, but what happens next?’”
“Effective hybrid of science & cosmic horror.”
In this Kindle Horror Exclusive:
There is a place in the sky where there are no stars, no matter how deeply the astronomers gaze into it. Atop a lonely mountain stands a mighty telescope that turns towards the coordinates of this abyss nightly, as if drawn to it. Receiving its commands from a computer that hasn’t existed for twenty years.
Introverted network engineer Shaw is brought in to find out why.
To his horror he finds that while the night sky may be dark, it is not silent. A signal is coming from those coordinates. Creating a sound liquid and hypnotic with layers of data that suggest anything but randomness. A siren’s song that leads to horrific suicides in everyone who listens to it.
By the time Shaw realizes this, it’s too late to stop the signal he sent back into the night. A signal obviously received, for the abyss has begun to move.
And it’s moving towards us.
More praise for The Abyss Above Us:
“…his ideas are novel, he avoids cliché at every turn, and his technical expertise shows through in his writing.”
For everyone who misses the early days of Stephen King and John Carpenter, The Abyss Above Us is your ticket back into great sci-fi horror!
Copyright
Copyright 2011 Ryan Notch
Cover Art by Wojciech Zwoliński
Based on characters created by Edward Ayala