Free The Tent: A Novella by Kealan Patrick Burke

day visit for themselves…
    …while Up There, Greg the professor and Danielle, no longer driven by compulsions of their own, sit into their respective vehicles and shut the doors. They wait. Soon after, they are joined by the Professor’s girlfriend, and the couple from the other tent: Stan and Marcy Hopkins, all of them called to the parking lot by the parasite, all of them wearing faintly glowing necklaces of the creature’s incubating spawn. For a while none of them do anything but sit stock-still and listen to their new and merciless internal voices. Occasionally pain flickers across their faces as the parasite punishes their attempts to resist its influence, secreting painful toxins into their bloodstream until once more they are forced to obey, and rewarding them with brief surges of endorphins when they do.
    At length, and in perfect synchronicity, bidden by commands clearer to them than the voices of their own muted consciences, the egg sacs pulsing brighter as the creature nourishes its young in preparation for the hatching, Danielle, Greg, and Stan start up their vehicles and slowly reverse out of the campground parking lot.
    Beyond the narrow lanes and the twisting mountain roads, the city awaits , unaware of the alien threat that will soon infect its veins.
    The parasite shivers in anticipation as they clear the shadow of the mountain it has called home for a hundred thousand years.
     
     
     
     

     
     
     
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
     
     

     
     
    Called "one of the most clever and original talents in contemporary horror" (BOOKLIST), Kealan Patrick Burke is the Bram Stoker Award-Winning author of five novels (MASTER OF THE MOORS, CURRENCY OF SOULS, THE LIVING, KIN, and NEMESIS), nine novellas (including the Timmy Quinn series), over a hundred short stories, and six collections. He edited the acclaimed anthologies: TAVERNS OF THE DEAD, QUIETLY NOW, BRIMSTONE TURNPIKE, and TALES FROM THE GOREZONE.
    An Irish expatriate, he currently resides in Ohio. Visit him on the web at http://www.kealanpatrickburke.com , his Amazon.com page , or find him on Facebook at facebook.com/kealan.burke
     
     
     
     
    OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
     
    The Turtle Boy (free novella)
    Kin (novel)
    Master of the Moors (novel)
    Currency of Souls (novel)
    The Number 121 to Pennsylvania & Others (collection)