Simon Says: Demon Hunter Book 1 Read online

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the dormant volcano, Olympus Mons, erupts and sends a massive storm headed straight for the BioDomes, Higgins and his team’s only source of oxygen and food. Will they survive long enough for the next supply shipment, or will the storm end our days on the red planet?

  Add your name to our team and we’ll send you this exciting new science fiction story for free! You can join here: http://www.matthewthrush.com/landing/

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  Meet Adam Dark

  My name is Adam Dark.

  I write horror and paranormal stories, based on my vivid dreams. It's the best way that I know of to get the demons out and onto paper. I hope they haunt you and leave your heart pumping like they do me.

  I established my first LLC. when I was ten years old. My friends were my first employees. Other than sharing my stories with others, I love making videos on YouTube. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million. I've directed two movies so far. You can find them on YouTube at Super Plus Toys.

  Outside of writing, I spend most of my time playing guitar or golf. Travel is also high on my list of leisure activities. I've been to seven countries within Europe and plan to visit many more in the years to come. The richness of other cultures is thrilling!

  I have a pet tarantula named Venom; a dog named Emma; and cat named Ellie. They are my secret confidants to the mysterious worlds I create. I have both an American and Danish passport. Feel free to ask me more about my Polish heritage.

  Some other things I enjoy are rock n' roll, public speaking, broccoli (I know, isn't that weird!), school, and heart-wrenching horror movies that leave me clinging to the seat. While I love learning, I dislike homework, disrespectful and rude people, senseless drama, and bullies. There is no room for hatred. We only have one life to live; let's do it to the best that we can and treat everyone with love and kindness.

  Want to know more about me? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. I'd be happy to connect with you!

  www.adamdark.com

  [email protected]

  Meet Matthew Thrush

  Matthew Thrush is the cofounder of Six-Figure Ghostwriter and #1 best-selling author of over 50 books. He's a top-ranked ghostwriter and writing coach, who specializes in mentoring aspiring writers to scale to six-figures with ghostwriting.

  He's been an expert or guest speaker for Make Money While You Sleep, YourFirst10kReaders, Author Platform Rocket, Kindlepreneur, Wordslinger, and Draft2Digital. His mission is to fuel people with an abundance mindset so they can manifest their dreams

  He loves writing Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Thrillers, Self-Help, & Nonfiction.

  When he’s not writing, he’s coaching and mentoring other aspiring authors in the trade of publishing, as well as business professionals to optimize their businesses.

  He has worked as a copy & technical writer, copy editor & editor, and Arabic Linguist & Intelligence Analyst for the United States Navy.

  His love for writing began in 5th grade when his teacher let him borrow her Lord of the Rings boxed-set. It’s been an upward journey ever since.

  Matthew strives to change the world with his words and to remind each person of their true value and worth in Jesus Christ. He currently lives in Houston, TX, with his wife and son and their two dogs and cat.

  Also By Adam Dark & Matthew Thrush

  Demon Hunter Series

  Simon Says

  Knock Knock

  Also by Matthew Thrush

  2136

  Amber Skies

  Red Planet

  Three Shades of Black

  All is Lost

  Raifen: The Search for Truth

  Raifen: A Call to Evil

  Kiss of Death

  Black Winter

  Nemesis: A Science Fiction Anthology

  My Blessed Life: 9 Steps to Financial Freedom and Abundance

  Coming 2018

  Risen

  Tomorrow’s Dawn: Slaughter of Innocents

  Tomorrow’s Dawn: Eden Reborn

  Tomorrow’s Dawn: Escape & Evade

  Jump Line

  Time Hunter

  The Elites: The Stolen Child

  The Elites: The Rising Power

  Runners: Ghost Towns

  Omega Plague: The Beginning

  Excerpt from Knock Knock — Demon Hunter Book 2

  Tripp Constantine was a man of many sorrows.

  He lost the love of his life during childbirth. His son passed a week later from natural causes the doctors said. Tripp knew his son was a monster. They just didn't have the guts to say it. He didn't fault them for it. It was hard even for him to look upon his son's deformed body.

  The funeral was the next day. It was just Tripp, the priest, and a black cat that fed on the rats in the cemetery. Tripp buried the love of his life and his only child. The cat followed him home.

  Tripp secluded himself inside his Victorian mansion on Wry Road. It was the house at the end of the street; the one no one went near unless they were dared, the one with the overgrown yard, the tall oak that hung across the street and whined during storms. The third story balcony was one board short and the window over Mrs. Constantine's garden was missing entirely. No one knew what happened to it.

  For three years he never left the house. Some thought he had died. Two kids on their bikes thought they saw a man standing on the third-story balcony petting a black cat. That was two years ago. Then one day, a neighbor watering her yard claimed she saw a naked man with hair down to his backside walking down the street.

  By the time she shut off the water, called her husband outside, and pointed to the stranger, he was gone. Police were called to investigate on the account of smell. After a thorough search of the premises, they only found a dead cat and a handwritten note addressed to no one.

  It only had three words scribbled inside. Make it stop.

  The city condemned the house and scheduled it for demolition. Two days before the bulldozers plowed through, a philanthropist from Pennsylvania bought the property from the bank. Said it was a historical artifact worth preserving.

  Maybe he was right. Or maybe he was just a crazy man with way too much money and nothing to spend it on. 101 Wry Road was the oldest house in Oakwood Valley; a small neighborhood with quiet, simple folk who never got into trouble. The mansion sat on a hill overlooking giant rose bushes so tall they could have been trees.

  For thirty years the house lay untouched as nature ran its course. People thought Tripp's ghost haunted the place. Some claimed they had seen him sitting on the balcony petting the black cat, humming to the moon. Of course no one could prove it.

  The neighborhood kids would take turns ding-dong-ditching the house. They'd run up to the house, knock on the door, and see who could stand on the porch the longest without peeing themselves. They always ran home screaming. There has never been an incident in Oakwood Valley until July 4, 1991.

  This is the story of ten friends who knocked on the wrong door, at the wrong time, on the wrong night. And so the legend of the Knock-Knock Man was born.

  1

  July 4, 1961

  101 Wry Road

  It was storming when he saw it happen.

  She was in the bed and her husband by her side. He had been walking his dog when he heard the screams com
ing from the long dirt driveway that led to the old orphanage. It hadn't taken in any boys for three decades, not since the owner of the house was found dead at the base of the stairs.

  Police reports said he had a brain aneurism and slipped down the stairs. Cause of death was uncertain as the autopsy was not publicly released. Rumors said the doctors were unsure what they had found. Officially, he died from a burst brain vessel. Unofficially, as far as Oakwood Valley residents were concerned, it was a tumor the size of a grapefruit found lodged in the frontal cortex.

  It wasn't so much the tumor that had spurred on the rumors but where it came from and the voices that seemed to haunt the house.

  Of course, this was never disclosed nor were the other rumors that followed his untimely death. These and a number of mysterious occurrences that followed were never investigated. It wasn't long before the young boy who inherited the house from his deceased uncle, and caretaker at the time, went missing too.

  And then more boys started going missing. A state-wide manhunt went on for three months before the families' private investigators and the FBI closed the case. And for ten years the house sat untouched until just as suddenly as he had disappeared, the boy returned. Except he wasn't alone nor was he a boy any longer.

  The woman was eight months pregnant when they first pulled down the overgrown driveway. The grass sent its tassels toward the sky like long spears. The car's tires mowed through like a grain plow. The Oakwood Valley School for Boys had life again. The bright lights burned through the dim horizon from the old mansion on the hill.

  The surrounding neighborhood wrapped around like an amphitheater. Each road zigzagged and interlocked with the others in a maze. A main road was constructed that led by the long driveway of 101 Wry Road. The nearest home was a mile away but close enough to see the lights shining bright on the darkest of nights and hear the screams echo down into the valley.

  The man always walked his dog at the same time every night. He had done so for the last three years ever since he moved in down the street. And each time the house on the hill with the long drive and rose bushes the size of trees always sat quiet and dark, but not tonight.

  The dog walker had paused by the entrance while his mutt did her business in the bushes next to the brick mailbox. He didn't know why his gaze was drawn to the dusty tire tracks that night but he felt compelled to get nearer to the mansion. He pulled the leash and led Samantha into the drive.

  He made it all the way to the house before he noticed light was coming from above, and he saw movement in the top bedroom. He turned to leave but stayed when he heard a scream. He drew closer to the home, old Samantha tugging at her leash to chase after a squirrel, but he held on.

  The dog walker stood in the yard staring up into those vaulted windows overlooking the valley. The balcony door was ajar and the voices from inside filtered out as if they were carried on the wind. The woman was pleading with the man. The man tried to comfort her but it was no use.

  She was in pain. Severe pain.

  His dog still tugging the other way, he was going to walk up to the door and knock to see if they needed help when he caught a glimpse of metal reflecting the candlelight. The shadowed man in the room seemed to glide like a wraith carrying a sharp object of death. And when he hovered over the woman, she screamed the most heart-wrenching scream of terror the unseen observer had ever heard.

  The woman screamed only for a moment, then silence.

  Just then Samantha caught wind of something in the trees and tugged on the leash so violently that it snapped right out of her owner's hands. She disappeared into the night. The man cried after her barking but it was too late. She was gone.

  He returned his attention to the window by the balcony. The man in the room was watching him. The dog walker called for Samantha but bolted down the long drive when the shadow in the window disappeared. Heart pounding and fear welling up inside his chest, he sprinted as quickly as his old knees would allow him.

  He made it to the end of the drive and leaned against the mailbox. His body was hot with sweat. So far there was no pursuit. He heard Samantha barking in the tall grass. He called for her.

  Then came a sharp wail and her barking stopped. The old man began to cry as he ran down the hill toward his house. He slammed the door open and dialed the police.

  "This is 911, what's your emergency?" the woman operator asked on the other line.

  "He killed her!" the old man said through gasps for air.

  "Sir, please calm down. Can you say that again?" the woman asked.

  "I saw the knife. He killed her and then he killed my dog," the old man said.

  There came a knock on the door. The old man swiveled and dropped the phone. It clanged against the counter, the dispatch operator's voice echoing through the dangling receptor.

  "I didn't see anything, I swear," the old man said.

  The shadow wavered, but remained on the porch unable or unwilling to cross the barrier into the old man's house. The man's hands were trembling.

  The old man saw the bloodied leash in the stranger's hands.

  "You killed my Samantha," the old man whimpered.

  The shadow at the door tossed the leash on the floor. The leash was still attached to the collar. The metal name tag clanged against the wood floorboards and skidded to a stop five feet from the old man.

  The operator on the phone continued to speak. She was saying the police were on their way, but her voice went unheard by the old man as the shadow by his front door cocked its head to the side.

  "Are you going to kill me?" the old man asked.

  His screams were squelched quickly and the room fell silent. The shadow scooped up the phone hanging by its cord and pressed it against his ear.

  The woman was still speaking.

  "The old man can't come to the phone right now. He's indisposed," the shadow said and hung up the phone.

  He dragged the old man's body through the living room toward the bedroom. He left three minutes later after he had finished with it. Police sirens and their blue and red lights flickered in the night sky. The shadow picked up the dog leash. It dragged behind him as he shuffled down the stairs and pushed the gate open.

  He headed back up the hill toward the orphanage where his wife was dying.

  2

  The car lurched down the half-mile long dirt driveway like a rocket. Its dark silhouette pierced the night sky like a black dart. Thick thunderclouds roared overhead. Flashes of lightning streaked the sky, illuminating the driver's face.

  Tears cascaded his cheeks. Both hands clenched the steering wheel, soaked in blood. Not his blood. The thunder blocked out the cries of the baby wrapped in an old blanket in the passenger seat. The driver placed his hand on the infant's face to shut him up.

  The baby choked and gagged before the man released his grip. The child began screaming even louder. The shrieking pierced his mind like daggers. He glanced in the back. His wife wasn't breathing. He told himself she was only asleep, that she'd be okay, but the truth was fighting for a front row in his conscious.

  She wasn't sleeping. She was dead. And the thing that lie next to him had killed her. Blue and red lights glared at the entrance to his drive. The police had taken up position to block the only way in or out of his home. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and sped toward their vehicles.

  His truck smashed into the first police car and sent the two policemen crouched behind it for cover soaring through the air. Their bodies hit the asphalt like heavy stones and rolled. They were slow to get up.

  The man shoved down the gas pedal again and forced his truck through, nearly decapitating one of the policemen in the process. The man barely rolled out of the way before the tire found his throat.

  "This is Sergeant Thomas. We need backup. The suspect has fled the premises and nearly killed us in the process," the officer said into his radio secured to his left shoulder.

  Tripp Constantine sped down the road with blaring sirens in hot pursuit. H
e glanced in the rearview mirror to see the police scamper off the road and into their vehicles. The baby continued to cry to his right.

  "Stop crying!" he roared, slamming his fists on the steering wheel.

  The pressure in the back of his head rose. And the familiar voices he thought he had left behind thirty years ago returned.

  "You need to kill it," they said.

  "He's my child," Tripp said.

  "Does such a monster deserve to live? He killed your wife," the voices said.

  Their tongues were like slick vipers whispering in his ear. He could feel their hands slithering all along his back and neck as if they were in the truck with him.

  "Leave me alone!" Tripp said.

  He veered suddenly to the right to miss the spike strip the police had tossed in the road. The truck barreled into the sidewalk and ripped a mailbox to pieces. eIt kept going and smashed into the house. It came right through the living room as a family was having an evening meal together. The wife, husband, and their three kids stared in disbelief as Tripp's truck backed up and he revved the engine and drove off in the opposite direction leaving a gaping hole in their home.

  The police in the street backtracked and followed.

  "You know what they'll do to you if they catch you," the voices said.

  "They won't," Tripp said.

  "What if they do? They'll think you killed her. No one will know the truth. You were trying to save her. But this thing that she birthed tore her apart from the inside out."