Release date: July 23, 2022
Subgenre: Horror novella
About The Topaz:
Scott Sunderson sees the green fire in his dreams and runs from
something intangible yet omnipotent. Digging in the forsaken Valley of
the Moon with his near homeless brother Rick, the prospector chases
elusive gemstones in the low foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The team
strives to free themselves both from the burdens of toil and the burdens
of the past, where inescapable poverty and lost opportunities mar the
future. Yet Scott knows that something shines brighter than gold under
these hills, something that may open doors and clear away the ruin of
his past. But all that lusters comes with a heavy price.
Excerpt:
The Apache said nothing. Scott backed down.
“When you bled on the rock, that was it,” said the
Apache. “It reels you in. ‘Less you freeze and bury it. Sometimes that ain’t
enough.”
“How the hell did you know about that?”
“Soon as you walked in here I said to myself: that boy
found himself an imperial in the Valley of the Moon. You isn’t the first. My
grandfather showed me another. An old Leadville miner’s grandson, run back out
there long after the silver craze simmered. But there was something else in the
leftover tailings. That’s why it was left. He looked like a man who gone and
live too long without a purpose. That hollow look, and he’d make patterns in
the hills with the old silver ore, worked mules til they died, said the old
timers at least. I wasn’t there.”
Scott got cold again. From his wallet he took out two
one-hundred-dollar bills that had been folded behind a white-washed photo of
Juliette.
The shop keeper laughed deeply.
About Nicholas McAuliff:
Nicholas
McAuliff has a background in publishing and is the author of two novels
and a novella. The
author lives in central Colorado (with a brief hiatus in Wisconsin) and
though the mountains are his inspiration, he comes down from time to
time to gain new perspectives. The author enjoys the outdoors and when
the skies are uncooperative he is to be found
cooking from scratch or reading anything from Historical Fiction to
Fantasy (and of course horror).
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