Damon

By Alistair Langston

Do you really know who your friends are?

Megan thought she did. When a chance meeting with a handsome stranger results in a harmless invitation to a quiet weekend away in the country Megan and her friends couldn’t be happier! Soon though, it is apparent that all is not as it first seems. They quickly find themselves thrown headlong into their very own living nightmare when it becomes clear that a man from their past has returned. His name is Damon!

Damon is a fast-paced supernatural thriller from the author of Aspects of a Psychopath.

What the reviewers said about of Aspects of a Psychopath:

‘This is meat and potatoes and sharp knives and that which even I feel uncomfortable writing about. The low-key approach gives Langston's novel a certain oily power. If you make it past paragraph one, plan on spending the night awake, and finishing up with a long shower. Or two. Or more. Soiled only begins to describe how you'll feel upon finishing this novel.’

Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column Book Reviews & Commentary

‘Imagine A Clockwork Orange shorn of its cinematic and literary sophistication, almost as if Lucio Fulci or Shaun Hutson reworked it. The new version would avoid the stylistic and linguistic niceties, but it would focus more on the raw emotion, the visceral intensity. It would revel in the aspects that that the more refined eyes of Kubrick and Burgess turned away from; Aspects of a psychopath is definitely not for the easily shocked. But it is, on the whole, a successful novella that's well worth reading.’

Mark Greener, The Alien Online

‘We are offered the diary of a killer, one who takes a victim, stores her in a closet, and then mutilates and kills her in graphic fashion. The killer (he goes by the name of Saul Roberts) then cuts up the body, puts it in his fridge, and then uses the meat for various meals throughout the rest of the text. Roberts is hardly done there, however. He tells of multiple victims in the course of the diary, as well as his relationship with Laura, whom Saul tolerates to live.’

Chris Przybyszewskie, The SF Site

‘Hard-horror fiction... this novella is a diary-format story of a year in the life of a serial killer, whose heinous crimes are clearly intended to shock. What's most scary here, as in all the best such works, is not the gruesome descriptions but the manner in which the villain blends into normal society (albeit the lowlife variety) and is subsequently overlooked or ignored, or worse, accepted.’

Dragon's Breath

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alistair Langston
• Release date: Feb 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458194244

Alistair Langston

Alistair Langston is a writer who has spent ten years making a living working in IT for local government. Before that he was employed as a nightclub manager, ran a bar in the Middle East and worked in a holiday camp. To find out more about Alistair visit his website, www.alistairlangston.com. You can also add him on Twitter @ajlangston, or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/alistairlangston If you've enjoyed reading one of Alistair's books then please leave a review to let other readers know what you think. You'll find links to Alistair's books below. Please take a look and purchase a copy if you like what you see! Enquiries from agents & publishers are welcome at: [e-mail]

Book preview

DAMON

ALISTAIR LANGSTON

Copyright © 2007 by Alistair Langston

Visit the author’s website at: www.AlistairLangston.com

The rights of Alistair Langston to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, distributed, leased, licensed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the internet - without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

The characters and events in this book are fictional. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events, locations, or real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

First published 2007 by Forbidden Publications.

First eBook Edition: January 2011

This Smashwords edition published 2011 by Imaginema Publishing.

www.imaginema.co.uk

Version: 2011.08.21.

Cover image copyright © Jean Schweitzer

Cover image supplied by Shutterstock Images

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

BOOKS BY ALISTAIR LANGSTON

Sam Wilde Novels:

Sapphire Nights

Dubai Dreams

Mexican Dawn

Horror / Dark Fiction:

Aspects of a Psychopath

Damon

Contact the author:

For previews of upcoming books by Alistair Langston or if you fancy a chat about any of his current novels he can be contacted in the following ways:

Visit his blog & website: www.AlistairLangston.com

Follow him on Twitter at ajlangston

E-mail him at: [e-mail]

Add him on Facebook: Alistair Langston

DAMON

Alistair Langston

Pain clawed at his nerve endings!

The slightest movement sent a new wave of agony on a roller coaster journey through his body, more intense than the previous. Broken and contorted, he was a surgeon’s nightmare. By rights he should be dead, lying at the bottom of the ravine into which his car had plunged, not restrained on a table in a dimly lit room and God only knows where! Admittedly he had been lucky. Too drunk to bother with his seatbelt the moment the car left the road he had been flung out like a rag doll onto the embankment, whilst the vehicle plummeted to a fiery demise.

The smell of alcohol was still detectable on his breath. He had been well over the limit, having stopped off at his favourite bar after a hard day at the office. One drink led to two; then three and before he knew it, last orders had been called. Even then he could have chosen to take a taxi home as he usually did on such occasions but it had been a wet evening, and with a conference on across town taxis were in short supply. It was the fifty minute wait he had been quoted before a taxi was available that had been the deciding factor in his decision to take the gamble to drive home. A gamble that failed to payoff! If he had been less intoxicated and a little more observant, there was the chance that he might have noticed the other vehicle pull out and follow him when he left the bar, but he hadn’t. As far as he was aware, the lights had come from nowhere. One moment he had the road to himself and the next, the headlights of a vehicle were reflected in his rear-view mirror. Wary of the possibility that it might be the police he slowed down. It was a mistake. The headlights gained speed until they were bearing down on him. At the final moment, the car pulled out from behind him as if it was about to overtake. It never happened. The car swung back in, catching the rear of his own and causing it to swerve. The next instance he was plummeting down a steep embankment, having crashed through the barrier on the side of the carriageway.

From the shadows the figure stepped forward. The man lifted his head, craning his neck in order to catch a glimpse.

"Please, he managed, his dry course voice barely recognisable. Please, the pain. I need something for the pain."

There was no reply.

The man coughed, bringing up phlegm and blood.

The silhouette separated itself from the darkness and crossed the room towards him. The man flinched as the figure came into view. Even in his current state he knew something wasn’t right. The features of the figure appeared to be shifting, changing, as if they were moulding themselves into something new.

"I always hoped we would meet again!"

The man shook his head, the pain was too much. It was playing tricks on his mind. The voice that had spoken sounded not too dissimilar to his own! What do you mean? Who are you?

The figure took another step forward, the glint of steel in his hand. Who am I? That’s a question with so many answers, perhaps you should be asking, what am I? Even then, it has been so long that I am no longer sure anymore. The figure leaned forward, warm breath against the man’s cheek and whispered in his ear.

"No! It can’t be!" Terrified, the man struggled to break free of his bonds. It was useless. He felt a vice like grip on his forehead holding him down as the figure made the first incision above the left ear with the scalpel. He opened his mouth to scream. Before he could draw a painful breath, something - a cloth - was pushed into his mouth and forced down his throat.

Long after the man passed out, the figure continued to work, moving the blade up towards the man’s temple before following the hairline of his forehead and down the other side. Fingers slid beneath the facial tissue before carefully peeling it away from the skull. Finally the task was complete. The figure lowered its head towards the flesh that lay in upturned palms, slipping it on as if it were a mask. The seams between its own flesh and that which he took from the other knitted together, underlying features adapting in order to fill out the places where the flesh clung limply.

The figure stood back from the now limp corpse and turned to face the mirror that hung on the wall, taking a look at its new reflection. So many years had passed since he last saw his own image that he wondered if he might still recognise himself. He shook his head and wiped the thought from his mind. What he looked like in the past was of no relevance to him now; it was the present that mattered and the reflection that stared back at him he had few concerns of sharing with the world!

The sound of the phone ringing snatched Megan from a peaceful slumber. Groaning she rolled over in the bed, her hand fumbling blindly for the handset.

Hello. Megan glanced at the luminous display of the clock-radio.

Five-thirty.

Shit!

She rubbed her eyes.

Hello… Is anyone there?

Nothing. No, wait, that wasn’t true. There was something; an absence of a dial tone, just stony silence.

Look if this is some crank call, I’m hanging up. It’s too early!

She waited a moment longer. Still there was nothing.

Megan slammed the handset down onto its cradle. Recently she had received more than her fair share of anonymous calls and at five-thirty in the morning it was going beyond a joke. She made a mental note to call the telephone company in the morning and see if they could do anything about the problem.

Megan glanced at the clock again, hoping that the first time she looked she had misread it.

Five-thirty-two.

Megan groaned. She had to be up in less than two hours and she knew better than trying to get back