The Demon Seeds

By Derek Muk

Taylor and Jan have an edgy, exhilarating and dangerous occupation: they’re monster hunters. While they’ve endured many strange adventures in their Southern California/Los Angeles area turf, their latest is as harrowing as it gets....for they are about to encounter the nefarious bubog, the demonic offspring of the cult leader Bubog, an entity carrying the seed of the Dark Prince himself, and he is trying to impregnate as many human women he could lay his hands on. While the intrepid monster hunters track the bubog down in an attempt to put an end to their evil scourge, Jan learns that her best friend, Carol, has been initiated into their cult and the two must save her before she too gives birth to one of these abominations. But can they save her? And can they rid our world forever of these diabolical Demon Seeds before it’s too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Bed Sheet Books
• Release date: Sep 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781005811891

Derek Muk

Derek Muk is a writer and social worker from California. His short stories have appeared in various online and small press magazines, including New Realm, Cheapjack Pulp, Ink Stains Anthology, Nebula Rift, 9 Tales, Story of the Month Club, Cranial Leakage, The Haunted Academy (Novella-Midnight Frost Books), Fiction On The Web, Whispers From The Past: Fright and Fear (anthology), Dark Eclipse, The Dead Walk (anthology), 13 Magazine, Diabolic Tales 3, Both Barrels of Legends of the Monster Hunter I and II, The Trigger Reflex: Legends of the Monster Hunter II (anthology), Suffer the Little Children (anthology), Splatter: An Anthology of Horror, Death Rattle, Dark Things II (Anthology), Anthology of Ichor: Hearts of Darkness, Twisted Tongue Magazine, Static Movement, Sex and Murder Magazine, Sinister Tales, Night to Dawn, M-Brane SF, Sonar4 E-Zine, The Ethereal Gazette, 7th Dimension Magazine, Switchblade Magazine, ESC! Magazine, Scorched Wings Magazine, Hardboiled, Masque Noir, Detective Mystery Stories, Dawnsky, The Pinehurst Journal, Mystery Forum Magazine, The Green Queen, Kracked Mirror Mysteries, Golden Visions Magazine, Crossroads Magic, The Street Corner Magazine, Calliope Magazine, Unspoken Water, Space and Time Magazine, Infernal Ink Magazine, Tales of the Talisman Magazine, Aurora Wolf, The Horror Zine Magazine, Disturbed Digest, and Parabnormal Digest.He has three chapbooks published: Three Parts, The Sacrifice and Other Stories, and Sin After Sin. In addition to writing, he enjoys reading, traveling, museums, art, dining out, and meeting new people. He has a bachelors and masters degree in social work.“The Occult Files of Albert Taylor” is his first full length collection of short stories. His author website address is: http://theoccultfilesofalberttaylor.wordpress.com/

Book preview

The Demon Seeds

Derek Muk

The Demon Seeds

A Black Bed Sheet/Diverse Media Book

August 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Derek Muk

All rights reserved.

Cover art/design by Nicholas Grabowsky

Copyright © 2017 Black Bed Sheet Books

The selections in this book are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952482

ISBN-10: 1-946874-07-8

ISBN-13: 978-1-946874-07-8

The Demon Seeds

A Black Bed Sheet/Diverse Media Book

Antelope, CA

Acknowledgements:

I'd like to thank Nicholas Grabowsky for editing the book. -DM

The Demon Seeds

Derek Muk

They sat in the spacious confines of the 1974 Ford station wagon, huddled around his smart phone, the bright glow of the graphics on the screen illuminating their rather eager faces in a garish yellow.

Jan looked at him. Any word yet?

Taylor shook his head without taking his eyes off the screen.

Jan suddenly smiled, her cheeks bright and rosy, tucking her shoulder-length red hair back behind her ears with her hands. Carol said there’s a big party tonight after her shift ends. It sounds really fun. Can we go?

Hate to disappoint you kid, but probably not, ’cause we’ll have to hit the road if we want to make it to Vegas in time.

She frowned, but then her face lit up again in no time. Good old bubbly Jan, always with the quick, hopeful rebound. She nodded her head at his phone. What if there’s no message?

There will be, he replied, a bit over-confidently.

She looked at him, not liking the tone of his voice, like a child who didn’t get its way, who didn’t get that piece of candy or that toy, dreading the moment when his phone pinged with that message. At times, her naïveté and constant effervescence was annoying, while in other situations it proved to be an uplifting and positive remedy. He recalled being in the car with her during a long, dull road trip smack dab in the middle of nowhere, where he was literally on the verge of falling asleep behind the wheel. Felt like there were stones on his eyelids. He had Jan’s gullibility to thank for keeping him awake.

She sat Indian-style on the passenger seat next to him, took out her phone, and began texting. And at that exact moment in time, she was the perfect archetype of a graduate student, a teaching assistant, in his eyes. Forever young, forever idealistic, eternally curious and inquisitive. Always full of questions. With her red hair parted down the middle of her head, her eyes narrowed in concentration as her fingers flew all over the keyboard, dressed in a light purple polo shirt, gray corduroy pants, and Nike tennis shoes. No matter where she would be in ten years, he’d always see her as this young college student.

The familiar sound of his phone’s ping brought him back to the present and he looked down at the screen, frowning.

She stopped texting, seeing the expression on his face. What’s wrong?

He didn’t look at her, eyes still on the screen. The bubog isn’t in Vegas, according to my informant on the street. At least not yet.

So what do we do now? Before he could supply an answer, she grinned with sparkly eyes and asked: Can we go to the party now?

Taylor shook his head with a sigh. This kid’s never gonna learn. Business before pleasure…always the motto of a good monster hunter. She still had a lot to learn, including the little things such as etiquette, patience, persistence, and staying positive, and Taylor himself was patient with her as he taught and instilled these things into her. It was gonna take time. And they had plenty of it, so there was no need to fret.

And right before he could provide her with a more detailed response to her question, he was saved by the bell…or, rather, the ping sound from Jan’s phone proclaiming a new text message.

She looked at the screen, and a frown festooned on her face. Huh? She quickly shot back a