Nightmares of the New Order

By Norris Vaughn III

Welcome to Nightmares of the New Order, a gateway into a new realm of surreal imagination and dark possibilities not too dissimilar from our own reality. Throughout nine chilling tales and six eerie poems, the newest face of horror, Norris Vaughn III will take you on a terrifying journey to this new world filled with monsters both new and familiar. Meet the Michaels, a newlywed couple, who, after taking a wrong turn in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, come across an abandoned gas station where monsters beyond their comprehension await (Haunted Mountain). A crotchety old man discovers a trail of cigarettes leading down the hospital corridor (Cigarette Butts). Beware of stranger danger, as the young victims of a serial killer return from the grave to exact revenge (The Missing Child Poster). Take a trip back in time as we explore the traumatic childhood experiences of the author himself that continue to haunt him into adulthood (Sunshine into Darkness), and the monster at his back grown from the darkness of anger and hatred of these events (The Crow-Man). An outgoing young woman gets her dream job at a high-end department store, yet she can’t help but notices that the lone male mannequin seems to be watching her (The Mannequin). And Yuki, afraid of the outside world, suffers at the claws of the embodiment of her fears throughout her entire life (Agoraphobia), and many more. Norris Vaughn III welcomes you to the New Order; he hopes you enjoy your stay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649791979

Norris Vaughn III

Norris Vaughn III is a poet, writer, and author of Nightmares of the New Order. Writing has been a lifelong hobby, and he furthered his skills into his adulthood. Earning his associates in pre-law, his B.A. in political science and working on and off for his graduate studies, Norris continued writing, using DeviantArt to sharpen his skills. Based in Tennessee, he used his time during the COVID-19 quarantine to put this decade-long collection together, using Stephen King, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, short horror movies on YouTube and The Twilight Zone as inspirations. He also enjoyed adding various clues and easter eggs within these works; spot them all if you dare?

Book preview

About The Author

Norris Vaughn III is a poet, writer, and author of Nightmares of the New Order. Writing has been a lifelong hobby, and he furthered his skills into his adulthood. Earning his associates in pre-law, his B.A. in political science and working on and off for his graduate studies, Norris continued writing, using DeviantArt to sharpen his skills. Based in Tennessee, he used his time during the COVID-19 quarantine to put this decade-long collection together, using Stephen King, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, short horror movies on YouTube and The Twilight Zone as inspirations. He also enjoyed adding various clues and easter eggs within these works; spot them all if you dare?

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Barbara Porter Vaughn, a.k.a. Grandma Bobbi, a loving grandmother, an accomplished artist and striving writer who never got to see her work published like it deserved. She died after a two-year-long battle with breast cancer, leaving a grieving family reeling from this wonderful woman’s death. Yet even after her death, she inspired me to pursue the arts, to be creative, and to fight for my dreams despite how cliché that sounds. In fact, after her death, she still inspired me and gave me back my freedom in the form of my escape from a cold, dark reality: my imagination.

Terri King Vaughn – A humble, hardworking mother who worked hard to raise me and my three elder sisters. While Grandma Bobbi inspired me to continue the arts, it was my mother who started me out with theater and drama at a young age. She was also fundamental in the creation of this book, and I am forever grateful for her time, patience, and literary skill. She guided me through this process during the COVID-19 outbreak, talked to me over the phone to help edit it, helping me proofread it and make these stories better. For more information on just how important she was, please read more in Acknowledgements. I love you, Mom, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Norris Vaughn II – To the hardest working man I know, to the most honest and caring father I could ever ask for. You were there for me when I stumbled and fell flat on my face whenever I made a stupid mistake, whenever my back was against the wall, and even though I know I could have done better by you, you nonetheless supported me. I should have started listening to you a long time ago, but my ego wouldn’t allow me. You were always there to support me, whether it be financially, emotionally, or just being there and listening. You were the cooler head to my in-the-clouds, optimistic yet somehow pessimistic mind. Thank you for being there for me, Dad.

Copyright Information ©

Norris Vaughn III 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Vaughn III, Norris

Nightmares of the New Order

ISBN 9781649791962 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781649791979 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021918981

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2021

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

The subject of agoraphobia was a challenge to write about especially since I am not a part of the medical community. Therefore, I wish to give credit to the Mayo Clinic and their website for their invaluable intel about this challenging phobia, as when I was writing the story, I would read the Google definition and their website for inspiration which helped me in my creative journey. Reading from their website really helped shape the story’s narrative in the direction it eventually took, inspiring me to take chances which helped make the story one of my personal favorites within this book.

The most valuable person who assisted me on this short story collection is my mother, Terri Vaughn. While I wrote a majority of these stories throughout the last ten years, which The Haunted Mountain being the oldest as it was written around 2010 or so, Terri Vaughn was fundamental in the editing process. We would spend an hour or so during my time in quarantine of 2020 talking over the phone and she would suggest changes or input to various stories on various degrees. Some stories didn’t need a lot of change, like Cigarette Butts, but others required massive changes to make them more presentable. Such was the case of The Mannequin. This story was originally written back in 2014 in the hopes of creating the next big Creepypasta phenomenon, like Slenderman or Jeff the Killer, and was originally entitled The Mannequin Man (I obviously changed the name because six years later I realized how dumb and redundant that title actually was). So when the publisher contacted me back, saying they were interested in my work, I went through my old laptop to find this story because I remembered loving it so much, but when I laid eyes upon it, I realized that not only haven’t I not touched this story in six years but it wasn’t great. In fact, it was terrible. I can see why even Creepypasta turned it down all those years ago. So my mother was the one who suggested she would rewrite it, and one week later she sent me a new intro, a new body; I rewrote it to be more of my standards and even compromised on important scenes. She is the one who added this amazing lore about demon possessed mannequin with this eerie backstory. I wanted to give her a co-writing credit like she rightfully deserves, but she turned it down saying an editing credit is enough for her. While I did most of the work within this book, my mother, Terri Vaughn, was just as much a part of the creation for this book as I was. If she won’t accept a co-author credit like I think she deserves, then I guess I will have to surprise this amazingly humble woman with this simple acknowledgement detailing how key she was in the creation of Nightmares of the New Order. God bless you, Mom.

I also would like to take a moment to acknowledge the inspirations of the writing stylings seen within this book: The Twilight Zone, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the Creepypasta style urban legends, and my own life experiences which shaped many of the works within this book.

The Haunted Mountain

Sometimes it seems like chance encounters turn out to be real-life nightmares. That’s what the new Mr. and Mrs. Michaels found out the hard way while they were on their honeymoon, driving their RV through the back roads of Tennessee. They had gotten off at the wrong exit after hours of driving along Interstate 81, and Alex Michaels, in typical masculine fashion, decided to take a ‘short cut’ back to the interstate, much to his new wife Amy’s dismay. Alex, of course, had no real idea where he was going, but his pride as a man was on the line, so he refused to admit his mistake. It wasn’t his fault they had gotten lost; fate, after all, had led them to the base of a fog-covered mountain at the tail-end of the Appalachians. Little did the couple realize, as they rode along country roads deep into the hills of Tennessee, monsters can lurk just a driving distance away.

The Michaels found themselves on the same stretch of road for the seventh time; the overcast sky became ominously darker with grey clouds that blocked out the sun the nearer they got to the mountain. The couple should have noticed this, seeing how it had been sunny and clear ever since they had arrived in Tennessee just hours before, but they were too frustrated and too focused on finding their way back to the interstate that they didn’t pay attention to the weird weather phenomenon. Alex was too busy fumbling over a stupid map he had gotten at a rest stop once they entered the state. Amy, meanwhile, kept to herself, growing too tired of Alex’s inept attempts to read the map and so refused to help.

Some help that map has been; if anything, it had gotten us even more lost! Amy thought to herself as she stared at her husband, who was frantically scanning the map with one hand and gripping the wheel with the other before she turned away.

Al, I think we’re lost. Amy finally sighed in an annoyed huff, staring out her window with a hand beneath her chin, bored out of her mind. They had only been married for less than forty-eight hours, and already they were lost in the boonies of Tennessee. Why did she agree to this ludicrous idea of Alex’s to go on an RV trip to the great national parks of the Eastern United States for their honeymoon she will never know? As they say, love is blind.

"I know where I’m going, Amy, but I just don’t know