Here’s a link to the particular model: http://amzn.to/$109.99Kindle
And here’s a link to the Kindle section of Amazon’s Warehouse Deals store
How Close Are We to the $99 Kindle? It’s Only $10 Away from this Refurbished Offer from Amazon
Month: July 2010
Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert, Monday, July 12: An Interesting New Novel in a Shaker Setting, How J.A. Konrath is Shaking Up Publishing (Today’s Sponsor) and Over a Hundred Free Promotional Kindle Store Titles
Okay, I will admit that the religious/historical romance genre is not ordinarily the straw that stirs my shake, but I’m just curious enough about the unique particularities of Shaker life that I will definitely download and begin reading today’s addition to our Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alerts list….
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
If you’re a regular here at the Kindle Nation Daily bar where everybody knows your name, you’re probably no stranger to the several names of J.A. Konrath. Back in May 2009 he was one of the very first authors to grace our Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature, and more recently he has been a regular “Scary Saturday” contributor and has become one of the first established, bestselling authors to sign a print-and-ebook contract with the AmazonEncore imprint. You can call him J.A., you can call him Joe, you can call him Jack Kilborn, and I’m here to tell you that you can also call him the hardest working, most imaginative, and ballsiest man in the book writing business.
It’s that combination that has made him a very successful author in the Kindlesphere and beyond, and the good news for anyone else who wants to experience success as an author or publisher, or merely wants to find out what’s really going on in the book business today, is that he has recorded and codified his wisdom, the results of his experiments, his ideas, and a great deal of tough-love inspiration in a single $2.99 Kindle edition entitled The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing (Everything A Writer Needs To Know)
That’s right, I said $2.99. Usually when I say that a Kindle book is ridiculously priced I am talking about one of those deals where the paperback is $12 and the Kindle edition is $14.27. But The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing (Everything A Writer Needs To Know)
Click here to download The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing (Everything A Writer Needs To Know) (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
(or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title, and of course, we encourage you to support our sponsors. Some of these paid titles will be from our own Kindle Nation Daily press (an imprint of Harvard Perspectives Press), while others will be paid titles from other authors and publishers.
Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information:
Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!
Free Listings!
Here are our updated free promotional listings in the Kindle Store as of July 12:
The Outsider: A Novel – Religious/Historical Romance
by Ann H. Gabhart
For as long as she can remember, Gabrielle Hope has had the gift of knowing–visions that warn of things to come. When she and her mother joined the Pleasant Hill Shaker community in 1807, the community embraced her gift. But Gabrielle fears this gift, for the visions are often ones of sorrow and tragedy. When one of these visions comes to pass, a local doctor must be brought in to save the life of a young man, setting into motion a chain of events that will challenge Gabrielle’s loyalty to the Shakers. As she falls deeper into a forbidden love for this man of the world, Gabrielle must make a choice. Can she experience true happiness in this simple and chaste community? Or will she abandon her brothers and sisters for a life of the unknown? Soulful and filled with romance, The Outsider lets readers live within a bygone time among a unique and peculiar people. This tender and thought-provoking story will leave readers wanting more from this writer.
by Ann H. Gabhart
For as long as she can remember, Gabrielle Hope has had the gift of knowing–visions that warn of things to come. When she and her mother joined the Pleasant Hill Shaker community in 1807, the community embraced her gift. But Gabrielle fears this gift, for the visions are often ones of sorrow and tragedy. When one of these visions comes to pass, a local doctor must be brought in to save the life of a young man, setting into motion a chain of events that will challenge Gabrielle’s loyalty to the Shakers. As she falls deeper into a forbidden love for this man of the world, Gabrielle must make a choice. Can she experience true happiness in this simple and chaste community? Or will she abandon her brothers and sisters for a life of the unknown? Soulful and filled with romance, The Outsider lets readers live within a bygone time among a unique and peculiar people. This tender and thought-provoking story will leave readers wanting more from this writer.
Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense
From Booklist: The author of the 1990s Simeon Grist series returns with a compelling new protagonist: American travel writer Poke Rafferty, who is out to right some serious wrongs on the predatory streets of Bangkok. While attempting to adopt a homeless girl, rescue a potentially murderous urchin known as Superman, and build a lasting relationship with the former bar girl he loves, Poke is pulled into two brutal mysteries. One involves a notorious Khmer Rouge torturer, the other a series of child-porn photos. As he doggedly plumbs these ghastly depths, Rafferty matures from a play-it-as-it-lays layabout into a man willing to meet his lover’s culture more than halfway and find his moral compass at a time when the victims can be as guilty as the murderers are innocent. The fact that the referenced pedophile photo series and Phnom Penh torture house both existed heightens the impact of a narrative that’s already deeply felt. If this opens a new series, Hallinan is off to a surefooted start with a supporting cast (including Poke’s precocious, pugnacious, almost-daughter Miaow) well worth getting to know.
Harper Collins Pre-Order for August 24, 2010 – Suspense
A hodgepodge hardcover debut in which two Native American medicine men, an Arizona lawman, a young widow and her son, and a Papago basket-weaver/wise woman are inexorably drawn into confrontation with the evil ohb, a university professor-turned- serial-killer, who upended their lives six years before when he tortured and murdered the basket-weaver’s granddaughter and then stage-managed a suicide/frame-up for his distraught accomplice Garrison Ladd. Now he’s stalking Ladd’s widow Diana and son Davy, but his old MO (biting off nipples) used on a new victim has set the sheriff’s department on his trail, while his malevolent spirit has energized the Papagos. There will be another murder, an attempted murder, dreams, emanations, and a near-fatal dog- poisoning before everyone converges on the Ladd house for a gruesome resolution. Disconcerting time shifts and a plethora of Papago parables (can anyone outdo Tony Hillerman?) fail to disguise the fact that this is nothing more than potboiler melodrama, with the hapless reader bombarded first by the lurid, then by the mystical. — Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Here’s a list of the categories in today’s Free Book Alert:
Crime and Suspense
Samples
Samples
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Writing and Publishing
Children/Young Adult/Teen
Contemporary Fiction
Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Romance
Erotica
Gay and Lesbian
|
Crime and Suspense
Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense
Harper Collins Pre-Order for August 24, 2010 – Suspense
Tumor Chapter 1
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Writing and Publishing
Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform
Children/Young Adult/Teen
by Rick Riordan
Contemporary Fiction
The Hunters
Nonfiction/Business/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Sam Walton’s Way
What I Learned from Peter Drucker
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon
Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure
Romance
Darkfever: The Fever Series – Romance – Fantasy, Futuristic; Ghost – Occult by Karen Marie Moning
Gay and Lesbian
Out of Bounds: Love of Sports Book 1
by T.A. Chase
Erotica
Pricing to Fail: Case Studies in Dumb Pricing – Stephen King’s “Blockade Billy”
By Stephen Windwalker
Editor of Kindle Nation Daily ©Kindle Nation Daily 2010
Editor of Kindle Nation Daily ©Kindle Nation Daily 2010
Blogger A.M. Harte had a nice appraisal yesterday of Stephen King’s history of innovative thinking with respect to web-based publishing, and it moved me to share a few paragraphs here from a book that I am finishing up this month on ebook pricing and related issues. I have an enormous amount of respect for King both for his forward thinking about publishing and for his very strong support for emerging fiction writers of distinction, but I do think he is getting pulled in some conflicting directions in the roiled waters of the book trades these days and it led to some bad judgment in pricing the novella that’s at the center of the following:
As notorious as the agency model publishers may have become for their wrongheaded approaches to ebook pricing, they are not alone. In April 2010, Stephen King served up what both he, Amazon, and I all thought would be a nice fat pitch for Kindle owners to hit out of the park with a new “novella” with a baseball backdrop, almost in time for the start of the baseball season. Amazon gave the release a big splash with a press release devoted solely to the new book, and clearly thought it had another bestseller coup, especially given the fact that Blockade Billy was (and still is) unavailable in Apple’s iBooks store.
As novelist J.A. Konrath wrote recently on his publishing blog: “Three bucks is a more than fair price for a full length digital book. (Full length is over 50,000 words.) If it’s under 50k words, go ahead and price it for less. Or put a few short pieces together to make a long piece.”
With his huge following, King may be able to get away with a higher pricing standard than Konrath sets for the rest of us, and he proved with Ur that he can charge $2.99 for a novella and do just fine. But as he should have learned with Blockade Billy, there are limits, even for him.
“Kindle is a great way for authors to make different lengths of their writing available and to reach diverse audiences with their work,” said Stephen King in the press release, but he probably never expected the “different lengths” of his books to become quite the hindrance they would become to his sales and the viability of his pricing strategies.
King had hit the sweet spot 14 months earlier with Ur, a 40,000-word novella that featured excellent product placement for a Kindle that was, perhaps to some tastes, pretty in pink. Ur, priced at $2.99, quickly became the #1 bestseller in the Kindle Store. I figured that the 18,000-word Blockade Billy would achieve similar success, but King killed off his own chances for another bestseller by pricing the new ebook at $7.99, almost triple the price of Ur, despite the fact that Ur was much longer.
Blockade Billy never penetrated the top 25, and by the time the price was reduced to $4.99 the title carried the burden of several bad reviews from members of the Kindle community who were offended by the ebook’s high price. The opportunity for high visibility that comes quickly to most King books when they soar instantly into the top 10 had been lost, and significant focus had been placed on the notion that Blockade Billy provided too little bang for the buck. Blockade Billy was 44th in the Kindle Store for the last week in April, 36th for the month of May, and slipped to 77th in June and 149th in July: high levels indeed for most authors, but not the top 10 territory to which King has grown accustomed.
So what’s really going on here? Has Stephen King been reduced, like a baseball stringer for his local newspaper, to the indignity of being paid by the word or the column inch? Absolutely not, but he and his marketing or publishing people need to be aware of the price consciousness of Kindle readers so that they can set prices that will optimize sales and royalties and avoid creating a backlash that puts the focus primarily on pricing. Blockade Billy is a great baseball yarn. In all likelihood, had it been priced at $2.99 to begin with, it would have followed Ur at least into the top 10 in the Kindle Store, gained far more visibility, and ended up selling at least three times as many copies as it has sold in the $5 to $8 price range. It would, in all likelihood, have remained in the top 50 throughout the baseball season, and King and his people would have earned more in royalties despite the lower per-unit retail price.
As novelist J.A. Konrath wrote recently on his publishing blog: “Three bucks is a more than fair price for a full length digital book. (Full length is over 50,000 words.) If it’s under 50k words, go ahead and price it for less. Or put a few short pieces together to make a long piece.”
With his huge following, King may be able to get away with a higher pricing standard than Konrath sets for the rest of us, and he proved with Ur that he can charge $2.99 for a novella and do just fine. But as he should have learned with Blockade Billy, there are limits, even for him.
You Can Apply for a Credit of $70 to $130 If You Bought a Kindle Up to 30 Days Before the Price Cuts
First, just in case you haven’t noticed, there have been three big Kindle price cuts Amazon in the past three weeks:
- On June 21, the price of the latest-generation Kindle with the 6-inch display and global 3G wireless was reduced from $259 to $189. Order here for $189.
- On July 1, Amazon introduced a new Kindle DX with a 9.7-inch display, global 3G wireless, and “50% better display contrast” in a graphite exterior casing at a price reduced from $489 to $379. Order here for $379.
- Finally, over the holiday weekend Amazon resumed selling its remaining inventory of the 2nd-generation white Kindle DX with a 9.7-inch display and global 3G wireless at a price reduced from $489 to $359. This was the latest-generation Kindle DX until July 1. Order here for $359, or get a refurbished model for $299.99.
Naturally, recent Kindle buyers have been calling the Kindle switchboards by the hundreds in hopes of getting a credit or refund for part or all of the price difference. In the past, and in numerous cases reported to me by Kindle Nation citizens in the last week or so, Amazon has provided just such a credit within a 30-day window.
It’s definitely worth a call, and from within the U.S. you can reach a Kindle representative toll-free at 1-866-321-8851. International customers can reach Amazon at 1-206-266-2992.
We’ll always have your back here at Kindle Nation. If you’re thinking of buying a new Kindle at these great new prices, you can get our back and help defray the expenses of Kindle Nation Daily by using one of the links near the beginning of this post to order your new Kindle.
Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert, Saturday, July 10: Two New Suspense Pre-Orders from Bestselling HarperCollins Authors, Plus Garden Magic In Your Backyard! (Today’s Sponsor) and Over a Hundred Free Promotional Kindle Store Titles
It’s great to see how masterfully Soho Crime, Michael Genelin’s indie publisher, has parlayed The Magician’s Accomplice’s two days as a Kindle Store freebie into bestseller status as a Kindle paid book. It appears that well over 500 Kindle Nation citizens picked up this great read free before the price was reset at $9.99 yesterday, but with the book still at #2 in the Kindle Store paid listings, it is clear that it is still finding hundreds of buyers at the new price. For quality books, that’s how freebies ought to work, and of course they ought to be available to every author and publisher.
And I’m glad to see that our Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alerts continue to be sprinkled with interesting suspense listings, with two crime and suspense pre-orders from bestselling HarperCollins authors today….
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
Available on Kindle for $9.95 or in paperback for $14.95
If you’re a backyard gardener, you’ll want to find out why reader Denise A. Klein wrote in her 5-star Kindle review of David Soper’s Garden Magic In Your Backyard! that “I particularly enjoy having my Kindle read this book aloud while I work in the garden!”
that “I particularly enjoy having my Kindle read this book aloud while I work in the garden!” Another reader said “Reading David Soper is like having a good friend by your side in the garden. He keeps you entertained, chats comfortably and cracks a few jokes between the chores of digging to the right depth and feeding your plants a proper diet. His suggestions are gentle and good-natured (“Plant bulbs abundantly; you want displays, not samples”). His descriptions are vivid and accurate (“The bulb should feel like a good clove of garlic”). And he spins some fascinating history for you to read while waiting for your seedlings to grow. I’d be tempted to while away hours with his prose even if my garden consisted of no more than a window box in a sunless apartment.”
Click here to download Garden Magic In Your Backyard! (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title, and of course, we encourage you to support our sponsors. Some of these paid titles will be from our own Kindle Nation Daily press (an imprint of Harvard Perspectives Press), while others will be paid titles from other authors and publishers.
Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information:
Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!
Free Listings!
Here are our updated free promotional listings in the Kindle Store as of July 10:
Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense
From Booklist: The author of the 1990s Simeon Grist series returns with a compelling new protagonist: American travel writer Poke Rafferty, who is out to right some serious wrongs on the predatory streets of Bangkok. While attempting to adopt a homeless girl, rescue a potentially murderous urchin known as Superman, and build a lasting relationship with the former bar girl he loves, Poke is pulled into two brutal mysteries. One involves a notorious Khmer Rouge torturer, the other a series of child-porn photos. As he doggedly plumbs these ghastly depths, Rafferty matures from a play-it-as-it-lays layabout into a man willing to meet his lover’s culture more than halfway and find his moral compass at a time when the victims can be as guilty as the murderers are innocent. The fact that the referenced pedophile photo series and Phnom Penh torture house both existed heightens the impact of a narrative that’s already deeply felt. If this opens a new series, Hallinan is off to a surefooted start with a supporting cast (including Poke’s precocious, pugnacious, almost-daughter Miaow) well worth getting to know.
Harper Collins Pre-Order for August 24, 2010 – Suspense
A hodgepodge hardcover debut in which two Native American medicine men, an Arizona lawman, a young widow and her son, and a Papago basket-weaver/wise woman are inexorably drawn into confrontation with the evil ohb, a university professor-turned- serial-killer, who upended their lives six years before when he tortured and murdered the basket-weaver’s granddaughter and then stage-managed a suicide/frame-up for his distraught accomplice Garrison Ladd. Now he’s stalking Ladd’s widow Diana and son Davy, but his old MO (biting off nipples) used on a new victim has set the sheriff’s department on his trail, while his malevolent spirit has energized the Papagos. There will be another murder, an attempted murder, dreams, emanations, and a near-fatal dog- poisoning before everyone converges on the Ladd house for a gruesome resolution. Disconcerting time shifts and a plethora of Papago parables (can anyone outdo Tony Hillerman?) fail to disguise the fact that this is nothing more than potboiler melodrama, with the hapless reader bombarded first by the lurid, then by the mystical. — Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Here’s a list of the categories in today’s Free Book Alert:
Crime and Suspense
Samples
Samples
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Writing and Publishing
Children/Young Adult/Teen
Contemporary Fiction
Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Romance
Erotica
Gay and Lesbian
|
Crime and Suspense
Harper Collins Pre-Order for July 30, 2010 – Suspense
Harper Collins Pre-Order for August 24, 2010 – Suspense
Tumor Chapter 1
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Writing and Publishing
Publish on Amazon Kindle with the Digital Text Platform
Children/Young Adult/Teen
by Rick Riordan
Contemporary Fiction
The Hunters
Nonfiction/Business/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay
Sam Walton’s Way
What I Learned from Peter Drucker
Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon
Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure
Romance
Darkfever: The Fever Series – Romance – Fantasy, Futuristic; Ghost – Occult by Karen Marie Moning
Gay and Lesbian
Out of Bounds: Love of Sports Book 1
by T.A. Chase
Erotica
Not Just an Orgy
Interlude in Pearl
Scary Saturday, a Regular Weekly Feature of Free Kindle Nation Shorts. July 10: “The Shed” by Jack Kilborn/J.A. Konrath
Welcome to Scary Saturday for July 10, 2010
For the past year our Free Kindle Nation Shorts program has been connecting thousands of Kindle readers with emerging and established writers, and we’re proud to have helped many writers of distinction climb the Kindle Store bestseller lists. One of those authors has been Joe Konrath, and it has been a lot of fun to watch such a talented storyteller become one of the most successful fiction writers in the Kindlesphere. Joe has also been a very important trailblazer in the world of writing and independent publishing, so I was especially pleased when he decided recently that he wanted to give something back to the citizens of Kindle Nation by providing the stories on which we are drawing to initiate a new Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature called “Scary Saturday.”
We’ll continue to showcase many other writers here at Free Kindle Nation Shorts, but on many coming Saturdays we’ll treat you to truckloads of terror with the horror fiction of J.A. “Joe” Konrath. We’ll also provide links to his current and coming Kindle books and we hope you’ll be brave enough to turn all the lights on and keep reading.
Check out the latest bestsellers by J.A. Konrath, just $2.99 in the Kindle Store!
or scroll to the end of the story to read more about Joe Konrath
* * * * *
“The Shed“
a short story by Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath
Copyright © 2010 Joe Konrath and published here with his permission
Author’s note: Just about every horror mag in the world rejected this story. I’m not sure why. Sure, it’s a standard EC Comics supernatural comeuppance, but I think it’s fun. It eventually sold to Surreal Magazine.
-J.K.
* * * * *
“That’s gotta be where the money is.”
Rory took one last hit off the Kool and flicked the butt into a copse of barren trees. The orange firefly trail arced, then died.
Phil shook his head. “Why the hell would he keep his money locked up in a backyard shed?”
“Because he’s a crazy old shit. Hasn’t left the house in thirty years.”
The night was cold and smelled like rotting leaves. They stood at the southern side of Old Man Loki’s property, just beyond a tall hedge with thorns like spikes. The estate butted up against the forest preserve on the east and Lake Fenris on the west. Due north was Fenris Road, a winding, private driveway that eventually connected with Interstate 10 about six miles up.
Phil peered through the bramble at the mansion. It rested, dark and quiet, a mountain of jutting dormers and odd angles. To Phil it looked like something that had been asleep for a long time.
“Even crazy people know about banks.”
Rory clamped a hand behind Phil’s head and tugged the smaller teen closer. “If it’s not money, then why the hell does he got that big lock and chain on it? To protect his lawnmower?”
Phil pulled away and glanced at the shed. It stood only a few dozen yards away, the size of a small garage. The roof was tar shingles, rain-worn to gray, and dead vines partially obscured the oversized padlock and chain hanging on the door.
“Doesn’t look like it’s been opened in a while.”
Rory grinned, his teeth blue in the moonlight. “All the more reason to open it now.”
It felt all wrong, but Phil followed Rory onto the estate grounds. A breeze cooled the sweat that had broken out on his neck. Rory pulled the crowbar from his belt and swung it at a particularly tall prickle-weed.
“Yard looks like shit. Can’t he pay someone to cut his goddamned grass?”
“Maybe he’s dead.” Phil chanced another look at the mansion. “No lights on.”
“We woulda heard about it.”
“Could be recent. Could be he just died, and no one found the body yet.”
Phil’s words bounced small and tinny in the open air. He felt a rush of exposure, as if Old Man Loki was sitting at one of the dark windows of his house and watching their every move.
“You turning chicken shit on me? Baby need his wittle bottle?”
“Shut up, Rory. What if he is dead?”
“Then he won’t mind us stealing his shit. Damn-will you check out the size of that lock!”
The padlock was almost as big as Phil’s head. An old-fashioned type with a key-shaped opening on its face, securing three lengths of thick, rusty chain which wrapped around the entire shed like packing tape.
“You gonna try to bust that with just a crowbar?”
“Won’t know until we try.” Rory raised the iron over his head, and Phil set his jaw and cringed at the oncoming sound.
The clang reverberated over the grounds like a ghost looking for someone to haunt.
“Sonuvabitch! First try!”
The lock hung open on a rusty hinge. Rory pulled it off and the chains fell to the ground in a tangle. Phil eyed the door. It was some kind of heavy wood, black as death. Next to the doorknob was a grimy brass plaque.
“Welcome,” Phil read.
“How about that shit? We’re invited.”
Rory laughed, but Phil felt a chill stronger than the night air. He’d heard stories about Old Man Loki. Stories of how he used to live in Europe, and how he hung around with that creepy Mr. Crowley guy Ozzy sang about.
Reflexively, Phil looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching.
There was a light on in the house.
“Shit! Rory, there’s…”
The light winked twice, then went off.
“There’s what, Phil?”
“A light. On the second floor.”
Rory pulled a face and made a show of squinting at the mansion. His mouth stretched open in horror, lips snicking back over years of dental neglect.
“Run, Phil! Jesus Christ! Run!”
Phil took off in a dead sprint, fighting to keep his bladder closed. He was forty yards away when he noticed Rory wasn’t next to him.
That’s when he heard his friend’s laughter.
Phil looked back over his shoulder and saw Rory holding his stomach, guffawing so loud that it sounded like a barking dog.
Phil felt his ears burn. He took his time walking back to the shed.
“You should have seen your face!” Rory had tears in his eyes.
“Shut up, Rory. That wasn’t funny.”
“I swear, you ran like that during football tryouts you woulda made the team.”
Phil turned away, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I wasn’t scared. You told me to run, so I did.”
“Okay, tough guy-prove you aren’t scared.” Rory pointed at the black door. “You go in first.”
Phil chewed his lower lip. If he didn’t go in, Rory would never let him forget it. The teasing would last for eternity.
Why the hell did he hang out with Rory anyway?
“I knew you were chicken.”
“Kiss my ass, Rory.”
Phil grasped the knob and pulled.
The massive door opened with a whisper, moving smoothly despite its weight. Warm, stale air enveloped Phil, and the sound of his own breathing echoed back at him.
So quiet.
Rory switched on the flashlight. The small beam played over four bare walls.
“It’s empty.”
“Shine the light on the floor.”
The cone of light jerked to the center of the room, bending over the edge of a large, round pit and disappearing into the darkness.
“What the hell is that?”
Rory crept up to the edge, holding his flashlight out in front of him like a sword. He peered down into the pit.
“Do you smell that?”
“Yeah. Rotten eggs. I think it’s coming from the hole.”
Phil glanced over his shoulder again, taking a quick peek at the house.
The light was back on.
“Rory-”
“There’s a rusty ladder going down.”
“The light is-”
“Shh! Do you hear that?”
Both boys held their breath. There was a quick, rhythmic thumping, coming from deep within the pit.
Bump…bump…bump…bump…bump…
“What is that? Footsteps?”
…bump…bump…bump…bump…
“It’s getting louder.”
The sound quickened, like a Harley accelerating.
“I think something’s coming up the ladder.”
Phil decided he’d had enough. This was the part in the movie where the stupid kids got their guts ripped out, and he didn’t want to stick around for it. He spun on his heels and hauled ass for the entrance, just in time to see a very old man with a pulpy, misshapen face slam the door closed.
Phil grabbed for the knob and pushed, but the door held firm.
“He locked us in! Old Man Loki locked us in!”
Rory kept his focus on the pit. “I think I can see some…”
A black hairy thing sprang out of the hole and yanked Rory downward. The flashlight spun in the empty air for the briefest of seconds, and then fell into the pit after Rory, the light dimming until the room was drenched in pitch black.
Phil stood stock-still in the darkness.
A minute passed.
Five.
He heard whimpering, and realized it was his own.
This can’t be happening, he thought. Why was this happening?
Bump.
A sound. Coming from the pit.
The thing was climbing the ladder.
Phil forced himself to back up until he was pressed against the door.
“Hailmaryfulofgracethelordiswithyou-”
…bump…bump…bump…bump…bump…
“-blessedartthouamong-”
The noise crescendoed, then stopped.
The silence was horrible.
Phil couldn’t see anything, but he could feel the presence of something large and warm coming towards him. Something that smelled like rotten eggs and wet dog.
He screamed, and kept screaming when it wrapped its prickly tentacles around his face, a thousand hooks digging in and pulling. Phil’s hands shot up to push the pain away, and similar barbs shot into his palms.
His screaming stopped when the barbs filled his open mouth.
Then, with a quick tug, Phil was dragged down into the pit.
There was a sensation of falling, skin burning and tearing away, consciousness blurring into a darkness as complete as the one that surrounded him.
And suddenly, Phil was watching a movie in his head. A shaky, black and white film of him and Rory breaking into Old Man Loki’s mansion. Rory had the crowbar, and they used it on Loki, breaking his bones, bashing his face, demanding his money. Old Man Loki moaning the whole time, “The shed! The shed!” Repeating it over and over, even when Rory jammed the crowbar down the old man’s throat.
The movie abruptly cut to Phil as a much older man, clad in an orange prison uniform. He was strapped to a chair, a guard swabbing electrolyte on his temples and his left leg. The switch was thrown and Phil’s blood began to boil within his veins, every nerve locked in agony.
Phil watched the prison doctor pronounce him dead, watched as his own soul left his body, transporting him to Loki’s estate.
A terrifying deja vu ensued as he viewed himself acting out the same scenario he’d experienced only moments ago. Breaking into the shed-the thing grabbing Rory-getting dragged into the pit-
When Phil finally caught up with himself, he discovered he was in a small, stone dungeon.
Next to him, a forty-year-old version of Rory was chained to a medieval torture rack, naked and stretched out until his shoulders had separated. His body was a haven of slithering, spiny worms, which burrowed underneath his skin.
“Hi, buddy.” Rory offered a bloody smile, his teeth filed down to exposed nerves. “Be nice to have some company.”
Phil remembered that Rory had been executed eight years prior.
“What’s going on? What happened to the shed?”
Rory whimpered, a worm tunneling into his ear. “Old Man Loki didn’t have no shed. That’s why we beat him to death. Kept saying it over and over, when we asked him where his money was.”
“But we just broke into the shed.”
The worm stitched out of Rory’s nose, trailing crimson mucus. “The shed is the doorway to this place. I remember breaking in, too. Right after I died.”
Phil squeezed his eyes shut. His temples still burned where the electrodes had been attached. But the memory of his own death dwarfed the fear he felt right now.
He opened his eyes and tried to bolt, panic surging through him. But, like Rory, he found himself tied to a rack. His eyes fell upon a fire pit, where a dozen branding irons glowed white.
A squat, hairy man entered the room. He had sharp horns sticking out of his head where ears would normally be, and his skin was a dull shade of crimson.
He picked up a hot iron and gave Phil a fanged grin.
“Welcome to eternity, Phil. Let’s get started.”
* * * * *
Okay … turn the lights on and take a deep breath.
It’s going to be okay … until next week, on …
Scary Saturday
From the Kindle Nation Mailbag: How to Access Kindle “Text-to-Speech” Audio, And Is Random House Beginning to Participate in Kindle Text-to-Speech?
Thanks to Kindle Nation citizen Barbara-Lee, who wrote in with a question about the Kindle’s text-to-speech
I have a question I hope you can answer. Does every book I download come with audio? If so, how do I access it? If not, how do I get an audio version of the book when I order it? I appreciate any help you may offer.
Barbara-Lee
Well, Barbara-Lee, it turns out you may have asked a timely question, and I’m glad to answer.
First, the audio feature that Amazon launched in February 2009 for the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX is called text-to-speech. It does not come with every book you download, but you can always tell, before you purchase a Kindle book, by looking at the bulleted points just below the price, where it will say “Text-to-Speech: Enabled” or “Text-to-Speech: Not Enabled.” If a book does have text-to-speech enabled, just open the ebook from your home screen, press the “Aa” font key to the right of the spacebar on your Kindle keyboard, and use the 5-way to click on “turn on” next to “Text-to-Speech.” Once it is on, you can pause or resume by pressing the spacebar, and you can go to the same “Aa” screen to regulate the reading speed or select a male or female robotic voice.
I hope that helps.
But now that I’ve said that, I just noticed for the first time today that a long-time nonparticipant in the Text-to-Speech feature, Random House, is apparently beginning to participate. When Amazon launched the feature early in 2009 Random House was the most notable abstainer, causing a serious controversy that even included demonstrations outside its Manhattan headquarters. The Random House website made it clear that none of its titles would feature Text-to-Speech, much to the chagrin of many Kindle owners.
Perhaps I have missed something, but my curiosity was piqued this morning when I noticed that I was able to listen to Text-to-Speech of Elizabeth Edwards’ Resilience: The New Afterword
However, that was enough to set me off on a minor research project when I should have been doing other things this afternoon, and I am happy to report something that certainly qualifies as news to me: about 5 to 10 percent of the newish, bestselling titles that I have been checking from Random House and its various imprints are showing “Text to Speech: Enabled.” Although 5 or 10 percent is far less than what we’d like to see, of course, perhaps it is the first trickle of a coming wave? Here are some of the Random House listings that are showing up with Text-to-Speech:
- Greedy Little Eyes
, Billie Livingston, Vintage Canada
- The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
, John Gardner, Vintage
- The Echo
, Minette Walter, Vintage
- Corduroy Mansions: A Novel
, Alexander McCall Smith, Pantheon, pre-order
- The Widower’s Tale
, Julia Glass, Pantheon, pre-order
- THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES: A Novel
, Jean Auel, Crown, pre-order
- Casting a Spell: The Bamboo Fly Rod and the American Pursuit of Perfection
, George Black, Random House
I’ve got an email in to Amazon, but I haven’t heard back from them about whether there’s anything interesting going on here. Meanwhile, I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has noticed anything similar, or noticed it long before me….
One last thing I noticed, and didn’t like: some of those Random House pre-order prices look ominously like agency model prices. Say it ain’t so, Random House!