The giveaway celebrates the launch
of paranormal thriller The Home. Experiments
at a group home for troubled children lead to paranormal activity—and the
ghosts are from the home’s dark past as an insane asylum.
In development as a
feature, it’s available in ebook at Amazon US, Amazon
UK, BN.com,
Kobo,
and Smashwords.
By Scott Nicholson
(From Chapter 8)
Inside Thirteen, the boy’s outline
was faintly visible in the darkness. His eyes snapped open and his gasp was
audible over the microphone. The heart rate graph rose in intensity. Bondurant
clenched his fingers.
Darkness. He’ll think he’s back
in the closet. Now he’ll scream.
The boy sat up. On the monitor,
the twin lines rose and fell in parallel motion. The brain image glowed in
bands of red and indigo.
“See the upper reading?” Kracowski
said. “That’s his energy field as measured across the meridian points I
devised. Did you notice how erratic the reading was before my treatment?”
“You mean before you gave him
electroshock?”
“Mr. Bondurant, that’s a crude
comparison. I’m not a psychosurgeon. I don’t try to cure by destroying the
brain. I don’t give frontal lobotomies, or whatever term they use these days
for systematic depersonalization. I merely drive away the traumatic residue
that blocks the normal functioning of the brain’s neurotransmitters.”
Gobbledygook, Bondurant thought.
Kracowski’s technobabble was as bad as the counselors’ psychobabble.
Mario looked around, unhurried,
curious. It had taken three grown men to restrain the boy during his first
night here, when the lights were turned out in the Blue Room and the boy fled
for the exit, clawed at the walls, rammed his skull against the steel door. Now
the boy sat in the dark as if meditating with open eyes.
“He’s not screaming,” Bondurant
said.
“He doesn’t seem to be
uncomfortable in the confined space,” Kracowski said.
The monitor showed the top line on
the chart had leveled out while the bottom line rose and fell steadily.
Kracowski waved a hand to indicate the pattern. “Calm as a nursing infant.”
“I must admit, the treatment is
impressive. How long do the effects last?”
“My initial research shows that it
may be temporary. But even if the neurotransmitters must be, shall we say,
‘realigned’ every month, that’s a much better success rate than any of your
shrinks can claim.”
Mario looked at the mirror, and
for a moment, Bondurant was struck with the impression that the boy could see
him. “What about potential cardiac damage?”
“No chance. It’s as if a light
switch was flipped off and then back on.”
“Let’s hope so. One incident, and
the state licensing board and the Social Services investigators will sweep
through this place like storm troopers. I don’t think they would find your
techniques in the chapter on standard practices.”
“Your job is to keep them away. At
least until I’ve finished my work. Then they, like the rest of the world, will
finally see the light.”
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