Interview - Demon Shadow by Timothy Patrick Means #Horror

How did you become an author?

While at my job,I picked up a book and read it in its entirety one day. At the end of the book I thought, I could write better than that. So, I started to put my thoughts together on pencil and paper.

What made you decide to publish?

My mother’s response to seeing a few pages I’d written down on paper. Her expression was moving, especially when she asked me, “Do they find her daughter?” To me, it was as though I had captured her imagination.

What is a funny thing that happened on the way to getting published?

I saw my book covers displaying my imagination in living color. I beheld my words in printed form. Of course, I was excited about the prospects of the future. The strange thing to me was when people would say, “How exciting, you wrote a book” To me, it was nothing to imagine 180,000 words. I'm still doing it today!

If your book was made into a movie…

It would be a badass movie. First of all, it would be filled with all manner of emotions: anger, sadness, and revenge. The battle between good and evil has plagued humankind since the beginning. The wizard, Tobias, doesn’t give a damn about humanity, his only desire to come back to life. My desire is not to see my charters as weaklings but strong in moral fiber. Barbara is not weak; once she discovers the truth about her daughter’s abduction, she begins to call upon all types of bizarre characters, but nothing or no one is too strange to resist her will in her fight to save her daughter.

Can you give us a few random thoughts about yourself, something that might surprise your readers? 

• I had a distinguished career in aerospace. I once worked on rockets and the space station. Years ago, while I was testing a high-pressure vessel, it blew up. I survived the blast behind a bomb shelter door, a foot thick. Gratefully, the bomb shelter had two sets of bulletproof glass windows, that survived the blast, otherwise while I was eyeing the sphere, I would have killed. The explosion blew off the roof. Later, it was discovered that there was a failure in the heat treatment process.

• I was born premature and almost died. Looking at me now, the fatness on my bones, none would guess that I was dying and only survived by the instruction from a nurse who told my mother to feed me goat’s milk. It worked.

• My mother and four sisters raised me. When my mother'swas pregnant with me, my older sister died of pneumonia in my mother's arms while going to the hospital. A close bond existed from that time onward. The reason she fought so much to save my life; I suppose.

What are your hobbies or other interests that get you away from the stress of writing?

I enjoy fishing, playing my Xbox, going to the park, and playing with the children.

Demon Shadow

The Bishops’ Sacrifice 

Book One

Timothy Patrick Means

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Mad Dog Press

Date of Publication: 10/01/2021

ISBN: 978-1-7376017-0-8

ASIN: B09CVSKR4P

Number of pages: 179

Word Count: 47831

Cover Artist: Eric Labacz

Book Description: 

The 16-year-old girl disappeared after school on an October afternoon. The police have exhausted all leads. It’s been weeks, but her mother, Barbara, will not stop searching for Melissa.

Her husband, Mark, has given up…and started drinking. Her younger daughter Rachel feels neglected. The police think she is a nuisance. Her job is in jeopardy.

But even more mysterious things begin happening around Barbara. The shadows that have no source…a dark form glimpsed beneath Melissa’s bed…the ravens that have congregated on the lawn.

Desperate, Barbara turns to the mysterious Sterling, a man the police scorn as a psychic, a fraud, and maybe worse.

Can Sterling help Barbara find her daughter before it is too late? And what is the mysterious Bishops’ Curse that has haunted Barbara’s family for centuries?

The Demon Shadow is the first in a series of haunting thrillers that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Amazon

Excerpt

She hurried down the hallway with the crystal in her hand. As she passed Melissa’s bedroom, the crystal began to glow brighter and brighter. Pausing just outside the door, she stopped and didn’t move. The crystal burned with such intensity that she could hardly look at it.

She held her palm flat, the object resting in the center. She was compelled to walk into Melissa’s bedroom. As she took a step inside, the crystal’s light became blindingly bright, reaching into the darkest corners of the room, filling every murky space with beams of shimmering light. She realized with a shock that she hadn’t turned on any lights; the object glowed more brightly with each step she took.

As she stood silently, watching the effects of the light against the blackest of the shadows. Something moved! Frightened, she wanted to run away but instead stood transfixed as a pair of long, bony arms reached out from under Melissa’s bed.

Somehow, she knew that the dark, shadowy figure was trying to crawl from some other place into this world. As she watched in silent horror, it slowly pulled its body upward from under the bed. A dark and menacing fog swirled and grew until it assumed the shape of a tiny human skull with two bulging eyes embedded in deep sockets, eagerly watching Barbara with keen interest.

Frozen in fear and unable to move or retreat, she stood perfectly still. The dark body changed, blending within the blackness in front of her—this thing was death itself.

Slowly, it rose from the floor and became erect— alive. The air in Melissa’s bedroom was becoming frigid, and Barbara shivered in the sudden cold. All she could do was to stand immobile and watch intently as the apparition came to life.

The body of the ghastly image was almost transparent, with dark, oily skin. Now that it was upright, Barbara could see that it stood close to six feet tall with a body as black as a moonless night.

The creature unfolded two broad, enormous wings; they stretched halfway across the room. To her horror, it opened its mouth wide and let out an ear-piercing scream as if it had just been wounded. Flinching, she clamped her hands over her ears.

Questions flooded her mind. Why is this creature here in Melissa’s bedroom? What can this all possibly mean? Only one thing mattered: How could she defeat this creature that threatening her life?

The answer to that question, she realized, was in the palm of her hand. As the dark demon fully materialized, the small object she held burned ever more brightly. As the entity grew in strength and magnification, the burning brightness in the room increased as well. Somehow, she understood that this object was inflicting the pain the creature felt. Was kind of weapon was it?

More importantly, if this small object caused this beast such enormous pain, how could she use it to defeat the monster?

The light restrained the creature, but it fought against it. In one final attempt to get at her, the creature stuck out its long, skeletal fingers; its razor-sharp nails tried to stop the incandescent light from penetrating its hazy body. Still, every time it drew closer to harm her, the shining brilliance from the crystal object became even brighter and held the creature back.

Inside herself, something suddenly changed; she would not surrender to her fears. She would show this creature no mercy or weakness. She stepped toward the being, holding the light before her. As she did, the creature’s menacing shape began to change. It was no longer the threatening being it once had been, and it began to draw inward. Its once proudly displayed wings collapsed into its body. Its form seemed to lower in submission; the strange creature looked as though it bowed before her.

The incandescent light from the small crystal penetrated deep into its dark body as it began to creep backward under Melissa’s bed, retreating into the world in which it lived. As it withdrew, it took on a much smaller form than before.

Her courage renewed; Barbara took another step closer. As she looked upon the inky body, it shrank to nothingness and disappeared from her sight.

She took a deep breath. It was gone. But she knew it had only been subdued for now. It had had no choice but to retreat to the abyss of its home, in that other world where darkness lived.

But it would be back?

About the Author:

 

Timothy was raised on the sunny beaches of Southern California. As a young boy, he spent many summers swimming and playing in the ocean without care. Later as the man, he was fortunate enough to land a job in Aerospace, working for McDonnell Douglas. There he worked on military aircraft and, most exciting of all, rockets! All types of space hardware, including the space station, space shuttle, and the Delta rocket.

His life has always been interesting—a father to four children and two stepchildren, Grandfather to 14. He’s given away his heart to all. In his life, he’s always loved writing. His first experience at being creative was describing his feelings through poetry that seemed to get mixed emotions. But it wasn’t until he put pencil to the paper that his imagination soared, and he was set free to explore all the possibilities of creating an exciting story.

Here and now is the result of his work. A new world created from his imagination, where everything was possible, including the dangers and pitfalls.

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