BLOOD RELATED, by William Cook

A fellow author who pulls off the bald look better than me, with an insatiable appetite for the macabre. An author who is making his mark in the horror world, William Cook.

ALSO! William has decided to hold a contest on my blog, up to ten winners (5 for Nook, and 5 for Kindle) will receive a free copy of BLOOD RELATED.

Winners will be selected at random.

The Requirements: make sure I can contact you if you win, you don't have to do every one of these on the list, but each one gets you an extra point:

Tweet this post and tag me

Follow me @daleeldon or William @williamcook666 on Twitter


Share on Facebook, and tag me, Dale Eldon, so I can see the post

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THE INTERVIEW:

So William, as a new fan of yours, I would like to ask you, what inspired you to write your novel, BLOOD RELATED?

Hi. Well, I’ve always been a fan of the Slasher/Psychological Thriller genre, in movies and books. I grew up watching movies like Maniac, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and reading authors like Bloch, Dahl, Ellroy, King etc. It’s another form of horror – it’s the human horror, without the supernatural occurrences, usually involving a large carving knife!

Which is essentially what Blood Related is, a Psychological Thriller/Crime Fiction novel, with serious doses of depictions of things of a horrific nature. Although, I admit, there are supernatural elements at work in subtle ways throughout the book. Hope you spot ‘em. So in a roundabout way, I was inspired to write Blood Related because I always wanted to write one (a psychological thriller) after I read Robert Bloch’s book – Psycho. The other consideration was that my fast approaching fortieth birthday kicked me into high gear, as I had sworn most of my adult life that I was going to write a novel before I turned 40, or pack it away and stay a reader.


Who inspires you, as a person and as an author?

I try to inspire myself, which may sound a bit precocious, but I don’t like to admit that it’s really my nearest and dearest. As a writer however, my inspiration is drawn largely from my trips to the local bookstores, new and used. The books and the words within, that inspire me most, probably come from Charles Bukowski – I love his dark wit and profundity, when I get stuck with words I read him and he inspires me to write. Stephen King is another. So I guess as a writer, other writers who are at the top of their game in what they do, whether it be Splatterpunk, Bizarro, Steampunk, or Guro Manga, and who give me the chills, I admire what they do and how they do it.


What inspired you to write horror?
I’ve always been a morbid bastard with an unhealthy interest in the macabre side of life. I loved comics when I was a kid and I migrated from 2000AD to Eerie and Creepy comics which fascinated me, then on to Poe, Bradbury, World War II, and possible Nuclear Armageddon. I was freaked out by the whole concept of possible nuclear war after seeing that movie, ‘The Day After.’ Nightmares for months . . . and then the horror came.


What kind of stories are you cooking up for the near future?

I’m pretty busy actually so it’s pull-finger time and roll up the sleeves. I’m seriously considering having a go at self-publishing a collection of verse and a collection of short fiction illustrated by talented artist Joseph Myers. I’m also working on a sequel to Blood Related over the next year and I’m co-writing a book or two with True Crime writer RJ Parker. I also design book covers and I have been pretty busy on Photoshop lately. But mainly more dark stuff to look forward to :)

William, it was great having you here!

Thanks for having me Dale – cheers to your readers too.

For over two decades, Detective Ray Truman has been searching for the killer, or killers, who have terrorized Portvale. Headless corpses, their bodies mutilated and posed, have been turning up all over the industrial district near the docks. Young female prostitutes had been the killer's victims of choice, but now other districts are reporting the gruesome discovery of decapitated bodies. It seems the killer has expanded his territory as more 'nice girls' feel the wrath of his terrible rage.

Meet the Cunninghams . . . A family bound by evil and the blood they have spilled. The large lodging-house they live in and operate on Artaud Avenue reeks of death, and the sins that remain trapped beneath the floorboards. Ray Truman's search for a killer leads him to the Cunningham's house of horrors. What he finds there will ultimately lead him to regret ever meeting Caleb Cunningham and the deviant family that spawned him. The hunter becomes the hunted, as Truman digs deeper into the abyss that is the horrifying mind of the most dangerous psychopath he has ever met.

"Dark and deeply disturbing." - Jonathan Nasaw, author of Fear Itself and The Girls He Adored. "Blood Related is a nasty but nuanced take on the serial killer genre. Cook's bruising tale of twin psychopaths who are as cold as mortuary slabs is not for the weak-kneed." - Laird Barron, author of Occultation and The Imago Sequence.

"A thought-provoking thriller." - Guy N Smith, author of Night of The Crabs and Deadbeat. "Great - Riveting - Amazing - take your pick. I just read William Cook's Blood Related for the second time. Both readings were followed with one thought, Wow. A horrific crime-filled tale of terror that makes us understand why we lock our doors at night, Blood Related is by far the best read I've experienced in years." - John Paul Allen, author of Monkey Love and Gifted Trust

"Blood Related is a terrifying psychological thriller. William Cook is an author to watch." - Mark Edward Hall, author of The Lost Village and The Holocaust Opera. "William Cook makes serial killer fiction exciting again! Expert narrative, bursting with flare, originality, and enough passion and brutality that even a real-life serial killer will love this book . . . and it's twisted and complex enough to make you question your own sanity after the first intense read." - Nicholas Grabowsky, best-selling author of Halloween IV and Everborn.

Excerpt from Blood Related by William Cook.

Prologue:

Charlie has big plans for me. He’s thinking crazy thoughts and talking crazy talk. He keeps telling me about his recurring visions and his ‘mission,’ apparently he has occasion to talk to God. During one of these conversations, God granted him absolution in hell, free from the tyranny of everyday pain and suffering, if Charlie did his bidding. This particular vision also revealed that God and Satan were the same, as was heaven and hell. For Charlie, he saw this as a sign that he would be sitting at Satan's side on a throne made of human bones, once he was mortally dead.

He would be a god.
I could tell he was delusional.
He was gone.
I knew this because there was no God.
God was dead and so was Charlie.

I hear Charlie’s voice now, clear as a bell. My consciousness clears and my surroundings come into sharp focus. I see his face clearly in my mind. I shake my head, trying to rid myself of his image. I wrap my bleeding fist in a towel and step gingerly over the broken shards of mirror littering the wet tiles on the bathroom floor. I make my way to the kitchen and search the cupboards, for some tape or band-aids, to stem the flow of blood from the lacerations across my throbbing knuckles.

“God,” Charlie whispers to me, “has given me life – to do my deeds upon this earth before he takes me to the next level.”

“Another life,” he continues, “will not allow me the freedom of choice you have with your future Caleb. Some things we cannot change. Some lives are not led by natural laws, but by unnatural processes – events.”

“My life, your life . . .” Charlie says, “is a road map to hell.”

I remember the last time I looked in his eyes when he was alive. He was crazy then and the voice in my head shakes with equal insanity, as an image of him floats before my eyes. His face appears gaunt, skeletal. The vision ebbs in and out of focus as I start to tremble with a mixture of naked coldness and fear. I remember him as if he is with me now and he is, in his own twisted way. My mind reels with tangents and the bending of physical laws.
He used to seem very confused to me.
He now seems very logical to me.
He still seems very dangerous to me.
He is my twin brother and he has returned home.
I see him in my own eyes.
I feel that he is now part of me.
Blood related.

The missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle has been found. It is a moment of realization that we are two parts of the same equation; standing there alone in a stranger’s house, nude as a newborn, thoughts swirling through my adrenaline-charged brain.

I realize that with the puzzle complete – the revealed image is far more bloody than romanticized, like two halves of something that shouldn’t be together. More like a vision of apocalyptic proportions. Despite my realization, I feel like shit more than ever.

Back in the bathroom I look once again at my reflection in the broken shards of mirror on the floor – just before I smash myself in the face with my fist. I hear Charlie gasp as I do. The sum of our union is chaos. Death. Destruction. Violence. And loneliness.
We are hollow men.
Empty men.
The walking dead.
We are one.

With some ammonia-saturated cleaning spray, I spray the droplets of blood on the remains of the cabinet mirror, vainly attempting to clean my presence from the room. I look at the floor covered in bloody footprints, my bloody footprints. I look at the woman in the bathtub, her glazed lifeless eyes staring vacantly at me. Her bruised neck set at a strange angle. One bare arm dangles over the side of the porcelain tub, her alabaster fingers delicately lay palm up on the floor, in a glistening pool of dark blood. A bare breast exposed, floats whitely like an island of chalk amongst the maroon waters in the tub. At this point, I give up any attempts to conceal my indiscretions.

I look through the doorway at the clock on the mantle in the living room. It’s time to go and I’ve come ill prepared, this was after all a ‘crime of opportunity’ as they sometimes are. I complete my task and take my trophy from the body, arranging the remains in my careful way. I remove my clothes from my backpack and replace them with the head wrapped in a plastic bag. I wipe the remaining smears of congealing blood from my body, careful not to get the viscous liquid on anything else as I shed my unease and dress hurriedly in the hallway. All the while, my gaze is fixated on the broken work in the bathroom. She appears to move as her limbs stiffen a fraction with the onset of rigor mortis.

My heart starts beating again and I think of Lucille as I make my way to the gas hob in the kitchen. I check that all the windows are shut tight, light a candle in the living room and in the hallway, and turn all the gas rings to high. In my head, Charlie remains quiet as I gently close and lock the back door, before making my way across the yard and over the fence at the rear of the property.

I walk slowly down the poorly lit alley that runs behind the North-Shore Boulevard. It takes approximately six minutes of pacing my steps in the dark night, counting the seconds as I go, until I hear a muffled thump behind me as the house explodes in a ball of flame. Charlie starts to laugh, a frightening maniacal noise, which sounds like someone hacking at a tree-trunk with an axe. It only takes a brief minute to realize that the crazed laughter is not Charlie’s, but my own.


William's Bio:

William Cook is a writer/illustrator from NZ. Previously published in Canta, Zephyr, Poetry NZ(20), Southern Ocean Review, Side Stream, Indite Circle Blackmail Press (20). Short stories published in Remark (USA) issue 34 June '05 and Mindfire Renewed June '05. 'Devil Inside' published in Masters of Horror Anthology 2010. Cover artist and writer for Putrid Poetry and Sickening Sketches 2011. Debut novel: 'Blood Related,' published by Angelic Knight Press December 2011.

Follow me on Twitter - @williamcook666

Member of the Australian Horror Writers Association and the Horror Blogger Alliance


Art= http://nzartist.blogspot.com/

Book = http://bloodrelated.wordpress/

Writing = http://www.amazon.com/William%20Cook/e/B003PA513I/