Dark Sci-fi Thriller Available for Kindle
THE SIXTH SEED, my dark paranormal novel that’s a mash-up of sci-fi, family drama, alien abduction, and suburban horror, is available for immediate purchase. Enjoy the prologue and then download for more.
Prologue
3:00 AM.
Even the New Year’s Eve celebrations had dwindled to a drunken slumber in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.
A shaft as bright as lightning blasted the roof of the suburban split-level below. As the ship settled over the house, the light twisted the shadows of the juniper trees across the empty driveway like the hands of a clock, racing through the first hours of 1975.
Big-headed, gray-skinned beings with eyes like saucers of glistening caviar floated through the open bedroom windows on drafts of frigid air.
Ten-year-old Melanie Holstrom levitated from the yellow canopy bed, her straight sandy-blond hair grazing the rumpled sheets beneath her. A curled paper noisemaker tumbled from her hand to the shag carpet.
They took hold of her with long, flabby fingers and guided her toward the window. She did not resist. Could not. Her face was locked in a rictus of fear.
In the adjoining bedroom, the small gray beings held down the mother.
Margaret Holstrom too was frozen with terror distorting her features, now wet with tears. White hands clutching the bedsheets, her polished fingernails glinted in the light from the hovering ship outside the window.
Minutes later, inside the vessel the girl lay prone on one of a hundred white tables, her flowered nightie hoisted to her chest for the examination. Now a surreal memory were the Chex Mix, the games of Yahtzee and Trouble, toasting Mom with sparkling grape juice in the fancy crystal glasses as the ball dropped at Times Square on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
Without sound, she mouthed the words, “Please . . . don’t . . .”
The creatures paid no heed as they slowly drove the needle deep into her abdomen.
“Not again!”
do not be afraid we must
Tears coursed down Melanie’s freckled temples into her ears. Her mouth yawed open in a silent scream.
In the house, her mother knew but could not see. Could not help her. Could not stop them. The creatures held her down and gazed at her with eyes like black frost melting.
In the ship, they withdrew the needle from Melanie’s abdomen. It dripped with blood but contained what they were after: a single ovum. The probe-bearer stepped away from its fellow beings around the examination table and moved deeper into the ship, carrying their prize.
she is the one
she is chosen
Yet no one saw. No one knew—except for one man—and these words were no comfort to her.
The big-headed beings escorted Melanie from the ship through the glacial night air and replaced the girl in her bed.
Then they exited the house, drawn into the vessel on a beam of bluish light. The light blinked off and the ship rose into the night, its occupants acknowledging not a passing year, but the dawn of a new era in the evolution of both their races.
The plan of the ages was underway.
What writers are saying:
“Lee Howard stitches together a story where the suspense never lets up.” –Ron Edison
“THE SIXTH SEED abducted my imagination and unsettled me with its pitch-perfect blend of science fiction, body horror and domestic terror. What a weird read!” –Michael A. Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Proverbs for Monsters
“Lee Allen Howard is an imaginative writer with slick, vivid prose and high octane pacing. He writes like no one else, and I mean this in a very good way.” –Trent Zelazny, author of Fractal Despondency
“Howard brings alien invasion up close and personal… buckle up for a thrill ride.” –Scott Nicholson, author of Liquid Fear
Download THE SIXTH SEED for Kindle now from Amazon.