Bleak: The First Five Pages

Hey all! To celebrate the release of my novel on September 29th, today I am releasing the first five pages (including the cover and inside sleeve). I would be honored to know what you think! Pre-orders of the digital copy can now be made here

Content Warning: Suicide, Depression, Bullying.

Full Credit to Shelby Miller, the incredible illustrator to this Book!

Inside Sleeve:

Credit to my Dad for the sketches, and Shelby for the designs of the School ID’s!

Part One: The Terror from Kind Pines
Lynne Tate stepped inside her single wide trailer. The icy February air swirled through the open door and pierced her exposed skin. Lynne was tall, slender, had straight brunette hair, and her normally beige face was scarlet from the frozen night.

   Lynne’s voice tremored as she called through her home. “Tommy?”

The dining room light glowed over the table, illuminating two torn out pages of a journal. Lynne’s black cat greeted her at the door, twisting through her legs. Lynne stepped to the table. The words “From your son” were written at the top of the torn-out pages.

               Lynne turned over the page and frantically skipped to her son’s final entry.  

“Oh, God!” She whispered, “Please, Tommy. No!”  

Chapter 1: Song of I

     A tattered white blanket concealed Tommy’s cramped-up figure. It covered him like a haphazard body bag, the exception being his olive colored left hand, which laid out on the exposed stuffing on his mattress. A black cat roosted on top of the boy, and its yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.

     A cinderblock-sized alarm clock sat on his headboard, and when it hit to the top of the hour, it released a bloodcurdling screech.

     The cat scurried from the room, but the boy did not stir. The alarm wailed until beams of sunlight glistened through the window.

     Throwing off his blanket in protest, the boy opened his eyes and hit the top of his alarm. He then whipped his head toward the door; loud stomps were approaching his bedroom. Bewildered, the boy watched his mother shove open the door, with a cup of icy water in her grasp.

     The boy screamed, “No! I’m up, I’m—“

     But it was too late. The mom flung the water and showered him in the face. The woman yelled, “You sure are now, Tommy! Your freakin’ alarm rang for 28 minutes.”

     Tommy rubbed his eyes, “You didn’t have to keep time.”

     Giving his mother the cold shoulder, Tommy rolled out of bed and walked out of his room. Resting his hands on his plump belly, Tommy stepped into the laundry area.

     The boy opened the dryer and gasped. There was nothing inside.

     “Crap,” Tommy breathed. He normally would have no problem re-wearing his clothes for a week or two, but his clothes were in a bad need for a wash. He lifted his desert-dry jeans up from the washer, revealing a purple stain in their crotch.

     “Freakin’ jelly donut” Tommy yelled.

     Running back to his bedroom, Tommy searched for clothes in a panic. He crammed a meaty arm between his wall and his mattress and extracted a pair of green gym-shorts that he forced up his legs. His belly jiggling up and down, Tommy looked to the floor and knocked off a crusty doughnut from the top of a white T-shirt. The boy lifted up the T-shirt, closed his eyes, and took a sniff.

     “It could be worse.” He thought in defeat.

     Throwing on his shirt, the boy tripped over his black cat and collided into his wooden desk. The boy yelled in anger — the cat mewled its displeasure — and Tommy threw open the bedroom door.

     He checked the time. “Four minutes. Crap.”

     Fleeing the scents of cat pee and cigarettes, Tommy leapt from the steps of his single wide trailer.

     Breaking into a sprint, the boy’s sandals slapped against the gravel road. A knife slid into Tommy’s lungs when he made it to his trailer park’s paved road, and by that time his heaving could be heard through the neighborhood. Sweat burst from Tommy’s brow and burned his eyes like acid. Seeing his bus driving away, the boy unleashed a high pitched scream.

     “Wait!!!”

     The bus squealed to a stop beside the Manchester highway. Feeling like an Olympic champion, Tommy thrust his arms in the air and watched the bus door open. About to yell out a thank you, Tommy froze when he stepped inside the bus. The driver’s thick, tattooed arms trembled as the boy walked up the staircase and his classmates looked at him in a petrified silence. In an instant, the events of the last year crashed into Tommy’s mind.

     With the craziness of the morning, Tommy had forgotten. If only for a moment.

     —