Dark and, at times, amusing fiction from award-winning author Dave Zeltserman

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Favorite movies of the decade

An only slightly biased list of my 10 favorite movies of the decade:

1) Small Crimes 
2) Isle of Dogs 
3) Ex Machina 
4) Personal Shopper 
5) Moonrise Kingdom 
6) The Babadook 
7) Grand Budapest Hotel 
8) Edge of Tomorrow 
9) Get Out 
10) Inside Llewyn Davis

Sunday, December 29, 2019

my blood chilled...

A 3-minute excerpt from my new PI/noir/horror/fantasy novel EVERYBODY LIES IN HELL

We were only a half a mile from the entrance to the tunnel when all of lower Manhattan to the right of me disappeared, and my blood chilled as I realized that Al Zaoud must have found a way around
the ravine. I heard the pounding of the horses as if they were right on top of me and then I saw him and his cutthroats out of the corner of my eye. Everything changed then as I was absorbed into his reality. I still had on my cheap suit, but the cab and the rest of my reality was gone.

I went hurtling through the air the same as if Edwin had slammed his cab into a brick wall and I had crashed through the windshield. It made sense since we’d been traveling at forty miles an hour before our abrupt stop. After a hundred feet or so, I landed shoulder first against the rocky terrain and flipped over half a dozen times before my body came to a stop. I knew I didn’t really have any
bones and tendons and internal organs. That it was all part of the illusion. But as I lay there in a heap, I felt as if the shoulder I landed on had been torn apart, that my hip had been shattered into a dozen
pieces, and that my insides had been put through a Cuisinart. I tried to lift my head, and as I shifted weight onto my right arm I clenched my mouth shut to stifle a scream as I realized the bones in the arm had all been snapped.

I collapsed fully on the ground then, and as I moaned in my misery I heard the snorting and hoof beats from dozens of Al Zaoud’s demon horses and could sense that I was surrounded by them. A powerful hand the size of a large ham hock grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me off the ground, and I found myself staring directly into Al Zaoud’s eyes and all the ancient insanity that they held.

“I should gut you and wear your intestines as a necklace,” he growled.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

A deafening crashing...

A 30-second excerpt from my new PI/noir/horror/fantasy novel, Everybody Lies in Hell

A deafening crashing noise exploded behind me, and it sounded as if lightning had struck within feet of me. The whole diner seemed to shake from it. I twisted my neck around and looked out the plate
glass front window, and sure enough the sky had turned an ominous bluish-purple with jagged streaks of lightning bursting through the air. That didn’t make any sense. In my reality the sky was always a
grayish white, and there was never any change in weather. As my gaze shifted toward the horizon, I could see that my Brooklyn was melting away and was being replaced by a harsh mountainous landscape.

An icy fear froze me. Without any conscious thought, I murmured “Oh shit” under my breath, and then I was running as fast as I could to get out the door.