nightmare face...

Another short excerpt from my new horror/fantasy/PI/noir novel EVERYBODY LIES IN HELL. PDF arcs available to anyone wishing to review this.

The next morning it was business as usual at the Busted Grill Diner with another squatter taking over Charlie’s role as short order cook and Doris acting as if the guy had always been there. The new cook, whom Doris called Max, was a tall and skeleton-thin sort, with a scrawny neck and the bony, ravaged arms of a drug addict, but what was most prominent about him was his face, which must’ve been either been set on fire at one point or doused in acid. It wasn’t just the grotesque scarring, but that almost all of the skin had been burnt or melted off, and his lips were nearly completely gone. What especially gave me the willies was how large and liquid his eyes seemed as they floated within that mostly skull-like face. Whatever was done to cause the damage must’ve been what killed him, which made it unusual that he appeared this way. Whether you’re an aware or unaware, when you’re in hell you’re projected the way you envisioned yourself in life, and it’s seldom the way you looked at the time of your death. This guy must’ve had to live long enough with those injuries where he grew to think of himself that way, and it was his bad luck he had to bring his nightmare face to hell.