Haunted Coal Ridge

A series of intertwined supernatural stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge when the secret gets out, it begins to feed…again.Story 23: "Animal Control"As an animal control officer, Jake Beasley is used to crawling into unpleasant places and dealing with dangerous creatures, but whatever is wandering around town doesn't follow any behaviors that make sense.After a town elder is killed in an apparent animal attack, Jake sets out on a search for something far more dangerous than anything he's pursued before. The problem is that Jake lives in Coal Ridge where people are the prey, and everyone knows that They Must Play. I've always been a reader, falling in love with The Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia in grade school, moving through Asimov, Clarke, King, Orwell, Bradbury, Anthony, and so many others over the years. Also an avid tabletop RPG gamer, I picked up my first Dungeons & Dragons red box in 1977 and have never put the dice down.I began writing seriously in college (which was a long time ago), publishing a short story and an RPG adventure in the Star Wars Adventure Journal, and started a novel...then I let life get in the way. Though I never stopped writing, I shared my work with very few people until 2009 when I self-published my first two sword and sorcery fantasy novels without really knowing what I was doing. It could have gone better.Recently, I found myself inspired and have been writing much more prolifically, splitting my time between short stories and returning to my fantasy world with a lot more stories to tell. After a lot of research, I've decided to follow the self-publishing route and have been slowly gathering an audience. Putting together a website and a Facebook page to help with marketing, I've received a lot of encouraging positive feedback and still feel like I'm just getting started. I would not be so arrogant as to claim that all of its good and its possible you might not like any of it, but hopefully you can find something entertaining that lets you climb in and escape to another place...if only for a little while. Set in a small, somewhat geographically secluded town in the Midwest, the blue collar people of Coal Ridge are friendly and laid back, enjoying block parties, gossip, and the simple joys that come with being a close knit community. Because everyone knows everyone else, secrets are hard to keep, but some are so well hidden that they've been forgotten. These are a series of short stories that explore a supernatural awakening that tests the bonds of family and community.