Author Nickolas Cook lives in the Southwest desert with his wife and three pugs. His short fiction, reviews, interviews, and non-fiction articles have appeared in many print and e-zines, and have gone internationally viral. He is the writers group moderator for Shocklines and an editor for Dark Recesses Magazine. He is a practitioner of Krav Maga and Combative Tactics. More information about them can be found at MySpace. His books include "The Black Beast of Algernon Wood", "Baleful Eye" and "Paint it Black". To contact the author, feel free to email: Nickolasecook@aol.com or visit MySpace.
His short story titled Karma will appear in the upcoming premiere issue of The Ashen Eye. Here’s a brief extract from that story:
That night, as Forster was dropping into the well of sleep, a parade passed along the street below his room. The sudden sounds grew in volume, like some evil wind rising in nightmares not yet dreamed, the babble ripping him from his half sleep: The sound of many feet passing by; low voices singing some droning tune; a braying goat- anxious and scared, an undercurrent to the monotonic song; someone shouted an incoherent imprecation to a nameless deity. His ululations of mindless exultance frightened him, and Forster began to push himself from the bed. But then the sounds tapered, faded into nothingness again, and after a few moments of hearing only the night birds and the soughing of a cool wind, he was sure that he had dreamed it all, and so he rolled over and slept.
In his dream, an endless stretch of dark green jungle. And within the dense weave of tree and roiling gray sky, a vast creature of unimaginable size and ferocity squatted. Its great clawed hands swept through the jungle’s achromatic depths, snatching up handfuls of terrified Indians, stuffing them kicking and screaming into its cavernous maw. Bits of human offal dripped from its broken and yellow teeth. Its eyes rolled in bestial ecstasy.
A black skinned woman rose from the trees, her eyes white and furious. Forster recognized her from native artistic renderings—Kali, the goddess of death—as she stretched her many arms high into the air and smashed at the great hungry beast. The monster howled, toppling trees, shaking the world with its anger and pain. It fought back, pushing Kali away. Defeated, she fell back into the jungle depths, an enigmatic smile blossoming like a malefic flower on her awful lips.
Recently:
- Issue #1 out NOW!
- Debra Leigh Scott
- Wayne Blackhurst
- William Couper
- Phillip Stecco
- Misty Lackey
- Nickolas Cook
- Andrew Wolter
- Jeffrey Buford
- Mark A. Mihalko