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$2.99 Kindle and $8.99 Paperback

The latest full-length novel of terror from Jeani Rector

“This one is a must read!” — Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Dog Days and Plague of the Undead

You can buy the book HERE

I never believed in ghosts. Or demons, or monsters, or even Heaven or Hell. But now I believe. Boy, do I believe. Let me tell you why.

Grave Events Jeani Rector

GRAVE EVENTS

Contains a full-length novel plus a separate novella.

Rick Evans doesn’t believe in ghosts. Everything changes when he learns, too late, to be careful about what he invites into the world of the living. Creatures from the netherworld are not always so easy to uninvite. He is soon flung into a labyrinth of family secrets, deceit, and a century-old mystery leading to something crawling out of an open grave in a moonlit cemetery, culminating in an encounter with the resurrected dead,

Jeani Rector has been reading and writing horror for a better part of her life. For Grave Events, she wanted to write a book that would scare even herself.

EXCERPT FROM GRAVE EVENTS:

A slight wind picked up. Bushes and briars appeared threatening as if they were hiding evil spectators to the scene within their midst. Headstones, some in tilted directions as if drunken monoliths, reflected the moonlight.

She opened her car door, and I took it as my cue to do the same. I got out of the car and stood next to it for a moment. A creaking noise sounded, as two twisted limbs of a gnarled tree rubbed together in the soft breeze. The weeds fluttered with a sighing sound. The ground rustled with small creatures that fled into their holes and other hiding spots, seeking shelter from our intrusion into their territory.

“The shovels are in the trunk,” Raven said, and again I experienced no surprise. I was devoid of emotion, except for my intense longing for her. She reached in the car and popped the lever, and the trunk sprung open. There were two shovels, and I grabbed one and handed her the other. Now I knew why she had chosen to wear jeans; it wouldn’t be feasible to rob a grave while wearing a dress.

“No one will see us,” she promised.

We walked into the cemetery, and I stepped carefully. Concrete paths were laid around the graves, but were treacherous to maneuver upon because they alternatively sank and protruded. Grass pushed through the cracks, and overhead, wild trees grew at odd angles, limbs untamed from lack of pruning.

The moonlight was bright, and I could see that the old graveyard was very small. An owl screeched, and a mouse scurried by, close to my feet. The moon’s glow cast long shadows from the trees, and the dark silhouettes lay over the ground like stripes.

She led me to the back of the cemetery, and stopped at a grave whose headstone had been toppled by vandals. “We’ll dig here,” she instructed. “In the old days when these people died, they were commonly buried at lesser depths than what is the practice today. Also, the coffins were made from the wood of local trees, so they should surely be disintegrated into nothing by now. We can get at the remains much easier in this cemetery than we would at a more modern one.”

I nodded, and pushed the sharp blade of my shovel to break the earth. It gleamed in the moonlight with every shovelful of earth that I pitched to the side. She joined me, and together we silently dug.

The dirt was heavy clay, but since it was spring, it hadn’t yet hardened into the unyielding hardpan of summer. We made progress quickly, and I knew we would soon see whatever remained of the person buried in this grave so many years ago.

I heard a crunching noise and Raven motioned for me to stop. “Let’s dig the rest by hand. I only want the skull.”

We climbed into the hole we had dug, at a depth of about three feet, and got to our knees inside the excavation. I thrust my hands in the dirt, casting aside a broken rib bone which my shovel had crushed. Pieces of cloth crumbled under my touch. The ground felt wet and slimy, heavy with clay. I cleared away muck with my bare hands, and then my fingers closed around something smooth and solid.

“I think I found it,” I told her.

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“Jeani Rector, long-time editor of The Horror Zine, has shown again and again that she understands the magic of good storytelling. And here, in Grave Events, she serves up that experience in a double-barreled assault on the nerves. Rector can tell a brutally frightful tale with a voice smooth as silk, and in this book she gives us, not one, but two dark gems. I loved every word of Grave Events, and I’m betting you will too. This one is a must read!” — Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Dog Days and Plague of the Undead

“Jeani Rector manages to pull the reader through page after page of suspenseful madness, all the while making you care about the characters, all the way to the cataclysmic ending. Lust, obsession, the dark arts, family secrets, human sacrifice, and ‘grave’ events — Grave Events is a must read. Just keep the lights on.” — Susie Moloney, author of Withered Things and The Dwelling 

Grave Events by Jeani Rector lives up to its title, delivering a double-shot of grisly action from two distinctly different points of view. From witches with a dark agenda to a police officer’s first experience with death, nothing is ever as it seems in the worlds Rector creates…except that all paths lead to Grave Events.” — JG Faherty, Bram Stoker and ITW Thriller award-nominated author of Carnival of Fear, Castle by the Sea, The Burning Time, and Fatal Consequences

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