Seeing a stranger die is the worst thing that Chris has ever witnessed. Picking up the dead man's wallet is a mistake, a moment of weakness.
That's all it takes, one impulsive act, for reality to unravel.
Because pocketing the wallet is only the beginning.
Dark forces swim below the surface of the world...
They change their shape but never go away...
They find a way through...
Chris Carlisle experiences an everyday horror. A morning starts out bad and gets worse.
Wrong place at the wrong time and life takes a wrong turn.
But even the blackest clouds have silver linings. He gets a little slice of luck to balance out the horror.
Just goes to show, bad often comes bundled with good.
Sometimes, they bleed into each other until you can't tell them apart.
That's where the strangeness begins, when the miraculous starts to rub shoulders with the mundane and monstrous.
Chris has stepped onto a long road that leads to a hideous and horrifying destination. Dark and dangerous stops are dotted along the way. The pavement is crumbling and craziness shining through the cracks.
Enough for him to question his sanity and come to the conclusion that madness may be the easiest way out.
Sometimes need and greed get mixed into a deadly and deceptive cocktail.
He's going to discover that dark and dreadful things lurk within spitting distance of the ordinary and routine.
That there are levels of horror and layers of knowledge which defy any rational explanation.
Impossible creatures crawl along the shady seams of the world.
Monsters wait in the shadows.
The walls of reality are thinner than we know. In places, they've been hollowed to a hazy veil that struggles to hold back the horror of what lies on the other side.
Chris is going to get a glimpse of an eternal darkness.
Become acquainted with a supernatural hunger that has endured aeons and echoes down the ages.
HE'S GOING TO ENCOUNTER THE SCAETH. A CREATURE THAT IS OLDER THAN TIME AND TWICE AS MERCILESS.
Chris thought life was grim. He has no idea.
He thought he was hard up. He doesn't know what debt is.
They say that money is the root of all evil. They also say that the bad penny always turns up. That's so true. Those crappy coins have a nasty habit of coming back.
BAD PENNIES is the first book of the SCAETH MYTHOS, a terrifying vision of horror that will haunt your dreams.
Advanced Reader Comments:
"The Scaeth is the most terrifying creature you'll find between the pages of a book."
"Bad Pennies unfolds like a dark flower."
"Horror novels need a certain coldness. Bad pennies chills to the bone."
"An introduction to a new level of evil. The Scaeth defies classification. Bad Pennies shamelessly blends supernatural horror, science fiction alien and dark fantasy with a bewitching logic and naked human need."
"Ronald Hodge is awful - I love him! A wonderful horror character. Memorable, he deserves his own book."
John F Leonard's chilling horror novel BAD PENNIES is a deeply disturbing tale of darkness and need that will stay with you long after reading.