Mental Shrillness by Todd Russell

About Mental Shrillness
     
    The Mental Shrillness ward will shock with six twist ending horror tales:
    Memorial Day Descent - experience a showdown between an old mansion and a soldier's painful, recurring memories. A first place story content winner.
    Pains in the Glass - Tim and Wanda love each other but neither sees the cracks in their flawed marriage looking glass. Today is the day one learns of betrayal so powerful that it will shatter, cut and bleed the other to pieces.
    Dead Warmed Over - Can a tortured man love his wife too much? Ben's intense love for wife Jackie is realized in a haunted bathtub. Another first place contest winner.
    Falling The Bobbitt Way - Tracy and John's sweet marriage vow warps into sinister sadomasochism. Find out if they can break the vow and ever be the same.
    Dueling Eyes - GAZE upon an unmoving glass eye compelling its host to entertain self-mutilation tendencies. WATCH as Madison tries to save Killroy in the dark, dirty alley from the glint of a malevolent mugger's blade. STARE helpless as the cold steel and glass eye attempt to complete a shocking mission.
    The Illusion - There are things Damon Brooks wishes he could change about his life. He thinks he has it bad until a dying, misshapen creature shows him that the other side wants much more to change their deaths. Prepare for a nightmarish struggle at a carnival between good and evil.
    At the end of Mental Shrillness author's notes are provided for readers interested in each story's history and what motivated the author to pen these strange, dark tales.
    BONUS MATERIAL
    - Includes four additional stories written during the same era:
    The Clock Called Fate
    $$$ Knowledge and Power $$$
    Father Knows Winners Best
    Politically Correct - exclusive story available only in this e-book edition
     
    Other books by Todd Russell
    Fresh Flesh is coming September 29, 2011 - debut psychological thriller / horror novel
    The first two chapters are included at the end of this e-book edition of Mental Shrillness.
     
    Connect with Todd Russell Online
    Official Website
    http://toddrwrite.com/
    Smashwords Author Page
    http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/toddrussell
    Goodreads Author Page
    http://goodreads.com/toddrussell
    Facebook
    http://facebook.com/booksbytoddrussell
    Twitter
    http://twitter.com/Todd_Russell
     

DEDICATION
     
    For Kara
    A world without you
    would bring much mental shrillness
     
     

Memorial Day Descent
     
     
    Lewis hadn't seen Dansbury or Walker since that fateful day in 'Nam 1968.
    The mansion belonged to an eccentric name Sayer. Lewis had received a bizarre email from someone named WARSONG24U (claiming to be Sayer's distant relative), telling him to pack, leave his normalcy in Vancouver BC and drive south to a town named Medina, north of Bellingham, Washington. Today, Memorial Day, he was to drive up a remote steep mountainside. At precisely midnight he should enter the vacant, ramshackle dwelling. WAR promised Lewis would be able to vanquish his demons, if he descended the staircase in the basement. There Lewis could find the closure he desperately sought. WAR knew too much to be lying.
    He stood, flashlight in hand, mouth dry staring down the stairwell. It spiraled into the void. Where in god's name was this place? He started the descent, careful of his footing. The draft chilled his flesh through his heavy sweater and jacket. The light shone on the next set of stairs. Twenty feet. Fifty. Seventy-five.
    A weird smell of wild rice tickled his nose. He saw the eyes of a Viet Cong boy name Lao, telling Walker and him to get their "Shooshine". His teeth already yellowed at such a young age. Walker stepping up to the chair and then sitting. The boy saying he had to go get more shine, leaving that brown box. Walker laughing and singing some Beatles song.
    Descending deeper...the air cold and biting his ears...a sound of bats flapping in the blackness...that brown box in Nam lucid in Lewis's eyes...sitting there waiting and Walker