The
King of Evil
by Josh Stricklin
Date of
Publication: September 1st 2016
Publisher:
Silver Leaf Books
Cover
Artist: Paul Tynes
Genre:
Horror, Occult, Voodoo
BLURB
After a horrific accident, graphic
artist Jack Simmons and his wife, Cindy, have lost all sense of a normal life.
With their marriage in pieces, their only hope in setting things back is by
starting over. The two pack their lives in boxes and migrate to the Big Easy.
Upon arrival, Jack and Cindy fall into the jobs of their dreams. The new start
they were hoping for seemed to have been waiting for them in New Orleans, after
all. But something followed them. Something Evil.
Jack is commissioned to create the
artwork for a graphic novel about a voodoo king, The King of Evil. As Jack
works diligently to create a masterpiece, drawing the images back and forth
between paper and his computer, he starts seeing things. Images of his King
appear in the corners of his vision. They spring up just as Jack falls asleep.
Always only inches out of plain sight.
The King grows more powerful, and soon
he unleashes his power on Jack, Cindy, and the people in their lives. The King
slowly destroys everyone around them, showing the newly rekindled couple what
it's like to be evil for evil's sake. Jack and Cindy will need help from the
King's past victims to stop him.
The King of Evil is a heart-pounding,
supernatural thriller. Its vibrant characters and intense action is certain to
keep its audience reading well into the night.
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Prologue
In the 1940s there
was a hospital on the back way out of town where the poor people had their
children. It was far enough out of the way that the city was only a murmur, and
the trees surrounding the building threatened to break in through the windows.
The red brick building was small, and there were only a few rooms. At the edge
of the tall grass where the trees stopped, a chipmunk stared in wonder at the
marvelous brick structure built by man. She had spent a long day trudging
through the swampy Louisiana woods, which was much harder now that she was
carrying a litter. The faraway sky bruised with the arrival of an oncoming
storm.
Bars guarded the
glass, but the chipmunk had no problem watching the commotion inside. She
didn’t see the brownish-orange, diamond-shaped head easing through the tall grass.
She watched as the big people picked up the small people from tiny beds and
walked out of view. Then a big person would return and lay the small one back
in the bed. No one but the chipmunk seemed to notice when the black smoke rose
from the center of the room. None of the people reacted whatsoever, because
only the chipmunk saw the ashy gray person materialize in the center of the
nursery. The head crept closer. The life inside the chipmunk’s belly stirred.
They were hungry, too.
The gray person stood
above the tiny bed with wide eyes fixed on the small person. He looked back and
forth between the one in front of him and the one just to his right. Then he
turned to the one on his right as if suddenly more intrigued with that one. The
chipmunk had no idea what to make of this. She just wanted food, and there was
the feint smell of something sweet coming from that building. The chipmunk
stood on her hind legs. She stopped, tilting her head. The new person, the one
no one else seemed to notice, lifted an arm above his head. The copperhead
sprung forward, sinking its teeth and venom into her back. The arm descended.
As life drained from the chipmunk, the ashy gray person vanished, and the other
people in the building seemed to panic.
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Author
Info
Josh Stricklin is an American author
and musician with degrees in English literature and advertising from the
University of Southern Mississippi. His first novel, Those Who Are Left, is
available online and in person. The King of Evil is his first terrifying novel
with Silver Leaf Books. He's currently hard at work finishing his first
series…or more likely reading comic books and wearing a Seahawks jersey.
Author Links:
INTERVIEW WITH JOSH STRICKLIN
How would you
describe you style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
I would say my writing style is one of the most
polarizing aspects about my stories. It’s very colloquial, and I try my best to
stick as close to real life as possible. I want to be relatable to the everyday
person. I like to show the weird idiosyncrasies people actually do. When you
sit in a waiting room, it’s quiet (a little too quite) until you really start
paying attention. People are coughing and squirming. You’ll hear tapping on a
cell phone screen. A chair creaks. Someone swears under his breath about how
long he’s been waiting. Then you look over and see the wrinkles cracking his
skin like asphalt that hasn’t been repaved in decades. Now, my writing isn’t
quite that hyperaware of the things in the stories. But my characters stumble.
They scratch themselves when they itch. When they talk to each other they
meander from the direct purpose of the conversation. I feel like it makes my
stories more believable, more relatable for those who don’t regularly encounter
zombies or voodoo spirits.
What mindset or
routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether
you are working on a project or just free writing)?
Unfortunately I don’t get into any other mindset than my
everyday life. I do what I can to eliminate as many distractions as possible—no
TV, no music, no Internet—but that’s really the only thing I change when I step
up to the keyboard. You know how Bruce Banner “stays angry” to put a leash on
the Hulk? That’s kind of how I live with my writing mindset. It’s like a
monster. When I’m driving or working or reading, it’s constantly distracting
me. It’s constantly asking, “Well what if Jack did this?” or “What if Mark said
the ‘f-word’ here?” It’s always on, even when I don’t want it to be. I really
think it builds without me too. I had this one story in my head all through
college, for years and years. When I finally got a chance to concentrate solely
on that story, I wrote 400+ pages in a three-week span. It really makes me
appreciate the Bruce Banner method, because if you never turn it off you don’t
have to worry about when it comes back on. But to answer the question, no.
There’s no real mood I have to set. I just have to actually do it.
Do you take your
character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the
way through to the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do
you build upon your character during story creation?
Honestly some of them I don’t really have to do that.
There are a few characters in each book I have that are based close enough on
people in my life at the time I was writing that I didn’t have to worry about
them. I could trust where they go on their own. The character that shows up in
both books for example is one of those. Jack’s agent in The King of Evil if another. Then there are Jack and Cindy, the
main characters in The King of Evil.
Those two characters were born and raised in my mind. Those guys I had to keep
a close eye on. There’s a deliberate blending of their characters in the story
so I couldn’t let them do too much without guiding them a little.
Have you found
yourself bonding with any particular character? If so which one(s)?
There is definitely one character I connect more with
than others. His name is Mark. He is a patient of Cindy’s in The King of Evil. He was in an accident
eerily similar to the one I was in when I was starting his story in Those Who Are Left. Huge Coincidence.
But Mark is very immature and swears too much. He’s very impulsive and
basically demands justice. He’s definitely a wild car. My mom hates him. But
because he’s fiction he kind of acts as someone I can live vicariously through.
He can do things I can’t. He’s braver than I am, and taller. So he isn’t me,
but he is pretty similar.
Do you have a
character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
I actually have a character that I have started in on,
but I can’t wait to finish her story. I’ve finished part of if, but she’s got
two or three more parts before I’m ready to show her off. She’s incredibly
powerful in many ways. I don’t want to give away too much, so I’ll just play
coy. But I promise, when her story comes along, it’ll be worth the wait.
Have you ever felt
that there was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what?
If no what spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
I don’t think I control this very well, writing I mean. I’m
constantly putting off remotely important things and stopping midsentence to
deal with that it wants me to do. To me it really is like the Hulk. Only for me
when I’m Bruce Banner, it’s inside me pounding on the walls trying to get out.
It’s everything I can do to cook dinner before it’s coming up with these really
good ideas, or heinous things to put my character through. Sometimes when I
stop mowing the yard or riding my bike to write something down or text myself,
it’ll let me get that out and I can continue what I’m doing. But sometimes it’s
like a cork, you know? It just pours out and I can’t stop it. Then I’m late for
work or I ride off into a ditch. But I’ll gladly take its baggage. It does so
much more for me than it prevents. Who cares if I miss a meal if I get the
story out?
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