The Cursed Land (Hardback)

Special illustrated edition not available on retailers features:

• Alternate cover
• 10+ color illustrations created by the author
• 10+ greyscale chapter headings
• Unique icon for each chapter

From Hunted by Fae. Harper volunteers for a street outreach program. She's heard one of the clients, a childhood friend, is missing so she seeks him at his encampment. The camp is emptying, and the sun is going down:

Harper offered the man her hand. "I'm Harper."

“Dante.” He gripped her hand. “I seen him earlier today. Might still be in his tent. The green one on the far right along the back row. As for him bein’ OK, no, Harper, I don’t think he is.”

Harper’s stomach plummeted to her knees. “What happened to him?”

“Best you just turn ’round and take yourself outta here. It’s not safe in these parts.”

“Please. He’s my friend. Just tell me.”

Dante drew his head back like he needed that extra inch of distance to size her up. “Easier to show you. Follow me.”

He motioned her forward with a finger pressed to his lips. Harper fell into step behind him. The pair wove between a row of empty tents. The gravel crunched underfoot, too loud for the peculiar quiet. In moments, a grassy patch opened out between scrubby trees that clawed their way toward what little light fell between the buildings. 

Harper stifled a yelp at the scene before her. The handful of people in the clearing were each behaving very strangely. 

A young woman with red hair and unfocused eyes stroked the side of a small tree. Her mouth hung open, head tilting to the side. She bent forward from the waist and kissed the rough bark. Across from her, an old man slumped on the ground, rocking back and forth and laughing. He stuffed his face with handfuls of grass he yanked from the ground and smiled as though it were a lavish banquet. Harper and Dante hovered at the threshold of a magical world. Only they couldn’t behold the miracles. 

“What the hell are they doing?” Harper stepped back and something crunched beneath her feet. She lifted her shoe and peered at the ground beneath. Shards of glass from a small vial sparkled in the light. A purple residue with an opalescent sheen clung to the broken bits. Harper bent down to inspect and saw several empty vials scattered around the edges of the path.

“Dust,” Dante said and pointed at the pieces. “You breathe that junk in and go on a hell of a trip.” He jerked his thumb toward the clearing. “Been spreadin’ like wildfire ’round here.”

“How long do they stay like that?” 

“All I know is they use that junk long enough, when the Dark Boys come, they follow ’em. We don’t see ’em again.”

Harper swallowed hard. “Dark Boys?” A tremor in her voice.

“You don’t wanna know, Harper. This ain’t your fight.”

“But it is. I lived near here when I was homeless. Abraham helped me, and I have to help him now if he’s in trouble. Just tell me about the Dark Boys.” 

Dante pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders. “Bunch of teen boys. They ain’t right. All of ’em got jet-black hair, look like brothers. They bring the Dust. About time for them now. Always show up as the sun’s goin’ down. Never speak, just smile and hand out vials. Then some of ’em follow the music.” Dante pointed at a cluster of hallucinating people.

Music. Drugs. Odd boys. Questions chased each other around and around. “If they end up disappearing, why does anyone take this stuff?” Harper asked. 

Dante chuckled. “Look around.” His hand swept over the camp. “For a few hours they bliss out and the world is beautiful. They forget they live here. For just a bit they ain’t worried about being too cold. Or wet. Or hungry. Don’t notice the rock that jabs into their back when they sleep. And the Dark Boys never ask for anything in return. For just a while, it’s a way out of this hell.”

They walked back toward Dante’s shelter. Looked like her arrival had interrupted his packing. He had a shopping cart filled with his possessions parked to the side of the burning barrel. 

“I’m gettin’ out of here tonight. I don’t want no part of them Dark Boys.” He tossed a pair of boots into the cart. 

Harper unslung her backpack and reached into the front pocket. She pulled out the last couple of protein bars and all the cash she had. She held it out to Dante. “It’s not much,” she said, “but it should get you out of the city.”

“I may be poor, but I don’t need no charity, Harper.”

“It’s not charity. You’ve been a wonderful tour guide.”

Dante smiled and accepted the gift. “This ain’t no place for you. You should leave before them Dark Boys come.”

Harper smiled at him and nodded. “I’ll be leaving soon. I need to find my friend. Be safe, Dante, this is no place for you either.”

With that, Dante pushed his cart up the alleyway. Harper watched him go for a moment and waved at him when he neared the mouth of the alley. He waved back and disappeared from sight behind the dumpster. 

Hues of deep orange and yellow seeped into the horizon. They always show up as the sun’s going down. If she could find Abraham before she ran into danger, she’d need to hurry. She held the baton in front of her like a shield and sidled toward her friend’s green tent. 

A tall man with long, straight silver hair leaned against the next building. He looked like he belonged here even less than she did. Long black coat hung all the way to the middle of his black motorcycle boots. Too new to mark him as a resident. A voluminous hood occluded most of his face. 

At his feet sat a jet-black dog. Not in itself unusual, but most dogs didn’t have bright yellow eyes. And most dogs didn’t drill into you with their eyes unless you had food, and she was fresh out. A crow fluttered overhead and she reflexively tracked it for a half second. When her eyes returned to the black dog, those unblinking golden eyes were still laser-focused on her. The hairs on the back of Harper’s neck prickled to attention. 

I don’t like the look of that guy or his creepy mutt. He might be the boss of the Dark Boys; he certainly dressed goth enough, and drug dealers often had vicious dogs as protection. Back the way you came. You don’t want to tangle with that creepy dog or his master.

Harper slunk back the way she came to circle around to Abraham’s tent the long way. She shot one more glance toward the man and his dog. It hadn’t moved. Still it sat. Golden eyes almost glowing in the twilight. She shuddered and slipped between a row of tents. 

There was Abraham. He stumbled around and around the base of a tree with his arms outstretched. Filthy overalls hung unbuckled around his waist. His long white beard hung crusted with Dust and vomit.

“Abraham!” Harper called to him. He laughed like a delighted child and continued his doddering revolution around the tree. She slid her baton into her front pocket and ran to him.

“Abraham. It’s me, Harper.” She stepped in front of him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and turned him toward her. “Abraham, remember me?” He looked right through her and kept reaching for the base of the tree. She gently shook his shoulders and looked into his brown eyes. “Abraham. Abraham. Snap out of it.” But it was useless. Abraham’s body was there, but his mind was in Neverland. 

Harper gripped his sleeve and pulled him toward the exit. To her surprise, he shuffled along beside her, all the while reaching back for the base of the tree. If she could just get him to the street, she could call for help. That plan evaporated as soon as it formed.

Abraham jerked violently from her grip while a low moan oozed from his slack jaw. She caught his hand again. He wrenched it away and uttered another wavering moan. Abraham staggered away from Harper but not back to the tree that contained his invisible friend; instead, toward the back of the camp. The entire area sprang to a shambling kind of life. Streams of shuffling feet from every direction flowed in the same direction like a river of moaning bodies. Harper pursued, hoping to catch Abraham again.

As she emerged from between two of the tents at the outer edge of the camp, her blood ran cold. She stopped in her tracks, grabbed her baton, and darted behind a red tent. 

Several pale forms with stringy black hair melted out of the opposite end of the alley. They didn’t walk so much as glide like they were on an invisible conveyor belt. 

The Dark Boys. She clapped her other hand over her mouth to stifle a terrified scream. Her breath came in shallow, shuddering gasps between her fingers. The strength drained from her legs, and she slid to the ground.

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