To celebrate the first copies of my sixth book ‘Confessions: Repentance’, I am once again allowing all of you to download my sixth book ‘Ruins’ free, but for one day only. The promotion will end at approximately 11:59pm (Pacific Time) today. All Kindle devices are downloadable through Amazon here.
But since when have I only given you one thing? To go with the free copy of ‘Ruins’, I have also prepared below for you a sample preview of the sequel to it which is to be called ‘Across the Pond’. I hope you enjoy it.
Vanessa
“Chapter I
The room was quiet; the only audible noise being the steady sound of breathing. This was both an advantage as well a disadvantage- if all went well, there’d be no suspicions and no one would be caught, yet the slightest noise to break the night time silence could be the end.
Each and every step was slow, and silent. A dark corridor loomed ahead, seemingly leading nowhere but to darkness; yet what lay ahead was in fact the first glimmer of hope, and light, in the entire scheme. It had been a long wait for this; endless days of watching workers and “carers” to find out different routes, and different door codes, and routines. There were nights of staying awake to be sure none of the wardens went on night time wanders.
The footsteps stopped, and a hand was raised. It punched in a few numbers on the panel to the left, before pushing open the heavy white door in front. Closing it slowly to keep up the silence, the footsteps continued, increasing their pace- this job had to be done quickly. After turning a corner and going through another set of coded doors the scenery suddenly changed. The walls were once white and shiny, now covered in fingernail scratches, dirty marks and what looked like blood, even in the dark. There must have been some struggles down this part. Door number twenty seven, must remember number twenty seven. There were some faint murmurs and screams from behind a few of the locked doors, luckily the carers had spoken about them, so it was neither unusual nor unexpected. There was a pause at twenty six. A scratching noise came from inside, then the scraping of a key inserting into a lock.
Panic.
There wasn’t meant to be anyone down that corridor, where was there to hide? In a rush a cold silver key was pulled out of a pocket with a clammy hand. The hand extended to the lock of number twenty six and fumbled as the key missed the lock. The lock of twenty six turned as the key to number seven inserted. Hurriedly turning the lock and scrambling into the room, the doors of twenty six and twenty seven shut simultaneously. Hopefully, whoever exited twenty six hadn’t noticed the door of twenty seven close. As one body on one side of door twenty seven panted and sweated at the prospect of getting caught, a body on the other side went rigid; feeling like something was wrong. The body started towards the door, before deciding it was just paranoia because of the surroundings, and it walked away.
The other body stayed still for a full twenty minutes- the longest amount of time they could spare on such a tight schedule, yet the shortest time they could afford to ensure the avoidance of whomever was next door.
The feet shuffled towards a small, hard looking bed at the far side of the room. The quilt looked as if it was the thinnest rag that had probably been around for the past sixty years. It barely covered the bony body within the bed. The body lay shivering and pale; eyes red and swollen, strawberry blonde hair greasy. The eyes were closed, but not sleeping. The body was shaken until it opened its eyes, and rose from the bed. The two bodies skulked, hand in hand, taking the same journey in reverse to return to where we started, this time more stealthily as there were obviously people wandering about who shouldn’t be.
They arrived back in the first room, which was a sort of bedroom by the way, and hugged each other tightly. They then proceeded to four separate sleeping bodies and woke them. They all got up, fully clothed, and hugged.
Kylie had got Joanne, and the Ravenscroft children were reunited.”
I hope you enjoyed the sample.
vanessamillsauthor 