Prologue: Billy Morrison
Billy the Grim (an original supernatural suspense novel by Annette J Sharp)
Two glasses of Montebello’s best house wine over dinner, paired with the excitement of asking Sharma to marry him, has Billy wide open for the sucker punch. Shit! He reels back until his calves hit the soft resistance of the hotel bed. Equilibrium loses. His back beats against a broad, padded plank. Mattress. Before he can react, the bed dips, bounces, and hands grapple to restrain him. Five. An odd number suggests a slacker or coward in the mix.
Fear is wisdom, dealing with a man of his size and ferocity. Billy’s brain kicks in, strategizing for a window of opportunity to smash these losers’ skulls together.
He bucks and thrashes to escape the invisible hands clenching his biceps. Left arm jerks free and Billy throws a sloppy punch, fist warbling into space. Window slams shut. His arm yanked back to the mattress.
“Motherfucker!” Something plows into his chest, knocking out his wind. A patch of duct tape smacks over his mouth. Billy gags. Panic smothering. Then shifts gears to draw hard through his nose.
“Thought I would not figure you out, did you?”
A thick Slavic accent reaches through the darkness, penetrating the rush of blood pounding inside his ears. Muscles taught, every nerve ending springs to attention. Billy’s stomach flips, mind racing to the woman he left waiting downstairs. Sharma. No, he is not going out like this, not now.
Elastic tubing cinches his arm, and a reckless needle pierces bulging flesh. Ice-fire spreads into his veins, racing the course of his body. The rush hits his brain. Billy’s desire to fight vanishes, taking with it his reasoning. Something crackles near his ear. A shiny golden feather drops onto his chest. Relevant, but Billy has forgotten why.
“Today you meet your maker, Billy Boy.” A disembodied voice mocks him through the black of Billy’s mind. “Nobody cheats the LORD.”
Silence swarms over him, then bursts into a thousand tiny lightning bugs. Sharma’s eyes blaze above him, cheeks flushed. She raises her arms, hands clasped, and swings down. Hammer pounds into his chest. Her mouth crushes his, forcing breath into him. He takes all she gives him, unable to respond. Paralyzed. He watches them from above. Shadows draw closer, creating a vignette of her beauty. His love. His life…
A nasty visage rises. Horrific in its contorted ruin of paper flesh, peeling from bones dusted ash. Swathed in dark shrouds, it moves closer, observing him with a humorless grin. A sneer of judgment. Contempt. The specter is all he knows in the vacuum of his dwindling awareness.
Billy’s chest seizes in the effort to deny the expense of the final, irrevocable rattle. His eyes and mouth snap wide, vocal cords tighten under the will of a final command. Air rushes through his scraping larynx, but his final words gain no traction. They dissolve into a death rasp.
Billy is pulled from mortality by the authority of the reaper. Drawn through a cool, neutral veil beyond the living realm. There, a spot of swirling light spins, expanding into a turbulent vortex. He is pulled into the white and blue whirl, and his connection to humanity dissipates. The sound of a woman’s wail reaches Billy an instant before eternity closes around him.
“Billy.”
Thank you for reading the Prologue to my first full-length supernatural suspense novel, Billy the Grim. A limited number of chapters will be posted for free, for a limited time. The novel is scheduled for release in paperback format only, on May 11, 2026. Support indie authors, buy and review their work. It is the only support they get and the only way they can create more before dying.
This book is bound and determined to become a low-budget movie, either organically animated by an artist, or filmed with real-life unknown actors. Help fund the cause below by buying me a coffee. Thanks