When fourteen year old Ryan Perry moves to his grandmother’s coastal home in South Carolina, he is haunted by a malevolent entity masquerading as his double – a specter of ancient evil intent on destroying Ryan. As the hauntings become dangerous, Ryan encounters an additional threat: two menacing feral boys and their caretaker somehow connected to this other twin. Ryan soon realizes that in order to save himself and his family, he must confront the all-to-real presence of an unimaginable evil.
Birth Offering is a horror novel about a boy thrust into a living nightmare, and the cumulative psychological impact of evil actions by multiple past generations.
Anthony Hains is a professor emeritus of counseling psychology with a specialization in pediatric psychology. He retired in May 2018 after thirty-one years at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of a number of horror novels including Nightshade’s Requiem, Sleep in the Dust of the Earth, and The Disembodied. Anthony lives with his wife in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. They have one daughter.
My family and I were on vacation in Edisto Island, South Carolina. We came upon this road that contained one live-oak tree after another on both sides. The result was like a cathedral, with the huge oak branches joining together overhead and Spanish moss hanging from the branches. The sight was breath-taking. All I could think of was, what would it be like to be chased by something monstrous through this "tunnel" of vegetation. From this thought, Birth Offering was "born".
Book Excerpt
Birth Offering
The humid air felt as if it was smothering him and he gasped. His brain focused on escape, and he feared he wouldn’t make it. Oh God, what’s happening? He couldn’t feel his feet on the path. He was getting light-headed and shaky. His hands and fingers tingled. Pounding footfalls behind him sounded closer and closer. The two figures charging through the forest on either side of him had burst through, but just out of his peripheral vision. Low to the ground, at times they seemed to run on four legs. Dogs? No. Wolves? No. Now on two legs. Kids? No, something dangerous, something with claws…
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