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    The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things)
    The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things)
    The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things)
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things)

    By Kyle Warner

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    About this ebook

    April Frausini can see ghosts. When she was younger, her parents had treated her like a child with a broken brain. They took April to doctors. The doctors sent her to specialists. The specialists put her on drugs. And when the drugs failed to stop the visions, the specialists zapped her brain.

    After that, April told them that the ghosts had gone.

    She lied.

    Now she’s in college and trying to forge a future for herself, but a chance encounter with a dark spirit in a bar puts a bit of a hold on things.

    A man named Jameson Talbot reaches out to her, explaining that there are worse things than ghosts to be afraid of. The spirit she saw the other night was no mere ghost, but the Devil himself in spectral form. If she chooses, Talbot promises to teach her to control her gift of sight, so that they may help others who have been tormented by these spirits, and potentially put a stop to whatever the Devil has planned.

    April must choose. Go back to a life where nobody understands her or her visions? Or follow Talbot, find a purpose, and walk down a dangerous path in search of the Devil himself?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKyle Warner
    Release dateAug 5, 2014
    ISBN9781310908705
    The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things)
    Author

    Kyle Warner

    Kyle Warner is afraid of almost everything, especially writing an author's bio. His books include Death's Good Intentions, The Man with the Devil's Tongue, and the forthcoming post-apocalyptic kaiju thriller In the Shadow of Extinction. When not writing, Kyle enjoys reading a good book, watching movies, and cheering for the Chicago Bears. He lives in Illinois. Visit his website for information on exclusive content, book deals, and upcoming releases: www.kyle-warner.com

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      Book preview

      The Man with the Devil's Tongue (A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things) - Kyle Warner

      The Man with the Devil’s Tongue

      A Prologue to the End of the World and Some Other Things

      Kyle Warner

      © 2014 Kyle Warner and Telling Lies Ink

      Smashwords edition.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, persons, and events are the creation of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

      First Edition

      Printed in the United States of America

      www.kyle-warner.com

      Table of contents:

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty One

      Chapter Twenty Two

      Epilogue

      Note from the author

      Other Books by Kyle Warner

      Also by Kyle Warner

      Death’s Good Intentions

      Brain Mold

      For Yvonne.

      The Man with the Devil’s Tongue

      Kyle Warner

      Chapter One

      On the night of April Frausini’s twentieth birthday, her dead boyfriend came to her room with a knife in his mouth.

      This wasn’t altogether uncommon. Brett often visited April after his motorcycle accident a year ago.

      The knife was new, though.

      April pulled the bed sheets closer as Brett passed through her door. Across the room, her roommate Cary slept on, oblivious to the paranormal visitor.

      It was about eleven years ago that April woke to a fright—her first period and her first vision of a ghost in her room.

      The ghost that particular day had been that of her grandmother. Old granny seemed so happy that her little girl was a woman now. April, meanwhile, had screamed her head off until her parents rushed to her room and granny finally disappeared into dust.

      There had been many ghosts since then, most of them silent and not unkind, but April was still prone to frights now and then.

      Her parents had treated her as a child with a broken brain. They took April to doctors. The doctors sent her to specialists. The specialists put her on drugs. When the drugs failed to stop the visions, the specialists zapped her brain.

      After that, April told them the ghosts had gone.

      She lied.

      Those years of confusion had left their toll on the Frausini family unit. Their broken child was fixed but the home had developed many cracks.

      In the divorce April was given the choice to pick which parent to live with. Her Mom and Dad had spent weeks coaching her, telling lies about one another, trying to paint the best self-portraits of themselves and the cruelest caricatures of the other.

      April didn’t want to choose either of them after that, but she chose Mom. Dad didn’t talk to her much after that. Once she got to college, though, it didn’t matter much; she hardly talked to Mom either. The bird was out of the nest, let her fly far. She had enrolled in classes with the intention of becoming a psychologist, believing that if she learned how to help others she may one day learn to help herself.

      There were many ghosts on campus. Most of the time, April paid them no mind, but if a ghost detected her eyes upon them, they often sought her out.

      She told her boyfriend Brett about it. He believed her, or at least he said he did.

      Visiting her after his own death, he had no choice but to believe her now.

      As Brett approached her bedside, he took the knife out of his mouth. His spirit was translucent and a dark shade of gray, looking more like an outline, and lacking the finer details of the human face. April had come to learn that a ghost’s shade of gray determined their ‘mood.’

      And Brett was in a foul mood.

      April tried to control her breathing. The knife wasn’t real, she told herself. But an angry ghost was a very real thing. Had Brett grown restless and agitated while trapped on the mortal plane? Did he mean to vent that frustration on the only one capable of seeing him? April brought her left hand underneath the sheets and searched out her crucifix which she kept at the side of her bed for nights such as this.

      Brett said, I want to kill your roommate.

      April almost shushed him, then remembered that only she could hear his words. She couldn’t speak loudly, though. Her roommate Cary thought she was weird enough already.

      You can’t kill my roommate, April said in a whisper. You can’t kill anybody. Go back to bed, sweetie.

      I can’t sleep, Brett said. He ran his hands through his hair, revealing the part of his scalp that had been stripped away during the accident. I only dream of memories. I don’t want them anymore. They hurt worse than dying.

      I’m sorry, April told him.

      I want to get rid of my hurt, give it to somebody else.

      You can’t.

      She’s sleeping, Brett said, playing with the knife in his hand. She won’t feel a thing.

      They’ll think I did it, April said.

      Well. . .

      Didn’t think of that, huh? She whispered, "Besides, like I said, you can’t do it, and I don’t mean in the sense of the moral argument. I mean, you can’t do it. You can influence the world if you want to but not with a knife you made up with your head."

      The knife changed into flecks of dust that floated down to the floor. Brett frowned. His color lightened, his details became clearer. April thought she saw tears in his eyes. She put the crucifix away.

      After a long silence, April said, You can always move on.

      It scares me, Brett said. I don’t know where I’d go.

      You should have nothing to be afraid of.

      We judge our own lives differently, less honestly, than others judge us. And if there is a God, and He’s been watching everything I did, how can I expect a kind judgment?

      April had no answers for him. Brett wept quietly until his spirit disappeared from the room.

      April knew without even trying that she would not get back to sleep.

      For a long time now, ghosts had been making things difficult for her. They had split up her family, made her into a mental case in the eyes of her parents, and ruined her chances at a normal college life.

      April dressed for the day and left her dorm. She met up with some night owl friends at a local bar. She was underage and felt the need to obey the law, for fear of what potential ghosts waited for her in lockup. More than that, though, if she started screaming about dead men in a jail cell, the

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