Violet Lagoon

Praise for John Everson

"Violet Eyes is old-school horror in collision with bleeding-edge science fiction. This is Michael Crichton meets Stephen King. It's a killer!"

– Jonathan Maberry,
New York Times bestselling author of Fire & Ash

"John Everson delivers the one-two punch of emotional intensity and skilled storytelling."

– Scott Nicholson, 
author of Liquid Fear

"A master of twisted imagery, Everson doesn't shy away from graphic gore; NightWhere is an erotic horrorfest you won't be able to put down!"

– Lucy Taylor,
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Safety of Unknown Cities

"Robert Bloch lives! John Everson's The Pumpkin Man is a lean, mean, supernatural thriller in the best tradition of Bloch and Matheson. The story of a grieving daughter prying open the shriveled gourds of her past, Everson's book yanks the reader along by the nape of the neck – and also, unexpectedly, by the heart – into a dark territory best traveled in a well-lighted room, with a guard on duty. Great stuff!"

– Jay Bonansinga,
National bestselling author of Perfect Victim

"John Everson brings something new and edgy to the genre. It's like reading a killer rock record."

– Paperback Horror

A thoroughly engaging tale, Siren weaves through two centuries of history to turn a relatively obscure mythological creature into a highly sensual modern antagonist. Everson's excellent prose and vivid storytelling riff on the depths of obsession and sexual addiction. Oh, and did I mention sex? Lots of it."

– Brinke Stevens,
horror movie actress

"From its subtly metaphoric opening line to its shattering final sequence (I'm talking the kind of ending that only the best horror/dark fantasy writers can pull off, the kind of ending that makes the finale of Pet Sematary look almost like a Bugs Bunny cartoon), John Everson's The 13th is the first out-and-out horror novel in a long while to actually scare the **** out of me while reading it. It's stylish, extremely well-written, filled with richly-drawn characterizations, and boasts a labyrinthine plot worthy of Umberto Eco. Trust me -- this one will fry your nerves and break your heart." --5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Coffin County and Far Dark Fields "

– Gary A. Braunbeck,
author of Far Dark Fields

"A double-barreled shotgun blast of macabre entertainment. THE 13th is an expert amalgamation of grotesquerie, eroticism, mystery, and pitch-black occult horror that no fan of the genre can miss."

–
Edward Lee
,
author of Brides of the Impaler and The Golem

Books by
John Everson

NOVELS:
Covenant
Sacrifice
The 13th
Siren
The Pumpkin Man
NightWhere
Violet Eyes

NOVELETTES:
Failure
Violet Lagoon

SHORT FICTION COLLECTIONS:
Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions
Vigilantes of Love
Needles & Sins
Creeptych
Deadly Nightlusts: A Collection of Forbidden Magic
Christmas Tales

For More Information Visit:
 
www.johneverson.com

Copyright Information

VIOLET LAGOON

Story and copyright ©2010 by John Everson.

Dark Arts edition cover art and Preface copyright ©2013 by John Everson.

Violet Lagoon
was originally issued  as part of the three-story collection
Creeptych
in the Delirium Books hardcover chapbook series. The chapbook was signed and numbered, limited to 150 copies. An e-book edition was originally issued in 2010 by Darkside Digital.  

Except for fair use for purposes of review, the reproduction of material from within this book for the purposes of personal or corporate profit, by photographic, digital, or other methods of electronic storage and retrieval, is prohibited. This book consists of works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

For more information on this and other John Everson titles, please visit
www.johneverson.com

Dark Arts Books e-Book Edition, September 2013

www.darkartsbooks.com
 

Dedication

For Charlotte's kids...

Table of Contents

Praise

Books By John Everson

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

VIOLET LAGOON:

I. Setting Sail

II. The Island

III. A Path Through The Shadows

IV. In The Air

V. Gool

VI. The Outdoors

VII. Time To Go

VIII. At Home

ABOUT:

About The Author

Preface

 ack in 2008,  in the midst of working on my third novel,
The 13th
, I wrote the first outline for the book that would eventually become my seventh novel,
Violet Eyes
. When I pitched the idea to my editor, Don D’Auria, he thought it would make a “very creepy book,” but had two concerns:

1) Leisure Books, my publisher at the time, already had a couple of recent “spider” books on the roster, from Sarah Pinborough, and he didn’t want to overload the line with eight-legged tales, and 

2) the prologue as I’d outlined it, in his words, “would be mighty long.” 

We agreed that I would hold off on digging into
Violet Eyes
for a book or two until the dust from Sarah’s novels had settled, and instead I began to work on
Siren
as my next project. 

But
Violet Eyes
didn’t leave my head. And a year or so later, as I was talking with Delirium Books about doing a short bug-themed collection to reboot their hardcover chapbook series, I came up with the idea of turning the outlined prologue of that unwritten novel into a standalone short story.

Turned out... Don was right. 

The story I wanted to tell was pretty involved for a prologue. But “Violet Lagoon” did make for a great novelette capper to a little book called
Creeptych
. When that three-story collection came out from Delirium in 2010, I wasn't sure if that was
it
for my spiders. I didn’t know if I would ever get the opportunity to write the full novel, but I was happy that a good story had come out of that novel’s outline, anyway. And then a few months later, when Leisure Books began to fall apart and cancelled their mass market paperback line (right after
Siren
was released!), I really thought “Violet Lagoon” might be the last anyone would see of my spider novel. Who else was I going to write a book like that for?

Fast forward another couple years, and Don D’Auria was in the midst of building a new horror line at Samhain, as the ashes of Leisure Books still were cooling. He agreed that the time was ripe to write that spider book... but when I sat down to do it, I realized that his concern of four years earlier still held. “Violet Lagoon,” as originally written, had grown too large to simply pick up and serve as a novel’s opening prologue. So I ended up trimming it and splicing pieces of it in as flashback scenes throughout the novel that I finally wrote last year.  

I still like “Violet Lagoon” in its original form though, and I thought readers might like to see it this way either before or after reading
Violet Eyes
. Here’s how it all began.

Beware the bite...

I. Setting Sail

 ou’re sure Jess is coming?” Billy asked pointedly. “You didn’t scare her off with that
Blue Lagoon
 shit?”