Dark Walker Series

 

When we were children, they told us monsters weren't real. They were dead wrong.

It’s just a closet door with a skeleton key, but when David opens it, he unlocks a gateway to a sinister world that’s bent on destroying everything and everyone he loves. Some doors are better left closed.

Embark on a thrilling journey with the Dark Walker Series, and be transported into an interdimensional tale of monsters, lies and self-discovery. Where the terror of darkness is real and the line between ally and enemy is as thin as a blade.

"Equal parts coming of age story and otherworldly horror, Gulf probes the depths of loneliness, loss of identity and childhood trauma. It is a true treat for fans of the genre and had me clutched in its razor-clawed hands from the first word to the last.” -C.M. Forest author of Infested

read an excerpt from Book 1: 

Seventeen-year-old David is fading from his world, like a Polaroid picture in reverse. He longs to feel connected to something bigger.

When his brothers discover the new extension at the rental cottage comes with a locked door, David finds the key first. Expecting to claim a bedroom, he opens a dimensional gateway instead, exploring abandoned versions of his world in different timelines, 1960s muscle cars alternating with crumbling cottages.

Except now the dimensional bridge won’t close, and something hungry claws the door at night. David scours for clues to break the bridge, but each trip to the other side makes him fade more on his. Even if he succeeds, he risks severing his connection to his own world, and dying on the wrong side, forgotten.

 

Excerpt from Book 1 (GULF)

Certain my family is gone, I cross to the five-panel in two strides, twist the key into the lock, and push the door.

It doesn’t open.

Of course it doesn’t, idiot. It’s still hung like a closet door. It opens out, not in.

I pull.

Mirror.

That’s the first thought that strikes me as I take in the exact duplicate of the living room I’m standing in. Same green, crushed velvet sofa bed sagging behind me. Identical chipped melamine cabinets. Same painted windmills on the porcelain tile backsplash—wait.

No me.

No reflection of me. Tentative as Alice in bloody Wonderland, I pull the black skeleton key from its hole and crane my head through the doorway. No dirty breakfast dishes, but when I look over my shoulder, there’s still stacks of egg-yolk spackled tin plates beside our sink. Crumpled under one arm of the hide-a-bed is my plaid blanket, but the one in front of me is empty. Looks dusty.

“What the hell, Everett?” This is creepy.

The ole bugger’s built an exact mirror image of the room next door. Where on earth did he find the twin to that green monster of a couch? There’s even a spring beckoning through the same spot in the back cushion.

Got an eye for detail, hasn’t he?

Same woodstove too, only this one has a cold, crusty frying pan on it. I can still feel the heat on my back from ours across the wall.

The pine planking creaks under my next step, and I jump and then smile, but I’m pretty sure it ends up as a snarl. An odd feeling consumes me whole, the one I had just before Sam Ren and his gorilla wingmen beat the piss out of me behind the Dairy Queen. A curdled sense of approaching doom slithers through my lungs.

Get out.

Primal instinct presses me back a step toward the door, but I hold fast there, like a dumbass, like I waited while Sam Ren eased toward me in the Dairy Queen parking lot.

Shaking out my hands and hissing through my teeth, I scan the room trying to identify what’s wrong, because something is. Something is very wrong, and it’s not just the duplicate room, or the draft emanating from here at night. It takes a few seconds to pin it down. The out-of-place thing. My throat spasms when I see it. I swallow and shift to the balls of my feet.

“Window,” I whisper.

about Shelly Campbell... 

At a young age, Shelly Campbell wanted to be an air show pilot or a pirate, possibly a dragon and definitely a writer and artist. She’s piloted a Cessna 172 through spins and stalls, and sailed up the east coast on a tall ship barque—mostly without projectile vomiting. In the end, Shelly found writing and drawing dragons to be so much easier on the stomach. Shelly writes speculative fiction ranging from grimdark fantasy, to sci-fi and horror. She’d love to hear from you.

 

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More personal "stuff" about Shelly Campbell...

Kathy,

Thanks so much for having me on the blog! I really appreciate the support and am excited to meet new readers, writers, and reviewers!

Does this book have a special meaning to you? i.e. where you found the idea, its symbolism, its meaning, who you dedicated it to, what made you want to write it?

The Dark Walker series didn’t have any special meaning to me when I started it, but it’s certainly morphed into something that has. While Gulf (book 1) and Breach (book 2) have horror/sci-fi themes, they also play with the idea of invisibility, isolation, otherness.

My dedication in Breach reads: To anyone who’s ever felt alone and invisible. You matter.

You can do big things, even if you’re not a loud presence in the world. I wanted to write this story because I was intrigued by the idea of amplifying the invisibility some of us feel as teens—and even into adulthood. I wanted to capture the desperation of a coming-of-age horror story where our main character is actually becoming invisible while trying to save his world.

Where do you get your storylines from?

My ideas pop into my head of their own accord. For the Dark Walker series specifically, the spark was a short story prompt that read: There is a locked door. Your main character finds the key. What’s on the other side of the door?

Was this book easier or more difficult to write than others?  Why?

Breach was more difficult to write because I took it into different territory than book 1. Gulf is coming of age portal horror. Breach is interdimensional sci-fi horror. I worried about losing some readers who may have enjoyed the feel of Gulf and wanted more of the same with Breach. But it’s a different beast than book 1. David is thrown into a plethora of new worlds, cultures and concepts. So are we 😊

Do you only write one genre?

The Dark Walker series is my first foray into the horror genre. My debut into publishing is The Marked Son series, a grimdark fantasy duology. I’ve also co-written a YA solar flare post-apocalypse series Sol Survivors with Megan King, and Making Myths and Magic: A Field Guide to Writing Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels with Allison Alexander.

Give us a picture of where you write, where you compose these words…is it Starbucks, a den, a garden…we want to know your inner sanctum?

Lately, I write in my recliner surrounded by the chaos of my family with my trusty laptop and a good set of noise reduction headphones blasting something epic and instrumental. I write everywhere though. I have a writing nook in my bedroom, and another in the main floor office. Sometimes, I write on the front porch, other times, in the backyard, or the car, or the mall. I suppose my inner sanctum would be the backyard writing spot, under the shade of my pergola with the sound of my little pond waterfall in the background. Weather can be a bit mercurial here, so outside writing sessions are few and far between. I usually get distracted by weeding or watering the garden if I’m out there for too long.

And finally, of course…was there any specific event or circumstance that made you want to be a writer?

I think I’ve just always had stories rattling around in my head. I write because I love it and I’d feel a bit lost without it. It’s part of who I am and it’s a bonus that other people enjoy it too 😊

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