Fallen Stones by Thomas M. Malafarina 

By J. H. Bográn

Horror is a subgenre from which I’ve tried to stay away. As a child, I was exposed to some terrifying movies-The Omen, The Exorcist and Prince of Darkness-so when it was time to choose reading as a habit, horror dropped to the bottom of the list. Fast forward a few years and when you become a parent teaching your kid to face their fears; it hits you that you must do the same to avoid being a hypocrite. You know, “do as I say and not as I do” and all that Jazz, right? Therefore, Horror is what I’m reading now, and I turn to The Big Thrill to find new releases, like this one:

Thomas M. Malafarina is the author of some of the most frightening and nightmare inducing horror stories you may ever read. His new book titled FALLEN STONES was published by Sunbury Press, Inc.

The story begins when Stephanie Wright and her family inherit and move into a luxuriously renovated rural Schuylkill County farmette she believes all of her worries are over. But then her husband, Jason stumbles on a small ancient family burial site on the property. He decides to destroy the headstones, keeping the gravesite a secret so not to spoil his wife’s newfound happiness. But sometimes the dead have their own agenda. When Stephanie begins researching her family genealogy she uncovers a terrible family tragedy, the true unholy reason for what they originally perceived as good fortune rears it hideous head.

The story has plenty of suspense, supernatural intrigue, and down and out gut wrenching terror to keep any reader, horror fan or not flipping pages and hungry for more.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Then the sky began to darken and the wind whipped into a frenzy of blowing dirt, grass and other such debris. Jason stood terrified among the flying maelstrom, his arms hanging limply down at his sides, helpless to do anything. Then the ground at his feet started to move and undulate, as to his horror, he saw bony fleshless fingers working their way up from beneath the earth below. Soon two sets of skeletal hands were reaching up from the ground and had grabbed Jason by the ankles. He still was unable to move or resist as the bony claws gripped him ever tighter. He looked down and saw the tops of two skulls rising from the shifting soil, both almost hairless save for a few remaining patches of flesh and white thinned follicles, which blew wildly in the torrential wind. Soon both skulls were out of the ground and looking up at Jason through eyeless sockets, yet he knew they were still somehow seeing him.

Dirt fell like sand from the tops of the skeletal heads as they rose further. Jason could now see their mouths and jaws, which were rapidly opening, and closing like sets of chattering teeth, but there was nothing comical about those mouths. They had seemed to be hungry for something or someone and Jason was certain he was the subject of their cannibalistic desires. Worms crawled from the hollow eye sockets and at one point Jason saw a long slithering snake try to work its way past the snapping jaws. Razor sharp teeth severed the snake’s head and a sickening green goop poured from its decapitated body, which fell back inside the skeleton’s mouth. Then Jason saw the two heads once again slowly begin to sink back down into the earth and felt an even stronger tugging on his ankles.

*****

Thomas M. Malafarina is a horror fiction writer from Berks County, PA. He has published four novels, 99 SOULS, BURN PHONE,  EYE CONTACT and most recently, FALLEN STONES and story collections called 13 NASTY ENDINGS, GALLERY OF HORROR, MALAFARINA MALEFICARUM VOLUME ONE and  MALAFARINA MALEFICARUM VOLUME ONE through Sunbury Press of Camp Hill, PA. He has also published a collection of single-panel cartoons called “Yes I Smelled It Too: Cartoons For The Slightly Off-Center” through Sunbury. Thomas has written dozens of short stories, which have been featured in numerous anthologies as well as on internet audio podcasts.

To learn more about Thomas, please visit his website.