Dark Walker Series by Shelly Campbell Virtual Book Tour

 

                                                                                                                              

Guest Post

Did you have a minor character who insisted on playing a larger role in the story?

Thanks so much for having me on as a guest. I smiled when I saw your question because, yes indeed, I did have a minor character in my book Breach, who ended up playing a far larger role than originally planned, and he has quite a funny origin story.

Awhile back, when Breach was still in its outlining stages and not even a baby manuscript yet, my publisher, Eerie River, was running an author takeover event on their Facebook page and asked me if I wanted to participate.

For one day, us authors all took turns in the admin role, engaging with followers, playing games, and just generally hamming it up. For my posts, I wanted to get folks invested in the book I was writing. So, I asked commenters to vote on character names (Charlie’s name was chosen this way), and what weird things one might discover in a maneater’s stomach while dissecting it (maneaters are alien monsters with a taste for human flesh, and people helpfully suggested dentures or photo ID with unrecognizable printing might be some things that’d take up permanent residence in their innards).

But the post that got the most traction was an odd little contest where I offered to name a side character in Breach after a randomly selected commenter, and then proceed to kill off said character in a grisly manner. In this case, they’d get devoured by a maneater. Not only would our winner get a fictional person named after them (short-lived as that individual might be) I told them they could choose their doppelganger’s last words. The resulting comment section was truly hilarious.

When the takeover ended, I randomly drew from a list of names and was delighted to find that one of my friends, Cory, had won. The last words he chose for his ill-fated namesake were ‘I hope I give you indigestion.’

Perfection.

So, I wrote a character named Cory into Breach with the intent of quickly killing the poor chap off. But, unbeknownst to me, fictional Cory had other plans. Sometimes, characters surprise you. They just yank the reins out of your hands and run with them. And that’s what Cory did. As I was writing, this guy had the nerve to transform from disposable fluff into a gruff, charismatic, integral part of my story. He became one of the first people my main character David opened up to. It rapidly got to the point where I just couldn’t kill him off.

Which was a problem.

Because I kind of promised that I’d do just that.

I emailed real life Cory with my dilemma and told him that I had indeed named a fictional fellow after him, and he was a decent guy, really just lovely, and I just couldn’t force myself to have him eaten by aliens. Instead, I made another side character whose inevitable end was becoming a monster snack, and his last words were ‘Hope I give them indigestion.’

See if you can find it in Breach!

Anyway, that’s the story of how Cory became the character that just refused to die. I had quite a lot of fun with it, so much that book three also has a character named after a commenter who gets a grisly death too. His name is Wayne. I promise I kill him this time like I’m supposed to.


Thanks again for having me on! I’d love to hear what you all think of the Dark Walker series, David and, of course, Cory too.

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

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.

There are doors that open to other worlds, but it’s no fairytale on the other side.

I thought otherworldly monsters bent on devouring my whole world starting with my family trumped everything. Turns out, I was wrong. My world's only one of thousands facing annihilation from the maneaters that tried to eat me alive. Charlie saved me, rolled into my life on a motorcycle, and rescued me.

Problem is, I’m the Embassy’s property now. They’re the interdimensional agency tasked with stemming the flow of ravenous aliens into our universe, but they seem more interested in studying me. I crashed a gateway in a way they’ve never seen. The Embassy wants to replicate that. I think they want to use me as a war weapon.

If I don’t convince Charlie to help me escape, I’ll be an Embassy science experiment for the rest of my short life, or worse, eternally trapped in the dark hell that fills the spaces between worlds.

Excerpt

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.

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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