THE ROOTS RUN DEEP C.M. Forest

THE ROOTS RUN DEEP

C.M. Forest

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GENRE: Horror Short Story Collection

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

Dug from the twisted mind of C.M. Forest, the acclaimed author of Infested comes a collection of 15 horror stories that will drag you into the abyss of fear and despair.

A fast-food playland with a nightmarish secret, a greenhouse with a bug problem, a busload of kids lost in the woods, a trip through the solar system to investigate a strange comet, and many more.

Brace yourself for an unrelenting journey through a world where evil knows no bounds, and darkness consumes all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EXCERPT

Alison got out of her car, the engine still on, and staggered down the road. Blood soaked through the front of her dress. It looked black—like a growing oil spill—under the sickly haze of the street lights. A smattering trail of circles on the pavement marked her route as she stumbled away. Her underwear, torn and soiled, hung limply around one ankle.

She did not want to look back at the car, but a deep, primal urge overrode all her wants and desires. Even as her body trembled, she found herself peeking over her shoulder. Tendrils of mist, which were seeping into the nearby dark fields, gave her vehicle a ghostly appearance. A 3000-pound wraith waiting to lunge. The headlights, blazing through the fog, seemed to stare back at her. The fender, a taunting grin. Specks of blood dotted the windshield from the inside; gory handprints stained the seats.

Something moved within the car. An arm, a face, briefly—horribly—illuminated by the interior lights. A shifting figure, covered in a blanket of shining viscera. It was already bigger than it should be. It was growing fast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

C.M. Forest
Topic: Pros and Cons of your Genre
Writing horror is tricky business. There is a fine line between scary and goofy. The last thing I want, as a horror writer, is to make people laugh when they should be shivering. Because of this, I am constantly playing a game of tug of war with my words. A battle that can completely alter the tone of my book.
When done correctly, I can take pleasure in having scared the pants off a reader (not literally…at least, I don’t think that’s happened). Which leads to the biggest Pro of the horror genre. Causing legitimate fear to bloom in the minds of those reading just through my words, is immensely satisfying.
But, and this is a big problem, if I get too excessive with the spooky, I risk losing the reader, or worse, making them laugh. Enter the Con. We’ve all seen those movies. The ones that are supposed to be scary but are so over the top that the audience just sort of laughs. Yeah… That’s my worst nightmare.
A secondary Con, and this one is a bit broader in scope, is the fact that a lot of folks turn their noses up to horror novels (most genre fiction, to be honest). The number of times I’ve heard incredible literary feats dismissed as “it’s pretty good for a horror novel” is depressing.
At the end of the day, the pros of being an author of spooky things far outweigh the cons, so it’s all good. I’m more than happy to sit in my little corner of the world and continue to write scary stories.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

C.M. Forest, also known as Christian Laforet, is the author of the novel Infested, the novella We All Fall Before the Harvest, the short story collection The Space Between Houses, as well as the co-author of the short-story collection No Light Tomorrow. His short fiction has been featured in several anthologies across multiple genres. A self-proclaimed horror movie expert, he spent an embarrassing amount of his youth watching scary movies. When not writing, he lives in Ontario, Canada with his wife, kids, three cats and a pandemic dog named Sully who has an ongoing love affair with a blanket.