Octo Sapiens is now available via Golden Storyline Books / Amazon kindle.
Author: John Andrew Karr
Release Date: December 2023
Description:
This is a speculative paranormal mystery from author John Andrew Karr.
Paranormal investigator Lars Kelsen is recruited again by a murder victim’s ghost and discovers a town of hybrid beings–half human and half octopus–as well as a new murder weapon in the form of a gargantuan octopus.
Octo Sapiens are hybrid beings living in only a few coastal towns of the American seaboard. Though half-human and half-octopus, they are not monsters. The massive guardian summoned from the lost city of Atlantis by one of them, however is,– and paranormal investigator Lars Kelsen soon finds himself embroiled in the secret lives of these beings in the town of Saskin Bay. Lars Kelsen is driven by the victim’s ghost to find justice in a town torn by two feuding families.
Excerpt
Scenarios for the fate of the dock kept running through his mind. As per his specifications, the rippled metal for the roof section was triple the standard thickness. It had been bolted into galvanized brackets and braces and onto pressure-treated steel columns and cross beams, and could withstand more than five times the force of these gusts, which he figured were in the thirty to forty knot range.
Even maritime miners would have a hard time dealing with the pelting rain and driving wind while using a backhoe on a floating platform. There were no backhoe tracks on the swamped lawn leading out to the dock either.
Something else did this. Something that could rip and pull on a very dangerous scale.
He took guarded steps onto the dock. There should be a roof here but instead were sheets of rain hurled down from a black sky. His feet were submerged in a layer of water unable to drain away fast enough despite the slats in the floor. The wind and rain stung his naked flesh but he had no time for it. He sighted down the rifles through crumpled arches and past fallen statues somewhat reminiscent of the Roman era but with a more maritime theme. At the end, support posts were intermittently gone, shattered, or swaying precariously. The floating dock that should be collared in place by iron rings to the pylons kept slamming against the main dock while rising and falling with the waves.
Water shot up through the slats of the second story dock and sprayed inland, section by section, following an unseen wave below.
Steel and timbers screeched anew.
A dark form moved in the watery shadows.
Jorthore Desso raised the rifles — one to each shoulder. He squeezed off a few rounds from each and waited for effect. Steam snaked upward from the rifle muzzles before getting swept away by the elements.
Nothing. The form was no longer there.
The rush of wind and rain splatter made it impossible to hear anything else. He moved farther down the dock, countering the unpredictable rise and sway with ease.
Movement in the corner of his eye.
He spun, rifles blasting.
Something wrapped around his ankle and jerked upward. The AR-15s flashed low to high, tearing up the dock and into the storm as he was jerked off his feet and held aloft.
A massive shape rose from the churning water. Desso yelled in a mix of fear and dismay and fired with all he had, muzzles flashing bright against the mass before him. The guns were jerked out of his arms and flung away, end over end until vanishing with a splash into the chaotic creek. Desso’s rage was silenced as his throat was encircled by something exponentially stronger than himself.
He fought for his life, but there was no way to loosen the grip. Raised aloft by his neck and one leg, Jorethore Desso’s two hundred pounds were rendered meaningless.