“He shows up in a white box, with a bright red book under
his arm… He wears a jolly grin and hat, a suit with gold bells and green
yarn… He watches you for Santa, or so his red book claims… But though his
grin is jolly, he’s not here for fun and games…

The children have been chosen, such precious little souls they are… And may
the Gods be with them, if they wish to make it very far… For Santa’s Little
Helper does not say, but knows important things… He knows when you’ve been
bad or good, and what monsters stalk your dreams… He knows when you are
sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…He’s picking out his presents…He’s got
some souls to take.”

This book is available at Amazon.  

Chapter 1: The Harvest

The town of Peculiar, Missouri sleeps. The windows of the
homes are dark, like the night pressing up against their panes. A silence hangs
in the air, the kind of silence that only hangs in the air around small towns
such as this. From above, every celestial body can be seen, a black sheet
sprinkled with the sugar of the universe. Large expanses of land stretch out in
all directions. Cattle and crops and rolling hills make up the landscape, soon
to be harvested for consumption upon ripening.

Beneath their feet, in the bowels of the earth, tucked
away like the bodies of the deceased, something else waits. This something
never sleeps, but is intimately familiar with the power of slumber. During
slumber, the minds of the people are ruled by the subconscious, where all
things that were, are, and ever will be are thought up and brought into
existence. 

The thing that waits also knows the most powerful of
these creation thoughts are born within the subconscious minds of children. For
children are special. Small children have yet to completely separate the
conscious mind from the subconscious, and this makes them the greatest creators
of all. No boundaries or impossibilities, only blank canvases and a stock of
endless tools with which to fill these voids. This also makes them the most
vulnerable, for wherever there is power, there is something waiting in the
folds of time to consume that power and have it for itself.

As soon as it is ready to be harvested. First, they must
be cultivated, tested, to see which will yield the sweetest, most powerful
fruit.

Now, the night grows cold, and in the silent homes the
people shift and pull bed covers up over their shoulders. It is as though a
collective shudder has passed over the town, one that will go unquestioned and
forgotten come morning. The shudder is not born of a gust of wind, or a draft
seeping through the cracks of seemingly solid structures, but of a spike in the
subconscious, where only possibilities exist. This is the place where red flags
that should not go ignored, but inevitably will be, are raised. The thing that
waits is making its selections, picking the best and brightest out for harvest.
For it has been too long, and it is hungry. 

But first, cultivation. Seeds to be planted and grown
until they can fill a cosmic stomach. It will not take long. The soil of a
child’s mind is rich and ready for these particular seeds. It is here where
nightmares are born.

H. D. Gordon is the bestselling author of ‘The Alexa
Montgomery Saga’, ‘The Joe Knowe Series’, and ‘The Surah Stormsong Novels’. She
is a lifelong reader and writer, a true lover of words. When she is not reading
and writing, she is busy raising her two daughters and keeping the world’s
zombie population under control.

For more
information about ‘Santa’s Little Helper’ and H.D. Gordon please visit her
website, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. 

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