Life After Dane
by Edward Lorn
Published by Red Adept Publishing, LLC
August 2013
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Have I got a scare for you!
Red Adept Publishing has put together an amazing tour for Edward Lorn’s Life After Dane.
I have a peek inside for you. Chapter One!
Read on to catch my review and the scary good trailer.
Don’t forget to enter the giveaway!
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Where you can purchase Life After Dane.
Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Goodreads
Description
A mother’s love is undying… and so is Dane.
After the state of Arkansas executes serial killer Dane Peters, the Rest Stop Dentist, his mother discovers that life is darker and more dangerous than she ever expected.
The driving force behind his ghostly return lies buried in his family’s dark past. As Ella desperately seeks a way to lay her son’s troubled soul to rest, she comes face to face with her own failings.
If Ella cannot learn why her son has returned and what he seeks, then the reach of his power will destroy the innocent, and not even his mother will be able to stop him.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjpkCSgpfuQ]
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Chapter One
The state of Arkansas put my son to sleep on October 25, 2013. All across the country, from Colorado to Virginia, forty-two families were finally able to rest. I knew those grieving souls by faces, not personalities. Their tears were familiar, yet their pain was not. I could recall their loved ones easily, as they were the victims. My son’s name was Dane Peters. The rest of the world called him The Rest Stop Dentist.
Not everybody from Dane’s many court sessions came that night. The watch room only held thirty chairs, and nine were taken up by the cops who had arrested my son, two local reporters, and Sven Gödel, a freelance journalist from Chicago.
When the guards led my son into the execution chamber, he strode tall, his face bereft of emotion. At some point, they’d shaved his head. His mop of brown shag was a five o’clock ghost of its former self. While one officer unshackled Dane, the other made ready the straps on the cross-like table where Dane would serve his final sentence. Unencumbered, Dane stretched his arms wide, bent back at the waist, and rocked forward to meet my eyes.
A chill ran down my spine. He looked so calm, the exact opposite of me. I could feel my hands shaking around the Bible I clutched to my stomach. Oh, God, they’re actually going to kill my child. If I had died, they would have called Dane an orphan, but what would they call a childless mother? At fifty-five, I was left all alone.
Dane groped at the front of his orange jumpsuit, patted it flat, and turned toward the awaiting table. Never breaking eye contact, he craned his neck so he could keep a bead on me. My baby boy was in there somewhere, hiding behind that cold stare. I felt myself reaching for him, though I hadn’t meant to do so.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head to find a man wearing a police officer’s uniform.
“You know,” he said, “that’s two-way glass. He can’t actually see you.”
Looking back at my son, I tried to tell myself that the man behind me was wrong. He had to be. Dane was gazing directly at me, into me. He sat on the edge of the metal table, twisted, and threw his legs up onto the surface, then lay back and looked toward the ceiling. The guards went about belting him down. Dane lifted his head, met my eyes, and gave me a mirthless smile.
The officer behind me said, “That monster must think he’s something. Look at that smug expression painted all over his mug. He ain’t a bit sorry ’bout what he done.”
Dane blinked twice and settled back on the table.
Too low for anyone else to hear, I said, “He’s not a monster. He’s my son.”
Dane was thirty years old when they put an IV in his arm and dosed him with pentobarbital to render him unconscious. A pump injected him with pancuronium bromide to relax his breathing until his lungs quit altogether. Potassium chloride, the “humane drug,” ceased the beating of his heart before the failure of his lungs became too painful. I watched, seated with the families of the victims, while my son was put down like a rabid dog.
One of the men behind the glass finally said, “It’s over.”
The father of Lillie Mason clapped, putting his hands together, slowly at first, then faster. Vickie Hancock’s mother joined in. Fredericka Devereau’s parents followed along until everyone surrounding me fell into a fit of raucous applause. I didn’t feel the need to celebrate my child’s death, so I remained stoic and silent.
Dane’s body was transferred from the execution table to a beige body bag atop the stainless surface of an awaiting gurney. I’d seen enough.
Rising from my chair, I took an unsteady step forward and almost fell. A hand wrapped around my bicep, keeping me upright. Glancing to see who’d saved me from a tumble, I came face to face with that Chicago journalist, Sven Gödel.
He asked, “Are you all right?”
“Leave me alone.” I snatched my arm from his grasp, turned on my heel, and headed for the door.
Sven called after me, “We should talk, Mrs. Peters.”
I didn’t justify his comment with an answer.
The watch room door opened onto a courtyard surrounded on all sides by razor-wire-topped fencing. October in Arkansas wasn’t quite as cool as back home in Colorado. In fact, the air was uncomfortably warm, like sitting down on a public toilet and finding the previous users’ body heat radiating up into my own butt. Sweat popped out on my forehead. I swiped it away with the back of one hand.
At the main gate, a bald prison guard let me out into the free world. I thought of it like that, “the free world,” because during Dane’s trial and the time up until his death, I’d felt like a prisoner alongside him. With Dane gone, I was free.
I crossed the parking lot to my gold Camry. Once behind the wheel, I let my emotions take over. Tears choked me. To clear my pipes, I lit a Virginia Slim and allowed the menthol to soothe my clogged throat.
I smoked the entire cigarette in less than three minutes. I rolled down my window and flicked the butt into the prison’s lot, leaving a piece of myself behind. Lighting another one, I drove away from that edifice of justice, wondering what else I had left back there. That thought haunted me across seven hundred miles, two fast-food cheeseburgers, four restroom breaks, and a whole pack of Slims, until I crossed the city limits of Well Being, Colorado. Home sweet home.
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My Review
I’ve read several of Edward’s books and I have to say Life After Dane is his best work yet.
I would call it a psychological thriller and horror story. But it’s more than that. You could also call it a ghost story but it isn’t a house that’s haunted.
They say a serial killer can be born one or made into one. I’m not sure which it was for Dane, but he was prolific, killing 42 people. His moniker, The Rest Stop Dentist, was earned because he stalked and killed his victims at rest stops and left a trail of their teeth, like bread crumbs, leading to their discarded corpses.
Like in real life, the law does catch up with him and on October 25, 2013, Dane Peters is sent to hell.
But Dane isn’t planning on staying there, and before long, he pays a visit to his loving mother, the chain-smoking woman who stood by and watched him suffer at the hands of his abusive father.
Dane is back and he wants his own brand of justice.
I like how the author showed you both sides of the story, both Danes and his mother, Ella May’s. It helped me to see behind their actions and connect with them.
Dane is horrific, but you almost feel sorry for him. Good writing there.
Ella May is sweet and loving, but she’ll tick you off, making you want to slap her down. More good writing.
I would put the pacing of this story as relentless. Once you start reading, you’ll not want to stop until the white-knuckled read is over.
When I reached the end, my heart was pounding in my ears and my jaw ached from clenching my teeth. I just sat there, thinking. Then I got up and grabbed a romance book to read so I wouldn’t be thinking about Dane when I went to sleep!
5 Stars
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About Edward Lorn and where to stalk him.
Edward Lorn is an American horror author presently residing in the southeast United States. He enjoys storytelling, reading, and writing biographies in the third person. Once upon a time, during a session of show and tell, a seven-year-old Edward Lorn shared with his class that his baby brother had died over the weekend. His classmates, the teacher included, wept while he recounted the painful tragedy of having lost a sibling. Edward went home that day and found an irate mother waiting for him. Edward’s teacher had called to express her condolences. This was unfortunate, as Edward had never had a baby brother. With advice given to her by a frustrated teacher, Edward’s mother made him start writing all of his lies down. The rest, as they say, is history. Edward Lorn and his wife are raising two children, along with a handful of outside cats and a beagle named Dot. He remains a liar to this day. The only difference is, now he’s a useful one.
For more about Edward Lorn and his books:
Website / Twitter / Goodreads / Amazon
Edward’s page on RAP: http://redadeptpublishing.com/edward-lorn/
Edward’s blog: http://edwardlorn.wordpress.com/
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Dane Tote Bag
Dane Mug
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I’ve read other books by Edward and loved them.
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