Stashed in a Jar

What price is worth your soul? Your humanity? 

It's a question Aiden Sullivan would soon ask.  

While camping with friends in a rural graveyard, Aiden makes a macabre discovery -- a jar containing a shriveled creature hidden in an eerie old house. That night its haunting voice whispers in his dreams, offering to show Aiden all the wonders that lie beyond our world, teach him ancient rituals leading to hidden paths of power, if only he would free the creature from its cage. 

Aiden finds himself pulled between the mundane world and one of cosmic power. Which will he choose? And will his soul survive?  

Stashed in a Jar is a collection of dark and haunting stories filled with supernatural beings, evil forces, witchcraft and magic. It probes the nature of corruption and the toll it can take upon the human soul. It asks the unsettling and fundamental question, which is more important? Power or your humanity? 

Author bio: Rex Hurst is the author of the horror thriller novels The Foot Doctor Letters: A Serial Killer Speaks Out; What Hell May Come & the sci-fi novel Across the Wounded Galaxy as well as several fiction novellas and short stories with a mystical paranormal theme. He is also co-host of the weekly radio show Write On SC. 

An Interview with the author, Rex Hurst. 

Q: How did you get started writing? 

A: Like most authors it all began when I was young. I was naturally drawn to scary thrillers filled with suspense. Then I picked up I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, an almost gothic story about a man surviving in a chilling world filled with vampires. It gave me nightmares. After that, I was hooked on horror. 

Q: What are your favorite types of literature? 

A: At this point I am still in a horror state of mind. Some of the classic stories -- Dracula, Frankenstein, The Haunting of Hill House, anything by Lovecraft -- have a deep place in my heart. But lately, I've been reading a lot of horror anthologies filled with ghoulish monsters, creepy ghosts, and haunted houses. I've also gotten into psychological ghost stories for adults. When done right, they are thrilling, fascinating, terrifying. I can't get enough of them. 

Q: What was the first scary film you ever watched? 

A: The film that first scared the hell out of me is not classified as horror. It was Watership Down, specifically the scene where the rabbit's warren is paved over and they all suffocate in the most blood-curdling manner. It just scared the hell out of me. I've only watched it once, but I remember every detail. 

Q: How has your early reading experiences influenced your writing?

A: Going back and looking at those novels which grabbed me as a young person and a teen, I am not able to analyze how they affected me so deeply. The Exorcist taught me how to slowly build an eerie atmosphere. The Shining showed me how to create a world dripping with fear and dread. "The Rats in the Walls" by Lovecraft demonstrated how even the simplest things can be maddening to some people.