Excerpt from Derek Odom's The Black Years:
I was twelve the first time I fell in love. It wasn't with a girl, or a baseball team, or my mother. I never had those options. It wasn't a romantic endeavor. Not really. Maybe I should back up a little. Allow me to digress.
I have gone by the name Nathan since I was four years old. I'm forty-two now, and while I remember that my original name was Curtis, it doesn't matter anymore. I live in the city because I like the noise. I can maintain anonymity while sustaining an acceptable level of distractions.
I was kidnapped from my front yard when I was four, and I was raised by John Cook: a man who thought oral sex, sodomy and fighting were much better things for a young boy to learn than how to tie knots or bait a fishing hook. I was not given books to read, or a television to watch.
I spent my formative years in an 8-foot by 12-foot room in the back of his old and dirty house. There was a paint bucket in the corner for when I had to go to the bathroom. The single small window in the room was boarded up, and in its place hung a picture of a mighty unicorn with its head toward the stars while light from an unknown source reflected off its beautiful white coat. That was the extent of my fantasy exposure, but I was glad for it.
Over the years, that unicorn and I became good friends. I used to talk to it for hours (Him, actually; I always thought of it as a male, and I named him Peg, after Pegasus from my favorite cartoon) at night while John slept. It was the only time I felt anything resembling safety. I grew to cherish those hours after bedtime. They were the hours that I got to tell Peg what I was thinking. They were the hours that I could allow myself a restrained and muffled cry. They were the hours that formed me.
The Black Years is an incredible story of a young boy who dares take his only chance to escape from a very real hell, written by Derek Odom, an incredibly talented Circle 8 writer. The Black Years can be found among other unique tales of the supernatural by the Circle 8 Writers Group in C8's dark anthology Apocryphilia . "Apocryphilia" can be purchased in paperback or as an ebook at:
Amazon & Barnes & Noble websites.
