The Village of Last Hope

Release Date: Friday the 13th of December.

Dazed and confused, Michael wanders the streets in the rain, depressed to the point of suicide. He found his wife in his brother’s arms when he arrived home earlier. Michael has always had issues of paranoia, much to his wife’s annoyance, but this time, he knows what he saw.

Waiting for the next bus, a stranger appears, offering him a raincoat and somewhere to spend the night where he will be safe. Gabriel eventually leads Michael to a door in a concrete wall under the Interstate, and they enter a hidden village. He is introduced to Peter, the gatekeeper, who demands to know what Michael did. Michael can’t remember anything from before leaving his home earlier and doesn’t understand the question.

Michael has three days to remember and answer Peter’s question. Too late, Michael discovers he is a prisoner, but is it of his own making? Has he gone completely insane, or has he done something so evil, he is damned forever in The Village of Last Hope.

The story behind the story:

Do truly insane people know they are mad or think the rest of us are?

This was a random thought I had a while ago while driving. Yes, it’s relatively common for me to have oblique meanderings while driving, and often, a thought, like a seed, grows into an idea that blooms into a story. That’s what happened for me with my latest Friday the 13^th offering: The Village of Last Hope.

Michael comes home early from work one day with a migraine to find his wife in what he believes is a compromising position with his brother. Michael has suffered from acute paranoia ever since a car accident, along with headaches, and in recent times, these issues have worsened. His wife, Hyacinth, is fed up with his moods and expects Michael to just get over them, so things have been rocky for a while. Faced with severe trauma, Michael reacts and then runs away from his home, wife, and life in the pouring rain.

Later, huddled in a doorway, contemplating suicide, he meets Gabriel, who offers him a raincoat and somewhere to stay for the night in a town called Limbo after first asking him what he did. Michael does not want to remember the earlier events and believes he didn’t do anything.

Michael finds himself trapped in the village, with everyone he meets demanding to know what he did. He must work out whether the prison is in his mind and of his own making or if he has been abducted by a Manson-type cult that only wants to torture him. Is the Village real or imagined, and why has he been brought there? Just because he is paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to harm him, and Michael must face his demons and remember the events that brought him to The Village of Last Hope if he is to have redemption and forgiveness. That is if he lives through it, or is he already dead?

I have always been fascinated by insanity. I studied psychology and have written several psychological thrillers that explore the depths of troubled minds. Michael does not know if he is insane or a victim, but for him to have any chance of survival, he must confront his own mind in The Village of Last Hope.

The Village of Last Hope is released on Amazon on December the 13^th (Friday the 13^th)