Gecko

He knows the doctor did it, but has no proof and can't get any behind bars. While in jail he learns about Donna, a woman in trouble who desperately needs to be rescued. She is the victim of the same doctor who has stolen his wife. It has been a long time since his days in the violent Vietnamese jungle, a long time since he's had to call on skills he'd put to rest. He's rusty, he tells himself, but not useless. He has to escape, has to rescue both Donna and his wife, has to save them from a horrible fate. However the doctor is as evil as Lucifer himself and calls forth an ancient horror to end Jim's life, once and for all. Jim escapes from jail and goes after the doctor with the police hot on his trail. He knows what's after him, but he has no idea about what's waiting ahead.

They couldn’t find anyone to write my Bio here, so they asked me, so I guess this bio is really a sort of autobio, maybe not even that, but it’s about me anyway.

My Name is Jack Priest and I write horror stories. You know, the kind of something-is-under-the-bed-and-it’s-a-gonna-getcha kind of story. I’m a rabid Dylan fan, but I play the Stones, Beatles and the Dead all the time too. And because I live about ten months of the year in the Caribbean on my sailboat, "Night Witch," I also play Jimmy Buffett. Believe it or not, you live on a sailboat, you play Jimmy Buffett. It’s like a rule, no not like a rule, it is a rule. I think they keel haul you if you don’t have his CDs on board, either that or they send someone up in a bosun’s chair to throw a line over the first spreader, then they hang you by the neck till dead. Good thing for me I’m a Parrot Head as well as Dead Head or I’d really be in trouble.

I used to be a singlehander, that means I sailed alone, though I’m not a loner. I joined a writer’s group in St. Martin and those guys, writers and sailors all, gave me the courage to get my stuff published. To date I’ve got three books out, all based on stories I’ve heard in my travels.

RAGGED MAN: One night out at Aires Rock this aborigine guy started talking about the Dreamtime, this is a story about something that followed an American couple home from Australia. Something from the Dreamtime. Something bad. GECKO: I picked up the idea for this one in New Zealand. The Gecko was born out of a Maori legend and it came to America mad as hell.

NIGHT WITCH: The Night Witch is a soucouyant, second Caribbean cousin to the Vampire. She wears a locket that lets her live forever. Little Carolina Coffee got a locket from her father, a sneak thief back from vacation in Trinidad. Now the Night Witch is in California because her locket has been stolen and she wants it back.

I named my boat after the Night Witch, two years before I wrote the book. She’s such a spooky character, a mix of voodoo and European folklore, very scary.

I’m in the States now for a couple months, working like a dog on my latest horror novel, THE VOYAGE OF JESSE NAZARETH. Basically Christ comes back in the body of a serial killer, but nobody believes him despite the miracles. They try him, find him guilty and it’s the gas chamber. I don’t know I might change the ending.

While sitting on a the deck of a friend’s boat in Santa Barbara, I met Sara Hackett, who I call Babe. She’s a sailor gal, she’s very sweet and I guess when I get back to the Caribbean, I won’t be singlehanding anymore.

Thanks for reading,

Jack Priest