In the Blood of the Martyr

By Erica Summers and Rusty Ogre Publishing

In a Pentecostal church, tucked deep in the woods, cloaked behind a layer of dense fog, Odessa is set to be baptized before the vocal congregation.

But not all sins can be washed away with water.

Sometimes the meek and abused require something more to truly be cleansed.

 

This is a religious horror story about Pentecostalism, the loss of innocence, revenge, and martyrdom from the author of Vanity Kills & Feed the Machine.

 

Now available in print in the Rictus Grin and Other Tales of Insanity short story collection by Rusty Ogre Publishing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rusty Ogre Publishing
• Release date: May 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224456864

Book preview

In the Blood of the Martyr

Erica Summers

Praise for In the Blood of the Martyr

Erica Summers shines an unfiltered, revealing light towards the dark, foreboding world of religious fanaticism, raining fire, brimstone, and Old Testament savagery unto the reader.

- Otis Bateman, author of Maggot Girl and Cerberus.

IN THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYR

Copyright © 2023 by Erica Summers

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this short story may be reproduced in any manner, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission by the author(s) and or publisher, except for the use of a brief quotation in a book review.

www.EricaSummers.com

West Haven, Connecticut, United States

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, organizations and incidents are either part of the author’s

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Design by Erica Summers

Contents

More Titles by Erica Summers

In the Blood of the Martyr

Acknowledgments

About the Author

More from Rusty Ogre Publishing

Chapter

More Titles by Erica Summers

Novellas:

Bad God’s Tower (Summer 2023)

Novels:

Mantis (2016)

Vanity Kills (Summer 2023)

Short Stories (Anthologies):

Take a Breath (HellBound Books' Anthology of Splatterpunk)

"Tines" (Eerie River Publishing’s It Calls From Below)

"The Mother" (Their Ghoulish Reputation by Dark Lake Publishing)

Painted in Vermilion (Eerie River Publishing’s Air: Elemental Series)

All the Same Color on the Inside (Black Hare Press’ Year Five Anthology)

In the Blood of the Martyr

Odessa leaned against the thin, coal-black rail, forcing a perfectly even divide up the granite steps, and admired the slender cross towering overhead. It floated peacefully on the snow-dusted spire like the cherry-red plastic shell itself had just been called up to Heaven for the rapture.

Soft flakes danced around her, shaken down from the stormy, charcoal sky like a barrel of blowing glitter. There were no clouds, only a darkened backdrop to contrast the fine crystals composing a suffocating haze. She watched as a small murder of crows congregated on the snowy lawn between the church and forest, wings closely tucked. They stoically stamped clawed feet through the fluff and scoured the area with soured onyx faces like drill soldiers scrutinizing boot camp barracks.

The surrounding woods and their tangle of gnarled,