Awards, Press & Interests

Campfire Stories for Adults

Synopsis for the Novel Campfire Stories for Adults Horror/Romance/Thriller By Jamey O’Donnell 74,000 Words Campfire Stories for Adults is a collection of 31 short stories ranging from 6 to 12 pages long, all described below. Judgment Day is about a Florida State Prison executioner who must pull the switch on his long, lost father, who had murdered his mother and brother as a child and escaped justice. Saved by the Screams of Ghosts recalls 4 young boys sheltering overnight from a snowstorm in an abandoned house and their encounter with two escaped killers. Rocky Mountain High tells of the fateful night campers cross paths with a wolf pack after they’ve been reintroduced to the Colorado mountains. Down Under is a story of 3 men hunting for evidence of Bigfoot in the Cascade Mountains, who stumble upon their subterranean lair and find mercy from Bigfoot themselves. The Importance of Being is a tragic love story between two deaf people, one a street mime and the other a museum curator. Dinner with Gertrude recounts a life-ending asteroid storm in Johnstown, Montana. Felix cannot find his wife and ends up at the neighbor Gertrude’s house for an interesting dinner. Snake Eyes is about strange human size snake-like creatures coming out of the ground on a man’s property and finding out they are part of a top-secret military experiment. Big Mistake tells the story told by a man of his participation in a foolproof robbery that goes bad and he is arrested, but when he goes to court, he finds out it was staged for a game show. Two’s Company has Stiv and his girlfriend planning to rob the old jeweler of his vast amount of wealth but doesn’t foresee the old man’s defense system that has kept his money with him. Forbidden Love has Bill Prescott in a romantic tryst with Rosie, the owner of the local hardware store, but he’s blindsided by a disgusting twist of fate that has him questioning everything. Welcome to the New You Courtney! Chester Wadsworth wakes from a drug-fueled stupor in a strange room with no recollection of how he got there, or that he's the victim of a strange medical experiment. Room 245. Marcy checks into a small town hotel after a long day of interstate driving and wakes to find she’s about to be raped by a gang of gnomes, then be chopped up and eaten. Rebirth. Marty and Betty are 12 years old, and due to a horrible disease that kills everyone on the face of the Earth, they find themselves alone and in the shoes of Adam and Eve. When Old Friends Come to Call. One man’s strange encounter with an alien being years earlier comes back to haunt him by having the two most important people in the world to him removed from his life. Pick Your Poison has Mandy Patterson as a contestant on the most popular game show in America, where she could walk away with untold riches or be snuffed out in a horrible death. Looks Like Heaven. After their freighter catches fire and sinks in the middle of the ocean, two men in a life raft are rescued by an alien craft that rises out of the water. Second Chance. Gerald Bostwich had been sentenced to 20 years in prison, but because of an opportunity to participate in an experiment that could take his life, he could be free once again. The One That Got Away. Lyman Ayres and Timmy were doing some ice fishing at the local pond, and both ran home in horror, coming away with a fish story to top all fish stories. Fairies Wear Boots. Boy Scouts Kevin and Trevor are on a weekend camping trip with their troop when they stumble upon a fairy that leads them through a portal into a world of fairies. Live To Fight Another Day. Led by Jack Squire the Magnificent, the 19th Street Bridge Gang goes to war with a battalion of human size rats, each looking at the other as food. Bull O’ My Heart. Benny was a magnificent bull, but he was also a homosexual that preyed on the younger bulls in the herd. He was tolerated until the day he raped a bull to death. Hot August Night. Newt Griffin was a U.S. Senator from Kansas and in the primary race of his life against a very popular transsexual candidate, and he could lose his long-held seat. Eastbound Through Iowa. Danny was hitchhiking in Nebraska and was picked up by Donnie, a fast-talking thief on the run to Chicago with his victims hot on his trail. What could go wrong? A Fate Worse Than Death. Rachel discovers something on the farm that Jacob had known about for quite some time, and it horrifies her to the point of taking two lives to save them from their horrible existence. Mission of Mercy. A young man's abbreviated life story as a child, describing what it felt like to grow up in a home filled with sadness, violence, and alcoholism. A Moment in Time. It was 1973 when Reggie first fell in love. Not with a girl in his class, but with Ms. Stone, the substitute English teacher at the end of a red clay ribbon of a road. Terror on the Midway. The Carneys were in town for the annual National Date Festival and Steve Jessop, along with Mike Zamudio would be witness to something scarring them forever. Homecoming. Mike Dyer was a fundraiser for the VFW and an alcoholic, spending many nights under a tree drinking behind where he worked, and he had reached the end of his rope. Santa Claus is Coming to Town. It was Christmas Eve in Chicago and there was an ax murderer on the loose. Sam was assembling his daughter’s doll house and drinking brandy when his neighbor came to call. Ten Hail Mary’s in the Morning. Brett and Rebecca meet each other online and go out to dinner for the first time, where he finds out she is more than she appears to be. The Trinity Building. The gargoyles sit atop the ledges, keeping guard over the city, but when Cisco sees them come to life and do the horrible things they do, he questions his sanity.

Epiphany

Synopsis for the Novel Epiphany Thriller/Mystery By Jamey O’Donnell 85,000 Words Epiphany is a modern-day thriller about a young woman (Lizzy-25) and her young son (Stevie-4) who’ve run away from her psychotic husband (Lance-26) in California, who is tracking and chasing them across America to kill them both. The story begins when an old man (Paul-67) rescues Lizzy and Stevie from outside a diner in the middle of the Nevada desert, where they are stranded with no money and no place to go. He is driving back home to Virginia and offers them a ride to a women’s shelter in Denver. While on their way to Denver, Paul takes a liking to Stevie and offers Lizzy a job taking care of his home in exchange for a weekly stipend, along with room and board for them both, which she accepts. As they travel across America, her husband is simultaneously tracking Lizzy and Paul while being funded by his overbearing, but wealthy mother (Mara-46) in Santa Barbara, and neither Lizzy nor Paul is aware they are being followed. Lance is being accompanied by two street thugs (Hector-34, and Jasper-37) from the Skid Row District in L.A., who he has hired to help him, paying them daily in cash, and along the way, he leaves a trail of dead bodies in his search for information. Through his job working for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Lance can determine their destination by running Paul’s license plate and acquiring his home address in Virginia Beach, where he decides to jump ahead and wait for them to implement his attack on Paul’s home. After arriving in Virginia Beach, Lance decides he has gone as far as he can go with his two associates, so he poisons them with fentanyl and steals their bankrolls of cash they’d accumulated, then begins staking out Paul’s home and waits for the perfect opportunity to make his move. An all-points bulletin is issued for Lance’s arrest after one of the people he’s murdered is connected to him, and it’s discovered he’s been hunting his wife and son, with his likely location being now in Virginia Beach. In the story, it’s revealed that throughout Lance’s life, his psychosis is a result of a long-standing sexually abusive relationship with his mother Mara. Paul and Lizzy are notified by the Virginia Beach Police Department that Lance is most likely in their city and their lives are in danger, so they pack up Paul’s Hummer and drive to his cabin outside of Shenandoah State Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains to wait it out until Lance is captured. After murdering an elderly couple who lived across the street from Paul, Lance commandeers their Cadillac and follows Paul, Lizzy, and Stevie incognito to the cabin. It is at the cabin where the story culminates. Lance constructs a homemade bomb, to be exploded outside of the cabin to flush them out, so when he implements his plan and the bomb explodes, catching the cabin on fire, Lance grabs Lizzy and drags her behind the cabin while Paul is preoccupied with putting out the fire. It is behind the cabin where Lance and Lizzy both meet their demise in a horrifying and unexpected death, leaving their son Stevie with Paul to raise as his own. Epiphany is a story filled with murder, mayhem, mystery, debauchery, and intrigue, combined with a love for a little boy that knows no bounds.

Living for the Lamb of God

Synopsis for the Novel Living for the Lamb of God Dystopian Fiction By Jamey O’Donnell 75,000 Words Living for the Lamb of God is the sequel to Hunting for the Lamb of God. The story picks up where the previous book ended, with the residents of New Hope in Cherry Creek State Park now alarmed that their settlement has been discovered, possibly by Hunters. The following evening their fears are realized when the Hunters return in the middle of the night to kill some of them for food, but their attempt is thwarted by an ambush set up by some of the camp’s residents. Three of the Hunters escape, but two of them are killed, leaving behind a highly coveted vehicle the camp had yet to possess and sorely needed. Bill Jenkins and the rest of New Hope then decide they must leave Cherry Creek State Park for a safer location, and Bill suggests Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch in Elbert, 50 miles southeast of their present location, but they must obtain a passenger bus to transport everyone, and now they had a vehicle to search for one. After searching in Downtown Denver and finding nothing in any underground garages, they drive to Boulder and find a bus that hadn’t been fried by the EMP. After loading all of themselves and their possessions onto the bus, they drive to the country and arrive at the scout ranch, reacquainting themselves with Burt, the caretaker for the ranch, and Henry, the ranch superintendent, the only ones left on the ranch besides Henry’s wife and 2 Venture scouts. The residents of New Hope are all welcomed, and they settle into the various cabins on the ranch and pick up where they left off, operating as a commune and trying to live their best lives under the circumstances. A few months pass and some of the men go into Downtown Colorado Springs on the bus to replenish supplies when they are discovered by the Chinese military that is now in-country, and then followed back to the ranch. No contact is made at that time, but a few days later a convoy of Chinese military vehicles led by a U.S. Army vehicle pays the ranch a visit. In the American vehicle, Bill meets up with the two soldiers that accompanied him to his home in Centennial, Sergeants Sanchez, and Halliday from the previous book. It is from them Bill finds out just how bad things are in America, that the country has fallen, and the Chinese are here with impunity to exploit our natural gas and oil resources. The purpose of the visit is to let the camp know they have nothing to fear from the Chinese, but it is also made clear the camp is expected not to interfere with them. One morning soon after, Henry’s wife is discovered barbequed and half-eaten on a fire pit outside of their living quarters a couple of miles from the scout ranch, and Henry is found dead inside by Burt and Bill, obvious victims of Hunters. The residents of Peaceful Valley assume the Hunters must know of their whereabouts, so they prepare themselves for an attack, and once again they rise to the occasion and set up an ambush when they arrive, killing all but one, who escapes into the woods and ends up killing himself. In the following months, Bill and Company perform a rescue of dying families banded together miles away, plus a busload of other families join the settlement as well, bringing their population to over 100. The story ends with the sobering realization that America will never be coming back with over 90% of the population dead, and it is up to them to start civilization over again.

Meth War: Lost in Felony Flats

Synopsis for the Novel Meth War: Lost in Felony Flats Contemporary Horror By Jamey O’Donnell 75,000 Words In 1993, the San Bernardino Valley became ground zero for a plethora of torture and murder. The Satanic Underground proclaimed war on the independent meth cooks and their associates, reclaiming their rightful place as the sole manufacturers of high-powered methamphetamine distributed and sold to the drug populace, turning human beings into soulless ghouls of the night that would do anything to satisfy their craving for the devil’s drug Meth War: Lost in Felony Flats begins with the discovery of Butch Holland’s tortured dead body in the dried-up Santa Ana riverbed by Jimbo Wheaton, a local meth junkie. Butch had been spam-keyed, torture consisting of using a key you’d find on a can of spam or sardines to peel off the skin in long strips, causing extreme pain to the victim and making him wish for death. He also had the letters B O H I C A written in magic marker on his forehead. Jimbo confided in his friend, Dirty Dick Mueller, an old repo man and motorcycle club member. After recounting what Jimbo had seen in the riverbed, it brought Dirty Dick back to his memories of being part of an ultra-elite kill squad during the Vietnam war, remembering seeing that same torture method and those same letters written on the forehead of one of his fellow soldiers he’d found dead in the tall grass of the jungle so many years ago. As the story progresses, Detectives Malmberg and Walker are introduced because they are assigned to the string of bodies turning up throughout the San Bernardino Valley, all with the telltale abuse displayed on Butch Holland, but their hands were tied in solving the murders because no forensic evidence had been left at the scene of the crimes, nor was the media allowed access to any information regarding the murders, keeping the murders under wraps, and the orders came down straight from the top. The one thing all the deceased had in common was their participation in the methamphetamine game. All of them were either independent cooks or distributors of the drug and were being methodically murdered by the Satanic Underground, led by Jason Otterbeck, known as the Darkman. This was done to eliminate the competition and reclaim the methamphetamine market. When Jimbo discovers his girlfriend/truck stop hooker/meth dealer Beautiful Loser in a Fontana motel room after being beaten to death, he enlists the help of Dirty Dick and goes to Dick’s cabin in the mountains to clean up from the meth and hide out. While up there, Jimbo has a psychic change and decides he wants to quit meth for good, then leaves the cabin and checks into a 30-day rehab. Toward the end of the story, it is revealed that Detective Walker had an involvement with one of the dead cooks and was smuggling meth into the San Bernardino County Jail. When discovered by The Darkman, Walker is made a proposition he can’t fulfill, so he sells his home, quits the force, buys a home in Belize, and moves himself and his wife there to retire and escape from The Darkman’s clutches, only to be met by some of The Darkman’s subservients while fishing out on his boat, where he is drowned by them. The story ends with The Satanic Underground reclaiming the methamphetamine market and none of the murders ever being solved. “Meth War is actually terrifying in ways that lends itself to a new spin on horror. It’s one of those books that when you put it down, you make excuses why you shouldn’t pick it up again, but it haunts you until you do. These are modern day vampires and meth is what is craved. The closest to realism that I’ve read since reading true homicide detective stories. Jamey O’Donnell is an awesome storyteller” Buddy Dow-Author House