Christopher Barilli’s ‘Shaken’ in WordCrafter Press’ Midnight Roost Anthology

I asked fellow Midnight Roost anthology contributors to share some things about themselves prior to publication and those generous enough to do so will be appearing here for the next week or so.

Each entry gives a taste of their contribution, a little about them, how to contact them, how their story came about, and definitely a link to Midnight Roost (which you should purchase because it would make each and every one of us happy.
you do want to make us happy, don’t you?
i mean, considering what we wrote, you want us to know you’re a good person, right?).

Let’s start with a Hallowe’en-themed introduction to the anthology as a whole:

Christopher’s contribution is Shaken. Here’s the opening:

The crying started at one-thirty a.m., but Misty was already wide-awake. She’d been on the losing end of a staring contest with the red LED on her baby monitor, convinced she wouldn’t hear little Sammy if he cried. Yet when the cries came, she not only heard, but knew they weren’t from Sammy.

How the story came about:
This story was born from a news story I heard on the radio many years ago, a story about a couple who was picking up another baby’s crying in another state on their own baby monitor. That story spawned an idea for a whole novel, actually, about people who follow random radio signals on their monitor and are swept up in a terrifying murder plot, involving their own child. That novel may still come out someday, but I was writing a different full-length work at the time, so I went with the short story version. Thus, shaken was born.

About Chris Barili:
When not oppressed by his day job, Chris Barii writes all kinds of stories, and has published fantasy, science fiction, horror, western, paranormal romance, and most recently crime, with a noir story in the inaugural print edition of Toe Six Magazine. He is author of the self-published, weird western Hell’s Butcher series, and also writes under the pen names B.T. Clearwater (Supernatural romance) and T.C. Barlow (western). He sold his first novel, a supernatural romance called Smothered, to Permuted Press in 2016, and in 2019, his fantasy novel Shadow Blade debuted from WordFire Press. Chris lives in Colorado. You can find/follow him on his website, Facebook: authorchrisbarili and Twitter: @Authorchrisbarili
Buy Shadow Blade.

See all Midnight Roost stories here.