"It knows when you've been good.

It knows when you've been bad...and it will make you pay.

Beware the All-Seeing Eye of Og.

No bad deed will go unpunished."

Written for this year's Open Novella Contest, The All-Seeing Eye of Og, by KellyJBurke is based on Prompt 47 in the Horror section.

"A mysterious statue of an eye appears in a sleepy town. Nobody knows where it came from, but it seems to change locations every night when nobody is watching. One day, it appears on your front door."

The story opens in 1976, with a scene of violent destruction in a small village deep in the Amazon jungle. Madness appears to have taken over the inhabitants, who turn on each other in a frenzy. One child, Bushika, is the sole survivor as she flees from the malevolent intruder, a pillar of black, topped by a black eye wreathed in white.

Skip forward to the present and a small American country town called Harwood. The citizens wake to discover a strange statue has appeared in town, a black pillar, topped by an eye, and wherever it appears, violent death follows. Some people say it is a sign from God, sent to punish sinners and persuade people to return to the path of righteousness. Others aren't so sure, it's amazing what myths you can find on the internet...

What lifts this story above your average slaughter tale, is the wonderful characterization, the attention to detail Kelly takes to build his characters and the town they live in. From the drunken ramblings of Humphrey as he staggers down the street, swearing at his neighbours, to Faith's teenage fumblings with her would-be boyfriend, Harwood comes alive for the reader. And then there's old-time farmer Ned Young and his family, who decide that maybe the statue can provide cover for some sabotage of their own.

But as the deaths mount up, it seems that not only the bad are being punished.

Can anyone, or anything, vanquish the Eye, before there is no-one left to save?

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Shortlisted for the ONC 2021, you can click here to find the story, The All-Seeing Eye of Og, by KellyJBurke.

And to read my interview with the author, Kelly J Burke, in our Adult Fiction Interview book, click here.