Read an Excerpt from The Entity

Valancourt Books is a small publisher that takes on important task of reviving rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction. Many of their titles have been made into cult horror films and we wanted to share with Daily Dead readers an excerpt from The Entity. Released by Frank De Felitta in 1978, it's probably better known as the 1982 film that starred Barbara Hershey. Here's a look at an excerpt novel, along with the new cover art, and the movie trailer:

"Based on documented real-life events that happened to a California woman in 1974, Frank De Felitta’s provocative and disturbing novel The Entity (1978) is a classic of occult literature. Like De Felitta’s Audrey Rose (1975), which sold more than 2.5 million copies, The Entity was a worldwide bestseller, and was also adapted for a 1982 film starring Barbara Hershey. This edition features a new introduction by Gemma Files."

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Entity by Frank De Felitta:

"The house was deathly quiet. It seemed to her the whole world was asleep. This was what she remembered thinking—before it happened.

One moment Carlotta was brushing her hair. The next she was on the bed, seeing stars. Some knock, like being hit by a charging fullback, plummeted her across the room and onto the bed. In a blank mind, she realized that the pillows were suddenly around her head. Then they were smashed down over her face.

Caught between breaths, Carlotta panicked. The pillow was being pushed down, harder and harder. The cotton was being shoved into her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. The force of the pillow was awful. It was forcing her head down deep into the mattress. In the darkness Carlotta thought she was going to die.

It was instinct that made her arms grab the pillow, punch up over it, twist her head violently side to side. It was an instantaneous eternity. It lasted a lifetime, but too short a time to think. She was fighting for her life. A yellow heat swam in front of her eyes. The pillow covered her entire face, her eyes, her mouth, her nose, and her flailing arms couldn’t budge it. Her chest was near bursting.
Her body must have been thrashing without her knowing it, because now it was grabbed and grabbed hard.

Carlotta was sinking into helpless death but she felt huge hands on her knees, her legs, the inside of her legs, her legs which were pried apart, pulled wide and open, far apart, and then some knowledge floated like a shot up through her consciousness and she understood and it filled her with energy. It filled her with a savage strength. She bucked and kicked. Her arms flailed, and when she bucked again to kick, to kill if she had to, a searing pain ripped through her lower back, rendering her powerless. Her legs were spread, pinned onto the bed far apart, and, like a pole, a rough, crude post, this thing entered her, distended her, forced its way into her until there was no stopping, just a thrust of pain. Carlotta felt ripped apart inside. She felt herself being torn apart in repeated thrusts. It was the crudest weapon, repulsive, agonizing. It was ramming its way home. Her whole body was sinking into the mattress, pressed down, pushed down by this ramming weight which was turning her into a piece of raw meat. Carlotta jerked her face, her nose felt air, her mouth gasped and sucked in oxygen at the side of the pillow.

There was a scream. It was Carlotta’s scream. The pillow was smashed back into her face. This time she could feel the imprint of a huge hand, its fingers pressing through onto her eyes, over her nose and mouth.

Carlotta sank into darkness. She had seen nothing. Only the far wall—not even that, only its vague color through the sparks and spirals which danced before her eyes—before the pillow had been thrust back onto her. So she sank, her strength ebbing. Carlotta was dying. She would be dead soon. Already darkness was growing and pain mounted over her and was unconquerable. Was she dead?

The light was on overhead. The main light. Billy was at the door. His eyes were staring out of their sockets. Carlotta bolted upright, sweating, looking at Billy with glazed eyes.

Carlotta looked around. Now she understood the worst thing of all: There was no one else in the room."