Birdwatcher 2 is the sequel to the 2022 novel of the popular American horror multimedia franchise, centered on a short TV program Birdwatcher (2019), created by Ann Greyson, that includes cinematic book trailers, and collectible, story-driven images. The 2024 novel explores the demonic possession of the spirit of Abigail Wincoff and a Jesuit priest, Claude Bonanni, who is recruited by Gillian Wincoff to exercise the demon haunting a cabin in the Poconos. Part thriller and part ghost story, this novel has past tense writing, short (five-or-six-page) chapters, and third-person point-of-viewpoints.
April 2017. When preparing the cabin on Wagon Trail Road in East Stroudsburg for visiting tourists, the demon rouses the spirit of Abigail Wincoff to project astral images terrorizing the new owner, Don McKinney. He ends up in an accident caused by the demons that lands him in a hospital.
Joey Marks is in the best spirits since plotting and carrying out a murder in the Adirondacks. That is until Detective Philip Silverwood, from the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department, and a team of local police officers show up asking questions about Marks at his winery workplace in the Napa Valley of California. Marks gives the police the slip and goes to his bank to retrieve cash and fake ID from his safe-deposit box. He then stops off at a library, where he accesses a computer. He searches the Internet to learn about the investigation of the girl he killed in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He learns her name is Abigail Wincoff and that her body was found buried under a rental cabin. His only conclusion is that Estelle Rowland, the pesky, odd-looking waitress at the Victoria Station of The Stroud Inn, the only one who noticed him, reported him watching Abigail at the restaurant to the police.
Gillian Wincoff returns to the Poconos to visit and thank Andy Kirkman, the former Monroe County Sheriff, for his work on the case of her murdered daughter. Before leaving the Poconos, she visits the cabin on Wagon Trail Road, where Abby’s body had been found and immediately feels a strange presence there. She hears the soft singing of "Little Bunny Foo Foo," her daughter’s last favorite song to sing. When she looks up, she sees the figure of a girl in the attic window. As if in a trance, Gillian can’t turn away from the red eyes of the ghostlike entity. Then Gillian cries and runs away in fear.
Detective Philip Silverwood and a team of local police officers search Joey Marks’ last known residence in California. Evidence is found linking Marks to the murder of three girls, but nothing links him to the killing of Abigail Wincoff. The police also find newspaper articles printed from the Internet about the cold case murder of Randee Rae Devereux solved by the former Monroe County Sheriff Andy Kirkman. Suspicions arise as to who Joey Marks really is.
Meanwhile, Gillian is extending her stay in the Poconos and is determined to get to the bottom of it all. She contacts the Clean As A Whistle agency and gets information on Don McKinney, the owner of the cabin. Gillian visits him in the hospital. McKinney is in a hospital bed recuperating from his injuries and tells her to stay away from the cabin because there are demons there. Next, Gillian visits Millie Dozier, the maid the Clean As A Whistle agency sent to clean that cabin. A skeptical Dozier tells Gillian that indeed she felt the presence of a spirit at the cabin, is too terrified to return there, and wants no part in it. Instead, she refers her to Claude Bonanni, the Reverend at the Church of Saint Luke, her Catholic parish, believing he will help her. Gillian visits the church and informs Bonanni about the demon presence in the cabin. And how she worries that the immortality of her daughter’s spirit is in jeopardy.
Living on the run, Joey Marks has died his hair blond, stolen a Jeep from the parking lot at the San Francisco International Airport, and has returned to the Poconos for revenge. And, to match his hair, he has taken on a gay persona as a cover. His angst is in overdrive as he stalks Estelle Rowland, waiting in the parking lot of Victoria Station, and following her to her home. In the dark of night, Estelle exits her car in the parking lot near her trailer, and Marks grabs her from behind, intent on killing her. In the struggle, Estelle’s black horn-rimmed glasses fall from her face to the ground as she pulls the diamond-studded hair stick from the top of her head, and then stabs him in the hand with it. Weird that he is, childhood memories of being bullied surface as Marks is not used to women fighting back. He insults Estelle and cowardly runs off. Unfortunately, Estelle can’t identify her attacker to the police because it was too dark, in addition to her being near-sighted.
Before fleeing to Canada, Joey Marks decides to visit the cabin on Wagon Trail Road for nostalgia. He sees a little girl in the attic window. Then the front door of the cabin mysteriously opens on its own. The astral projection of Abigail Wincoff is lying on the floor of the living room. Marks approaches and the demon appears in full vigor. Marks takes backward steps to the basement door to escape, and the demon pushes him down the steps, breaking his neck. He is lying on the floor at the foot of the steps, slowly dying.
Shortly thereafter, Gillian Wincoff arrives at the cabin and sees the demon floating in the air above the body of Joey Marks on the basement floor. She pleads with the demon to release Abby’s spirit. Sensing the arrival of Claude Bonanni, the demon retreats, releases the spirit of Abigail Wincoff, and takes over the spirit of Joey Marks, just as he dies. The glowing portal to heaven light beam appears and Gillian convinces Abby to go to the light, telling her that one day she’ll be with Abby there, in a happier place.
Five minutes later, Bonanni arrives at the cabin, tossing around holy water as he walks through the front door. Upon seeing Gillian, she tells him all that transpired, and he calls the police. Because Bonanni does not feel the presence of the demon, believing the spirit has gone to another realm, he and Gillian agree not to mention anything about evil spirits to the police. Silverwood arrives and clears Gillian of any wrongdoing, encouraging her to return to her home in New Jersey. Oddly enough, Silverwood believes Marks just fell down the stairs accidentally.
Birdwatcher 2 ends with the impression that the demon is present and still haunting the cabin. As Silverwood starts to open the door of his car to leave, he sees the curtain move in a window in the cabin. Then he sees a civilian-dressed man disappear around the corner of the cabin. When Silverwood walks over to that part of the cabin, he remembers that is the location of the basement where Joey Marks had buried Abigail Wincoff under the floorboard. The man Silverwood saw walking earlier is nowhere he can see. Additionally, BRC TV13 Anchorwoman and reporter Kristi Maratos and her news team are outside the rental cabin. She reports the body of suspected serial killer Joey Marks has been found there. Her cameraman, Morris Miller, shoots the surrounding woods and cabin capturing the image of Joey Marks walking around in the background.
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(Honorable Mention 2024 Author Shout Reader Ready Awards)
When twelve-year-old Abigail Wincoff vanishes in the woods while birdwatching outside the cabin she was staying with her parents, the police suspect foul play. Abigail’s spirit doesn’t cross over and is left to haunt the cabin where she devises a plan to obtain closure to her life that was cut short in murder.
(Gold Award in Horror and Gold Regional Award: Mid-Atlantic and Finalist - 2022-2023 Reader Views Reviewer’s Choice Awards), (Silver Book Award 2022 The Literary Titan Book Awards), (LitPick Top Choice Award 2022) and (Third Place in Paranormal - Speak Up Talk Radio 2022 Firebird Book Awards) - Thanks to Patricia J. Rullo and a panel of 25 judges!
When a crash-landing in Tanzania, Africa unleashes a havoc-wreaking spirit that has been plaguing the Chagga for nearly 200 years, a petite feline-like extraterrestrial who just wants to find her way home is bound by prophecy to end the curse.
(Recommended Read 2022 Author Shout Reader Ready Awards) and (Silver Book Award 2021 The Literary Titan Book Awards)
More than 400 years after being driven from her home in Transylvania to Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, a mysterious and lonely vampire meets a nursing assistant searching for something more. After turning her into a vampire, the two must juggle self-discovery, suspicious neighbors, and a relentless werewolf determined to find all escapees from so long ago.
(Recommended Read 2021 Author Shout Reader Ready Awards), (Second Place - 184 votes 2021 Author Shout Cover Wars), and (First Place in Paranormal - Speak Up Talk Radio 2021 Firebird Book Awards) - Thanks to Patricia J. Rullo and a panel of 12 judges!
AVAILABLE AT: Carroll County Public Library, Maryland, Eldersburg Branch Library; Montgomery County Public Libraries, Maryland, Gaithersburg Library; Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Maryland, Hyattsville Branch and North Country Library System, New York, Norwood Library
When a world-wide virus brings the dead to life suspiciously close to the end of the Mayan calendar, a computer-scientist keeps a video diary as she works for and safely lives within the walls of a company trying to develop a vaccine, and as she waits for her nineteen-year-old sister to make a dangerous journey from San Antonio, Texas to be with her in New Mexico.
(Finalist in Books for Teenagers - 2021 Wishing Shelf Book Awards - Thanks to Edward Trayer / Billy Bob Buttons and the children from 10 United Kingdom primary and secondary schools for a score of over 25 points) and (Third Place in General Fiction - TCK Publishing’s 2020 Reader’s Choice Awards - Thanks to readers and Tom Corson-Knowles)
AVAILABLE AT: Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Maryland, Hyattsville Branch and Porterville Public Library, Porterville, California