Quickening

Rachel and Dan are in love, expecting their first child, and still grieving the sudden death of a close friend when Dan surprises Rachel with a honeymoon at a luxury resort in Antigua. The island is beautiful and the resort immaculate, but almost immediately Rachel senses something is wrong. Furniture seems to move on its own, a waitress begs her to leave, and a fellow guest's presence unsettles her in ways she can't explain.

When the waitress is found dead in the hotel grounds, Rachel's unease turns to fear. She wants to leave, but Dan has reasons of his own for wanting to stay, and Rachel starts to question not just the resort, but the man she just married.

A short, tense novella written for Hammer, The Quickening blends domestic anxiety with supernatural dread, tracking a pregnant woman's growing conviction that the place — and possibly her husband — cannot be trusted.