Post by Chris Hedges on Sept 3, 2010 15:01:00 GMT -6
Not too long ago I was writing a story called “Big Dog”, and in the tale a writer was trying to get a story into an anthology based on the fiction of a deceased author. I got to thinking, “What if all the writers who appeared in that anthology started dying…in the exact order their stories appear in the table of contents?” I was pretty excited by the idea, and then I thought, “Well, I know a lot of writers from the various boards, maybe I could get them to participate.” I wasn’t sure of the response I would get. I mean I was basically asking, “Hey, can I kill you?” Fictionally speaking of course, but still. I sent out a lot of emails and private messages, and I was stunned by the positive reactions I got. People were lining up to let me kill them. I only had one person decline my request. And thus “Table of Contents” was born. I had a blast writing it, and I’m hoping everyone who reads it has fun.
When Shane Nelson returned home from the post office, the house felt especially empty. He had grown accustomed to the barely controlled chaos of having one year old twins rampaging around all the time. His wife, Jolene, had taken the kids to her folks’ farm near Humboldt for the weekend, leaving Shane alone. At first he’d really enjoyed the peace and quiet, but all too soon he found himself missing his little family. Especially at a time like this, when he had something he so desperately wanted to share with Jo.
Sitting out on the deck, he ignored the blazing sunset and instead stared down at the package in his hands. He’d known it was on its way, but he hadn’t expected it to arrive so soon. Postage from the States to Canada usually took a bit longer. But here it was, and he was eager to tear into it.
Yet he hesitated. He’d sort of imagined Jo being here for this, and it felt somehow wrong to open the package without her. But she and the kids wouldn’t be back for another day and a half. He didn’t think he could wait that long.
But maybe he wouldn’t have to.
Hurrying inside, Shane snatched up the phone and called the Worms’ family farm, hoping Jo wasn’t out somewhere. His mother-in-law answered, and after wading impatiently through five minutes of chitchat about the weather, she finally put Jo on the line.
“Get on the computer,” Shane said without preamble or greeting.
“What?”
“Get on the computer. I’m going to Skype you.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you, I have to show you.”
“Is it G-rated? I am at my parents’ house, remember.”
Shane laughed. “That’s it, I want to Skype so you can watch me rub one off.”
“Such romantic things you say,” Jo said with a giggle of her own.
“Seriously, will you get online? There’s something you just have to see.”
“Sure, just give me a few minutes.”
Hanging up, Shane went to his computer and opened the Internet browser, quickly scrolling through his contacts list until he found Jo. In less than a minute he and his wife were connected and he was staring at her face on the computer screen, while at the farm she was staring at his face on her screen. She was smiling that infectious smile of hers, and in the background he saw Tristan chasing Kyra around the room, both kids screaming and laughing.
“So you’ve built up enough suspense,” Jo said, her voice a bit distant and tinny through the computer speakers. “What is it you want to show me?”
Shane didn’t answer, at least not with words. Instead, he just held up the package in front of the tiny webcam.
Jo stared blankly through the screen for a moment, then comprehension dawned in her eyes and her entire face lit up. “Is that it?”
“Well, it was sent from Moosup, Connecticut. Can’t imagine what else it could be.”
“Why haven’t you opened it yet?”
“I didn’t want to do it without you. Figured this way you’ll at least be present for the big moment…sort of.”
“Okay, extra points for sweetness. That’ll earn you a big smooch when I get home.”
The kids had wandered over to their mother and had apparently just noticed Shane on the screen because they started jumping up and down, Kyra clapping her hands and exclaiming, “Daddy!” Jo picked them up and put them on her lap, one on each leg. Tristan kept putting his hands on the computer screen, as if he could crawl right through the machine and into his father’s arms.
“The whole family’s present,” Jo said, trying to keep Tristan from banging on the keys and inadvertently breaking the connection. “So open it already.”
The package was sealed with ample amounts of packing tape, and he used his thumbnail to loosen one edge of the tape, slowly peeling it up, savoring the moment.
On the screen, Jo rolled her eyes. “Shane, think less striptease and more kid on Christmas morning.”
Taking the hint, Shane ripped the tape the rest of the way off, the flaps of the package popping open and exploding out those annoying Styrofoam peanuts. They went all over Shane’s lap and the floor, and the sight of such a mess would normally have driven him crazy, neat-freak that he was, but at the moment he didn’t care. He’d tidy up later; for now, he just wanted to get to the prize inside the box.
Reaching in, sending more peanuts cascading like oversized confetti to his feet, he pulled out the object he’d been waiting for.
A book.
But not just any book. Feast of Blood, edited by Tom Moran. An anthology of short stories based on late author Greg Nigel’s popular Vampire Feast series.
“Let me see, let me see,” Jo said.
Shane held up the book so his wife could get a good look at the cover, which depicted a blonde man with ice-chip blue eyes and an angular face, just the hint of fangs poking out as he smiled, his lips an unnatural red. The Vampire Sullivan, Greg Nigel’s immortal character.
On the screen, the kids were squirming in Jo’s arms, so she let them down to run amuck. “Shane, I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks. I just still can’t believe I have a story in here.”
“And why not? You’re not going to start in with all that insecure crap again, are you?”
“No, it’s just…I mean, most of the writers who contributed to this anthology have published multiple novels and won awards. My biggest thing is I sold my story ‘Beer Money’ to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and the issue hasn’t even come out yet.”
“Well, obviously the editor thought your story was good enough or he wouldn’t have—”
Jo’s voice cut out. And so did the computer. And the lights. And the air conditioner.
Power outage.
“Damn it,” Shane muttered, getting slowly to his feet. The last of the day had bled out over the horizon, so he found himself in near complete darkness. He felt along like a blind man, making his way to the shelf where he kept a flashlight, just hoping the batteries had enough juice in them. The beam was weak but it was better than nothing. He’d have to check the fuse box and—
Shane’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone banging on the front door. It startled him, causing him to drop the flashlight. He heard the lens shatter and the weak light died out altogether. Grumbling, Shane started slowly from the room, the glass from the flashlight lens crunching under his shoes. An awfully inconvenient time for a visitor.
Probably just one of the neighbors, he thought. Whole street’s probably out and someone needs to borrow a flashlight or some candles.
Shane was thinking he could use some of that himself as he stumbled through the house, barking his shin on the edge of the coffee table. The pounding stopped just as Shane put his hand on the doorknob. Opening the front door, he stepped out onto the porch.
Onto the empty porch.
Frowning, Shane scanned his lawn. Whoever had been knocking hadn’t had time to run off, and yet there was no one in sight. Maybe they had scampered around the side of the house, but why?
Must be kids, playing a round of Doorbell Ditch. Shane wondered if they were also responsible for his power outage. Now that he was outside, he could clearly see lights shining through the windows of the nearby homes, so it wasn’t a neighborhood-wide problem. It was just him.
Stepping back inside the house, Shane closed the door…and after a brief consideration, locked it. He felt silly, like all those horror movies and books he’d grown up on were starting to pollute his brain, making him view life like some slasher flick.
When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he made his way to the mantel, where there were two tapered candles in brass holders. Really just there for the aesthetic value they added to the room, but he and Jo kept a book of matches next to them in case they were ever needed. Which they were tonight.
Scratching a match across the strip on the back of the matchbook, a tiny orange flame flared to life, the stinging stench of sulfur almost pleasing in Shane’s nostrils. He touched the flame to the wick of each candle, a warm glow suffusing the room. Distantly, he heard his cell phone ringing at the back of the house. He’d left it by the computer, and Jo was probably calling to see why the connection had been lost. She was a bit of a worrier, and Shane kicked himself for not calling her right away to explain.
Taking one of the candles, careful not to drip hot wax on his hand, he started back through the house. He wouldn’t make it to the phone before the call kicked over to voicemail, but he’d call Jo right back to ease her concern. And maybe help alleviate some of his uneasiness to boot.
Shane paused suddenly in mid-step, one foot actually hanging in the air as if he’d been frozen in place, the candle flame flickering but fluttering but not extinguishing. The sliding glass door onto the deck had caught his attention, and he stared at it with a puzzled frown. The door was not completely closed, a one inch gap through which a warm breeze wafted, caressing Shane’s skin like ghostly fingers.
Had he not shut the door all the way when he’d come back inside to call Jo earlier? He had been in a hurry, so it was possible he’d simply been careless and not mad sure the door latched.
He slammed the door shut now and turned the lock, gazing out at the night, looking for furtive movement or shadowy figures. More silliness, and yet it didn’t feel so silly. He was suddenly more anxious than ever to get to his phone.
The ringing had stopped, but he hurried into the room he considered his “office” at the very back of the house. He’d left the phone on the desk right by the computer, he was sure of it…
And yet when he reached for it, it wasn’t there.
Strange, he could have sworn this was where he’d put it. He held the candle high above his head to cast the widest net of light and scanned the desktop, looking along the floor in case it fell off the desk. It had to be around here somewhere; he’d just heard it ringing a minute ago and—
—and there it was again, the ringing of his phone.
Only now it seemed to be coming from the front of the house.
Shane felt a chill work its way up his spine like a spider crawling up his back. He hesitated for a moment, feeling rooted to the spot, his mind full of chaos and yet empty at the same time, certainly incapable of rational thought. He knew he’d heard the phone back here a few moments ago, and now he was hearing it somewhere else. That could mean only one thing. Someone had moved it; Shane was not alone in the house.
Moving slowly, trying not to make any noise, he crept out of the room into the hallway, glancing back toward the front of the house…where the front door was now standing wide open to the night.
“Fuck!” he muttered to himself. He knew he’d locked the door, and no one had a key but himself and Jo. And no way was she playing a practical joke on him. Not only was it not her style, but he’d just been Skyping with her at her parents’ farms hours away.
Shane quickly ran through his options, and one thing seemed clear. He needed to get out of the house. Get to a neighbor’s, ask to use the phone. The house had no back door, only the front door and the door to the deck, so in order to get out he was going to have to go forward.
Unless, of course, he crawled out a window. But that would be possibly the unmanliest thing he could possibly do in this situation.
From the living room, Shane heard what sounded like footsteps and a man clearing his throat and he immediately ducked back into his office. Fuck manliness, he was crawling out the window. This situation seemed like a horror movie, but it wasn’t. In the movies, characters always did the dumb thing, heading straight into danger instead of hightailing it out of harm’s way. Shane wasn’t a character in a horror movie, and he was going to be smart. Bravery was for western novels and war movies. Truth was, cowardice usually saved lies.
Placing the candle on the desk next to his copy of Feast of Blood, Shane went to one of the room’s windows that looked out onto the backyard. Somewhere out there he heard his degus chattering in their cage, but all else was quiet. He slowly started pushing the window up in its track. It wanted to stick halfway up, but he jimmied it until it finally slid the rest of the way with minimum noise.
Looking back toward the door to the hallway, ensuring he was still alone, He threw one leg over the window sill the ducked his head down and out. The property was on a slight incline, so the ground floor windows at the back of the house were several feet above the ground. Shane dropped, landing on his feet with his knees bent, sending a slight jolt up his shins.
Keeping his head down, he started making his way around toward the side of the house. He was moving at a fairly fast pace, and when he turned the corner slammed right into the figure waiting there.
“Boo,” the shadowy stranger said even as Shane rebounded off him and landed on his ass. He was just a silhouette, Shane getting just the impression of blonde hair and a smile that seemed to shine in the darkness. As the figure advanced, Shane began crab-walking backward on his elbows, kicking at the dirt with his feet. He wasn’t making much progress, and the intruder was towering over him, reaching down.
Shane opened his mouth to scream, hoping to alert the neighbors, but suddenly the man over him grabbed his throat and squeezed, cutting off his air supply. He gasped and tried to suck in some oxygen, but the grip was vise-like and was crushing his windpipe.
With a strength that almost seemed inhuman, the intruder lifted Shane from the ground with one hand, not stopping until Shane’s feet dangled an inch above the ground. Bright spots of color exploded like a fireworks display in front of his eyes as his brain was deprived of air. He beat at the intruders hands, scratching at them, trying to dislodge the hold, but though he drew blood, the man did not loosen his grip.
Desperation kicking in as he felt his consciousness slipping, Shane began kicking out at the intruder, trying to land a foot square in the guy’s balls. He wasn’t able to manage that, but he did plant a couple of solid kicks to the man’s knees, and yet he showed no reaction, not even a grunt of pain.
Shane tried again to scream, but all that came out was a faint hissing rattle. A death rattle, he thought. The hand that was clamped on his throat began to squeeze harder, more and more pressure being applied, and just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he heard something crunch.
***
Tom Moran was up in his attic studio drawing.
Well, he was trying to draw. What he was actually doing was just sitting there, staring blankly at the half-completed sketch with the pen poised above the paper. An outside observer would have thought he was one of those living statues. He had been that way for the past five minutes and showed no signs of moving any time soon.
Although his body seemed frozen, the gears in his brain were working overtime, clicking and grinding and spinning. He needed to focus on this drawing, which was to be the artwork for the cover of a new Kurt Newton book that was already overdue to be sent to the printer, but all he could think about was Shane Nelson.
Tom had never met the man in person, but he’d been introduced to Nelson’s writing through another author in the Sideshow Press arsenal of talent, and Tom had been more than happy to include Nelson’s story, “Blood Bank,” in Feast of Blood. In fact, he’d been so impressed by it that he’d opened the anthology with the wickedly funny tale.
And then the news earlier in the week that Nelson had been murdered. Apparently a botched home invasion, and the writer had been strangled with such force that it had crushed his windpipe and snapped his neck. A violent and gruesome end for the promising young talent. And a bitter irony that his death coincided with the release of the anthology.
The ringing of the phone downstairs brought Tom out of his morbid reverie. Giving his head a vigorous shake, he put pen back to paper and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Nelson’s murder was tragic, without question, but it wasn’t as if he’d really known the man beyond a string of emails and two phone calls. There was no need for Tom to obsess over this to the point that he let his work suffer. He had a publishing company to run, art projects he was committed to, not to mention his own writing he wanted to get back to someday. And all this in addition to his day job as a teacher and his familial obligations to his wife Billie and their three kids (soon to be four, as Billie was pregnant yet again). He simply didn’t have the time to invest in mourning the death of a virtual stranger. It was unfortunate, yes, and he would definitely be sending his sympathy to Nelson’s wife and kids, but there was no need to let it consume him.
Tom was just starting to get back into his groove with the drawing when Billie walked into the studio without knocking, which wasn’t like her. She typically did not like to interrupt her husband when he was working, especially when she knew he was struggling with a deadline that was already past.
“What’s up?” Tom said without looking up from the drawing. He was afraid that if he paused again, he’d be shot for the rest of the day.
When Billie didn’t answer right away, Tom looked up…and immediately let the pen fall from his fingers. Billie looked terrible, her complexion sallow and her eyes wide and glassy. She held her hands over her just-starting-to-protrude stomach as if trying to shield their unborn child from the harsh realities of the world.
Tom was on his feet instantly. “What’s wrong? Who was that on the phone?”
Billie blinked twice, slowly, as if just coming out of a daze. “Uhm, it was Catherine Hallock.”
“Who?”
“You know, Doug’s…the woman who lived with Doug.”
Ah, Doug Wright, another Canadian author Tom worked with on a semi-regular basis. Their relationship went back years, Tom having given Doug his first U.S. publication in Black Ink, the horror digest-type magazine that he and Billie produced. They’d also published Doug’s book Boogaloos last year as part of their First Cut series. In fact, Doug had a story in the new anthology and—
It took Tom’s brain a moment to catch up, but Billie’s use of the past tense finally registered with him. “What do you mean, lived with? Did he and Catherine break up?”
Billie shook her head, and she seemed near tears. She tried to speak, couldn’t, swallowed hard as if she had something lodged in her throat and tried again. “Tom, Doug’s…I don’t know how…I can’t wrap my head around…”
“For God’s sake, Billie, just spit it out,” Tom said much more stridently than he normally talked to his wife. And it wasn’t her inability to get the words out that had him so on edge; it was his sudden certain knowledge that he didn’t want to hear them once she did.
“Doug’s dead,” she said, confirming her husband’s worst fears.
Tom actually found himself laughing, not because what Billie said was funny but because it was so unbelievable.
“Catherine said she’d been out shopping, and when she got back home… Oh, Tom, she said it was just awful. That his eyes had been gouged out, his…well, his penis had been sliced off and put in his mouth. Someone had done a real number on him.”
Tom realized that he was on his stool again, though he didn’t remember sitting back down. He felt numb, almost adrift as if he weren’t entirely inside his own body. A defense mechanism perhaps, something to try to keep the full shock and pain at bay. Doug had been a true gentleman, they’d had many great conversations and he had a writing style that was gothic and sophisticated. It was inconceivable that the man was gone.
Two. That made two writers from the anthology that had been murdered, within a matter of days of each other. What was the world coming to when—
“Jesus Christ!” Tom gasped, his mind making a connection that sent chills up his spine like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day.
“What is it?” Billie asked.
Not answering, Tom rushed across the studio to a table on which sat several copies of Feast of Blood waiting to be mailed out. He grabbed one and opened it to the table of contents. Holding the book out to his wife, he said, “Fuck me twice, look at this!”
Billie scanned the page. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Billie, look. I mean, really look.”
And she did, a small frown of puzzlement twisting her lips, but then her mind apparently made the same connection Tom’s already had, and she backed away from the book thrust before her with a hand clutching at her chest. “Oh Tom, what does it mean?”
Looking back down at the anthology’s table of contents, Tom’s eyes were drawn to the first two entries. “Blood Bank” by Shane Nelson and “Only as Old as You Feel” by Douglas E. Wright.
***
Shawna Knight poked her head into the detached garage her husband used as an office/rec room and said, “Brian, honey, Tom’s on the phone for you.”
Brian groaned aloud, staring down at the laptop in front of him with obvious frustration. “I’m just not up to talking to him right now. Could you tell him I’m out or in the shower or something?”
Shawna stepped into the garage, smiling mischievously. “Already taken care of. Told him you went bowling with some of your buddies.”
“Bowling?” Brian said with a laugh. “I haven’t been bowling since I was a kid.”
“Well, I had a feeling you weren’t in the conversation mood and that was the first excuse that popped into my head.”
“Bless you.”
“He did say to tell you to call him as soon as you got back in, that it was rather urgent.”
Another groan. “I’m sure he wants a progress report on the novella.”
“Still struggling?”
Brian nodded, running a hand through his hair, thinking how there was much less of it than there was just a year ago. He was well past the deadline to turn in They Call Us Monsters, a semi-sequel of sorts to his stories 1200 AM Live and the more recent The Avian, but the thing had proven a bitch to write. And now that it was finally completed, the revision was proving to be every bit as big a bitch. Tom was being awfully understanding about the whole thing, but Brian figured there was only so long the publisher could wait before he started to lose patience, and Brian just wasn’t up for dealing with that tonight.
Shawna stepped behind her husband, rubbing his shoulders. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
“Dinner?” Brian said, glancing outside to see that twilight had fallen sometime when he wasn’t paying attention. He’d been out here for hours.
“You coming in?”
“Yeah, give me another twenty minutes or so. I just want to finish going through this chapter before calling it a night.”
Shawna bent down and kissed the top of his head, on the bald spot that she managed to make him not feel self-conscious about. “Don’t kill yourself, okay? Twenty minutes, or I’m coming back out here and dragging your ass in the house.”
“Promise.”
After a quick peck on the lips, Shawna left her husband alone with his work. Truth be told, Brian would much rather have followed her back into the house, spent some time with her and the kids, but procrastination was part of his problem. The revisions would never get done unless he forced himself to do them.
He’d had nothing but the best intentions when he’d agreed to do the novella for Tom’s company, Sideshow Press, but then he’d hit a rough patch. Professional disappointments had left him lacking confidence, and he’d stopped writing altogether for a time, wondering if he was ever going to go back to it.
Luckily he was starting to come out of his slump. He had signed a deal recently with another publisher to do a YA series under a pseudonym, and he had a story in Sideshow’s new anthology. That was a particular thrill for him, considering that he’d been a fan of late author Greg Nigel long before the man had become a household name. Things were looking up for Brian.
He just needed to finish They Call Us Monsters and put it behind him so that he could move forward.
Refocusing his energy, he tried to block everything else out and work on whipping this chapter into shape. Something about it was off. The dialogue maybe, seemed a bit too stilted and inauthentic. He spent the next fifteen minutes tinkering with the dialogue, and he was just starting to think he was getting somewhere when he glanced at the time at the bottom right of the screen and saw that if he didn’t get inside soon, Shawna was going to come track him down. She was a woman true to her word.
He hated to quit when he was finally starting to make some progress, but he’d promised his wife and he tried his best not to break any promises to her. He would come back to the novella fresh tomorrow. He saved the file then shut down his notebook computer—
—and only then did he notice the stranger standing just inside the garage.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped with a start. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Who am I?” asked the stranger, rubbing at his chin as if giving the question serious thought, as if it were a philosophical quandary that require deep contemplation. “I’m not sure I know how to answer that one. I mean, I know who I was, but the world has changed quite drastically since then. And so have I, in ways you wouldn’t even believe.”
Brian stood slowly and started to edge his way around the table on which his computer sat. The stranger was standing between him and the only way out, idly cleaning under his fingernails with a serrated hunting knife. “Mister, I think maybe you have the wrong house. You should probably just go.”
The stranger glanced at his watch, which looked to Brian’s untrained eye like an actual Rolex. “I can’t tarry, that’s for sure. Busy man with places to go and people to kill.”
Brian tensed at this last bit, his eyes darting around to find something he could use as a weapon and finding nothing suitable. The house wasn’t far, Shawna would probably hear him if he just—
“Don’t call out,” the stranger said in a commanding voice. “That might bring your wife and kiddies running out here to see what’s wrong, and just think of all the horrible things that could befall them were that to happen.”
Fear caused Brian’s scrotum to pull up tight against his body even as anger suffused his face with heat. “Are you threatening my family?”
The stranger advanced a step, causing Brian to retreat a step. As he spoke, he thrust the knife in Brian’s direction for emphasis. “I have no beef with your family. As long as they stay in the house, they’ll be safe as a maiden’s chastity at a comic book convention. And I know you want that, so why don’t you be a good little boy, keep quiet, and let me do what I came here to do?”
Brian continued backing up, and the stranger continued coming toward him. “Mister, I really think you have the wrong guy. I don’t even know you.”
“And yet you would presume to be me. Does that make any kind of sense to you?”
“Truthfully, none of this is making any sense. Why don’t we just talk about it? Tell me what’s wrong, and maybe I can help.”
Brian’s back hit up against the far wall, rattling a dartboard that hung above him. The stranger stopped before him and put a hand on his shoulder, causing Brian to flinch. But the hand did not grip or clench, just rested gently there, and the expression on the stranger’s face was gentle as well, almost sympathetic. “I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to take a moment to explain to you exactly who I am and why I’ve come here to kill you. Sorry, I don’t go in for horror clichés.”
Before Brian even had time to react, he saw the blade in the stranger’s hand shoot forward and Brian grunted as he felt a pressure in his abdomen. Oddly detached from the moment, he glanced down and saw the knife plunged into him just above the pelvis, disappearing nearly to the hilt. Blood gushed from the wound in a bright red waterfall, puddling at his feet.
Distantly, Brian mused that it didn’t really hurt as much as he would have expected.
At least until the stranger yanked the knife up toward Brian’s chest as if unzipping him.
***
Brian Hodge returned home from the library later than expected with his arms loaded with books, making him feel a bit as if he’d time-traveled back to his school days. He did most of his research online, but every now and then he felt the need to go to an actual library and stalk the aisles, go “old school” as the kids might say. Or maybe that bit of terminology was already outdated, it was hard for Brian to keep track.
He went straight to the alcove where he did his writing and deposited the books next to his computer. He started to turn and call out for Doli when he paused with a frown, glancing back at the computer. The machine was humming, the screen glowing, the desktop with all his neatly arranged folders staring back at him.
He could have sworn he’d turned the computer off before leaving. He always did, to conserve power.
He supposed it was possible Doli had used the computer while he was out, but she had her own laptop which she preferred to Brian’s somewhat outdated machine.
“Doli,” he called out but received no response. The house was utterly quiet in a way it rarely was. It just felt…empty. Leaving the mystery of the computer behind, he did a quick search of the house, finding neither Doli nor a note indicating where she might be. It was not like her to leave the house without telling him. Not that he had to know where she was every second of the day, they didn’t have that kind of relationship, but they were always courteous of each other’s feelings.
Taking his cell phone out, he quickly dialed her number…and was rewarded with the sound of her ringtone—the theme of The Exorcist—playing from the kitchen. He found her phone under a dishtowel on the countertop.
Starting to truly get worried, Brian stepped up to the back door and glanced outside, a sigh of relief escaping him as he saw her sitting down at the far edge of the property in one of their white wooden lawn chairs, the floodlights pushing back the darkness. He reached for the doorknob then paused.
Doli usually only went out there at night when she was feeling down, and years of experience had taught Brian that when the blues hit, she did not want him in her face trying to cheer her up. She just wanted a little alone time, and he was respectful of that.
He headed back through the house to his writing alcove. He would use this time to try to get some more progress done on the book.
The Never-Ending Story, as Doli sometimes jokingly referred to it. And with good reason. Brian had been working on this novel for years. Literally, years. It was the most ambitious project he’d ever undertaken, calling for massive amounts of research and meticulous outlining. And yet he still sometimes thought there was no reason why he shouldn’t be finished with it by now. He just couldn’t stop tinkering.
During his more contemplative moments, he wondered if he wasn’t afraid to put down those words, THE END. Perhaps he’d invested so much of himself—not to mention time—into the book, that he was afraid to send it out into the world to be judged by publishers. What if he’d spent years on this thing only to find he couldn’t place it anywhere? Its historical nature certainly didn’t make it an easy fit for Cemetery Dance, which had bought his last couple of books. Perhaps if just always kept the book “in progress” he’d never have to face the possibility of criticism and rejection.
But that wasn’t like Brian. He wasn’t a coward. He wrote what he was passionate about, not what was popular at the moment; he paid little mind to current market trends and just wrote from the gut. It was how he’d always done it, and he knew no other way.
Sitting down at his desk, briefly wondering again at his computer being on, he went to open the file for his book…
…only to find the folder empty.
Impossible, yet irrefutable. Brian closed the folder then reopened it, as if that might change the reality of the situation, but the file was not there. He did a quick search of all the drives on the computer but could not locate the file. He even checked the Recycle Bin but it had been recently emptied.
His book had been deleted from his computer.
Brian grabbed the sides of his desk, breathing quickly and shallowly, hyperventilating. With a trembling hand he reached out for the desk drawer in which he kept the back-up discs for the book, half-expecting them to be gone.
But they were still there. Broken into several pieces like shattered glass.
He felt nauseated and lightheaded at the same time, as if he might vomit and pass out, not necessarily in that order. All those years of work, all the blood sweat and tears he’d put into it, all destroyed. He’d never bothered printing out a paper copy of his work, figuring the back-up discs were enough.
As the shock began to recede a bit, what replaced it was rage. Who had done this? And why?
Could it have been Doli? Brian couldn’t believe it. Even if she’d had any reason to be upset with him, she would never have done anything this vicious. Just wasn’t in her nature, and she had too much respect for the written word.
But then who? Had someone come by while Brian was at the library? If so, he couldn’t imagine Doli would have let the person anywhere near Brian’s work space. At least not willingly.
Pushing up from the desk with such force that it sent the chair crashing to the floor, Brian ran back through the house, headed for the back door. He burst out onto the porch, calling Doli’s name. The property wasn’t that large, but suddenly it seemed miles separated him from the woman he’d shared his home and heart with for years.
As he ran across the back yard toward the lawn chairs, seeming to move in slow motion, Brian’s mind was a blank. Or at least he tried to make it a blank, not wanting to directly face the fear that was threatening to paralyze him.
After a near eternity, Brian finally reached the lawn chair on which Doli sat, skidding to a halt just behind it. He said her name, his voice a weak whisper. She did not move. Brian slowly made his way around the chair, his entire body going numb when he saw her grinning up at him. A jagged crimson grin just below her jaw.
He wasn’t aware that he had collapsed to the ground until he felt rocks digging into his knees. He was distantly aware of hot tears cascading down his cheeks, but he felt nothing. He seemed to have lost all his senses except for sight, and that was the one he wanted to lose most at this moment. And yet he couldn’t stop staring at the horror before him.
Until he heard the footsteps behind him. Brian turned his head and watched death approaching, materializing out of the darkness like a wraith.
***
Tom sat with his head in his hands. Billie was next to him, a hand resting gently on his knee. It was a small gesture, but it was support he greatly needed at the moment and he was grateful for it. He put his hand over hers and drew strength from his wife’s presence.
“Mr. Moran?” Agent Simmons said again.
Tom looked up at the agent. Simmons wasn’t the stereotypical image of FBI, no imposing broad-shouldered man with a block face wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. Simmons was short, surely no taller than 5’8”, of slight build with a chubby-cheeked baby face. He was dressed in tan slacks and a light blue short-sleeved button-down with the first three buttons undone. But his hazel eyes were focused and piercing, the stare of a man who tolerates no bullshit.
Tom cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, I guess I kind of spaced out for a moment. You were saying?”
“I asked why you didn’t contact the authorities after the first two murders.”
Tom put his head back in his hands, the guilt weighing down on him an anvil. He tried to speak but the words got stuck in his throat like bits of dry bread. He was choking on them.
“We didn’t really believe there was a connection,” Billie answered for him. “Not really. I mean, yes, it was a bizarre coincidence that the writers with the first two stories in the anthology were murdered within such a short time of each other, but we thought surely that was all it was—a coincidence.”
Simmons glanced briefly at Billie then trained his attention back on Tom. “And yet Mr. Moran did attempt to contact Brian Knight, the author with the third story in the collection?”
Tom nodded. “I figured I was just being silly—or at least hoped I was—but…well, you know, better safe than sorry and all that.”
“Of course. You wanted to give him a head’s up, just in case.”
“But I didn’t get to him in time.”
Simmons was silent for a moment, staring down at the notepad in his hands. Tom was sure the agent was just politely pretending not to notice the tears in Tom’s eyes. Billie rubbed at the small of his back but said nothing. That was one of the things he loved most about her; she always knew when words weren’t needed.
“So,” Simmons said after Tom had regained control of his emotions, “after the deaths of Mr. Knight, Mr. Hodge and his live-in companion Doli Nickel, that’s when you decided to contact someone?”
“Yes. From what coverage I could find on the murders, no one seemed to have made the connection to Feast of Blood.”
Simmons bristled a bit at this, as if his personal competency as an agent was being called into question. “Well, the first two murders did take place in Canada, so they weren’t even on our radar. Then one in Washington State followed by two in Colorado, with differing MOs each time…it wasn’t easy to connect those dots.”
“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting otherwise,” Tom was quick to say. “I just want this guy caught, whoever it is.”
“Well, the Bureau is involved now, and we’re coordinating our efforts with the Royal Mounted Canadian Police, so this sicko’s days are numbered I’d say.”
“I just…” Tom had to pause to fight back more tears. When he finally got the words out, they burst from him as if fired from a cannon. “This is all my fault!”
“Oh, honey, no,” Billie said, laying her head on his shoulder.
“It’s true. I don’t know why, but someone is targeting the writers from this anthology. The anthology I orchestrated, the writers I brought together. And now four of those writers are dead and—”
“Six,” Simmons interjected.
Tom just stared at him for a moment before he could make his mind truly comprehend what he’d just heard. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I thought you knew. Robert Dunbar and Jeff Strand, the next two writers from the collection, have also been killed.”
Tom took the news like a blow to his balls, bending over until his forehead almost touched his knees. “How?”
“Mr. Moran, I don’t think you really want to—”
“HOW?”
Simmons took a deep breath then said, “Mr. Dunbar was decapitated. Mr. Strand was hung upside down and bled like a pig in a slaughterhouse. Including Ms. Nickel in Colorado, that now brings the body count to 7.”
Tom felt like he might vomit at any moment. “God, this is a nightmare. Why is this happening?”
“That’s what we have to determine. We need to find the common denominator between all these writers.”
“But you know the common denominator,” Billie said. “It’s the anthology.”
“Yes, but why this particular anthology? I mean, these kinds of collections are released by the dozens. What is it about this one that has drawn a killer’s attention? Does it have to do with the publisher, the subject matter? I need you to walk me through exactly how this project came to fruition.”
Tom threw his head back and exhaled with force. He wasn’t really feeling up to a lot of exposition, but he didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter. Besides, if it could help…
“Billie and I have always been a fan of themed horror anthologies, and we really wanted to release one through Sideshow Press. We discussed a lot of ideas. Zombie stories, but honestly those seemed to have been done to death recently, pardon the pun. Ghost stories, werewolf stories, we even toyed with the idea of doing a collection of horror/sci-fi hybrids. Nothing felt right.”
At this point, Billie took up the narrative. “At the time, I was rereading Greg Nigel’s Vampire Feast books; that series has always been a favorite of mine. It was a real loss to the horror community when Nigel passed away. Knopf tried to keep the series going by releasing a new novel written by another writer.”
“Which was excellent, by the way,” Tom interjected.
“Yes, it was, which surprised me quite frankly. Scott Quincy was the writer who took up Nigel’s mantle, and I’d read some of his previous work.”
“Not good?” Simmons asked, showing remarkable patience with this digression.
“Not even in a so-bad-it’s-fun sort of way. Anyway, the Vampire Feast book he wrote was called Blood Sweat and Tears and it exceeded all my expectations. Actually started the series in a new and exciting direction and I was hoping there would be more books to follow. Unfortunately, despite its quality, the novel was not the success Knopf had hoped for. They just let the series die out.”
“So Billie was going on and on about the books, about how each time she reread them she found new depths and themes, and it got me to thinking. I knew there had to still be a fanbase out there for the Vampire Feast mythos, and that fictional world was rich with possibilities, just seemed to cry out for an anthology. Different writers providing their own unique takes on the characters and stories. Of course, I never dreamed I’d actually get to do it since Knopf still owned the rights.”
This seemed to grab Simmons’ attention and he leaned forward. “So was there some battle over the rights?”
“No, actually when I approached Knopf they were great, gave me permission to pursue the project without even hesitating. I think they view the Vampire Feast series as a dead property, honestly. We struck an agreement where they would get a percentage of the profits, and I was free to do my anthology.”
Looking a bit disappointed, Simmons leaned back, tapping his notepad against his knee. “So tell me about the writers whose stories ultimately appeared in the collection. How did you find them? Did you just take open submissions?”
“God, no. As a general rule, I’m not a fan of open submissions. We’ve been in the publishing business for a few years now, so we’ve developed relationships with a good many authors. We reached out to a select group and asked if they’d be interested in writing something for the project.”
“How many writers did you contact?”
“Oh, about twenty of so.”
“But there are only thirteen stories in the collection.”
“Well, not all the writers we approached were able to do it.”
“But all the ones that were, they were guaranteed a spot in the book?”
“Um, no. We had limited space, after all. There were a few stories that just didn’t…make the cut.”
Simmons leaned forward again. “And how many didn’t make the cut?”
“Three, I think,” Tom said, looking toward his wife.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“And of those three writers, were any of them particularly upset about not making it into the book?”
Billie narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m just thinking that maybe someone is awfully bitter about being rejected.”
“That’s crazy,” Tom said.
“Is it?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I know these people.”
“You’ve met them?”
“Not in person, not all of them, but still, I just can’t imagine any of them would be capable of something like this.”
“I’ve learned in my line of business that you can never predict what the human animal is capable of. So please answer the question, were any of the writers whose stories did not make the cut excessively upset?”
“No one likes rejection,” Tom said evasively.
Simmons crossed his arms, his thin lips tightening into a vertical line. “Look, Mr. Moran, I don’t have time to play games with you. I’d think you of all people would be eager for us to catch this guy before he gets any further down the list. I mean, the last story in the collection has your name on it, does it not?”
Tom’s only answer to that was silence. He and Billie exchanged a glance and she said, “Might as well tell him.”
“Okay, there was one writer who didn’t take the news that we weren’t using his story very well.”
Simmons cocked an eyebrow. “Angry, was he?”
“Well, he was a bit peeved, but not like homicidal rage or anything. He was disappointed and…”
“Angry?”
“Yes, fine, he was angry.”
“And how did he express that anger?”
“He wrote an email just sort of venting.”
“’Sort of venting.’ Could you be more specific?”
“From what I remember, he said it was unfair of us to request a story from him then not use it. He accused us of being biased toward the bigger named authors.”
“So he was disgruntled with the authors who did make it into the book?”
“I wouldn’t say disgruntled. He was just letting off some steam. He sent me another email a week later apologizing.”
Simmons was jotting furiously into his notepad. “Do you still have a copy of his original email?”
“I don’t know, that was a long time ago. I probably deleted it.”
“We’ll check your computer just to be sure. And what is this writer’s name?”
Tom hesitated a few seconds before saying, “Mark Gunnells.”
***
Mark Gunnells sat tensely in the uncomfortable chair, his face scrunched up as if he’d tasted something sour. They could have conducted this interview at the writer’s home, but Simmons had opted to have him come into the local police station instead, figuring it would throw the man off kilter if he had anything to hide. So far he hadn’t asked for a lawyer, and it didn’t look like he was going to need one.
“So Mr. Gunnells,” Simmons said, trying to cover his embarrassment with a professional demeanor, “we have confirmed with the administration at the plant where you work that you have not missed any shifts in the last couple of weeks.”
“I told you. Kind of hard for me to be gallivanting all across North America murdering people and still make my shift at 8 a.m. every morning, don’t you think?”
Simmons bit down on his irritation. As far as he was concerned, Mr. Gunnells wasn’t off the hook just yet. True, he had a pretty airtight alibi, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have hired someone to do the dirty work. Although realistically it wasn’t likely he could afford anything like that on a security guard’s salary. A check of his bank records showed he had less than a thousand dollars in savings and there had been no significant withdraws anytime recently. Perhaps Simmons didn’t want to let him go as a suspect simply because he didn’t like the man.
“Mr. Gunnells, try to understand, I have a job to do.”
“And your job description includes harassing innocent people?”
“No, it includes looking at every possibility, no matter how remote.”
“Have you talked to the other writers who didn’t make it into the anthology?”
“We will be.”
“But I got the honor of being first, huh? I’m guessing it’s because of the irate email I sent Tom. Am I right?”
Simmons chose not to answer.
“Okay, yes, I was upset about the rejection, although in retrospect it seems like a damn good thing Tom didn’t use my story or else I might be just another corpse by now.”
“That sounds rather callus.”
“Hey, I’m sorry as hell those guys are dead. I’m a big fan of all of them, I certainly didn’t kill them. You’d have to be pretty demented to resort to murder just because you didn’t get accepted into an anthology.”
“Playing devil’s advocate here, some might say the subject matter you deal with in your fiction is pretty demented.”
“You’re not seriously going that route, are you? If that’s the case, have you questioned Stephen King? Clive Barker? Peter Straub? Ascertained their whereabouts at the times of the murders?”
“Well, Stephanie Meyer is next on our list,” Simmons said with a smile.
Mark snorted. “I thought we were talking about horror.”
“Mr. Gunnells, if you will be patient for a bit longer, I just have a few—”
Simmons was interrupted when Agent McNamara came into the room, looking edgy. He motioned with his head for Simmons to step outside. After excusing himself, Simmons followed the other agent out into the hallway.
“What is it, McNamara?”
“Sir, we’ve lost another one.”
“What?”
“The next writer on the list, Lee Thomas, he and his, um, lover were killed about an hour ago.”
“How is that possible?”
“They were impaled, sir.”
“Both of them?”
“Together. They were naked in bed, and someone ran them through with a length of rebar.”
Simmons felt like beating his head against the wall until he knocked himself unconscious, but instead he settled for balling his hands into tight fists until his nails dug deep and painfully into his palms. “I put three men on Thomas and his partner. Where the hell were they when this was happening?”
“Dead, sir.”
***
Billie stood by the dresser and watched as her husband ran around the bedroom like a dervish, snatching her clothes out of the closet and tossing them in a suitcase open on the bed.
“Tom, honey, slow down.”
“There’s no time to waste, Billie. You and the kids need to get the fuck out of here, like pronto.”
“I don’t want to leave you. I feel like my place is by your side.”
Tom rushed over to her and grabbed her arms hard enough to hurt. There was a panic in his eyes that was frightening to behold. “Billie, do you understand there is some psychopath out there and I’m on his hit list? Whoever is doing this, he seems pretty fucking unstoppable, makes the Terminator look like a wind-up toy. It’s only a matter of time before he comes for me, and I don’t want you or the kids anywhere in the vicinity when he does.”
“But Tom—”
“Damn it, woman, don’t argue with me! The only time he’s killed anyone other than the writers themselves was when someone else was in the house and in the way. It’s not safe for you here.”
“There are at least a dozen FBI agents in and around the house.”
“Yeah, and do you think that saved Lee Thomas, or Gene O’Neill, or Lee Thompson? They all had big time FBI protection, yet Thomas still ended up with a pipe through his torso, O’Neill was set on fire, and Thompson had pages from the book shoved down his throat until he choked on them. This lunatic went through the FBI agents like they were paper dolls and he was scissor happy to get to his intended targets.”
“Like Greg Nigel,” Billie said softly.
“What?”
“I was just thinking…before Greg Nigel was murdered, there were reports he was being stalked so he had all these bodyguards in his house at the time. But all the bodyguards were killed, and then Nigel himself. They never caught who did it.”
Tom nodded. “Agent Simmons told me the FBI is considering the possibility that the new murders are somehow connected to Nigel’s death. Whoever’s doing this, the fucker is a professional and he never leaves evidence.”
Billie began crying then, she couldn’t help it. “Tom, I don’t want to be apart from you.”
“Listen to me, I’ll be okay,” Tom said, and he didn’t sound as if even he believed what he was saying. “I can take care of myself, but not if I’m constantly worried about you and the kids. If I know you all are safe, then I can focus and come up with a plan.”
“What do you think you can do that the FBI can’t?”
“Hey, I’m an artist and a writer. Creativity runs in my veins.”
They both shared a brief laugh. Very brief. Tom kissed his wife gently then returned to packing her suitcase.
***
TABLE OF CONTENTS
By Mark Allan Gunnells
By Mark Allan Gunnells
FEAST OF BLOOD
A Vampire Feast Anthology
Edited by Tom Moran
Table of Contents:
“Blood Bank” by Shane Nelson……………………………………..Page 3
“Only as Old as You Feel” by Douglas E. Wright………………….Page 27
“Sealed with a Kiss” by Brian Knight….…………………...……….Page 48
“No One Said Immortality Would Be Easy” by Brian Hodge………Page 61
“Hunting for the Legend” by Robert Dunbar………………………..Page 86
“Riot” by Jeff Strand………………………………………………...Page 103
“Unrequited” by Lee Thomas………………………………………..Page 114
“Sullivan’s Travels” by Gene O’Neill……………………………….Page 139
“The End of the World As We Know It” by Lee Thompson…..……Page 170
“Delano’s Dilemma” by James Newman & Donn Gash…………….Page 232
“Gore Hounds” by Mark McLaughlin……………………………….Page 248
“Trials and Tribulations” by David Niall Wilson…………………....Page 258
“Til Dawn Do We Part” by Tom Moran…………………………….Page 272
A Vampire Feast Anthology
Edited by Tom Moran
Table of Contents:
“Blood Bank” by Shane Nelson……………………………………..Page 3
“Only as Old as You Feel” by Douglas E. Wright………………….Page 27
“Sealed with a Kiss” by Brian Knight….…………………...……….Page 48
“No One Said Immortality Would Be Easy” by Brian Hodge………Page 61
“Hunting for the Legend” by Robert Dunbar………………………..Page 86
“Riot” by Jeff Strand………………………………………………...Page 103
“Unrequited” by Lee Thomas………………………………………..Page 114
“Sullivan’s Travels” by Gene O’Neill……………………………….Page 139
“The End of the World As We Know It” by Lee Thompson…..……Page 170
“Delano’s Dilemma” by James Newman & Donn Gash…………….Page 232
“Gore Hounds” by Mark McLaughlin……………………………….Page 248
“Trials and Tribulations” by David Niall Wilson…………………....Page 258
“Til Dawn Do We Part” by Tom Moran…………………………….Page 272
When Shane Nelson returned home from the post office, the house felt especially empty. He had grown accustomed to the barely controlled chaos of having one year old twins rampaging around all the time. His wife, Jolene, had taken the kids to her folks’ farm near Humboldt for the weekend, leaving Shane alone. At first he’d really enjoyed the peace and quiet, but all too soon he found himself missing his little family. Especially at a time like this, when he had something he so desperately wanted to share with Jo.
Sitting out on the deck, he ignored the blazing sunset and instead stared down at the package in his hands. He’d known it was on its way, but he hadn’t expected it to arrive so soon. Postage from the States to Canada usually took a bit longer. But here it was, and he was eager to tear into it.
Yet he hesitated. He’d sort of imagined Jo being here for this, and it felt somehow wrong to open the package without her. But she and the kids wouldn’t be back for another day and a half. He didn’t think he could wait that long.
But maybe he wouldn’t have to.
Hurrying inside, Shane snatched up the phone and called the Worms’ family farm, hoping Jo wasn’t out somewhere. His mother-in-law answered, and after wading impatiently through five minutes of chitchat about the weather, she finally put Jo on the line.
“Get on the computer,” Shane said without preamble or greeting.
“What?”
“Get on the computer. I’m going to Skype you.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you, I have to show you.”
“Is it G-rated? I am at my parents’ house, remember.”
Shane laughed. “That’s it, I want to Skype so you can watch me rub one off.”
“Such romantic things you say,” Jo said with a giggle of her own.
“Seriously, will you get online? There’s something you just have to see.”
“Sure, just give me a few minutes.”
Hanging up, Shane went to his computer and opened the Internet browser, quickly scrolling through his contacts list until he found Jo. In less than a minute he and his wife were connected and he was staring at her face on the computer screen, while at the farm she was staring at his face on her screen. She was smiling that infectious smile of hers, and in the background he saw Tristan chasing Kyra around the room, both kids screaming and laughing.
“So you’ve built up enough suspense,” Jo said, her voice a bit distant and tinny through the computer speakers. “What is it you want to show me?”
Shane didn’t answer, at least not with words. Instead, he just held up the package in front of the tiny webcam.
Jo stared blankly through the screen for a moment, then comprehension dawned in her eyes and her entire face lit up. “Is that it?”
“Well, it was sent from Moosup, Connecticut. Can’t imagine what else it could be.”
“Why haven’t you opened it yet?”
“I didn’t want to do it without you. Figured this way you’ll at least be present for the big moment…sort of.”
“Okay, extra points for sweetness. That’ll earn you a big smooch when I get home.”
The kids had wandered over to their mother and had apparently just noticed Shane on the screen because they started jumping up and down, Kyra clapping her hands and exclaiming, “Daddy!” Jo picked them up and put them on her lap, one on each leg. Tristan kept putting his hands on the computer screen, as if he could crawl right through the machine and into his father’s arms.
“The whole family’s present,” Jo said, trying to keep Tristan from banging on the keys and inadvertently breaking the connection. “So open it already.”
The package was sealed with ample amounts of packing tape, and he used his thumbnail to loosen one edge of the tape, slowly peeling it up, savoring the moment.
On the screen, Jo rolled her eyes. “Shane, think less striptease and more kid on Christmas morning.”
Taking the hint, Shane ripped the tape the rest of the way off, the flaps of the package popping open and exploding out those annoying Styrofoam peanuts. They went all over Shane’s lap and the floor, and the sight of such a mess would normally have driven him crazy, neat-freak that he was, but at the moment he didn’t care. He’d tidy up later; for now, he just wanted to get to the prize inside the box.
Reaching in, sending more peanuts cascading like oversized confetti to his feet, he pulled out the object he’d been waiting for.
A book.
But not just any book. Feast of Blood, edited by Tom Moran. An anthology of short stories based on late author Greg Nigel’s popular Vampire Feast series.
“Let me see, let me see,” Jo said.
Shane held up the book so his wife could get a good look at the cover, which depicted a blonde man with ice-chip blue eyes and an angular face, just the hint of fangs poking out as he smiled, his lips an unnatural red. The Vampire Sullivan, Greg Nigel’s immortal character.
On the screen, the kids were squirming in Jo’s arms, so she let them down to run amuck. “Shane, I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks. I just still can’t believe I have a story in here.”
“And why not? You’re not going to start in with all that insecure crap again, are you?”
“No, it’s just…I mean, most of the writers who contributed to this anthology have published multiple novels and won awards. My biggest thing is I sold my story ‘Beer Money’ to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and the issue hasn’t even come out yet.”
“Well, obviously the editor thought your story was good enough or he wouldn’t have—”
Jo’s voice cut out. And so did the computer. And the lights. And the air conditioner.
Power outage.
“Damn it,” Shane muttered, getting slowly to his feet. The last of the day had bled out over the horizon, so he found himself in near complete darkness. He felt along like a blind man, making his way to the shelf where he kept a flashlight, just hoping the batteries had enough juice in them. The beam was weak but it was better than nothing. He’d have to check the fuse box and—
Shane’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone banging on the front door. It startled him, causing him to drop the flashlight. He heard the lens shatter and the weak light died out altogether. Grumbling, Shane started slowly from the room, the glass from the flashlight lens crunching under his shoes. An awfully inconvenient time for a visitor.
Probably just one of the neighbors, he thought. Whole street’s probably out and someone needs to borrow a flashlight or some candles.
Shane was thinking he could use some of that himself as he stumbled through the house, barking his shin on the edge of the coffee table. The pounding stopped just as Shane put his hand on the doorknob. Opening the front door, he stepped out onto the porch.
Onto the empty porch.
Frowning, Shane scanned his lawn. Whoever had been knocking hadn’t had time to run off, and yet there was no one in sight. Maybe they had scampered around the side of the house, but why?
Must be kids, playing a round of Doorbell Ditch. Shane wondered if they were also responsible for his power outage. Now that he was outside, he could clearly see lights shining through the windows of the nearby homes, so it wasn’t a neighborhood-wide problem. It was just him.
Stepping back inside the house, Shane closed the door…and after a brief consideration, locked it. He felt silly, like all those horror movies and books he’d grown up on were starting to pollute his brain, making him view life like some slasher flick.
When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he made his way to the mantel, where there were two tapered candles in brass holders. Really just there for the aesthetic value they added to the room, but he and Jo kept a book of matches next to them in case they were ever needed. Which they were tonight.
Scratching a match across the strip on the back of the matchbook, a tiny orange flame flared to life, the stinging stench of sulfur almost pleasing in Shane’s nostrils. He touched the flame to the wick of each candle, a warm glow suffusing the room. Distantly, he heard his cell phone ringing at the back of the house. He’d left it by the computer, and Jo was probably calling to see why the connection had been lost. She was a bit of a worrier, and Shane kicked himself for not calling her right away to explain.
Taking one of the candles, careful not to drip hot wax on his hand, he started back through the house. He wouldn’t make it to the phone before the call kicked over to voicemail, but he’d call Jo right back to ease her concern. And maybe help alleviate some of his uneasiness to boot.
Shane paused suddenly in mid-step, one foot actually hanging in the air as if he’d been frozen in place, the candle flame flickering but fluttering but not extinguishing. The sliding glass door onto the deck had caught his attention, and he stared at it with a puzzled frown. The door was not completely closed, a one inch gap through which a warm breeze wafted, caressing Shane’s skin like ghostly fingers.
Had he not shut the door all the way when he’d come back inside to call Jo earlier? He had been in a hurry, so it was possible he’d simply been careless and not mad sure the door latched.
He slammed the door shut now and turned the lock, gazing out at the night, looking for furtive movement or shadowy figures. More silliness, and yet it didn’t feel so silly. He was suddenly more anxious than ever to get to his phone.
The ringing had stopped, but he hurried into the room he considered his “office” at the very back of the house. He’d left the phone on the desk right by the computer, he was sure of it…
And yet when he reached for it, it wasn’t there.
Strange, he could have sworn this was where he’d put it. He held the candle high above his head to cast the widest net of light and scanned the desktop, looking along the floor in case it fell off the desk. It had to be around here somewhere; he’d just heard it ringing a minute ago and—
—and there it was again, the ringing of his phone.
Only now it seemed to be coming from the front of the house.
Shane felt a chill work its way up his spine like a spider crawling up his back. He hesitated for a moment, feeling rooted to the spot, his mind full of chaos and yet empty at the same time, certainly incapable of rational thought. He knew he’d heard the phone back here a few moments ago, and now he was hearing it somewhere else. That could mean only one thing. Someone had moved it; Shane was not alone in the house.
Moving slowly, trying not to make any noise, he crept out of the room into the hallway, glancing back toward the front of the house…where the front door was now standing wide open to the night.
“Fuck!” he muttered to himself. He knew he’d locked the door, and no one had a key but himself and Jo. And no way was she playing a practical joke on him. Not only was it not her style, but he’d just been Skyping with her at her parents’ farms hours away.
Shane quickly ran through his options, and one thing seemed clear. He needed to get out of the house. Get to a neighbor’s, ask to use the phone. The house had no back door, only the front door and the door to the deck, so in order to get out he was going to have to go forward.
Unless, of course, he crawled out a window. But that would be possibly the unmanliest thing he could possibly do in this situation.
From the living room, Shane heard what sounded like footsteps and a man clearing his throat and he immediately ducked back into his office. Fuck manliness, he was crawling out the window. This situation seemed like a horror movie, but it wasn’t. In the movies, characters always did the dumb thing, heading straight into danger instead of hightailing it out of harm’s way. Shane wasn’t a character in a horror movie, and he was going to be smart. Bravery was for western novels and war movies. Truth was, cowardice usually saved lies.
Placing the candle on the desk next to his copy of Feast of Blood, Shane went to one of the room’s windows that looked out onto the backyard. Somewhere out there he heard his degus chattering in their cage, but all else was quiet. He slowly started pushing the window up in its track. It wanted to stick halfway up, but he jimmied it until it finally slid the rest of the way with minimum noise.
Looking back toward the door to the hallway, ensuring he was still alone, He threw one leg over the window sill the ducked his head down and out. The property was on a slight incline, so the ground floor windows at the back of the house were several feet above the ground. Shane dropped, landing on his feet with his knees bent, sending a slight jolt up his shins.
Keeping his head down, he started making his way around toward the side of the house. He was moving at a fairly fast pace, and when he turned the corner slammed right into the figure waiting there.
“Boo,” the shadowy stranger said even as Shane rebounded off him and landed on his ass. He was just a silhouette, Shane getting just the impression of blonde hair and a smile that seemed to shine in the darkness. As the figure advanced, Shane began crab-walking backward on his elbows, kicking at the dirt with his feet. He wasn’t making much progress, and the intruder was towering over him, reaching down.
Shane opened his mouth to scream, hoping to alert the neighbors, but suddenly the man over him grabbed his throat and squeezed, cutting off his air supply. He gasped and tried to suck in some oxygen, but the grip was vise-like and was crushing his windpipe.
With a strength that almost seemed inhuman, the intruder lifted Shane from the ground with one hand, not stopping until Shane’s feet dangled an inch above the ground. Bright spots of color exploded like a fireworks display in front of his eyes as his brain was deprived of air. He beat at the intruders hands, scratching at them, trying to dislodge the hold, but though he drew blood, the man did not loosen his grip.
Desperation kicking in as he felt his consciousness slipping, Shane began kicking out at the intruder, trying to land a foot square in the guy’s balls. He wasn’t able to manage that, but he did plant a couple of solid kicks to the man’s knees, and yet he showed no reaction, not even a grunt of pain.
Shane tried again to scream, but all that came out was a faint hissing rattle. A death rattle, he thought. The hand that was clamped on his throat began to squeeze harder, more and more pressure being applied, and just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he heard something crunch.
***
Tom Moran was up in his attic studio drawing.
Well, he was trying to draw. What he was actually doing was just sitting there, staring blankly at the half-completed sketch with the pen poised above the paper. An outside observer would have thought he was one of those living statues. He had been that way for the past five minutes and showed no signs of moving any time soon.
Although his body seemed frozen, the gears in his brain were working overtime, clicking and grinding and spinning. He needed to focus on this drawing, which was to be the artwork for the cover of a new Kurt Newton book that was already overdue to be sent to the printer, but all he could think about was Shane Nelson.
Tom had never met the man in person, but he’d been introduced to Nelson’s writing through another author in the Sideshow Press arsenal of talent, and Tom had been more than happy to include Nelson’s story, “Blood Bank,” in Feast of Blood. In fact, he’d been so impressed by it that he’d opened the anthology with the wickedly funny tale.
And then the news earlier in the week that Nelson had been murdered. Apparently a botched home invasion, and the writer had been strangled with such force that it had crushed his windpipe and snapped his neck. A violent and gruesome end for the promising young talent. And a bitter irony that his death coincided with the release of the anthology.
The ringing of the phone downstairs brought Tom out of his morbid reverie. Giving his head a vigorous shake, he put pen back to paper and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Nelson’s murder was tragic, without question, but it wasn’t as if he’d really known the man beyond a string of emails and two phone calls. There was no need for Tom to obsess over this to the point that he let his work suffer. He had a publishing company to run, art projects he was committed to, not to mention his own writing he wanted to get back to someday. And all this in addition to his day job as a teacher and his familial obligations to his wife Billie and their three kids (soon to be four, as Billie was pregnant yet again). He simply didn’t have the time to invest in mourning the death of a virtual stranger. It was unfortunate, yes, and he would definitely be sending his sympathy to Nelson’s wife and kids, but there was no need to let it consume him.
Tom was just starting to get back into his groove with the drawing when Billie walked into the studio without knocking, which wasn’t like her. She typically did not like to interrupt her husband when he was working, especially when she knew he was struggling with a deadline that was already past.
“What’s up?” Tom said without looking up from the drawing. He was afraid that if he paused again, he’d be shot for the rest of the day.
When Billie didn’t answer right away, Tom looked up…and immediately let the pen fall from his fingers. Billie looked terrible, her complexion sallow and her eyes wide and glassy. She held her hands over her just-starting-to-protrude stomach as if trying to shield their unborn child from the harsh realities of the world.
Tom was on his feet instantly. “What’s wrong? Who was that on the phone?”
Billie blinked twice, slowly, as if just coming out of a daze. “Uhm, it was Catherine Hallock.”
“Who?”
“You know, Doug’s…the woman who lived with Doug.”
Ah, Doug Wright, another Canadian author Tom worked with on a semi-regular basis. Their relationship went back years, Tom having given Doug his first U.S. publication in Black Ink, the horror digest-type magazine that he and Billie produced. They’d also published Doug’s book Boogaloos last year as part of their First Cut series. In fact, Doug had a story in the new anthology and—
It took Tom’s brain a moment to catch up, but Billie’s use of the past tense finally registered with him. “What do you mean, lived with? Did he and Catherine break up?”
Billie shook her head, and she seemed near tears. She tried to speak, couldn’t, swallowed hard as if she had something lodged in her throat and tried again. “Tom, Doug’s…I don’t know how…I can’t wrap my head around…”
“For God’s sake, Billie, just spit it out,” Tom said much more stridently than he normally talked to his wife. And it wasn’t her inability to get the words out that had him so on edge; it was his sudden certain knowledge that he didn’t want to hear them once she did.
“Doug’s dead,” she said, confirming her husband’s worst fears.
Tom actually found himself laughing, not because what Billie said was funny but because it was so unbelievable.
“Catherine said she’d been out shopping, and when she got back home… Oh, Tom, she said it was just awful. That his eyes had been gouged out, his…well, his penis had been sliced off and put in his mouth. Someone had done a real number on him.”
Tom realized that he was on his stool again, though he didn’t remember sitting back down. He felt numb, almost adrift as if he weren’t entirely inside his own body. A defense mechanism perhaps, something to try to keep the full shock and pain at bay. Doug had been a true gentleman, they’d had many great conversations and he had a writing style that was gothic and sophisticated. It was inconceivable that the man was gone.
Two. That made two writers from the anthology that had been murdered, within a matter of days of each other. What was the world coming to when—
“Jesus Christ!” Tom gasped, his mind making a connection that sent chills up his spine like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day.
“What is it?” Billie asked.
Not answering, Tom rushed across the studio to a table on which sat several copies of Feast of Blood waiting to be mailed out. He grabbed one and opened it to the table of contents. Holding the book out to his wife, he said, “Fuck me twice, look at this!”
Billie scanned the page. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Billie, look. I mean, really look.”
And she did, a small frown of puzzlement twisting her lips, but then her mind apparently made the same connection Tom’s already had, and she backed away from the book thrust before her with a hand clutching at her chest. “Oh Tom, what does it mean?”
Looking back down at the anthology’s table of contents, Tom’s eyes were drawn to the first two entries. “Blood Bank” by Shane Nelson and “Only as Old as You Feel” by Douglas E. Wright.
***
Shawna Knight poked her head into the detached garage her husband used as an office/rec room and said, “Brian, honey, Tom’s on the phone for you.”
Brian groaned aloud, staring down at the laptop in front of him with obvious frustration. “I’m just not up to talking to him right now. Could you tell him I’m out or in the shower or something?”
Shawna stepped into the garage, smiling mischievously. “Already taken care of. Told him you went bowling with some of your buddies.”
“Bowling?” Brian said with a laugh. “I haven’t been bowling since I was a kid.”
“Well, I had a feeling you weren’t in the conversation mood and that was the first excuse that popped into my head.”
“Bless you.”
“He did say to tell you to call him as soon as you got back in, that it was rather urgent.”
Another groan. “I’m sure he wants a progress report on the novella.”
“Still struggling?”
Brian nodded, running a hand through his hair, thinking how there was much less of it than there was just a year ago. He was well past the deadline to turn in They Call Us Monsters, a semi-sequel of sorts to his stories 1200 AM Live and the more recent The Avian, but the thing had proven a bitch to write. And now that it was finally completed, the revision was proving to be every bit as big a bitch. Tom was being awfully understanding about the whole thing, but Brian figured there was only so long the publisher could wait before he started to lose patience, and Brian just wasn’t up for dealing with that tonight.
Shawna stepped behind her husband, rubbing his shoulders. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
“Dinner?” Brian said, glancing outside to see that twilight had fallen sometime when he wasn’t paying attention. He’d been out here for hours.
“You coming in?”
“Yeah, give me another twenty minutes or so. I just want to finish going through this chapter before calling it a night.”
Shawna bent down and kissed the top of his head, on the bald spot that she managed to make him not feel self-conscious about. “Don’t kill yourself, okay? Twenty minutes, or I’m coming back out here and dragging your ass in the house.”
“Promise.”
After a quick peck on the lips, Shawna left her husband alone with his work. Truth be told, Brian would much rather have followed her back into the house, spent some time with her and the kids, but procrastination was part of his problem. The revisions would never get done unless he forced himself to do them.
He’d had nothing but the best intentions when he’d agreed to do the novella for Tom’s company, Sideshow Press, but then he’d hit a rough patch. Professional disappointments had left him lacking confidence, and he’d stopped writing altogether for a time, wondering if he was ever going to go back to it.
Luckily he was starting to come out of his slump. He had signed a deal recently with another publisher to do a YA series under a pseudonym, and he had a story in Sideshow’s new anthology. That was a particular thrill for him, considering that he’d been a fan of late author Greg Nigel long before the man had become a household name. Things were looking up for Brian.
He just needed to finish They Call Us Monsters and put it behind him so that he could move forward.
Refocusing his energy, he tried to block everything else out and work on whipping this chapter into shape. Something about it was off. The dialogue maybe, seemed a bit too stilted and inauthentic. He spent the next fifteen minutes tinkering with the dialogue, and he was just starting to think he was getting somewhere when he glanced at the time at the bottom right of the screen and saw that if he didn’t get inside soon, Shawna was going to come track him down. She was a woman true to her word.
He hated to quit when he was finally starting to make some progress, but he’d promised his wife and he tried his best not to break any promises to her. He would come back to the novella fresh tomorrow. He saved the file then shut down his notebook computer—
—and only then did he notice the stranger standing just inside the garage.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped with a start. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Who am I?” asked the stranger, rubbing at his chin as if giving the question serious thought, as if it were a philosophical quandary that require deep contemplation. “I’m not sure I know how to answer that one. I mean, I know who I was, but the world has changed quite drastically since then. And so have I, in ways you wouldn’t even believe.”
Brian stood slowly and started to edge his way around the table on which his computer sat. The stranger was standing between him and the only way out, idly cleaning under his fingernails with a serrated hunting knife. “Mister, I think maybe you have the wrong house. You should probably just go.”
The stranger glanced at his watch, which looked to Brian’s untrained eye like an actual Rolex. “I can’t tarry, that’s for sure. Busy man with places to go and people to kill.”
Brian tensed at this last bit, his eyes darting around to find something he could use as a weapon and finding nothing suitable. The house wasn’t far, Shawna would probably hear him if he just—
“Don’t call out,” the stranger said in a commanding voice. “That might bring your wife and kiddies running out here to see what’s wrong, and just think of all the horrible things that could befall them were that to happen.”
Fear caused Brian’s scrotum to pull up tight against his body even as anger suffused his face with heat. “Are you threatening my family?”
The stranger advanced a step, causing Brian to retreat a step. As he spoke, he thrust the knife in Brian’s direction for emphasis. “I have no beef with your family. As long as they stay in the house, they’ll be safe as a maiden’s chastity at a comic book convention. And I know you want that, so why don’t you be a good little boy, keep quiet, and let me do what I came here to do?”
Brian continued backing up, and the stranger continued coming toward him. “Mister, I really think you have the wrong guy. I don’t even know you.”
“And yet you would presume to be me. Does that make any kind of sense to you?”
“Truthfully, none of this is making any sense. Why don’t we just talk about it? Tell me what’s wrong, and maybe I can help.”
Brian’s back hit up against the far wall, rattling a dartboard that hung above him. The stranger stopped before him and put a hand on his shoulder, causing Brian to flinch. But the hand did not grip or clench, just rested gently there, and the expression on the stranger’s face was gentle as well, almost sympathetic. “I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to take a moment to explain to you exactly who I am and why I’ve come here to kill you. Sorry, I don’t go in for horror clichés.”
Before Brian even had time to react, he saw the blade in the stranger’s hand shoot forward and Brian grunted as he felt a pressure in his abdomen. Oddly detached from the moment, he glanced down and saw the knife plunged into him just above the pelvis, disappearing nearly to the hilt. Blood gushed from the wound in a bright red waterfall, puddling at his feet.
Distantly, Brian mused that it didn’t really hurt as much as he would have expected.
At least until the stranger yanked the knife up toward Brian’s chest as if unzipping him.
***
Brian Hodge returned home from the library later than expected with his arms loaded with books, making him feel a bit as if he’d time-traveled back to his school days. He did most of his research online, but every now and then he felt the need to go to an actual library and stalk the aisles, go “old school” as the kids might say. Or maybe that bit of terminology was already outdated, it was hard for Brian to keep track.
He went straight to the alcove where he did his writing and deposited the books next to his computer. He started to turn and call out for Doli when he paused with a frown, glancing back at the computer. The machine was humming, the screen glowing, the desktop with all his neatly arranged folders staring back at him.
He could have sworn he’d turned the computer off before leaving. He always did, to conserve power.
He supposed it was possible Doli had used the computer while he was out, but she had her own laptop which she preferred to Brian’s somewhat outdated machine.
“Doli,” he called out but received no response. The house was utterly quiet in a way it rarely was. It just felt…empty. Leaving the mystery of the computer behind, he did a quick search of the house, finding neither Doli nor a note indicating where she might be. It was not like her to leave the house without telling him. Not that he had to know where she was every second of the day, they didn’t have that kind of relationship, but they were always courteous of each other’s feelings.
Taking his cell phone out, he quickly dialed her number…and was rewarded with the sound of her ringtone—the theme of The Exorcist—playing from the kitchen. He found her phone under a dishtowel on the countertop.
Starting to truly get worried, Brian stepped up to the back door and glanced outside, a sigh of relief escaping him as he saw her sitting down at the far edge of the property in one of their white wooden lawn chairs, the floodlights pushing back the darkness. He reached for the doorknob then paused.
Doli usually only went out there at night when she was feeling down, and years of experience had taught Brian that when the blues hit, she did not want him in her face trying to cheer her up. She just wanted a little alone time, and he was respectful of that.
He headed back through the house to his writing alcove. He would use this time to try to get some more progress done on the book.
The Never-Ending Story, as Doli sometimes jokingly referred to it. And with good reason. Brian had been working on this novel for years. Literally, years. It was the most ambitious project he’d ever undertaken, calling for massive amounts of research and meticulous outlining. And yet he still sometimes thought there was no reason why he shouldn’t be finished with it by now. He just couldn’t stop tinkering.
During his more contemplative moments, he wondered if he wasn’t afraid to put down those words, THE END. Perhaps he’d invested so much of himself—not to mention time—into the book, that he was afraid to send it out into the world to be judged by publishers. What if he’d spent years on this thing only to find he couldn’t place it anywhere? Its historical nature certainly didn’t make it an easy fit for Cemetery Dance, which had bought his last couple of books. Perhaps if just always kept the book “in progress” he’d never have to face the possibility of criticism and rejection.
But that wasn’t like Brian. He wasn’t a coward. He wrote what he was passionate about, not what was popular at the moment; he paid little mind to current market trends and just wrote from the gut. It was how he’d always done it, and he knew no other way.
Sitting down at his desk, briefly wondering again at his computer being on, he went to open the file for his book…
…only to find the folder empty.
Impossible, yet irrefutable. Brian closed the folder then reopened it, as if that might change the reality of the situation, but the file was not there. He did a quick search of all the drives on the computer but could not locate the file. He even checked the Recycle Bin but it had been recently emptied.
His book had been deleted from his computer.
Brian grabbed the sides of his desk, breathing quickly and shallowly, hyperventilating. With a trembling hand he reached out for the desk drawer in which he kept the back-up discs for the book, half-expecting them to be gone.
But they were still there. Broken into several pieces like shattered glass.
He felt nauseated and lightheaded at the same time, as if he might vomit and pass out, not necessarily in that order. All those years of work, all the blood sweat and tears he’d put into it, all destroyed. He’d never bothered printing out a paper copy of his work, figuring the back-up discs were enough.
As the shock began to recede a bit, what replaced it was rage. Who had done this? And why?
Could it have been Doli? Brian couldn’t believe it. Even if she’d had any reason to be upset with him, she would never have done anything this vicious. Just wasn’t in her nature, and she had too much respect for the written word.
But then who? Had someone come by while Brian was at the library? If so, he couldn’t imagine Doli would have let the person anywhere near Brian’s work space. At least not willingly.
Pushing up from the desk with such force that it sent the chair crashing to the floor, Brian ran back through the house, headed for the back door. He burst out onto the porch, calling Doli’s name. The property wasn’t that large, but suddenly it seemed miles separated him from the woman he’d shared his home and heart with for years.
As he ran across the back yard toward the lawn chairs, seeming to move in slow motion, Brian’s mind was a blank. Or at least he tried to make it a blank, not wanting to directly face the fear that was threatening to paralyze him.
After a near eternity, Brian finally reached the lawn chair on which Doli sat, skidding to a halt just behind it. He said her name, his voice a weak whisper. She did not move. Brian slowly made his way around the chair, his entire body going numb when he saw her grinning up at him. A jagged crimson grin just below her jaw.
He wasn’t aware that he had collapsed to the ground until he felt rocks digging into his knees. He was distantly aware of hot tears cascading down his cheeks, but he felt nothing. He seemed to have lost all his senses except for sight, and that was the one he wanted to lose most at this moment. And yet he couldn’t stop staring at the horror before him.
Until he heard the footsteps behind him. Brian turned his head and watched death approaching, materializing out of the darkness like a wraith.
***
Tom sat with his head in his hands. Billie was next to him, a hand resting gently on his knee. It was a small gesture, but it was support he greatly needed at the moment and he was grateful for it. He put his hand over hers and drew strength from his wife’s presence.
“Mr. Moran?” Agent Simmons said again.
Tom looked up at the agent. Simmons wasn’t the stereotypical image of FBI, no imposing broad-shouldered man with a block face wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. Simmons was short, surely no taller than 5’8”, of slight build with a chubby-cheeked baby face. He was dressed in tan slacks and a light blue short-sleeved button-down with the first three buttons undone. But his hazel eyes were focused and piercing, the stare of a man who tolerates no bullshit.
Tom cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, I guess I kind of spaced out for a moment. You were saying?”
“I asked why you didn’t contact the authorities after the first two murders.”
Tom put his head back in his hands, the guilt weighing down on him an anvil. He tried to speak but the words got stuck in his throat like bits of dry bread. He was choking on them.
“We didn’t really believe there was a connection,” Billie answered for him. “Not really. I mean, yes, it was a bizarre coincidence that the writers with the first two stories in the anthology were murdered within such a short time of each other, but we thought surely that was all it was—a coincidence.”
Simmons glanced briefly at Billie then trained his attention back on Tom. “And yet Mr. Moran did attempt to contact Brian Knight, the author with the third story in the collection?”
Tom nodded. “I figured I was just being silly—or at least hoped I was—but…well, you know, better safe than sorry and all that.”
“Of course. You wanted to give him a head’s up, just in case.”
“But I didn’t get to him in time.”
Simmons was silent for a moment, staring down at the notepad in his hands. Tom was sure the agent was just politely pretending not to notice the tears in Tom’s eyes. Billie rubbed at the small of his back but said nothing. That was one of the things he loved most about her; she always knew when words weren’t needed.
“So,” Simmons said after Tom had regained control of his emotions, “after the deaths of Mr. Knight, Mr. Hodge and his live-in companion Doli Nickel, that’s when you decided to contact someone?”
“Yes. From what coverage I could find on the murders, no one seemed to have made the connection to Feast of Blood.”
Simmons bristled a bit at this, as if his personal competency as an agent was being called into question. “Well, the first two murders did take place in Canada, so they weren’t even on our radar. Then one in Washington State followed by two in Colorado, with differing MOs each time…it wasn’t easy to connect those dots.”
“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting otherwise,” Tom was quick to say. “I just want this guy caught, whoever it is.”
“Well, the Bureau is involved now, and we’re coordinating our efforts with the Royal Mounted Canadian Police, so this sicko’s days are numbered I’d say.”
“I just…” Tom had to pause to fight back more tears. When he finally got the words out, they burst from him as if fired from a cannon. “This is all my fault!”
“Oh, honey, no,” Billie said, laying her head on his shoulder.
“It’s true. I don’t know why, but someone is targeting the writers from this anthology. The anthology I orchestrated, the writers I brought together. And now four of those writers are dead and—”
“Six,” Simmons interjected.
Tom just stared at him for a moment before he could make his mind truly comprehend what he’d just heard. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I thought you knew. Robert Dunbar and Jeff Strand, the next two writers from the collection, have also been killed.”
Tom took the news like a blow to his balls, bending over until his forehead almost touched his knees. “How?”
“Mr. Moran, I don’t think you really want to—”
“HOW?”
Simmons took a deep breath then said, “Mr. Dunbar was decapitated. Mr. Strand was hung upside down and bled like a pig in a slaughterhouse. Including Ms. Nickel in Colorado, that now brings the body count to 7.”
Tom felt like he might vomit at any moment. “God, this is a nightmare. Why is this happening?”
“That’s what we have to determine. We need to find the common denominator between all these writers.”
“But you know the common denominator,” Billie said. “It’s the anthology.”
“Yes, but why this particular anthology? I mean, these kinds of collections are released by the dozens. What is it about this one that has drawn a killer’s attention? Does it have to do with the publisher, the subject matter? I need you to walk me through exactly how this project came to fruition.”
Tom threw his head back and exhaled with force. He wasn’t really feeling up to a lot of exposition, but he didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter. Besides, if it could help…
“Billie and I have always been a fan of themed horror anthologies, and we really wanted to release one through Sideshow Press. We discussed a lot of ideas. Zombie stories, but honestly those seemed to have been done to death recently, pardon the pun. Ghost stories, werewolf stories, we even toyed with the idea of doing a collection of horror/sci-fi hybrids. Nothing felt right.”
At this point, Billie took up the narrative. “At the time, I was rereading Greg Nigel’s Vampire Feast books; that series has always been a favorite of mine. It was a real loss to the horror community when Nigel passed away. Knopf tried to keep the series going by releasing a new novel written by another writer.”
“Which was excellent, by the way,” Tom interjected.
“Yes, it was, which surprised me quite frankly. Scott Quincy was the writer who took up Nigel’s mantle, and I’d read some of his previous work.”
“Not good?” Simmons asked, showing remarkable patience with this digression.
“Not even in a so-bad-it’s-fun sort of way. Anyway, the Vampire Feast book he wrote was called Blood Sweat and Tears and it exceeded all my expectations. Actually started the series in a new and exciting direction and I was hoping there would be more books to follow. Unfortunately, despite its quality, the novel was not the success Knopf had hoped for. They just let the series die out.”
“So Billie was going on and on about the books, about how each time she reread them she found new depths and themes, and it got me to thinking. I knew there had to still be a fanbase out there for the Vampire Feast mythos, and that fictional world was rich with possibilities, just seemed to cry out for an anthology. Different writers providing their own unique takes on the characters and stories. Of course, I never dreamed I’d actually get to do it since Knopf still owned the rights.”
This seemed to grab Simmons’ attention and he leaned forward. “So was there some battle over the rights?”
“No, actually when I approached Knopf they were great, gave me permission to pursue the project without even hesitating. I think they view the Vampire Feast series as a dead property, honestly. We struck an agreement where they would get a percentage of the profits, and I was free to do my anthology.”
Looking a bit disappointed, Simmons leaned back, tapping his notepad against his knee. “So tell me about the writers whose stories ultimately appeared in the collection. How did you find them? Did you just take open submissions?”
“God, no. As a general rule, I’m not a fan of open submissions. We’ve been in the publishing business for a few years now, so we’ve developed relationships with a good many authors. We reached out to a select group and asked if they’d be interested in writing something for the project.”
“How many writers did you contact?”
“Oh, about twenty of so.”
“But there are only thirteen stories in the collection.”
“Well, not all the writers we approached were able to do it.”
“But all the ones that were, they were guaranteed a spot in the book?”
“Um, no. We had limited space, after all. There were a few stories that just didn’t…make the cut.”
Simmons leaned forward again. “And how many didn’t make the cut?”
“Three, I think,” Tom said, looking toward his wife.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“And of those three writers, were any of them particularly upset about not making it into the book?”
Billie narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m just thinking that maybe someone is awfully bitter about being rejected.”
“That’s crazy,” Tom said.
“Is it?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I know these people.”
“You’ve met them?”
“Not in person, not all of them, but still, I just can’t imagine any of them would be capable of something like this.”
“I’ve learned in my line of business that you can never predict what the human animal is capable of. So please answer the question, were any of the writers whose stories did not make the cut excessively upset?”
“No one likes rejection,” Tom said evasively.
Simmons crossed his arms, his thin lips tightening into a vertical line. “Look, Mr. Moran, I don’t have time to play games with you. I’d think you of all people would be eager for us to catch this guy before he gets any further down the list. I mean, the last story in the collection has your name on it, does it not?”
Tom’s only answer to that was silence. He and Billie exchanged a glance and she said, “Might as well tell him.”
“Okay, there was one writer who didn’t take the news that we weren’t using his story very well.”
Simmons cocked an eyebrow. “Angry, was he?”
“Well, he was a bit peeved, but not like homicidal rage or anything. He was disappointed and…”
“Angry?”
“Yes, fine, he was angry.”
“And how did he express that anger?”
“He wrote an email just sort of venting.”
“’Sort of venting.’ Could you be more specific?”
“From what I remember, he said it was unfair of us to request a story from him then not use it. He accused us of being biased toward the bigger named authors.”
“So he was disgruntled with the authors who did make it into the book?”
“I wouldn’t say disgruntled. He was just letting off some steam. He sent me another email a week later apologizing.”
Simmons was jotting furiously into his notepad. “Do you still have a copy of his original email?”
“I don’t know, that was a long time ago. I probably deleted it.”
“We’ll check your computer just to be sure. And what is this writer’s name?”
Tom hesitated a few seconds before saying, “Mark Gunnells.”
***
Mark Gunnells sat tensely in the uncomfortable chair, his face scrunched up as if he’d tasted something sour. They could have conducted this interview at the writer’s home, but Simmons had opted to have him come into the local police station instead, figuring it would throw the man off kilter if he had anything to hide. So far he hadn’t asked for a lawyer, and it didn’t look like he was going to need one.
“So Mr. Gunnells,” Simmons said, trying to cover his embarrassment with a professional demeanor, “we have confirmed with the administration at the plant where you work that you have not missed any shifts in the last couple of weeks.”
“I told you. Kind of hard for me to be gallivanting all across North America murdering people and still make my shift at 8 a.m. every morning, don’t you think?”
Simmons bit down on his irritation. As far as he was concerned, Mr. Gunnells wasn’t off the hook just yet. True, he had a pretty airtight alibi, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have hired someone to do the dirty work. Although realistically it wasn’t likely he could afford anything like that on a security guard’s salary. A check of his bank records showed he had less than a thousand dollars in savings and there had been no significant withdraws anytime recently. Perhaps Simmons didn’t want to let him go as a suspect simply because he didn’t like the man.
“Mr. Gunnells, try to understand, I have a job to do.”
“And your job description includes harassing innocent people?”
“No, it includes looking at every possibility, no matter how remote.”
“Have you talked to the other writers who didn’t make it into the anthology?”
“We will be.”
“But I got the honor of being first, huh? I’m guessing it’s because of the irate email I sent Tom. Am I right?”
Simmons chose not to answer.
“Okay, yes, I was upset about the rejection, although in retrospect it seems like a damn good thing Tom didn’t use my story or else I might be just another corpse by now.”
“That sounds rather callus.”
“Hey, I’m sorry as hell those guys are dead. I’m a big fan of all of them, I certainly didn’t kill them. You’d have to be pretty demented to resort to murder just because you didn’t get accepted into an anthology.”
“Playing devil’s advocate here, some might say the subject matter you deal with in your fiction is pretty demented.”
“You’re not seriously going that route, are you? If that’s the case, have you questioned Stephen King? Clive Barker? Peter Straub? Ascertained their whereabouts at the times of the murders?”
“Well, Stephanie Meyer is next on our list,” Simmons said with a smile.
Mark snorted. “I thought we were talking about horror.”
“Mr. Gunnells, if you will be patient for a bit longer, I just have a few—”
Simmons was interrupted when Agent McNamara came into the room, looking edgy. He motioned with his head for Simmons to step outside. After excusing himself, Simmons followed the other agent out into the hallway.
“What is it, McNamara?”
“Sir, we’ve lost another one.”
“What?”
“The next writer on the list, Lee Thomas, he and his, um, lover were killed about an hour ago.”
“How is that possible?”
“They were impaled, sir.”
“Both of them?”
“Together. They were naked in bed, and someone ran them through with a length of rebar.”
Simmons felt like beating his head against the wall until he knocked himself unconscious, but instead he settled for balling his hands into tight fists until his nails dug deep and painfully into his palms. “I put three men on Thomas and his partner. Where the hell were they when this was happening?”
“Dead, sir.”
***
Billie stood by the dresser and watched as her husband ran around the bedroom like a dervish, snatching her clothes out of the closet and tossing them in a suitcase open on the bed.
“Tom, honey, slow down.”
“There’s no time to waste, Billie. You and the kids need to get the fuck out of here, like pronto.”
“I don’t want to leave you. I feel like my place is by your side.”
Tom rushed over to her and grabbed her arms hard enough to hurt. There was a panic in his eyes that was frightening to behold. “Billie, do you understand there is some psychopath out there and I’m on his hit list? Whoever is doing this, he seems pretty fucking unstoppable, makes the Terminator look like a wind-up toy. It’s only a matter of time before he comes for me, and I don’t want you or the kids anywhere in the vicinity when he does.”
“But Tom—”
“Damn it, woman, don’t argue with me! The only time he’s killed anyone other than the writers themselves was when someone else was in the house and in the way. It’s not safe for you here.”
“There are at least a dozen FBI agents in and around the house.”
“Yeah, and do you think that saved Lee Thomas, or Gene O’Neill, or Lee Thompson? They all had big time FBI protection, yet Thomas still ended up with a pipe through his torso, O’Neill was set on fire, and Thompson had pages from the book shoved down his throat until he choked on them. This lunatic went through the FBI agents like they were paper dolls and he was scissor happy to get to his intended targets.”
“Like Greg Nigel,” Billie said softly.
“What?”
“I was just thinking…before Greg Nigel was murdered, there were reports he was being stalked so he had all these bodyguards in his house at the time. But all the bodyguards were killed, and then Nigel himself. They never caught who did it.”
Tom nodded. “Agent Simmons told me the FBI is considering the possibility that the new murders are somehow connected to Nigel’s death. Whoever’s doing this, the fucker is a professional and he never leaves evidence.”
Billie began crying then, she couldn’t help it. “Tom, I don’t want to be apart from you.”
“Listen to me, I’ll be okay,” Tom said, and he didn’t sound as if even he believed what he was saying. “I can take care of myself, but not if I’m constantly worried about you and the kids. If I know you all are safe, then I can focus and come up with a plan.”
“What do you think you can do that the FBI can’t?”
“Hey, I’m an artist and a writer. Creativity runs in my veins.”
They both shared a brief laugh. Very brief. Tom kissed his wife gently then returned to packing her suitcase.
***
--End Part One--