Woofer's Lair

Excerpt of WIP -- First Draft

2012-01-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

The week leading up to the day of the funeral had been a blur, thanks in part to the injections that Doctor Mark had been supplying to the family on a regular basis. It was only a mild sedative, and he did it with the best intentions, but when the effects wore off, Greg was an inconsolable mess. He had taken to drinking, and Ro-Anne, thanks to the unexplainable access to Christy’s memories, couldn’t remember him ever drinking to the extent that he was now. A beer or two now and again, but that was it. When he had more than two beers, his ugly side would begin to show, so he had learned to keep his alcohol intake to a minimum. The harder stuff, which is what he had been consuming, didn’t bring out his darker side; if anything, it had the opposite effect. He became a self-pitying retch, and it was pathetic to watch. Seeing him in that condition made it hard for Ro-Anne to keep her goal in mind. The same held true for his friends. The love and support they showed the entire family in their time of need was touching. She had to focus on the past to keep the fire inside her raging; otherwise, she might be tempted to abandon her cause. She could not allow that to happen. She must not let that happen. They had to pay.

During the week, when she wasn’t under the influence of Doctor Mark’s sedative, she had had time to think about the recent turn of events within herself. She had come to the conclusion that by successfully doing away with the Other, she had absorbed the girl’s essence, thereby absorbing her memories, making them as accessible to her as her own. She was able to recall events of the girl’s life that she normally would have had to coerce out of the Other. There could be no other reason for it.

There had also been times during the week that she thought she saw the spirit of the woman in the house. It surprised her at first, but she realized she shouldn’t have been surprised. Just as she had hung around because of unfinished business, Christy’s mother might be doing the same. It had never occurred to her until she caught a flicker of something that the woman might be out for revenge, just as she herself was seeking revenge. The only thing she was banking on, if that was the case, is that the woman wouldn’t be able to bring herself to act against her own daughter, no matter what the girl had done. She was also hoping that it would be awhile before the woman came into her own as a spirit. Ro-Anne had known immediately that she had died, but it had taken her awhile to learn that there were things she could do in her spectral form. If the woman was a fast learner, there might be problems. She wasn’t counting on it though; in life, the woman didn’t come across as being all that swift.

Now that the funeral was over and everybody had gone home, Ro-Anne found herself alone with Jeff and Greg. She marveled at Jeff’s strength. He mourned the loss of his mother, but his attachment seemed to be to his father. He was attentive to his father’s needs and was quick to tend to them when Mark wasn’t around. Given the amount of scotch Greg had consumed after the funeral, Mark didn’t want to administer the sedative, but he did leave some with Jeff and showed him how it was to be given should he feel his father needed it. Together they had gotten Greg up to bed and undressed. Mark had checked in with her to make sure she was okay, then he had taken his leave, promising to call later in the evening. The week had taken its toll on Jeff, but he had stayed strong. He had been checking on her earlier in the week, but seeing that she was managing to stay strong herself, he had devoted his time to Greg. He had seemed genuinely concerned for her because she was supposed to have been closer to their mother than he was, but the death of their mother coming so close on the heels of her own near death experience was the explanation given for her not grieving as strongly as they had expected. After Jeff and Mark put Greg to bed and Mark left, Jeff had checked on her before taking himself to bed. She suspected that he’d been taking hits of the bottle himself during the course of the day, but it wasn’t enough to be obvious, just enough to keep himself loose.

Knowing they would both sleep the night away, she needed to move things along with her own plans. She had lost valuable time this week, and she found as time went by, it was getting harder and harder to hold on to her rage towards these men. More than once she wondered who had consumed who on the day she fought with the other. She was feeling more and more of the Other in her own thoughts and she wondered if maybe she hadn’t lost the battle after all; she still had her own thoughts and memories, which she used to bank the fires, but it was taking more and more energy to keep the fire alive.

She stood in the doorway to her parents’ bedroom. Greg lay on his stomach. He must have been tossing in his alcohol-induced sleep because the blankets covering him had shifted and his bare ass was exposed. Her first impulse was to go in and cover him, but then she realized that was the Other thinking. She reached back into her past and could see those buttocks rising and falling as he thrust into her. He had been the first, and the pain of his brutal first thrust into her had been like a hot spike impaling her. She had screamed, begging him to stop, but he had only looked into her eyes and laughed. He had been the first to have his way with her, but he would be the last to go. Thinking of what he had done then, and what he was doing now, upholding the law as the sheriff of this shit-hole town sickened her. The hypocrisy of it did not escape her, and now, thinking about it, she couldn’t wait until she saw the fear in his eyes as her realized the crimes of his past were back to haunt him. She wanted them all to know.

But couldn’t people redeem themselves?

No. She forced that foreign thought deep into the dark recesses of her mind. That was the Other talking, and she wouldn’t allow It to sway her from her chosen path. She turned away from Greg’s unconscious form. She still hadn’t buried the pillowcase she left in the clearing, and she realized now she was glad she hadn’t. She would need the gun to carry out some of her plans. She would take care of that tomorrow. She had other things that needed to be done first, but she would need to be careful.

Returning to her room, she took the cash she had kept. Many times during the week she had wondered what she would spend it on. It couldn’t be anything too obvious because that was raise some questions as to where she got the money from, but the more she thought about it, she knew she would use the money to help further her plans. This way there would be nothing in the house to arouse suspicion, and the blood money would be aptly used to spill more blood. She booted up her laptop and got online and did a search for adult bookstores in the area. She didn’t want anything too close to home, so she decided on one that boasted twenty-four hour operation in Boston. She wrote down the address, shoved it in her pockets, then grabbed the car keys. Greg had handed her the keys a couple of days ago saying that since she had her license she may as well make use of the car. Better she make use of it than trying to sell it when she would only be looking for her own car in a couple of years anyway. She wasn’t supposed to leave town with the car unless he was with her, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She ran up the stairs for one more quick pit stop before heading out.

She returned to town three hours later with a couple of bags full of props. When she had walked into the bookstore, the clerk had eyed her suspiciously, and she was all set to be given a hard time over her purchases, but the clerk, on seeing how much she was spending, didn’t bat an eye. When she left, she made one more stop at a hardware store and picked up some rope and some industrial strength latex gloves before heading back to town.

By the time she got back to town, it was dark. She pulled the car into the parking lot of an all-night diner. She grabbed the gloves out of the shopping bag and slipped them into her purse before getting out of the car. Across the street was a twenty-four hour self-service laundry mat. The lights were on, but the place appeared to be empty. She could see that a few of the machines were on, so she figured the people were in the diner. Diagonally across the street was a gas station. It was closed for the night, but the red neon sign in the window remained lit, the reflection of the light on the pavement looking like pooled blood. In all directions, the streets were deserted, which was good. There were lights on in some of the houses, and she longed to be with her family. Not Greg and Jeff, but her real family, the one she never had. The husband and children that those men robbed from her on that night. The longing only served to fan the flames. With a firm resolve, she locked up the car and started toward her destination.

The street she was walking along was lined with trees, the branches thick with summer foliage that blocked out the glow of the street lamps. She was like a shadow among shadows as she made her way up the street. She traveled about half a mile along the darkened alleyway of trees before reaching her destination. The church was dark except for flickering votive candles that illumunated the stained glass with a soft glow. Next door to the church the rectory stood. On the first floor light flooded out from one window on the right side of the house. On the other side, there was a faint radiance, as if the light from the other room was casting its glow across the hall to dispel the darkness gathered there.

Without hesitation, she started for the rectory, climbing the two steps up the porch. There was no straying from the path she was on she reminded herself as she rang the doorbell. While she waited for Father Ritchie to answer the door, she mentally rehearsed what she was going to say. The curtain to the side of the door move and she saw the priest look out. He was quick to open the door when he saw who it was.

“Christina,” he greeted her as he held the door open for her. “It’s so late. What brings you here at this hour?”

“I needed to get out of the house,” she said as she slipped past him. Of all the others, he was the one she feared the least. Despite what he had done to her all those years ago, she knew she held no interest for him any more. At the time, she couldn’t understand the nervousness he displayed whenever he was around women; after all, he was a handsome man. Now, though, since he had been around the house for most of the week, she understood all too well what prompted the nervousness. She saw it in the way he looked at the other men, how he looked at Jeff. There was a hunger in his eyes, the same kind of hunger that was reflected in the eyes of the guys as they took their turn with her. Lust. Pure, unadulterated lust. The man was a homo. No wonder he became a priest. She wondered if he really kept his vow of chastity, or were there a bunch of altar boys that he diddled on a regular basis? Or maybe there were frequent trips to that bookstore in Boston. Whatever he was now, it did not excuse him for the things he had done. It was time to atone for his sins.

She turned to him as he closed the door. “It’s okay that I came her, right?”

“Of course, my child.” He escorted her into the living room. “Does you father know you’re here?”

After she took a seat on the sofa, she said, “I left a note for him. Jeff was exhausted and went to bed after Doctor Mark left. Dad had a little too much to drink and fell asleep.”

“Don’t judge your father, my dear. He’s been through quite an ordeal. You all have.”

“I’m not judging him. I’m just saying.”

He took a seat in the recliner situated just to the side of the sofa so he could look at her comfortably as they talked. “You’ve surprised everybody this week.”

She looked at him with mild curiosity. “In what way?”

“How well you’ve been holding up. Considering how close you and your mother were.”

“I guess it hasn’t really hit me yet. Dad’s been a mess, and Jeff, well, Jeff’s young, and I need to be there for him. He’s been strong for dad, but he couldn’t carry it all on his shoulders. That wouldn’t have been right or fair.”

“Well, if you need to let it out, you can. Nobody here will judge you.”

She stiffened, looking around. “You have company?”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then understood what she was implying. “No, not at all. We’re alone. I meant in the House of the Lord, nobody will be judge. The Lord only hands us what he knows we can handle, even if we don’t think we can. If only we had the kind of faith in ourselves that he has for us.”

She relaxed some and settled back on the sofa.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

She nodded. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

He got up and started for the kitchen, when she asked, “Can I use the bathroom?”

“Of course you can. Up the stairs, last door on the left.”

She relied on Christy’s memories to guide her. On the second floor landing, she used the bathroom, then crossed the hall and opened the door opposite the bathroom. A flight of stairs led up to the attic. As kids, she and Jeff used to play up there all the time after mass, when Greg and his wife came over for tea with Ritchie.

In the kitchen, Ritchie tried calling Greg to let him know that his daughter arrived safely, but there was no answer. The answering machine didn’t even pick up, which meant they hadn’t cleared the messages all week, which was understandable. He seemed to remember Mark saying he turned the ringer off on the phones so they wouldn’t be disturbed. He took two glasses from the cupboard and an ice cube tray from the freezer. He cracked some ice into each of the glasses, then got two cans of Diet Pepsi from the fridge, He placed them unopened on a tray, added the glasses, and as an afterthought, he added a plate that he filled with cookies. He was just returning to the living room when he heard the toilet overhead flush.

After setting the tray down on the coffee table, he took his seat and waited for Christy’s return. When she didn’t come back down after five minutes, he got up and went to the foot of the stairs. “Christina?” he called out so softly he doubted she could have heard him through the bathroom door. He placed one foot on the first step, his hand on the banister, and tried again, this time a little louder. “Christina, are you okay up there?”

When no response was forthcoming, he began to feel a little nervous. Had she passed out up there? Had the stress of the past week’s events finally overcome her and she collapsed? He bolstered his courage and went up the stairs, going straight for the bathroom door. He knocked softly on the door. “Christina? Are you okay?” He had his ear pressed to the door trying to hear if she was muffling her sobs, but all was silent within. “I’m coming in,” he said, grasping the doorknob. He twisted and pushed the door open. The lights were out in the small tiled room so he flicked them on to find the room empty.

He turned, wondering where she could have gone, and noticed the door to the attic. The light wasn’t on, but that didn’t mean anything. It was entirely possible that the bulb blew out, that’s how often he went up there. He glanced down the hall to his bedroom door, which was closed, just the way he left it, so he could only assume the girl went up to the attic. But why?

Fear suddenly clawed at his stomach when he thought of one possibility as to why she went up there. Overwhelmed with grief, he wondered if the girl felt comfortable enough her to commit suicide. She and her mother had had a very close relationship, and in the entire week, with the exception of that first day, he had not seen Christina cry once. It wasn’t good for anybody to hold in that kind of grief. Convinced that that was the only reason she could have for venturing up into the attic, he raced across the floor and through the doorway. He took the steps one at a time, going more slowly in the darkness that he wanted to. He needed to stop the girl before it was too late. He stumbled once on the stairs but managed to stay upright, and finally gained the landing. “Christina?” There was no reply and he hoped he wasn’t too late.

There was no light switch at the foot of the stairs, something he had complained to the parish about on numerous occasions, but they claimed it wasn’t in the budget to have any wiring redone, so he had to make do with the bare bulb and draw string that hung suspended in the middle of the room. He made his way towards the center of the floor, shuffling along in case he should stumble into something.

He was halfway to his target when the attic was suddenly filled with light, temporarily blinding him. There was the sound of footsteps as somebody moved rapidly across the floor, going around and coming up behind him.

“Keep going.”

He jumped at the sound of the girl’s voice. He felt something hard press into the small of his back, and a little shove that forced him to stumble forward. He continued until he stood under the light fixture before turning around. Christina stood at the head of the stairs, and it took his mind a moment to register that she held a gun on him. “What’s going on, Christina? What’s this all about?”

She ignored the question. “Strip, Father.” Her voice was cold, and he could practically taste the venom with which she said the word “Father,” like it was something vile that she needed to get out of her mouth.

“Christina. . .”

“Stop calling me that,” she demanded.

“Christy. . .”

“Not that either.”

“What. . .”

“I said, Strip.”

He didn’t know what was going on, but she had a gun. He didn’t think she had the nerve to use it, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. There was something not right with the girl, and considering everything she had been through in the past few weeks – moving, the loss of her mother, her own near-death experience – it was entirely possible that her mind had snapped. He’d had crisis management training, but never at gun point, and he clung to the hope that he would be able to talk her down from whatever emotional roller coaster she was on. Without waiting to be told a third time, he started to take off his clothes.

As he undressed, he felt the need to keep her talking. He couldn’t understand her refusal to acknowledge her given name, but that wasn’t the important thing at the moment. He wanted to know her intentions, as she came into his home and was holding him at gunpoint. “I know you’re upset by what’s happened, but that’s. . .”

“You have no clue, Father. Upset doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Again, there was that bitterness. After all that had happened, had she lost her Faith in God? Was she taking out her anger and frustration on him because he was God’s representative here on Earth? “Christina. . .”

“I told you not to call me that!”

He had his shirt off and had just slipped off his shoes. “You don’t have to do this. You. . .”

“Stop talking. Don’t talk. Just get your clothes off.”

He was about to say something else, but thought better of it. In silence, he removed his trousers and stood there before her in his socks, underwear, and t-shirt. A flush colored his cheeks, and he didn’t know if it was from nerves or embarrassment. Crossing his hands in front of his crotch, he bowed his head, admitting defeat. He would accept whatever humiliation she dished out if it would make her feel better and start her on the road to emotional recovery. Of course, he was thinking rape, and he hoped his inability to perform with her wouldn’t anger her further. There was no telling what she would do if he couldn’t do what she wanted.

"Don't stop there," she commanded. "Keep going. All of it. Off."

He slipped off his socks. The floorboards beneath his bare feet were cold, and they sent shivers coursing over his body. He slipped his t-shirt over his head and tossed it with the rest of his clothes. There was a moment’s hesitation when he went for his underwear when he caste a look towards Christy, pleading with his eyes. She gave a wave with the barrel of the gun, indicating that he should keep going. The underwear went, and he stood there, in all his glory, hands clasped in from of him.

“Move over there,” she said, indicating a support beam a couple of yards away. He inched over to it, not wanting her to be startled by any sudden moves. He wasn’t sure how comfortable she was with a gun, and the last thing he wanted or needed was to have it go off by accident.

When he was in front of the beam, she took a step closer. “Put your arms around the beam.”

He stepped behind it and then wrapped his arms around it, hugging it tightly. He could feel the rough texture of the raw wood against his bare skin. He watched as she took something from her purse. Whatever it was gleamed in the overhead light. She held them out to him, and when she did, he saw it was a pair of handcuffs. “Put these on,” she told him.

Reluctantly, he did as he was told.

Once he was secured, she walked around him, sizing him up like a prized cattle being put up for auction. When she pressed the cold steel barrel of the gun against his flesh, he inhaled sharply and held his breath. She rubbed it up and down his left side, across his shoulder blades, and down his spine. When he felt her slide it lower, coming to rest just above his buttocks, he closed his eyes and started to pray silently. He felt the gun slip between his ass cheeks, felt her body press against his, and she whispered in his ear, “Bang.”

Then the pressure was gone and he slowly let out the breath he’d been holding. A startled shriek broke from his lips when she playfully smacked him on the ass. She laughed, and if there was any other sign that he needed that he was in deep shit, that was it. Her footsteps echoed on the floorboards, and she came into view. She was still fully dressed, still held the gun, although it was at her side for the moment, and not aimed at him. She wasn’t looking at him, either; she was looking down, her hair hiding her face like a curtain. He didn’t dare say a word for fear he would anger her again. There was no telling how much was needed to push her over the edge of toying with him to scare him to death and actually placing the barrel up his ass and pulling the trigger. The girl was in need of psychiatric help, more help than he had been trained to handle in this crisis management training.

When she finally looked up, she gave him a shy smile, and a ray of light showed through the gathering darkness. “Don’t go away,” she told him as she started for the stairs. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“You can’t leave me like this.”

That brief glimmer of hope shattered when she sent daggers his way. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” she growled at him. “Those days are over.”

She descended the stairs without a look back, leaving him to wait and worry.

And think.

That was the worst part, being left alone with his own thoughts. They ran wild trying to figure out what he had done to Greg’s daughter to deserve what she was doing to him, and for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything. Instinctively, he pulled at the handcuffs, but he had closed them a little too much when he had put them on. He couldn’t slide his hands through. If he had something to lubricate his hands, they might slide through, but anything that could be used to grease his hands was either in his bedroom or in the kitchen. There might be something in the boxes, as most of what was stored up here was stuff he didn’t want prying eyes to see.

The second thing to cross his mind was trivial, but it was something that made the waiting seem interminable. When he stripped, he should have taken his watch off along with everything else. Since it was still on, he was able to count down the seconds, the minutes that she was gone. He had no idea where she had gone to, although he had feeling she was no longer in the house. He thought he had heard the door slam shut. His only hope is that she forgot to leave the lock disengaged. She wouldn’t be able to get back into the house then, and he would only have to wait it out until ten o’clock the following morning when his housekeeper arrived. Yeah, it would be embarrassing to be discovered this way, but at least he would still be alive. It was better than the other option.

She was gone about forty-five minutes. He heard the door slam shut again. She must have puttered around on the first floor, because it was about ten minutes later when he heard her coming up the stairs. But she didn’t come right up to the attic, which meant she was snooping around on the second floor. There were only two other rooms on the second floor besides the bathroom—his office and his bedroom. Neither place was appropriate for her to be snooping because although most of the private things were kept up here, there were things that he accessed on an almost daily basis that would not be suitable viewing for a young girl.

Another fifteen minutes passed before he heard her coming up the attic stairs, and she was dragging something behind her. He could tell by the clunking thumping it made on the stairs. When she came into view, she held a couple of shopping bags in one hand, and behind her she dragged the heavy chair he kept at his desk in the office. She set the shopping bags down by the stairs, then dragged the chair across the floor. She was staring up at the ceiling, and she positioned the chair beneath a low-hanging structural crossbeam. He noticed there was something rolled up and stuck in the back pocket of her jeans. Once she was happy with the placement of the chair, she turned and looked at him.

“Have you been a good boy while I’ve been gone?”

He nodded.

The smile she wore slipped, turning into a malicious grin that sent chills all over his body, like thousands of baby spiders crawling all over him. “I think not. In fact, I think you’ve been naughty.” She took out the rolled up object from her back pocket and unrolled it. He recognized it immediately, and it was suddenly like ice running through his veins. She wasn’t going to kill him; she was going to expose him, which was a fate worse than death. “Very naughty, indeed.” She started to flip through the pages of the porno magazine that showed young men, very young men, engaging in sexual acts with men old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers.

His mouth was suddenly dry and he tried to work up a mouthful of spit so he could speak. “What. . .” His voice cracked. He swallowed against the dryness and it felt as if he were trying to swallow a cup full of cotton balls. “What are you going to do,” he was finally able to croak.

She tossed the magazine at his feet. “I think you need to be punished, Ritchie.” She crossed the floor and took another magazine from the shopping bag. He recognized that one as well. The cover was curled he had looked at it some many times, and if she tried to open it, she would find that some of the pages were stuck together. My God, this was so embarrassing.

She tossed that one on the floor as well. “And to think you had everything I needed already here. I didn’t have to buy any of this shit.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a couple more magazines, but these ones he didn’t recognize. She flipped through the pages of those ones as well, pausing a moment to admired the centerfold. “My, my. He is a big boy. But I think he’s a bit older than you like ‘em.” She showed him the picture he was looking at; the kid was young, over eighteen because of the publication’s modeling agreement, but looked younger, and he possessed a dick that would split a guy in two if he tried anything with it. She was right, though; while the guy looked young, he was older than he liked them. A lot older.

“And lookie what else I found, you bad boy.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle of lubricant and a dildo, the battery operated kind that vibrated. He could tell by the hot flush on his face that he had turned scarlet. He watched with a growing sense of horror as she put that on the floor and reached into the shopping bag yet again. This time she pulled out a coiled length of rope. She sat down on the floor and proceeded to tie a noose. She was going to kill him after all and tarnish his reputation by leaving all this stuff around. There was no way he could let that happen. He had to try and talk her out of whatever she had planned.

“You don’t have to do this. I’ll pack my bags. I’ll leave town.”

She ignored him. To his horror, she started to whistle while she worked on the noose. When she was done, she got up and climbed up onto the chair, taking the rope with her, and tossed the noose over the beam. She looked around, trying to find some place to secure the other end of the rope. He knew what she was looking for and he prayed that she wouldn’t find anything. Her eye sight was better than his, because the next thing he knew she was off the chair and crossing the floor. On one of the support beams that ran floor to ceiling there was a mooring mount. He’d never noticed it before, but then again, he rarely spent more time than was absolutely necessary up here. After she secured the rope, she climbed back up onto the chair and tested the rope.

Knowing that he was on step closer to death, he started to sweat.

She jumped down from the chair and went to retrieve something else from the shopping bags. Her hand reached in and came out with the gun. Done with her preparations, she returned her attention to him as she reached deep into her jeans pocket. She produced the key to the handcuffs and showed it to him. “Now,” she said, as if instructing a child, “I’m going to give you the key. You are going to wait until I get back here where I’m standing now, then, and only then, are you going to open the cuffs and free yourself. Is that understood?”

He licked his lips and nodded. He wondered what his chances were of overpowering her before she could get a shot off.

“Then you are going to put the key and the cuffs on the floor and you are going to climb up on that chair and put the noose around your neck. Is that clear?”

Again, he nodded. Fat chance, he thought.

But once she handed him the key, he did exactly as she had instructed. With the noose securely around his neck, she approached the chair, then picked up one of the magazines from off the floor and handed it to him. “Now, I want you to jack off.”

He shook his head slowly. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “No,” he somehow managed to say. He hated that his voice was trembling, betraying his fear, but what else could he do with a noose around is neck and a gun pointed at him.

She shoved the barrel of the gun against his nut sac. “You wanna keep ‘em?”

He nodded.

“Then jack off. Jack off and we’ll all be happy.”

She took a few steps back as he flipped open the magazine. Despite the terror that filled him, the sight of the glossy photo spread of the child and the older man forced his baser desires to override any thoughts of his impending death and he felt himself respond. His hand dropped down to his crotch and he took his hardening cock in hand. He tried not to look at Christy, but he couldn’t help it. While he stroked himself, his gaze flickered from the magazine to the girl holding the gun. She was smiling at him. “That’s right,” she said. “You like that, don’t you? Feels good, doesn’t it?” He couldn’t believe that she was encouraging him. She had said if he jerked himself off, they would all be happy. Was that all this was going to turn out to be? Some sick fetish on her part. He wouldn’t be surprised if she reached into her pants and started fingering herself, but she didn’t.

“You know,” she continued. “I see the way you look at Jeff. You’d like to do things with him, wouldn’t you? Things like they’re doing in that magazine.”

He glanced down, and in his minds’ eye he saw himself and her younger brother in place of the models, and he could feel his climax fast approaching.

“I can make it happen. I can arrange for the two of you to be together so you can fuck him. Just like you fucked me.”

Something in her words didn’t sound right, but he was too far gone in the fantasy to realize what it was. Just the thought of his forbidden desires becoming an actuality was enough to put him over the edge. He closed his eyes as his orgasm caused his muscle to seize up. His cock pulsed in his hand as he came in spurts all over the floor. His breathing came in ragged gasps and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His muscles unlocked and his legs began to sag, but the feel of the noose tightening around his neck forced him to take control and straighten them. He looked at her, unsure if the words she had spoken had been meant with sincerity, or if they were said because she knew it would push him over the edge, because – God forgive me – he wanted so much to be with Jeff. Maybe have Greg join in.

He let the magazine fall to the floor and reached for the rope around his neck.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He froze. The gun was pointed at him again.

“I thought. . .” He paused when she took a step towards him.

“What? What did you think? That I would let you walk out of here? That I would let you run to Daddy and tell him what I did to you? And once I was out of the way, in some hospital or institution, you’d be able to console my baby brother? To hold him? Fondle him? You sick bastard!”

The fear was returning, and his heart was racing again; this time it wasn’t from sexual release, but from pure unadulterated terror. But he had to confront her with what she said. “You said if I jerked off for you, we’d all be happy.”

She seemed to think this over for a minute, her face taking on a mask of seriousness. When she looked at him again, there was a crazed look in her eyes and a feral grin on her face. “I lied. No. Wait. I didn’t lie.” She looked at the cum-splattered floor. “I think you were very happy for a moment,” she looked and met his gaze, “wouldn’t you say?”

“I won’t tell anyone about this, Christy, I promise.”

“I told you not to call me that,” she raged. “My name’s not Christy! And it’s not Christina!”

He looked at her, completely confused. Had the recent chain of traumatic events caused her to take on a second personality? It wasn’t unheard of, but from what he could remember, it was usually physical or sexual abuse that spurred on that kind of thing. The confusion must have been evident on his face as he tried to figure out this piece of the puzzle, because her next words left him even more confused.

“My name,” she said, “is Rhonda.”

Rhonda? Why did that name sound familiar?

“Rhonda. Anne. Darcy.”

The proverbial light bulb went off in his head and recognition dawned.

“But. . . but you’re. . . dead.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I am, no thanks to you and your buddies.”

“You can’t be. You’re dead.”

“You said that already. And you want to know something?”

He looked at her, his face completely blank.

“So are you.”

And she kicked the chair out from under him.

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED WITH BUTTER AND OLD BAY SEASONING

2012-01-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

It's taken me awhile to get around to Part 2 of this series, but I figured what better way to ring out the old year than with a good ol' fashioned crab boil. Well, that, and the fact that Brian Keene recently announced that Clickers vs. Zombies, the fourth installment in this universe, was going to be released later this year. For those who haven't read Part 1, it is highly recommended for sinking your teeth into this one.

It's been 12 years since Hurricane Floyd swept in and all but wiped the town of Phillipsport, Maine, off the face of the map. Twelve years since, under cover of the storm, the Clickers invaded, decimating the small town's population. What the Clickers didn't destroy, the Dark Ones did. Only a handful of people (and a small handful at that) survived. Of the town's inhabitants there were only two, Melissa Peterson and celebrated horror author Rick Sychek. The rest were military personnel.

In the years following massacre of Phillipsport, there have been numerous disappearances, all linked to the Clickers and the Dark Ones, but the Government, fearing nation-wide panic, has opted to cover up the truth. Those who threaten to reveal what is actually going on, or come close to discovering the truth, disappear or are killed, which is why Rick and Melissa have gone underground, living under assumed names and trying to keep under the Government's radar. And now, once again, the East Coast is being threatened by another hurricane, and as Hurricane Gary moves onto shore, so too do the Clickers, herded by the Dark Ones. This time the Clickers are bigger. This time the Dark Ones are not just coming up to feed. They are pissed.

And they want revenge on those that were massacred following Hurricane Floyd.

Can the U.S survive an organized assault by the sea dwellers?

It's been said of movies that, with rare exceptions, sequels never surpass the original, and quite often fall far from what was accomplished in the original. In the literary world, I find that to be just the opposite, and Clickers II by J.F. Gonzalez and Brian Keene is no exception. Where the original novel put me in mind of the old nature strikes back movies I loved so much as a kid, this one takes things to the next level. We aren't dealing with mindless mutants surfacing to feed, but a thinking, reasoning race out for revenge.

It's obvious the authors are assuming the reader is already familiar with the Clickers and the Dark Ones, as they waste no time getting to the meat of the matter. You know what's coming, and you don't have to wait long. This isn't a rehash of the original novel set in a different location—that would be boring—but a continuation of the story. It follows a natural progression from what has gone before, and I am eager to see what happens in the next one. I can't recommend this one enough, but do yourself a favor and grab Clickers first.

God Bless Us, Everyone!

2011-12-29T07:53:00.000-08:00

Having read a few zombie mash-ups of other literary classics, I swore I would never read another one. It's not so much that they're badly written; it's just that the zombie element doesn't add anything to the story. It's kind of like watching Lucas' reboots on his original Star Wars films—it's painfully obvious where the new footage was added, and you find yourself wondering why he had to go ahead and mess with perfection. So why, after swearing off zombie mash-ups, did I have a sudden change of heart and tackle this one? Because I love A Christmas Carol, and I was hoping against hope that the author was able to rise to the challenge and deliver something spectacular. What I found was no different than others I have read.

I'm not going to bore you with a rehash because I'm sure you are all familiar with Dickens' classic tale, be it from Mr. Magoo, The Muppets, or any of the hundreds of countless movies aired every Christmas; what I will tell you is that the only thing lacking in Michael G. Thomas' spin on things is a substantial amount of zombie action. We get through the first half of the book without seeing a single member of the Walking Dead class. They are mentioned; in fact, we find that they are the cause of Jacob Marley's death, but the threat had been entirely eradicated and nobody has seen a single zombie in the seven years since his death. We don't really see any zombies until Scrooge is visited by the first of the three spirits, and it is then that we learn of Marley's death, which could have been avoided if he hadn't been so damned greedy. The threat of another zombie invasion is hinted at when our beloved Ebenezer is visited by the second of the three spirits, but we don't get the full-scale invasion until after the third spirit has come and gone and Scrooge wakes up to realize that the spirits were able to do it all in one night. And thanks to what Scrooge witnessed during his visitation with the spirits, he knows exactly what needs to be done in order to put the Walking Dead to rest once and for all.

The one thing that stood out for me in this retelling is Thomas' attempt to explain the current zombie outbreak. We don't see any of the usual causes for the dead rising. There is no meteor shower and no failed government experiments. What we do see is a religious cult that possesses an artifact that allows the person who touches it the power to control the dead. This opens up an entire subplot that, unfortunately, isn't fully addressed in the book. If it had been, I might have enjoyed the book more than I did. The only thing Zombie Christmas Carol was able to accomplish with this reader is to strengthen my conviction that the classics need to be left alone.

ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE! THE FANS ON THE OTHERHAND. . .

2011-09-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Parents.

They just don't understand their own kids and the need to be able to express themselves. They want their kids to grow up to be clones of themselves. And as long as you have parents like that, you will have the need for schools like the Southern Illinois Music Re-Education Center, a private institution dedicated to brainwashing the young adults placed in their care by frustrated parents; however, if those parents only knew the atrocities that were being inflicted upon their children—psychological abuse, rape, and murder—they just might regret their decision to force their children to conform by any means necessary.

This is the setting for Bryan Smith's Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies, which in itself might seem bad enough, especially for those confined within its walls, but all hell is about to break loose.

Melissa Campbell doesn't think things could get any worse. Torn away from her boyfriend and enrolled by her parents in the Southern Illinois Music Re-Education Center, she never expected to be raped by one of her teachers. She's the lucky one because at least she didn't catch the eye of the headmistress. If she had, she might very well be six feet under, a journey one of her housemates has already made, and another who is in the process of making that journey. You see, not only does the headmistress have an eye for the young ladies, she has a taste for hookers and a taste for murder, the ultimate climax in her twisted sex games. Not wanting to face her attacker again, Melissa sneaks a phone call to her boyfriend, pleading with him to come get her and take her away, but afterward she doesn't think that he's going to come through for her, so she has to rely on her one friend in the house to help her get out of there.

Little does Melissa know, her boyfriend, Wayne Devereaux, and his best friend, Steve Wade, are on their way to get her out of there. Neither has a clue as to what they are getting themselves into, only that Melissa is not happy where she is. As they head toward the school, a meteor burns through the sky, crashing into the fields not too far from the school. Meteors crash into the earth all the time, right? So as long as they don't land on you, no harm done, right?

Wrong!

Whether it's from the radiation or some sort of bacteria released upon the meteor's entry into the earth's atmosphere, four dead girls rise from the grave with a hunger for fresh meat. And as is the way with all things zombie, the population begins to grow exponentially, kinda like that old Faberge commercial—they told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on—and before you know it, the house is overrun with the living dead.

Will Wayne and Steve get to the house in time to save Melissa, or will they become zombie chow before they get through the front door? Will Melissa gain her freedom from the torments of the house, only to become the main course in a zombie smorgasbord?

I wasn't sure what to expect with Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies. I mean, years ago I rented this movie called Hard Rock Zombies, and it turned out to be a bad, campy movie, and even though I knew Smith's novel was classified as horror, I wasn't sure if this was going to be a serious horror novel or something on the quasi-humorous side. I quickly learned that I had nothing to worry about.

Unlike most of the zombie fiction I've been reading, Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies starts at the beginning. There are no zombies running amok when the book starts, and it isn't until the meteor passes that the dead start to rise from their graves. It harkens back to Romero's Night of the Living Dead when news commentator is asking one of the scientists what might have started it all. I was glad to see that, with one or two exceptions, Smith treated zombies in the more traditional manner—mindless shamblers with a hunger for flesh. Had they the more modern twist that seems to be invading so many of the zombies films I've been seeing, i.e., zombies that could easily beat out the fastest runner of the Boston Marathon, I doubt I would have finished reading it.

I also found it interesting that the only likable characters in the book are the kids; they are fully fleshed out and you find yourself rooting for them as they go up against the zombies. Smith's adults, on the other hand, tend to be flat cardboard characters, the bad guys with no redeemable qualities whatsoever. You are meant to dislike them, and Smith goes to the extreme to make sure you don't. You want to seem them fall prey to the walking dead; they are so bad that you don't even want to see them come back as zombies, but as is the nature of the living dead, you know they will. And they do, which only serves to fuel the survival instinct in the kids. I could very easily see a smile on the faces of these kids as they send the zombies back to the hell they came from, especially after they made their lives a living hell when they were alive.

I genuinely liked Rock and Roll Reform School Zombies. Bryan Smith has created a fun, fast-paced tale of the dawning of the zombie apocalypse, and I would definitely recommend it.

Send in the Clowns. . . Uh. . . On Second Thought. . .

2011-08-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

As I continue my search for the next great zombie novel, a friend of mine loaned me a copy of Keith Carpenter's Zombie Circus: The Most Death Defying Show in Town. It was something I had spotted on Amazon and made a mental note to check out when the price came down. At 166 pages, I found paying ten bucks for the Kindle version a little hard to swallow, and forking over twenty bucks for the paperback even harder to swallow. I got burned once paying a high price for an unknown, and after having read Carpenter's little novel, I am so glad I didn't shell out the money for it, which is really sad because I wanted to like this book more than I did.

The book starts out in the town of Ashbrooke in the year 1946. Ashbrooke is a little backwater town, heavy on the religion, so when the Fink and Zimner Freak Show and Circus roll into town, a majority of the town folk were downright furious that such a shameless display of the evil and debauchery should set up tents in their little town, and they had every intention of making their feelings known.

The circus folk, however, are well aware of how the town folk feel, as they were greeted with hostility every time they passed through. So what makes them think this year is going to be any different? They don't, but they came prepared with the Apa Vie, a tonic that promised a good long life if used properly. Madame Zadora is against the selling of the Apa Vie because she knows what can happen should it fall into the wrong hands.

When the town folk, led by the less-than-holy Pastor Harry Farwell, and the circus folk meet, things get a little out of hand. Well, that's an understatement. Things actually go to Hell in a handbasket, and by the time it is over, all but one of the circus folk are dead, and the pastor has had his hand severed. In the skirmish, the pastor has the misfortune of being splashed with the Apa Vie, and by the next day, his hand has grown back, which he takes as a sign from God that he has done the right thing.

Jump sixty years later, and another circus is pulling into town. This time around, the majority of the town folk are looking forward to it, but there is one man who would love nothing better than to run them out of town—the local sheriff. The circus sets up on the same grounds where the previous circus met their end, and the only thing still around from the previous performers is a decrepit caravan wagon—and a case of Apa Vie. When the Apa Vie bottles are broken and the mystical fluid seeps into the ground, it reanimates the charred, decaying corpses of the previous circus, and they rise up seeking revenge.

Can the town of Ashbrooke survive the wrath of the Circus of the Damned?

As I said earlier, I really wanted to like this more than I did. I like the premise behind it, as it brings to mind campy classics like Hard Rock Zombies and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and if the circus aspect has been done before in a zombie novel, I haven't come across it yet. So what was wrong with it? For one thing, the characters come across as cardboard cutouts, stereotypes of the kind of character they are meant to be, with very little development to flesh them out. They lack dimension, and the words that come out of their mouths are so stilted it's laughable.

In addition to the dialogue being laughable, the book itself is painful to read in places. The author does not seem to have a grasp of basic writing skills, as there are run-on sentences, mixed tenses within a sentence, misspelled words galore, all evidence that this book wasn't placed in the hands of a proofreader or editor. Had it been, the book might have been elevated to an enjoyable read.

Aside from the actual writing, I also found situations in the book to be very contrived, something that might have been forgivable had the book been better written. A group of survivors are holed up in an old church, and when they have the chance to escape, they move to the back of the building, where there's a convenient secret door that will lead them outside. Obviously it wasn't so secret if they made right for it. There's a zombie monkey crammed into the glove compartment of a car, ready to spring like a blood-hungry Jack in the Box. How the hell did it get the car door open, climb into the glove compartment, and pulled the panel closed?

As poorly written as the book is, I can't say it was all bad because I did like the idea behind it. As I was reading it, it brought to mind John Carpenter's The Fog, a movie I love. Is it worth reading? If you don't mind a book that reads like a very roughly written first draft, because that was my overall impression of the book, I'd say, "Go for it." However, if you are put off by poor writing, this might be one to skip.

A MISH-MASH OF MONSTERS

2011-08-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's rare for me to sit back after finishing a book and wonder what I just read. Unfortunately, James Roy Daley's Terror Town had me doing just that, which is sad because the book started off with such promise.

Daley paints a portrait of a picturesque little town, but like most towns, no matter how quaint they seem on the outside, there's always a darkness that lurks in the heart of some, if not all, of its residents. Of all the town's resident, Nicolas Nehalem has perhaps the darkest heart. Despite the worn exterior of his house, the interior is meticulously maintained, which only serves to deepen the horror of what lies beneath. Beneath the cellar, in a subcellar of his house is a torture chamber with two occupants.

It's obvious from their physical condition—caged, with missing fingers and toes and emaciated to the point their ribs are visible—that Olive Thrift and Cathy Eldritch have been held captive in Nehalem's Chamber of Horrors for quite some time.

Daley makes it a point to emphasize the third cage in his description of the subcellar, and Nicolas' apparent displeasure that the third cage is unoccupied. This sets the stage for what could be a thrilling psychological horror novel, but you are left wondering what this has to do with the book's description, which promises vampires and zombies.

Daley then introduces the reader to Daniel McGee, a summer resident of the town of Cloven Rock. He is in the process of renovating his home with the hopes of making it a full-time residence. While working in the basement, he discovers the existence of a sub-basement, which he proceeds to explore. However, upon his initial attempt to check out the place, he never reaches the bottom. The sudden drop in temperature combined with the impenetrable darkness and the mysterious sounds propel him toward the surface. Right away you assume this might be the lair of the promised vampires, but no. When Daniel returns in the company of friends to continue his exploration of the basement, he uncovers the lair of the mutated spider/crab hybrids, one huge one and a bunch of smaller ones that have hatched from a bunch of egg sacs.

One of Dan's friends is devoured by the huge monstrosity, and another of his friends has been bitten and stung by the creature. The bite or the sting, it's never clear which, triggers a metamorphosis, and the young lady turns into a rage-filled lunatic who turns on her friends. But that's only the beginning. Shortly, she becomes encased within a cocoon, within which she undergoes a physical transformation and sets out on a bloody rampage.

So where, you might ask, do the promised zombies and vampires come into play? Disappointingly, they don't. Cameron, the young lady who was bitten by the creature, transforms into a vampire-like creature, but actual vampires? Not in this book. And there is not a zombie in sight. Those who Cameron bites become enthralled to her and do her bidding, but I would hardly call this a zombie. A vampire-like servant to the vampire-like creature? Yes, but zombies? That's pushing it.

The fact that the book does not deliver what it promises is a disappointment and a failure, and it's the first of many in Terror Town. The first major failure, in my opinion, is the number of monsters Daley attempts to incorporate in this novel. Sadistic killer, mutant spiders, vampire-like creatures and their servants. It's too becomes too much; the reader ends up rolling his/her eyes and thinks, "Okay, what else is he going to throw in here next?" Sometimes less is more. Pick one baddie, two at the most, and go with it.

Another fail in this book is the excessive gore. I'm not usually one to complain about the amount of blood and guts spilled in a book—I loved the whole extreme horror of the Splatterpunk movement—but it needs to be done well. The descriptions contained within Daley's novel are almost laughable, with the skulls that broke with a POP! It's like a bad B movie where they want to see just how far they can go to sicken the viewer (reader), but in the end it becomes a joke. Think Dead Alive, one of the goriest movies ever made; the blood fest is so excessive you can't help but laugh at it. It's almost as if Daley is attempting to overachieve in order to detract from the sloppy writing. Notice I said sloppy, not bad.

While the book on the whole is not badly written, it is in desperate need of an editor and a proofreader to clean up the text. Daley, in his attempt to creative as graphic an image as possible, tends to overwrite. When describing teeth, he says they are "like needles, like knives." Needle brings to mind images of a rattlesnake with their thin, venom-injecting fangs; knives generate an image of pointed, wider, dagger-like teeth, the teeth of a carnivore. Pick one, needle or knives, not both.

Another area where the book could have benefited from an editor/proofreader's eye is with author's misuse of words and the cleanup of additional words contained within sentences. There are numerous instances where the wrong words have been used—"option" where it is clear "opinion" should have been used—and repeated instances where additional words appear in within a sentence, for example, "he pointed it the gun at". Happening once or twice can be forgiven, but the number of times this type of error occurs is sloppy. There's also a point where Hellboy, William's pure-breed boxer is described as having a stumpy little tail, typical of boxers, but later on, when the creatures are struggling to emerge from the basement, the dog is described as have its tail between its legs. Last time I checked, a stumpy little tail couldn't drop between the legs.

Had the manuscript been turned over to a trained eye, what turned out to be a barely passable read could have been elevated to an okay read. Had Daley tightened up his story line a little more, choosing to keep his creature count to a minimum instead of the Monster Mash it was, the okay read might very well have made the move to a good read. But as it stands now, it's just a mish-mash mess that should be passed over, not passed on.

When I Look Into Your Eyes

2011-07-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

In the past, Abraham Stroud had battled a nest of vampires and a colony of werewolves, barely escaping with his life. This time around he faces what might very well be his most dangerous enemy of all—an ancient evil that has lain dormant in the earth below the streets of New York City, one that has to power to enslave the masses and bend them to its will.

When Gordon Consolidated Enterprises starts breaking ground on what promises to be the largest building in New York City, they need to dig deeper than usual to set the foundation. The construction crew unearths the decaying remains of an ancient ship, bringing construction to a screaming halt. What they don't realize is that in the process they have awakened an ancient evil that was locked away and buried aboard that ship, an evil that is reaching out to the citizens of New York and claiming them for its own. The first to fall victim to this evil is Simon Albert Weitzel, who has been "called" repeatedly to the construction site. This time, however, he has no recollection as to how he got there from his home in Brooklyn. So how does this tie in with Abe Stroud, who is clear across the world taking part in an archeological dig in Egypt?

While excavating the Egyptian site, Abe unearths a chamber full of mystical skulls made of various substances. One is a crystal skull, and while staring into the empty sockets of the skull, Abe is visited with a vision. In it he sees Weitzel and one other fall victim to the power contained within the ship, but he does not know what it means. The Egyptian site turns out to be more valuable that first expected, and the Egyptian government, having been burned too many times by American researchers and archeologists, request that Abe leave the country immediately.

Abe's plane touches down in New York, where there is a layover before he can head home. When he steps off the plane, he is greeted by an armed escort who have been ordered to take Abe to the Commissioner of Police of New York City. What they could possibly want Abe doesn't know, but he is about to find out. Turn out the Commissioner has heard all about Stroud and wants to enlist him to investigate the ship and what seems to be an airborne virus or bacteria that seems to be emanating from it and placing the people it infects into comas. At first Stroud doesn't want to get involved, but when he learns who the first victim was, he knows it is tied into the vision he had in Egypt. As Stroud and a small team of scientists begin their investigation, the thing in the ship reaches out to Stroud, calling him Esruad, which only serves to deepen the mystery. It seems to know Stroud, even if Stroud doesn't know it.

It soon becomes a race against time with Stroud's research moving at a snail's pace even as whatever is infecting the people of New York starts to move at an accelerated rate, broadening its reach to include animals and vermin. If that wasn't bad enough, more pressure is put on Stroud and his team when those in comas begin to awaken and start herding those uninfected by the disease into the bowels of the ship. Will Stroud be able to unravel the mystery before this evil lays claim to his soul?

Zombie Eyes is probably the most ambitious of Robert Walker's Blood Dreams series in that it attempts to create an evil that actually threatens the world if not stopped. In past adventures, Stroud was up against creatures of a physical type, but here, the threat seems at first to be biological in nature. It is ultimately revealed to be one of a spiritual nature, and the reader finds himself wondering just how Stroud is going to combat this entity and win. Can it be done, or has Stroud finally met his match?

It is that very ambitiousness that I think is the book's downfall, and by downfall I don't mean failure, so before you go jumping to the wrong conclusion, let me say that I did like Zombie Eyes, and the story progresses to a satisfactory and believable conclusion. For me, however, it came off as the weakest of the three books in this series. Why? In Stroud's previous outings, there was more of a sense of urgency in the books, a sense of action and chase as Stroud physically hunts down the evil. In Zombie Eyes, things move along at a great pace when they are inside the ship, but when they return to the museum/lab everything comes to a screeching halt as they research the artifacts that they have brought back with them. There were several times where they were returning to the museum and I got a flash of Batman and Robin racing back to the Batcave. That doesn't make it a bad book, just different that what I have come to expect based on Vampire Dreams and Werewolf's Grief. Because the pacing fluctuated, it took me a little longer to get through it than the previous two. This may not bother some readers, but I was so tempted to jump ahead to where they are back in the ship.

My only real gripe with Zombie Eyes, and it's my usual gripe when it comes to horror and supernatural suspense books, is the romance element. Keep it in your pants until the evil is vanquished or get it out of your system before the you get involved with chasing down the Big Bad Monster. This especially holds true with Walker because his central female characters are usually strong, almost masculine in character no matter how they are physically described, which isn't a bad thing, but when it comes to the woo-hoo moment, you forget that they are actually women and expect Stroud to reach for something that isn't there. The romance element usually comes into the story at the wrong time, as well. In this situation, we just get finished learning how physically and mentally exhausted Stroud and Cline are, how they can barely stay awake, but the moment they get back to the hotel, they miraculously find the energy to go at it. It's an eye-rolling moment and a cue to skip ahead until one or the other (or both) are sound asleep.

All in all, though, Zombie Eyes is a thrilling addition to the Blood Screams series and I would recommend it. Do you need to read the first two in the series? Not necessary, as each story does stand on its own, but highly recommended so you aren't left scratching your head when they passing reference to the vampires of Andover or the werewolf hunt is made. And here's hoping Robert Walker continues writing this series. Long live Abraham Stroud!

Tales of the Zombies Grimmer

2011-07-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

Ever since reading Tanith Lee's Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer, I'm always on the lookout for twisted and perverted forms of the traditional fairy tales, which is why when T.W. Brown's Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales was published by May December Publications, I just had to get it. I was so excited that I moved it to the top of my pile of books waiting to be read.

Normally when reviewing a collection of tales I would touch on each of the stories within the collection; I am not going to do that here, partly because there are 25 of them, and partly because most of the tales are so brief I fear I would be giving too much away.

For the most part, I enjoyed T.W. Brown's re-imaging of the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, I just wish I was more familiar with all of the Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are all well written, and keeping with the style of the original tales, they are all simply written, which I liked. But my excitement at the prospect of reading twisted fairy tales waned a little the further I progressed into the collection. Part of it had to do with my lack of familiarity with the complete works of the Brothers Grimm. Brown does provide the original titles for the tales retold in this collection, but the titles are given in their native language, and not knowing German, I had some difficulty telling which tale was being rebooted. Some of them were obvious, such as Hansel and Gretel, others not so obvious. Were I more familiar with the original works, this probably would have been an easier task.

My other issue with the collection is that all of the tales had been updated. They are all set in a post zombie apocalypse world, and that wasn't what I was expecting. What was I expecting? The original tales in their original settings, only with zombies. The current flood of zombie mash-ups currently available set me up for this disappointment. I admit that Brown, to some extent, did what I was so hoping these other authors would have done when writing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Undead World of Oz, etc., and that was rewrite the story entirely, including the zombie elements, thereby making it his own; he didn't take the original text and tweak it slightly and insert paragraphs throughout to bring in the zombie element, so for that I applaud his ambitious undertaking. My only wish is that he retained the original setting of the tales.

With that being said, I had to force myself to forget that these were reboots Grimm's Fairy Tales with zombie elements and approach them as short tales of the zombie apocalypse. Once I was able to do that, I found I was able to appreciate the stories more.

I don't wish to detract from Brown's ambitious effort here. The fact that the cover emphasizes "Volume One" leads me to believe it is his intent to "zombie-fy" the complete works of the Brothers Grimm, so I applaud him for undertaking this project. Will I pick up Volume 2 when it is published? More than likely, yes, now that I know what to expect and what not to expect. As I mentioned earlier, the stories are all well written, and since the style in which they are written mirrors the simple telling of the original tales, it makes for a quick read. Perhaps, by then, I will have better familiarized myself with the complete works of the Brothers Grimm.

Whatever failings there are to appreciate this collection for what it is are strictly mine because of my lack of familiarity with the original tales and for delving into the volume with preconceived expectations. If you are a fan of all things zombie, this is something you should consider adding to your collection.

Move Over Twilight. . . There's a New Vamp in Town

2011-07-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

When I first stumbled across Michael Griffo's Unnatural I admit I kinda rolled my eyes (well, not kinda, I did roll my eyes). In a market already saturated with teenage vampires full of angst, did we really need another one? What made this one so different from the others? Well, the one thing I noticed was that the main character, Michael Howard, is gay. Other than that, based on what I read, it didn't sound much different from Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and any other romance-driven teen vampire series. But having suffered through Twilight, I figured it couldn't be any worse.

Michael Howard is just like any other gay teenager living in a small town. That sense of isolation and of not belonging weigh heavily on him, and he longs for the time when he can pack his bags and leave. To compound his feelings of isolation, he lives with a drug- and alcohol-dependent mother and his maternal grandparents, who have made it obvious they want nothing to do with him. Running away from home is not an option because he has nowhere to go. He never really knew his father, who lives somewhere in England. When his mother commits suicide, it seems his prayers have been answered: the father he has never known comes from England to take him home. Michael is elated at the idea of going to live in London and getting to know his father.

Arriving in England, Michael feels like he has finally come home. However, the dream of getting to know his father is short-lived. He spends one night with his father before being sent to a boarding school, Archangel Academy. And that's where his life changes forever. That's where he meets Ronan. These two were fated to meet; unbeknownst to either boy at the time of their meeting, they have been dreaming of each other. But their relationship is in trouble from the start. Ronan has a dark secret that he longs to tell Michael, but he's afraid of how he will react. That dark secret is that he is a vampire, as is Ronan's ex, Nakano, who refuses to accept the fact that their relationship is over. At the time of Michael and Ronan's meeting, only one other person on campus (besides Nakano) who knows Ronan's secret is Ciaran, Ronan's brother.

While this might seem like the typical love triangle, there's more going on below the surface at Archangel Academy. As in the human world, prejudices exist within the vampire world. We learn that while Nakano and Ronan are both vampires, they are two different breeds of vampires. Nakano's breed is of the more traditional variety; Ronan is a Water Vamp, a crossbreed between a vampire and a water-dwelling humanoid. The Water Vamps can walk in the sunlight, but they need to feed on blood and return to the sea of their birth once in awhile; Nakano's kind need to feed on blood on a regular basis, and while they can walk about in the daylight, they can only do so on the grounds of Archangel Academy, which right away informs the reader that there is something about the school, but what exactly it is is not revealed—at least not in this book. The Water Vamps are considered inferior among the vampire world. The conflict for the novel is set: vampire against vampire, and a seething jealousy of an ex toward his replacement. But there is something else at work here, some other power that seeks to protect Michael and guide him toward Ronan. And while this mystical power attempts to keep the young lovers together, Nakano and his kind try to break them apart and claim Michael for their own. Who wins? You'll just have to read and find out.

I've always been of the mindset that you don't mess with vampires. They are an iconic part of the horror genre, and if you are going to make changes that go against what is traditionally known about the race, you need to explain it in an manner that will be acceptable to the reader. L.J. Smith's vampires were able to walk in daylight because of bespelled rings given to them by the witches. Griffo's vampires can walk in the daylight because one breed has inherited the traits on the non-vampire ancestor, and the other breed can as long as they remain on the grounds of the school, for whatever reason that may be. I'm assuming Griffo has this planned out and it will be revealed in Book 2 of the series. Even Rice's Lestat was susceptible to the sun's killing rays until he partook of the blood of the ancient Akasha, the Mother of All Vampires. Griffo also doesn't attempt to sanitize the vampire's means of sustenance. They are killers, but he does soften it some by explaining that Water Vamps don't need to feed as often, and when Ronan does feed, he chooses an elderly individual who is already close to death. Nakano, on the other hand, is more feral, defying the orders of his superiors and feeds on one of his fellow students, which threatens to exposed them all. There is a little tweaking followed by an explanation that makes Griffo's vampires palatable.

All if the trappings of the vampire romance are present, vampire meets boy, vampire loses boy, but does vampire get boy, or is boy seduced by the dark side? It's predictable, and if the book wasn't well written, you could lump it in with another series that shall remain nameless (HINT: see the title of this review) that I can't stand.

The main character in Unnatural is someone anybody teenager can relate to, gay or straight. In fact, we aren't told of Michael's sexual orientation until after we get to know him. We only know that he feels different, that he feels he doesn't belong. Anybody who has gone through the coming to terms with their own sexual orientation knows the signs, but for those who don't they are actually given the chance to get to know Michael as a person and to feel sorry for him and the situation he finds himself in at the books opening. In fact, with the exception of Nakano, all of the characters we are introduced to come off as "human", full of life and emotion, we see them at their best and their worst. Nakano doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities; even when he is being tender with Ronan in an attempt to win him back, we know he is only doing so because he knows Michael can see them. Nakano is dark, as dark as they come, and Griffo seems to go out of his way to make certain we don't like him.

In addition to fully fleshing out his characters, Griffo also pays careful attention to detail, painting each scene with lavish descriptions so the reader can actually place themselves in the scene. When an writer pays that much attention to detail, there's always a chance to losing the reader, who just wants to get on with the story, but everything in Unnatural is well-balanced, and the novel doesn't slow it's pace at all. Griffo also has a talent for ending each chapter at a point that urges the reader onward.

My only problem with Unnatural (and 9 times out of 10, I always have a problem with a book) is the use of italics to indicate change in character. The chapter may start from Michael's point of view, but then there is some internalized thought from Ronan, which leads to a switch in POV that is sometimes confusing. There were times I actually had to go back and find out when exactly the POV changed and from whose POV I was reading from. It is possible that it's a formatting error as I did read the book on my Kindle. I want to get my hands on a print copy to see if the POV changes are a little more clear cut.

Starting Unnatural, I was going in with prejudice; I was so ready not to like it. In fact, I wanted not to like it, but I did like it, damn it. Archangel Academy is a series I will be following, and when I mentioned that I wanted to get my hands on a print copy, it isn't just to check the formatting; this is one series that will be taking a permanent place on my shelves, right next to Kelley Armstrong, Casey Daniels, Mark Del Franco, Kim Harrison, Anton Strout, and Carrie Vaughn.

Bigfoot Walks Again

2011-07-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

The town of Babble Creek has fallen to the fury of Bigfoot, the population decimated. For those of you who have read Eric S. Brown's Bigfoot War, this is old news. But the fall of Babble Creek was only the beginning.

In the neighboring community of Jackson County, the citizens are unaware of what has befallen the residents of Babble Creek. Nor are they aware of the Hell that is about to be unleashed on their own community. But the quiet community has more to fear than the invading Bigfoot horde, for it seems those who have been attacked by the creatures have become infected with a virus, a virus that turns them into mindless savages with a insatiable craving for warm flesh. As the battle rages, the townsfolk not only have to defend themselves against the fury of the furry army, but against people they had once considered friends. Will Jackson County survive, or will it suffer the same fate as Babble Creek?

Since I had already read and enjoyed Brown's Bigfoot War, I was quick to purchase Bigfoot War 2: Dead in the Woods and move to to the top of my reading queue, although to be honest, I wasn't expecting much. In the first installment, Bigfoot lays waste to a small town. I expected more of the same, which in itself wouldn't be a bad thing. I mean, Bigfoot War was B-movie fun, non-stop action and loaded with blood and guts. In short, my kind of book. But with Part 2, Eric S. Brown realized that if he wanted to keep his audience, he needed to deliver more than what he already given us. . . And deliver he does.

When Brown takes Dead in the Woods to the next level by pulling in a currently trending element in today's horror fiction, I thought I was reading a faulty copy of the novel, that maybe an excerpt of another novel had accidentally been pasted into this one when it was being formatted. It came so out of left field, I sat there with a "What the f...?" expression on my face. Nevertheless, with a roll of the eyes, I persevered, quickly realizing that he was trying to pull in a new audience with this element. Combining these two elements in the one book is a bit far-fetched, but it does make for a fun read. I mean, if Bigfoot exists, why not?? I'm not going to spell out what else is introduced, but you can probably figure it out.

Like its predecessor, Dead in the Woods is non-stop action. It also stands out in that it does not follow formula. There is no designated hero or heroine; everybody is fair game in Brown's Bigfoot series, so be forewarned, don't go getting attached to any particular character, because they just might not make it through to the end.

The only drawback I had with Dead in the Woods was with the proofreading. There aren't many errors, but the ones that there are were enough to make me stumble while reading it, pulling me out of the flow of the story. That aside, is Bigfoot War 2: Dead in the Woods worth reading? I think so. It's one of those books you can take to the beach or lounge by the pool with. Do you need to read Part 1? While it's not necessary, as the action in this book stands on its own, I would strongly encourage it. And will I be reading Part 3 when it comes out? You betcha. With the combined elements contained within Dead in the Woods, I'm dying to know what Brown is going to pull into Part 3.

Touched by an Angel

2011-07-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. But before you go jumping to conclusions, let me explain. For those of you who have been following my reviews, this book seems so out of place with the horror novels and urban fantasies I usually read, and in some of my reviews, I believe I have stated how I feel about romance. So why take the time to read a romance novel? Well, because I made a promise. And I keep my promises. It took me awhile to get around to reading it after I downloaded it to my Kindle because I had to prepare myself. Kind of like some people need to prepare themselves before going to see a horror film or picking up a horror novel. To me, romance is my horror. I cringe at the scenarios because they are usually so far-fetched, and the sex scenes are either badly written or so over the top with the heaving bosoms and the throbbing manhoods that I sit there rolling my eyes or, more often than not, tossing it aside. But a promise is a promise, so, taking a deep breath, I dove into Linda Boulanger's Arms of an Angel. . . and I couldn't put the damned thing down.

Claire Orion has it all: the money, the lifestyle most of us would envy, and, from the sounds of it, a string of men that would make a prostitute blush. But thanks to a misdiagnosis of cancer when she was younger and a verbally abusive father who constantly berated her for being less than a woman (because the surgery to remove the non-existent cancer left her unable to have children) that no man would ever want to marry, Claire feels her life is empty, which is why, when we meet her for the first time, she is planning her last hurrah before putting an end to her miserable life.

Dressed to the nines, Claire sets out for what is supposed to be her last supper, but thanks the ineptness of the restaurant's host, she has the good fortune (or misfortune) of meeting Garrett O'Bryan, a handsome man who is immediately taken with Claire. They end up spending the evening dining together and enjoying each other's company (Not in that way, so get your minds out of the gutter!). At the end of the evening, Claire does intend on inviting him up, but he declines. It seems Garrett has other plans. He makes Claire promise to meet him for Sunday Brunch. Reluctantly, she agrees, and being a woman of her word, there go her plans for the rest of the evening.

Each time she meets with Garrett, she tries to get him into bed, and each time he declines, which frustrates her to no end. It actually seems as if Garrett is interested in her, but she can't seem to wrap her head around that. After all, years of being told she's only half a woman no man would want have left her scarred.

So, does she finally get frustrated with trying unsuccessfully to get Garrett into bed that she goes ahead and kills herself? Is Garrett able to make her realize that there are men who can see past the fact that she can't have children and see her the person she once was, the person she buried all those years ago? You'll just have to read and find out.

With Arms of an Angel, Linda Boulanger has created a moving tale of a woman's journey through the darkness of her own soul. Right away you are moved by Claire, and you want to know what happened to this young woman, a woman who seems to have everything life could offer, that would drive her to want to take her own life. Once you find out what she has endured at such a young age, you want somebody to come along and show her that life is worth living and that she has so much to offer the world. Is Garrett that man, or do the scars run too deep for Claire to be saved?

For those who might be put off at the prospects of reading romance, don't be, not when it comes to Boulanger's tale. For one thing, it is short, so you won't have to suffer through it for long (which was my initial reaction when I first started it), BUT once you have started reading it, you forget all about the fact that it has been classified as a romance. At least that's the way it was for me. The romance came off as secondary. The focus of the novella was a woman's rediscovery of herself and overcoming the stigma her father had ingrained in her, that women are only good for reproduction and little else. It's about rediscovering life.

My only complaint with Arms of an Angel, and it's the same complaint I have with most well-written novellas, is that it was too short. It comes to a satisfying conclusion, but I found I wanted more. I wanted to know what happened after, which is the sign of a good writer.

I have to give kudos to Linda for opening my eyes that not all romance is insipid saccharine to be taken in small doses or eye-rolling bodice rippers. Part of me knew that already, but having to weed through them is the hard part. Should you pick up Arms of an Angel? Definitely. It's one of those novels that leave you with that "feel good" feeling at the end.

Chapter Excerpt from WIP -- URSA MAJOR

2011-07-15T11:07:00.001-07:00

Collin Stewart’s fall from grace wasn’t a long one, but it was enough to knock the wind out of him and leave him with scraped palms and a bruised pride. The only one he felt, though, was the bruised pride. After all that he’d done to try to win Maureen back, to find out she was still carrying a torch for her dead husband was a sucker punch to the gut. Never would he have thought her capable of such deception, but he had been wrong. So wrong. She had ripped his heart out. Again.

All around him night had fallen, but he sat on the sidewalk, legs stretched out in front of him, in a pool of light cast by the faux carriage lanterns secured to the wall to either side of the door. He was vaguely aware of time passing, just as the passing cars in the street behind him barely registered. Nor did he notice the creeping shadows as they moved across the front of the building, thrown against the siding as a car across the street pulled out of a driveway and its headlights skimmed over the fence and garbage cans lined up at the edge of the front yard. Collin saw only the events of the evening as they replayed themselves across the movie screen of his mind, examining each moment minutely to determine where, exactly, things had gone wrong. It wasn’t like him to lose control the way he had, and he needed to figure out what it was that had caused him to unleash his anger and allow it free reign.

Things had been going relatively well, or as well as could be expected when her little brat was around. God, how he hated that kid. While Joey had a good blending of both his parents’ features, Collin only saw Alex when he looked at the boy, and that alone was enough to make him lose control. That man had stolen Maureen from him when they were in college, and seeing the man’s face peeking out through the face of the boy was almost more than he could stand. Every time he saw the kid, it was all he could do to keep from punching him in the face, but he controlled himself for Maureen’s sake, as well as his own. To harm the boy would ruin any chance he had getting Maureen back where she belonged. He supposed that was why he always ragged on Maureen about Joey’s lack of respect. He just wanted the kid to behave. Was that asking too much?

But as it was, each time the boy acted out, it was like Alex was still rubbing his face in the fact that Maureen had chosen to marry him instead of Collin. Whenever the boy acted like a smartass, which was most of the time when he was around, Collin had to use all of his restraint not to pound the boy’s face into an unrecognizable bloody pulp. It was the only way he could think of to stop seeing Alex in the boy. Collin knew his feelings toward the boy were irrational, but that’s how much he hated Alex Crawford.

Upon closer inspection, however, Collin realized it wasn’t the boy who had triggered his lapse of control this evening. Joey had been on his best behavior, more or less, so he couldn’t blame the boy.

Dinner had been subdued, which was a good thing. Had there been lively dinner conversation, the kind Collin envisioned a normal having as they ate, there was a chance Joey would mouth off, so it wasn’t dinner. It was after…

“Hey, buddy, you okay?”

The man’s voice disrupted the flow of images playing through Collin’s head, and it took him a moment to register that the voice was coming from behind him and was not, in fact, part of the memories he was revisiting.

“You okay,” the voice asked again.

Collin flinched, blinked away the images, and turned, bracing himself with one hand as he twisted to address the person talking to him. “Yeah,” he said, hissing against the pain that was suddenly biting at the palm of his hand. “I’m okay.” He struggled to get to his feet. “Misjudged the step is all. Lost my balance.”

The man gave a nod and continued on his way.

Alone once again, Collin brushed himself off and looked back at the house. The lights were still on in the living room, but there were no shadows visible at the window. Still, he couldn’t be sure that Maureen wasn’t watching from some other window. He briefly considered ringing the doorbell and apologizing to Maureen, but discarded the idea almost as quickly as it entered his mind. Things had gotten ugly, and he wanted to give her time to cool off before he approached her. He also needed to find out what had caused things to go downhill so quickly. He turned and, without another look at the house, left the yard, being considerate enough to close the gate behind him.

The street was quiet, but as he approached the corner he could hear music filtering out onto the street from the pool hall. A group of kids in their late teens were gathered outside, joking with each other as they smoked. He gave them a cursory glance as he passed them by on his way to the car, noticing one guy with his arm wrapped possessively around the waist of a young woman in tight jeans. He felt a pang of jealousy as she nuzzled the young man’s neck, and a familiar tightening in his briefs. At least somebody’s gonna get laid tonight, he thought bitterly as he continued on his way.

The light in the crosswalk was a bold, red DON’T WALK, and as he waited for the light to change to WALK, he watched a bus pull across the intersection. The bus was all practically empty: an old woman toward the front of the bus and the driver stared out the window, watching the world pass by with a vacant stare, and further back, two women in their later twenties chattered away. Once the bus passed, Collin had a view of the avenue. Across the way to the left, in the middle of the block, a bar was open. The music behind him drowned out any sound that might be issuing from the bar. To either side of the neon-stained windows, the store fronts were locked up tight, security gates pulled. A block away, on the far corner, a twenty-four hour fruit stand/grocery mart was open, their lighted windows a beacon in the otherwise darkened streets. A lone individual was unpacking a crate, loading the contents onto one of the outside display cases. To the right, for the next four or five blocks, there was nothing but darkened storefronts and the cyclopean glow of the traffic lights. Beyond that, there was a lighted marquis to the movie theater, but it was too far away to see what was playing. If he could block out the kids he had just passed, he could very well have been the last man on earth. Traffic was nonexistent, and there was not another soul on the street. To confirm that, he glanced at the fruit store again, and sure enough, the man had disappeared. It was eerie, considering it was a Friday night; the streets should have been bustling with activity, people making their way to the movie theater or to the clubs that dotted Fort Hamilton Parkway.

Collin didn’t want to go home. There were too many memories of Maureen there, memories he wasn’t quite ready to face yet. This neighborhood was deader than a ghost town.

The light blinked from the red DON’T WALK to the white WALK. Collin stepped off the curb and crossed the wide expanse of Fifth Avenue. The street before him was lined heavily with trees, their spreading canopies of foliage so thick overhead that they blocked out the glow of the streetlights. Fishing his car keys from his pocket, Collin started down the shadowy corridor, walking halfway down the street before veering to his left and stepping off the curb. He circled around the back of his Lincoln Town Car, opened the driver’s side door, and slid behind the wheel. After locking the door, he slipped the key into the ignition, but didn’t turn it. Instead, sitting there in the safety of his car, the tinted windows aiding the shadows in keeping him hidden from prying eyes, he turned his thoughts back to the events of the past few hours.

After dinner, he and Maureen sat in silence while Joey laughed hysterically at whatever sitcom was on the television. Collin couldn’t even remember the name of it or what the premise was; it was that forgettable. She’d taken the little brat up to bed, and what had he done while she was upstairs. He’d gotten up and gone into the kitchen for something to drink. That’s when things started to get fuzzy. Something he had seen in the kitchen, something…

Whatever it was, it had triggered a memory he thought he had buried long ago; he could hear his father’s voice whispering in his ear, She’ll never love you. Not like I do. And then phantom hands were touching him in places a father should never touch a son. He hated his father for what the man had done to him, but worse, he hated himself for liking it. Even now, as the memories caressed and stroked him, he felt his body responding to the ghostly touches.

Tears streamed down his face as he fought to suppress the sobs. What the hell had he seen? His hands were on the steering wheel, his grip so tight his knuckles were white. The echoes of his father’s voice, the memories of his unwanted advances crowded in the car with him, pressing against him, making it difficult to breath. “You’re dead, you bastard,” he gasped. “I buried you, God dammit! I buried you! Why can’t you stay dead?”

Long buried emotions fought their way to the surface like a ghoul clawing its way out of the grave. They broke through, leaving him a sobbing mess behind the wheel. Body hunched over, head resting against the stitched leather of the steering wheel, he was powerless to do anything but let the emotions out in a flood that could rival The Great Flood. The only difference, here there was no Noah and no Ark to save him. There was nobody he could turn to, nobody to throw him a life preserver. He had to ride it out. Only then would he be able to bury them again. But right now he needed to bury himself. Darkness reached out to pull him in, but not even the concrete bunker he had built in his head, the one with the steel door that had kept him safe as a child, could keep his father from following him into that shelter of his mind. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from the ghosts of his past.

EQUINOX -- A WIP

2011-06-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

The sun was almost down and the shadows crept over the earth in pursuit of the receding light, eager to lay claim to the land for the next few hours. Even though it was late in the season, the fairy-like lights of the fireflies still flickered here and there across the less-than-spacious front yard, in the shrubbery beyond, and occasionally in the air. It wouldn’t be long before their lights went out for the long winter ahead.

The fireflies weren’t the only thing clinging tenaciously to the last vestige of summer. The flowers they planted along the length of the porch still sported blooms, vibrant colors against the bland brown of the log cabin, and further out, wild flowers sprouted up between the majestic trees. The pines never lost their color, but the oaks. . . The oaks had yet to turn. Not a trace of orange, yellow, or gold could be seen amongst nature’s canopy, which was unlike the trees they had seen on the drive up. Autumn was arriving all across the northeast coast, arriving everywhere except for her. It was as if Mother Nature had placed a dome over this particular area of the forest, a barrier against the approaching seasonal change so she could enjoy summer’s beauty for just a little longer, before winter came and blanketed everything in a pristine coating of white.

Standing on the porch, Jake Dougherty breathed deeply of the crisp mountain air and took in the beauty that surrounded him. God’s country is what his father would have called it, land uncorrupted by the touch of humanity, save for the cabin they were staying in and the SUV parked on the dirt path that passed for a driveway. But even that cabin, as beautiful as it was, was as closed to primitive as you could get. The water was piped in from a natural spring, the sewer he assumed passed into a septic tank somewhere behind the building. There was no electricity. They used oil-fueled hurricane lamps and candles for light, and the rooms were heated by a series of fireplaces. It was as near to perfect as one could get. There was only one thing spoiling it.

As if on cue, the shrill voice of his wife of ten months broke the stillness that lay over the land. “Jake, did you remember to pack the camera?”

With a sigh, Jake reached in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Yes, dear,” he replied. He no longer tried to conceal the annoyance that peppered his tone whenever he spoke to her, especially since she seemed to be oblivious to it.

The door opened and he cringed inwardly and slipped the cigarettes back in his pocket as his wife came out to join him on the porch. She was a petite blonde with a flawless complexion despite the years she must have spent outdoors. Her skin was deep reddish brown, the product of a lifetime of sun worship, but it bore none of the damaging signs that would normally accompany that kind of exposure to the sun. As reluctant as he was to admit it, she was a truly beautiful woman, and any man would consider himself lucky to walk down the street with her on his arm, and so would he—if he was into that sort of thing. But Jake wasn’t.

Or at least he hadn’t been until this time last year.

Which is what he couldn’t understand.

He still had a hard time accepting the fact that he was married and, as Ivy Dougherty came to stand beside him, her belly fully of baby leading the way, that he was going to be a father. It was like living in a dream—or a nightmare, depending on your perspective. And for Jake Dougherty, it was a nightmare he hoped he would wake up from soon. But after ten months, if it hadn’t happened by now, he didn’t think he was ever going to wake up.

“Well, I looked everywhere and I can’t find it,” she said, placing her hands on her hips as if she expected him to go in and get it.

“Did you check in that blue sports bag?”

She turned a blank gaze on him, as if he had spoken in some language other than English. Whenever she looked at him that way, it was all he could do to keep from driving a fist into her face. He wasn’t violent by nature, but she was carrying this dumb blonde routine a bit far. Nobody could be that stupid. “That blue nylon bag on the bed.”

“No.”

“Then don’t say you looked everywhere when it’s obvious you haven’t.”

“Don’t be that way,” she pouted, lower lip pushed out, doe eyes turned up to try soften up his mood. She took a step in his direction, intent on sliding her arm through his, but he stepped away.

“Well, then don’t be so fuckin’ stupid.”

Before their exchange could escalate into an all-out argument, the door opened and Rafe Vargas stepped onto the porch, his wife, Daisy, hot on his heels. Despite the chill in the air, Rafe was shirtless, and the sight of the man’s bare torso, the deep caramel-colored skin with a thick coating of black fur covering the pecs that tapered off and ran in a thin trail down the man’s stomach to disappear past the waistband of his tight jeans, inexplicably took Jake’s breath away. Something stirred within him, but before he could put a name to the feeling, it was gone, disappeared at the same moment someone touched his arm. He looked down to see Ivy’s hand resting gently on his forearm. A shiver slithered along his spine and he jerked his arm away. The sudden movement caused his wife to lose her balance; she teetered on the top step and would have fallen if it hadn’t been for Daisy. Despite the fact that she was just as pregnant as Ivy, Daisy was quick to come to her sister’s aide, throwing daggers in Jake’s direction as she shoved him aside. Jake, grudgingly giving ground, met her gaze head on, willing them both to fall. Not that the fall would hurt either of them, but it might hurt the babies, and with the babies out of the way, maybe they, he and Rafe, would be freed from whatever hold these two women had on them.

As Rafe slipped between him and the two women on his way down the steps, he practically brushed against Jake in his effort to avoid coming into contact with either of the women. Their eyes met briefly. Jake could see the fear in the other man’s green eyes, a quiet, pleading desperation. It was the same look Jake imagined a fox might have in its eyes when it found itself caught in a trap and gnawed at its leg in an attempt to free itself and escape the death it knew was coming. It was the same look Jake saw in his own eyes whenever he looked in the mirror.

“Where ya goin’,” Jake asked.

Rafe paused, one foot still resting on the bottom step, and looked back at Jake. “We’re gonna need some more fire wood.” Jake noticed the way the man’s gaze danced back and forth between him and the wives.

“You want me to give you a hand with that?” Jake prayed Rafe heard the distress in his voice, his need to be away, but when the man responded, he realized he was on his own.

“That’s alright. I got it.” Before the words were even out of his mouth, Rafe was pushing away from the step. Without a glance at Jake, he hurriedly made his way around to the back of the house.

Under the watchful eyes of the Witches of Eastwick, Jake watched Rafe until the man disappeared from view. For a moment, he considered following the man out back, but he didn’t want to seem in desperate need of escape, so instead he went down the steps and started across the lawn. What he wanted to do more than anything else was to get into the SUV and head back to the city—Fuck everybody—but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, leave Rafe to the mercy of those women. He felt a bond to the other man, one he couldn’t explain, that went beyond mere friendship.

He continued across the lawn, heading for the forest and that shadows beyond that waited for him to pass before they swallowed him whole. Halfway across the grass he stumbled as his head was filled with an annoying drone, a swarm of angry bees buzzing around in his skull. Looking around to see what might have caused him to trip, he shook his head, trying to clear it. It wasn’t the first time his thoughts had become clouded by this angry swarm, but this time he was able to think past it, which surprised him. There was only one thing that would clear it altogether, and that was distance between him and the woman he called his wife. The SUV called to him and he looked longingly at the huge forest-green vehicle. That would allow him to put a few miles between them in the shortest amount of time, but then thoughts of Rafe pushed their way into his head, and he knew he wouldn’t do it. Throwing a hate-filled glance in the direction of the porch, he turned and headed towards the tree line. He wanted—no, he needed—a smoke, and he didn’t want to hear his wife bitch about it.

THESE AIN'T YOUR NORMAL LITTLE BROTHERS

2011-06-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned previously how much I love Amazon's Kindle? Well, if I haven't, let me state it now—I love Amazon's Kindle. Why? Because so many authors are releasing their long out-of-print books to the digital device. Rick Hautala is one of these authors.

I first read Little Brothers when it was published in 1988. I loved it then, and during the course of moves, my dog-eared, well-read copy had become so used and abused it was falling apart to the point where I was afraid to read it again. So when I heard it was going to be released on Kindle (and other digital platforms), I was ecstatic.

Five years ago, Kip Howard witnessed the traumatizing events of his young life: the brutal murder of his mother at the hands of. . . What? He couldn't remember. As a result of the murder, his father, who was present at the time but did not witness the attack but did see the aftermath, abandoned work on the new house. But now that his father is about to once again start work on the new house, all of Kip's fears are resurfacing. As if that wasn't bad enough, the memories are trying to break through the wall he built up to keep them hidden.

The attack on Kip's mother was so brutal, it was initially attributed to some animal, but John Watson, the town's resident drunk, knows the truth. A Native American who was brought up in the area, Watson knows the legends that surround the land the town has been built on, and what killed Kip's mother is one of those legends. The Untcigahunk, the Little Brothers, a dwarf-like humanoid race that lives in the caverns and tunnels that run beneath the land. They surface every five years with a hunger for flesh and a thirst for blood. And their time is coming around again.

Man and boy will be brought together by chance, and together they vow to put an end to the Little Brothers once and for all. But do this unlikely duo stand a chance against a race that his been around since the dawn of creation, or will they be like so many others that have disappeared without a trace from the town of Thornton, Maine?

Little Brothers was Hautala's fourth novel, but it was my first exposure to this Master of Horror. The Untcigahunk are, in my opinion, one of the Horror genre's more memorable creatures, ranking right up there with that damned Zuni fetish doll from Trilogy of Terror. The readers seem to agree, as the Untcigahunk were to appear in several stories after Little Brothers was published.

This novel is not an edge-of-your-seat thriller, at least not at first. Hautala takes his time creating his characters, fleshing them out and making them real, giving you ample time to get to know and like (or dislike) them, so when something happens to them or they are placed in a position of danger, you do find yourself sweating it out right along with them, or cheering when the bad guy (yes, the Little Brothers aren't the only bad guys in the book) finally gets what he deserves. It isn't until the boy and Indian meet and start making their plans that the book (or Kindle in this case) becomes hard to put down. The details are rich, which makes it easier to lose yourself in the world of the characters.

If you haven't had the pleasure of reading the works of Rick Hautala, and many younger readers might not have because many, if not all, of his books are out of print, I can't encourage you enough to pick up one of them and give him a try, and Little Brothers would be an excellent book to start with. You won't be disappointed.

STERLING - A WIP

2011-06-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

This is an experimental piece that I'm working on. I'm not sure if it's working.

***

Like any expectant mother, the moon hung low and full, glowing proudly in anticipation of the imminent birth.

Below, the anxious father paces, waiting, driven back and forth by the nervous energy like a caged animal despite the expansive space surrounding him. For the first time in his life he feels truly alive, like a current of electricity is coursing through his body, igniting every nerve. The brush of fabric against his flesh triggers sparks of pleasure so intense as to be almost painful. The sensory overload becomes more than he can bear and he pauses in his pacing long enough to strip out of his clothes. He stumbles as a cramp ripples through his core. He takes another couple of steps and his muscles spasm. He rides it out, gritting his teeth through the pain. The sharp stabbing in his gut ebbs, the twitching in his limbs subsides. He resumes his pacing. He feels warm, flushed. Sweat slips from his pores, streams down his body. The chill night air caresses his fevered flesh and he shivers.

The shivering intensifies, reaching bone deep and leaving him unable to move. The cramping starts again, and this time it is not confined to his stomach. His arms and legs cramp, his stomach, back, and neck. His bones start to pulse with a throbbing ache and his skin starts to crawl with an itch so deep as to induce madness. He cries out against the pain, but what comes out is not his voice. Not entirely.

WIP -- Benjamin

2011-06-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

As a kid, my sleep was often haunted by nightmares. Night after night I would awake with a start, my pulse pounding in my head, afraid to go back to bed. BENJAMIN is very personal to me, as it is one of those nightmares. It's just one of those that have stayed with me over the years.

* * *

Lying in the dark, waiting for his parents to turn off the lights, Benjamin was trying so hard to stay awake, but he knew he was going to lose the battle if that light didn’t go out soon.

“C’mon,” he whispered. There was an urgency in his voice, like when he had to pee bad and one of his brothers was taking his time in the bathroom hoping the “little booger” would piss his pants. But Benjamin didn’t have to pee, not this time. He didn’t have to poop, either. No, what he needed now more than anything was for his parents to go to bed so he could sneak downstairs and watch TV. There was this really cool movie on at midnight that he wanted to see, but his mother had told him he couldn’t watch it because it was past his bedtime.

Thinking about the movie, he glanced at his watch, but it was too dark to see its face. He had no idea what time it was; he only knew it was late, but he didn’t know how late, which only served to increase the feeling of anxiety. Lying in the dark, time seemed to crawl, especially when there was nothing to do except stare at the ceiling. He wished he could turn on the light by the side of his bed so he could read his comic books, but that would tip off Mom and Dad that he was still awake. They would come in to see what was wrong, ask if he had had a bad dream, maybe even insist on sitting with him until he fell asleep again, and that was something he couldn’t have happen. He’d never get downstairs then. So he was just lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, waiting, occasionally glancing into toward his parents’ room to see if the light was still on.

When the thin gap between the sliding French doors went dark, Benjamin gave a start. It’s about time, he said to himself, and it was all he could do to keep himself from throwing back the blankets and running from the room. Every move he made from here on out would have to be slow and careful. The slightest sound was bound to wake up somebody—his mother, his father, or worse, his brothers, who would no doubt raise the alarm and ruin everything. So rather than rush downstairs, he stayed in bed and counted slowly to ten, and then he did it again. He ticked off the number of times he counted to ten on his fingers.

He had just finished his sixth round of tens when he heard a soft rumbling sound. In that moment, listening to the distant sounds of his father snoring, he knew the coast was clear. Mom always drifted off to sleep first; Dad liked to stay awake and read a little bit before turning in.

Benjamin sat up in bed and slowly slid his butt toward the edge of the bed. No matter how careful he was with his movements, the springs of the bed still emitted an ear-grating squeal each time he pressed his hands to the mattress to shift his weight. He cringed with each betraying squeal because, even though they weren’t all that loud, in the darkness of his room they sounded as loud as the cats he often heard fighting in the backyard.

Once he was perched on the edge of the bed, he looked toward his parents’ room and whispered, “Fuck you, bitch.” This was directed at his mother, who had told him he couldn’t watch the movie because it was on too late. That wasn’t the real reason she didn’t want him to watch it. He had overheard her talking to Dad earlier, and she had said she thought the movie was too scary for him. “It’ll give him nightmares for weeks.” But Benjamin would show her. He had no idea what the meaning was behind the words he had just muttered, but he knew they were bad because he often heard Stevie, his older brother, say them after he and Mom got into a fight. He never said them while Mom was in the room; he always waited until she had walked away so she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Soft light from the streetlamp outside his brothers’ window slipped into his room through the doorway. It did little to drive the darkness from the room, but Benjamin was able to see the face of his watch in the gloom. He smiled as the two figures teeter-tottered on the little seesaw at the base of the watch face. If he had had the time, he would sit there and watch the two figures go up and down for hours, wondering if they ever got tired (they never seemed to because they never stopped), but he didn’t have the time. The big hand was on the nine and the little hand was on the twelve. That didn’t leave him much time to get downstairs, grab a snack, and get back to the couch before the movie started.

Slowly, he pulled back the sheets that covered him and let his left foot slide off the edge of the bed. He was about to let the right foot follow when something brushed the sole of his dangling foot. He jerked his foot back onto the bed. “Whew! That was close.” In his rush to get downstairs, he had forgotten all about the Monster Under the Bed.

Leaning over the side, he scanned the floor, but the dim light shining in from the street wasn’t bright enough to let him see it, but he knew it was there. Daddy had told him there was no such thing as monster, but Steve had said differently. Stevie had said there were monsters all over the house just waiting for little boogers like Benjie to let down their guard. Benjamin knew he should believe his Dad, but Stevie was very convincing, so he didn’t know who he should believe—until now. The Monster Under the Bed had tried to grab him; it had touched his foot.

“Now what,” he asked himself as he stared into the darkness. With the Monster patrolling the floor, there was no way he was going to be able to get off the bed, at least not until the sun came up and chased away the shadows from his room. If he waited that long, he was going to miss the movie, so that wasn’t a choice he would even think about. There had to be another way.

As he sat there trying to figure out what to do, there came a tug at the sheets at the foot of the bed. Instinctively, he jerked his feet back, pulling his knees to his chest and hugging them tight. His eyes scanned the width of the mattress, darting from one corner to the other, but he couldn’t see it. He could hear it, though, a light scratching as it clawed at the thick material of the box spring. His breath caught in his throat and his heart thudded so heavily in his chest that he could feel it in his head when he felt the mattress dip a little, as if it had caught the corner and was trying to pull itself up onto the bed. Wait, wait, you can’t do that. He aimed his thoughts at the Monster, hoping by sheer force of will he would be able to send it scurrying back to the darkness beneath the bed, but the Monster was immune to his mental attack.

The corner of the mattress furthest from the dim light shining in through the window continued to sag, and then suddenly something heavy landed on the bed. Benjamin clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from crying out as he scooted backward, the mattress springs screaming in protest beneath his rapidly shifting weight. He stopped moving, and for a moment he thought the Monster had grabbed him, but then he realized he had gone as far as he could on the bed; his back was pressed against the headboard.

The Last Word -- A WIP

2011-05-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

Ramona Flanagan should have been ashamed, but she wasn’t; she couldn’t help the way she felt. She knew this should have been a sad occasion, or should have been. She knew she should have been playing the role of the grieving child, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even the sight of Mama laid out in the open casket, looking more at peace than at any other time in her life, wasn’t enough to open the dam and release the wave of emotions that should be flooding her body. Rather than sit there and cry, Ramona Flanagan smiled unashamedly. Let them interpret it any way they damn well please, she thought, and she knew exactly how they would interpret it. Well, they can all go to Hell!

She sat back in the over-stuffed leather armchair, arms folded defiantly across her breasts, and stared at her mother’s corpse. She fought to suppress the giggles that tried to burst from her mouth as mentally she started to sing, Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch! Ding dong the wicked witch is dead…

She wanted to dance, wanted to sing the merry tune out loud, just like the munchkins did, but then that would not have been considered acceptable behavior. Then again, when have I ever done anything that was acceptable? Her body trembled with the urge to give into her desires, but she needed to regain control—for Paulette’s sake.

Half an hour later, what seemed like an eternity to Ramona—after all, she had to sit there and smile and nod as their friends came up and offered their condolences—the priest finally arrived.

Ramona stifled a snort. This ought to be good for a laugh.

She sat back in the chair and watched as the priest spoke briefly with Paulette, who had gotten up to greet the man, before taking his place at the front of the room. As the priest started to speak, Ramona laughed to herself as the lies slipped effortlessly from the man’s lips. Nobody knew the real Rosemary Flanagan; nobody, that is, except her. Not even Paulette knew the woman for the witch she really was.

Twenty minutes later, when the well of lies ran dry and the priest muttered his final prayers and expressed his sympathies to both women, Ramona got up and, slinging her purse over her shoulder, approached her sister. “I’ve had it with this crap,” she said in a harsh whisper. “I’m leaving.”

She started to walk away, but Paulette grabbed her arm. “No.”

Very subtly, so as not to draw attention to their conversation, Ramona yanked her arm from her sister’s grasp. “I’m going home,” she hissed.

“What are people going to think?”

“Frankly, Paulette, I don’t give a damn. I really don’t. She’s dead, and I’m glad she’s dead. You should be, too. Maybe now we can get one with our lives.”

A loud noise caused both women to jump. They looked around for the source of the sound, and only when they realized that all eyes were fixed on the front of the room did they turn their attention to where their mother rested. The lid of the casket had fallen shut.

“Protest all you want, Mother. I’m leaving.”

“Ramona,” Paulette whispered.

Giving her sister a withering look, Ramona waited for Paulette to continue. The younger woman knew better than to ask of she would be back for the evening viewing; what she wanted to know more than likely concerned the events of the following day.

“Will you be at the cemetery tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” she replied off-handedly. “It’s possible, but I sincerely doubt it.” Without further word, she started for the door.

A started gasp from those gathered brought her up short. She turned in time to see the lid of the coffin rise unaided by anybody in attendance. “I’m not impressed, Mother.” As she turned once more to leave, the lid came crashing down, the thunderous clap of wood against wood echoing in the small room.

Ramona whirled and stared at the coffin. “Stop it, Mother,” she hissed. “This is one time you’re not going to get what you want.”

The coffin lid rose up, and fell, Again and again. Up. Down. Up. Down. Faster and faster.

Racing to the front of the room, Ramona threw herself on top of the coffin, but even with her full body weight, the coffin lid continued to thump away as if the woman inside wanted out. “Stop it,” Ramona screamed. “Just stop it, Mother. You always had to have the last word, didn’t you? Well, not this time, you wicked old bitch! May your Godless soul burn for all eternity in Hell!”

She felt hands on her, pulling at her, trying to get her down from atop the casket. “Get away from me,” she spat. “Leave me alone.”

As suddenly as it started, the thumping stopped.

Ramona waited until she was certain her mother had had her say before sliding from her perch on top of the coffin. She brushed away the hands reaching for her, straightened her skirt and jacket before pushing her way through the startled crowd. At the door, she turned, her gazing fixing fleetingly on each person in the room before coming to rest on her sister. And there her eyes lingered. “You don’t know. Any of you. If you did, you’d be rejoicing over her death. But you’re clueless. Don’t mourn for her. She doesn’t deserve it.”

Without another word, she opened the door and walked out.

A Howling Good Time

2011-05-18T21:51:00.001-07:00

I first made the acquaintance of Abraham Stroud in Robert Walker's Vampire Dreams, Book 1 of the Bloodscreams series. Ex-military, ex-cop, archeologist, and hunter of the supernatural, Stroud has an uncanny knack of searching out the creatures of our worst nightmares, thanks to a steel plate in his head, an unpleasant souvenir of the war. His connection to the supernatural coincided with the return to his ancestral home, which just so happened to be in a town overrun by vampires. If you haven't read it, it's worth checking out.

Werewolf's Grief is no different. Stroud, in the middle of an archeological dig, is visited by dreams of a savage killer, and it isn't until the next day that he realizes what he has seen in his vision is more than a dream; he had established a direct link with the killer and was seeing the crime as it took place. Not able to sit back and let the police handle things, Stroud packs his bags and heads off to the scene of the crime.

He joins forces with Chief Anna Laughing More. Together, they investigate the brutal murders. Originally, they believe they are chasing a man named Kerac, someone with whom Anna has had a relationship. She is having a hard time believing that the man she once loved could be capable of committing such crimes. Further investigation only serves to raise more questions, as they find fur at the scene of the crimes. Upon analysis, they find out that the fur belongs to a wolf. Now they are working under the assumption that Kerac has a trained pet wolf -- that is, until Stroud has another vision that, as difficult as it is to believe, reveals that Kerac does not have a pet wolf. He IS the wolf. When Stroud presses Anna for details about her relationship with Kerac, she admits there was a change in his behavior recently, which leads Stroud to believe that Kerac is not the only one of his kind. Not content to hunt down Kerac and leave it that, Stroud takes it upon himself to hunt down and eradicate the entire pack. Will he survive? Or is this the end off Abraham Stroud.

Walker's werewolves were a refreshing change that harken back to the original werewolf of the movies. You won't find here the over-sized puppies we see populating so much of today's fiction, nor do they turn into real wolves. When Kerac turns, he becomes what I imagine when I think of werewolves, a ferocious half-man/half-wolf creature that is ruled by its corrupted animal nature.

When I first started this series, I was hoping for some out-and-out horror novels, and while they do have horror elements, I would classify them more as supernatural mysteries. They are to be fast paced and hard to put down. Stroud, as a character, comes off a bit gruff and stand-offish at first, and you aren't sure if you are going to like him, but once you realize what drives him, becomes an extremely likable character, one you want to root for and see come out on top. Walker's other characters, even his minor ones, the ones you know aren't going to see it through to the end of the book, are fully fleshed out individuals, and you do feel a loss when one of them dies.

If you haven't picked up this series, I would highly recommend it. Next up in the series is Zombie Eyes (although not necessarily the next book to be read in my TBR pile), and I can't wait to lose myself in it.

Excerpt from Untitled Zombie Novella -- In Progress

2011-04-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt of the zombie novella that I'm currently working on.

***

Back outside, the streets were just beginning to show signs of life as the refugees crept from their nighttime shelters to forage for the meager scraps that could still be found. Dave didn’t think it was likely that these folks were in danger of starving anytime soon; it was more likely that they were operating in self-preservation mode, hoarding what they could for when there was nothing left to be found. Now wasn’t the time to worry about them, though; he had to find that little girl. Well, technically he didn’t have to, but the cop in him wouldn’t give him any rest if he didn’t put his best foot forward in trying to find her. He took a moment to survey the street.

Across the way was a fabric store, its window spider webbed with cracks that had somebody had attempted to cover over with duct tape. To the left of the fabric store, a pair of corrugated steel doors, both in the down position, loading docks for the store and whatever businesses occupied the upper floors of the building. To the right was a discount media store, the kind that sold pirated videos and DVDs and stripped down electronics at “bargain” prices. By some miracle, the plate glass windows were still intact. The door, however, was another story. Pieces of the thick glass littered the sidewalk, sparkling in the sun like discarded diamonds. Of the hooker there was no sign, but she wasn’t too far off. A steady, rhythmic slapping sound echoed in the concrete corridor as she tried to break into one of the other store fronts on this side of the street.

Drawing his service revolver, Dave considered the video store. It was an enticing lure for a child, but his gut instinct told him she wasn’t in there. It wouldn’t hurt to check out the place, but he knew it would be a waste of time. During his years on the force, he had come to rely heavily on what he jokingly called his “Spidey Sense”; it had never failed him, and he wasn’t about to start second guessing himself now. Dismissing it, Dave moved into the middle of the street, looking back the way they had come, his gaze shifting from one side of the street to the other, lingering briefly on each store front and doorway before moving on. He started forward, weaving his way slowly through the obstacle course of abandoned cars, torn open garbage bags, and vandalized refuse from some of the stores. That rhythmic slapping grew louder the further he got from the Old Navy, and as he passed by a smoke shop, he caught sight of the prostitute in the recessed doorway of the store front. Keeping one eye on her, he continued moving toward the end of the street, one destination in mind.

He had covered half the distance when he heard footsteps behind him, a heavy slapping of sneakered feet against the grey slate of the sidewalk. Even before he turned around, he knew what he was going to see and he cursed under his breath.

With one hand pressed to her stomach, the woman from Old Navy hurried towards him. There was a wild, desperate look in her eyes as she headed his way, unaware of the danger that lurked within the shadows, waiting to ambush her as she passed. There was a chance she could get by the thing in the doorway, provided she didn’t. . .

“Vicky! Victoria!”

“Goddammit,” Dave muttered, moving to intercept the woman before she became zombie chow. He tried to wave her away from the building and into the street, but she was blinded by fear for her daughter and she continued to stumble toward him.

There was movement in the doorway, and Dave knew he wasn’t going to make it in time. He didn’t slow his pace as he raced towards the woman, but he had only managed a dozen steps before the hooker shambled out of the doorway. The woman collided with the zombie, letting loose with a startled scream. The thing staggered backward on impact, seemed to hesitate a moment before starting forward again, arms reaching and teeth snapping. Terror had paralyzed the woman, who stood there, both arms wrapped protectively over her swollen belly, staring death in the face. The only chance he had was to shoot the walking corpse in the back the head; there was no doubt he would hit his target from this distance, but there was a chance that the bullet would pass through the thing’s head and hit the woman in front of it. He veered to his right, hoping to get a better angle from which to shoot.

The woman had a deer in the headlights look to her, eyes wide and glassy, lips quivering, unable to speak as the zombie reached for her. The corpse was within striking distance, it’s thin, bony fingers on one hand brushing the woman’s shoulder, the other raking across her arms, still held protectively over her stomach. Red welts rose in the wake of the thing’s filthy, infected fingernails, followed by blood welling up.

“My baby,” the woman whimpered.

The thing’s talon-like fingers snagged the woman’s t-shirt and blood blossomed against the white material as it pulled her closer. The woman grimaced in pain, her face a wrinkled mask of fear, fury, and disgust. Whether it was the smell of rot threatening to smother her, the pain as the thing’s nails dug into her flesh, or fear for her unborn child, the woman brought up her hands and tried to push the prostitute away. A primal scream ripped from her throat as her hands came in contact with the decomposing corpse; desperate to get the zombie away from her, she gave the hooker a hard shove. The flesh above the thing’s left breast tore. “Oh God,” she cried out, repulsed by the sight of the exposed muscle and bone, but the woman, seeing the damage, wasn’t about to quit. She shoved again, using both hands, which landed squarely on both of the hooker’s breasts. Skin split as if it was nothing more than tissue paper, and the mounds of flesh imploded. Blackened blood as thick and dark as molasses and yellowed tissue that looked like puss oozed through her fingers like a rancid cottage cheese sundae. Another cry of disgust issued from the woman, but nothing deterred the zombie from trying to sate its eternal hunger. Its teeth snapped continuously, its head lunging forward in what seemed slow motion.

The woman was suddenly aware of Dave’s presence as he slid over the hood of a car, and she turned her head in his direction. “Help me. Please.”

Dave slipped from the car’s hood and planted his feet firmly on the ground, bringing his .45 up in a two-handed grip. Taking aim, he pulled the trigger. The hooker’s head exploded, splattering the pregnant woman in a rain of gore, brain, and bone shrapnel. As life drained from the corpse for a second, final time, the body collapsed, its fingernails shredded the fabric of the woman’s shirt, leaving in their wake a trail of red welts. The woman followed the zombie to the ground, legs too weak to support her after her near-death experience. She covered her face with her hands and started to sob, the search for her daughter all but forgotten for the moment as she tried to come to terms with her own mortality. Dave knew all too well what she was going through at that moment, having experienced it himself a several weeks back, when all this shit was first hitting the fan. But whatever sympathy he held for the woman in that instant, and any relief he may have felt that she was safe quickly gave way to anger over her stupidity as he stalked toward her.

Wiping the tears from her face and smearing it with blood in the process, she looked up at the figure looming over her. She had wanted to say “Thank you”, but the words died on her lips when she saw the barely suppressed rage he knew was reflected in his eyes.

“I told you to stay inside.”

She wanted to say something in her own defense, but he reached down and hauled her to her feet, jostling her into silence.

“Go back inside.”

Still shaken by her encounter, she managed to show her defiance by squaring her shoulders and meeting his gaze. He had to give her some credit; she didn’t flinch. “No,” she told him, and he could hear the quaver in that one spoken word. Just one word, as if she didn’t trust herself to speak more for fear of giving away how rattled she really was.

Dave took a deep breath to calm himself. It would be pointless to argue with the woman. She wasn’t thinking clearly. That much was evident by her refusal to obey orders. He had no choice but to let her tag along, but he was going to lay down a few rules. Not that he thought it would do any good. She thought she knew what was best for her and her daughter, so she was going to do whatever the hell she pleased regardless of what he told her.

“Fine.” He let out the breath he’d been holding. “But you stay close and you keep your mouth shut. You do what I say and you don’t ask any questions. Is that understood?”

When she didn’t answer right away, he was tempted to leave her to fend for herself. Things might get a little hairy, and he didn’t need her jeopardizing his safety with her stubbornness. He knew, though, that if he went back without give the search his all, he’d never be able to face Mark. That man lived for kids; thus the reason he had dedicated his life to teaching. He could envision the disappointment on his lover’s face when he told him he didn’t even bother, not with this woman risking everything, and lying wasn’t even an option. But he needed to do something with the one in front of him to guarantee her compliance.

“Is. That. Understood.”

Again, she didn’t answer.

“Fine.” He turned away from her, prepared to head back to Old Navy.

“Wait.”

He did a slow about face, but didn’t make a move toward her. He fixed her with a stare, waiting.

Initially she met his stare, and it became a competition of wills. Finally, she dropped her gaze first, then her head. Twisting her hands nervously in front of her, she nodded.

Now that they seemed to have an understanding—not that he thought it would mean anything if they found her daughter—he started forward, brushing past her without saying a word. His gaze danced from one side of the street to the other, pausing briefly on each store front barely long enough to register what kind of store it was before moving on to the next. There was nothing that would be of interest to a little girl, and he was beginning to wonder if maybe she hadn’t strayed from the street and onto the avenue. There was a Toys R Us nearby, and with the streets virtually free of traffic, the path would be relatively clear to what a child would consider paradise. The thought sent a nervous twinge through his gut; just because the dead went into hiding, that didn’t mean there weren’t other threats posed to a child wandering the streets alone. There were other animals out there, predatory creatures that walked on two legs who would think nothing of taking advantage of the downfall of civilization to satiate their baser desires.

He pushed the thought from his head, needing to focus on the current situation. Making their way up the street, weaving through the abandoned vehicles, sounds from the hive became more apparent. They sounded agitated. Normally when they went to ground, they were like statues, standing completely still, staring through dead eyes at a rapidly dying world. Something had them stirred up, and Dave was beginning to get an uneasy feeling in his gut.

Veering to the right, Dave made for the sidewalk, trusting the woman would follow behind him. He didn’t think to look behind him to make certain until he was curbside, when he spotted the coffee shop, the door an empty chrome frame, the glass from which littered the sidewalk. He turned to tell her he wanted to check the place out; for a child it was the perfect lure, full of the promise of an assortment of treats that could be consumed away from the watchful eye of her mother. Never mind the fact that anything that might have been left behind by the looters had long since spoiled. That was something that would not have even entered a child’s mind. But when he turned, he found the woman was not behind him. He scanned the immediate area and let out a groan when he spotted her on the other side of the street. She was crouched down by an abandoned minivan and reaching underneath for something. What it was he couldn’t see, but he had a sinking feeling it was something connected to her little girl.

When she stood up and turned to face him, he saw what it was and he was seized with a chill that went bone deep. She held in her hand a sneaker, and even from where he stood he could see it was streaked with blood.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

2011-04-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

And so continues my zombie reads with David Wellington's Monster Island, Book 1 of his zombie trilogy. This was a Must Read for me since it takes place in New York City, and as a Native New Yorker, books that take place in and around the Big Apple go onto my list. Not necessarily because they are great reads, but more because I want to see how accurate they are to the locale.

The Zombie Apocalypse is already underway when Monster Island opens. Dekalb has already lost his wife to the plague, leaving him to protect his daughter in a world overrun by the dead. He is captured by a band of female warriors, most of whom are still in their teens and who under the command of Mama Halima, and he is separated from his daughter. While his daughter is being well taken care of, he is left to his own devices in a darkened prison cell, along with numerous others. While trying to negotiate better terms for the prisoners and expressing his desire to be reunited with his daughter, Dekalb learns that Mama Halima is sick and needs drugs. But not just any drugs. The female warlord is HIV+. Dekalb agrees to venture out under armed escort to retrieve the drugs she needs in return for his daughter. He soon finds out that all of the military medical bases have been looted, but he refuses to admit defeat. He says he knows where he can get the drugs, but he will need a ship and a crew. Once the ship, crew, and armed escort have been obtained, Dekalb sets sail for New York City.

Meanwhile, in New York, Gary, a med student, has all but given up hope. He thinks he is the only one left. He is of the mind, If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and he has studied the zombie population at large and thinks he has discovered a way to improve upon their condition. They don't have to come back as shambling, decomposing, flesh-craving corpses. So, taking the equipment he thinks he will need, he sets a make-shift lab in his apartment and sets out to commit controlled suicide. When he awakens to his new life, he finds his experiment has been successful: he is dead, but he can still think and reason, and he can talk.

When the Dekalb and Gary cross paths, Gary convinces Dekalb that he can help with his mission, as he is able to move amongst the dead without fear of being attacked, since he is one of them. The only condition Dekalb has to agree to is that they take Gary with him when they leave. But can Gary be trusted? And is there something more going on than either one of them suspect?

While Monster Island starts off as your typical zombie apocalypse tale, it quickly evolves into something more. You won't find government experiments gone wrong here, nor will you find the dead rising as a result of radiation exposure or the product of some Haitian priest or priestess seeking revenge for a wrong done to his/her people. No, the reason for the dead rising delves deeper into the supernatural realm, which, when I saw where it was going, I wasn't sure I liked at first. Now that I have put some distance between the reading and the writing of this and allowed myself think on it, I feel this is the downfall of the novel. While the story did keep me interested to a point, my interest in it began to waver half way through when I saw where it was going. I know this is the first book of a trilogy, but I feel the whole supernatural element was too ambitious to be explained away in one book. In fact, I found the plot to be a little too contrived. The story starts in Africa, then jumps to New York City. You mean to tell me there was no place closer than the United States to search for the needed drugs?

My other issues with the book lay with the characters. I know they exist, but I had a hard time swallowing the whole teenage Amazonian militia thing. Since there are so many of them, the female characters strike me as being relatively flat, even those who have been assigned names. Dekalb as a hero doesn't work for me, as his character is too weak. While his main motivation is to be reunited with his daughter, he allows himself to be pushed around by the girls. Even when they are on foreign (at least to the girls) soil, he rarely takes charge of a situation, and when he finally does, it seems to out of character for him. Gary strikes me as the most interesting character, but even his character loses his uniqueness half way through.

I do have the other two books in the trilogy, and I will get to them eventually, but they are not high on my list of books to get to. The most diehard of zombie fans might want to add this to their Must Read list, but if you like your zombies of the more traditional variety, you might want to pass this one by.

He Knows If You've Been Bad Or Good. . .

2011-04-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

Until recently, I've only associated mysteries with the name Konrath. I have since learned that he also writes horror. I have a few in my TBR pile, which has grown exponentially within the past year (curse you, Kindle!), but when I saw Shapeshifters Anonymous, I just had to get it. It's not horror, more urban fantasy, and that was okay because I've been reading quite a bit in that genre as well. It's also comedic. I knew Konrath could be humorous—I've read Draculas, but since that was a collaborative effort, I wasn't sure exactly how much was him and how much was coming from the other authors. And because it dealt with shifters (and the fact that it was short), it jumped to the top of the pile.

Robert Weston Smith has a problem. He's a healthy individual: works out regularly at the gym, watches what he eats, and practices yoga and tai chi. So why, for the past three months or so, has he been finding strange items in his poop? That's what he hopes the doctor will tell him.

A physical examination produces a coat button, part of a zipper, and sixty-three cents in change, but no answers. The doctor suggests he visit a shrink, but Robert doesn't think that's going to provide any answers, but he promises to keep the appointment. When he returns home, he has a run-in with his annoying gypsy neighbor and her yappie little dog. Inside his apartment, he promptly passes out, not waking up until the next morning, which is when, upon going to the bathroom, he finds evidence that he has eaten his annoying neighbor. . . And her little dog, too. Realizing that the shrink isn't going to be of much good, he turns to the internet to find his answers. With growing horror, he was able to piece together a mystery, which only serves to make him more desperate to find answers. He continues to surf the web. After hitting one dead end after another, he stumbles across Shapeshifters Anonymous. What does he have to lose? He calls them and is told there is a meeting that afternoon. Before he can head out, he needs to swing by the doctor's office to pick up something they found in his stool sample—a sterling silver crucifix. On his way, he is accosted by a psychotic Santa, who delivers a rather cryptic message. He shrugs it off, thinking the guy nothing more than mentally imbalanced; he has more important things on his mind. The fun really begins when he arrives at the meeting.

You wouldn't think a guy on the verge of a nervous breakdown would be humorous, but in Konrath's skilled hands, it is. Almost from the very beginning, the chuckles start. You try not to laugh at Weston's plight (not with the strange items in your poop, but the whole embarrassment at having to take your stool sample to the doctor's office) because you can very easily picture yourself in the same situation, but you just can't help yourself. In that respect, Konrath's lead character becomes an Every Man. His characters are very realistic; as you meet them, you roll your eyes because you know people like this exist, and maybe you've even met some of them. From the pleasantly obnoxious nurse who seems to make it her life's mission to embarrass you in the crowded waiting room to the equally annoying kid full of questions to the parents who are reluctant to own up to the ill-mannered monster you just want to backhand.

As the story progresses at a swift pace, there's never a dull moment, even with the most mundane things, and the chuckles progress to outright laughter. If I was in doubt about Konrath's ability to do humor, this squelched any doubts I might have had.

My only issue, and you know there's always going to be one, is the romantic element that enters the story once Weston arrives at the SA meeting. Those who have read my reviews in the past know how I feel about romance in horror fiction. The same can be applied here. Too fast, too soon, improperly timed. I won't bore you with the details. Just let it be said that Weston's panting over Irena was not my favorite part of the story.

All in all, however, Shapeshifters Anonymous was an enjoyable read full of chuckles and laughs that really brightened my day. If you have the afternoon free, I would highly recommend it. You won't need more than a couple of hours, depending on how fast you read, as it isn't very long.

When the Hunter Becomes the Hunted

2011-03-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about reality shows, but they are everywhere now. All of the major networks have at least one, and they've even invaded the cable networks on channels that shouldn't have them. Now they are invading the literary world. I've read a few, and sometimes the concept just doesn't work. That's part of the reason why, as much as I love Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville series, I put off reading Kitty's House of Horrors. For those of you not familiar with Kitty Norville, she's a celebrated werewolf who hosts a weekly radio call-in show that is dedicated to all things supernatural. She's rubbed elbows with other lycanthropes, vampires, demons, etc., so it's possible the reality show them could work here, but I was still hesitant.

When Kitty's House of Horrors opens, two sleazy Hollywood types are pitching the concept show to Kitty. She knew it would bound to happen sooner or later, but she has her reservations. They reassure her that everything is on the up and up, that the show is meant to raise awareness of the supernaturals in the world, but Kitty is still unconvinced. It isn't until the two sleazoids drop a couple of names that Kitty's interest is piqued. It seems that people whom she considers friends, people she has worked with in the past and people she knows will have her back should things go awry, that she agrees to consider it. That satisfies the pitchmen. When Kitty places a phone call to one of her friends, Tina McCannon, a psychic who works on another reality show, Paradox PI, who admits that the only reason she agreed to do the show was because they told her that Kitty was already on board. When Kitty confesses that she only just now heard about the show, Tina tries to sway her into doing it, telling her it would be a blast. Kitty is still not convinced, and she tells Tina she needs to think it over some more. Thinking it over means talking it over with Ben, her husband and pack mate. The timing couldn't have been worse, as he needs to prepare for his cousin's parole hearing. When Kitty first met Cormac, he had tried to kill her (see Kitty and the Midnight Hour, the first book in the Kitty Norville series). Since then, they've developed a strong friendship and working partnership, which eventually lead to Cormac's imprisonment. Kitty reluctantly agrees to do the show, especially since it will benefit the supernatural community.

Kitty doesn't know who else involved with the show until she is transported to the locale, an isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere. In addition to Tina, there's Jeffrey Miles, a celebrated TV psychic; Odysseus Grant, a self-proclaimed magician working the Vegas strip; Ariel, a witch who also hosts her own radio show; Jerome Macey, a professional wrestler who happens to be a werewolf; a state legislator from Alaska, Lee Ponatac, who also happens to be a wereseal; Conrad Garrett, a celebrated author who has made it his business to debunk the supernatural; Gemma, the winner of the very first vampire beauty pageant; Anastasia, an ancient vampire and Gemma's creator; and Dorian, a human who acts as a blood donor to the vamps. It is up to the supernaturals to convince Garrett that they are the real thing, but they have to play to the camera and play the game. In other words, Kitty can't change into her wolf in front of him to prove that she is the real deal. They need to try to convince him verbally first. The show progresses per schedule, but when Dorian is killed, they quickly realize that they have all been set up. There never was a show; what they have become involved in a supernatural snuff film, and they are the stars. One by one, they are being picked off, and it all to quickly turns into a real-life version of Survivor, only this time to be voted off is to lose your life. Can Kitty and crew, normally the predators in their world, survive being systematically hunted, or had Kitty finally met her match?

Well, all of my fears were for nothing. I think Kitty's House of Horrors is one of the best books in the Kitty Norville series. Kitty shines in this book, and we also get to see a side of her we rarely get to see. Through most of the series, Kitty has relied on the help of other supernaturals to get her out of a jam, but here, although there are other supernaturals present, they all seem to look to her for leadership, which is a situation she has tried her best to avoid most of her life. She just wants to be left alone, but she often finds herself in situations where she is reluctantly required to assume the role of leadership. It is because of her hesitancy that she often needs to rely on others. She does not want to give in fully to the beast within her; she feels that to do so would cost her humanity. However, in this book, if she wants to survive, she has to rely on wolf; she has to give in to the predatory nature of the animal within while maintaining the level-headedness of her human side. Wolf wants to run, but the alpha human side of Kitty feels the need to protect those she is with. She is literally backed into a corner, and that is the worst thing you can do to an animal.

I like that Vaughn brought back characters from past books in addition to introducing a few new ones. It ties them all together and foreshadows of bigger things to come. There's mention made of The Game, which involves the vampires. Anastasia implies that Kitty has a key role in this political power play. It seems that everything that's happening is preparing her for this role, a role she doesn't want. While I like this development, it strikes a sad chord within me, as it means the series will more than likely be wrapping up soon.

I would love to be able to recommend this book, but it isn't a stand alone novel. I do think it is one of the best in the series so far, but if you haven't followed Kitty's adventures from the beginning, I can't encourage you to read this; however, I can encourage you to start the series. If you have followed Kitty from the beginning and haven't yet picked up this installment, I strongly urge you to do so.

This Ain't No Maryland Crab Fest

2011-03-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I remember seeing Guy N. Smith's Night of the Crabs on my brother's nightstand. At the time, I was only reading high fantasy, but I remember thinking that it looked awesome. It looked like it would be as much fun as the movies I loved to watch. Of course, by the time I turned my attention to horror fiction, the book was nowhere to be found in the house, not in the house and not in the stores, which is why I got so excited when I saw it had been released on Amazon for the Kindle. I was finally going to get a chance to read it.

It started with Milton Hogarth, a corporate schmuck about to go down for embezzlement. He's planning on faking his own death in order to escape prosecution, so when he really does go missing, nobody takes notice. However, when Ian Wright and Julie Coles go missing, presumed drowned, somebody does take notice.

Cliff Davenport doesn't buy the explanation he's been given by the authorities concerning his nephew's disappearance. Ian and Julie were both strong swimmers, so a simple drowning doesn't seem likely. There has to be something more to their disappearance, but he can't for the life of him figure out what it might be. Determined to find out the truth concerning his nephew's disappearance, he takes a little trip to Barmouth, a little town on the coast of Wales, to do a little investigating of his own. He sets up base camp at a local Bed and Breakfast run by an old friend, who wastes no time trying to play matchmaker between Cliff and a young divorcee. Not know what he he's looking for, he agrees to let Pat Benson join him while he investigates his nephew's disappearance. What he discovers is far beyond anything he could have expected. The stretch of beach known as Shell Island, as well as the surrounding areas, has become the hunting grounds for a nest of giant crabs.

Davenport reaches out to his contacts in the military, and at first he is treated with ridicule and disbelief, but when the evidence presents itself, it becomes an all-out war for survival. The only problem is, is the military smart enough to outsmart the crabs, which appear to have the ability to think, reason, communicate, and strategize.

I had mixed feelings while reading Night of the Crabs. A part of me loved it because I love those old B movies like Tarantula, The Deadly Mantis. and all those other giant bug movies, but the issues I had with the book outweigh the pleasure I took away from it. For those of you who know me, you know that I am against romance in horror fiction; I find it forced, poorly timed, and progresses way too quickly. The relationship that develops between Cliff Davenport and Pat Benson is a perfect representation of everything I find wrong with romance in horror. Cliff is supposed to be looking for his missing nephew. First and foremost in his mind should be finding his missing relative, not this woman he just met. And once the crabs enter the picture, getting rid of them should be first priority, especially when you believe they killed your relative. However, Cliff at one point is ready to chuck everything and leave in order to protect the woman he loves. Loves?! He just met her. And the author mentions during the course of the narration that something like three weeks has elapsed during all this, and they are already planning a wedding. This was a sticking point for me, and no matter what I was reading, I kept coming back to this—they've only known each other three weeks and already they're engaged. The other thing that kept playing in my mind is, our dear Ms Benson is just out of a really bad marriage. Would she be jumping into this kind of relationship so soon?

The other sticking point for me was the writing. Night of the Crabs wasn't badly written, but I did get the impression that it was targeted towards a teen audience. It seemed like every time the characters were mentioned, Smith used the full name: Julie Coles did this, Julie Coles did that, Oh my God, the crabs ate Julie Coles; Cliff Davenport met Pat Benson, Cliff Davenport had breakfast with Pat Benson, Cliff Davenport had to get back to the B&B to make sure Pat Benson was safe. It felt as if I wasn't thought to be smart enough to remember the character names and that I was being talked down to. Having to stumble over the full names of each character every time also broke the fluidity of the text.

Do I regret reading Night of the Crabs? No, not when it is considered a cult classic within the genre. Will I read more of Smith's Crab books? Now that I know what I am getting myself into, yes. It will also be interesting to see if the books improve over time. Would I recommend it? Yep, if only because it has reached cult status within the horror genre.

No BONES about it. . .

2011-03-14T01:52:00.000-07:00

After five years of being on the air, I recently started watching the television series BONES, starring Emily Deschanel as Dr. Temperance Brennan and David Boreanaz as Special Agent Seeley Booth. I like it. I like it so much that I decided to check out the books the series is supposedly based one. First in the series of books written by Kathy Reichs is Déjà Dead. The fact that the main character of the books is named Temperance Brennan is about the only similarity the book has to the series.

Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who works in affiliation with the Canadian Police Department. She is usually called in when older bones are discovered and they need to determine their age or cause of death. Her current case involves something more recent, a young woman who was murdered and dismembered. Something is triggered in her mind as she seems to recollect another murder victim who died under similar circumstances. When she brings up the similarities to the police, they refuse to even consider it, so Brennan, who has no police training, takes it upon herself to find the killer of, as it turns out, five women. Can she do it, or will she just bungle things and end up having to be rescued by the people who should be investigating?

Reading Déjà Dead, I was quickly reminded why I stay away from certain types of fiction. When Reichs started going into the details of how certain lab procedures were done, while interesting, the story for me came to a grinding halt. It struggled to find a balance between the scientific aspect and the police procedural, and the transitions were not fluid.

Another stumbling block was the language. Reichs seemed to feel it necessary to give us the original French of some dialogue, immediately followed by the English translation. The infrequency with which this occurred made it seem like a gimmick to up the word count slightly and I don't feel it was necessary. It was another screeching halt moment, where everything is moving along smoothly, and then there's a line of French, followed by the English translation: it felt like I was backtracking. If Reichs didn't feel comfortable trusting the reader to be able to figure out what was being said, then it shouldn't have been there, especially when the rest of the dialogue continues in English.

I also couldn't shake the feeling while I was reading that I was reading a young adult novel. We are supposed to be dealing with a well-educated professional woman, but she behaves more like Nancy Drew when she takes off to investigate without thinking things through. She repeatedly places herself in perilous situations because of her own carelessness, and only after she's knee-deep in it does she stop and think that maybe she shouldn't have done this. The one advantage the teen sleuth has over Brennan is that Drew at least has the foresight to tell her people—friends, adults, parents—where she's going to be. There's always going to be someone who can go to the cops and say, "Nancy's in trouble." Brennan keeps everything close to her, not sharing until she's good and ready. Granted, she's in a male-dominated field, and the men treat her like more like an annoyance than a professional, but you can't blame them if this is the way she acts.

I reluctantly have to admit that I might be judging Déjà Dead a little too harshly, and if I am, it's probably because it wasn't what I was expecting. Having gotten to know Brennan via the television series, I was expecting a novelization of the series, but that isn't what I got. The calm, confident forensic anthropologist who knows her way around the lab like the back of her hand but whose social ineptness makes her so endearing is nowhere to be seen on this book. Nor do we see the suave Seeley Booth who can find his way around a crime scene with his eyes closed, but can't seem to see what's right in front of him when it comes to the chemistry between him and Brennan. The Brennan of the television series would never think of investigating on her own because she knows her strengths and weaknesses, and they are not police procedural work. The Brennan of Déjà Dead seems to think of herself as some sort of superwoman, somebody who is infallible and immune to physical harm until she puts herself in the thick of things and only then thinks it wasn't such a good idea. Between the two, I'm more drawn to the television series.

Does that mean I won't read another of Reich's Temperance Brennan mysteries? I can honestly say, "I don't know." If I do, it won't be for awhile. Does that mean you shouldn't pick this up? I'm not one to tell people what they should and shouldn't read; I only recommend what I think people might like based on my own feelings, and unfortunately, Déjà Dead is not high on my list of book recommendations.

Bigfoot Walks Tonight

2011-03-11T22:29:00.000-08:00

As a kid, I had a thing for all things monsters. Who didn't? My passion for dinosaurs gave way to Nessie, Yetis, Bigfoot, etc. In fact, for awhile I even entertained fantasies of becoming a monster hunter. I was going to be the one to prove all these mythical creatures existed. Well, that didn't last long, but I never lost my interest in these creatures, which is why I just had to read Eric S. Brown's Bigfoot War.

As a kid, Jeff Taylor witnessed something no kid should ever have to go through—the murder of is father and younger brother. The authorities chalked it up to a bear attack, but Jeff knew the truth. Now, all grown up, Jeff is back for revenge on the creature that killed his family.

When Jeff reveals the real reason he's come home, he is greeted with ridicule and disbelief, but the townspeople rapidly come to realize that Jeff speaks the truth. There is a blood-hungry Bigfoot roaming the forests surrounding their town. With the help of Sheriff Becca May and her deputies, they dispatch the killer, but it soon becomes apparent that the one they killed is not alone. According to the town "medical examiner", the markings on this creature label it as either a "holy man" or an outcast, and based on the reaction of the other creatures in the forest, it's a safe bet to say they killed the leader of the Bigfoot community. They are angry, and they want revenge. Are Becca and her team of deputies enough to save the town's residents from an army of furious sasquatch? Can they hold back the army of furred warriors long enough for help to arrive?

I wasn't disappointed with Bigfoot War, but I did have one issue with the book. Reading it, it quickly becomes clear that Brown has a blatant disregard for the reader's emotional attachment to the characters they encounter in the book. Just when you begin to like a character or feel sorry for what they have endured, the character is gone, a victim of the furry fury that is laying waste to the town. It literally becomes a guessing game as to who will see things through to the end. Once you realize that you shouldn't invest any emotional energy in the characters, you can enjoy the ride. . . and what a ride. The book is a fast-paced roller coaster ride of savage fury, blood, and guts (yes, I'm a gore whore) that will have you turning the pages long into the night. The visuals Brown creates are vivid, and it plays like a movie in your mind. In fact, the book reads like a detailed treatment for a movie and does bring to mind the B-movies I so loved growing up, and still love to this day. It screams for a sequel, which I hope Brown is considering. If have a love for gory horror films and like your books fast paced, I can't recommend Bigfoot War enough.

Sex-Crazed Zombies?

2011-03-11T20:53:00.000-08:00

I am rapidly developing a love of all things zombie, especially since my publishing debut was in a zombie-themed anthology, and my second story (to be published in June) will also be in a zombie-themed collection. Therefore, I think it's only natural for me to check out what else is out there. One of the books that I downloaded a few months ago and kept putting off in favor of something else is Armand Rosamilia's Highway to Hell. I should have put it off a little bit longer.

Now don't get me wrong. It wasn't a bad book, or badly written for that matter. It's just that I'm a traditionalist when it comes to zombies. It's one of the reasons why I can't stand to watch the re-imaging of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Zombies are supposed to be slow-moving shamblers, not corpses on speed ready to run a marathon. And they certainly don't have. . . Well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

As with most zombie fiction, Highway to Hell is a survival story. The central character is Randy, and he drifts from town to town looking for other survivors, for a safe haven. What he finds is Becca. Or that's the name she gives him. Becca seems to live in a constant state of denial, claiming she can be whoever she wants to be, names don't matter much anymore. And why be truthful about the nobody existence you lead before the dead started walking. You can be anybody you want to be. Randy has been alone for so long, he has it in his head rather quickly that he and Becca are going to set up house together. It quickly becomes apparent that Becca has ulterior motives. She's a user, and very quickly reminded me of the bimbos in Zombieland. I so wanted them to get chomped much the way I want Becca to get chomped. As the story progresses, Becca's bitch-ness becomes more apparent; Randy is trying his best to make life, such as it is, more bearable for both of them while Becca is only concerned about what's best for Becca. There's one point in the story where she actually abandons him in a zombie-filled hospital with little means of protecting himself. You'd think this guy would wise up after awhile, and just when you think he's about to, Becca the slut distracts him with the promise of sex. Does Becca's bitchy selfishness earn her a justly deserved zombie chomping, or does Randy's little head lead to his demise? You'll have to read it to find out.

Reading Highway to Hell, I got the impression that Rosamilia was going purely for shock value, which I think is the story's downfall. As I mentioned earlier, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to zombies. The should be slow-moving and hungry; they should not be sprinters, they should not be jumpers, and they most definitely NOT be sex crazed. Rosamilia's zombies are slow, they are hungry, and they most definitely are horny. In fact, the book opens with two zombies gang-banging a girl barely alive: "Randy watch, repulsed as the two male zombies took turns dead-fisting the barely-alive girl anally." I knew right then and there I was in trouble. Don't get me wrong; I am not a prude. I just have MAJOR issues with sex in horror. I find it to be a poorly timed plot device to catch the "victims" with their pants down, so to speak. And in this instance, to start a book that way, it has to be done purely for shock value, an attempt to push the gross-out factor to the limit. In this case, it failed miserably. I wasn't shocked by it, but I was disgusted by it, but not in the way it was intended. I merely rolled my eyes, took a deep breath, and read on, hoping things got better.

The sex aside, Highway to Hell is not a bad story. The character of Randy is likable enough (even when you want to smack him upside the head to wake him up), and you keep hoping Becca will do something to redeem herself so that you can like her. The descriptions are rich in detail, making it very easy to envision the desolate city landscape in which the story takes place. However, I did feel the scenes of domesticity slowed the pace of the story, just short of plodding along. Once you pass the halfway point and the apartment building is left in the dust, the pacing increases to a rather explosive climax that is worth the wait. All in all, I feel this is an admirable effort on the author's part, and if you are a die-hard zombie fan that just has to read every worthwhile piece of zombie fiction that is published, Highway to Hell is worth adding to your library. However, if you prefer your zombies to be more traditional (a la Romero), you might want to pass this one by.

Not Since PSYCHO Have Showers Been This Terrifying

2011-03-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

With the pile of books that I have waiting in the wings, it's rare that I "borrow" books from people, and when people recommend books, I usually make a note of it and maybe I'll get to it, maybe I won't. Daniel Pyle's Down the Drain came recommended to me by a friend, and at first I was going to pass it by, but then I saw it was a small file (yes, I read it on the Kindle), and therefore knew it would be a quick read. I never expected to become so engrossed with it that I wouldn't want to put it down. I will note, however, that after the first chapter, I almost did put it down. I'll get to that later.

When Bruce's cat disappears, he's more than just a little upset. The cat has been a part of his family for over ten years and his only real friend since his girlfriend walked out. She's nowhere in the house, and the only thing he can think of that might explain her disappearance is that she had somehow managed to sneak out and she was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Never in his wildest dreams would he guess the truth of what happened to his feline companion. But he's about to find out. It seems there's something living under Bruce's house. Well, that's not exactly right. There's something living in the plumbing, something that surfaces through the drain in the shower. There's really not much more I can say without giving too much away, but suffice it to say, there is a showdown. Who wins? You'll just have to pick it up to see.

I was kind of puzzled initially when I started reading Down the Drain, figuring I was going to be reading the story from the thing's point of view, but it didn't take long to realize that the first chapter is written from the POV of a cat. So we, the reader, know exactly what happened to Bruce's favorite feline. And this is where I almost put the book down. You see, I'm a sucker for animals. Yes, I love me some horror fiction, and you can maim, mutilate, butcher, cannibalize, and torture as many people as you want and it doesn't bother me (yes, I'm sick, I know it), but pleasepleaseplease leave the animals alone. Kill off an animal and you run the risk of losing me as a reader. That's just the way I am. BUT I persevered with this one. Why? It was short. I finished it in about an hour, hour and a half tops. And because my friend said she had really liked it.

Once I got past the kitty killing, I admit I enjoyed Down the Drain. The central (only) character is likable enough, and the creature, as far-fetched as it was, was interestingly original. I did find it a tad predictable, but I pushed on hoping to find out more about the origins of the creature. Yes, it was what I thought it was, but I wanted to know HOW it came into being. Unfortunately, that is never explained. It was well written and well plotted, and with an ending that leaves it wide open for a sequel. Pyle is an author I will definitely be reading more of—provided he stops killing defenseless animals in stories. If you have an hour or two to kill, I would definitely recommend checking this one out.

Feels Like The First Time. . .

2011-03-02T22:29:00.000-08:00

Have you ever found an author that you like? Somebody who has been publishing for awhile, somebody who has a back list but who is entirely new to you? You absolutely love this author and wish you had discovered them earlier because now you have so much to catch up on. Wouldn't it have been great if you had been able to get in on the ground floor, so to speak. Well, here's your chance. First Time Dead is a two volume zombie anthology published by May December Publications and edited by TW Brown. All of the stories contained between the covers have been written by first-time authors. Now before you go rolling your eyes, let me say this. . . I was impressed. And for me to say that about a collection of short stories. . . Well, if you've read my past reviews, you know how much I dread them because they are usually inconsistent.

I mentioned that First Time Dead is a two-volume anthology; however, please note that I am only going to be covering Volume 2 in this review, which gets off to a kick-ass start with "In This House I Dwell" by Ron Harris. The zombie apocalypse is already underway when the story opens, and Harris' tale of survival of a man and his wife veers from the norm because some of the zombies are evolving, regaining the ability to speak, think, and reason. But is there something darker at work here?

DA Chaney explores the possible origins of the outbreak with "Zombie Bites: The Old Dead", combining the decaying zombies we all know and love with a hint of the more traditional zombies of The Islands.

With "Ooky" Matthew R. Davis paints a classic portrait of adolescent one-upmanship as a young couple pass regaling each other with past sexual exploits. While the zombie action is low in this one, the story itself proves to be one you won't quickly forget.

Joe Blevins' "Once More Without Feelings" does not deal with the zombie apocalypse, which we have come to expect with zombie anthologies, but delves more into Voodoo idealogy. Blevins proves that when you got it, you got it, even when you're dead.

Donny Chavez shows us what a "day in the life" of a handful of survivors must be like in "Snow Days". Of all the stories, this is one that I feel could very easily be expanded upon. It has the same feel to it as The Walking Dead.

Alexandro Rios offers up a more analytical view of the outbreak in "Zombies in Puerto Rico: Island of the Dead," in which an ex-reporter witness and blogs about the breakout as it occurs.

"The Last Legacy" by Amanda Larson focuses on a mother and her two children who decide to stay in their remote island home, literally cut off from the outside world, and how the community pulls together to survive the outbreak.

Eric Pollarine's "The Mission" takes us underground, as the survivors of the zombie apocalypse take to the sewers and underground tunnels. This is one of the most desolate stories in this volume, as it shows the hopelessness of the "new world", that not matter what you do to survive, eventually you will be joining the ranks of the walking dead.

Jason Thacker takes a more comic approach to the zombie tale with "The Hungriest Zombie" as he tells his tale from the zombie's point of view. This is the first zombie story I've come across where, between the chuckles, I actually felt sorry for the zombie.

"Rude Awakening" by David Maynard is a heartbreaking tale of a father losing his family one by one to the outbreak. The ending of this tale is chilling and memorable.

In "Zombie by Night" Aaron Phillips takes a unique experimental approach to the zombie theme that has a vampiric feel to it as he tells of a man's search for his brother's murderer.

Gregory A. Carter is the only author to have the zombie affliction spread to the animal population in "What the Cat Dragged In". It's a story of love, loss, despair, and hopelessness as a young couple prepares to flee the city for what they hope will be a safer area.

While not all the stories in First Time Dead Volume 2 will be for everybody (and that can be said about every anthology), there's no denying the talent that exists between the covers of this collection. The stories are well crafted and well written, and if you are a fan of zombie fiction, I would highly recommend checking it out. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Vengeance Is Mine. . .

2011-02-28T18:51:00.001-08:00

One of the best things about the Kindle is the resurfacing of so many out of print books that you would only be lucky enough to acquire should you stumble across a copy in a used bookstore or by paying an exorbitant amount of money through a second-hand deader. Jack MacLane's Keepers of the Beast was originally published in 1988. I was in college at the time, and was just beginning to get into horror fiction. I was a voracious reader and read as many books as I could get my hands on, but some managed to slip through the cracks. This was one of them.

When Barry Shannon's younger brother is murdered, Barry wants answers. . . and revenge. The first half might prove difficult; the second half won't be a problem because he is a U.S. Government-sanctioned assassin. The agency Barry works for has agreed to give him the time off that he needs to complete what needs to be done, but they also make it known that if he chooses to pursue this, he goes in alone. Driven more by feelings of guilt than the desire to see justice done, Barry takes his leave.

His investigation leads him to a small college town in Texas, where his brother was enrolled in the university. At first, after talking to one of Tod's professors, it appears Tod just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but after talking to one of the students, Barry is led back to the professor, who lied about how closely he knew the younger man. It seems Tod was involved in some sort of grant research, and Professor Phillips was his faculty advisor. Curious to know what kind of research his brother was doing, Barry checks out the younger man's apartment. When he arrives he finds the place is being trashed by two men who are obviously looking for something. When he confronts them, he comes face to face with something from the darkest depths of nightmares; one of the men appears to be part animal. The two men escape, and when Barry looks around the ruins of his brother's apartment, he realizes that they are somehow connected to the research his brother was doing for Phillips. He's only able to assemble small pieces to a larger puzzle, a puzzle that deals with demonic entities and possession. Barry is left wondering what the hell his brother had gotten himself involved with.

Sara Lansing is a reporter for the local paper. She's getting antsy and bored covering the local news—not much ever happens in town—and is seriously considering putting the town behind her and moving on when a bunch of cattle are mutilated. Her reporter's instinct tells her there's something more behind the attacks other than a crazed drifter (as the sheriff would like her to believe). She thinks that cracking this story will open up doors for her on the national news scene, but what she uncovers during her investigation might prove to be too sensational, not to mention utterly unbelievable, to be ever be printed in anything other than a supermarket tabloid.

Tommy Sloan is just a kid being raised by his mother. His father went out one day and never came back. Tommy is convinced his father is at the house at the end of the road, the house where it is rumored some crazy people live, but he's always been too afraid to go and check it out. When his mother disappears, he becomes even more convinced that she and his father are together in that house, and if he ever wants to see them again, it is up to him to go down there and bring them back.

Three lives are about to be drawn together by a nightmare none of them could have ever imagined, and in order for any of them to survive, Barry will be forced to battle the monster within himself, the monster that made him what he is today. Can he do it, or will his inner monster be seduced by the darkness and the promise of power beyond his comprehension?

Never having read anything by MacLane, I wasn't sure what to expect. I admit I approached this with a little apprehension, especially after having read quite a bit of the horror fiction published in the 8os, so much of which was story driven with stock cardboard characters. I was surprised with Keepers of the Beast, as the story is more character oriented. That's not to say that the story drags, because it doesn't. The details that flesh out the characters, making them fully realized individuals, are woven seamlessly into a story that moves along at a swift pace. You feel yourself rooting and fearing for the characters as the story progresses. To say that the story is realistic would be stretching it, considering the fact that it is a horror novel, but the plot is solid and I never once questioned the events as they unfolded within the fictional world.

As I said, this is the first MacLane novel I have read, and based on it, I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another of his books. If you are looking for a novel that will keep you reading long into the night, I would highly recommend Keepers of the Beast.

Opening of WIP

2011-02-27T00:21:00.000-08:00

I pissed my pants. I can’t believe I pissed my fuckin’ pants.

He tried not to think about it, but the embarrassing warmth was quickly turning to a cold clamminess at his crotch, serving as an uncomfortable reminder that he had lost control of his bladder. And it sure as hell beat the alternative. He didn’t want to think about how he was trapped beneath the motor home, face down in the mud, especially since it hadn’t rained in weeks. As long as he kept his eyes shut and his thoughts focused on the chafing between his legs, he didn’t have to think about what exactly it was that had dampened the earth enough to have it oozing between his fingers. But there was no denying that smell. The thick coppery tang mixed with the mineral-rich scent of the dirt was like a wad of cotton plugging his nostrils, but as long as he didn’t open his eyes, he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the source. He had a feeling he knew what it was, but he was too afraid to look.

All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter In

2011-02-16T20:45:00.000-08:00

For most people, there's nothing scarier than being lost. That was the premise of The Blair Witch Project, which scared the crap out of me because I could relate to the situation the characters found themselves in. Not the part of being "hunted" by a supernatural creature, but the part about being lost in the woods. It has happened to me. There's nothing more terrifying than not knowing where you are going, if you are constantly going around in circles, going the right way to freedom, or working your way deeper into the wilds. And that's in the daylight. Now imagine being in that situation in the dark of night. If you can't relate to that, how about a corn field maze? An amusement park fun house? Or something as simple as an unfamiliar neighborhood. That's what you will find in Brian Keene's Urban Gothic.

Kerri and her friends are on the way home from a concert when her boyfriend, Tyler, gets it in his head to score some drugs in order to keep the good mood going. Everybody just wants to go home, but Tyler's driving, and he claims the guy is a friend and it's not far. However, when a closed road causes him to detour, he gets himself all turned around and they find themselves in one of the seedier parts of town. As if that wasn't bad enough, the car picks that moment to give up the ghost. Insisting that he can fix it, Tyler forbids anybody calling for help, but when a group of locals approach them, they panic. They run straight for the abandoned house at the end of the street despite to other kids telling them not to go in there.

From the moment they get inside, they realize they are in trouble when the door locks behind them. Despite the rundown condition of the house, the door is stronger than it appears. When they decide to search the house in order to find another way out, they are set upon by a giant of a man, or so they think. Tyler and one of the girls are killed immediately, and Kerri and her remaining three friends run deeper into the house in order to avoid meeting the same fate. They get separated, and soon discover that the house is rigged up like a carnival fun house, with sliding panels and trap doors. They also soon realize that what they are up against isn't just one psychotic killer, but multiple generation of deformed mutants that have lived beneath the house longer than anybody knows. Driven by fear and a desperate desire to stay alive, the four remaining friends search for a way out, but in order to reach it, they must pass through the mutant lair. Can they do it?

In the meantime, the neighborhood kids who had approached the car know the house's reputation. They don't know what lives there, but they do know that whoever goes in is never seen again. Feeling partially responsible, they call the cops, but the police are all too familiar with the house as well, and when they don't show, the kids decide to take matters into their own hands. Somebody has to help those other kids, and it looks like it's up to them. Will Leo and his friends be able to gain access to the house and help those trapped within, or will they, too, become victims of the house?

Reading Urban Gothic, I was reminded of one of my favorite movies, The People Under The Stairs (yes, I'm a freak, I admit it, but I love Wendy Robie and Everett McGill in that movie. It's kind of like Lucy and Ricky on acid.). The house Keene has created brings to mind the creepy castles of Gothic fiction, with their secret passageways and miles upon miles of tunnels running beneath them. Those castles and the ghosts that haunt them are tame in comparison. Keene's house is inhabited by a tribe of cannibalistic freaks, which he paints with a grim brutality that will have you looking over your shoulder as you read. His human characters are painted with that same gritty realness that will have you on the edge of your seat as they make their way through the house looking for a way out.

As much as I liked Urban Gothic, there were certain things that stood out as problematic, at least for me. Keene reveals that these mutants have been around a long time, longer than the town has been in existence, but that is the extent of it. We are never informed as to the origin of these creatures, which I found disappointing. I kept hoping that the kids would stumble across something that would reveal the origin of these monsters. Given that the house appears larger on the inside than is perceived from the outside, you wonder if maybe it's a portal to another dimension. There was also a moment where I thought Keene might be attempting a Cthulhu mythos tie-in. There's nothing definite, which was frustrating to me as a reader.

The other issue I had with these mutants is that some of them spoke English in complete sentences. To me, this would imply that they had more contact with the outside world that we are led to believe. One of the questions that is raised by one of the characters in the book is what do these creatures live on? Their sole sustenance can't be the chance individual who happens to stray into their lair, and there aren't enough rodents to keep their race alive. Are they working with somebody from the outside, somebody who regularly lures unwitting victims to their demise? This would help to explain how they can communicate with their victims. We just don't know, and for me, it ruined the credibility of these mutants. I would have preferred it if they stuck with grunts, groans, and moans as a means of communication. If language was necessary, they should have spoken in a fragmented dialogue.

All in all, however, I did enjoy Urban Gothic, and would highly recommend it to anybody who doesn't mind raw, brutal, graphic horror fiction.

Four's a Crowd

2011-02-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

I love the BBC version of BEING HUMAN, so when I saw there were several media tie-in books, I just had to had to check them out. For those of you who aren't familiar with the premise of the series, it's like a supernatural Three's Company—Annie (a ghost), George (a werewolf), and Mitchell (a vampire) share a London flat and try to pass themselves off as human. For the most part, it works, but there are those who aren't happy with the lives the roommates have chosen to lead and are doing their best to break up their happy home. While the book stands on its own, it does help to have seen at least Season 1 of the series, as there are references made to events that took place on the show.

Ever since Annie refused to go through her door to the other side, she has learned there are beings on the Other Side who are not happy with her decision. She now lives in fear, never knowing when they are going to send one of their agents to try to force her through the door. She also has developed a fear of the radio and the television, as they are a means of communication from the Other Side. When a door appears in the kitchen, Annie fears the worst, never expecting a ghost to come through it. These doorways have always been portals TO the Other Side, never FROM.

Gemma claims not to know why she is back, that she was able to escape but is afraid that they will be coming for her. She admits to having visions of a noose and a road, but she doesn't know what they mean. Mitchell suspects she knows more than she's letting on, but he can't prove it. Not yet anyway. In the meantime, he notices a change in Annie. He knows she's been afraid to leave the house because she's afraid of them, but she seems to have lost her vitality since Gemma arrived. He also doesn't think it's a coincidence that the ghost of a teenager has been seen around the hospital where he works. Something is going on, but he's clueless as to what it is. He realizes the problem is more serious that anybody realizes when he enters the flat and Annie apologizes, stating that she had fallen asleep, and ghosts don't sleep. With Annie's energy fading, it's becomes a race against time. Can Mitchell, with George's help, put the pieces of the puzzle together before Annie loses what little life she has left?

While I found the story entertaining and well written, I had to put some distance between the book and the series. Simon Guerrier has crafted an interesting mystery that will keep you turning the pages, but he has failed to capture the essence of the characters: George doesn't come across as the hyper personality that he is, Mitchell isn't the brooding addict that the show captures so well, and Annie is just flat, which is a shame because, even though she started out the show as the weakest character and my least favorite, she is one of the stronger characters who has come into her own and has become my favorite.

The failure to accurately capture the show's characters doesn't detract from the story itself, provided you approach it as a stand-alone story that happens to involve supernatural characters; however, if you go into this looking for something to tide you over until the Season 3 of the series begins (which thankfully is this coming Saturday, February 19th), you will be in for a big disappointment.

They Get Under Your Skin

2011-02-05T22:57:00.000-08:00

For those who have read some of my earlier reviews, you'll know that I have a thing for "When Nature Strikes Back" movies and books, so naturally, when I saw David McAfee's GRUBS, I just had to get it. I've never read anything by McAfee before, so I had no idea what I was getting into.

Eight scientists on a routine field research expedition in the wilds of Maine. Short of a sprained ankle or a broken nail, nothing could go wrong, and to make certain of that, Colby, a disgraced ex-Marine, has been hired by the firm to keep the researchers safe. It's an easy job, and it even comes with a few perks, as the lone female scientist has taken a shine to Colby, but then one of the researchers goes missing. When they find traces of blood in the man's tent, Colby immediately organizes a search party and they head out to find the missing man, who they eventually find. Well, part of him anyway. At first Colby thought it was just the boot, but then he finds the foot is still in it, and it is alive with flies busy laying eggs in the flesh.

Back at base camp, panic begins to set in as they speculate what could have happened to Jared. Regardless, Colby has decided that whatever is going on is beyond him and they need to get the hell out. The only problem is, there's no way to call for help. They can't get a signal on their cell phones, and a SAT phone wasn't in the budget. That means either walking out through the wilderness or heading out to the drop-off point with the hopes that they will be able to get a signal in the clearing. But not knowing what they are up against, Colby thinks it's better to take a small group. It will be easier to keep a couple of people safe in the wilderness than having to keep an eye on everybody.

One day out, they discover what poses the threat to them. Voracious leech-like grubs that have to ability to reanimate dead tissue. As if that wasn't bad enough, the queens, once attached, secrete a will-deadening toxin that allows them to control the living. It becomes a battle of man versus nature for survival, but can Colby protect the people in his charge against an enemy that is all but invisible until it's too late?

With GRUBS, it appears as if McAfee is trying to combine zombie fiction with "nature strikes back" fiction, and he does a remarkable job blending the two together. While the story, which was well written, moves along at a brisk pace, I did have a problem with the characters. Not all of them were fully fleshed out, and none of them were truly likable, and maybe that's because they are all painted as fallible. They have flaws. They are human. There are no white knights here, no one individual who is impervious to everything that is thrown at them. The hero of our story, Colby, is a disgraced Marine who blames himself for the death of his men while on a mission. When the first scientist turn up dead, his past comes back to haunt him and he fears that history is about to repeat itself. That in itself is fine; a character in need of redemption. But he is too often sidetracked with thoughts of the only female scientist in his charge. His feelings for her make him careless. And is she really worthy of his attentions. As much as Janice claims she is keeping her relationship with Colby a secret, she is flaunting it in the face of her ex-husband, who happens to be one of the other researchers on the team. Can we say "Bitch"? One of the scientists is a sex-crazed sociopath who has set his sights on Janice. The rest of the characters are relatively flat—cardboard characters thrown in as cannon fodder.

Was it enough to keep me from enjoying the book? No. It was one of the rare instances where what happens to the characters becomes secondary. My attention was focused more on the grubs: Where did they come from? What was their purpose other than trying to perpetuate their dying species.

If you, like me, enjoy those cheesy low-budget horror movies that were shown periodically on weekday afternoons after school in the 70s, then this is definitely a book for you.

Cemetery Survivor

2011-02-05T20:51:00.000-08:00

Pepper's back, and I wish I could say better than ever, but this outing in the Pepper Martin Mystery series just didn't do it for me.

For those of you who follow the series, we left Pepper in Florida, recovering from the psychological aftermath of having her body hi-jacked by a love-lorn spirit and the physical effects of being shot. When Dead Man Talking opens, Pepper is back to work in Cleveland, but not at Garden View Cemetery. This outing finds her at the less glorious Monroe Street Cemetery (even the name is boring). While it will never be another Garden View, Pepper has been put in charge of the restoration of Monroe Street. And for those of you who know Pepper, this is not something she is looking forward to. Heaven forbid she should break a nail while weeding.

As if that wasn't bad enough, her big boss has decided to make the restoration a little more interesting by turning it into a reality television show, Cemetery Survivor. Seems Pepper is to be the leader of one of two teams. When her team shows up, she's almost ready to ditch the project altogether because she will be in charge of a group of petty offenders who are on probation. If it wasn't for the members of Team One, Pepper would have scratched the whole thing, but the opposing team is made up of all the high-brow women that run in the same circles Pepper used to run before her father disgraced the family but committing insurance fraud. Pepper has something to prove, to herself and to those stuck up old biddies. However, being surrounded by a group of jailbirds is a constant reminder to Pepper that her father is doing time in a Federal Prison. Even though she has been forced to get a job in order to survive, Pepper has been in denial over the whole situation involving her father, who has been calling constantly, hoping Pepper will come and visit him. But a Pepper Martin Mystery wouldn't be complete without a ghost requesting her help with something.

In this case, the ghost is Jefferson Lamar. When he was alive, he was the warden for the local prison. He wants Pepper to find out who framed him for the murder of a young, female coworker. She reluctantly accepts because she knows how pushy ghosts can be when they want something. As Pepper tries to balance her social life (she's finally got Quinn where she wants him—in bed), the cemetery restoration, and the investigation, she finds herself having to go up against hardened criminals, another reminder of her father's situation. Will Pepper come out of this one in one piece, or has she finally bitten off more than she can chew?

So what was the problem? After reading Tomb of the Loving Dead, a darker and slightly more serious adventure for Pepper, this one just seemed to fall flat. The whole reality television show concept didn't work for me, and the fiery Pepper that I have come to know and love seemed more subdued. It was as if getting shot and almost having her body stolen took the spark out of the character. It makes me wonder if Daniels is teetering on the edge, trying to decide to keep the series light-hearted and campy or to take it in a more serious direction.

Has this book ruined the series for me? Absolutely not. Every successful series has its weaker installments, that one book where they flounder as the character (and author) reach a turning point. For me, that's what I see this book as. Besides, certain things happened in Tomb of the Loving Dead and I am curious to see if they will be revisited. Will Pepper ever use the ability to leave her body again? What were those creepy shadowy things that she kept seeing. I'm hoping those aren't done deals never to be seen again.

Would I recommend Dead Man Talking? Most definitely. While the books do stand on their own, I think you gain a fuller appreciation for them if you have read them all. Sometimes characters and situations from previous books are referenced to, and if you haven't read them, you might find yourself sitting there and scratching your head, wondering what the hell she is talking about. With that said, and hopefully without spoiling things too much, I am looking forward to the next installment of this series, Tomb With a View.