For the rest of the month of October, pay only $0.99 for the Kindle version.

This trio of stories takes place in and around Halloween and explores the fragility of sanity when fear, grief, and obsession begin to feed on each other.

• An elderly widower prepares a deadly Halloween treat for the boys who tormented him and his late wife.

• A child appears on a suburban doorstep, clutching a jar full of living nightmares.

• A desperate addict sets off a chain of horrors that summons something he can’t control.

These are dark, violent, and psychologically raw stories, so be warned.

Halloween Horrors is available in a Kindle edition via the links below:

• Amazon (U.S.)

• Amazon (U.K.)

Of course, this digital edition will also be available at most other online book retailers.

Thanks to everyone who continues to read, share, and support my work.

Share

5 out of 5 stars

A brilliant exposé on the prevalence of the serial killer in American popular culture

As the title suggests, Philip Simpson’s Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer Through Contemporary American Film and Fiction is an exposé of the prevalence of the serial killer in American popular culture, with particular emphasis on film and literature. Simpson’s book is at the forefront of academic inquiry into why serial killers play such a profound (and macabre) role in American popular culture.

In my opinion, this is one of the best books about the relationship between serial killers and society, examined within the context of popular culture representations (especially in literature).

Following on from Jane Caputi’s groundbreaking study of the phenomena in The Age of Sex Crime, Simpson aligns himself with a feminist deconstruction of the role of the serial killer as the symbolic epitome of male violence against women. Simpson situates his analysis within the context of cultural and social politics, examining how aesthetic and rhetorical principles are used to represent and, ultimately, mythologise their factual counterparts.

Providing close readings of a number of films and novels, Simpson details how the myth-making process works in regard to the cultural status afforded to serial killers, both real and imagined. I found his analysis of literary examples particularly compelling and unique, as this field of inquiry remains largely unexplored in depth and raises some very interesting questions about why and how societies use allegory and myth to engender fear.

Other books of interest that offer similar lines of inquiry are Jane Caputi’s The Age of Sex Crime & Goddesses and Monsters, David Schmid’s Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture, Scott Bonn’s Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers, Christiana Gregoriou’s Language, Ideology, and Identity in Serial Killer Narratives, Philip Jenkins’s Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide and Mark Seltzer’s Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture.

Out of all the books mentioned, Simpson’s Psycho Paths is perhaps the most focused and accessible analysis (from a literary perspective), in terms of its readability and its contemporary relevance. While it is academic in its ideas and tone, Simpson’s command of the material prevents it from being a boring diatribe on a niche subject. Instead, the fluidity of his arguments and his recourse to a fairly objective overview and choice of exemplar make Psycho Paths a fascinating read and one that should be present in all good libraries and bookstores. Highly recommended.

If you’re interested in serial killers and why our society has such a morbid fascination with them, especially in film and literature, this book is for you.

Share

When they brought me to the secure Psych wing, I was in the grip of a full-blown psychotic episode. An intense brightness filled my mind. I had all sorts of tests in the prison infirmary: for epilepsy, color blindness, periodic catatonia, and so on. I lied when the doctors asked me if I was seeing anything other than the colors. I knew they would think I was crazy if I told them about the other things.

My ‘therapy’ consists of copious quantities of pills, injections and electro-convulsive therapy. When I’m not being administered ‘treatment,’ I stay in my cell, or ‘recovery room’ as they call it, and contemplate the events that have brought me to this point in time.

I have no family, no friends, and no one to keep me company as the drugs and ECT destroy my mind.

Once, I had all the power in this mortal world at my disposal. I was strong, and I was important, and I had a mission. Now, I can barely remember what purpose it was that I had in the past. Now . . . I can barely feed myself.

So I sit here and look at the breeze-block wall, rocking back and forth as if the movement will somehow bring back who I was before the colors began.

The interns and nurses call me ‘The Kaleidoscope Kid.’ The doctors and screws call me a psychotic monster.

This is my story.

I remember the first couple of times the attacks occurred, I thought I was having a direct visitation from God. I now know that a force straight from the very depths of hell had inflicted the blinding colors on my twisted mind. I was a very naive thirteen-year-old the first time it happened. As I grew older, the attacks became more frequent, and by the time I was sixteen, I had learned to control them to a certain degree. Eventually, the strobe-like flashes of neon became something I would come to enjoy and use to my advantage.

Sometimes, while experiencing a ‘color flash’ (as I called them), a palpable sense of fear would creep through my bones with a cold shiver. It was this fear that would trigger the massive adrenaline rush to my cerebral cortex, inducing a flood of vivid colors that filled and vibrated my every sense with an overwhelming surge of energy. The experience was the ultimate in highs. Better than any drug or feeling I’d ever experienced.

The top of my head would feel as if it were lifting away from the rest of my body, with wave after wave of electrical energy bursts shooting up my spine and into the back of my eye sockets. A complete mind-screw.

Before I learnt to control them, I would be incapacitated while experiencing these color flashes, as they lasted up to two hours and reduced me to an inert state. My body would be paralysed whether sitting, standing, or lying down. I was, to say the least, a mess.

Aside from the colors, I had been seeing things for most of my life and had difficulty distinguishing between reality and hallucination. The day of my thirteenth birthday, Social Services referred me to a psychiatrist after my first ‘problem’ with the law.

My teacher had noticed I was missing from class and found me in the crawlspace under the school gym, hunched over a dead cat. I was so intent on the exercise of flaying it alive, I hadn’t noticed the teacher staring at me, completely aghast at my behavior.

A shrink was called to the police station after my arrest. I can’t recall, but apparently, I had attempted to stab the teacher who tried to drag me away from the mutilated remains of the cat.

They eventually released me back into Ma and Pa’s ‘care’ as I was apparently too young to be charged with any serious crime. A condition of my bail was that I undergo psychiatric therapy of some sort. I later found out that this condition was put in place at the teacher's insistence.

After a couple of failed attempts at getting to the root of my ‘problem,’ the shrink prescribed some drugs. They gave Pa some sedatives to give to me when I had my attacks. He promptly sold them to one of his drinking buddies.

The shrink said that my behavior was due to an overactive imagination and a ‘borderline personality disorder.’ I wondered how an ‘overactive imagination’ could cause pain to myself or someone else.

Without the sedatives, the attacks grew more frequent and made me feel exhausted most of the time and increasingly depressed and moody. Pa would complain about my ‘long face’ and quite often try to ‘beat some life’ into me.

As time passed, I began to notice a pattern with my visions. Usually, they would occur before, during, and immediately after a period of intense stress or perceived danger.

As soon as Pa raised his fist, a color flash would blast my brain with mind-numbing phosphorescence and I would not feel a thing when the blows landed.

I would see other colors after Pa’s violent outbursts, as I stood in front of the cracked mirror in the bathroom and stared at my swollen purple cheek or cut-lipped mouth.

I’d check my front teeth, wiggling them back and forth, hoping they’d stay put, as the colors soothed my pain and dulled the harsh reality of the world around me. Pretty soon, I began to see other things as well.

Despite my mind’s ability to produce a certain dislocated comfort of sorts, the beatings would leave me with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. After a beating, I’d lock myself in the bathroom and sit on the edge of the filthy bathtub in a cloud of pain and despair.

The first time I saw one of the creatures, I freaked. But after a while, I came to welcome their appearance and regard them as friends.

‘Little Tom,’ a green dragon about the size of a football, would sometimes appear and comfort me after a beating. He would sing and dance for me, poking his brilliant red tongue out and blowing farts of fire, as his claws shot cascades of brilliant yellow sparks around the small bathroom. Little Tom would usually disappear as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving the faint aroma of sulfur hanging in the air. Usually, he’d make me feel a whole lot better, despite the cuts and bruises.

Another friendly apparition, who called ‘Jack,’ was a small white ghost who would float in front of my face and flicker in the night like a firefly above my bed. The ghost had a luminous blue skull, almost translucent, set in what looked like a cloud of fog or thick smoke. Sometimes, the ghost spun and surged in size randomly, grinning crazily like some Saturday morning cartoon.

As I grew older, the child-like apparitions diminished, and my visions became more abstract. More powerful and deadly.

I quickly learned to live with the menagerie of weird creatures and visions that crowded my teenage mind. Everything seemed like it was happening to me for a reason far greater than my mind could comprehend. Along with this growing awareness was a sense of foreboding that something bad was going to happen. Something really bad.

Most evenings, Ma and Pa left me home alone. This particular night, Pa went to the bar, while Ma went dumpster-diving or doing tricks on the strip somewhere. Pa would no doubt have a night full of cheap drinks and talking shit to his beer-drinking pals, about what a “little no-hoper” I was.

As soon as the door slammed behind Pa, a midget-sized devil that looked like the mutated offspring of a pig and a goat appeared midair in a puff of red smoke.

When it spoke, I was surprised at the timbre and depth of its voice. A deep booming guttural roar echoed off the walls as it greeted me:

“HOWDY, YA LITTLER FUCKER!”

It floated to the floor and quivered all over, as if having just woken up. It stretched and began to grow. Its features changed, morphing into a hulking, foul beast. The coarse black hair on its muscular shoulders brushed the ceiling as it dipped its huge, horned head down towards me. I backed away as it lurched across the hallway, its large cloven hooves leaving scorch marks on the floorboards. The overpowering smell of rotten meat and sulfur filled the room.

Its eyes were glowing circles of red-hot coals, embedded in the black pits of its eye sockets. Its nose was a smoking pig snout, with flared nostrils streaming glowing lava from its gaping mouth. It appeared to gargle the molten liquid before spitting a steaming lump of phlegm between its tusks onto the floor. The stench of its foul breath filled the hallway as it chuckled deeply.

I stood transfixed, staring at this creature that seemed to have come straight from hell.

Could this be Satan himself?

“Do not be afraid, boy,” the demon said, its voice now adjusted to a less threatening tone and resonance.

“I have not come to harm you, but to inform you of your powers. You have the power of Lucifer in your grasp. All you have to do is learn to channel your energy through your mind. It is simple, even for a sad cretin like you.”

My fear disappeared as quickly as it had come, and in its place was a feeling of power. A feeling which grew as the demonic beast gave me a crash course in how to focus my colors into channeled power. The demon etched the instructions in my mind and assured me of my place in hell.

The demon’s hypnotic words lulled me into a semi-conscious state. It grabbed me by the hair and lifted me off my feet. Spinning me around and ripping the shirt from my back, exposing my naked flesh.

Slowly and painfully, the demon cut into the skin on my back with a hooked talon. It felt like burning ice, but the pain numbed quickly as a burst of colors enveloped my world. I was aware of the demon lowering me to the floor as I passed out in a cloud of white light.

My mind hummed and colors began to float inside my brain. As shapes began to form and the colors melded into sight, I swore I heard the demon say: “See, you heal yourself. You little goat turd.”

It roared with laughter somewhere beyond my field of vision, a deep rumble from its belly belching forth the stench of sulphur and a thousand sewers. The whole house filled with the amplified noise of a chugging locomotive as it continued to laugh. And then the darkness came again, this time accompanied by the pervasive stink of the sulphur.

I remained unconscious for what seemed an eternity before waking and stumbling to my feet, reeling backwards, gagging from the stench and smoke that still lingered in the house. I looked in the mirror at the end of the hallway and recoiled in horror at what I knew to be the mark of the beast. Looking over my shoulder, I could see, tattooed into my back with already-healed scar tissue, an inverted crucifix that stretched from the nape of my neck to the crease in my buttocks.

No doubt, I was now a servant of Satan. I had an overwhelming sense that a previously destined lifetime of despair was now ordained with a mission.

I walked past the mirror and down the hallway to my bedroom. A color flash blinded me with brilliance before I collapsed on my bed, high on the fiery new colors that filled my mind. Waves of euphoria flooded my body as I writhed on the bed, slick with perspiration and a new hunger burning in the back of my skull.

One of the many stray cats that lived in and around the house woke me up the next morning, jumping on my face and startling me out of a deep sleep. The crazed animal scratched my face and hissed at me with bad breath. I managed to snap its thin neck with a sideways punch, but not before the creature had lashed out, one of it’s claws embedded itself under my fingernail, filling my mind with pain.

Before I knew what happened, a fiery red color flash exploded in my head. My anger at the creature exploded, unrestrained, in an unbridled blast of energy.

My head cleared, and I looked over the edge of the bed for the cat. Its head was a bloody lump of smoking flesh. A small pool of blood expanded on the floorboards under the mangled flesh and fur, while the animal’s brains ran freely from what was left of its ears. Again, the stench of sulphur filled my nostrils as I peeled the remains of the cat off the floor.

Before I could stop myself, I had licked the smoking fluid from its head and the savory soft lumps of gray matter from its fur. My jaws seemed to dislocate as I stretched my mouth wide to accommodate the cat’s head, before biting down hard. Blood squirted across the front of my t-shirt as its skull crunched between my teeth. Red and black colors swirled before my eyes as the coppery taste of the animal’s blood filled my senses. I stood there numbly for a while, unsure if I was dreaming or awake.

Outside my bedroom window, I heard the garage door bang and clatter as it trundled up on the rollers. I heard the motor's low idle, then silence, as Pa parked his black Ford in the garage.

I heard the car door slam and then Pa, followed by Ma, walked up the back steps, opened the door and marched down the hallway. He kicked open my bedroom door, crossed the room in three strides, and punched me hard in the head.

The blow sent me reeling across the small room, my body coming to an abrupt halt as my head hit the wall.

Dazed, I fell to the floor in a heap. White spots popped and burst as he stood above me. All the while, I could hear the old crone standing outside in the hallway, banging on the bedroom wall, screaming at me.

“. . . house is a goddam mess, ya little shit! Ya stupid idiot, what the hell have ya done this time? I’ll goddam kill ya, ya sick little bastard!”

Then the color flashes began. Explosive whites and reds, welded to each other in bursts of shimmering energy and the world was lost in a mist of blind fury.

I shook my head and managed to stand before violently vomiting onto the floor. Bloody fur and pieces of broken bone splattered on the floorboards and my bare feet. The pain in my head was unbearable, pounding, stabbing, searing pain that sent bolts of red-hot light into my temples. Nothing before had ever equaled the pain I felt at that moment.

Eventually, the light and colors darkened and faded until I’d recovered enough to collect my thoughts and adjust to my surroundings. My brain felt as though a truck had run over it as I tried to recollect what had happened.

All I remembered was that the cat was a mess and Pa had given me a hiding. I remember Ma screaming while Pa beat me, and I hated them more than anything.

I found myself in the kitchen, doubled up over the sink, spitting the remains of my thin stomach into the basin filled with dirty dishes. I cleaned myself up and walked back through the dining room, making sure not to make a sound in case Ma and Pa were lurking somewhere.

Black scorch marks ran the length of the narrow hallway on either side. The walls were hot to the touch, and the wallpaper was blackened and curled at the edges with the heat. I pushed my bedroom door open.

Smoke filled the room like fog, and the air was thick with the smell of sulphur, burnt skin, and hair.

The smoke was coming from the other side of my room. I crept towards the source and peered over the edge of the bed

I could tell that I was looking at the remains of my father, not for any other reason than by the clothes he wore, or what was left of them. The blackened corpse lay on the floor spread-eagled. I could not tell if he was face down or lying on his back, due to the extent of the burns and the mass of scorched, smoking flesh that covered his body.

His feet appeared twisted off his ankles, and all that was left of his hands were two seared stumps, bubbled with blood and bits of bone. Melted fat could clearly be seen pooled beneath the body and beginning to set around the edges in lumpy yellow globules.

One burnt arm stump stood erect amongst the carnage, as if trying to signal help or to fend off whatever it was that had incinerated him. Acrid smoke still wafted from the roasted corpse.

Suffice to say, Pa was dead. A steaming great hole in his skull was clearly visible from where I stood. It looked as if someone had stuffed it with dynamite before it had exploded. Chunks of charred gore were splashed across the wall and floor.

I jumped backwards as the body suddenly twitched, then ceased moving as suddenly as it had started. I gagged as I realised the old bastard had shit himself as well. The disgusting odor blended with the smell of the burnt flesh and bone, making my presence in the room nearly unbearable.

I felt nothing but disgust as I took one last look at what remained of my father.

There was definitely no dignity in death, not from my point of view anyway, I thought, as I stepped back into the hallway.

I saw Ma’s wedding ring among the charred pile of flesh in the doorway of my parents’ bedroom. Smoked curled from the blackened mass. Again, I felt nothing as the enormity of the situation sank in. A surge of color began to spin me away into the ether and away from the horror of the scene. I switched to autopilot, moving through the house like a simulation of myself.

I draped a pile of sheets over the electric heater and closed the front door behind me, leaving the house unlocked. A little bit of petrol would have probably helped, but there was none to be found. Walking out the front gate, I looked back over my shoulder. The house was silhouetted with a glowing sunset behind. The two front windows looked like eyes and the door like a gaping mouth. The house was a monstrous, evil, leering thing.

Smoke started billowing from the open windows, and I turned and ran, colors exploding in front of me as my feet hit the pavement.

I travelled on the subway and buses, using money taken from my father’s drawer and his secret stash under the mattress. The old bastard had been a miser. It was no wonder we were always broke. I don’t know how long I travelled around the city, but it seemed like weeks. Five nights came and went, and then I lost track of the days.

The colors subsided, with only an occasional burst suppressing the dark memories that crept from the back of my mind. I wondered how long I could use the public transport system as a makeshift shelter. On a few occasions, I would only realize my ticket had expired when shaken out of a deep sleep by a guard, who would then usually kick me off at the next stop.

When this happened, I would have to restrain myself from shooting a bolt of color into the guard’s face. My anger threatened to overwhelm me, triggering a burst of guilt that would fill my gut with nausea, before another color flash deadened my emotions once again.

I would then buy another ticket and something to eat from the subway kiosk and return to my next mode of transportation.

I travelled for many days, trying to forget events that were indelibly etched on my mind. While the color flashes suppressed my memories effectively enough, the scar on my back constantly burned, reminding me of where I’d come from and what I had become.

As the days and nights rolled by with the constant motion of travelling, I wanted to be free of it all. I was sick to death of running and felt lost and alone.

As reality blurred around me and I fought to regain control, depression and hunger started to gnaw at my spirit. My world split from reality. I felt trapped between glimpses of the real and the blinding swirls of color that burst from the shadows.

I began seeing other things as well. Strange shapes emerged from the amorphous clouds of color. Ghostly white skulls randomly appeared, only to be swallowed by swirling mists of colored haze. A muted sound, like the distant noise of ocean waves crashing against a beach, echoed perpetually in my mind. At intervals, I heard my name being called by a haunting androgynous voice in the distance.

Fear gripped my mind as I slipped deeper into the mire of insanity. I tried to hide myself as best I could, running away from the approaching voice, but only ever finding more darkness.

The main source of my frustration was the constant fear of my surroundings. Everything was saturated with violent imaginings and blinding color flashes. I knew that, physically, I was still in the city, but I could not escape from my mental world.

So I continued to ride the rails, sleeping deeply, exhausted, until another guard would shake me awake, pulling and shoving me from the confines of the subway unit, out into the cold, harsh reality of the outside world.

In a brief moment of lucidity, I managed to have enough presence of mind to have a quick wash in a filthy subway bathroom. Looking in the grimy mirror, I was shocked at my emaciated appearance. I was as thin as a skeleton, my flesh was gray, dark rings circled my lifeless eyes, and my black hair hung in matted coils. My clothes were torn and stained. I looked exactly like the homeless and mentally ill person that I was.

I bought a chocolate bar from a vending machine with the last of my cash and climbed the stairs, heading up from the subterranean world of the subway.

I blinked in the harsh light of the day. Despite the overcast sky, the glare of natural light made me wince as my eyes struggled to adjust. Rush-hour hordes brushed past me as if I were invisible. No one smiled and everyone wore gray and black suits, walking fast, as if they were pre-programmed robots. Buildings towered above me.

I looked up at the concrete and glass towers, becoming dizzy as I gazed at the sky above the high-rise offices.

I collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk, struggling to sit upright with my back against a phone booth, while the robots walked by. I fought against the paranoia that was flooding my brain, managing to drag myself down an alley and to the temporary sanctuary of dark shadows. Finding shelter beneath a dumpster, I pulled my ragged clothes tight about me, resting my head on my arm as I wished myself to sleep.

A sharp pain woke me with a start, causing me to smash my head on the underside of the dumpster. My ear was on fire as the large black rat leapt from my shoulder and scuttled into the shadows. Warm blood trickled from my chewed ear and ran freely down my stained shirt-front as I dragged myself out from under the dumpster. I was starving and needed food badly. I’d spent all my money, so I had no choice but to steal something to eat.

Daylight began to slowly flood the city streets as I entered the nearest grocery store. I filled my pockets with chocolate until they were bulging, and quickly exited the shop. I was looking forward to eating my haul when a rough hand spun me around and knocked me to the ground. Punches and kicks pummelled my body, as lacklustre colors burst before my eyes. Dull reds, then blacks, then blues, until I blacked out.

I was numb and sore and didn’t want to open my eyes. I wished I were dead. Somebody was shaking my shoulder. I awoke in a groggy haze, thinking I was in a nightmare. Above me stood a young nurse clad in white. Her pretty blue eyes were large and welcoming.

As she stepped out of my field of vision, I became acutely aware that I was not dreaming.

I was in a hospital of sorts. The room was stark white and antiseptic, thick with the smell of disinfectant and starched linen. White-clad figures stepped into view on either side of me, closing in around the bed.

I sat up unsteadily and focused my eyes on the faces staring back at me. A young doctor with yellow teeth and bad breath bent down over my prone body, checking my reflexes and pulse, before resuming his place next to two other men also dressed in white coveralls.

“You sure he’s ok, Doc? He’s looking kind of peaky.”

“Yes. Yes. His vital signs are good, and his neuroimaging results indicate normal thought patterns. There’s no reason why he can’t communicate with you, detective,” said the nervous young doctor.

“Can you speak, boy?” asked the detective, flashing his badge.

I tried to speak, but only managed to incoherently mumble.

“He’s on some strong sedatives, detective. Maybe it is best if you come back tomorrow, when he has had a chance to regain some strength?”

The detective took one last look at me before motioning to his partner to follow him out of the room.

“See you tomorrow, kid.” The detective winked as he closed the door.

Sure enough, the detective returned the next day and, as the doctor had suggested, I was strong enough to sit up and speak coherently. He introduced himself and then proceeded to question me about my mother and father’s deaths.

Apparently, someone had shot my poor father in the head with a shotgun, along with my mother, and then turned the house into a funeral pyre. The drugs coursing through my veins effectively suppressed the colors, but I could hear the voice of my demon, whispering, somewhere over my left shoulder.

The demon’s voice goaded me as memories flooded my consciousness.

“Don’t tell the pig anything, boy. You’re magic. You have ascended now. No one can touch you. Remember your power, killer. Remember your power . . .”

I denied any knowledge of the events as described by the detectives.

“I can’t remember anything,” was all I could say.

The detective asked me where I got the ‘horrific scar’ on my back. My mind collapsed, and everything went red, then black again.

I lie in my bed under starched white sheets and look sideways through the bars on the window. The sky outside is a bit gray and the rain makes a soft and steady pitter-patter noise on the glass pane. I’m in a rather subdued mood and have been for the past six months. The medication is strong, but far from consistent in its subjugation of my mind.

I still experience small flashes of color and things are only nightmarish now every other day. I know that I shouldn’t see these things, so I keep my visions to myself. I’ve learned the value of silence, and I hope for freedom one day, not from this place, but from myself.

I’m not short of visitors. I still get regular visits from my demon, who takes great delight in sitting on the end of my bed, morphing in size and appearance as he regales me with moribund tales of death and chaos. The drugs render me in a physically catatonic state most of the time. I can think and feel, but I can’t move my limbs without great effort.

More recently, the demon has taken to sitting on my thin chest, shifting his ample weight onto my gut, where the pressure plays havoc with my bowels after my spoon-fed meals.

Sometimes, he gets really nasty, stomping on my weak body with his cloven hoofs and screaming out loud, giving me the finger before disappearing into a bright ball of flame. The foul smell of sulphur, left stinging and burning in my nostrils, is left behind to remind me of his eternal presence.

The drugs turn my days into nights and my nights into oblivion, while my brain and muscles feel as though they are made of lead. The visitations are taking their toll. My torture is absolute, and I can’t for the life of me figure out a way to escape.

I try to recall what I said to the detective. I’ve been told that I confessed to him. That I told him that I killed my father with a ‘color flash’ and ‘I was in league with the Devil.’ Of course, the detective didn’t buy my story, and the courts sentenced me ‘in absentia’ to be secured in a secure psychiatric facility.

The doctors decided I had significant mental issues. It didn’t take long for a multitude of different psychotic diagnoses to taint my name and character. They labeled me with several illnesses and disorders of the mind, but they could not pin down what caused the colors. No one could enlighten me as to where they came from, or why they presented themselves, other than “it’s likely the result of an old head injury.”

The drugs dampened down any spirit that remained buried deep within my broken soul, and life ceased to exist without any real passion or purpose.

They have since ‘cured’ me, although I can only speak with a mumble and move stiffly with my ‘thorazine shuffle.’ They’re quite pleased with my apparent progress.

Despite the occasional visit from my demon, the colors have dissolved to opaque smudges in my mind’s eye. The orderlies have even started to wheel me into the common room with the other inmates, to sit in front of the television and drool and contort in slow mindless ecstasy, as life passes by outside the asylum walls.

My favorite TV shows are kids’ programs with bright colors and happy sentiments, followed by medical reality shows and documentaries. Life has truly lost its appeal. The colors have faded, along with my will to live and the passing of time.

They once called me ‘The Kaleidoscope Kid,’ a nickname derived from my symptoms, but now my silence has secured my anonymity amongst the new staff members and the other brain-dead inmates. Dead inside, I wait for the chance to fly. To take wing and leave this god-forsaken world of misery and sepia tones.

Today, the nurse came to give me my injection as she usually did. She undid my straps, rolled me over, and was just about to put the thin needle in my pale backside when a commotion broke out in the cell opposite mine.

Screaming and yelling, the patient sounded as though he was having a violent fit. The nurse rushed from my cell, leaving me on my side, bare bum smiling at anyone who wished to look. Using the last reserves of my life-force, or my ‘power’ as my demon used to call it, I slowly pulled myself up to a sitting position. The needle lay on a stainless tray at the end of the bed.

I depress the syringe plunger, squirting all the liquid Thorazine onto the floor. I pull the plunger back with my teeth, the syringe audibly sucking in the antiseptic air.

With one hand, I push the needle into my arm, depressing the plunger as the sharp sliver of steel slides into my weak vein. I feel the air bubble travel up my arm. As it hits my shoulder, a beautiful color burst erupts in the stark white confines of the infirmary. Colors of such intense beauty and splendor blossom with a glorious vibrancy.

A sublime brightness fills me with euphoric joy, and then it is gone. My chest tightens and I lay my head down on the stiff pillow, savoring the remnants of the receding vision, vainly attempting to hold on to something as the world fades.

The air bubble reaches my heart and triggers an embolism. I feel more alive and ready for what lies ahead than ever before. I lay rigid, fighting the muscular contractions with my remaining strength as a massive heart attack hammers my chest. I smile as I draw my last deep breath, and then all light retreats to a serene nothingness. As the blackness consumes me, the last sound I hear is the voice of the demon whispering:

“Welcome home, boy. You’ll like it here, kid. The colors burn really bright down here.”

If you enjoyed this story, please subscribe and check out my latest short story collection (click on the link or book cover image below).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09GGBQCGK

I’m not really a big fan of the stories in this series by V.C. Andrews (Andrew Neiderman writing as, in this instance, I think), but I do love the cover art, especially the ‘stepback’ page artwork.

Would love to know if any of you out there collect these paperbacks with stepback art, especially horror titles. Do you have any favourites you’d like to share in the comments?

Share

Leon looked out of the window at the forest, which lay at the foot of the mountain opposite the old orphanage. The large Victorian mansion was deathly quiet. The children were not allowed to play or talk unless spoken to and it was time for bed.

Every now and then, he heard the click, clack, click, clack foot-steps of one of the bitter matrons who patrolled the cold hallways. Leon took one last look out of the upstairs window and got himself into bed. The starched white sheets were cold against his skin, where the pajamas didn’t cover him. He thought briefly about the day’s lessons: arithmetic, religious instruction, and classical literature, his favorite subject. After morning classes, the rest of the day had been spent tending the large grounds that surrounded the decrepit orphanage.

Leon was tired from the strenuous work, as were the other boys in the room, of which there were twelve. They were all silent, except one in the far corner who snored wistfully. The sound was similar to the breathing of a dying raccoon Leon had found on the edge of the road. Its guts had been glistening in the morning sun, the tire tracks clearly visible across its small, crushed body. It had looked up at him, its dark, round eyes pleading for help, a tiny clawed paw outstretched . . . and then it died, gasping for air, making a sound just like the boy sleeping deeply, snoring in the corner of the large dormitory. The other boys looked like corpses, as they lay still and silent in their beds, most of them already asleep.

Leon pulled the stiff bed covers up under his chin and rolled over to face the large, barred window. The last of the evening light dissolved into darkness as his eyes grew weary. As he slipped into a dream, Leon thought about the same thing he had thought about every night since he could remember. He tried to imagine his mother and father. He’d never seen a picture of them, and he’d been too young to remember them before they had died.

The image he pictured was always the same: a tall slender man in a black suit, white shirt and a bright royal-blue tie, the woman was dressed in a knee-length floral dress with puffed short-sleeves, pink flowers against white fabric, a shiny pair of white vinyl shoes with strapped heels, a wavy brunette bob hairstyle . . . but their faces were blurred, smudged almost beyond recognition.

As he tried to make something of their obscured features, the dream grew beyond his thoughts. A miasmic fog filled the scene, enveloped the two figures, and then they were gone, leaving Leon alone on the top of a mountain.

The dream was one he’d had before, and it was not a pleasant one. Something was so hauntingly familiar, yet so intangible. Fragments of a poem nagged at him, the words dropping in his dream like leadened footfalls, making him tremble with an anxious fear.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Now Leon stood on the edge of a large, deep crater on the mountaintop, holding the hand of a small child whose pale skin was the color of a fish’s belly. The dark charcoal rocks and sharp crags of stone below were pitted with shadows. The ridge on which they stood trembled beneath their feet. The small boy looked up at Leon. The child’s eyes were as black as obsidian. No whites or iris, just bottomless wells of darkness.

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

Leon looked down into the precipice below. Thick clouds of gray smoke plumed from the depths, curling up into the black sky above. Flashes of a deep red light zig-zagged beneath the clouds of smoke, and the volcanic mountain they stood upon shivered and belched a wave of heat up into their faces. The mountaintop was shrouded in clouds, smoke mingling with the air, creating a dense fog that threatened to blind them.

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Silver flakes of ash fell like snow around them as the earth shook again, causing Leon to grip the child’s hand tightly as he tried to steady himself. Something, or someone, moved on the opposite side of the crater rim in the thick curling smoke.

And what shoulder, and what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? And what dread feet?

Flames curled up from the abyss, licking at the crater’s rim, fingers of fire clawing hungrily at the pit’s craggy walls. A figure emerged from the swirling dark clouds, small and pale . . .

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

Leon looked down at the child whose hand he still gripped. He gasped and stumbled back from the edge of the precipice, shaking the clammy, dismembered limb from his grasp as he flailed his arms to regain his balance.

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

He watched as the small, limp forearm tumbled and turned in the air in slow motion, before it landed in the boiling molten furnace below. A wild rush of heat and flame burst from the pit and illuminated the foggy mountain-top for a brief second. Scores of glowing embers and ash littered the night sky above, as the fire was sucked back down into the hellish cavity.

For the briefest of moments, Leon saw the boy facing him across the deathly gorge, pale and dead, its black eyes burning with an unholy luminescence. The boy’s one good arm slowly extended, beckoning. The other half limb hung limp at its side, a gristled stump where the arm had been.

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

As Leon stepped out towards the boy, the fire spitting and reaching for him from below, he realized who the boy was. It was himself. As Leon took a final step out into the abyssal gulf, he saw the boy’s face, his face, change and transform into that of a tiger, roaring at him, the sharp teeth bared and snapping as he fell down into the infernal depths.

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night . . .

Leon awoke, his heart beating in his chest like a metronome. His thick brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his thin body trembling as fear and adrenaline coursed through him. The morning light was cold and harsh as the sun rose, making the shadows of the dormitory retreat into the farthest corners.

Leon lay there on the narrow bed and drew deep breaths, trying to regain his composure and slow his breathing to a normal speed. The dream always left him feeling afraid, but today he felt more alive than he’d ever felt before. He felt like he’d survived something. Like he’d accomplished an epic task, or conquered an evil foe . . .

The matron’s harsh footsteps stopped outside the boys’ room. Today, Leon felt different. Today, the poem had spoken to him. He remembered the words, and now he held them close to his heart. He felt the strength of the words rise in him, like the fire from the pit, and he felt strong, powerful, as he swung his legs out of bed and placed his feet on the cold floorboards.

He knew the old bitch was listening with her ear to the door, as she did every morning, hoping to catch the boys talking or behaving in a “frivolous manner.”

Leon stood and approached the door, his bare feet padding soundlessly as he walked. The Matron’s metal keys jangled as she jabbed one in the lock.

Leon paused at the table with the basin and the mirror on the wall above it. He looked at his reflection in the mottled glass and smiled. Behind him, the room was filled with dark, billowing clouds of smoke. Flames danced in the room, licking at the walls and ceiling in the looking glass. The other boys’ beds in the background blazed, their skeletal bodies twisting on the wire-frame mattresses. He heard the tumblers click and fall as the matron yanked the key in the lock.

Leon looked at his reflection in the mirror and smiled a terrible smile. His eyes were as black as oil, his stubbled lips pulled back to reveal a set of sharp canines. His forehead swelled then flattened, his nose wrinkled and bristled, and a deep, guttural snarl came from the back of his throat.

The iron padbolt clanged as it was drawn back sharply on the other side of the thick wooden door.

Leon’s shoulders rippled with muscle, and he turned to face the sound. Thick claws sprang from his fingertips and toes as he crouched in expectation. A deep hunger for blood filled every ounce of his being. A pulse in his brain demanded the crushing of this approaching execrable life-force.

The poem’s verses sang in his animal mind, as the door-handle turned and the matron entered the room for the last time.

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

If you enjoyed this free story, please restack it.

Share

If you enjoyed this story, please subscribe and check out my latest short story collection (click on the link or book cover image below).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09GGBQCGK

“The sound of horror is not always a scream” (from the introduction by Charles L Grant).

This 312-page paperback is an excellent addition to any horror fan's collection. I’d say that most of the stories curated here by Charles L Grant are fine examples of psychological and supernatural horror. Brennan’s stories are the most supernaturally fantastical, followed by Wagner’s amazing tales of psychological and other-worldly horror. Morrell’s stories in this anthology are my least preferred, but only by small degrees. That probably comes down to the fact that the selection of his work here is all written in the 1st person, which is my least preferred narrative voice in short fiction. That said, Morrel’s stories are still very well written and take nothing away from the overall collection. The stories are accompanied by the strange illustrations of Rovert W Lavoie. Suffice to say, I’m pleased to own a copy.

Subscribe now

Share

He looked back out of the subway entrance. The brick-and-concrete terraced house where he lived with his sick mother stood at the end of the lane. Identically dull two-storeyed buildings flanked their house, casting permanent shadows across the cul-de-sac.

After school and on the weekends, Toby would sit at his window at night, wrapped in a thin blanket to stave off the cold, watching the comings and goings at the end of the lane. At dusk, the workers filed out of the subway like zombies returning from the city centre. After dark, skinheads, chavs, grimes, skaters and other marauding estate crews took over the streets, smashing bottles, fighting, and spray-painting graffiti on every available surface.

The local gang-leader of the skinheads lived one block over. ‘Bones’ was an expelled old-boy from Toby’s high school, yet he and his gang still hung around and bullied the younger students. With his shaved head covered in crudely tattooed Nazi insignia and his penchant for random violence, Bones was feared by most of the kids in the neighbourhood. A few threats and punches, and most of the bullied youth soon gave up their lunch money and personal items. Bones had, on occasion, made Toby the focus of his sadism.

Toby did everything he could to avoid Bones and his gang. He’d been caught a few times and had copped a beating, resulting in a couple of black eyes and his sneakers and wallet being stolen.

The subway underpass was the only way to access the narrow lane where Toby lived. On either side of the subway entrance, an equally narrow lane ending in a T-intersection ran to the east and to the west. If Toby wanted to use either of these lanes to avoid some of the roughest neighbourhoods in the area, it meant a walk of approximately five kilometres to the nearest footbridge or subway to cross the tracks.

Today was his fourteenth birthday. His mother forgot to wish him ‘Happy birthday’ that morning, barely able to lift herself from her bed, a bucket next to her filled with bile and last night’s paltry dinner scraps. Her sickness had worsened with the cold, wet weather and the decayed house. Black mould flecked the walls and ceilings, and the heating didn’t work. In the colder months, the pipes gurgled and clanged in the walls, spitting out dark water dredged from God-knows-where.

They’d moved there a week before his twelfth birthday, two years ago, while his father was still alive. The house had been cleaner then, and they’d been better off. His father worked across the tracks, managing a car park building and bringing home a decent wage that afforded them a warm place to live, regular meals, and clothing. His mother worked as a cleaner at the local hospital.

Six months after moving in, his father lost his job due to ‘restructuring.’ Toby suspected the real reason was that his father’s drinking had made him unreliable and hard to manage. Two weeks later, Toby came home from school to find his father hanging in the stairwell, turning slowly in the drafty passageway, his head cocked at a strange angle. He’d tied a rope around the landing balustrade post, thrown the slack over the edge, tightened the noose around his neck, and jumped from the landing.

Read more

As you may or may not know, most indie authors do not make a living from the writing alone. Books get written in between the day job, the kids, and whatever else life throws our way.

Harlan Ellison once famously said, “Pay the writer!” This adage grates the wrong way for those who don’t write for a living, but spare a thought for the author. They typically work long hours at their own expense to create entertainment for others to enjoy. While Substack is a great way to share the written word with the millions of daily users on this platform, the platform wouldn’t exist and have the reputation it does without the content creators’ efforts. It does, however, offer the creators one option to get reimbursed, in some small measure, for the content they create.

Up to this point, everything I’ve shared to date has been free, and I’ve really enjoyed creating and providing this content. I do have other content I’d like to share that is of more value to me (and to my readers). Substack authors don't get royalties, advances, or sales from their work, but the paid subscription is how readers can support writers (other than tracking them down outside Substack and buying a book or two).

So, henceforth, I’m offering a $30 annual subscription (but will also continue to provide free content). It’s the lowest possible paid subscription available here on Substack so I hope it makes it affordable.

Here is what your paid subscription gets you:

• exclusive, original fiction and poetry

• two complimentary horror collections (digital editions) when you subscribe

• regular giveaways and ARCs of works in progress and new releases

• the complete Substack archive

• access to reader competitions and exclusive offers on featured books.

The two books you’ll receive when you subscribe are waiting for you below:

Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales contains fifteen stories, including the novelette ‘Dead and Buried’ and ‘Legacy’, the origin story behind William Cook’s Blood Related. Demons, murderers and ghosts stalk these tales.

Serial Killer Thrillers is an omnibus of six stories built around the study of serial homicide, among them ‘Blinded by the Light’, ‘Creep’, and ‘Pretty Boy’. Tales of psychopathic serial killers and psychotic monsters on every page.

Both are yours to keep the moment you subscribe. So if a paid subscription interests you, I’d love to welcome your extra support and thank you sincerely for your patronage. I guarantee that the value given will exceed the low cost of the subscription.

Thank you for subscribing. Here is your download link as promised.

Read more

“Now, maybe you’ll listen, you insolent whelp!”

Albert regarded him with one blood-filled eye, the other was swollen shut like a purple plum. He tried to sit up, pain flooding every muscle where his father had punched and kicked him.

Karl sat down at the kitchen table and took another slug of cheap whisky from the half-empty bottle.

“Nothin’ to say, eh, son?”

He wondered why his father hated him so much. All Albert ever wanted to do was to please him. Make him proud. And now, for the third time that month, his father had beaten him in a drunken rage.

Albert managed to pull himself upright, his sore back pressed against the wall. He spat a broken tooth on the filthy kitchen floor and spoke through swollen, split lips.

“Fuck you. I’m done.”

“What’s that, boy? Speak up. I didn’t hear you properly.

Sounded like you were talkin’ back just then. M’right?”

“That’s right, Pops!” Albert spat the word out like it was another tooth.

His father took another slug from the bottle. He shifted his weight in the chair and regarded his son, hunched against the wall. He looked at his bloody knuckles and laughed.

“That so, boy. Done with what? Life? Done, like a dog’s dinner? Well, what is it?”

He leaned forward menacingly and spat on the floor at his son’s feet.

Albert summoned up all his strength and got to his feet. Wincing as his wounds and bruises stung with the weight of his ragged clothing. He made sure to keep his distance from his father as he backed toward the kitchen doorway.

“I’m done with livin’ here. I’m eighteen years old now, and I’m gonna leave this place.” He wiped blood from his lips with the back of his trembling hand and waited for his father to launch himself across the room and beat him some more.

Instead, his father laughed. He picked up the bottle again and took another slug.

“You leave this house, you never come back. Y’hear?”

Albert waited, unsure what to do. Unsure why he even said what he’d said to his father. Part of him wished his old man would kill him. He stood there sore and sad, his body trembling with equal parts shock and fear. Dreading what his father might do to him now.

“Clean yerself up. Grab your shit and fuck off outta my house. I never want to see yer fairy ass again.” He tilted his head back and downed the remains of the whisky, before shuffling past Albert towards the living room and the blaring television.

Albert’s heart beat like a drum. He couldn’t quite believe that his father hadn’t punched him to the ground, again. It was the first time he’d ever stood up to him, and now he was faced with a different kind of problem.

As quickly as he could, he packed a bag with the few clothes he owned, a couple of books, a clock-radio and a blanket and left the house. As he closed the apartment door and made his way down the stairs, every step he took made him feel incrementally better, despite his bloodied and bruised body.

As he stood on the stoop outside the apartment, he relished the feel of the cool night air on his battered flesh. He didn’t know where he was going to go, but he felt good. Freer than he’d ever felt before. Albert gingerly walked down the steps and onto the pavement, heading west towards the slums and the homeless shelter where he ended up sleeping the night.

Despite the snoring, belching and farting of the other homeless men sleeping on their cots in the large hall, Albert had the best night’s sleep he could ever remember having.

Pete Schultz, the owner of Schultz’s Liquor Store, was glad he’d employed young Albert. The kid worked hard, didn’t take money from the till and never spoke back. He was a bit of an oddball, but Pete didn’t mind.

Whatever makes the world go round, he’d mused to himself when the kid first visited the store a few days before.

Pete could tell the kid was young, but he seemed much older than his 18 years. His face was a mess, all swollen and cut, with his front tooth missing. His clothes were soiled and ragged, and he looked like he’d just stumbled in from the nearby skid row, where all the other alcoholic bums congregated.

It was a perfect location for Pete’s store with a steady stream of customers, but it had its share of problems. The bums would try to steal from him every chance they got.

Despite the bars on the windows and the CC-TV, some drunk idiot would still try to smash their way in most weekends. It was like the booze was a magnet, and the hoboes and winos were the steel.

But the kid was different.

He didn’t touch a drop. He told Pete, the day he’d arrived at the store looking for work, that he hated alcohol. Pete had invited him out the back and sat him down at the small dining table in the kitchenette. After he’d asked him his age and some basic math questions, Pete figured he could give him a job and a place to sleep.

Pete owned the store and the apartment above, which was split into two separate units. He’d fired the previous manager who’d lived in the spare unit for drinking on the job and pilfering the till. The kid’s timing couldn’t have been better. Only a week out of home, Albert had been offered a job and accommodation right there on the spot.

Pete sat back and watched the money roll in. The kid was good with customers, and pretty soon it was like he’d been working at the store forever.

Pete had the unit next to Albert’s but had no complaints. Apart from hearing the kid’s door open and close in the evening as he went about his business, there was nothing to indicate that he’d made a bad decision employing the boy. The kid bought himself some new clothes and shoes with his first paycheck and looked more presentable with each day as his facial wounds healed and he gained confidence.

Albert loved his new life and freedom, but something troubled him that he couldn’t shake off. He had changed, hardened, become bitter and had begun to hate the drunks who stumbled through the door each day.

The smell of liquor and the unpredictable nature of the customers reminded him of his father. Every memory triggered feelings of hate and resentment that he kept buried deep inside.

Pete was a good guy, he’d decided. He’d almost come to regard him as a father figure and, as a result, he felt compelled to stay and work at the store. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so he worked hard and thanked god every night that he had money in his pocket, a roof over his head, and a safe place away from the brutal life he’d led at the hands of his father.

Three months to the day Albert started working at the liquor store, the inevitable happened. The doorbell chimed, and he looked up from the newspaper he was reading: the headline ‘Cannibal Killer on the Prowl’ emblazoned across the front page. His father stood across from him, gazing hungrily up at the rows of whisky bottles on the shelf.

Albert rubbed his eyes, unsure if he was hallucinating. Yes, definitely his father. Not as fat, dressed in a filthy old trench coat, hair longer and a slight hunched back, but still the same waste of flesh that he remembered.

Albert’s hands felt clammy, and his top lip beaded with perspiration, as he watched his father sway back and forth as he rifled through his coat pockets. Albert quickly pulled his baseball cap from behind the counter and placed it on his head, shielding the upper part of his face as his father shambled towards the counter with the cheapest bottle of whisky he could find.

Karl Trever slapped his money on the counter without looking at the clerk. He turned and made his way toward the store entrance. Something made him stop. He looked back at the young man reading the newspaper.

Something about the kid reminded him of Albert.

“S’at you, Al?” he mumbled. The kid kept reading the newspaper.

Karl shrugged his shoulders and licked his lips, the pull of the whisky clouding his judgement as he exited the store.

Albert dropped the newspaper and ran to the storefront. He watched out the window as his father shuffled down the street, pulling swigs from the whisky bottle as he went, seemingly oblivious to anyone or anything.

Albert checked his watch and flipped the closed/open sign to ‘closed.’

It was fifteen minutes before closing time, the afternoon light was beginning to fade, and Pete was out on a date with some woman called Beryl. He pulled on his coat and locked the door behind him before jogging in the direction of where he’d last seen his father.

Soon enough, his father came into view again before turning down an alley. Albert followed at a safe distance, checking the streets for other people. The usual crowd was milling about, going about their business on the way home from work.

The bums and winos were stumbling around as usual, and as his father exited the alley, Albert knew that his father must be homeless. Sure enough, after following his father for another block, he came to a bridge by a canal and watched as his father disappeared into the shadows beneath.

He waited until his father had swallowed the remains of the bottle, and then he approached the slumped form, hunkered against one of the concrete support foundations under the bridge.

The first kick caught his father under the armpit, knocking him sideways into the dirt and garbage.

Albert laughed, the sound echoing under the bridge. The other sounds of the canal water lapping the shore and the whooshing noise of vehicles passing overhead on the bridge played eerily in the shadows as his father coughed and sputtered.

“What the . . . Who is it? Who’sat?”

The next kick caught his father square in the chin, knocking his head back in a shower of blood and teeth.

Albert stood over his father, feelings of disgust and hate filling every pore in his body as he watched him squirm on the ground, moaning. Karl’s bladder loosened itself as he recognised the young man standing before him in the half-light.

“Son? Son, I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“You’re not sorry, you old bastard. All you care about is this shit!” Albert spat, holding up the empty whisky bottle.

His stomach turned as his father started to sob pathetically.

He didn’t wait to hear any more of his father’s pitiful pleas or excuses. Albert smashed the glass bottle on the concrete foundation and stabbed his father in a frenzy with the jagged bottle neck.

He lost count of the times he stabbed him. His arm rose and fell like a piston as the razor-sharp glass slashed his father to ribbons, until nothing was left but a mound of eviscerated flesh and blood. Steam rose from the mutilated corpse as Albert turned and headed back in the direction of his apartment.

After Albert killed his father, the nightmare began again. The dark memories of his youth crept from his dreams into his waking life with each passing day. The smell of liquor in the store infuriated him, and he began to resent the owner. Each customer seemed more loathsome than the next, and Albert began to find himself fantasising about how he would kill them all.

He was annoyed that killing his father hadn’t freed him from his past or alleviated the feelings of hate that still smoldered in him. One thing had changed: he now wanted to kill again.

His father’s murder had just, sort of, happened. There was no premeditation or planning. An opportunity had presented itself, and he had the element of surprise and enough newfound strength to carry out the killing. It had just happened.

But now . . . he wanted to kill the other low-lives and bums that came into the store.

Albert settled on a simple solution — anti-freeze. According to Google, it was almost tasteless when mixed with spirits and killed by shutting down the body’s essential organs until the point of death. After experimenting with a few local stray cats and dogs by placing a bowl of milk laced with antifreeze at the back door of the store, Albert made a sign for the front window.

WHISKY. CHEAPEST PRICES IN TOWN. SPECIAL DISCOUNT.

Albert carefully unscrewed the cap off the whisky bottle and emptied a fifteenth of the liquor down the kitchenette sink. With a funnel, he carefully replaced the contents with the antifreeze before tightening the cap and shaking the bottle to mix the ingredients. He repeated the process, filling three cases of whisky by the day’s end, each case containing twelve large bottles.

The next day, Pete left early to run errands with his girlfriend, and Albert quickly rearranged the countertop and placed the sign in the front window before unlocking the door for business.

He sat there reading the newspaper, as he did every morning, acting like today was just the same as any other day. A steady procession of drunks filtered in, and each one left with a very cheap bottle of ‘specially discounted’ whisky. At the end of the first day, he’d sold a case-worth of the stuff.

As he prepared to close the store, Albert folded the newspaper on the benchtop. The headlines screamed:

Unsolved Skidrow Cannibal Killings. When Will They Stop?’

Albert considered the article again, slightly bemused by the fact that the killings were taking place nearby. He chuckled as he tore the newspaper story out and placed it in his pocket.

You’ve got some new competition on the block, he thought to himself, as he placed the discount sign and the unsold bottles of whisky behind the counter before locking the store.

Two days later, Albert had sold all the bottles of antifreeze-laced whisky and was contemplating what he would do next when Pete walked into the store just before closing time.

“Have you heard about the cannibal killings?”

“Sure, I’ve been reading about them in the paper this week. What of it?”

Pete gave him a quizzical look for a moment.

“They’ve been happening around here. Kinda scary, don’t you think?”

“Sure. But it’s only burn-outs who are being targeted, right?”

“That’s true, Al, but don’t forget who our customers are. They make us a lot of money, y’know.”

Albert nodded as Pete continued talking.

“Beryl’s got this theory that it’s not one killer, but a bunch of ‘em!”

“Really? That’s interesting,” said Albert, not really caring one way or the other.

“Yeah, she reckons that it’s a mob of poor people who can’t afford food. They’re just hungry s’all. Whaddya think of that, eh?” Pete chuckled.

“I know times are tough, but geez Pete, that’s pretty fucked up.” Pete laughed again.

“I know, right. Just watch yourself when you’re here in the store on your own, Al. As you know, we get a lot of weirdos comin’ in here. Don’t want to lose my number-one salesman!”

He affectionately ruffled Albert’s hair and left him to finish locking up the store.

That night, as Albert closed his curtains in the upstairs apartment, he looked down at the street below and saw a figure standing under the streetlight. The man had a long grey beard and wore a stained trench coat and a woollen hat. He stood looking at the storefront, his arm extended, an empty glass whisky bottle held in his grimy hand.

Albert continued to peer from behind a crack in the curtains, watching in fascination as the bum steadied himself against the base of the streetlight and then pitched forward, face-first, onto the concrete. The bottle clinked as it rolled from the drunk’s grasp. Albert swallowed hard and closed the curtain.

The next morning, sirens woke Albert. He busied himself opening the store, watching through the window as paramedics bundled the drunk’s lifeless body onto a gurney and then into the back of an ambulance.

One down, thirty-five to go, thought Albert as he collected the newspaper from the mail slot in the front door. The bold headline read:

Police Say Multiple Suspects in Cannibal Killings.

Albert chuckled, thinking about what Pete told him about Beryl’s theory.

He decided not to lace any more whisky with antifreeze, for the time being. There would be cops crawling all over the neighborhood with the ‘Cannibal Killings’, and soon enough, he was sure, there would be a whole new bunch of deaths for the newspapers to feast on.

Albert buried the sign he’d made behind some boxes in the back of the store and settled into his routine for the day.

Later that evening, two more drunks appeared outside the store under the streetlight, muttering and mumbling while pointing. Within minutes of arriving, they’d collapsed, clutching their stomachs and throats while writhing in agony on the pavement. Albert pulled the curtain and left them to die as he lay in bed watching TV.

In the morning, once again, the noise of sirens woke him as paramedics collected the bodies. By the end of the week, the surrounding suburbs and streets were littered with dead and dying alcoholics, most of them homeless skid row drunks.

The Sunday papers were the first to identify a pattern among the spate of deaths, and it wasn’t long before the coroner’s office got involved and identified a number of the deaths as being caused by some type of poisoning.

A week to the day of the first poisoning, two detectives entered the store. They asked Albert if he’d witnessed any strange behaviour in the area, and he’d replied that he hadn’t. They then spoke to Pete in the back of the store, while Albert served customers and read the newspaper.

He could hear snippets of their conversation.

“. . . both bums were pointin’ at the store, Mr Schultz. Now why d’ya think that might be, eh?”

“. . . what’s with the kid, he deaf and blind or somethin’? Says he never saw or heard anythin’ outta whack. Jesus H Christ! The bodies and the medics were right outside the store this morning! How could he not see or hear nuthin’?”

“. . . found another three bodies round the corner in the next street . . . was like they was draggin’ themselves towards your store. Don’t know what it is yet, but something weird’s goin’ on here.”

Albert swallowed hard and squirmed in his seat as he heard the detectives finish their questioning. As they walked past the counter, both detectives looked sideways at him.

As they opened the door to leave, one turned and said:

“Be sure you keep an eye out, kid. There’s all sorts of weird shit goin’ on in the neighborhood at the moment. Wouldn’t want to get caught up in anything you shouldn’t be. Ya hear me?”

Albert nodded his head, a gnawing sense of dread filling his belly. He locked the store and headed out to the kitchenette, where Pete was waiting.

“I hope you haven’t been up to any mischief? Those cops were ‘specially interested in what you’ve been doing lately.”

“Not at all! Why would you even ask?” Albert said, feigning indignation.

“Well, I hope not. You’ve got a good thing going here, and I’d hate for anything to mess with that.”

“Don’t worry, boss. Everything’s cool.”

“Good, let’s keep it that way. I have to go away for a few days, and I don’t want anything to happen while I’m gone, ok?”

“Sure thing. Where you going, Mr Schultz?”

“Beryl and I are heading out to the lake. I’ve booked us a nice cosy cabin with a king-size waterbed. And don’t call me ‘Mr Schultz’ again, alright?” He smiled and tousled Albert’s mop of hair before heading out of the kitchenette and up the steps to the apartment above.

“Sure thing, Mr Schultz,” whispered Albert, his heart and mind racing as a new plan formed in his mind.

Fuck it, he thought, as soon as you’ve gone, I’m taking the contents of the safe and I’m catching a Greyhound bus out of this place.

That night, he packed his belongings, turned off the light and went to sleep dreaming of a fresh start in a new city. Outside on the street below stood a row of seven dishevelled figures, all dressed similarly in ragged clothes and long, unkempt hair and beards. They stood still, watching, waiting, the only sound they made was a low guttural growl in unison.

Albert woke late to the sound of Pete’s voice calling from the stairwell, “See you in a couple of days, Al.” He yawned and rolled over, considering whether to get out of bed or not. He decided to rest for a while longer and promptly fell asleep again.

The sound of breaking glass woke Albert abruptly. He looked at the clock and quickly got out of bed and dressed. The clock-radio beside his bed told him he’d slept an hour past opening time. He frowned as more noise came from downstairs.

Maybe the cops have come back to interview me, he thought, descending the stairs two at a time.

As he made his way through the kitchenette, he could see that there were some people in the store. How’d the hell did they get in? Damn, Pete must’ve left the door open when he left this morning!

The blow from behind knocked him headlong into a vodka display stand. Albert lay dazed on the floor, covered in broken glass and soaked through from the spirits that now pooled around him. He raised his hand to his cut face and rolled onto his back, gasping in pain as a sliver of glass embedded itself in his back.

Before he could do anything, they set upon him. Ripping at his clothes and flesh. He struggled to stand, and another blow knocked him to the floor, stunning him as the tramps tore at his body. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the bums attacked him with their yellowed teeth and fingernails.

As he succumbed to shock, Albert looked desperately towards the open store door, hoping someone would enter and come to his aid. He briefly thought of his father and knew he was beyond help as one of the tramps leaned over him, blood smeared around his mouth and through his long beard.

“Ya thought you could get away with it, didn’t ya?”

The tramp smiled terribly, many of his teeth missing, but still enough there to rip at his flesh.

“Did ya really think nobody would find out about the poison and the cheap grog?”

“We see EVERYTHING around here, ya know. An’ we seen you, boy! We saw ya when ya first came here all skinny, beat and forlorn. But look at ya now! All fat, bloody and juicy like a prime steak.”

Albert screamed as the tramp leaned down and tore one of his ears from the side of his head. A splash of hot blood sprayed across his throat and face as one of the other tramps chewed through a main artery in his throat. Albert started to choke on his own blood.

A particularly nasty-looking tramp, with a long matted beard and a row of teardrop tattoos on either side of his wrinkled eyes, leaned down to rip Albert’s remaining ear from his skull. He smiled, exposing a jagged set of sharp yellow and black teeth and whispered: “All this eatin’ is thirsty work, laddie. It looks like we’ve come to the right place, eh.”

As his last breath of life gurgled from the wound in his throat, Albert felt a renewed frenzy of tugging and tearing as the tramps feasted on his dying body. The pungent stench of alcohol and death hung heavy in the air.

Subscribe now

If you enjoyed this story, please subscribe and check out my latest short story collection (click on the link or book cover image below).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09GGBQCGK

Charlee Jacob - Bio (from Grokipedia)

Charlee Jacob (June 2, 1952 – July 14, 2019) was an American author specializing in horror fiction, dark fantasy, and poetry, renowned for her intense, unconventional explorations of extreme themes and the macabre. Born Nell Anne Jacob in Wichita Falls, Texas, she began her writing career in 1981 with poetry publications and debuted in prose with the short story “September Street” in 1990. Over more than three decades, Jacob amassed over 950 publishing credits, including novels like This Symbiotic Fascination (1997), Soma (2011), and Containment: The Death of Earth (2017), as well as poetry collections such as The Desert (2004) and Heresy (2007).

A four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, Jacob received accolades for her novel Dread in the Beast (2005) in the Superior Achievement in a Novel category, and for poetry collections including Sineater (2005), Vectors: A Week in the Death of a Planet (2007, co-authored with Marge Simon), and Four Elements (2013, co-authored with Marge Simon, Rain Graves, and Linda Addison).

Her work often drew praise for its wrenching realism and complexity, though it sometimes faced criticism for being too dense or challenging for mainstream audiences. Jacob lived in Irving, Texas, with her husband and cats, and continued writing despite health challenges from Parkinson's disease in her later years.

For more details of Charlee Jacob’s life and work, check out the link at the bottom of this post.

Interview with Charlee Jacob

Q: When doing some background research for this interview, I found you to be quite an enigma in terms of your online presence. Aside from a handful of interviews, there seems to be very little information available about you and your work. As a fan, I find it hard to believe that such a prolific and gifted award-winning author is not better known. Does this frustrate you as an author, or do you prefer to let your work speak for itself?

A: I was beginning to do a lot more about that when, about a decade ago I was declared fully disabled with Fibromyalgia and several other problems that made it nearly impossible to sit up, to walk, or perform most daily functions. Several MRI’s and Neurologists later and they diagnosed me with Parkinson’s. I have also developed Narcolepsy. It is this difficulty that frustrates me, the constant ten out of ten pain level and the inability to stay awake.

Q: Could you please tell the readers some things about your upbringing and how this led to you becoming a writer (of primarily horror fiction)? How much of your childhood, for example, informs the themes and motifs that are threaded through your work?

A: My upbringing was very baby boomer; cold war, and keep your mouth shut about the condition of your family’s dirty laundry. My work appears to be about 80% Post Traumatic Stress. Post Toasties Serial). As experts are fond of saying, “Write what you know.” –and if you don’t know it, all of the ink and your blood put together…well, this is why it’s called fiction.

Q: What I have read of your work gives me a very strong surrealistic impression with the dreamlike prose imbued with such vivid imagery. Do you intentionally write in order to invoke the surreal or otherworldly, or would you just consider it a by-product of your style?

A: Half is written in the liquefied flat line brains of all who have been and will be victimized by the beasts of this and other worlds. As for any of it being the by-product of my style, well, by-products are often the organ meat, gristle, and waste that society rejects.

Q: Do you think that the genre of horror is undervalued by potential readers who have preconceived negative ideas about the genre? Have you ever tried your hand at other forms/types of fiction and do you read much horror fiction yourself?

A: In the early to mid forties and fifties, people did have preconceived notions, dealing with horror not as spiritual (Seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts bake sale style), nor as noirishly chic as Mickey Spillane’s racy parts. I may interject that I write science fiction and used to read it all the time- like Mary Shelley’s ‘Modern Prometheus’.

Q: Your prose is quite often very poetic in the way you use language and the visually imaginative worlds you create. Do you find that when you write a poem it will morph into prose and/or vice versa? How important is the writing of poetry to you in terms of how you write prose – does one influence/inform the other?

A: Yes and Yes. Twenty two years ago everything I’d published was in poetry. Sometimes I even think and/or talk consciously this way. And as for morphing, what else do you call going to bed one kind of person and waking up almost ten years later as if born again into some persona from a long dream.

Q: Could you please tell us about your writing process? How do you come up with the ideas for your stories, and how do you go about writing them? Do you outline your novels, or is it more of an ‘organic’ process?

A: Most of my stories originate in nightmares. For others, I start out as I do often to write poetry, meaning I flip through a thesaurus, point at one word with my eyes closed, write that down, repeat the process—and the writing finger having written moves on. This Symbiotic Fascination started this way… first there was the ugly little man. My long poem ‘Taunting the Minotaur’ began in my head with one sentence- “How do I stop the bleeding”? I do outline some novels but always end up changing them.

Q: You write poetry, short fiction, novellas and novels – do you have a preferred medium or form? Do you have any favorite poets?

A: My preferred form is absolutely any path the piece feels like it needs to go down (or up). Three of my favorite poets are Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, and Ann Sexton.

Q: Edward Lee has said you are “armed with a talent to write the most beautiful prose yet [use] that talent to examine the most unspeakable and detestable horror.” Do you use your writing to examine issues that are important to you? Is there any underlying message/s you try to impart to the reader, or do you prefer to think of your work as ‘art for art’s sake’?

A: I have never been able to write on a project if I didn’t care for the subject. If I can’t manage empathy for at least one character, how will I get the reader to do so? I need to write as a form of therapy and catharsis.

Q: As part of WiHM (Women in Horror Month) can you point to any female authors in the horror world that stand out to you? Who are your favorite female authors in general and why?

A: I always liked Melanie Tem, her work being studies in both controlled and free emotion (at least to my repressed obsessions). Lucy Taylor also, facile in her use of degradation that has somehow morphed into great beauty when we were sidetracked by the plot.

Q: What does the future hold for fans of your work? Are you working on anything new that you would like to share with the readers?

A: I have plans for two novels if I can manage to use my hands long enough and make my notes legible. My collection, ‘The Myth of Falling’ is due out any day now.

Thank you, Charlee. It has been an honor to interview you for WiHM. I wish you all the best.

Charlee Jacob on Amazon

For the full biography of Charlee Jacob on Grokipedia, click here.

Subscribe now

Share

Subscribe now

Share

So this nasty little psychological thriller/horror novel is fairly common, but this version, released by New English Library, with this cover, is hard to find. I haven’t been able to find out who the cover artist is, so if you know, please share in the comments below.

Here’s one of the few reviews I could find for this book via Publishers Weekly:

Subscribe now

Share

Step-back cover art: Terry Oakes

Note: this one’s from my personal collection, which I’ve yet to read. After reading most of the reviews online, I’m not sure if I will. I’m posting this here purely because of the book’s obscure and strange nature and to show off, possibly, the only redeeming feature: the step-back art by Terry Oakes (attribution via TMHF link). For an in-depth review which contains some interesting factoids and snippets, check out Too Much Horror Fiction’s post (link below).

Synopsis

Unholy Mourning is the story of Jorbie, a mortician with some major psychological disorders. When he was younger, he purposely caused the death of his identical twin and the guilt over this causes him to take his revenge on anybody his inner voice tells him to. Angie, a lonely girl, falls for Jorbie, and no matter how unstable he is around her, this love is unwavering.

Here’s the review link from the Too Much Horror Fiction blog: https://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/2017/11/unholy-mourning-by-david-lippincott.html

Subscribe now

Share

I recently acquired this hard-to-find beauty with cover art by the amazing artist Les Edwards. Apparently, this one graced the pages of Paperbacks From Hell, which I guess is why reasonable copies of this sell for around $50 USD at the moment.

I’ve read a couple of Wellman’s stories in various anthologies over the years, but this is the first collection of his short fiction that I’ve managed to find in New Zealand.

Any other Wellman fans out there? What’s your favorite work of his?

Subscribe now

Share

This anthology is a selection of stories from Weird Tales magazine.

Notable stories include Howard’s ‘Valley of the Worm’, Smith’s ‘Mother of Toads’, and Keller’s ‘The Thing in the Cellar’. The other stories are pretty good as well, but those are my favourites. The cover art is pretty special too, as is the rear cover blue-relief detail of the cosmic monster!

Cover art by Virgil Finlay

Contents

• The Forgotten Creator of Weird Tales (introduction) - (1965) - Sam Moskowitz
• Roads - (1938) - Seabury Quinn
• The Sapphire Goddess - (1934) - Nictzin Dyalhis
• The Valley of the Worm - (1934) - Robert E. Howard
• He That Hath Wings - (1938) - Edmond Hamilton
• Mother of Toads - (1938) - Clark Ashton Smith
• The Thing in the Cellar - (1932) - David H. Keller, M.D.
• Giants in the Sky - (1939) - Frank Belknap Long

Subscribe now

Share

Stand-out favourites include Bradbury’s ‘It Burns Me Up’, Bloch’s ‘Head Man’, and ‘The Albatross’ by Hodgson.

And that cover! Absolutely love it, but unsure as to who the artist is. Looks like something Jack Kamen would illustrate.

If any of you know who the cover artist is, please share in the comments.

CONTENTS

Introduction and notes by Sam Moskowitz
The Maker of Moons by Robert W. Chambers
The Delusion of Ralph Penwyn by Julian Hawthorne
It Burns Me Up! by Ray Bradbury
The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft
Head Man by Robert Bloch
The Albatross by William Hope Hodgson
A Prophecy of Monsters by Clark Ashton Smith
No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince by Ralph Adams Cram
Over An Absinthe Bottle by W.C. Morrow
The Soul of Mozart by W.E.P. French

Subscribe now

Share

Now this book is a bit of a mystery! To be honest, I haven’t got around to reading it yet, but it is possibly one of the rarest pulp horror paperbacks in my collection.

I haven’t been able to find any reviews online for this one, so I’ll have to read and review it in the near future.

I did find a general description of the publishing company and their run of pulp horror paperbacks (including Tales of Horror):

Although horror pulps were not as popular as detective and romance, Australian publishers still committed themselves to pushing out ‘spine-tingling’ titles in that genre. The Australian Charles Higham compiled for Horwitz a number of titles that mixed horror with witchcraft, vampirism, ghosts and the occult. More often than not the stories he used were written by overseas writers such as Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sheridan Le Fanu. Almost all the Horwitz horror covers were done by the Australian artist Frank Benier.

Source

Have any of you read this? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this book.

Table of contents

• Erckmann-Chatrian, The Invisible Eye

• Ambrose Bierce, The Middle Toe of the Right Foot

• Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice

• Hume Nisbet, The Hauntd Station

• J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Schalken the Painter

• Guy de Maupassant, The Horla

• Augustus Muir, The Reptile

Subscribe now

Share

Warning: contains academic language and discussion about serial killers, psychopaths, violence, and psychological trauma.

The William Cook Interview
The Traumatized Child: A Mind of Malice

Conducted by
Anthony Servante

Addendum (by Anthony Servante):
Originally, this interview was to follow “The Traumatized Child: A Malleable Mind”, An Essay by Dr. Marcy Davidson in Update 6 [on the blog], as an antithesis to the positive goals of therapy or more as a cynical perspective, not unlike barriers to living with or overcoming trauma. But there were delays.

This note accompanied the completed interview, and I realized that my exchange with William Cook had opened a personal abyss for both myself and William. For me, it was the nightmares that led to my questions, and for Cook, the introspection that writers of dark worlds often seek to avoid when they are not putting ink to paper.

In William Cook’s words: “Sincere apologies for the delay. To tell you the truth, I found it very heavy-going, as many of the questions forced me to dive deep into areas I have tried to avoid for a while now. Nevertheless, it is now completed.”

And underneath all the words of this magnificent and magnanimous interview are glimpses of a different kind of trauma that I can only call “the erudition of madness”.

The William Cook Interview

Servante: Can you tell us about your studies in serial killer history and literature?

Cook: Sure. I recently completed my Master’s in English Literature via Victoria University, here in Wellington, New Zealand. It was the culmination of about twenty years’ worth of reading and research into a subject that had fascinated me since I watched Hitchcock’s movie, ‘Psycho,’ when I was a boy. The title of my thesis is Literary Serial Killer Fiction: The Evolution of a Genre, and the abstract perhaps explains the focus of my interest best:

This study examines the dynamics of post-war American serial killer fiction as it relates to social and literary contexts. In the context of history and development, this study considers the impact and origins of particular works and how they have influenced the stylistic and thematic evolution of a particular subgenre I have called literary serial killer fiction. Emphasis is placed on select narratives that directly (or indirectly) transform, challenge and critique the genre conventions in which they are written. Of interest is the evolution of general serial killer fiction as a postmodern phenomenon, in terms of its popularity with the reading public, and in line with the growth of media interest in representations of serial killers. I draw on literary theory (in particular, ‘new historicism’) to demonstrate that the appeal and tropes of serial killer fiction reflect socio-political interests indicative of the era from which they were produced, and to show how the subgenre of literary serial killer fiction can be categorized using its own particular set of defining features.

I examine these aspects in detail in relation to the following selection of fictional serial-killer narratives: Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, James Ellroy’s Killer on the Road, and Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. For brevity’s sake, I have selected American narrative works that employ first-person narration and are transgressive in the way they focus on characters who defy convention and push boundaries, as do the narratives within larger genre traditions and protocols. In my view, these works are the purest examples of literary serial killer fiction in that they are characteristically unlike other examples that can easily be categorised under other literary genres.

The appeal and popularity of the genre, alongside the functional aspects of the trope, leads me to conclude that it is an ideal form to interact with popular cultural narratives, while also allowing subversive interplay between both real and fictional concerns. The appeal of the genre to those authors who usually write outside of it, particularly in regard to its transgressive and allegorical qualities, is also of particular interest to this study. Because of the hybrid nature of the genre and the ease with which the central trope of the fictional serial killer transcends genres, the resulting possibilities provide a transgressive outlet for authors who wish to test boundaries, in both a literary and an ontological sense, in regard to the commentary that serial killer fiction allows on the state of contemporary American literature and society.

Servante: What drew you to pursue such a subject?

Cook: The subject has interested me since I was a boy. A love of horror and thriller movies, combined with similar genre interests in fiction, seems to be the root cause of my interest in the subject matter. I have always been fascinated by the way the human mind acts (and interacts), especially in abnormal contexts. Early on, I had a rather villainous preoccupation with the outlaws and evil antiheroes that crossed over from popular culture into real life. I first became aware of the scope of human depravity after reading most of the books in my local library related to the World Wars. The material was abhorrent, but none of the questions that were raised as to how and why humans would commit such atrocities was answered by these books.

The next section of the library I discovered was the ‘True Crime’ section, which I was led to directly after looking for more material to explain the brutality of the war and the criminal trials of the Nazis at Nuremberg. I quickly moved on from war history to the fascinating world of Organized Crime and the charismatic psychopaths who ruled their illegal empires with ultra-violence. Crooks like Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano, John Dillinger and, of course, Bonnie and Clyde.

One book in particular was a huge influence on my reading and steered me towards more literature on the subject of serial homicide and mass murder (yes, there is a difference). The book was Colin Wilson and Pat Pitman’s mammoth Encyclopaedia of Murder. I admit, as a precocious adolescent, I was titillated by the gruesome descriptions and case studies. These factual accounts seemed more bizarre and fascinating than anything I had read in fictional stories. From there on, I devoured any book I could read on the subject and spent countless hours poring over the cases, especially ‘cold case’ serial murder investigations like the infamous ‘Jack the Ripper’ series of murders.

As I read more, I realized that the thing which compelled me the most about these cases was the psychology of the offender and how they came to be the way they ended up. My own experiences in life began to confirm some of the things I was learning about human behavior and it was perhaps because of this understanding that I was able to avoid developing into a criminal type myself. The upbringings of many of these killers were quite similar to my own, and I guess that is partly why they fascinated me and repelled me at the same time.

I realized that if I did not willfully work on my character and my responses to the world around me, I could be languishing in some jail for a similar crime. The fine line between those who commit these acts and those who don’t is very fine indeed. As I grew older and developed my writing as a means to vent and express myself, I began to write about these characters in a fictional sense. As such, my interest in the subject matter has continued to serve as a research tool for my own fiction, helping me develop realistic characters and providing fodder for story ideas.

Servante: Can you share with us your own works on serial killers?

Cook: I have written numerous short stories about serial killers and one full-length novel titled Blood Related. Blood Related combined a lifelong interest in the macabre with a lot of research into true crime and serial killers. I was a bit of a weird kid, admittedly, and I was fascinated with death due to some early experiences where friends and family died. When I say ‘fascinated’, I don’t mean in a gleeful or deviant fashion. It was more of a curious interest, born of fear and my sudden awareness of the fragility of human mortality.

My interest in this morbid subject escalated after an event in my life when I was younger, where my best friend shot another friend of mine (his ex-girlfriend) and then killed himself. Obviously, this left a significant imprint on my mind and emotions. As a result, I began to wonder why a large percentage of humans use violence as a way of dealing with things and have a tendency towards self-destruction and nihilistic behavior.

This aspect of humanity is constantly reinforced by the media and politicians, who perpetually sensationalize ‘news’ and use fear to drive political agendas. The politics of fear are very much a staple diet of news-hungry consumers who seem to relish lurid accounts of human cruelty and abuse, and (so it seems) probably the same reasons fiction is full of similar horrors.

The biggest influences on my writing of Blood Related were Colin Wilson’s The Killer, James Ellroy’s brutal Killer on the Road, and Ann Rule’s true-crime account of Ted Bundy’s crimes in The Stranger Beside Me. I had always wanted to write a first-person novel, and after six years of research and writing, I finally completed Blood Related.

I’m not sure that I would write another first-person fictional serial killer novel, as it (the subject matter and the book) consumed my thoughts for a long time. I found it a lot more disturbing to write about psychopathic humans than I do writing tales of horror that deal with more supernatural and fantastical elements. The most frightening aspect of the whole process was how easy it was to contemplate and describe such characters and their sordid crimes.

Essentially, my belief is that the human potential for violence and the ongoing interest and relevance of the topic are the reasons why this type of literature endures as both subject material for authors and reading material for a mass audience.

Servante: Can you distinguish antisocial behavior from sociopathic behavior for the layman?

Cook: Antisocial behavior is essentially any type of behavior that is deemed unacceptable by society. Public drunkenness, lewdness, graffiti, brawling, theft, etc., are some examples. These behaviors can be associated with mitigating factors such as environment (poverty, peer pressure, addiction, learning and developmental disabilities, etc.) or nurture. However, antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is much more complex than the behaviors that these people exhibit as antisocial behavior.

A basic definition of a person with ASPD is that they have a personality disorder characterized by distinctive patterns of disregard for others. They exhibit poor moral judgement and lack the ability to empathize with others and be responsible for their own behavior. A person with ASPD usually has a lengthy criminal history as a result of their impulsive and aggressive behavior.

The distinction between ASPD and sociopathic disorder is not as clear-cut, as characteristics of both disorders overlap. Much in the same way that the terms ‘sociopathic’ and ‘psychopathic’ are linked by commonalities and are often used concurrently, so too is ASPD in terms of the diagnostic criteria that make up the defining characteristics of each disorder.

In this regard, these disorders are synonymous, as they are used descriptively to diagnose and characterise similar afflictions. When each disorder is analyzed they do indeed share common traits and diagnostic criteria, but not necessarily all of the same features. These diagnoses do not seem to address any other contributing factors which may induce symptoms and behaviors distinct and of their own origin outside of the parameters of the criteria. That is, just because someone shows a lack of remorse or exhibits antisocial behavior, does not necessarily make them a psychopath or an antisocial person. Nor does it mean that psychopaths and people with ASPD exhibit behavior in a vacuum without the influence of other contributing disorders or maladies.

In my opinion, the terms are used depending on the subject’s suitability as a candidate for the diagnosis, and this is inevitably dependent on the person making the diagnosis. For example, a psychologist might refer to a person as a sociopath with antisocial tendencies, whereas a journalist might refer to that same individual as a psychopath.

The generally accepted definition of a psychopath is as follows: “an individual who suffers from a chronic personality disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.” There are also further stages of psychopathy, including ‘criminal psychopathology’, which usually refers to people who exhibit psychopathic traits when committing criminal acts. Most serial killers, for example, are considered criminal psychopaths (especially by the FBI) and display all the hallmark traits of a sociopath, or psychopath, during and leading up to the criminal act of murder.

These definitions can best be considered as part of a Venn diagram, where each criterion falls under the different definition/diagnosis, yet the shared criteria form the basis for all three disorders. The grey areas, or the criteria that don’t match, indicate the influence of things which fall outside the diagnosis. A person diagnosed with ASPD or sociopathy may also have other conditions such as attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar, to name a few, which all share traits such as impulsivity, selfishness, aggressive/destructive and antisocial behavior.

As can be imagined, the line between disorders can be blurred, and diagnoses can be easily manipulated or misdiagnosed, hence the confusion and overlap between these terms and definitions.

With the research I have completed, my own understanding of these terms is derived from the often conflicting definitions and diagnostic criteria available. From what I have gleaned, it seems that ‘sociopathic behavior’ is much more subtle and usually more menacing in its deliberateness than antisocial behavior. ASPD seems to be largely a socially influenced disorder, in that the individual is responding or reacting to their environment or as a direct result of their upbringing or some developmental handicap. Unlike the majority of ‘normal’ folk, people with ASPD lack the ability to control their behavior and impulses as a result.

On the other hand, people who have psychopathic tendencies are usually calculating and manipulative and covet their behavior with ease. That is, most people who have psychopathic tendencies are adept at hiding their true nature from those around them. They lie profusely and are usually intelligent enough to keep their antisocial activities under wraps or manipulate those around them into believing they are not responsible. While most sociopathic personalities who commit violent crimes, especially murder (commonly referred to as ‘Psychopaths’), are antisocial personality types as well, not all sociopathic personalities display antisocial or violent psychopathic behavior. For example, a classic con-artist or cult leader type displays all the hallmark traits of a sociopathic personality type. His traits include a lack of empathy and compassion, narcissistic, grandiose, untruthful, ruthless, and selfish behavior. Yet he lacks the cold, calculating nature of a psychopath who is far less impulsive and more skilled at keeping his true nature hidden.

Servante: In which behavior do we find the killer instinct? Can you elaborate?

Cook: I do not actually believe that humans have an instinct for homicide. I do, however, believe that we are all capable of it, given the right set of circumstances, and that our species has an innate capability for violence. For example, someone threatens the life of your child or partner or the destruction of a group of people, and you act to protect them by whatever means necessary. Given no other option (after exhausting all other options), when it comes down to ‘kill or be killed’ there are those of us who will submit to whatever fate befalls us or their kin, and then there are those of us who will fight tooth and nail to protect family and self with violence. I would suggest that those in the military services who progress beyond theory to full combat situations are of the latter ilk. That is, they have developed the ability to kill and are not afraid to do so in certain situations.

First responders, such as police and armed tactical response units, also face these life-threatening situations all the time and (usually) act accordingly. That is, an extreme response is carried out for the greater good of the public. In this regard, humans have the ability to learn to kill effectively, especially when sanctioned by their peers and governmental agencies. In these instances, these individuals have been nurtured or trained to use aggression and violence to dominate in order to achieve a set goal. If they had not been trained and then thrust into a situation or set of circumstances, such as combat or scenario-based events, for which they have been specifically trained to respond, it is unlikely that these people would have ever taken another person’s life in a civilian role.

In the case of people who commit multiple acts of homicide, we might think that they possess a ‘killer instinct’ because they have murdered more than once and seem to have no qualms about it. One characteristic of many serial killers is that their first murder is usually not premeditated. It is either a crime of passion or rage, or a crime of opportunity that presents itself at a particular moment when the killer’s actions and impulses are seemingly beyond their control; e.g. they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or they over-react (violently) to a situation without thought of the consequences, etc.

Many serial killers (i.e., the majority) have first experienced the act of killing in scenario-based situations via military training. Many serial killers who have seen combat have had their first kills on the battlefield or have witnessed extreme violence in these circumstances.

The old adage, ‘the first cut is the deepest,’ seems an apt description of the initial kill that paves the way for repeat offences committed by serial killers. In other words, once a murderer, always a murderer. It cannot be undone. The serial killer realizes that all hope is lost with the first kill and that whatever moral basis their own lives had before the act, is now gone.

The first murder seems to be the most difficult for serial killers in that the ‘cooling down’ period is usually longest between the first and second murders. For some, the first murder satiates their fantasies to the point where they feed off the memory of the act until it no longer satisfies their deviance, and they feel they have to kill again to feed their fantasies. For example, the BTK killer, Dennis Rader, apparently waited eight years in between murders before starting to kill again.

Others seem to merely wait until they feel that the ‘coast is clear’ and that their crime has either gone undetected or that suspicion has been averted, allowing them to commit another murder for whatever reason (e.g. sexual homicide, murder for financial gain, murder for notoriety, etc.). For serial killers, the murders that follow are typically variations on a theme. They perfect the experience dependent on the influence of their selfish desires, impulses, fantasies, and the responses to their crimes.

In this respect, they get better or more proficient at killing and concealing the crimes as the experience becomes a bigger part of their daily lives. Often, their control is reduced as their violence escalates in line with the increase in their fantasies and experience, exhibited in more bizarre deviant practices with their victims and the crime scenes. Most serial killers seem to be unable to control the impulse (rather than instinct) to murder, once they have sublimated their fantasy lives to the act of killing. Similar in some respects to adrenaline junkies who chase excitement with sky-diving or extreme sports, the adrenal drive becomes synonymous with pleasure and escalating behavior patterns.

In this regard, the serial killer differs from others who commit single murders because they accept their fate and hold on to the act of murder as the most significant event in their otherwise meaningless lives, going on to repeat it over and over again. Rather than being disgusted and repelled by their own behavior, they seem to acknowledge the act of murder as a defining moment in their existence. Almost as if the act of murder is a pinnacle of all their conflicted emotions and past experiences, culminating in a release of rage, anger, fantasy, drive and, ultimately, self-expression and power.

The committal of what is considered by most societies as the ‘ultimate sin’ becomes an act of rebellion against that society and, essentially, a defiant expression of power that the killer has not been able to exhibit until that moment. Many serial killers hide or deny these initial crimes due to conflicting emotions and societal expectations of ‘right and wrong’. Even for psychopaths, who have no discernible conscience, they understand that what they have done is morally wrong (to ‘normal’ members of society) and that they need to distance themselves from their crimes in order to escape legal and social justice.

As far as the ‘survival of the fittest’ and the instinct for violence that the concept suggests, humans are at the top of the food chain in terms of their ability to dominate other species with violence. Yet this ability to commit atrocities against fellow humans and other species seems to present itself in the majority of people, only when the right circumstances are present.

The question of ‘nature versus nurture’ is often referred to in discussions concerning motivation for violent crime, in particular homicide. In my opinion, it is rather a moot point in that it has no bearing on why the person actually commits murder. Instead, it posits a theory of culpability that offers no firm conclusions as to whether or not humans are hard-wired for murder. Murder, especially serial homicide, is far more complex and complicated than an A/B quotient that does not allow for ‘grey areas’ or combinations of reason and circumstance. For example, the influence of free will on human action, or the degree to which the mind can manipulate reality with fantasy and obsessive thought patterns.

The ability of humans to determine our behaviors is what separates us from any instinct to kill that we may have buried deep inside us. Whether due to social conditioning or biological predisposition, human willpower far outweighs and indeed governs our violent impulses within modern society. However, as outlined above, given the right circumstances (and, in most cases, with the right training, including learned behaviour), we all have the ability to react violently, even murderously.

Serial killers almost seem to have a greater ‘will to power’ than the rest of us, who use our willpower to keep our behavior in check. What appears to be an instinct in these multiple murderers is more likely an ability to willfully determine their behavior without a moral code. They can, if you like, suspend ethics through an existential filter that renders moral constraints meaningless. This effectively allows them to satisfy selfish fantasies and express their outrage at society with acts of murder that are perhaps nothing more than abhorrent displays of power. That is, the human capacity for violence.

Servante: A writer who tells stories of mass murderers — how does he differ from the real killer?

Cook: Um, they write, they don’t kill. The difference should be obvious, really. Although the moral imperative behind both acts is uncannily similar in some ways. The writer, much like the killer, plans ahead and seeks to produce an aesthetic act or work that will provoke a public reaction. The moral aspect of writing about violence and horrific and inhumane acts is worth considering, too. I am sure that most authors who pen ultra-violent stories involving homicidal killers question the morality of creating these types of portrayals, especially in a marketplace already saturated with graphic depictions of serial homicide, usually involving mainly violence against women and children.

Perhaps authors are guilty of perpetuating mental or emotional damage on unsuspecting readers and impressionable people who are already vulnerable to the influence of such material? The telling of a story and the enactment of a homicidal fantasy are two distinct realities. Perhaps they inform each other in rare cases, yet aside from subject matter, this is the only point of similarity in the principal actors' characters.

Servante: Is childhood trauma or any trauma a catalyst in the killer’s/writer’s motivations?

Cook: I am sure it is. Childhood experience shapes all humans into the adults they become. My own fascination with horror and dark psychological subjects is because of the things I experienced as a child and an adolescent. I believe that most works of fiction contain an element of truth that stems from the author’s own experiences. In my own case, writing about dark subjects is a form of expressing things that bother me internally. Rather than acting out by doing these horrible things in real life, I write about them, and that seems to satisfy the demons that lurk in the dark realms of my brain. The same, of course, applies to the heroic actions of my ‘good’ characters. In this respect, as an author, I live vicariously through my stories and characters.

Servante: Based on your studies on serial killers, do you believe the symptoms were there in childhood to see a future killer/writer?

Cook: There is a set of adolescent behaviours that supposedly point to the development of a violent socio/psychopathic personality. Criminologists used to refer to these as the Macdonald triad: a history (adolescent) of arson, bed-wetting and cruelty (sadism) towards animals. According to psychiatrist J.M. Macdonald, he suggested that, “if all three or any combination of two, are present together, [then these are] to be predictive of or associated with later violent tendencies, particularly with relation to serial offences,” (Macdonald 1963).

Subsequent research has indicated that while these behaviors are evident in many case studies of serial killers, they are not prevalent in ALL cases and are also evident in non-serial-killer character assessments. The more likely explanation is that these types of behaviors are symptomatic responses to childhood abuse, neglect and emotional/psychological issues stemming from environmental influences. So, while the symptoms may have been present in the childhoods of murderers, they are not present in ALL cases and hence not reliable as future indicators of a criminal type.

Most criminal events and character behaviors can be illuminated retrospectively. Hindsight is a great way to ‘join the dots’ and see the evidence and origins of cause and effect. However, based on the unreliability of this way of analyzing character behaviors, I would have to say that this type of deduction is redundant, as it reveals no definitive causal relationship between the behavior of murderers and their upbringings. Especially, when analyzed alongside those who have the same upbringings yet who do not go on to become killers.

Servante: Could the proper therapy (such as dream, painting, role-play, etc.) have prevented these children from developing into killers?

Cook: I don’t think so, as these types of therapies are usually applied after the fact. That is, unless these therapies are applied as mandatory activities in primary school settings from a very early age to ALL students, I feel their effectiveness is almost always null and void, as the damage has already been done to the subject, and treatment is always applied ex post facto (after the event).

To be able to identify early behaviors of ‘at-risk’ subjects and then apply therapies, this in itself is a massive task and one that must account for the ability of the subject to respond ideally to the therapies administered. For a psychopath, ‘therapy’ is pointless as their psychological state is largely defended from any response-type stimuli by their lack of conscience, emotion and propensity for egotistical self-determination.

For the psychopath, any form of therapy is nothing more than a game-type situation where they can manipulate and fool the therapist into believing the normalcy of their (psychopathic) behavior. In saying that, if therapeutic activities were introduced early enough before the subject began to exhibit homicidal tendencies, it may influence the way they respond to situations and give them a method of controlling themselves to the extent that it could possibly prevent them from letting tendencies escalate into homicidal behavior later on in life.

Servante: Do you feel that any therapy reveals anything helpful for therapists of potential serial killers?

Cook: I don’t honestly know. I’m sure that in the field of criminological and psychiatric research, the data sets gathered from these therapeutic experiments are likely to yield results that can be used to determine the most effective type of therapy for certain individuals. The problematic aspect of this question lies in the word ‘potential.’ For what is potential, other than what might be?

My own view on what type of therapy or thing that could be done to prevent people from becoming serial killers is that there are not enough people in authority with the right mindset and knowledge to identify who these people may or may not be.

The FBI have done huge amounts of research into who and what a serial killer is, yet their research and systems are such that (as far as I know) they still cannot identify and change the character of someone who will go on to commit serial murder.

Someone who is within the system, whether an inmate, patient, or employee etc., may exhibit red-flags that show their potential for serial murder, because it conforms to already-established patterns of behavior used to diagnose psychiatric disorders or criminal behaviors. But the subject has to be within the system for that identification to take place, and then it can only be surmised.

The characteristics of the serial murderer and their crimes, if accurately recorded and interpreted, are obviously of interest and help to investigators whose job it is to apprehend these people, but as far as therapy goes, most, if not all, serial killers are psychopathic personality types who are resistant to most forms of therapy.

In other words, the evidence to date points to this fact and suggests that any therapy provided to serial murderers would best be provided to their victims, who may actually benefit from it.

END

Thank you to William Cook for the interview, and thank you to you, readers, for your time today. Always a pleasure to have you join us here in the Servante of Darkness blog. See you at Update 8.

*****************************

For more on William Cook and this discussion, check out Killers and Horror: Ink Black, Blood Red, where I compare writers of serial killers to actual killers. It’s intriguing how the minds of fiction authors and actual murderers think alike in the execution of their gruesome deeds in ink and in blood.

Review

“It’s refreshing to see a reviewer get inside theming of both character and author. Mr. Servante pulls no punches in critiquing both fiction and non-fiction narratives. This a thoughtful account by a writer who understands - and aptly communicates - the raw, visceral, and often untidy, side of human nature. This an excellent source to both the writer and psychologist/sociologist. Written in an engaging manner. Kudos to Servante.”

*****FIVE STARS*****

Get Your Copy Now!!

A critical look at the horror of real killers versus imagined killers as analyzed in four fiction novels and three nonfiction books, featuring works by Billie Sue Mosiman, Mark Parker, Christine Morgan, and William Cook in fiction, and discussing real-life murderers, including Ed Gein, the original “Psycho”, El Sicario, a Mexican hit-man, and Richard Kulinski, The Ice Man, a Mafia contract killer. We discuss specific murders, the reasons for these deaths, and the personal motives of the killers. We also address the role of the reader who chooses visceral books with anti-heroes. WARNING: EXTREME GRAPHIC KILLINGS DESCRIBED.

Check out Anthony’s blog here:

https://darkentertainmenttrends.blogspot.com/

Subscribe now

Share

From the back cover:

FEARFUL TALES OF A LOST ERA
Disinterred from the velvet-draped coffins of another age - 11 masterpieces of the macabre, the eerie, the supernatural.

Contents
The Friend Of Death by Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant
The Story Of A Ghost by Violet Hunt
The Spider Of Guyana by Erckmann-Chatrian
The Moon-Slave by Barry Pain
The Spell Of The Sword by Frank Aubrey
The Man Who Lived Backwards by Allen Upward
The God Pan by Huan Mee
The Mystery Of The Bronze Statue by W.B. Sutton
Doctor Armstrong by D.L.B.S.
The Enchanted City by Hubert Murray

Ghostly by Gaslight, Sam Moskowitz, Alden H Norton, Horror, Paperback, Pyramid Books, 1971.

Subscribe now

Share

Harper felt like crap. His hair was falling out in clumps, and the wounds that covered his shoulders and neck festered and pulsed with each shallow breath. His throat was dust-dry, and his muscles and bones ached as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. For a brief moment, he thought about his wife and children, fast asleep in the comfort of their own beds in their apartment. His hunched back rasped against the brick wall as he coughed a mist spray of blood from between his broken teeth. He felt bad, really bad, and he knew he was beyond human help, that his once comfortable existence was no longer a reality.

His eyes ached as his vision adjusted to the darkness of the alleyway. Three days he’d slept in the bottom of a dumpster, covered in the filthy residue of human waste, hidden from the harsh sunlight that burned his skin and blinded him with its ferocious glare. Three nights, he’d ventured from his hiding place to prowl the alley, afraid to step out into the neon-lit streets.

Despite feeling hopelessly lost with the madness that filled his fevered brain, instinct kept him from heading out onto the street, wary of the bustling throng of late-night revellers and nightstick-swinging beat cops.

He missed his wife and kids, but there was no way he was going to let them see him like he was. Besides, that was another lifetime ago, before the sickness set in and cast him into the streets. A small part of him held onto the faint hope that he would recover. That things would improve, and he would be able to change and become the man he once was. Despite this, Harper knew that his life was beyond repair. The gnawing hunger that filled his every waking moment had nearly consumed him.

He had a blurred memory of an event that seemed like it was from another era. Some type of animal had attacked him and left him for dead, bleeding and broken. He had survived, but he was a husk of his former self. He’d been on a week-long bender before it happened and had exhausted all means of procuring alcohol and crystal meth. With no job, no home, no friends and no money, he’d hit rock bottom.

When the tall man offered him one hundred dollars for “a moment of his time,” Harper’s addled mind provided no logical reason why he shouldn’t go with the pale stranger. He’d met some weirdos in his time. Hell, he’d even sucked dick for cash, but he’d never been this desperate before. He had a thirst that wouldn’t quit, and all he knew was this suit was going to give him the green to chase his demons. And so he’d followed him into the alley, and that was all he could remember.

He’d woken up, dazed and bloody, with a headache like no other and an unequalled thirst. He’d assumed that he’d been mauled by dogs. There were plenty that roamed the back alleys after dark, whole packs of vicious strays that often attacked the down-and-outs. Despite his distress, Harper’s senses bounced off the alley walls. His vision shifted and adjusted to the dark, picking out varying hues of life: a rat amongst the trash, a mouse peeking from a crack in the wall, a pigeon twitching as it roosted on the rung of a fire-ladder . . .

His nostrils flared as the scents that hung rank in the air separated themselves into organic and unnatural odors. He darted towards the biological smells and managed to feed upon what he caught, but it didn’t satisfy his thirst. His twisted brain burned with the afterglow of his addictions, yet another urge overrode his desires. A deep instinct spun its way through his swollen vascular system, somehow preventing him from leaving the dark confines of the alley.

Harper’s human memories faded with each breath that left his body. The rodents and felines he caught and consumed sustained only a small portion of his being, but he felt their lives become part of his, and this pleased him somewhat. Then, luck prevailed. A drunk lurched down the alley, bouncing off the brick walls as he stumbled, fell and picked himself up, before doubling over and vomiting onto the concrete. Harper’s body bristled with energy as he stalked his prey. The drunk leaned on the wall, fumbling for cigarettes in his jacket pockets. Harper crashed into the man, knocking him to his knees. The man’s flailing limbs tried to fend Harper off, but he was too strong. Too thirsty.

He stripped the body of its clothing and gouged and tore with his teeth until the skin broke and ripped and blood bubbled to the surface. Harper lapped hungrily at the warm fluid, the sweet taste of alcohol tempered with the intoxicating ambrosia of blood. He burrowed his face deep into the human’s chest, pulling the rib-cage apart as he ploughed deeper inside, devouring flesh and organs until he bit down on the throbbing muscle.

Pulling the heart from the gaping wound, Harper held it above his open mouth, squeezing the bulbous organ as blood gushed forth. He gulped the hot coppery liquid down, each swallow filling his muscles with strength, his mind with purpose. As he wrung the last drops from the human’s heart, he heard the voice. A strange ancient dialect filled his thoughts with instruction. He knew what he must do, where he must go.

He looked up at the starry sky, his skin the color of chalk, blood staining his smiling face. His broken teeth had repaired themselves, now sharp and resplendent. He rose up into the night, arms outstretched.

Harper surveyed the world beneath him as he ascended, the alley below merging into a maze-like warren of streets and geometric passages. Small human figures went about their nocturnal activities like ants as he passed over them. Rows of downtown skyscrapers loomed as the cold night air buffeted his clothes, and he eventually alighted on the roof of a towering apartment building.

He felt at home up there above the city, and this apartment block still possessed a familiarity that betrayed its significance to his past life as a mortal. Harper inhaled the night air and measured the boundaries of his thirst against his fleeting sense of time. He waited, prowling the rooftop, sensing the warm blood-filled bodies of the human inhabitants below him.

The Master appeared from the shadows of the lift-maintenance building. Harper dropped to his knees, completely servile, with an innate fear of this being who had given him life through death. The pale stranger who had led him into the alley three nights before.

‘Rise,’ the Master said without talking.

‘We have much work to do.’

The master flourished his outstretched limb around him as if conducting some unseen orchestra. Then, with a devilish grin, he pointed downward in the direction of the apartments below. Harper stood transfixed, his mind filled with the gourmet possibilities of the human life that teemed beneath his feet. The apartment building seemed to breathe, the essence of which filled his senses, illustrating the great variety of activity within, but all Harper knew and felt was a great thirst.

He could hear the heartbeats as a cacophony of percussive life-forces that invited his hunger to feast. An image of his wife and children flashed through his mind, but all he could think of was the blue pulse of blood running through the veins in their throats. His thirst knew no bounds, not even the memory of his home and his family, who occupied one of the apartments below.

The Master was his mentor, his father now, but his thirst was his god. He smiled and rose up in the air before making his instinctive descent to the apartment balcony, secure in the knowledge that he knew his thirst would be forever quenched with the aid of the pale stranger’s tutelage.

Subscribe now

Share