by Apex Authors
JS: Two of the most vile literary creations, Melinda and Miss Monique, have come from your pen. Were you abused by girl gangs as a kid?
BS: (Laughs). These characters are strangely popular. They are supposed to be super-evil and are intended to evoke fear and revulsion, like any good horror novel villain. And they do, for some people. But a surprisingly large percentage of people have written me to tell me how much they love these characters, especially Melinda from Deathbringer. There's a reason the femme fatale archetype is so prominent in noir fiction and movies. A large percentage of the readership for this sort of thing gets a charge out of characters that are sexy and menacing at the same time, and I guess I must too, because I keep coming up with these characters. And it's funny that you phrased your question that way—there's an actual girl gang of sorts in my forthcoming novel, Queen of Blood. (Laughs again).
JS: What inspired Miss Monique and her ability to simultaneously create immense pain and pleasure? Way beyond anything a sadomasochist would enjoy.
BS: I have no idea. Usually these things just hit me like lightning bolts. Twisted, bizarre atrocities that arrive in my head from seemingly nowhere. This goes back to my earlier statement about how these novels develop organically in my head, made up on the fly from scene to scene. I'll be sitting there at my computer, wondering what should come next, then one of these crazy images appears in my head. Then I'll think, ‘Oh, man, that is so fucked-up right there.” Then I'll start writing it down.
JS: Your next novel is a return to your first work, House of Blood. Is it a direct sequel?
BS: Yes. All the characters who survived the first book return, as do one or two characters who died in that one. Even very minor HOB characters return. It's set a few years after the end of HOB. However, there are some big differences between the two books. Queen of Blood is a much darker and more violent novel than HOB. I made a conscious decision to break some of the patterns I established in my first three books. The main action takes place over the course of several months rather than one wild night. I pulled my punches a bit with HOB, primarily because it was my first novel and I didn't quite know what I could get away with then. There are no pulled punches in Queen of Blood. The returning main cast of characters will develop in ways that should surprise people. Some of them will go down some very dark roads. Some good people will become not-so-good people. And there is little or no promise of redemption for many of them. I consider it a deeper, darker book than what I've done before, but rest assured it will not lack the explicitness fans of Deathbringer and The Freakshow enjoyed. It will be there. Big, disgusting buckets of it.
JS: Any plans to revisit the sadistic Melinda from Deathbringer?
BS: Not presently, but I would like to at some point down the line. A while back I started a sequel to Deathbringer that was to focus on Melinda, but it just wasn't working out and I abandoned it. It was the wrong approach at the wrong time. But I had a good time writing that character in Deathbringer, and someday she should be resurrected.
JS: A perceptive reader will pick up that Deathbringer and The Freakshow are set in the same universe ... in and around the town of Dandridge, TN. Are you making Dandridge, TN your Derry, ME (Stephen King's favorite city to abuse)?
BS: That wasn't my original intention, but it's beginning to work out that way. Stephen King is an obvious influence in this way. I don't write like King, but he's my favorite writer, and I guess this Dandridge thing is a manifestation of his work's lasting impact on me. I've actually used Dandridge as a setting going back to unpublished work from the early 90's, including a novel called Depraved. I'd be the only person who knows this, of course, but there are small things in House of Blood that refer to things in Depraved. Also, it turns out there actually is a town called Dandridge in Tennessee, a fact I was blissfully unaware of until Deathbringer was released and residents of the town informed me. My Dandridge is not THAT Dandridge, which I guess I'll have to make clear in any future work set there. My current in-progress novel, Madhouse, returns to Dandridge, and of course incorporates some of the ongoing mythology without being a direct sequel to anything. Small bit of trivia here—the name of the town was actually taken from the name of the vampire in Fright Night, Jerry Dandridge.
JS: In our fourth issue, you contributed an entertaining novelette based on a noir-style detective agency (with supernatural elements). Any plans to bring these characters back to life?
BS: Definitely. It is my hope that Jack Grimm and crew will loom large in my future. I would like to sell it as an ongoing mass-market cross-genre series in the vein of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books or Simon Green's Nightshade books. My Grimm novels would be more pointedly influenced by old pulp. Think of these stories as Gold Medal meets Kolchak. Richard Prather and Mickey Spillane teaming up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The original chapbook was very popular. There was even some recent film interest. I'm convinced Grimm could be very successful on a mass market level.
JS: For readers thinking of trying out a Bryan Smith novel, how would you describe your work?
BS: Not for your grandmother. And probably not for your mother. And definitely not for anyone the least bit squeamish or high-minded. It's horror pulp, the end result all the gloriously trashy things that shaped me back in the 80s. If you need a literary reference point, Richard Laymon and Edward Lee are probably the closest to what I'm doing. This applies to the horror novels. My Grimm stories are quite different.
JS: From a writing perspective, who's the biggest influence on you in terms of style?
BS: Again, probably Richard Laymon and Edward Lee. I admire the fearlessness of both these writers, and I try to be equally fearless. I write hardcore horror and I'm proud of that. I especially admire the spare quality of the prose in Richard Laymon's early novels. Minimal but effective descriptions with lots of snappy dialogue. I'm wordier in my descriptions than Mr. Laymon was and would like to work toward getting closer to that style. I've been reading Laymon for a quarter-century now, and his books are a big part of the reason I'm writing the kind of thing I'm writing. Stephen King is my favorite writer overall, but stylistically there are no real similarities. He's better than me, for one thing. But that's okay. He's better than everybody else, too.
JS: What is your favorite “horror” moment?
BS: I've been a horror film and fiction fan for so long now that it would be impossible to identify a single moment that towers above all others. Some candidates would include the time I saw a midnight showing of Dawn of the Dead in the early 80s, a theatrical screening of The Evil Dead back in 1983, all the opening nights of the Friday the 13th movies back in the 80s (always a wild and crazy experience), the day in 1982 when I read Richard Laymon's The Woods Are Dark in one sitting, when I read The Shining in ‘79 or ‘80, when I read Edward Lee's Coven in 1991 and was bowled over by how simultaneously gross and hilarious it was, reading Fangoria every month back in the 80s, the first time I saw Re-Animator, and ... well, I could go on just about forever. You can see what a major formative time the decade of the 80s was for me. But there have been recent experiences that very nearly equal the best times from those halcyon days, especially seeing Slither and Grindhouse on the big screen. I love those fuckin’ movies just about as much as any genre flick I've ever seen.
JS: What does the future hold for Bryan Smith?
BS: The release of Queen of Blood in mass market paperback from Leisure in 2008. A soon-to-be announced signed and limited edition of House of Blood. The HOB limited will be beautiful and will blow fans of that book away. And currently I'm working on Madhouse, a novel that retreats slightly from the deep darkness of Queen of Blood and returns to the drive-in B-movie fun of House of Blood. In fact, I'd describe it as combining that HOB B-movie vibe with the sheer outrageousness of The Freakshow. Hell, who knows, I may even work in a few Freakshow-style SF flourishes before I'm done. It's gonna be a corker and I'm having a blast writing it.
www.bryansmith.info
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Geoffrey Girard first appeared in Writers of the Future (a 2003 winner) and has since penned and sold more than sixty short stories of dark fantasy and horror. His latest book, Tales of the Eastern Indians, thirteen original tales blending history and Native American myths, was published this Fall. Find out more at www.GeoffreyGirard.com.
This is the third installment of a four-part novella. The first part is available online at www.apexdigest.com.
CAIN XP11: SORRY ABOUT THE BLOOD
By Geoffrey Girard
The darkness recoiled in a flash of light and noise. When it returned, the thing in the doorway had already vanished back into the night.
Becker fired two more times to make sure.
He'd rolled behind the boy's bed as he shot. Chasing away the last clutch of sleep, ignoring the confusion and shock of the door bursting open, to put three bullets into his anonymous target. Whatever the fuck it was.
He didn't know for sure. He'd simply woken and decided it was a threat. Some intruder, some danger, pouring into their room. He'd worked Special Ops for ten years, on missions everywhere from Angola to Syria, and had never once fired at an unidentified target. Until now.
This guy just felt like something he was supposed to shoot. Familiar, almost.
The last two bullets had only a moment ago chased after the retreating form, as the doorframe splintered out into the night instead. He'd moved so damn fast.
Becker steadied the gun over Jeff's still form beneath. Was the kid dead? Hadn't Jeff screamed? Someone had screamed, a terrible sound. Becker allowed that it may have been himself and focused even harder to complete waking. Had he simply shot the boy by mistake? On purpose? The dreams. Such horrible dreams. Had he only imagined the whole thing?
No. Becker reached out with his free hand and felt the kid's skinny leg. “Jeff,” he shook him. “Jeff!"
"I didn't. I—"
"Quiet,” Becker ordered, and scrambled over the foot of the bed toward the doorway. He kept low to the curtained window, clinging to the same darkness his enemy had recently retreated to. “Get behind the bed."
He stole a glance out the door into the parking lot. How many were there? Just the one?
For two months he'd been hunting a dozen killers across the country. His latest mission from the Defense Department was not quite the same as tracking down senior Al Qaeda operatives, but not all that different either. He'd apprehended three. Killed another. Which meant there were another dozen left that he knew of.
So, then, how many of those same killers were now hunting him?
Light from the La Quinta sign above cast a jaundiced sheen over the empty sidewalk and every car in the lot.
The whole world looked sick.
And empty.
Becker cursed. When exactly did I become the prey?
A fence rattled in the distance and Becker gave chase. “Stay put,” he shouted back into the room.
His bare feet slapped loudly against the walkway as he sprinted toward the chain link fence. Something ripped into his heel. He could see where the top of the fence still trembled as if someone had climbed over only a moment before. He quickly scanned the cracked doorway as he passed, and then the ashen face behind a barely drawn curtain in the next room. No threat. Only the curious. Other tourists alarmed by the clamor. Too afraid, too smart, to come out and do anything about it.
The police would arrive soon, he knew. Shit.
Over barren, wet dirt he reached the fence. Fingers of his free hand wrapped within the links. Beyond, a deeply-shadowed hill of weeds and an empty exit ramp. No blood on the fence or ground that he could spot. He thought for a second of jumping the fence. Then his training kicked back in.
"That's it,” Becker said, catching his breath for the first time since springing awake. “Cops and robbers ends now."
I shot him, he thought. I must have put at least two into the fucker. He backed slowly from the fence, concealing the pistol again in the front waist of his sweats. Maybe not ... He kept his fingers around the handle. Cops in three, maybe four, minutes. He lowered his head, moved past the other rooms.
"Hey,” someone dared from one of the darkened doorways. “What the hell's—"
Becker turned to the voice and the man stalled mid-sentence. “Sorry about the noise, sir,” Becker said, moving past. “Firecrackers, looks like."
"Goddamn kids,” the man's voice trailed after him.
You have no idea, Becker thought, but said nothing.
Had it really been one of the ‘kids?' One of his targets? The genetically-manufactured killers DSTI had concocted so many years before. Or was it something else?
Something worse.
He stepped quickly into his own room, pulled the door shut behind him. It bounced back freely on its newly busted hinges. “Get your—"
"Good to go,” the boy said in the darkness. Sure enough, he'd already pulled his own bag together and was working on Becker's. “Thought you'd want us moving,” he added, looking over his tiny glasses. The hair on his head was tousled and pillow-shaped.
Becker couldn't help but smile. This kid...
"I told you to get behind the bed."
Jeff was smart. Never complained. Eager to learn, to always do the “right” thing. Any parent would be thrilled to have a kid like this. Did any of that other shit matter?
That he was a genetic clone of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. That the exact same cells and DNA had once eaten dead flesh and fucked skulls. So what?
So what...
"I just thought—"
Becker looked away. “Thanks, man. Good idea. You all right?"
The boy nodded. “What was that?” he asked.
"Who,” Becker corrected, noting that the boy had felt it too. That there was something wrong about the guy. “I don't know."
He moved quickly across the room. “We'll talk about it later. There's a Waffle House about half a mile that way. Go.” He grabbed his wallet and fished out a ten. “Buy breakfast. Read your book. I'll come when I'm done with the cops. Okay?"
"Okay."
Becker smiled again. No questions, no bullshit. The kid had no problem doing as he was asked. Pin some stripes on the little bastard. “You sure you're not hurt or—"
"I'm good,” the boy said, then lowered his head and grabbed his Flyers book bag. “Um, how long will you be?"
"I'll get there as soon as I can."
"Sure.” Jeff opened the door and stepped into the sickly light. “Thanks, Becker."
Becker half shut the door behind him and flipped the light on to check the room again. He could see where the door frame had taken a bullet. Nowhere else. Body armor? No slugs. He finished tossing the rest of his own things into his bag. Some clothes. The Murder Map he'd put together over the past eight weeks of trailing his targets. Pictures of the family recently murdered in Delhi, Colorado.
He grabbed his cell and made the call.
"Becker.” It was 3:00 a.m. but Major General Durbin's voice still came through clear and interested.
"Yes, sir."
"Late call, Captain. What's the situation?"
"Don't know, General. I think one of them might have tried to kill me tonight."
"But I'm talking to you, ain't I, kiddo?"
"You are indeed, sir."
"Which one was it?"
"Don't know yet. He was ... Tried to chase him down but he escaped."
Becker pictured the dark shape sweeping into the room. Something glittering in its hands. Blades, he supposed. But something else ... like a ghost, almost, floating across the darkness toward him. No...
Toward the boy, Becker now realized.
Toward Jeff.
"Real Hollywood, sir. Fucker kicked in the door. Twirling blades of some kind. Woke up in time. Pretty sure I dropped him, but—"
"Becker,” The Major General stopped him. “Where are you?"
"Forty klicks south of Colorado Springs. Florence."
"Fine, fine. Locals on the way?
"
"Affirmative. I took a couple shots at—"
"Clear out, Captain. We'll, ah, clean up with you offsite. And—"
"Yes, sir.” Becker stopped packing, really focused on the call for the first time. Something he'd noticed in Durbin's voice ... “Sir? Come again?"
"Are you alone, Becker?"
"Yes, sir,” he said quickly, adding feigned surprise to his reply. What did Durbin mean?
Jeff?
Becker hadn't told anyone about the boy. Not yet. Not since he'd found him hiding in Dr. Jacobson's home. One of the many “rats” snuck out of the lab by Jacobson for unadulterated testing. Jacobson's big secret had become Becker's. His big lie.
But it wasn't a lie right now. The boy wasn't there anymore.
"No one else was with you tonight?"
Becker heard the confusion in his commander's voice. “No, sir,” he said.
"Florence,” the colonel repeated. “You know what, Captain, cancel that last. Hold until they arrive, is that clear?"
"Sir?"
"Flash your badge. Buy some time. I'll get someone out as soon as I can to help clean up.” The Major General laughed—a terrible, forced sound. “Don't worry about it, kiddo,” he said. “You're doing fine. We'll get all this mess sorted out soon enough. Hang tight, pal. We'll be right there."
"Thank you, sir,” Becker said and hung up. “Asshole."
He grabbed his bag and was out the door
The world waiting outside somehow seemed a bit more yellow. More sick.
* * * *
Her hair was wrong.
It had to be the hair.
It was a little too short. Too clean.
Everything else was spot on.
Perfect.
The body was two-thirds across the bed, left side. The shoulders flat. Head turned to the left cheek. Legs spread wide. The left thigh at a perfect right angle to her trunk. The other at an obtuse angle to her pubes.
One breast under the head, the other under her right foot. Liver between the feet. Intestines on the right side of the body. Spleen on the left. The flaps he'd removed from her abdomen and thighs were on the bedside table.
