ZOMBIE BITS
By Scott Nicholson
A collection of zombie stories, from the zombie point-of-view to the shoot-’em-up survival brand of apocalyptic horror. Proof that even zombies have a heart…Based on the comic book currently in development by Scott Nicholson and Derlis Santacruz. With a bonus story by Jack Kilborn, a comic script, and Jonathan Maberry’s “Zombie Apocalypse Survival Scorecard.”
Learn more about Zombie Bits and see zombie art or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK
CURTAINS
By Scott Nicholson
A collection of crime and mystery tales from the vaults of Scott Nicholson. Includes “How to Build Your Own Coffin” and Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror selection “Dog Person,” as well as the psychological thrillers “Letters and Lies,” “Sewing Circle,” and more stories that appeared in magazines such as Crimewave, Cemetery Dance, and Blue Murder. Includes and afterword and a bonus story from bestselling authors J.A. Konrath and Simon Wood.
Learn more about Curtains: Mystery Stories or view it for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK
GATEWAY DRUG
By Scott Nicholson
After the first hit, there’s no turning back. Ten tales of horror and suspense from a bestselling author. A man learns fast cars and fast women don’t mix, even when they’re dead. A young boy discovers the terrible power of love. A rock musician will do anything for stardom. Bonus contributions from Tim Lebbon and Shane Jiraiya Cummings, as well as the afterword “One Sick Puppy.”
Learn about Gateway Drug or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK
HEAD CASES
By Scott Nicholson
Nine stories of psychological suspense and paranoid horror, featuring the first-ever appearance of “Fear Goggles.” Collected from the pages of Crimewave, The Psycho Ward, Cemetery Dance, and more, find out what happens when a writer thinks Stephen King is stealing his ideas. Bonus stories by William Meikle and John Everson.
Learn more about Head Cases for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK
THESE THINGS HAPPENED
By Scott Nicholson
It’s been a strange life. It’s been my life. Features stories, poems, and essays on relationships, romance, writing, and taking oneself far too seriously. Plus some humor. You may laugh, you may cry, you may decide you want to be a writer, too. You may hate me after if it’s over. That’s okay. You wouldn’t be the first. Learn about These Things Happened. Or view it for Kindle at Amazon US or Amazon UK
IF I WERE YOUR MONSTER
Children’s book by Scott Nicholson, art by Lee Davis
Creatures of the night teach a lesson of bravery in this full-color, illustrated bedtime story for all ages. Let vampires, ghosts, scarecrows, and mummies protect your little one from the bullies and mean people of the world. 24 screens or pages. View it at Haunted Computer or at Amazon US or Amazon UK
TOO MANY WITCHES
Children’s book by Scott Nicholson, art by Lee Davis
When Moanica Moonsweep plans a Halloween party, she needs the perfect potion of stinky stew. But when she asks her friends for advice, she ends up with one big mess and lots of hurt feelings. 28 full-color screens or pages. See it at Haunted Computer or for Kindle at Amazon US or Amazon UK
DUNCAN THE PUNKIN
Children’s book by Scott Nicholson, art by Sergio Castro
A momma pumpkin must teach her young pumpkin all about the dangers of Halloween, while a mysterious creature known as Skeerdy-Cat-Crow watches over the pumpkin patch. 30 full-color pages or screens. See it at Haunted Computer or view it for Kindle at Amazon US or Amazon UK
TROUBLED (UK)
By Scott Nicholson
When twelve-year-old Freeman Mills arrives at Wendover, a group home for troubled children, it’s a chance for a fresh start. But second chances aren’t easy for Freeman, the victim of painful childhood experiments that gave him the ability to read other people’s minds.
Little does Freeman know that his transfer was made at the request of Dr. Richard Kracowski, whose research into the brain’s electrical properties is revealing new powers of the human mind. Freeman simply wants to survive, take his medicine for manic depression, and deceive his counsellors into believing he is happy. When he meets the anorexic Vicky, who may also be telepathic, he’s afraid some of his darkest secrets will be uncovered. But when the other children develop their own clairvoyant abilities, and insane spirits begin haunting the halls of Wendover, he can’t safely hide inside his own head anymore.
The author’s preferred edition of the 2005 U.S. paperback release The Home, in development as a feature film.
Learn more about the paranormal thriller Troubled or view it at Amazon UK
SOLOM (UK)
By Scott Nicholson
Katy Logan wasn’t quite sure why she left her finance career in the big city to marry religion professor Gordon Smith and move to the tiny Appalachian community of Solom.
Maybe she just wanted to get her 12-year-old daughter Jett away from the drugs and bad influences. Maybe she wanted to escape from the memories of her first husband. Or perhaps she was enchanted by the promise of an idyllic life on the farm that has been in Gordon’s family for 150 years.
But the residents of Solom know all about the man in the black hat. The Reverend Harmon Smith has come back more than century after his last missionary trip, and he has unfinished business. But first Katy and Jett must be brought into the family, and the farm must be prepared to welcome him home. Gordon has been denying his heritage, but now it’s time to choose sides. Does he protect the ones he loves, or surrender to the ancestral urge for revenge?
Author’s preferred edition of the 2006 U.S. paperback The Farm.
Learn more about the supernatural thrillerSolom or view it at Amazon UK
THE GORGE (UK)
By Scott Nicholson
An experimental rafting expedition, an FBI manhunt for a delusional killer, and the worst storm in decades collide in the remote mountain wilderness...and then THEY come out.
Bowie Whitlock and a team of celebrity athletes is commissioned to test two experimental rafts in the rugged Unegama Wilderness Gorge in the remote Appalachian Mountains, considered the most dangerous whitewater rapids in the eastern United States. The expedition is tense from the start as jealousy, romance, and money are riding on the mission’s success.
FBI agent Jim Castle and his partner are in the gorge looking for Ace Goodall, a deranged abortion clinic bomber. Ace, accompanied by a fragile young woman, is having visions that guide his murderous behaviour. The race is on as dark storm clouds gather, the river is swollen, and Ace hijacks the rafting expedition to make his escape. But the bloodthirsty creatures swooping down from the high cliffs have been too long without prey.
Ace has one more bomb. God is talking to him. It’s raining again, and his young companion is pregnant.
And killing isn’t what it used to be, because the dead no longer stay dead.
Author’s preferred edition of the 2007 paperback They Hunger.
Learn more about The Gorge or view it at Amazon UK
OMNIBUS EDITIONS
You can also save with the omnibus editions
Ethereal Messenger at Amazon US or Amazon UK (contains The Red Church, Drummer Boy, and Speed Dating With The Dead)
Mystery Dance (contains Disintegration, Crime Beat, and The Skull Ring, and bonus stories and essays) at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Nicholson’s Ghost Stories: Four Novels, at Amazon US or Amazon UK (featuring Drummer Boy by Scott Nicholson, Haunted by Gemma Halliday, The Body Departed by J.R. Rain, and Cades Cove by Aiden James)
Horror Movies: Three Screenplays (The Gorge, Creative Spirit, and The Skull Ring screenplays) at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Skeleton Tango (Cursed! and Ghost College with J.R. Rain) at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Ghost Box (contains The Red Church, Drummer Boy, Transparent Lovers, Burial to Follow, Forever Never Ends, and Speed Dating With The Dead) at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Are you a writer? Please check out Write Good or Die and The Indie Journey: Secrets to Writing Success
Contact me at [email protected] because I’d love to know what you think—and if you are in any way dissatisfied with this product, please give me a chance to make it right. Let me know about any misspellings and formatting issues, since books in the digital age are living documents.
Thanks to Dellaster Design, David H. Burton, and Neal Hock at Hock’s Editing Services.
Scott
[email protected]
www.hauntedcomputer.com
Table of Contents
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October Girls
By Scott Nicholson
CHAPTER ONE
Crystal loved her best friend Bone, but sometimes she wished Bone was just a little bit deader.
Like right now, when Bone was trying to ride shotgun on a pesky cash register. And that hunky guy with the stack of DVD’s was staring at her. And that gooey black hole in the wall was full of Lurken, Spooge, and Underlings.
“Mash three,” Bone whispered.
“Do what?” Crystal Aldridge had been working at the Tan Banana & Movie Emporium for six weeks, but she was still struggling to master the register. The problem was the sticky keys on the computer terminal.
But she didn’t want to think about why the keys were sticky. Fatback Bob, who owned the combo video rental and tanning salon, liked to eat fried chicken during his shifts, and the smudges on the numeric keypad were most likely due to fryer oil.
Most likely.
“Mash three,” Bone said, soft and girlish and a little impatient for someone who had forever.
“Three it is,” Crystal said, poking the stubborn key.
“Who are you talking to?” said the hunk on the other side of the counter.
“Nobody,” she answered. Which was almost true.
The register sprang open, releasing the inky, sweaty smell of loose bills. She took the membership card from the customer and swiped it, noting his name.
Dempsey Van Heusen. Ain’t from around here, are you?
Three-name people were few and far between in the North Carolina mountain town of Parson’s Ford, unless they were Billy Bob, Bobby Wayne, or Fatback Bob. There was probably even a Bacon Bob around somewhere. But “Dempsey Van Heusen” sounded exotic, like an Internet clothes company or a yacht.
“You got a late fee.” Crystal gave Dempsey a glance and a quick smile. She’d checked him out plenty in the rounded security mirrors that adorned each corner of the store, but the mirrors had distorted him into an Oompah Loompah.
Up close, though, he was meat candy, lean and dark, his hair as thick as if it had been dipped in cooling asphalt. His black leather jacket was scuffed at the elbows, and he had a few chains dangling from the pockets. Robert Pattinson eyebrows with Brad Pitt lips. A little older than her, maybe 18.
The only flaw in his man-crushness was the tufts of hair that sprang from each nostril.
Don’t they have tweezers where you’re from?
“How much?” he asked.
“Seven-fifty,” she said. “That was for ‘The Church That Bled’ and ‘The Screaming.’”
“Well, they were worth it.” Dempsey pushed a bill across the counter.
“Chain Boy likes his cheese,” Bone whispered, even though Dempsey—or any other living person—couldn’t hear her.
“Stuff it,” Crystal said, making change.
“You keep talking to yourself.” Dempsey scratched at his ear. He wore a large silver ring on his middle finger that bore a grinning skull’s face. It might as well have been singing “Bad Boy.”
“Sorry. It’s just the voices in my head.”
“I have those, too,” Dempsey said, crushing the change into his jeans pocket without counting it. “With me, though, people think I’m psycho. Because of my movies.”
“What’s so psycho about your movies?” she asked. She hadn’t paid attention when she’d scanned them, and she couldn’t read the upside-down titles. However, the lettering was in a garish red font and the art dark and brooding, with imagery that suggested graveyards and dead trees and probably vampire sex.
“I’m a horror freak. Mom’s preacher said I’m dancing with the devil.”
A chuckle arose from somewhere, or it could have been the October draft skirling under the front door. Crystal threw a scowl beside her and picked up one of the DVD’s.
“‘The Kiss of the Undead,’” she said, noting the subliminal image of a vampire’s glistening incisors protruding over a collagen-swollen lower lip. The actors’ names were set in smaller print over the title. Didn’t ring any bells.
“A black comedy that pumps a welcome transfusion into the bloodsucker oeuvre,” Dempsey said, as if reading the marketing material.
People in Parson’s Ford didn’t use words like oeuvre. Even though the town boasted a community college, the use of foreign words was limited to Tres Amigos Beans & Bowling, the local Mexican restaurant and bowling alley. Maybe there was more to Dempsey than a black leather jacket and what Fatback Bob called a “frequent flyer card,” the punch-out discount coupon that offered a free rental with every ten.
“You like scary movies?” she said, sounding lame even to herself. Some hottie hits you with a word like oeuvre, you wanted to come back with milieu or something. But the only French she could think of at the moment was “fries.”
“Yeah,” Dempsey said. “Monsters, ghosts, serial killers, splat pack, torture porn, you name it. The Asians are cranking out some great stuff, too.”
Fatback Bob had built a tower of horror movies near the front of the store, since Halloween was less than a week away. Dempsey pointed at it and said, “Seen most of these.”
A mousy-haired old woman who might have been a school teacher playing hooky was the only other customer. Crystal had nicknamed her “Madame Fingers” because of her shoplifting habit. Madame Fingers looked up from her browsing of the comedy films and flared her nostrils as if smelling dog crap or the latest Adam Sandler vehicle.
“I don’t watch much horror,” Crystal said. An invisible elbow dug into her ribs.
Talk about your horror. Dead friends sure can be annoying.
Dempsey took his rentals from her. “That’s cool,” he said, with so much cool he oozed disdain. “What do you watch?”
“Romantic comedies.”
Snort. “Chick flicks.”
“I watch the classics, too.”
“Shirley Temple doesn’t count.”
“I’ve heard of what’s-his-name. You know, the ‘Citizen Kane’ guy.”
“Touché.” He tapped the vampire art on the DVD cover. “I make these.”
“Fangs?”
“Movies. I’m an auteur.”
“Wow.” She felt stupid.
“A director. And I write my own scripts. Package deal.”
The chuckle came again, and Crystal just knew what Bone was thinking: Heh, heh, he said “package.”
“Cool beans and ice rice.” Crystal was annoyed by her need to impress Dempsey. After all, she and Pettigrew had been dating for a couple of years, and he had been there for her through the funeral, the school drop-out, and the long bout of depression.
But maybe this wasn’t about Dempsey. After all, she had her own personal audience, an invisible friend with a ringside seat to her foibles, flirts, farts, and flat-on-her-buns falls from grace.
“I do horror,” he said. “I’ll bring you one in and let you check it out.”
“I can’t wait.” Her lips felt like cotton candy.
He smirked. “If you can handle it.”
“What a jerk,” said the dead girl beside them, but Dempsey couldn’t hear. Only Crystal.
Lucky me. I wish she’d go solid, so Dempsey can see I’m the better-looking one.
He scraped the movies off the counter and headed for the exit, the silver chains on his jacket jingling with a mixture of menace and mirth.
&nb
sp; He was halfway to the front door when the Orifice opened wider. It appeared first as a black dot of jelly on the wall beneath a Warner Brothers poster. Spreading outward, it soon covered an area the size of a basketball. Gurgling, belching noises issued from inside. It grew deeper and wider, glistening with oily dew.
Dempsey crinkled his nose and walked past the yawning cavern. Inside it, green slime dripped from stalactites that hung like demon teeth. The cavern seemed to breathe, exhaling a putrid wind that rivaled Fatback Bob’s chili farts. A shadowy form stirred in the depths, swaying like a sea anemone.
“Want popcorn with that?” she called after Dempsey, pimping Fatback Bob’s five-gallon bags of stale, buttery popcorn that were stacked like sandbags by the counter, blocking out the rows of Goobers, Good-n-Plenty, and licorice twists.
Dempsey gave one last backward glance at Crystal, grinning as if he’d won over another fan. “I like my horror raw.”
Then he shoved open the front door and escaped into the sunlight.
“Loser,” Bone said, flickering beside Crystal. It wasn’t a full materialization, more like a game of existential peek-a-boo probably designed to annoy Crystal and remind her that Tweeners could do things that Breathers could only dream about.
Crystal was appropriately annoyed. “Don’t do that.”
“That’s my job. You were giving him the eye and I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“No, I meant don’t just go solid while other people are around.” Crystal checked the store’s lone customer. Madame Fingers was muttering and fidgeting with her oversize handbag, too obsessed with her shoplifting to notice a little thing like a ghost.
“Hey, we’re cool. She can’t see me.”
“Good, because your hair’s a wreck.”
Scott Nicholson Library Vol 2 Page 84
