Podcasts and other things you should check out...

I'm often asked who I'm listening to, reading and watching so I thought I'd take a minute to give credit where credit is due. Check these out for yourself, you'll be glad you did.


I spend a lot of time driving, so I tend to listen to a lot of audiobooks, podcasts and audio dramas. However, as I'm a huge fan of horror (and zombies in particular), you may find my selections a bit specific. In no particular order;


For zombie news, movie reviews (not always zombie movies), views, interviews and some very cool original music, Corey Graham and the "Midnight Corey" podcast is among the best of the best. You can find the cast at his site as well as on iTunes. Corey is also undertaking all aspects of the creation and filming of his first (and I'm sure not the last) independent film as well as posting vblogs in a sort of "running documentary" detailing his experiences from start to finish on his film. You can find those vblogs on his site as well as on You Tube.

If you like horror, check out my friend RootRot's (that's MrRootRot to all you twitiots out there) blog and his all-new companion podcast at The Witch's Hat. RootRot is one of the true pioneers of horror podcasting, once helming the Midnight Podcast, and knows his blogging and casting well. News, reviews, guest contributors...if it's going on in horror, or if you want to see some rather genre-educated fellows speak their minds in articles, reviews and debates, look no further.

For the very best in horror audio drama, movie and book reviews, horror-related parodies of classic rock tunes and a healthy dose of creepy, "jus' folks" wisdom you need to check out Dr. Puss over at the Library of Horror and the Library of the Living Dead. You'll find forums, news and links to his fantastic podcasts as well as information on his two publishing imprints (of the same names as his casts). The Good Doctor is shambling in more directions at once than a hungry zombie in a room full of Mensa members (get it? Hope so.), but he keeps it together admirably.



To hear one man's tale of his struggle for survival in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, you need to go to my good friend David Maynard's (Undead Muffin to you zombie fans) site and immediately start listening to Among the Dead . Follow Simon Richards as he fights his way through the dead and living alike to get back to his beloved Old Kentucky Home.




Like comics, fantasy/sci-fi/horror movies and all things appropriately geek? You do? Great. For news, reviews and interviews check out McPierce at the Little Dead podcast and get your geek on.

Love zombies? How about sci-fi? What's your feelings on mechs (...you know, mechs? Giant robot battle machines? No? Really? Well, don't sweat it, you'll like these...)? If any of these things trips the trigger on your plasma cannon or fuels your zombie chainsaws, check out Jake Bible's "Dead Mech" audio drama (and soon to be hardcopy novel) done completely in the drabble style (...you know, drabble? Fiction in exactly 100-word chunks? No? Well... aw screw it, you'll like it.). Check out the rest of his stuff while you're at it, just politely refuse if he offers you a cup of his wussy coffee...

Another great zombie audio drama comes from the folks at the "We're Alive" site. You'll be hooked after the first installment. They were on hiatus for awhile but started back up again last moth. The story so far is many, many hours long and is well worth catching up on.

Check out James Melzer for his audio dramas (and more) "The Zombie Chronicles" and his more recent novella, "Hull's Landing". He's quite the talented fellow.

If your tastes run more to fantasy and alternate planes, do go check out" The Byron Chronicles "by Eric Busby, brought to you by the good people at Darker Projects. This is definately quality audio drama. And while you're there, check out another fine zombie audio drama from Darker Projects, "Autumn".

No matter what kind of fiction you prefer, you can find a lot of it at podiobooks.com and similar sites, all free for the downloading. Serialized works, novels, anthologies and non-fiction works are just sitting there, waiting for you to put them on your mp3 player. I highly recommend them.

There are so many more fine podcasts and audio dramas out there, all handcrafted by their creators' hard work completely free for the downloading. Sorry if I missed anyone. I feel that podcasts and Creative Commons licensing of intellectual properties is the frontier of modern fiction and creative endeavor. And thanks to the likes of Scott Sigler, this "free entertainment" has now crossed the threshold into a fantastic direct marketing and advertising opportunity for unknown and semi-known authors alike, giving them the ability to have their work out there for public consumption and build a listener/readership at little cost to them and free for listeners/readers while still being protected by their Creative Commons. If you're not a listener, you'd do well to give podcasts and audio fiction a shot.

That's all for now. Happy reading/listening. And, just write, damn it.

Angel Dude - Fiction

Angel Dude
by Eric R. Lowther

This story has the distinction of having been accepted by not one but two different print publications in its lifetime. However, both publications failed and shut their doors before Angel Dude could see print. Just to prove I'm not superstitious, I'll put it here now. If Blogger shuts down inside a week, it ain't my fault... Author


Vanessa tried to cry out but the gag in her mouth turned it to a muffled sigh. Her hands and ankles had been bound together, the room around her lightless. All she could tell was she was indoors on hard concrete that stunk of urine and sweat. She tried to shift her weight and was rewarded with a spasm from her shattered knee that nearly caused her to black out.

She’d arrived in the desert just three days before and was in a convoy on her way to her first assignment when the ambush came. Vanessa remembered nothing, no grand heroics or staving off the enemy hordes with nothing but a bayonet and PMS; nothing, until the here and now. The realization of her predicament came to her, as did the stories they had told about what happened to female POW’s. She struggled anew as these demons flew threw her mind until the pain blocked out everything.

###

Vanessa woke again, this time to the sounds of men speaking in an alien tongue and stabbing light across the darkness. Blinded, she could only whimper as shuffling footsteps sounded across the floor. Rough hands grabbed her, hauled her up, sending new waves of pain through her leg. She cried against the gag and made a feeble struggle before a fist landed on the back of her head. Vanessa slumped in their grasp, the futility of her situation slipping softly yet firmly into her mind as she tried instead to concentrate on memories of home, of the parents she had lost long ago and the grandparents that had raised her. The locket her father had given her the very night her parents left her world was still around her neck. They had been young, teenagers really, when they died in a car accident. She concentrated on the few real memories she had of them as her knee barked off something hard and unyielding.

Vanessa's vision swam as she was deposited into a chair. Her knee screamed as it was forced to bend, accompanied by the thin, grating sound of bone against bone. Looking down through pain–squinted eyes she found blood spatters running up her body. She couldn’t see the damage to her knee from this angle, and part of her suggested she didn’t want to. She looked up and found herself staring at three men. Only one was in a real uniform and barked orders at the others garbed in what seemed to be scavenged US Army fatigues. Not regular military. She would rather have dealt with the whole of the Republican Guard than a few psychotic zealots. Two of them took up positions to either side of her while the uniformed man pulled up a chair and put a foot on the seat. He smiled a wolf’s grin, and leaned down.

“Your father must not love you… why else would he send you here to die?” The officer’s heavily–accented breath stank worse than the room where she’d been kept. He nodded over her head. Fingers worked at the ties on her gag, finally pulling it away from her face. “There…” the officer said, still grinning. “Maybe now we can hear your beautiful voice.” Vanessa gasped a few times, rejoicing in even this small freedom.

“Miller…” she coughed. “…specialist…” The back of the officer’s hand snaked out and smacked her full across the mouth without losing his grin.

“I didn’t ask you a question, American whore…” He kicked his foot off the chair, sending it skidding across the floor. Vanessa winced as a hand grabbed her chin from behind and pulled her head back until she could see her captors' beards hovering over her. The officer grabbed roughly at her neck and came away with her ID tags, her small locket an innocent victim of the attack. She didn’t have to see to know that her dog tag chain had burned a mark across the back of her neck before surrendering. “Miller, Vanessa M.” the officer read off the tag as he dangled it in the florescent light. “Hmm. No religious preference. Better to be a godless whore, eh?” He turned the tags over in his hand and found her small silver locket dangling from the tiny, mangled chain that had wound tightly with the ball links from her ID. “Do you know why your American military lets women alongside its men?” he asked offhandedly. “It is not because you can be soldiers. It is not because they believe you are equal. You are glorified… how is it said… camp followers. You do not soldier for your country… you whore for it!”

He righted his chair and sat down heavily. Vanessa watched him turning her locket over in his grimy, blood–stained hands. She could only guess what had become of the rest of her company. The officer lit an American cigarette from a battered and bloodstained pack, inhaled deeply and sighed. “I spent time in your country; learned your language, your customs, went to your colleges. And the only good thing I found about America was its cigarettes. So!” he said quickly, loudly, “Where were you going in my country? Where were they sending you to kill my people?”

Vanessa bit her bottom lip. She was in an impossible situation, and the blood on his cigarette punctuated her predicament. His smile turned to a snarl as he lashed out with his foot, crashing into her shattered knee with the force of a freight train. She gasped and spasmed from her chair as her world went white, and when she hit the floor this time she found the power to scream. The men behind her joined in chorus, screaming to the greatness of their god as she writhed. Blood pounded in her ears washed out the cries, and it was an eternity before she was able to focus on the officer’s face. “When I ask a question, you will answer it. Immediately.” He flicked ashes on her and turned away, his attention now on her jewelry. “And what do we have here; perhaps a picture of a mother that would sell you to capitalism, maybe a photo of the father that would whore you to Satan?”

Vanessa’s mind flew back to her childhood as he worked the tiny latch on her locket. It didn’t have photos of either of her parents or even her beloved grandparents. What it did have was what her grandmother used to call her Guardian Angel. At least, that was what she'd called it until many years later when Vanessa actually took a good look at the picture inside. Her parents had matured enough to reasonably care for their accidental infant, but in many ways they'd still been free-wheeling teenagers. Her father had played in bands and worked part time in a record store with her mother before they died, and much of their world revolved around the music of the day. Big hair, screeching guitars and rock ‘n’ roll excess was the order of the day when they weren’t with little Vanessa. The picture in the locket had started out as a joke, really, cut from a flyer at the record store and pasted into the dime store trinket. Conventional? No. But, to a grandmother trying to explain death to a little girl it served as a salve, a way to assure tiny Vanessa that her parents hadn’t left her completely alone.

“Your mommy and daddy had to go to heaven,” her grandmother told her, “but they didn’t leave you alone. You have grandpa and me, but they also left you something very special here in this locket. It’s your own Guardian Angel.” But Vanessa’s sharp eyes picked out detail in the tiny picture that the older woman’s simply couldn’t. She almost smiled as she remembered it and turned her face towards the floor to hide the emotion from her tormentors.

“You claim no faith, yet you carry a false angel of a false god? I will never understand Americans.” the officer said, his back still turned to her. She looked up from the floor, his voice chasing away the memories. He turned to face her, though he still seemed to be staring intently at the open locket. “Ah! I see now! Not only are you godless, you even go so far as to mock. You do not even exist in the eyes of Allah. You are nothing but meat. I think I shall keep this after you are gone, to remind me that Americans respect nothing.” He wrapped the thin chain around his right hand and advanced. “Now, I ask only once more. Where were you going?”

Vanessa held no value in his eyes, and even if she wanted to tell him what he wanted to know it wouldn’t matter. Theirs was not a sensitive operation, nothing more than delivering reinforcements and supplies. He wouldn’t be happy with her answers, and she knew full well from the stories what fate awaited her. The thought made her skin crawl. It also delayed her answer enough to enrage the officer. Vanessa could see his foot coming but could do nothing about it. The pain was incredible, worse than she’d ever felt. She sat up out of reflex and was rewarded with a sound punch to the face. Her world went black as she crumpled into glorious unconsciousness.

Her interogator stood over her and smiled. He knew American soldiers to be soft of both mind and spirit, but he'd hoped that the woman would've been stronger than she appeared. The men would have to wait awhile longer. She was a faithless, godless whore. No act would be too cruel to visit upon her flesh. He looked down at his hand. The cheap jewelry hadn’t fared any better than its owner. The chain had broken and the two pieces of the locket had come apart. He looked down and saw the tiny image from the album cover for Van Halen’s 1984 stained in the young woman’s blood. “Allahu Akbar…” he said in a rough whisper and brought his foot down, meaning to bury the profane image under his boot heel. But before his boot could touche the ground an invisible force shoved upward from the floor against him, taking him off his feet and sending him crashing against the wall. His soldiers rushed towards him only to be thrown to the floor by the unseen hands themselves.

###

The officer blinked several times and rolled to his side, feeling the trickles of blood tickling his hair as they rolled down the back of his head. He called out to the others and got only groans in response. Slowly, he made it to trembling legs to find a dim, shimmering light situated on the long table at the center of the room. He squinted through the light then blinked several times. A large, naked infant sat at the center of the table. Chubby and pale with a full head of wavy hair, the child regarded him with a wide smile and flapping its small, feathery wings. The other men had gotten to their feet and were likewise transfixed. They exchanged confused glances, confirming they all saw the same thing. Hands reached for weapons as the baby produced a cigarette from thin air and tapped it on the table.

“Dude! Ahmed! Man, you got a light?” the baby said, its voice California surfer–chic. Hands stopped and minds froze. Had it just spoke? The baby looked at each in turn. “That’s cool, guys. I’ll get it.” He stared at the end of his cigarette for a moment and watched as it came to life in a thin puff of smoke. The baby took a drag from the cigarette, stretched his tiny arms and groaned. “Man, you wouldn’t believe how cramped it is in there! God…oh! Sorry, Big Dude!” he said with a sheepish look to the ceiling.

“What…” Ahmed stammered.

“So you dudes got beers or somethin? Maybe a Coke? Huh? No? Have you looked next to the deodorant and razors…?” The cherub wrinkled his nose, rubbed his smooth face and laughed. “Just messin with you, scruffy dudes! But you gotta’ have tunes, though… right? Right?” He was met only with slack–jawed silence. “Damn… you dudes are kinda lame.”

“…an American devil!” one of the men blurted.

“Devil? No, scruffy dude, that ain’t my team. Maybe you didn’t see these bitchin wings?” The cherub flapped them a few times for emphasis. “I’m an angel…” A peal of thunder suddenly rolled through the cloudless sky outside, cutting him off. “Geez… okay, Big Dude… I’m a cherub. It’s kinda like an angel though…” He looked up expectantly for a moment then smiled back at them when the sky remained silent. The men looked between them, unsure how to react. Ahmed took a step forward, his hand hovering over his pistol.

“You know my name?” Ahmed said.

The cherub rolled his eyes and exhaled an impossibly large plume of smoke. “Dude… cherub here? Huh? God’s messengers? Little angel dudes?” He looked at each in turn then shook his head. “This is gonna be harder than I thought…” he mumbled. “Look, Ahmed. I’m what some dudes call a guardian angel…” He paused for a moment and looked skyward. With no apparent sounds of holy displeasure at his self-description he continued. “The chick’s had a rough life, so the Big Dude asked me to keep an eye on her; been pretty boring up to now. You dudes sure you ain’t got any beers around here?”

One of the men had regained his composure and slid the rifle from his shoulder. “Ahmed, it is a trick! This is a devil…”

“An American devil…” the other hissed, his pistol slowly rising from his holster.

“Do nothing without my command…” Ahmed warned them softly. “Why are you here?”

“Dude… do I have to break out the sock puppets or somethin? Try to wrap your head ‘round this one… I’m her guardian angel. You’ve been playin Ike to her Tina. What part of this scene ain’t comin together for you?” The cherub stubbed his cigarette on the table and had another burning in his chubby fingers before the embers of the first had died. “Oh! Right, man! I get it now. You dudes are into that whole ‘God is Great’ thing. Well, scruffy dudes, He really is great and all. But you dudes got it all wrong, man. I mean, you and me, we're both down with the Big Dude and all. But you’ve got a few wires crossed on His whole gig, man. Oh… here…wait a sec, dudes. I love this one. You got the whole seventy–something virgins thing happening, right? Check this out…”

Half a dozen women dressed in flowing burkas and heavy veils appeared at the back of the room behind the cherub. The men instantly trained their weapons on the newcomers and looked sidelong at their commander. “Okay, virginal mamas… show the boys what’s waiting for ‘em on the other side.” As one, they lifted their veils, revealing six of the ugliest women any man alive had ever seen. Lazy eyes and horrible acne prevailed with perhaps a dozen good teeth in the group. The women smiled as seductively as their visages would allow. “Damn! Homely, ain’t they?” The cherub said to one of the men, his look of disgust evident. “Dude… didn’t you ever stop to think why they were virgins in the first place? It ain't exactly by choice.” The women disappeared suddenly, causing the men to instantly swing their weapons to the cherub.

“Lies!” Ahmed cried. “All lies!”

“Yeah… sure; like the Big Dude would enslave a bunch of chicks for each of you that blows himself up. You think He got His job by doing stupid shit like that?” He sighed and looked around the room. “Look. I’m gonna’ make this real simple; you guys clear out and skate. You live, she lives, and everybody’s cool.”

“And what if we do not leave? What if we kill her, the other American dogs and you? What then?” Ahmed growled.

“Wow… some dudes just don’t get it, do they? Dude, do I look like somebody you know? Huh? Do you think Copperfield farted and here I am, like with mirrors or somethin? Hello! Divine creature appearing from the ether here! No wonder you dudes still live in the desert…”

“Allahu Akbar!” the man with the rifle screamed. He opened fire, causing the rest to fire as well. Bullets crashed into the cherub and gun smoke filled the air as his small body rocked violently off the table. Ahmed screamed for his men to hold their fire and tried to wave away some of the smoke. The three stared at the end of the table for several seconds, gunfire still in their ears.

Ahmed waved for them to move around the table while he moved forward, pistol extended. A tiny, blood–streaked hand suddenly slapped the tabletop from below, followed by the other. The cherub slowly pulled himself back up onto the table, using a few flaps from his small wings to lift his bottom back up to a sitting position. The men watched in horror as the terrible wounds started to glow, then closed. In moments, the cherub was whole and unmarred. The orbits where his soft, laughing eyes had been only moments before were now black voids that seemed to suck the light away from the room.

“I tried to be nice to you dudes. Even when you didn’t have beers or tunes…” The cherub’s voice had changed to a hollow, menacing tone that seemed to reverberate off their bones. “Big Dude… I tried it the way You wanted… they ain’t gettin it…” An intense, white–hot wave of light suddenly shot from his hollow eyes, blinding everyone in the room.

###

Ahmed was the first to recover. When he could see, he fell back against the wall, eyes wide with terror. The cherub was no more; in the ashen remains of the table stood a huge, heavenly–sculpted man. Long, shimmering wings protruded from his perfect shoulders, his body glowing with an inner light. But the eyes had remained hollow, dead and lightless, the only mar in otherwise perfection. Ahmed raised his weapon feebly, knowing that it would do no good. The soldier with the rifle had dropped his weapon and was on his knees in fervent, terrified prayer. The other fell back against the wall, mumbling “Allahu Akbar” over and over.

“You’re wrong, scruffy dude…” the angel said as he started to move towards them. “He’s not just great… the Big Dude’s fuckin awesome…”


Copyright Eric R. Lowther

Buyer Beware - Fiction

Buyer Beware
by Eric R. Lowther

Originally published in Blood, Blade and Thruster e-zine, now defunct, 2007

This is what happened when the Author mixed a 24 hour Twilight Zone marathon with far too much coffee... Author

The ancient brass bell clanged noisily against the battered wooden door as Bob walked into the store. Charlie’s Antiquities, the sign had read. All manner of junk hung from the walls and tables overflowing with wares looking both decrepit and exotic crowded the single aisle that ran from the door to the counter. A small Chinese man, equally as ancient if not more so than the tarnished bell stood behind the counter smoking a long, thin pipe. Bob tried to look nonchalant as he fingered a few of the items clustered on the tables, but the exceedingly dim light of the shop made squinting and staring a necessity.

“I can help you.” the old man said softly in thickly–accented English. Bob strolled easily to the counter, running his fingers along old toys and milk cans as he went.

“Can you?” Bob asked with a smile.

“Yes.” the old man answered through the blue–tinged haze gathering under a hanging bulb over the counter, the only strong light to be had in the store. “Are you looking for something special?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly. Just browsing. Christmas is just a week away, you know?” he said conversationally.

“Is it?” the old man asked. His intonation almost made Bob believe this was new information to him.

“Uh, yeah. It is.” Bob shot him a look then scanned the wall behind the shopkeeper. All sorts of bizarre items stared back at him, some with actual eyes. “My wife and daughter are a bit eclectic.”

“I am sorry. Perhaps the proper medicines would help?” the old man asked, concerned.

“What? Oh… no.” Bob said, trying to hide his laugh. “Eclectic, not epileptic. They like unusual things, odd things.”

“Then you have arrived at the proper place at the proper time.” he said simply.

“Have I? Hmm.” He looked around. “You certainly have quite the collection of the unusual and odd, don’t you? Charlie, is it?”

“Yes.”

Bob cocked an eyebrow at him, unsure if the same answer was for both questions. “Well, since it seems your shop was not designed for the casual browser, perhaps you can show me a few things you think they might like?”

Charlie smiled beneath his thin yet trailing moustache and sucked on his pipe thoughtfully. He reached behind him without looking and pulled an odd, blackened lump from a peg on the wall and set it on the counter for Bob’s inspection.

“It looks like a mummified… hand?” Bob asked.

“It is a paw.” Charlie answered. Bob put a tentative finger to the desiccated flesh and immediately recoiled.

“Hey… wait a minute. This isn’t one of those monkey’s paw things is it?”

“It is a monkey’s paw, yes.” Charlie answered.

“The type that grants you three wishes, but when you get the wishes you get really horrible things along with them, right?”

Charlie looked up at him from bushy white eyebrows and nodded slowly. “You are an informed consumer.”

“I try to be.” Bob said easily. “Little too exotic for my tastes. What else do you have?”

Charlie put the paw back on its peg then rummaged under the counter a moment before coming up with a large, ornate camera. “A very old and valuable camera. A collector’s item.” Bob hefted the old camera and looked it over from every angle.

“This would go great in the den. Just one thing though. Can you guarantee me this camera isn’t the type that steals the souls of the people you photograph with it? I also have a young son that’s very precocious, you see, and that type of thing would really be bad when my daughter has her slumber parties.” Charlie eyed Bob suspiciously and put the camera back to its place.
“I cannot make such assurances.”

“Thanks for your honesty. I can’t keep a gun in the house because the little man just gets into everything. I thought for a minute there you were trying to pawn off a cursed object on me. What else do you have?” Charlie put his pipe down and shuffled to a spot on the wall. He came back with a finely–crafted porcelain doll, obviously very old and obviously very valuable to a collector. “Now that’s more like it.” Bob said. “They both collect dolls. They’ll fight over this beauty.” He gently took it from Charlie’s age–palsied hands and held it up to the light. The doll’s eyes rolled in her head as if in slumber when he tipped her back then popped open again when righted. Charlie squinted at those eyes for a minute then looked back to the shop keep. “Uh, wait a sec’. This isn’t one that comes alive and tries to kill people, is it?”

“Of course not.” Charlie answered almost indignantly.

“Oh… well, good. I think… oh… wait… it doesn’t try to convince children to kill for them, does it?” Again Charlie frowned, this time accompanied by a long sigh as he took the doll from him and roughly tossed it back on the shelf. He bent so low to the floor behind the counter that he disappeared from view for a few moments before coming back up with a beautifully carved ivory hand mirror. Bob whistled in appreciation and gently received it. “Wow. Real ivory, huh?” Charlie nodded at him warily. “You can’t get this stuff anymore, you know?”

“Yes. I know.” Charlie answered. His demeanor seemed a bit agitated now. Bob checked his reflection in the mirror and fingered a small nick he’d got while shaving that morning.

“Now, just tell me this thing doesn’t sap the beauty and youth from someone when they stare into it and you can wrap it up for me.”

Charlie raised his head slowly and stared at the ceiling for a moment, his lips moving without sound before he grabbed the mirror from him and simply dropped it back into the box on the floor. “You seem to have a great deal of knowledge about antiquities.” Charlie said, softly with just a hint of menace.

“Thank you.” Bob answered honestly. “I watch Road Show every Sunday.”

“I hate that show.” Charlie mumbled under his breath. He came out from behind the counter and went to another wall. Pulling a finely–carved box from a shelf, he blew the dust from the top and walked it back to Bob. “Your daughter will enjoy this, I think.”

Bob took the delicate box and slowly lifted the lid. A tiny porcelain ballerina popped up and started to spin to the hauntingly beautiful music coming from within. Bob smiled and watched the twirling figure for a moment before looking into the box. He hefted it experimentally, then put it to his ear and shook it gently. “Hmm. Pretty light for a music box. Like there’s nothing in it to make the music. I suppose you have a warranty against the tune driving the listener into madness, right?”

Exasperated, Charlie plucked the box from his hands and threw it onto a nearby table, knocking an unidentifiable pile of wares to the floor. Bob looked at the nine-inch tall Zuni fetish doll with the grotesque head and exceptionally tiny though sharp spear that had fallen to the floor then back to Charlie. The old shopkeeper turned away from him with a hand up, warning him away from comment as he got back behind the counter. Bob shrugged and waited for Charlie’s attentions to come back to him. He peered on the wall just above Charlie’s head and pointed. “What’s that?”

Charlie brightened just a bit and took the small statue from the shelf and handed it to Bob. “This looks just like the cursed idol from that episode of the Brady…” Charlie took it and immediately put it back on the shelf. “Charlie? You ok? Your face is awfully red…”

“I am… fine.” he said slowly and breathing deeply. “Ah. I know.” He rummaged under the counter once more and came up with a short ventriloquist’s dummy done up to look like Howdy–Doody, though not him for obvious intellectual property reasons.

“Hey, it’s Howdy–Doody time!” Bob cheered. “Now that would go great in my son’s room. Unless of course it comes alive and tries to posses people…” Charlie simply let the dummy fall heavily to the floor. “Well, I told you he was precocious. The last thing I need to do is to give him an excuse to misbehave.”

“Yes. We wouldn’t want him to do you any harm, would we?” Charlie said dreamily. Obviously his mind was elsewhere.

“Oh! You must have children.” Bob said cheerily. “You know how they can be. Give ‘em an inch and all.”

“Yes.” Charlie answered tightly.

“You know, I really appreciate your being honest with me about these things. I mean, if I didn’t ask I could walk out of here with a cursed item or something.”

“Yes. Yes you could.” he said, even more tightly.

“Look, you have a lot of really interesting stuff here. But I have to ask you… is everything in this shop cursed?”

Charlie sighed, though this time it was the utter embodiment of defeat. “Not everything.” Charlie answered. “Well, almost everything.”

“So… why exactly do you try to sell cursed things to people? I mean, are you, like, a vengeful spirit or some sort of demon or something?”

“No. I sell people things that will hurt them, kill them, drive them mad because, quite simply I am… how would you say it in your tongue… an ass-hole.”

“No other motivation, huh? Not trying to teach a moral lesson or steal souls or anything like that? You just do it to be a dick?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Well again, I appreciate your candor. In fact, I find it refreshing.” He looked around the room again, this time settling his eyes on a soft, red glow from a corner. “Hey, what do we have here?” He walked towards it and found an old Coke machine. It was in perfect condition but had to be from at least the fifties. “Oh, man! This would go fantastic in the garage. I just restored a ’57 Chevy and I decorated my garage with all kinds of tintypes, old pin–up calendars and stuff. This thing would fit in perfectly. Does it still work?”

“Yes.” Charlie said, his voice still full of defeat.

Bob ran his hand over it and opened it. Of course, it was empty. But it was icy cold inside. “And it’s not going to fill with blood or anything, right?”

“No.” Charlie answered slowly with cautious enthusiasm.

“Like, a dead body isn’t going to appear in it or anything, right?”

“No.” Charlie repeated, his chin coming up off his chest.

Bob’s smile beamed. “I’ll take it!”

***

Bob whistled a bright tune as he ran an appreciative hand over the fender of his prized Chevy then went to the Coke machine. He opened it, pulled a frosty bottle from inside and used the bottle opener even though Coke had long ago gone to twist–offs on its glass bottles. You couldn’t get the tall glass bottles anymore, but you could still find the short ones in the traditional style.

He sat down on the shop stool, held his drink up in salute to the classic sitting in his garage then took a long, deep pull from the bottle. He swallowed, frowned then looked down inside the neck of the bottle. He took another experimental sip and swished it around in his mouth for good measure. Still frowning, he went back to the cooler and pulled another bottle. He opened it and took a sip, set it down and pulled another, then another. They were all flat as a board.

“Asshole…”

Copyright Eric R. Lowther

The Taxman Cometh - Fiction

"The Taxman Cometh"
by Eric R. Lowther

First appearing on the Guest Author section of www.edgeofpropinquity.com
December 2008

Vampires don't sparkle. They're cold-blooded killers with the need to feed not only from human blood but human misery. But still, there are worse things in this world... Author

Even sitting, the assassin could nearly look him in the eye. Paul swallowed hard and scanned the seedy bar nervously. “You Willows?” the big man asked, eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

“Uh…yes…” he answered softly.

“You’re late.” He pushed his thick, black mane behind his shoulder and picked up an empty glass. “Tremaine was warned.”

“I’ve worked with Don Tremaine for ten years. When that…that bastard took my little girl…he was the only one that would believe me. He told me what you do…that you helped him…”

“Help implies I did it for free. He paid.” He poured several fingers, downed it then lit a cigarette. “Talk.”

“Well… I… I work for the IRS, you see, and…”

“Get to the point.”

“The point… yes… I took my daughter Jeanine to a banquet for the agency. We had a guest speaker, Henri Destault, a French financier. Afterwards, Destault sent for my daughter and me to join him…”

“Stop…” the assassin said, holding up a gloved hand. “Destault wined you, dined you, you left. You could swear you were with your daughter, turns out she never left. When you went looking some goons told you to scram. Through whatever means, you found out at least something of Destault’s true nature. Now she’s dead and you’re looking for revenge but couching it in the noble stance of making sure that some other poor, innocent girl doesn’t fall to the same fate. Warm?” Paul was taken aback at the primitive encapsulation of the last three weeks.

“I… yes.The police are useless. They wouldn’t believe me. When I saw his eyes glow and those… those fangs… they found her body down at the pier… that’s when Don told me about you…”

“Then you know I don’t come cheap. Very specialized line of work, Willows.”

Paul reached into his coat and pulled out a fat envelope. “$125,000. It’s my life savings.” Shakespeare glanced at the envelope and polished off another glass.
“I should stake you for wasting my time.”

“I thought I could give you the rest in a few weeks. I’ll have to mortgage my home…”

“You’re kidding, right? I don’t have a fucking layaway plan.”

“…please… that monster killed my daughter! I don’t have anywhere else to turn…”

“Look Willows… I’m gonna be straight with you. I know who Destault is and I know what he is, one of the oldest vampires in Europe today. You can mortgage your house, sell your car, your dead daughter’s jewelry for all that matters, and you still wouldn’t have enough. Buy a lottery ticket. If you hit, let me know.”

“He has to be stopped!” Paul said loudly. The assassin looked up slowly. “I’m sorry…but…”

“Destault is a bad, bad man Willows. A vampire doesn’t stay around for centuries without being one. But one at Destault’s age, not to mention he’s got a few hundred million to stand on… piece of free advice? Forget about Destault.”

“I can’t do that…” Paul whispered hoarsely. “He killed my daughter.”

The assassin stood up and smoothed his long leather coat. He was even larger than Paul had first thought. “Look, Willows. I have a reputation. If I did this for nothing, every sharecropper with a junior vamp in the field would be running after me.”

“Then I’ll do it myself.” he said more firmly than he actually felt.

“Then you’ll die. Or worse. You’re a CPA, right? How would you like him to turn you then put you to work for the next hundred years or so, burying all of his companies’ dirty little secrets? The guy’s got his fingers into a dozen different companies, some legal, some not. Go home, get drunk, have a good cry and put all this away in a little box somewhere.”

“My wife died three years ago… I just buried my daughter… I have nothing else...”

“Bent on committing suicide? Cool. I suggest you do it in the pedestrian style and choke on a barrel. Better than how he’d kill you or being turned. I’d hate somebody to come to me one day that has the money to put a mark on you.”

***

Paul turned the conversation over in his mind as he drove. The big man was right, of course. He stopped for a red light, pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. A bus pulled alongside with a large advertisement plastered down its length, drawing his eye. He slid on his glasses and found an ad for a large accounting firm. The sign warned him that without their services, he would surely be audited. Paul smiled despite his mood as he and the bus parted. It amazed him that audits scared the average person. You only had to worry if you had something to hide.

At the next intersection, he sat long after the light had turned green, the horns of those behind him finally moving him along.

By the next block, the man that had just buried his daughter was truly smiling.

***

Henri Destault was a man of impeccable taste. After all, what was the point of immortality if one couldn’t enjoy it? He fingered the thick, exquisite blackout drapes that allowed him to conduct his affairs in the light of day. The sun had just set, and he was to be at a charity banquet in an hour. This one, a benefit to help an orphanage in Laos, served to cover a slavery ring that kept many of the most important vampires in Europe stocked with fresh blood without the mess of hunting. The phone on his desk chimed, breaking the silence.

“Mr. Destault, there’s someone here to see you. An Agent Willows of the Internal Revenue Service…”

“The IRS? Tell the agent I will be happy to speak to him Monday morning.” There was a long pause then the secretary’s voice, somewhat pinched.

“I don’t think that’s an option, Mr. Destault. He has a court order. Several of them.”

“Does he now? Send him in.” Destault recognized the agent’s face as soon as he walked in though the name escaped him, a common problem for one that had met so many over the centuries.

“Good evening, Agent…?” Destault began.

Paul stared hard at the vampire. It had been more than a year since he had encountered the creature. Of course, Destault hadn’t changed. But Paul had changed; physically as well as mentally. His first delving into Destault’s corporation produced questionable accounting. He followed the trail of code violations and misappropriated, unexplained funds through twelve different corporations, finally proving links back to Destault himself. But he’d done more than that in the past year. He’d transferred into field work in preparation for this very day, had worked nearly as hard on toughening his body as well as his mind. Gone was the gentle, abused man that had lost his daughter to this monster. In his place stood a new Paul Willows, this one armed with a court order and a Colt Delta. “Agent Willows, Internal Revenue Service.” he said as he stopped in front of the desk.

“Well, then, Agent Willows. To what do I owe this late visit?”

Willows reached into his jacket, withdrew several envelopes and dropped one of them on the desk. “That, Mr. Destault, is a court order suspending fourteen corporations and charitable entities that show offices within the confines of the United States and her territories.” He slipped another onto the desk. “That is from the Immigration and Naturalization office, revoking your visa privileges. Your passport has likewise been suspended.”

“Agent Willows…” Destault sneered, “Surely we can work something out.” Destault continued to stare, seeking a way into his mind to bring this man to his knees like so many before. What he saw in Willows’ eyes was the image of a young girl, eyes bright as her smile, riding a bicycle.

“This…” Willows said without missing a beat, dropping another envelope, “Is a seizure notice. All accounts, real estate and other holdings have been seized by the United States government for investigation into criminal activities both corporate and personal assets, held in the United States and four other nations.”

“This is…highly irregular…” Destault hissed, still probing the agent’s mind. The image changed to one of the same girl many years later in a gown standing next to an equally dapper young man.

“I believe the highly irregular is something you should be well accustomed to, Mr. Destault.” Willows’ voice had taken an edge now, a bitter quality that Destault could easily perceive.

“I know you, Agent Willows. Have we met?”

“As a matter of fact we have, Mr. Destault. A year ago. You spoke at an Internal Revenue banquet I attended with my daughter.” Willow’s gaze hardened. He could feel the vampire trying to penetrate his defenses, feel the sweat on his upper lip form as he fought off the assault. “And these… these are search warrants for various documents, files and other matters of record.” He dropped all but one of the remaining envelopes.

“I do know you…” Destault’s professional mask melted as he smiled wickedly, displaying his fangs. “Ah, yes…what was her name? Jenna?”

“Jeanine.” Willows corrected. “My daughter’s name was Jeanine. She’s dead now.”

“So sorry to hear…” Destault said patronizingly. “She was quite the attractive young lady, if memory serves. But, this being business, let’s look at what we can do to ease this situation.” Without taking his eyes from Willows, Destault reached down and popped open a desk drawer. Willows pulled back the left side of his jacket, revealing his pistol and identification badge. Destault acknowledged the action with a deprecating smile and put a very large and bulging manila envelope beside the accumulating writs. “I have never been one to mix business with pleasure, Agent Willows. It is simply not…profitable. Being an intelligent man, even you can see that nothing good can come of this for either of us. But we can change that.”

“Mr. Destault, I must advise you that attempting to bribe an agent of the federal government...”

“Bribe? Agent Willows, you do me offense. I am sure you know of many good uses for a charitable donation, don’t you?”

“This last, Mr. Destault,” Paul said, holding up the last envelope, “this orders you to appear in my office at nine on Monday. Bring all relevant personal tax records, receipts and other documents. In short, Mr. Destault, you’re being audited.” Willows let a small smile slip across his face. “That’s nine a.m. Monday morning, in my office.”

Destault let out an inhuman hiss and brought his face as close to Willows as the desk allowed. “And they call me a vampire?” His voice was hollow, inhuman and lent no credence to the laughter at his own joke. “I advise you to take what is offered and leave at once else you shall join your precious daughter…”

“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible, Destault.” He drew his pistol and leveled it squarely with Destault’s forehead. The vampire seemed unaffected, even placing the tip of his finger on the weapon’s muzzle as if to plug it. Then he caught the argent scent in the air. “Yes, Mr. Destault. Silver.” Paul Willows had never felt so in control, so confident in his life. The slip of Destault’s smile vindicated him, made him feel the last year of his life had been worth the sleepless nights and endless records this creature had forced him to navigate.

“Agent Willows…” Destault said, laughing, “The room is soundproof. No one will ever know your fate. Still, it is fitting that you should die in the same room as your precious Jenna…”

“Jeanine.” he said flatly as he pulled the trigger, the silver bullet ripping the tip from Destault’s index finger. The vampire howled and cupped his damaged hand against his breast. Suddenly, the room filled with light as more than a dozen men in tactical gear broke through the door, their submachine guns sweeping the room. Destault roared then leapt through the window, shattering it as he sailed into the night air. Shocked at his exit, the agents could only shout or stare. Several of them broke away at the urging of their commander to the street below.

“Willows!” one of the men called to him. “What the hell just happened?”

“An unnatural fear of an audit.” He holstered his pistol and looked around the room. Other IRS agents had come in behind the tactical team. “Destault uses this floor and the one below.” Willows announced. “I want every file, every computer, and every speck of paper. Lieutenant Taylor, please see that my agents have the benefit of your protection in case they encounter hostility while discharging the warrants.” Willows looked down at the desk then scooped up the array of envelopes, securing them inside his jacket and zipping it to make sure the largest of them didn’t fall.

“Where are you going?” the lieutenant asked.

“I have to take care of a few loose ends. Let your superiors know they might as well put out an alert on Destault, for all the good it will do. You won’t catch him tonight.”

“Agent Willows, he just jumped from thirty stories…I think we’ll find him waiting on the sidewalk…” the officer stopped and put a finger over his ear bud, then looked back at Willows. “There’s nothing on the sidewalk except broken glass and a few pissed–off pedestrians…what the hell is going on here, Willows? Why did you discharge your weapon?”

“That will be in the report to my superiors, Lt…Taylor, is it?” Willows pulled a small notepad and thumbed a few pages. “Joshua K. Taylor? 727 West Palm? Funny, I thought that was you I saw getting out of that Audi back at the station. You only reported…hmm…$49,000 last year…” When he looked up from his notepad, the lieutenant was gone. Willows smiled. Life was good. It was about to get better.

***

A cold wind blew as the creature ran through the trees. Deprived of his worldly goods and severely limited in his options to flee the country, he was reduced to living like a whelp vampire, sleeping in abandoned buildings and feeding from bums and prostitutes. That was how the hunter had found him.

Destault slowed then crept to the edge of a clearing, his feral nature now firmly in control. He peered over a dead log and found the hunter a few yards away, staring at him. He hissed and put a large tree between them when he finally recognized the assassin. “Shakespeare…” Destault hissed.

“You do your homework.” the assassin said around his cigarette. “Just come out and I’ll be quick.” He held up his watch and tapped the crystal. “If I don’t kill you in ten minutes it’ll be like I’m doing it for free.”

“And who would pay you to slay me, eh? I have nothing left for my enemies save hate.”

“Apparently, there’s at least one guy that thinks your unlife worth the price. Come on. I’m missing Idol.”

Destault’s mind swam. Who would have paid? He knew enough of the inhuman vampire hunter to know his services came at an incredibly high price. “We can make a deal…”

“You have nothing. Besides, I think you already paid me.” Shakespeare pulled a large piece of heavy paper from his coat, folded it a few times then crashed it into Destault’s tree. Destault warily reached around and picked up the neatly folded airplane. He opened it to find it had been made from a very large manila envelope; the same type he used in his office, the same type that had held two million in cash in his desk.

“Willows…” he roared.

“My kind of guy.” Shakespeare said. Destault crouched, turned and growled as he pushed back into the trees. Shakespeare shook his head slowly and started walking. “Fuck. A runner.”

Destault had not been feeding as well or often, and it showed in his flight. Briars caught and tore at the rags of his once–fine suit as he scrambled through the darkened woods. His foot suddenly broke through a soft, loamy ledge, sending him tumbling down a long, muddy embankment and finally into the knee–deep stream below. He roared in futility at the night sky accompanied by the sound of patronizing applause from the opposite bank a few feet away. There sat the hunter, slowly clapping his hands.

“For the consideration of the Academy…” he said, deadpan. Destault leapt, his claws reaching for the assassin. At the last moment, Shakespeare grabbed an outstretched wrist and spun his body, sending Destault crashing against a large weeping willow that had nearly taken over the bank. “You’re slow, Destault. What’s the matter? Hungry?” The vampire scrambled to his feet and crouched, waiting to pounce. Shakespeare stood to his full height and flicked his dying cigarette away. “If that’s the way you want it...”

The assassin’s nonchalance sent Destault over the edge. Insult burning his mind, he launched himself again. Shakespeare twisted his body and lashed down with a punch that would have felled a bull to the base of the vampire’s neck. Destault’s momentum carried him past the bank, his upper body landing in the cold, fast-rushing water. He tried to move, but the assassin’s blow was well placed and had nearly severed his spinal column. He could feel his body trying to knit the bones back together, quiet the nerves in their raging fear and make his body whole again. But he was simply too weak for the process to take the few moments it normally would. Suddenly, he felt his whole body being lifted then thrown onto dry ground. He tried to raise his arms, but they would no more respond than his legs would. Destault looked up to see the hunter staring down at him, a long, polished stake of naked ash in hand.

“Take my advice, Destault. Don’t fuck with the IRS. Those guys are monsters…”

Copyright Eric R. Lowther

Read here first, and welcome to my head...

Many thanks for having stumbled into my little corner of the Web. My name is Eric R. Lowther, a semi-amateur writer of speculative fiction, horror and dark fantasy. What you'll find here are a few of my short works of fiction and perhaps a few mindless rants here and there. But, mostly fiction. Some may have been previously published with their rights having reverted back, some may be unpublished works and you may even see a post or two in shameless self-promotion for upcoming short-fiction placements and for my first novel project, "Area 187", a novel in two parts slated for publication this fall and winter respectively from Library of the Living Dead Press.

I welcome comments and feedback of all types. A career in the small press has not only given me an ideal playground but has also given me the skin of a rhino for both constructive and non-constructive criticisms alike. My website, www. ericrlowther .com is currently under construction, and as I am far from the most tech savvy of individuals it may be a long time in coming.

To begin my shameless self-promotion, I will leave you with a list of my work still currently available for sale or, in some cases, free for the reading. If you like what you see, great. Drop me a line and let me know. If you don't like what you see, great. Drop me a line and let me know. Email any comments, complaints and/or flaming puppies to ericrlowther @ yahoo .com.

I'm not sure just what the folks over at Scotopia Press are doing these days, but you can find my short serial killer tale "Alley Cat" in the pages of Dark Distortions, Volume 1. You can also go here for a quick review.

Check out two different issues of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction. For Issue #19 for my award-nominated, novella-length tale "Rural Legend", high fantasy with a rural twist, and to Issue #26 for my cover-inspiring short story, "We Three Kings" for a little holiday cheer from where it all began. I share the pages with many other talented authors in these and all my other anthologies, so if you go don't just stop at my pages. Both issues are available to download as a free PDF, but at their price you can afford to support small press, can't you?

For the more humor-driven, go to A Library of Unknown Horrors, a mix of some classic tales from the masters as well as a few of us pups filling out the pages, to read my story "The Great Morgan Family Reunion and Snipe Hunt". Don't forget your gunny sack...

For those with tastes that run to the more traditional, check out my ghost story "Suburban Legend" in Drollerie Press's fine anthology, Bump in the Night. You can get it from their website as well as Amazon.com.

For a little Urban Legend Flavor, hop over to Amazon for editor Jennifer Brozek of www.edgeofpropinquity.com fame for the anthology, Close Encounters of the Urban Kind for my take on the man-in-the-backseat in my short story, "It Came from the Back Seat".

Here's a great little mag', published both electronically and now on good ole' American paper (wait, we still grow trees here, don't we?). Do yourself a favor and check out Necrotic Tissue at www.necrotictissue.com. Specifically, see e-issue April 2008 for my story, "Milliner's Farm" and their first print issue listed as January 2008 (though I'm pretty sure it was 2009) now conveniently converted into PDF format for your downloading pleasure and look for my short story, "Tenure". That one has also been adapted for the stage as part of a four-act zombie stage production that, quite frankly, I can't wait to see.

Another cool mag' for all you vampire fans out there is Night to Dawn. Though I believe it's on a bit of a hiatus, you can see my take on the vampire with a tale about my recurring vampire character, Shakespeare (Look for my next blog post for "The Taxman Cometh" for a previously published Shakespeare tale), in issue #13. Vampires DO NOT SPARKLE. EVER. If you feel they should, then you probably shouldn't go here and order a copy of the magazine for my tale, "Rotting Meat".

And while you're at it, click over to Zombie World News to see what the world of today would look like if the zombies really were rising as told through news stories, pictures and commentaries from the reporters and commentators following the zombie plague in an effort to keep Mr. & Mrs. America informed. Oh, and tell 'em Arthur Helms sent ya...

As for upcoming projects, I'll pass on more information as it comes on my aforementioned novel project as it comes to light. I will also appear in an upcoming issue of All Hallows, the Ghost Story Society Magazine with my story "Hunter Ghost". More on that when I have a release date. Now, go forth and write, damn it.