The Barrens & Others (15 page)

"In its holster."

"Take out. Pleashe."

Harrison didn't argue with her. The grip of his heavy Chief Special felt damn good in his hand.

The figure spread its arms; within the folds of her coat those arms seem to bend the wrong way. And were those black hooked claws protruding from the cuffs of the sleeves?

She said, "Shoot."

Harrison gaped in shock.

*

The Detective Harrison not shoot. Eyes wide. Hands with gun and light shake.

Say again: "Shoot!"

"Carly, no! I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to take you in, just as we agreed."

"No!"

Wrong! The Detective Harrison not understand! Must shoot the Carly! Kill the Carly!

"Not jail! Shoot! Shtop the kills! Shtop the Carly!"

"No! I can get you help, Carly. Really, I can! You'll go to a place where no one will hurt you. You'll get medicine to make you feel better!"

Thought him understand! Not understand! Move closer. Put claw out. Him back way. Back to wall.

"Shoot! Kill! Now!"

"No, Annie, please!"

"Not Annie! Carly! Carly!"

"Right. Carly! Don't make me do this!"

Only inches way now. Still not shoot. Other cops hiding not shoot. Why not protect?

"Shoot!" Pull scarf off face. Point claw at face. "End! End!
Pleashe!
"

The Detective Harrison face go white. Mouth hang open. Say, "Oh, my
God!
"

Get sick-scared look. Hate that look! Thought him understand! Say he know the Carly! Not! Stop look!
Stop!

Not think. Claw go out. Rip throat of the Detective Harrison. Blood fly just like others.

No - No - No!
Not want hurt!

The Detective Harrison gurgle. Drop gun and light. Fall. Stare.

Wait other cops shoot. Please kill the Carly. Wait.

No shoot. Then know. No cops. Only the poor Detective Harrison. Cry for the Detective Harrison. Then run. Run and climb. Up and down. Back to new home with the Old Jessi.

The Jessi glad hear Carly come. The Jessi try talk. Carly go sit tub. Close door. Cry for the Detective Harrison. Cry long time. Break mirror million piece. Not see face again. Not ever. Never.

The Jessi say, "Carly, I want my bath. Will you scrub my back?"

Stop cry. Do the Old Jessi's black back. Comb the Jessi's hair.

Feel very sad. None ever comb the Carly's hair. Ever.

1988

Another bridesmaid year – twice this time. Both "Traps" and "Dat Tay Vao" made the final ballot for the Bram Stoker short story award from the Horror Writers of America. The kiss of death. The vote was split and I lost. A neat little trophy, the Stoker. I would have loved one.

1988 was a strange year. I rarely do non-fiction, but I started off the year writing a short essay for
Horror: The 100 Best Books
. Stephen Jones and Kim Newman wrote from England and asked me to name horror books I'd like to write about. I offered only one:
The Exorcist
. As far as I'm concerned, this is the most effective horror novel ever written, wrenching on both the visceral and metaphysical levels. They said go ahead and I knocked it out in an evening.

After that, I plunged back into
Reborn
. Later in the year I finished "Kids," the final novella in the saga of Sigmundo Dreyer, which when cobbled together would become the novel
Dydeetown World
.

In the spring of 1988 I was introduced to the world of television screenwriting (see "Glim-Glim" for more on that) and a few months later I was offered an opportunity to bring back Repairman Jack.

foreword to "A Day in the Life"

One of my phone friends, Ed Gorman (with whom I've spent countless hours in conversation but have never met) mentioned that he and Marty Greenberg were co editing an anthology called
Stalkers
for Dark Harvest / NAL. Would I care to contribute? I said I'd been itching to revive Repairman Jack, the lead character from
The Tomb
. How about a Jack story? Ed, a Repairman Jack fan since the git-go, told me I
had
to do it.

The Tomb
had been published five years earlier. It hit the bestseller lists, won the Porgie Award from
The West Coast Review of Books
, and the mail began pouring in. I'd closed the novel with Jack's life hanging by a thread, and readers wanted to know: What happened to Repairman Jack? When are you going to do another Repairman Jack novel? I didn't want to get involved in a series character, but the book kept selling, and the letters we still coming in.

Then there was the Hollywood interest. New World Pictures had optioned the novel but a combination of low-rent antics by Fred Olen Ray and a lousy screenplay (they moved the action to Pasadena!) had the project dead in the water. I dashed off a spec script in an eleventh-hour attempt to save it, but too late. Maybe just as well. The rakoshi, the Bengali temple demons who provide the horror, would have presented an almost insurpountable challenge in those pre-CGI days. How do you make them look real? The line between horror and hilarity is a couple of nanometers thick. A rakosh is scary; a guy in a rubber suit is dumb.

As I write this (2012), Beacon Films has had
The Tomb
in development hell for 18 years.

But back in the late '80s, the Hollywood connection provided an ulterior motive for writing a new Repairman Jack story. I had created a number of original action sequences for the Repairman Jack screenplay I sent to New World, and I wanted to protect them. The best way to do that was to copyright them in a story. They're all in "A Day in the Life."

I called Marty Greenberg (the world's most prolific anthologist – I doubt even he knows how many anthologies he's edited) for more details on the anthology, and during that conversation (the first of many) he managed to tap me to edit one of the anthologies the Horror Writers of America were shopping around. That was how Freak Show began, but that's a whole other story…

Stalkers
turned out to be a hugely successful anthology – book clubs, audio version, and multiple foreign editions. But by contributing to that anthology I opened the door to the insidious influence of Martin H. Greenberg. Little did I know then what effect that seemingly innocent act would have on my short story output.

More on Marty as we go. And for those who care, the Tram character previously appeared in "Dat-Tay-Vao."

A Day in the Life

When the cockroach made a right turn up the wall, Jack flipped another
shuriken
across the room. The steel points of the throwing star drove into the wallboard just above the bug's long antennae. It backed up and found itself hemmed in on all sides now by four of the stars.

"Did it!" Jack said from where he lay across the still made hotel bed.

He counted the shuriken protruding from the wall. A dozen of them traveled upward in a gentle arc above and behind the barely functioning TV, ending in a tiny square where the roach was trapped.

Check that. It was free again. Crawled over one of the shuriken and was now continuing on its journey to wherever. Jack let it go and rolled onto his back on the bedspread.

Bored
.

And hot. He was dressed in jeans and a loose, heavy sweater under an oversized lightweight jacket, both dark blue; a black-and-orange knitted cap was jammed on the top of his head. He'd turned the thermostat all the way down but the room remained an oven. He didn't want to risk taking anything off because, when the buzzer sounded, he had to hit the ground running.

He glanced over at the dusty end table where the little Walkman sized box with the antenna sat in silence.

"Come on, already," he mumbled to it. "Let's do it."

Reilly and his sleazos were due to make their move tonight. What was taking them so long to get started? Almost one a.m. already – three hours here in this fleabag. He was starting to itch. He could handle only so much TV without getting drowsy. Even without the lulling drone of some host interviewing some actor he'd never heard of, the heat was draining him.

Fresh air. Maybe that would help.

Jack got up, stretched, and stepped to the window. A clear almost Halloween night out there, with a big moon rising over the city. He gripped the handles and pulled. Nothing. The damn thing wouldn't budge. He was checking the edges of the sash when he heard the faint crack of a rifle. The bullet came through the glass two inches to the left of his head, peppering his face with tiny sharp fragments as it whistled past his ear.

Jack dropped to the floor. He waited. No more shots. Keeping his head below the level of the windowsill, he rose to a crouch, then leapt for the lamp on the end table at the far side of the bed, grabbed it, and rolled to the floor with it. Another shot spat through the glass and whistled through the room as his back thudded against the floor. He turned off the lamp.

The other lamp, the one next to the TV, was still on – sixty watts of help for the shooter. And whoever was shooting had to know Jack would be going for it next. He'd be ready.

On his belly, Jack slid along the industrial grade carpet toward the end of the bed until he had an angle where the bulb was visible under the shade. He pulled out his next to last
shuriken
and spun it toward the bulb. With an electric pop it flared blue white and left the room dark except for the flickering glow from the TV.

Immediately Jack popped his head above the bed and looked out the window. Through the spider webbed glass he caught sight of a bundled figure turning and darting away across the neighboring rooftop. Moonlight glinted off the long barrel of a high powered rifle, flashed off the lens of a telescopic sight, then he was gone.

A high pitched beep made him jump. The red light on the signal box was blinking like mad. Kuropolis wanted help. Which meant Reilly had struck.

"Swell."

*

Not a bad night, George Kuropolis thought, wiping down the counter in front of the slim young brunette as she seated herself. Not a great night, but still to have half a dozen customers at this hour was good. And better yet, Reilly and his creeps hadn't shown up.

Maybe they'd bother somebody else tonight.

"What'll it be?" he asked the brunette.

"Tea, please," she said with a smile. A nice smile. She was dressed nice and had decent jewelry on. Not exactly overdressed for the neighborhood, but better than the usual.

George wished he had more customers of her caliber. And he
should
have them. Why the hell not? Didn't the chrome inside and out sparkle? Couldn't you eat off the floor? Wasn't everything he served made right here on the premises?

"Sure. Want some pie?"

"No, thank you."

"It's good. Blueberry. Made it myself."

The smile again. "No, thanks. I'm on a diet."

"Sure," he mumbled as he turned away to get her some hot water. "Everyone's on a goddamn diet. Diets are gettin' hazardous to my health."

Just then the front door burst open and a white haired man in his mid twenties leaped in with a sawed off shotgun in his hands. He pointed it at the ceiling and let loose a round at the fixture over the cash register. The
boom
of the blast was deafening as glass showered everything.

Matt Reilly was here.

Four more of his gang crowded in behind him. George recognized them: Reece was the black with the white fringe leather jacket; Rafe had the blue Mohican, Tony had the white; and Cheeks was the baby faced skinhead.

"Aw
right!
" Reilly said, grinning fiercely under his bent nose, mean little eyes, dark brows, and bleached crewcut. "It's ass kickin' time!"

George reached into his pocket and pressed the button on the beeper there, then raised his hands and backed up against the wall.

"Hey, Matt!" he called. "C'mon! What's the problem?"

"You know the problem, George!" Reilly said.

He tossed the shotgun to Reece and stepped around the counter. Smiling, he closed with George. The smile only heightened the sick knot of fear coiling in George's belly. He was so fixed on that empty smile that he didn't see the sucker punch coming. It caught him in the gut. He doubled over in agony. His last cup of coffee heaved but stayed down.

He groaned. "
Christ!
"

"You're late again, George!" Reilly said through his teeth. "I told you last time what would happen if you didn't stick to the schedule!"