But She Keeps a Nice Lawn

2 Great Reviews & A Fun Interview

It's been an awesome week for DIE, YOU BASTARD! DIE!

First an amazing review on Tuesday from Colum McKnight over at Dreadful Tales and then I woke up this morning to a 4 1/2 Bloody Knives (out of 5) review from Masked Slasher over at Dread Central!

Here are the links:

Dreadful Tales Review

Dread Central Review

These are on top of a really fun and thought provoking interview I did with Ali George over at 12 Books in 12 Months. Some of her very cool questions included:

What dreams have you realized as the results of your writing?

Do you think gender has any impact on the way you approach horror?

And my favorite:

What is your take on genre snobbery? 

Here's the link and please excuse the photo, I sent the weird one by mistake.

12 Books in 12 Months Interview

And, just in case you missed it, my Dark Editorial Overlord of Awesomeness, John Skipp, was interviewed a few weeks ago by FEARnet about Ravenous Shadows, Rose: The 3-D Bizarro Zombie Musical and his other projects and passions.

An Interview with John Skipp-FEARnet

    

Read the First Two Chapters of Die, You Bastard! Die!

 

Chapter One

 

The orange and white Albany County ambulance cruised down Western Avenue, past the Georgian brick buildings and the green copper cupola that marked the heart of the SUNY Downtown campus. Paramedic Claire Valentin’s trained eyes scanned the parking lots, sidewalks and paths, searching for possible candidates. This was usually a pretty target-rich environment. The weather was perfect, bright and clear, with just the slightest tang of lingering winter chill. She checked her watch; it was the perfect time of day, too.

“Bogie at ten o’clock, Claire.”

“Beautiful, I see her. Wow, she’s a busy little multi-tasker, isn’t she? Sidewalks on both sides of the street but she’s jogging in the road with a stroller, a dog on a leash, and a cell phone plastered to her ear. Follow her down South Lake, nice and slow.”

The ambulance turned left at the Adventist church and settled in about a car’s length behind the woman and her entourage. By the time they had passed Thurlow Terrace, the jogger noticed them and moved over closer to the sidewalk, presumably so they could pass. When they were still hanging with her after she passed New Scotland Avenue, she took her hand off the stroller and motioned them past. When they didn’t respond, she continued running for another block, but put away the cell and kept glancing back at them. At the corner of South Lake and Madison, she moved up onto the sidewalk and turned to glare at them.

“What’s going on? Why are you following me?” the jogger demanded as Jim rolled to a stop next to her.

“Well Ma’am,” he drawled. “We were driving past and we noticed you, your dog, your baby and your cell phone bouncing down the middle of a city street. We knew it would only be a matter of time before we’d be getting a call to scrape your mangled bodies off the pavement, so we figured we might as well save the gas and just slide in behind you and wait.”

“Well, I never...Who do you think you...I have every right...”

“Yes Ma’am, that’s what’s so great about this country of ours. We all have the right to be as self-absorbed, reckless and stupid as we can possibly be. And frankly, that’s a big part of what keeps ambulance companies, hospitals and funeral parlors in business. You have yourself a nice day, now.”

“Ah, I love it when you leave them speechless,” Claire said as they pulled away from the open-mouthed woman and rejoined the flow of traffic.

“What can I say? I learned from the master. Remember the
guy who was walking down Central Avenue reading that big old Stephen King hardback? I thought you were going to make him eat that thing one page at a time.”

“Yeah, I was surprised we never got into any trouble over that one. He seemed like the call and complain type.”

“I don’t know, I recall you threatening to turn that best seller into a suppository if he ever, under any circumstances, crossed your path again. I have the feeling he believed you.”

“Well, we of the Street Smarts Division of the Rolling Educational Ministry can only hope. Isn’t that right, Brother Jim?”

“Hallelujah Sister Cl...”

 “Albany police dispatch to Paramedic car 45.”

Chapter Two

“Car 45, respond to 863 Myrtle Ave for a sick child. No details, but the caller sounded distraught, so take it on a priority one just in case. Patrol car is enroute.”

“10-4, Car 45 responding.” Claire hung up the mike and worked the lights and sirens while Jim maneuvered them through traffic.

“Damn, I hate the 800 block of Myrtle,” Jim said. “Every freaking house has a mile long set of stone steps, and it’s always the only way in. One of these days, you, me and the patient are go- ing to end up splattered at the bottom of one of them, just like that priest in The Exorcist.”

“Dimmy...why you do this to me, Dimmy?” Claire quoted. “Your mother sucks cock in Hell, Karras,” Jim countered. “All right, yours is better. First point in today’s Movie Quote

War goes to Aurelio. Okay, we’re on Myrtle. Let’s get a number. I’ve got 917, slow down.”

“There it is, 863, the house with the blue second floor.” “Albany PD, Car 45 arrival 863 Myrtle.”

 “10-4, Car 45.”

 “Is APD meeting us?” Claire asked.

“10-4, but it’ll be a few minutes. Advise you wait for APD back up before entering the scene.”

“10-4.” Claire already had the door open and was halfway out of it.

“10-4 my ass,” Jim said, picking the mike up off the floor where she had thrown it. “You’re going up there, aren’t you?”

“Nah...I’m just going to take a quick look around. The call was for a sick kid. It’s probably just a baby with a cold and a new momma who doesn’t know which end to diaper yet. You stay here and flag down the cops and I’ll...”

“Oh no you won’t. You know the rule. If you go, I go.”

“All right, let’s see what’s going on, then.” Claire grabbed the jump kit, and they hit the long flight of cement steps that led to yet another flight of wooden porch stairs.

“Do you want to bet these aren’t the last stairs we see on this call?”

“No bet. Inverse law of EMS, the size of the patient is always inversely relational to the number of stairs you have to traverse.” “Hey, even an 800lb 50 year old is somebody’s “baby”. No one said for sure this was a pediatric call.”

“Thanks. You are a font of optimism this morning.”

 They crossed the wide porch and, out of habit, flattened themselves on either side of the door before knocking loudly. Claire’s second day on the job, eighteen plus years ago, she had seen a shotgun hole blown through a door just like this one. You only have to see one to forever break you of walking up to a door straight on.

“Ambulance!” she called out.

“Yes, coming,” a muffled female voice responded. Footsteps approached the door, followed by the clunking of locks turning. “Thank God you’re here. My baby...”

The woman that answered the door was covered in blood. Not light sprays or splatters, not a mist or drops, but dripping head to toe in thick, dark, chunky sauce, like Carrie on prom night.

Claire dropped her kit on the porch. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

“Oh, this...” the woman answered, looking down at herself. “Don’t worry, this isn’t mine. Please, my little girl is in the back. I don’t think she’s breathing. Please help her.” She turned and disap- peared into the interior of the house.

“Jim, get APD. Tell them to move it.”

 “Claire, don’t go in there. You don’t know...”

 “No choice. Get APD and I’ll check on the kid. Please. Now.” “I’m calling on the cell. I’ll be right behind you.”

Claire followed the woman through the fairly neat living room and kitchen. It looked homey and comfortable, except for the bloody footprints that crisscrossed the rugs and linoleum. Beyond the kitchen, there was a hallway with three doors. The woman led her to the last door, the only open one, and pointed her to the bed where the blond head of a small girl poked out from underneath the naked, bloody, and apparently unconscious mountain of a man.

“What happened here, Ma’am?” Claire asked as she rushed forward and tried to feel a pulse in the girl’s neck. There was something there. It was hard to catch under the circumstances, but she had a pulse.

“Jim! Get the oxygen and a basket, we’re going to scoop and screw with the kid. Tell dispatch to get another crew in here priority one for a second patient, an adult male.”

She took a quick body survey. “Tell them he’s got a thready pulse and he’s breathing, but it looks like Cheyne-Stokes respirations secondary to traumatic brain injury. Ma’am, you were telling me what happened?”

“I came home from work early. I work third shift at the 24- hour convenience out by the mall. I wasn’t feeling good and I got Shirleen to come in early for me. I got home and Bethie wasn’t in her bed, so I went in to ask George where she was and...and...he was passed out, naked and on top of her and she wasn’t moving. I...I...grabbed the first thing I saw, and I started hitting him with it, trying to get him off of her, trying to hurt him and make him move. Then there was blood, so much blood, and it made him even slip- perier and harder to move, and I kept hitting him. I got him rolled off her a little, and that’s when I called 911 and you came. Is she breathing? Is she alive?”

“Yes Ma’am, she’s got a pulse. Can you tell me how old she is?”

“She’s only four...she just turned four last week.”

Jim and three officers appeared in the doorway.

“Guys, help me move him. We’ve got to get the girl out from underneath him, now!”

The four men dug rubber gloves out of their pockets and waded in.

“Valentin, at least try to keep it somewhere in the forefront of that beautiful mind of yours that this is a crime scene,” the sergeant whispered in her ear as they sorted themselves into position to lift the man’s body.

“Yeah, it’s a real mystery, all right. And isn’t that just like a male, just assuming that your needs always have to come first.”

“Whooo, what’s a matter, Valentin? Your time of the month, or you just feeling a little more femi-Nazi than usual today?”

“Bite me, Sarge. And while you’re at it, lift!”

As soon as she saw a sliver of daylight between the two bodies, Claire grabbed the little girl by her shoulders and pulled her for- ward. Jim angled his long, skinny frame between Claire, the cops, the fat guy and the child and snapped the two halves of the rescue basket into place around the patient. Claire grabbed one end and Jim the other, and they slid her off the bed in one smooth motion.

“Okay, we got her. Lower him back down, nice and easy. Try not to move him around too much. And if any of you guys have an oxygen tank and mask in the back of your cruiser, it wouldn’t hurt to slap it on him until the other crew gets here. They’re en route. It should only be a couple of minutes.”

They set the metal stretcher down long enough to slip an oxygen mask over the child’s face, cover her naked body with a clean sheet, and take another quick pulse reading. Their eyes met over the kid’s head. “We’ve got to go, Claire.” Jim said.

“Ma’am, we’re taking her to Pine Hills Hospital. Is Bethie allergic to anything?”

“No, nothing. I’m coming with her. I have to be with her.” Claire saw the Sergeant standing behind the mother, shaking his head. More police began to fill the room. “The police will bring you along in a few minutes. They just have a few questions for you first.”

“No, no!”

“Claire, we have to go.” 

 

Die, You Bastard! Die! & Ravenous Shadows Launch Today!

It's Launch Day! It's Launch Day!

Ravenous Romance's new horror/mystery/thriller imprint, Ravenous Shadows, headed by horror legend John Skipp, debuted today. 

In an interview with Publisher's Weekly, Literary Partners CEO Holly Schmidt said, "It was always our plan to expand our business model to other fiction genres, and when we had the opportunity to work with John Skipp, we decided to start with horror/mystery/thrillers. Skipp provided us with a clear vision and strong point of view for the line, and really is the heart and soul of Ravenous Shadows."

From Editor in Chief, John Skipp- "Welcome to Ravenous Shadows: a new line of startling, provocative genre fiction, dedicated to the proposition that short, powerful novels and novellas can pack as much punch, personality, and plot as books three times their size."

The four novels launching the line are:

 

House of Quiet Madness by Mikita Brottman-an Ira Levin style mystery

 

 

 

 

• Tribesmen by Adam Cesare-an ultra violent 80's style Italian cannibal horror

 

• 
  
• 
  

 

The Devoted by Eric Shapiro-a Hitchcockian take on a modern suicide cult

 

 

 

Die, You Bastard! Die! by Jan Kozlowski-a sexual abuse/revenge story somewhere between Misery and Last House on the Left.

 

 

 

 

All the gorgeous, kick ass cover art was done by the fabulous Paula Rozelle Hanback.

 

"Of course, it's in January that I really dig down into the nethermost recesses of my burrow."  ---H.P. Lovecraft

    

Happy Birthday Edvard...and More Novel Revisions!

Scariest Halloween Ever-The October 29-30th Storm

7 days without heat or electricity.

Average temperatures in my living room ranged between 48-52 degrees. At one point we had less than 10 hours worth of fire wood left before neighbors and Quality Landscaping came through with a cord of burnable firewood.

13 days without phone, cable or Internet.

Bad enough, but the real horror is going to hit when my cell phone bill comes in. I have an incredibly low monthly rate but once I go over my 30 free ones, they clock me 50 cents a minute.

Still, no one was hurt, the house is fine and ultimately we're grateful for the kindness of neighbors and people we barely knew who went out of their way to offer to help. 

Dark Bites Datebook~October 20~Bela Lugosi

Celebrating the 129th birthday of "Dracula, himself" Bela Lugosi!

Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in Lugos, Austria-Hungary, ironically, not far from the western border of Transylvania. At the age of 12 he left home to pursue an acting career and by the time he was in his 20's he had become the number 1 ranked actor in Hungarian theater, touring with the National Theater of Budapest.

Forced to flee Hungary after the 1919 Revolution, he immigrated to the United States in December 1920, landing in New Orleans but eventually making his way to Ellis Island in March 1921. He became a naturalized citizen in 1931.

Over the course of his acting career, Lugosi made 100+ films from 1917-1959 and appeared in 180+ stage productions from 1902-1956. His best known role, was of course, Count Dracula, which he was first approachd to play on Broadway in 1927. The production was hugely successful, running for 500 performances before going on the road for two years as a touring show. In 1931, due to the unexpected death of Lon Chaney, Lugosi put his cape back on and stepped into the lead role for Universal Studios in their movie release of Dracula. 

As Lugosi himself once put it, playing Dracula was "a living, but also a
curse" and he never did shake the typecasting that came with the role. He passed away in 1956 at the age of 73 and was buried in his cape.

A partial list of Lugosi movies include such horror classics as Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein, The White Zombie, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, The Body Snatcher, Zombies on Broadway and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. 

Lugosi Links:

The Official Bela Lugosi Website

Lugosi Biography Written by Son, Bela Lugosi, Jr.

Bela Lugosi at Turner Classic Movies

Bela Lugosi Jr. Talks About His Father

Dark Bites Datebook~October 19~Andrew Vachss

Wishing a very happy 69th birthday to one of my personal heroes, author, lawyer, child and animal protection advocate, Andrew Vachss. 

Thank you Mr. Vachss for your Burke novels, for your role in creating the PROTECT organization and for being a warrior for the innocent. 

Vachss Links:

The Zero-Andrew Vachss' Official Website

Protect.org

A Conversation with Andrew Vachss at Chuck Palahniuk's The Cult

Parade Magazine Articles Written by Vachss

Dogs of the Zero

Dark Bites Datebook~October 11~Elmore Leonard

Wishing a very happy 86th birthday to the man Stephen King called "the great American writer", Elmore Leonard!

The author of more than 40 novels, Leonard started his career writing advertising copy before he had even graduated from the University of Detroit. He sold his first short story, a western called Trail of the Apaches to Argosy magazine in 1951. His first novel, The Bounty Hunters, was published in 1953. Leonard's first foray into crime novels came in 1969 with his now classic story of thief, Jack Ryan in The Big Bounce. 

Leonard's cool and gritty writing style has often been translated to the screen, sometimes by Leonard himself, with varying degrees of success. Some of Leonard's most popular and successful works include:

3:10 to Yuma

Hombre

The Moonshine War

52 Pick Up

Glitz

Freaky Deaky

Get Shorty

Maximum Bob

Rum Punch

Out of Sight

Be Cool

As much as I enjoy Leonard's fiction, my absolute favorite piece of
Leonard's writing is his 2001 NY Times essay called: Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle which has spawned his 2007 book Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing. Brilliant and a must read for anyone who's serious about writing fiction.

Elmore Leonard links:

Elmore Leonard.com

Elmore Leonard at Random House

NY Times Article 3:10 to Yuma

Daddy Cool-Times Magazine

Dark Bites Datebook~October 8~R.L. Stine

Wishing a very happy 68th birthday to the King of Kiddie horror, R.L. Stine!

Honored by The Guinness World Records people in May 2011 as The Most Prolific Author of Children's Horror Fiction Novels, Stine has published more than 300 novels and sold over 350 million books and counting. 

Stine, who looks more like an accountant than someone who has given generations of kids' nightmares, started writing at the age of 9 when he found a typewriter in his family's attic and began writing stories and joke books. 

In 1965 after graduating from Ohio State University, Stine moved to New York City to become a writer. Under the name Jovial Bob Stine he wrote dozens of joke books and created a humor magazine called Bananas.

In 1986, Stine wrote his first YA (Young Adult) horror novel Blind Date which became a runaway best seller. The Fear Street series debuted in 1989 and The Goosebumps series in 1992.

Other novels and series include:

Space Cadets

Ghosts of Fear Street

Goosebumps 2000

Give Yourself Goosebumps

The Nightmare Room

Mostly Ghostly

Beware!

Rotten School

The Nightmare Hour

The Haunting Hour

Dangerous Girls I & II

Goosebumps HorrorLand

And, for everyone who says there's no money in children's books...in 1997, Stine made the Forbes list of 40 Best Paid Entertainers, coming in at #36 with an income of $41million for the 1996-97 fiscal year. 

R.L. Stine Links:

rlstine.com (yes the music can be turned off-top of the page to the right of marquee, hit the pause button, but you'll have to do that on every page)

HorrorScope Interview

Pittsburgh Post Gazette HorrorLand Interview

2003 NY Times Interview Hoping to Scare Grownups Too

BNStudios Meet the Writers YouTube Interview