Kevin l. Jones comes from a lifetime of experience in the popular arts. He has in the last two years widely published at such companies as Static Movement, Panic Press, Red Skies Press, and Rainstorm Press where he has gained great notice for his many works of short horror fiction. He has been especially prolific at Static Movement where he has over fifty stories either come out already or are about to be published soon. He also currently has a solo collection of his horror stories called Uncle Tickle and Other Stories which is available at Lulu.
I am pleased to feature fiction by Kevin Jones on this paged of my blog. Subscribe to the blog and you will be alerted by email when a new story has been posted.
September 14th
By
Kevin L. Jones
The street was dark, oppressive he
could not sleep. He had been awakened by a strange scurrying sound coming for his
roof top. Date Avenue’s only source of illumination was Jack Parker’s weakly
glowing seventy-five watt porch light. As he stood on his lawn staring down the
gloomy street he wondered for the thousandth time since he had moved to the City
of Yucaipa why there were so few street lights. He looked up towards his roof
trying to see what had awakened him but nothing was in evidence. He shrugged
his shoulders and muttered, “Must have been an animal.”
Jack shuddered involuntarily there
was something very wrong with his neighborhood but he couldn’t exactly put his
finger on it. Jack had only lived in town for a short while but with each day
that he spent in Yucaipa he became more and more convinced that it was the town
itself that was strange and off putting. When he had first moved here Yucaipa
had seemed almost idyllic but that misconception had quickly faded like a
mirage. On the third night in his new house he had come home from work to find
that he had been robbed. Yucaipa it seemed had a dark side. When Jack had
reported the thief to the sheriff’s department they had seemed monumentally
disinterested. Jack had asked his neighbors if they had heard anything
suspicious but they had only grinned knowingly and mumbled, “We ain’t seen nothin’.”
Jack half suspected that they were
the ones that had robbed him.
As Jack turned and headed back to his
porch he stumbled over something. He looked down and saw that it was a rolled
up newspaper. Every Thursday night he would find a free copy of the local rag
haphazardly tossed onto his lawn. As Jack bent down and retrieved it he thought
to himself that it was a good thing that they didn’t charge people for this
paper because no one in their right mind would pay a cent to read about this
pathetic town.
Not being able to sleep after he had
been startled into consciousness about whatever had awakened him he decided to
pass the time by reading through the paper. He took a seat on a green plastic
lawn chair that sat on his porch and unfurled the periodical. Jack shook his
head in disgust as he read the banner headline. “Deputies Shoot Unarmed Suspect
17 Times In Church Parking Lot”.
As he continued perusing the paper he
was appalled at how many crime related stories it contained. “Thirty year old man beats aged father nearly
to death after argument.” Mentally disabled man assaulted, robbed, and bitten
several times outside of Rite-Aid and slews of articles about narcotics related
arrests. It was almost as if a plague of madness had taken root in town and he
was the only one that could see it. Jack
turned to the sports page hoping to find lighter fare but let out a pained sigh
as he read its lead article. “Yucaipa Thunderbirds football team suffers yet
another humiliating defeat in 49-0 game.”
Then Jack saw a faint glimmer of hope a
picture of the high school cheerleading team. As he stared at their photo he
was deeply disappointed. The young ladies were not completely ugly but they
were not beauties either. All of them seemed flawed in some way that kept them
from being what anyone could consider attractive. Jack had noticed that this
was not uncommon in Yucaipa. A lot of the townspeople were abnormally ugly. The
strange denizens of Yucaipa at least in Jack’s mind had the Innsmouth look so
vividly described by H. P. Lovecraft in The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
Jack quickly turned the page and snarled
as he had landed on the obituaries. His heart nearly stopped when he saw his
own picture staring back at him in the column. He began to read about his untimely
death.
“Jack Parker, 33 recently arrived in
Yucaipa, died on September 14th due to mysterious wounds received by
an unknown assailant. He is survived by his mother Mary Parker, 57 of Anaheim,
CA.”
Jack began to tremble violently. The
paper slipped from his grasp and floated to the ground. His mind reeled. This
had to be some kind of a sick joke. Today was September the 14th and
he was still very much alive. Before he had any time to ponder this any further
he began to hear a strange scurrying sound that had first awakened him coming
from his roof. He leapt from his chair and rushed out onto his lawn. He
strained his eyes in the darkness but could see nothing on his roof. Then he heard the peculiar emanation once
again. Something was very definitely stirring up above. It looked like a young
man in black jeans and a red hoodie.
Jack shouted, “What the fuck are you
doing on my roof bitch? Get down off of there before I come up and kick your
ass. ”
The young man just sat there as unmoving
as a statue. Jack reached down and picked up a fist sized stone from his lawn
and was about to throw it at his unwanted guest until he saw its eyes. The
thing on the roof top let its hood fall back. Its ocular cavities were filled
with two glowing white orbs. Its skin was a hideous obsidian hue but most
terrifying of all was its mouthful of knife like fangs. Upon seeing this
nightmare vision Jack tried to flee but it was far too late for that. The creature sprang down upon the screeching
struggling man and bit him until he was quiet and still. As Jack’s life slipped
away a gentle gust of wind blew the paper over his mangled body. The obituary
page covered his face soaking up Jack’s blood. His last conscious thought was that somehow the paper had been
impossibly right. September 14th was indeed his last day on Earth.
Dracula Will
Never Die
By
Kevin L. Jones
(For Richard
Matheson)
The vampire stiffened in its coffin.
It could hear soft foot falls approaching its resting place. The creature of
the night snarled and bared its fangs that were stained crimson by the blood of
a thousand victims. Who would be foolish enough to dare set foot in Castle
Dracula? Before the vampire had any further time to ruminate on this its coffin
lid was rudely cast aside. In the shadowy decaying vaults beneath Castle
Dracula the undead creature could see the outline of a mortal towering over its
prone form. As an oak stake plunged towards his heart the vampire let out a hate
filled hiss. It could not end like this. It would not let a mere mortal end his
two hundred year reign of terror. It raised its claw in an attempt to fend off
the impending death blow but it was too late. Nothing could save its unnatural
life. The stake struck the vampire’s chest and a small geyser of crimson liquid
sprang forth. The creature should have been dead but yet it still lived.
Then the vaults beneath Castle Dracula
were flooded by an unknown source of illumination that was brighter than the
very sun itself. Someone yelled, “Cut that’s a take.”
A strangely dressed mortal rushed
towards the stunned vampire. He reached down into its coffin and removed the
stake and a bizarre apparatus that was attached to it from the creature’s
chest. It ran its dead white hand down its torso somehow the vampire hunter’s
vicious blow had not harmed it. Dracula arose to a seated position. When its
eyes finally became accustomed to the torturously bright lights it saw its
hated enemy Abraham Van Helsing standing very near to its coffin. The vampire
hissed and bared his fangs at his rival.
Van Helsing grinned back at him. “Jesus
Larry what’s the deal have you taken up method acting? You can stop the
cornball act we’re not rolling film anymore.”
The vampire leapt from its coffin and
stared at its adversary with hate filled eyes. “How dare you address me in this
manner? I am Count Dracula.”
The surrounding area erupted with
laughter. The vampire whirled around and saw several mortals pointing strange
devices towards it. When they saw the look of terror mingled with bewilderment
on Dracula’s face the laughter slowly subsided.
Van Helsing put his hand on the Count’s shoulder. The vampire recoiled
from its foe’s touch.
Van Helsing held up his hands in an
attempt at showing him that he meant no harm. “Now take it easy Larry you’re
starting to freak everyone out. You’re not Count Dracula. Your name is Lawrence
Logos. This is just a film alright buddy?”
The vampire howled with rage. “I know
who I am. I am Count Dracula.”
It shoved its way passed the startled
mortals and fled from the movie set. As it sprinted across the cavernous sound
stage the vampire became more bewildered with each step that it took. What
strange magic had transported it from its home in the Carpathians to this
foreign alien place? The vampire had no
time to ponder this. It could hear Van Helsing and his lackeys coming to
destroy him. As Dracula fled from his pursuers the vampire spied a metal
staircase which looked as if it led to the roof. Ascending the steps was a beautiful extra
dressed as a peasant girl. She screamed in horror as the wild-eyed vampire
rushed towards her. With one liquid movement the creature had her in its arms.
It felt powerful and rejuvenated as it sank its fangs into her soft white
throat gorging itself on her blood. The
vampire tossed her aside and bound up the steps, Van Helsing and his mob nipping
at his heels. Dracula threw open a metal door and rushed out onto the roof top.
It snarled in disgust as it saw the last sinking orange rays of the quickly vanishing
sun. Even though its skin smoked and burned it could not go back the way it had
came, Van Helsing and his flunkies barred that avenue of escape. As the sun
finally sank below the horizon the vampire leapt onto the ledge of the building
and dangled one foot over the side. Van Helsing slowly approached.
“Now listen Larry I don’t know what’s
happening here but you need to come with me so I can get you some help. Why
don’t you step away from the ledge?”
The vampire laughed triumphantly,
“Foolish mortal did you think that it would be so easy to trap me? Dracula will
never die.”
After he had made this pronouncement he
leapt from the rooftop. The shocked actor that had played Van Helsing opposite Lawrence
Logos rushed to the edge and looked down towards the blacktop. He expected to
see his friend’s splattered remains but there was nothing. The actor looked on
in disbelief as he heard a piercing shriek in the night sky. He began to laugh
hysterically as he watched a huge vampire bat flutter away in the distance.
He whispered softly, “I guess you were
right after all Larry. Dracula will never die.”
One Final Kiss
By
Ken L. Jones
(Note to skeptics something very much like this bill was actually and seriously discussed in Washington DC by our elected lawmakers recently)
I had been a congressman for a long, long time, too long to even contemplate trying to find another way to earn my daily bread. During the two decades I have plied this trade I have been involved in representing may strange points of view that weren’t exactly my own so when the necrophiliacs wanted to officially come out of the closest and have rights and privileges after a brief period of skepticism I was won over to their point of view especially when I learned how many of them wanted to provide me with amazingly large campaign contributions.
I have to admit that at first I had no real fixed opinion or position on the subject but I’m afraid that my wife Alice did. Alice who was once a youthful and desirable creature had grown over the years into a nagging magpie of a woman who had a shrill opinion on everything and every opinion she had was the polar opposite of mine. Thus I was not surprised when she turned out to hate the very notion of these so-called Necros and didn’t even attempt to understand their special needs.
Now bringing all this forth into the proper public forums was a whole lot easier than you might expect. The great unwashed sea of voters after years of having their inhibitions slowly eroded away by internet porn and such mainstream movies as the Hostel franchise and the ones about human centipedes were a lot more receptive to this topic than you might expect them to be. Thus I wasn’t shocked at how simple it was to get the public behind all of this openly and then to get it voted into law.
What did surprise me however was how adamantly my wife was against it. It turns out that she feels about the dead in much the same way as some people used to be all sentimental about stem cells and unborn aborted fetuses to the point to where they would give them cutie pie names and dress them up in little doll clothes before they buried them at their own expense back before we made it illegal to do nonsense like that. Troubled at Alice’s amazing attitude about this topic with a little looking into all this on my part I soon learned that a young male TV commentator of a very conservative bent had implanted all this in my wife along with a very intimate part of his body that they regularly shared too. Afraid of the implications of all this I vowed to do something about it.
Now to put all this in a proper prospective you have to understand that as the poster child for the Necros I was in a very precarious position because you see it turned out that the Necros were indeed right in all that they thought. Once that was legal most of the public wanted to have relationships with the deceased so we had to figure out how to make it all wholesome and above board. Since the Necros had long argued that they were born that way and were normal and that they had the same rights as Gays who had long since been enfranchised and married to each other so too the Necros successfully argued that they were being picked on and that it should stop. So to regulate all this something very much based on the organ donation program was put into effect where by males and females who thought it was erotic and romantic could be made love to once they were no longer amongst the living and were matched up with those who found it desirable to do just that. Since unlike in real life liaisons the decomposition of one of the partners involved gave rise to grave public health issues we did have to draw the line at actual marriages where the dead partners would be taken back to their live partner’s house or on honeymoons or the like we instead settled for setting up the dead and still willing in what became called Ice Houses where their embalmed bodies were kept attended and fresh and cold for much longer than one might expect them to be able to be preserved.
All of this engendered such public acclaim that an actual powerful and vocal splinter group of my own political party was formed composed of well-heeled Necros who wanted me to be the next President of the United States. Oddly enough that idea had real legs across the boards and all the polls and pundits started agreeing and making self-fulfilling prophesies that I was going to become a kind of modern day Abraham Lincoln who had freed the dead. Not only did they say that I should serve two terms as President but immediately upon my successful completion of them that I should follow Ronald Reagan as the next head on the Mount Rushmore Monument.
Now only two things stood in the way of the ease of all this and that was Alice and her oily conservative paramour. So I took careful deliberate steps to eliminate them both from the picture while adding a small jest of my own to the whole process. The commentator who shall remain nameless here within died on the air after being struck by a conveniently placed falling Klieg light on the set of his regular news broadcast. To add delicious irony to the whole thing I did it on the very day when my wife and he were going to break the news to the whole world that they were in love and she was going to seek a divorce from me. An extremely well paid technician on the show who himself was a devout Necro became my Oliver North and made the whole thing happen right on cue and I don’t think the half million dollars in cash he received hurt anything either.
Inspired by an old Mummy movie I once saw I imitated the way Egyptians used to keep the locations of their tombs a secret from grave robbers by having the people who had buried them killed by people who did not know them and who themselves in turn were killed by even more distant people than that and so on and so forth until the final assassin didn’t even know who they were killing or what had set it all in motion in the first place. Thus through the advent of such similar murders did I distance myself from the primary one I was trying to hide.
The anchorman who was eulogized by the small faction of right wingers for having the nerve to buck the trend and not sign the Necro consent form needn’t have bothered because by the time that eight hundred pound light was done with him his head resembled an eight toppings pizza both in looks and flatness. Alice of course took all of this happening in front of her very eyes on live TV just as she was about to destroy me and all my ambitions very badly so she did the next best thing and hung herself dramatically in our bedroom after first signing a tell all note which climaxed with the bold notation that she was to be cremated something that was only now rarely being done anymore. Since she did not break her neck but instead choked to death I called in a marker from one of my Necro friends who was a famous doctor and on her death certificate it said that she had died of a severe asthma attack. For his service in doing this for me this man wound up being my surgeon general during both of my terms in office and the man who forged my wife’s name on the Necro consent form so skillfully became her one and only permanent paramour in the DC House of Ice. Turns out that he had long thought that my wife was desirable and would make a beautiful dead woman for him to make love to. There many times afterwards clad only in a commedia dell ‘art style domino mask complete with a long Pinocchio nose he taught my forever sweet and unloving Alice exactly what loving the dead was all about.
One final post script to all this before I burn this confession which I did enjoy writing so. My wife’s unexpected death won me an amazing amount of sympathy votes on my election especially when they saw how courageous and liberal both of us were about her donating her body to a House of Ice. After a decent amount of time had passed for me to mourn her passing I married a rich young debutant in the first wedding of a seated President in the White House since Woodrow Wilson in 1915.
Everything Has Its Purpose
By
Kevin L. Jones
Cold night air on Big Bear Mountain cut through his thin cloth jacket like a knife but that was not the reason why Deputy Gordon Smith hand’s trembled. He was afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his miserable useless life. He took a swig from a fifth of Jack Daniels but it did little to calm him as he approached the ruined burnt out cabin. Its charred wooden beams reached up towards the full moon. In the pale light they looked like the skeletal remains of long deceased demons. All of his life he had been afraid. Gordon often blamed the fact that he was only five three for this but in his heart of hearts he knew that was just an excuse. For as long as he could recall he had been afraid and he knew that he always would be. As a child he had been too afraid to tell his drunken abusive father to go to hell when he had often remarked that they stacked shit higher than Gordon. Instead of facing him he had run away and joined the military. Gordon had told himself that in the service he would prove to everybody that he was not as useless as they had always said but his hitch in the army had only heightened his sense of inadequacy. All through boot camp and beyond he had been called “Private Snafu” and he had lived up to the name. After his enlistment had run out he had gotten a job with the Sheriff’s Department and had hoped that it would be a fresh start for him. At first Gordon had loved his work and the sense of authority that it had given him. It had made him feel powerful every time that he had arrested someone and sitting in his cruiser he had almost looked as tall as a regular person. Like everything else in his sad life Gordon had soon proven himself a failure as a peace officer.
A few weeks back he and his partner had been searching a remote wooded area on Big Bear Mountain. They were looking for a wanted fugitive who was reputed to be a satanic worshiper and dark magician. This poor man’s Charles Manson had already killed two police officers in L.A. County as well as five citizens. He was now believed to be in the vicinity. As the two deputies had groped their way through the shadowy forest the fugitive had emerged seemingly from nowhere and had put a pistol to Gordon’s partner’s head. The wanted man had smiled cruelly with a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth. He leered at Gordon and had said mockingly, “Now’s your chance to be a hero little man.” But Gordon did nothing he only stared mutely down at the ground. “Look at me when I talk to you shithead. Say you love Satan and I’ll let this little piggy go”
Gordon would have done as he was asked but he had lost the power of speech. Paralyzed with fear he had just stared wide-eyed and trembling as his partner had been executed. As the dead peace officer had slumped over face down into the dirt Gordon had wet his pants. The killer chuckled at Gordon as he had strolled past him. The frightened diminutive deputy had made no attempt to hinder the mad man’s escape.
Later on when Gordon had snapped out of his fear induced trance he had fired off a few shots in the empty woods in an attempt to conceal his cowardice. He had then run back to his cruiser and had called for help. He had lied to anyone who would listen. He had told everyone that he had been in a big gun battle with the suspect but the subject had escaped during the fire fight.
A few hours later the mountain top had swarmed with backup. The swat team had trapped the killer in an old abandoned cabin and during the ensuing gun battle the old shack had somehow caught fire roasting the fugitive alive. Before the lunatic had burned to death he had screamed that Satan would grant him vengeance.
Afterwards everyone had said that Gordon had been brave. His captain had even told him that he had done the smart thing when Gordon did not pursue the suspect but had instead gone for help. For a while Gordon had tried to live with the lie but found that he could not. He had returned to the place where he had shed his pride and his manhood. He wanted to take his own life there but deep down inside he knew he would probably not be able to find the courage to do so. As he wallowed in self pity he took another long pull on his whiskey bottle and stumbled towards the fire blackened ruined cabin. His heart pounded faster and faster with each step that he took towards it. As he finally reached his goal Gordon’s blood turned to ice as he saw something begin to stir in the rubble. He removed a small flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. As he stared at the cabin’s burnt floorboards a hideous black fluid began to spew up from the ground. Gordon watched as the obsidian liquid slowly took the shape of a man. The nightmare thing towered over Gordon. It was burnt almost beyond recognition but its cruel smile betrayed it’s identify. Gordon would know those crooked yellow teeth anywhere. For the last several weeks he had seen them every time he had shut his eyes. The dark apparition croaked out, “Now’s your chance to be a hero little man.”
Gordon slowly reached down to his waistband and retrieved his pistol pointing it at the specter. The creature sneered, “You’re too much of a coward to pull that trigger.”
Gordon tried to discharge his weapon but his hand shook too badly to accomplish this seemingly simple task. He sank to his knees and began to sob pathetically at his own worthlessness.
The unclean spirit approached the weeping little man and wrapped its shadowy black hands around Gordon’s throat. Its crooked inhuman yellow teeth glistened in the moonlight. Gordon tried to cry out in terror but his cowardly shriek was silenced as the dark apparition enveloped him.
The next morning in the nearby city of Yucaipa the town’s small businessmen’s association was hosting a pancake breakfast for the sheriff’s department. Gordon was to be a keynote speaker at this event but so far he was a no show. Captain Pines scratched his prodigious belly as he shoveled down another mouthful of syrup drenched pancakes. If he kept attending these events he would have to have his uniform let out once again. He scanned the crowded room and muttered angrily to himself as he wondered where Gordon could possibly be. As he wolfed down another bite he finally caught sight of the diminutive deputy and immediately wished that he had not. Gordon was a mess. He was out of uniform, covered in mud and what looked like soot. Pines rose and waddled towards his deputy determined to escort him from the premises before anyone else caught sight of him. When Pines reached him the little man smiled but it was not Gordon’s smile. As the captain stared at his hard looking grin he wondered how Gordon’s white even teeth had changed overnight. He was so mesmerized by the evil looking smirk that he almost didn’t hear the several loud pops that occurred in rapid succession. Pines looked down at his tunic, he was surprised to see a crimson stain spreading across it. As Pines sank to the floor stone dead the possessed madly leering Gordon took aim at his next victim. The psychotic little deputy gunned down person after person. His fellow law enforcement officers drew their weapons and sent a hail of lead towards Gordon but no matter how many times he was struck he would not go down. The thing that had once been Gordon laughed madly as his body turned into a torn bloody mess. Seeing that their barrage of bullets was having no effect on the nightmare apparition sheriff’s deputy and citizen alike fled for their lives. A panicked cry rose up from the terrified crowd as all the restaurant’s doors slammed shut in unison. All of the means of escape could not be forced open no matter how much brute strength was leveled against them. The monstrous shattered living corpse turned and addressed the horrified crowd. In between demented giggles it announced, “I’d like to inform you all about a last minute change in the menu instead of pancakes we will now be serving roasted pork.”
The hideous creature laughed at its own wit as it chanted an ancient spell summoning up Hell’s power. Skeletal hands burst through the floor boards and grasped the law enforcement officers causing them to combust. As the flaming shrieking men ran around like so many decapitated chickens everything they touched ignited upon contact. As the building became a fiery inferno the unclean spirit departed from Gordon’s shattered corpse. It gazed down at the mutilated pile of meat that had been the instrument of its unholy revenge. It smiled its crooked yellow smile, “You see Gordon you’re not as useless as you always imagined. Everything on this earth has its purpose even you.” The phantom’s bloodlust now sated it sank into the floor where it could began its descent into the dark void where it can now rest in the knowledge that the ones that had caused its death were no more.
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