Brian Keene's Blog, page 162

Thoughts on Amazon – Dorchester

Today is Independence Day here in the United States. I like the not-so-subtle irony of giving you (as I promised) my full thoughts on the latest Dorchester twist today of all days. And here they are, after the cut.

As noted, while I was on vacation, Publisher’s Weekly reported that Amazon “has made a bid to acquire the assets of the company and, as part of the sale, Amazon will pay all outstanding royalties owed to Dorchester authors. Through the deal, Amazon will acquire 1,900 active titles in many of the genres in which it already publishes, including romance and westerns.” The article also reiterated what I’ve been reporting for the last two years – that Dorchester is not paying authors, “yet they continue to pocket receipts for e-books and foreign royalties.” Amazon states “We want all authors to be happy being a part of the Amazon Publishing family going forward and we have structured our bid so that we will only take on authors who want to join us. As part of this philosophy, if we win the bid, Dorchester has committed to revert all titles that are not assigned to us.”

Now, as I said earlier in the week, I’m cautiously optimistic about this deal. While this move does not impact authors such as myself, Bryan Smith, J.F. Gonzalez, or others who already managed to get their rights reverted and have gone on to other publishers or begun self-publishing, it does help the vast majority of former Dorchester authors who have not been so lucky (such as Stacy Dittrich, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Mary SanGiovanni, Sarah Pinborough, Robert Dunbar, and hundreds more). There are, however, some very important questions which need to be answered before those authors celebrate.

1. Amazon states they will acquire 1,900 active titles. That’s only a portion of what Dorchester illegally retains the rights to. If these are mostly from the romance and western lines (of which Amazon has found success) what happens to the horror, thriller, science-fiction and other lines Dorchester still holds?

2. Amazon states they will pay all outstanding royalties owed to authors. But will this be for all authors or only for those authors who choose to publish through Amazon? And how far back will those royalties be calculated? Numerous sources state that Dorchester was misreporting royalties long before its financial plight became public knowledge. And what of authors whose work Dorchester continued to illegally sell, even after those authors had obtained the reversion of their rights? Will Amazon financially compensate them?

3. Amazon states that as part of this deal, “Dorchester has committed to revert all titles that are not assigned to us.” How will this be enforced? I mean, Dorchester has committed to all sorts of things, but haven’t actually followed through on those commitments. They were committed to reverting rights but they didn’t. They were committed to paying authors, but they didn’t. What assurances can Amazon give authors who choose not to publish with them that Dorchester will suddenly do the right thing after several years of lies and malfeasance?

These are questions that must be answered. As I said, I’m cautiously optimistic for those authors still trapped in this situation, but I don’t think they should pop the champagne just yet.

Yesterday, I received my monthly royalty check and statement from Deadite, who have published a good portion of my Dorchester backlist. In a little over a year, I have earned more money from Deadite on those same titles than I did from Dorchester in seven years. I want my fellow authors to be able to enjoy that same independence and success, and I hope this new development eventually leads to that, regardless of whether they choose to publish through Amazon or simply obtain their rights and do something else. But I suspect this is going to get messy and it might be a while before that happens. That’s why it’s important that we as a community continue to stick together. In the last three years you’ve seen the horror and romance communities come together on this Blog and elsewhere. We need to continue with that solidarity. Authors need to continue supporting each other, and fans need to continue supporting those authors.

It’s also important to remember that Dorchester is just the tip of the iceberg. There are other, bigger publishers out there who are just as capable of doing this to their authors. We need to make sure they know that, just as Dorchester found a fight on its hands, so will they all.

Happy Independence Day.

For a complete accounting and timeline of Dorchester Publishing’s malfeasance, as well as links to other sources, click here.

Whether You Want To See Me In Drag Or See Me Get My Ass Kicked: Why CONvergence Rules. Plus GHOUL.

For those of you who don’t subscribe to my YouTube Channel, you’ve missed some cool things recently, including this multi-part MAKING OF GHOUL documentary. Also recently added are a ton of videos from last year’s CONvergence Con. Below are three that you might particularly enjoy. To view all of them, click here.

Here’s me in drag in front of several thousand people. (I come in at the 10-minute mark).

And here’s me getting my ass kicked in front of those same several thousand people by my good friend Cargill (of Ain’t It Cool News).

And on a more serious note, here’s Cargill and I in a more serious, introspective moment as I talk about Ghoul.

How You Spent My Summer Vacation

Welcome back. I have returned from a month long sabbatical. Today, we’ll take a look at things that transpired during my absence. There are a lot of them, and we’ll come back and revisit some of the bigger stories with a Blog entry of their own in the next few days.

For those of you who liked the movie adaptation of Ghoul, Moderncine is offering a limited collector’s edition book featuring the screenplay and storyboards. And yes, I’ll be signing them. Details can be found here.

Paul Campion reports that filming has begun for the teaser trailer for the big screen adaptation of Dark Hollow. For details, see the film’s Facebook page.

There’s a new zombie anthology hitting bookstores in two weeks. 21st Century Dead features an all-new story by me called “Couch Potato”, which takes place in the world of Dead Sea and Entombed. Click here to pre-order.

Scientists have discovered distant human ancestors with shark heads. Just like the ones I wrote about in Earthworm Gods II: Deluge.

My co-writer on The Damned Highway, Nick Mamatas, offers the latest on the class action lawsuit against Publish America, and how the company was indirectly responsible for the creation of Shocklines.

According to Publisher’s Weekly, Amazon may purchase Dorchester’s back-list. My initial, on-vacation comments about it can be found here. I’ll offer full analysis and thoughts later this week.

Shane Ryan Staley announced that he was essentially no longer publishing as Delirium Books and would instead operate under the Dark Fuse imprint. This news caused quite a bit of consternation among collectors, especially those with lifetime subscriptions. I’ll examine their reactions, as well as Dark Fuse’s response, later this week.

MIKE KO – Rest In Peace

Regular posts will resume when I return from vacation, but I have some heartbreaking news that needs to be posted on its own, rather than lost amidst a flurry of updates.

Long-time fan and beloved F.U.K.U. member Mike Kozlowski (known to most of us as Mike Ko) passed away this month after a battle with cancer. I always enjoyed interacting with Mike online, as I know many of you did. I’m grateful that I got to hang out with him in person, as well. Whenever I did a signing in New Jersey, I could usually count on Mike showing up to get books signed — often with his fiancee, Dawn, occasionally by himself, and once with his son. He was enthusiastic, kind, witty, thoughtful, and talking to him was always the best part of those appearances.

The last two times Mike and I spoke (at the Asbury Park Zombie Walk and Horrorfind), we talked about my idea for a vampire novel — With Teeth (which will be written later this year). When other long-time fans Dan “UK” Thomas and Bruce “Boo” Smith passed away, I dedicated Castaways to them. I’ll be dedicating With Teeth to Mike. I think he’d have dug that.

Mike’s impact and influence on the writers he supported and the fan community he was a part of can best be summed up in his own words: “What the fuck – I just go from one day to the next trying to help others in need.”

Rest in peace, Mike. We will miss you…

Mike and Dawn photo-bomb us on the red carpet at The Ties That Bind premiere (this pic hangs in my office and makes me laugh every time I see it)

Mike Lombardo, Dawn, and Mike (at The Ties That Bind premiere)

Dawn, Director Jeff Heimbuch, and Mike (at The Ties That Bind premiere)

[image error]

Mike, Dawn, and Matt Blazi (at The Ties That Bind premiere)

We Interrupt For An Important Announcement

I will be on vacation until approximately July 6th. Some of this vacation will be spent in the mountains of West Virginia. Some will be spent in New York City. Some will be spent moving Mary SanGiovanni from New Jersey to our home in Pennsylvania. And all of it will be spent writing various things that I owe various publishers. Therefore – and I can’t stress this enough – this website, my email, Facebook, Tumbler, Google +, and my message board will all be on hiatus until next month. The only place I’ll be posting and interacting with folks is via Twitter (and if I had my way, we would all use Twitter for our primary means of communication, and leave our phones, email service providers, and Facebook nothing but smoking ruins…)

But I digress. While I’m gone, don’t forget about the new Deadite Press paperback edition of Dark Hollow, on sale now. Or the two alternate covers for The Last Zombie: Before the After #1, which can be pre-ordered here and here. And if you haven’t gotten them already, you might also want The Damned Highway (in paperback and Nook), The Cage (in paperback, Kindle, or Nook), and The Last Zombie: Neverland #4 (on sale now) and The Last Zombie: Neverland #5 (on sale in a few short weeks). And here is a bunch of FREE stuff you can enjoy. Aspiring writers should also get their applications in for Borderlands Boot Camp, where I’ll be an instructor. Payment plans are available for those with financial concerns. And don’t forget about these upcoming signings and appearances later this summer.

Okay, I’m out of here. Those who really want to hear about my exploits grilling a burger, climbing a mountain, or moving furniture on the Garden State Parkway should follow along on Twitter. For the rest of you, have a great June and I’ll see you in July.

FAST ZOMBIES SUCK – Meet the Stars

As previously announced, Drunken Tentacle Productions’ first short film will be an adaptation of my short story “Fast Zombies Suck” (which you can listen to for free here). Filming begins in August. Today, you get to meet our stars.

Karin Crighton has been working on her zombie action plan almost as long as she’s been acting. A graduate of the Towson University theatre arts program, she performs with Iron Crow Theatre Company. Recent credits include The Soldier Dreams, California Suite, Swimming in the Shallows, and Sealed Fates.

Matthew Blazi has played iconic zombies in George Romero’s Land of the Dead and Survival of the Dead, but this will be his first time playing a zombie killer. A member of the Drunken Tentacle team, Matt is a father of two, and enjoys reading and NASCAR.

DARK HOLLOW – On Sale Now

DARK HOLLOW – the novel that serves as a prequel to the Levi Stoltzfus books, is a constant favorite among my readers, and is due to be a major motion picture next year – is back in print, courtesy of Deadite Press.

Amazon currently has it listed as ‘Temporarily Out of Stock’ but you can pre-order it now and be first in line when they switch that to ‘In Stock’ next week.

Trade Paperback, $12.95. Kindle and Nook editions forthcoming.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

“Locked into everything is a mystery. We then try to find, in any given age as writers, the truths that we grew up with. You cannot grow up in a period and not be a child of your time.” Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012)

Update On The New Deadite Titles

A few weeks ago, I posted about the reasons for the delay of Dark Hollow. Here’s an update on where things stand for the rest of the year.

After sorting out the previously mentioned problems, Dark Hollow just finished at the printer. So the physical books exist. You should see it pop up on Amazon, B&N, and elsewhere next week (with the Kindle and Nook versions to follow, as always).

Entombed, Ghost Walk, and An Occurrence In Crazy Bear Valley are all being copy-edited right now. Glenn Chadbourne makes his Deadite debut with the cover to the latter. Alex McVey is currently doing the cover for Ghost Walk (and from his description, it’s going to be a stunning depiction of Nodens). None of these were in the format Dark Hollow was, so production shouldn’t be delayed on them. You’ll definitely see all three before the end of summer.

Fall gives us Earthworm Gods and Earthworm Gods: Selected Scenes From the End of the World, as well as the paperback and digital editions of Clickers vs. Zombies. My pre-readers are going over the manuscripts for the Worms books right now, so we are way ahead of schedule. And next month, I’ll begin the long process of editing the Author’s Preferred Editions of The Rising, City of the Dead, and The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World. You should see those this winter.

While I’ll certainly finish writing Suburban Gothic this year, because of this newly revised schedule, I’m guessing you won’t see it until early 2013.

I’m also editing an anthology for Deadite, but it’s way too early to talk about that.

Anyway, that’s where things currently stand.

GUEST BLOG: “How Brian Keene Nearly Caused the Nuclear Apocalypse and Yes, Every Word of This is True, Mostly” by Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli’s new novel, The Last Kind Words, comes out next week. It is absolutely one of the best novels in his long and stellar career. You should pre-order it.

Tom is here with a true story. Seriously. 90% of what you are about to read is true. This really is what it’s like when I do a signing.

This is how trouble starts, I thought. Riding into the wasteland side by side with my bud, my little bro, Brian Keene, with him hunched over the wheel as the empty terrain of Wyoming flashed by, talking Hunter S. Thompson and other dead heroes.

We’d known each other for more than fifteen years and learned there was a lifetime of difference between 29 and 45. Time and mileage had caught up. We were gray and balding. We were singed around the edges. We didn’t show our teeth much when we smiled. Me because of a bad case of bell’s palsy that had left the one side of my face partially paralyzed. Brian–I wasn’t sure. Maybe too much sorrow.

He had come out west for a book/comic signing/interview. My place was on the way so he breezed by in the airport rental and we fell into the old patterns of our friendship. We shot shit, we opened up about our lives. We whined a little louder to each other than we would most other folks. We admitted, we reminisced, we embellished. We talked word counts. We looked into each other’s faces searching out the scars of our endeavors. We wonder who paid the bigger price. It was the middle age version of seeing who had the biggest dick. It was the poor man’s version of who has the nicest car. We talked about Dick Laymon. We always talked about Dick Laymon.

As a mid-list, low-list, and no-list novelist over the course of my haphazard career, it was only with great difficulty that I managed to hold onto any self-esteem at all while riding shotgun during a five-hour signing/interview with Brian Keene. Note that when I say “with Brian”, I wasn’t signing alongside and I sure as hell wasn’t being interviewed. I was just his wing man while hanging around a comic shop in Cheyenne Wyoming, a small store run by a few friends who keep the place more as a labor of love than a business. I was out of my natural element. I was in Wyoming, man.

The store was a hole in the wall, but what they lacked in size and space they made up for in enthusiasm. They called everybody from their local high schools, newspapers, and cable stations to get the word out that Brian Keene was coming to town.

Now, you never know which way a signing is going to go. You might have 20 folks show up, or you might wind up flirting with the chick working the coffee counter at B&N because you’re sick and tired of making puppy eyes at stone-faced customers walking past at a brisk pace. Occasionally, the coffee counter chick might front you a biscotti for your troubles. In general though, my own book signings definitely fall to the puppy dog eye extreme.

Brian downplayed it. He hoped to fake me out. He tried to tell me nobody would show. He said I would be bored shitless. He mentioned I could take the rented car and go off and get lunch and try to keep myself entertained, go see a movie, find a holdover frontier whorehouse.

The shop had ordered tons of Brian’s titles and issues of DEAD OF NIGHT: DEVIL-SLAYER, which had all been bagged and laid out on a table. They had signs up. They had pictures of Brian in full gangsta pose in all corners. They stopped short of having a life-size Brian Keene cut-out which you could pose beside. Or better yet, one with the face cut out saying YOU CAN BE BRIAN KEENE FOR A DAY.

Then the interviews began, the first conducted by store employee on camera. It consisted of many super-hero and super-villain questions. Like, If you had to face down a zombie apocalypse, who would you want at your side? Brian answered, Wolverine. With a codicil, Or maybe Galactus.

Next came the interview by a group of three young guys from the YMCA who apparently were putting this up on a website. They had a laptop with a camera set-up. They hit him with a load of questions, some sharp, some stolen from the previous list.  Yes, still Wolverine, yes still Galactus.

Then the cutie but professional high school reporter chick showed up and asked pointed questions about writing, his personal history, day jobs, his new baby boy, writer’s block, inspiration, his parents. The local news channel wafted in and glommed on until Brian made an off-hand crack about religion in a red state.

The fans mobbed up and crashed the door. They swarmed. They overtook. They overpowered. They overwhelmed. They looked starved for brain juice nutrition. They were wide-eyed and slack-jawed. They explained and espoused to one another about Brian’s writing, singing about how it was so powerful, immediate, and gripping. How he had a real blue-collar sensibility, a working man’s approach to horror, emotional pain, loss, and thrills. It’s why, they said, he speaks to such a large cross-section of the public.

I lived in Northern Colorado and never even knew Wyoming had this many people. Brian shook hands and signed books and bonded and kibbitzed and posed and dallied. He even signed a guitar. I’m not sure why anyone would want a writer to sign a guitar. I’m not entirely sure how you make the transition from “I love this guy’s books” to “I need his autograph on my Fender.” It doesn’t matter. Despite my confusion, I watched Brian sign a guitar. I watched a young man cry “awesome” with tears pooled in his eyes.

But it was the three soldiers in full fatigues that really caught my interest.

They came in with a flourish, stood on line with an eve more excited air than the kid with the guitar, and called Brian “sir” and practically took an “atten-shun” stance while in his presence. They shook his hand while Brian did his verbal canoodling, and then they lined up for photographs. But afterwards they couldn’t bear to leave the shop early. They hovered in the back near where I was sitting. Their gazes gleamed with respect, admiration, and a little nervous energy. They kept eyeballing the door. It got me paranoid. I started watching the door too. I said, “What’s the trouble, guys?”

“Nothing.”

“You look a bit worried.”

“Well, the truth is–”

“The truth is what?”

“We’re probably about to get arrested,” they confessed.

“Arrested?” I asked. “Why?”

“We’re awol.”

“You’re awol?”  This was a pretty major jump from the kid with the signed guitar. “You mean you left your post?”

“We left.”

“You left? You mean you left…what, the silos?”

“Our commanding officer wouldn’t give us permission to come see Brian. So we left anyway.”

This is what happens in Wyoming, I thought. You stick these guys out in the middle of a thousand square miles of nothing but sandstone and longhorn cattle skulls, give them only comic books and Brian Keene novels to read, and then tell them to sit by the button in case planetary nuclear annihilation becomes a necessity. Trouble ensues.

“But…Jesus, guys, who’s watching the silos?”

“They’re mostly automated. Unless we wind up under attack and somebody has to push a button.”

“There’s nobody around to push the button?” I asked.

“We wanted to meet Brian Keene.”

” There’s nobody to push the button in case of nuclear attack? Well shit, you got your Keene novels signed already. Get back to the silos!”

But we were in Wyoming. Boredom plays a large part of everyone’s lives. These people are edgy. These people, they’re on the cusp. “We wanted to take Brian out for a beer and some shots of Knob Creek. It’s his favorite liquor. He blogs about it all the time.”

“Yeah, I know! But guys, Jesus, hold on–”

I worked my way through the crowd to Brian’s table at the front of the shop. He paused long enough to notice the expression on my face. He frowned and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Three of your fans just left the nation unprotected in case of a nuclear attack.”

“What?”

“And it’s your fault. They want to party with you.” Brian’s face fell in along its usual planes and edges, his normal expression mostly moderate guilt and dismayed confusion. “What did I do this time?”

“I don’t know but I vibe bad shit about to befall us, so let’s wrap this up. Who knows what’ll happen if the Army or the feds really want to make a case.”

“The feds are in play now? Should we leave?”

“Maybe after you finish signing this lady’s copy of DEVIL SLAYER.”

So after Brian made his fond farewells, hugged his fans, kissed a few babies, wheeled a grandma around in her wheelchair, signed a saggy tit, promised to run for president in 2012 if the Mayans didn’t kill us all with their evil prophecies, signed somebody else’s guitar, signed a perky tit, shook hands with the three soldiers, sipped from their flask of bourbon, left a few weeping readers on the curbside waving their black lace handkerchiefs while singing a heartbreaking Mexican song of death and farewell, and we finally managed to split from the store and jump into the rental car.

We hopped onto I-25 and headed south back towards Colorado, where the cowboys aren’t quite as bored or affected by the radiation from ten million stored nuclear warheads, and we could at least hope for a slightly elevated but still modicum degree of sanity. As always I was in bitter jealous awe of the admiration Brian managed to generate in his readers. The interest they showed in him because of his willingness to commit so much of himself and the persona he’d created down to the page. He spiked himself there with ten penny nails. I cut my wrists open and write in red too. All writers who give a damn about the work do. But Brian’s fans show up with bandages and bind his wounds for him, and that is something very special.

As we rode along discussing new creative projects and old publishing troubles, suddenly four black modified GMC SUVs tore up from behind us and quickly surrounded our vehicle.

Brian wagged his head in disbelief and growled, “Now what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I think they’re–“

“Feds! What do they want with us?”

“Well, it is your fault that the nation was defenseless in case of nuclear war. They may suspect you’re a terrorist. They’re signaling for us to pull over.”

“This thing has no pickup!”

“You’d better do what they want.”

Brian’s face filled with dread and shame. “Look, we can’t stop.”

“What do you mean?”

“I never told you about my Navy days, did I? And how once I was arrested by the shore patrol–”

“Yes, you’ve blogged about it.”

“Well, I spent a night in jail. In the can. The joint. The big house. The bin. That’s what we ex-cons call it.”

“Yeah, you blogged about it, B–”

“Well, I never told anyone about what went on board that ship. About the horrible experiments that were done…down in the hold…to our prisoners!”

“Oh Jesus Christ. What men do while they’re out at sea should be kept among themselves, Brian, I’m not judging you.”

His eyes shifted. “We have to get off the Interstate. Now!”

“How? It’s fucking Wyoming. We just passed a sign for a town that said POP: 32. How are we going to hide out when everyone in town can fit in your living room?”

We were stuck in the wasteland. No matter which direction we ran we were trapped in road warrior territory. Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, or northern Colorado.

Brian drove with a force of concentration I’ve never seen on anyone else. I wondered if this was how he wrote as well. Focused like a beam of light becoming a laser. Every so often he’d spit chaw out the window and onto the windshield of the feds’ trucks. It must’ve miffed them good because they started trying to box us in then.

But desperation fuels incredible feats. Brian managed to get more action out of that car than I thought possible. We cut over to the shoulder and through a barbed war fence, Brian yanking the wheel so tightly that I thought for sure we’d flip over. Rotted fence posts exploded around us. The wire flapped in our grille. I didn’t want to die on an empty plain of red rock. The SUVs came after us, but Brian managed to zig and zag and serpentine past the outcroppings of stone while the trucks barreled into them and bottomed out even with their reinforced undercarriages. A red dust storm swirled around us. Brian spun the wheel hard again and floored it. We were in some kind of vague and uneven trail heading through the craggy ridges.

“Maybe we can get to Denver,” he said. “And lose them.”

“I don’t know. It’s still a haul.”

“But if we make it we can get lost for a while, get resettled, regroup, plan our way out of this. I never told you about the time Tim Lebbon and I went skinny dipping at World Horror Con and the cops threatened to–“

“Yes, you blogged about it.”

“Are those helicopters?”

They were. Flying in low from the east where the empty silos stood waiting for our proud troops to return after reading their Keene comic books. “Government troops!”

“Holy fuck. I think those are black ops teams!”

“What kind of shit have you gotten us into now, zombie boy!”

“Don’t call me zombie boy, motherfucker!”

“Watch out!”

We crashed through another barbed wire fence. I had no idea what all this fencing was keeping in or keeping out. We hadn’t seen a horse or a cow or long-horned sheep since we set out. We hit the highway again and nearly roared into the side of an eighteen wheel Freightliner. I braced my feet against the dashboard. I thought for sure our front end was going to get chewed up but Brian managed to downshift and barely avoid wrecking us. We were on the wrong side of the highway heading south in the northbound lane, but Brian didn’t seem to mind. Traffic rushed toward us head-on as Brian adeptly and almost calmly jockeyed from one lane to the next, avoiding blaring vehicles.

I was a lapsed Catholic who was whining novenas and praying to all the saints and martyrs I could remember, even those with the really screwy names: John, Paul, Anthony, Ignatius, Basil, Benedict, Dominic, Catulinus, Abban of Murnevin, Theodore the Sanctified, Irwin. Was there a St. Irwin? I didn’t care. I prayed to him anyway.

“Take the next exit!” I shouted.

“No shit!”

We rocketed up the entrance ramp and narrowly avoided a bright yellow rice burner motorcycle. Brian screamed out the window, “Buy American, bitch!”

“Are the helicopters still following?” I asked. I couldn’t see them anywhere.

“I don’t know. We’ve got to ditch this car.”

“There’s a truck stop up ahead.”

We pulled in and I immediately felt safer being among hundreds of other cars, trucks, SUVS, and vans. Fatigued families dragged ass across the parking lot while kids screamed and old folks bitched about the weather and gas prices. “We’ve got to steal a car.”

“Well, look for something that seems fast.”

We ran up and down the aisles trying to figure out what looked fast. And it had to be American. I was sure Brian would only steal American. I kept thinking about crossing wires. Who the hell knew which wires you crossed, but I’d seen a million movies where they made it appear easy. I’d written about it a lot myself. I had plenty of car thief protagonists in my fiction. I was suddenly enraged at myself for not researching the subject more. Fucking Google made it all too easy.

I turned and saw a Mustang slowing down beside Brian. I started to call to him, to tell him to duck or run or do something dramatic because the spooks were upon us, but suddenly the car braked hard and the driver’s door swung open. A teenage punk with a grin that nearly went ear to ear hopped out and practically into Brian’s arms. I thought, What now?

“Excuse me,” the kid said, “but are you Brian Keene? It is you! I love your work! I read your blog faithfully!”

B turned to me as if to say, Look at this, another fan shows up at the most inopportune time. But he didn’t turn the guy away. I thought, This is why they worship him. Because he always makes the time for them. Because he always gives them a friend when they need one, a mentor, a brother, a father figure. Whatever they’re looking for, Brian provides it by opening up his chest and reaching in and pulling it out of himself. Even while in heavy pursuit he’d stop and chat and sell some books and make this mook’s day. He shook hands while I searched out assassins.

“Mr. Keene, I love zombies! I can’t get enough of the undead. I absolutely loved The Rising and City of the Dead–“

“I do more than zombies, man!” Brian said, more than a hint of impatience in his voice. “ Haven’t you read my slightly supernatural, quasi-crime thriller Kill Whitey? Or my end of the world books Darkness on the Edge of Town, The Conqueror Worms and its sequel, Deluge, which I’ve been offering on my blog for free?”

The kid hadn’t really heard Brian’s retort, his eyes gleaming with love and adoration, his slack mouth continuing to work. “–and Dead Sea…and The Last Zombie…”

“I do more than zombies, you little shit! How about Castaways, my Richard Laymon homage? You don’t know about my Levi Stolzfus series, my Amish mystic warror?”

“Brian, we’ve got to split!” I called. “Steal his car!”

“And the Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World,” the kid continued. “And The Rising: Necrophobia.  And The Rising: Deliverance!  Oh, Mr Keene–”

“You little fucker! I don’t just write about zombies!”

“Brian! Now!”

But he could never bring himself to break away from a fan. So I rushed over, kneed the punk in the groin, gave him a swift kick in the stomach while he was down, and then jumped into the ‘stang. I immediately felt comfortable behind the wheel, with the engine already groaning, the car hot and heaving. Brian threw himself head first into the passenger side and we squealed out of there.

We stewed in silence for a while as we raced down the interstate towards Denver. Everyone needs a little optimism in their lives, and I kept thinking that if we could just make it to the city we’d be free and our troubles with black ops teams would somehow vanish.

But the cops picked us up right as we blasted down into LoDo, the lower downtown area. Sirens filled the world again and swept over us like a hot screaming wind. A new set of black SUVs weaved in and out among state troopers. All the forces of justice descended upon us.

“Look,” Brian said, “I never told you what happened when–”

“Yes, you’ve blogged about it.”

“You didn’t even let me finish!”

“You blog about every fucking thing!”

The ‘stang’s wheel felt good in my hands. I pulled shit out of that engine that had to have been blessed by St. Theodore the Sanctified. I was blessed by the Pope, the archangel Michael, and Christ himself. Panic was getting me back in touch with my Catholic roots.

All of the cops and black ops and feds slowed down and let us run out ahead of them. I knew that meant trouble, but I couldn’t see it coming from above or ahead or from any direction. That meant it would hit from below. I slammed the brakes and the car screeched like a twelve-year-old Keene fan getting a picture with him for the first time. We sat there trying to catch our breath, staring out over the rim of eternity.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“I think it’s…the Grand Canyon!”

“Isn’t that Colfax Avenue over there?”

“Maybe it’s not the Grand Canyon,” Brian admitted. “But it’s big! It’s a very big canyon-like hole in the ground.”

“Shit.”

“”It’s been a hell of a ride, man, let’s not stop. Let’s just keep on going.”

“It’s really not that big a hole.”

“Come on, let’s rock! Hit it!”

We clasped each other one last time.

“I love you, man!” I told him.

“I love you too, bro!”

“I’m sorry I called you zombie boy.”

“Godammit, you prick!”

And we gunned it forward into legend.

If you enjoyed this, please support Tom Piccirilli by pre-ordering THE LAST KIND WORDS here.