Brian Keene's Blog, page 193

LA Banks Ill

(L to R): NPR producer, Joe Lansdale, Edward Lee, LA Banks, Me, Heather Graham, and Wrath James White

I'm sad to report that our friend, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author LA Banks, has been diagnosed with late stage adrenal cancer. She is gravely ill. A fund has been started to help her and her daughter with the medical bills. Please click here to donate. I know times are tough, but any amount will help. You can also leave a message for her there.

Of keen interest to Of Keene Interest subscribers

This Blog entry is for subscribers to the Of Keene Interest newsletter (and perhaps Lifetime Subscribers, as well, since there's a bit in here for them). The rest of you can come back tomorrow, assured that you didn't miss anything.

Okay. Are they gone? As most of you know, 2010 was a shit year for me. In the space of 12 months, I got divorced, went through a very bad health scare, lost my grandfather, and lost 85% of my annual income when Dorchester decided it might be a good idea to start fucking the authors who kept them in business. Since then, things have gotten better. I'm a single Dad with two happy and healthy sons. My ex-wife is my best friend. My health is better than it's been in years. I've adjusted to the absence of our family's patriarch and am trying to live life by the lessons he left behind. I'm making more money with Deadite than I ever did from Dorchester (and, unlike Dorchester, Deadite pays on time–and monthly). Things are looking good.

But there have still been a few leftover items from last year that need cleaning up. The most important is, of course, the morass of missed deadlines that I'm slowly digging my way out of. The second is getting the Lifetime Subscribers back on track (which was mostly delayed by Dorchester selling hardcover book club editions of my work and then not sending me copies). The third is The Keenedom, which I've neglected for too long and have big plans for later this year. Fourth is the newsletter.

The newsletter started while I was still married. My ex-wife (then wife) edited, designed and produced it, because I'm an idiot when it comes to doing things like that. Since we are now divorced, it wouldn't be right for me to ask her to continue in that role. Also, Tomo, Dezm, and Dave have all had things going on in their personal lives the last year, and just as my time to work on the newsletter was limited, so was their time to participate on it. Finally, there was the problem of content. By the time we'd get an issue ready for publication, the news was already in danger of becoming old news.

With all of that in mind, and with the fact that I need to focus on the other three things leftover from last year (mentioned above), and given that my three contributors also have other obligations, and given that we don't really have an editor, I've decided to cease publication. At this time, we are not accepting further subscriptions.

However, to make absolutely sure that current subscribers get their money's worth, I am going to do the following. There will be one more issue published. It is in the design stage right now, and it reprints two very old and impossible to find short stories, as well as some other surprises. In addition to that final, double-sized issue, I am in the process of putting together an exclusive trade paperback book of original content that will be sent to each and every former subscriber. I am only printing enough copies of the book for the subscriber list. There will be no further copies printed, and no other format, edition or reprint — thus making this book an absolute collectible and worth far more than initial subscription fee. You can keep and and re-read it, or you can sell it on eBay for twice your initial investment.

Thanks for your patience and understanding in this matter. I'm sure that most of you will be agreeable to this arrangement. However, if you seek a refund or an alternative, I'm sure we can work something out. If so, email me at briankeene at live.com. Put 'Newsletter' in the subject line, so that it gets routed properly (otherwise, it might end up like this).

MAELSTROM II Reminder

Several weeks ago, I posted an early warning in regards to the second Maelstrom series. The three books in Series II are my A Conspiracy of One and Alone, and John Urbancik's Once Upon A Time In Midnight. Click here for all the details.

Today, I am posting this final reminder. The set will go on sale to the public next week.

Customers who ordered the first set have been emailed details on how they can reserve the second set before it goes on sale to the general public. If you purchased the first set and have not received that email, contact Paul at info @ thunderstormbooks.com.

Previously, on Brian Keene dot com…

Danilo Giovannelli created a promotional cartoon for the Italian edition of The Conqueror Worms. Deluge continued. I explained why it takes so long to answer my emails. I posted my schedule for CONvergence. We remembered author Alan Ryan. Borders woes continued. Tom Piccirilli offered a (mostly) true story of how I almost caused a nuclear war.

DELUGE (Part 75)

The rain fell like nails and sheets of mist curled up from the ground far below. It was hard for Henry to see anything on the landing, but he assumed that one or more of the creatures must have made it back up the stairwell, because Novak unleashed a gout of flame and shouted at him and the women to fall back. The liquid fire lit up the dark, and something inhuman shrieked.

"Back inside," Novak yelled.

"We can't," Gail hollered. "I shut the door already. We fall back now and they'll have us trapped. We've got to push through!"

"God damn it."

More fire erupted from the nozzle of the weapon, and was followed by a second shriek. Henry closed his eyes against the sudden flare of brilliance. The heat from the blast brushed against him. He smelled something like burning hair, and hoped it wasn't his. When he opened his eyes again, there were spots in his vision.

"Okay," Novak said. "Stick close."

The tower buckled and swayed as they made their way down the stairs. Henry gasped when he saw the extent of the damage to the steel beams and girders that held the structure aloft. They were overgrown with white fuzz, and twisted and bent in places where the metal had grown soft and started to liquefy.

"Jesus," Sarah gasped behind him. "If we had stayed here any longer…"

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to. Henry felt the same way. The imagery in his head was of the World Trade Center towers collapsing on 9/11. He'd been younger then—elementary school—and while he hadn't understood all the implications of that fateful day, he remembered being awestruck that the support beams in the skyscrapers had melted and liquefied. The same thing was happening now, only at a much slower pace.

"Soft…" The voices echoed from below.

"I'll turn you soft, motherfuckers!" Novak released another gout of flame, bathing the landing below them. More creatures howled.

"Careful," Gail said.

Henry turned around and saw that she'd been cautioning Sarah, who had almost brushed against the hand railing, which was covered with the sickly-pale fungus.

"Thanks," Sarah said, shrinking away.

Henry smiled. She still seemed cowed and unsteady, but at least she wasn't freaking out anymore. Maybe they'd get through this after all.

His hope and bravado faltered when at last they reached the ground—because he wasn't sure it qualified as ground anymore. The mold grew thick, covering the rocks and trees and soil. Tendrils of it hung from the underside of the ranger station, swaying in the rain like vines. He sidestepped, avoiding one particularly low-hanging bit, and then froze as one of the fungal zombies crawled toward him on its hands and knees. It paused, reaching for him, and then melted before Henry's eyes, quickly transforming into a watery pool of muck. The liquid trickled toward them.

"Don't get it on you," Gail warned. "Novak?"

Nodding, he complied by training the flamethrower on the remnants. They evaporated within seconds.

"How do we get to your boat?" Henry asked. "That stuff is everywhere."

"I made a path on the way in," Novak said. "But you can see how quickly it grew back."

Frowning, he strode forward, sweeping the weapon back and forth, and burning a pathway for them. Swallowing, Henry trotted along behind him, hurrying to keep up. Sarah and Gail followed. A moment later, Gail's rifle boomed.

"They're coming in behind us."

"I've got them up front, too," Novak yelled. "Henry, Sarah? How's the sides?"

Henry glanced to the left and saw shadowy figures lurching through the mist.

"I reckon they're trying to flank us," he said.

Sarah screamed. Henry turned to the right and saw that the creatures were closer on that side, almost within arms reach. Their bodies and faces were completely covered with the fungus. Even their mouths and noses were obscured. Their eyes were sunken pinpricks of dull grey. Many of them had root-like appendages sprouting from their arms and feet.

"Stand and fight," Novak ordered. "Backs together. Form a circle!"

They did as he commanded. Henry and Sarah dropped the supplies they held in their arms. The items splashed on the wet ground, sinking into the mud. Henry shrugged his shoulders, readjusting his backpack's weight. Then the creatures were upon them. Gail and Sarah squeezed off shot after shot, and Novak swept the flamethrower in a wide arc, spraying burst after burst. Henry gripped his hatchet, feeling worthless.

One of the things made it through the gauntlet and reached for his head. Moaning, Henry swung at it with his hatchet. The blade bit through the monster's wrist like soft butter. The appendage burst, and Henry was reminded of the water balloon battles he'd had with friends when he was younger. The creature reached for him again. The fungus on its face split open, revealing a toothless maw. Henry buried the hatchet in its mouth. The creature exploded. The stench was nauseating—musky and damp. Henry closed his eyes and turned away. He felt something splatter against him, but he didn't know if it was the creature or merely the ever-present rain.

The battle continued. Henry acted as a spotter, calling the other's attention to the creatures as they attacked. More and more of the things emerged from the mist—both humans and animals. All of them were covered with the same disgusting mold.

"We've got an opening," Novak screamed. "Let's go. Gail, you take point."

Sarah bent over, reaching for the supplies they'd dropped, but Gail rebuked her.

"Leave them."

"But we need them," Sarah said.

"We do," Gail agreed, "but they're infected now. Leave them."

Gail charged forward with Henry and Sarah hot on her heels. Novak brought up the rear, blasting the hordes with sheets of flame. They reached the rowboat and piled inside. Behind them, the darkness returned as the flames flickered and died. Novak dropped the flamethrower on the ground and climbed into the boat.

"What are you doing?" Gail frowned, her expression perplexed.

"I got mold on the barrel. No sense bringing it back to the ship." He turned to Sarah. "Can I borrow your handgun, please?"

Nodding, Sarah handed the weapon to him. Novak waited until they had rowed away from the steadily shrinking shore. Then he fired three shots. The third bullet hit the flamethrower, and it exploded, creating a fleeting false dawn. The monsters screamed and moaned as the flames engulfed them.

"Very pretty," Gail said, "but it still seems like a waste to me."

"It ain't like we'll need it again," Novak said. "Where we're going, it's all ocean now. These things won't be there."

"Where are we going?" Henry asked.

"Pennsylvania," Gail said as they rowed into the fog. "We're going to drop anchor above a place called LeHorn's Hollow."

Henry shook his head. "Where? I don't understand."

Gail sighed. "The end of the world, kid. We're going to the end of the world…"

Behind them, there was a loud, echoing splash as the tower finally collapsed.

Stick a fork in Borders?

Bloomberg is reporting that bankrupt Borders "seeks court permission to liquidate assets at another 51 stores, even as it negotiates a potential sale. Without the store closings, the company risks defaulting on its bankruptcy loan… Borders said the closing of stores… will result in a "significant loss of jobs," and may not give the best returns to its creditors."

CONvergence Schedule

I'm a returning Guest of Honor at CONvergence this June 30 – July 3. The convention takes place at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel in Bloomington, MN. CONvergence remains, without a doubt, one of my absolute favorite conventions to attend. If you've always wanted to go to a convention, this is one of the best. If you'll be attending, here's my schedule for the weekend:  [image error]

Thursday, June 30th:

7:00 PM Opening Ceremonies

9:00 PM Mad Scientist Smackdown (Main Stage)

11:30 PM The Best Panel EVER!!! (Atrium 4)

Friday, July 1st:

11:00 AM Soap Operas as Science Fiction (Atrium 3)

2:00 PM Essential Elements of Horror Literature (Bloomington Room)

3:30 PM Signing (Autograph Table)

10:00 PM "Why do we enjoy being scared?" (Atrium 4)

10:30 PM Something Top Secret that I can't tell you about. If you attend the con, you'll see…

Saturday, July 2nd:

12:30 PM Prose to Comics (Atrium 3)

2:00 PM One on One with Brian Keene (Bloomington Room) *Note: If there is time left over, I may sign for those who missed Friday's signing

10:00 PM Zombies and their slow (or fast) movement into popular culture (Plaza 1)

Sunday, July 3rd:

2:00 PM Stuff I wanted to do but didn't: Pitches that failed (Atrium 4)

5:00 PM Closing Ceremony

"How Brian Keene Nearly Caused the Nuclear Apocalypse and Yes, Every Word of This is True, Mostly" by Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli, whose Short Ride to Nowhere is on Kindle right now for .99 cents and whose Every Shallow Cut is available in paperback for 8 bucks, wrote the following for this year's World Horror Convention program booklet. Most of this is actually true. In fact, there are parts you may think are made up, but I assure you they are true. In fact, everything that happens up until the point when Tom and I leave the signing is absolutely true. After that… well, you be the judge.

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 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."

" 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 thrillers Terminal and 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 purchasing a paperback or Kindle edition HERE.

2nd Chance on ENTOMBED (Updated)

Entombed is my new zombie novel, set in the world of Dead Sea. It was published two months ago as a signed, limited edition hardcover and sold out in 48-hours. There will be no paperback or digital edition for at least another year. When a paperback edition is published, it will not contain the illustrations or bonus novella featured in this edition. If you missed out, and can't wait another year, Camelot Books has a few copies they kept in reserve to cover damaged or lost shipments. They are selling them at cover price – $40, plus shipping. Offer limited to those who have not previously purchased a copy. You can order through the site.

UPDATE: Sold out six hours after posting.

2nd Chance on ENTOMBED

Entombed is my new zombie novel, set in the world of Dead Sea. It was published two months ago as a signed, limited edition hardcover and sold out in 48-hours. There will be no paperback or digital edition for at least another year. When a paperback edition is published, it will not contain the illustrations or bonus novella featured in this edition. If you missed out, and can't wait another year, Camelot Books has a few copies they kept in reserve to cover damaged or lost shipments. They are selling them at cover price – $40, plus shipping. Offer limited to those who have not previously purchased a copy. You can order through the site or e-mail Kim at Kim@Camelotbooks.com.