Previews of upcoming attractions
Your name is Dan.
You're an average college graduate forty-thousand in the hole for your useless degree. You work in a cubicle for an average soul-sucking conglomerate with substantial investments in the black market organ trafficking and global domination markets. Your cubicle neighbor Caleb is the single most obnoxious person on the face of the planet, and suffers under the delusion that you're the best of friends. Your girlfriend Rachel is at least two income tax brackets out of your league, and reminds you of this fact on a near-daily basis. Rachel is probably screwing Caleb, and laughing about it over designer coffee and that brand new car you can't afford on their way to her father's beach house.
Nothing would surprise you anymore.
In the forty-second basement level of your generic office building is the lair of a reanimated corpse, in a cheap suit and a Ramones wig. His name is Fred and he steals organs from the poor and gives them to the rich. He's the closet thing you have to a friend. Everybody else pats you on the head and ignores you. Your boss does it. Your girlfriend does it. Even your doctor does it. The only other person who listens to you is the waitress at the generic faux-Chinese corporate restaurant where you and your coworkers go for lunch every day. Her name is Karla. You're in love with Karla.
Karla drops a fortune cookie off with your bill one day after lunch. You open it and read your fortune, and swallow the sour taste climbing your throat. This, too, doesn't surprise you.
You're fucked.
This is your life.
Little do you know that your life is about to change. Within the week you will eat bad sushi and wake up with a voice in your head that tells you to do crazy things. You will lose your tongue and it will be replaced by a parasite. You will break-up with Rachel. You will ruin Caleb's life. You will end up going on a date with Karla to a club where people have sex with sea creatures. You will be kidnapped by occultists who believe you're the son of their many-tentacled lord, and the doorway to spiritual enlightenment resides in your appendix. You will be reminded why it's handy to be friends with a reanimated corpse. You will burn down Rachel's father's beach house. You will probably burn down your office while you're at it.
And somewhere along the way, people will start listening to you.
This is the premise of Shotgun, my upcoming bizarro novel. Coming soon to a dimension near you.
