Scary Dead Things - 02 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Just Another Brick in the Wall

  Time for a Recap

  Not Exactly a UN Summit

  Dating Habits of the Undead

  Here, Kitty Kitty

  A Sandwich with a Side of Chips

  A Test? I Didn’t Even Study!

  He Who Fights and Runs Away

  Green with Envy

  Fat Chicks versus Vampire Cake

  Attack of the Mighty Mongolian Monsters

  Gan and Billy Sitting in a Tree

  Slumber Party of the Damned

  Satan’s Shopping Mall

  The Scent of a Woman

  Heads Up

  Toked-up Television

  Magically Delicious

  Random Monster Encounter

  Lend Me a Hand

  Swords and Sorcerers

  Working Hard or Hardly Working

  A View to Die For

  What's a Little Murder Amongst Friends

  The Epic Epilogue

  About the Author

  Bonus Chapter

  Scary Dead Things

  The Tome of Bill

  Part 2

  Rick Gualtieri

  Wayman Publishing

  waymanpublishing.com

  P. O. Box 160693

  Clearfield, UT

  84016

  Scary Dead Things

  Copyright© 2011 Rick Gualtieri

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

  All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  The views herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Wayman Publishing.

  Edited by Apex Editing

  Cover by Rick Gualtieri

  Visit the author’s blog at: http://www.poptartmanifesto.com

  For Joey, Connor, and Raiden; the scariest things I know.

  Special thanks to Alissa, Sheila, Jennifer, Sandra, Anne, and Marquel. Your encouragement helped make this book possible. I hope that one day I am able to help inspire you to reach for your dreams the way you have all inspired me to reach for mine.

  Introduction

  Let’s face facts: sequels are scary business. And no, I don’t just mean horror sequels. I mean any sequel, and for many different reasons. The thing is; they’re scary for both the audience and the writer. For the audience, it’s always the same: will this live up to the expectations set in the previous chapter? Will I wind up with a Godfather part 2, or will I wind up with Batman and Robin? Even worse than that last example...and one of the cruelest things that one human can inflict upon another...is the sequel in name only (cue scary music!) because, let’s face facts, nobody wants to pay good money to see Halloween: Season of the Witch and find out that it has absolutely nothing to do with Michael Myers. As for others, well let’s just say that the less said about Highlander: the Quickening, the better.

  So, too, can sequels be a nightmare for the creators. Can we capture that same magic again? Can we expand upon the world we’ve created? Can we remember to follow the rules we set? Have those rules written us into a corner? Can we stay true to the characters we’ve already created? This last one in particular can be difficult because are they truly our characters anymore? From a legal perspective, this one is easy to answer. There’s no doubt that Marvel is within their legal rights to undo Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane with but a single issue; however, that doesn’t mean that millions of comic book fans won’t storm their offices with pitchforks and torches after they do so. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were well within their rights to present to us a Godzilla that didn’t breathe fire; however, as a diehard Godzilla fan, I know in my heart that there is a special place in Hell reserved for both of them in doing so.

  Thus, therein lies the fear. As a writer, I’ve breathed life into these characters, loved them, nurtured them, and want to continue to do so; however, there’s a fine line because, in some ways, the second they were born they’ve already outgrown me. The returning characters in this book aren’t mine anymore; they’re ours. All I can hope is that I’ve done right by them again.

  If not, you can find me sitting out on my backyard deck, patiently awaiting the tarring and feathering that I know will be coming for me someday.

  However, until such time as the angry mobs descend to tear me limb from limb, please enjoy these further adventures of Bill Ryder and his friends. I had a hell of a time tagging along with them on this journey. I hope you do, too.

  Rick G.

  Just Another Brick in the Wall

  *CRUNCH* Yep, no matter what way you put it, being hurled through a wall hurts. It's funny; just a few short months ago I would have argued that the dreaded atomic wedgie was the most common indignity I had suffered throughout my life. That’s not such a bad thing, especially when one considers that the proportion of ass-crack related incidents in one's life tends to decrease dramatically post high-school. After all, most people just won't give a wedgie to another grownup. Why? Well, my personal theory is that part of becoming an adult means that we start asking much deeper questions about life than when we were kids, one such question being: do I really want to put my hands where this person's dirty ass has been?

  That being said, getting thrown through the air to crash into, and sometimes through, solid objects was becoming a disturbingly common occurrence in my life as of late. Considering the overall painfulness of such experiences, I was beginning to find myself oddly nostalgic about just having my underwear bunched up my ass by some prankster.

  Just in case you’re taking notes, brick and concrete were easily the least fun barriers I had been smashed into; however, your basic wooden load-bearing wall, which oddly enough was what I found myself plowing into now, wasn't exactly a vacation in the Caribbean either. If this kept up, I might have to consider starting a blog about all the scenic walls in the Tri-State area and what it felt like to be flung through each and every one of them.

  Although perhaps right now wasn't exactly an ideal time to think about blogging. I was just starting to pull myself back to my feet when a dark angry form emerged from the shadows. It was Samuel. He was the leader of a coven of vampires from Queens that called themselves the HBC. This was due to their home territory including the Howard Beach area. It was a stupid name, but considering my own group was known as Village Coven, due to being headquartered in fucking SoHo, I was probably in no position to be throwing stones.

  Apparently, it was tradition to name covens after their territories. Sure, you wound up with some silly names. I had even heard there was a Scotrun Coven in Pennsylvania, which was bad for them because they would forever more be known in my mind as the Scrotum Coven. All things considered, though, it probably beat the alternative. If every coven were given free reign for names, I have little doubt we'd wind up with dopey crap like The Blood Brotherhood, The Midnight Raiders, or maybe The Sons of Darkness. In short, we'd all sound like retarded local chapters of the Legion of Doom. Trust me, I speak from experience here. My own coven had a rule not too long ago regarding taking new personal pseudonyms upon joining. As a result, we wound up with stupid shit like people calling themselves Rage Vector, Night Razor, and, of course, Dr. Death. So, all things considered, I could probably live with Village Coven.


  Still, worrying about things like coven names is probably best left to times when you're not in danger of getting your head torn off. This was not such a time. Samuel leapt at me, no doubt going for the kill. Well, OK, maybe that's a bit obvious. After all, you typically don't fling yourself through the air at people you're having a polite conversation with. Fortunately for me, I was far from out of it. I may not be able to dish it out as well as some others, but I can definitely take it. See, I'm a vampire, too (just in case you haven’t figured that out yet). I also have a lot of aforementioned experience getting tossed around. You build up a tolerance to it after a while. Those two things combined allowed me to recover quickly enough to snatch a busted two-by-four from out of the rubble of the safe house wall I had just plowed through. Before Samuel could fully cover the distance, I swung the beam and connected with a solid *KAPOW*. Samuel went flying back into the shadows whence he just came. That gave me a breather, but I didn’t have any delusions that it would be nearly enough to finish him.

  I had been told that Samuel was nearly two-hundred years old. As we vampires tend to get stronger as we get older, that made him both a lot more powerful as well as much more experienced than me. Neither one was a checkmark in my favor. Under different circumstances, I should have probably been counting my lucky stars that I was still alive. If this had been my first tussle with a vampire way out of my league, I'd probably be busy either begging for my life or kissing my ass goodbye; however, it wasn't.

  Don't get me wrong. I'm no Chuck Norris, and this fight was a long ways from being in my favor; however, once you've been in one pissing match with a monster who outclasses you in nearly every way and lived (sorta) to talk about it, you start to get a little jaded about the whole thing. It's like when I was a little kid. I remember sitting there watching wrestling on the TV and listening to Mean Gene Okerlund talking about how any given wrestler on any given night could potentially become the new champ. It wasn't too different from what I was doing now. No matter how old the vampire, things weren't one-hundred percent settled until one of us was dust. Of course, this logic ignores the fact that wrestling is all bullshit. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have Vince McMahon off behind the scenes scripting a big upset victory. If I wanted to win this, I couldn't count on 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin running out to save my ass with a steel chair.

  Fortunately, I still had a few tricks up my sleeve, one of them being I had my wits about me. Samuel might be older, but he had a major weakness that I could exploit. According to the info I had been given about him, Samuel was old enough to have been born a slave in the deep South before the days of the Civil War. He had been owned by an exceptionally cruel master and had spent the first four decades of his life enduring a mix of excruciating labor and relentless beatings. Things like that would fuck up anybody's outlook on life, and Samuel was no exception.

  According to the stories, it was actually Samuel's owner that first had a chance encounter with a vampire. He was turned, then shortly afterwards he attacked and turned Samuel. Why? Who knows? Maybe he wanted to hold dominion over his slave forever, or maybe he was just thirsty. Either way, it’s safe to say this guy was a dick sandwich and a half. However, he was also stupid. Being a brand new vampire himself, Samuel’s master had no idea what he was doing. I am told that the act of turning brings out the feral nature in some people. Samuel was the perfect poster child for this. Upon awakening as a vampire, he completely snapped. He turned on his former master, who was too new to know how to control Samuel. Then, when he was done, he turned on his now former owner's family. He didn't stop there either. He slaughtered every living thing on his plantation and on the next two plantations over before his rage burned itself out.

  Since by that time the Civil War was raging full force, nothing odd was thought of the carnage. After all, when you have an invading army with a scorched-earth policy rampaging about, most people aren't going to look at a few dozen dead bodies and immediately say, “Hey! It must be vampires.” Samuel was thus able to escape without much notice. If anyone ever did try to stand in his way, the archives make no mention of it; however, if they did, it's a safe bet as to what happened to them.

  If you're thinking that all of this caused Samuel to spend the next century and a half nursing a massive chip on his shoulder, then bingo! Even up to the present day, it was well known in the vampire community that Samuel only accepted minorities into his coven, and even in that he was particular. Don't get me wrong, I might be just a little bit jaded, too, at the whole thing if it had happened to me; however, it also meant that it wouldn't be too hard for me, your quintessential dorky looking white guy, to push his buttons. A two-hundred-year-old vampire in a blood lusted rage was actually easier to fight than a two-hundred-year-old vampire who was thinking rationally and planning his every step. Fortunately for me, pissing people off is one of my specialties.

  “Damn, you people have hard heads,” I said in a condescending manner, placing heavy emphasis on the 'you people' part. I felt like a massive dick saying it, but I'd rather be a living dick than a politically correct corpse.

  “What the fuck did you say!?” Samuel growled as he rose and once more began stalking me.

  “Oh, I'm sorry. Forgot you don't understand proper English too well,” I said, increasing the mocking in my tone. “How's this? Yo, Nigga! You gots yourself one motherfucking hard head!” Oh yeah, I was erasing about a lifetime’s worth of good karma on this one. But it worked. Samuel came right at me with little more than an inarticulate snarl. He was pissed big time. If I didn't time this right, I was going to get a front row seat to watching my head shoved up my own ass.

  As he charged me, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my secret weapon. I was glad I had decided to bring it. Considering this was supposed to be a peace conference, I almost hadn’t. Thank god for paranoia. As Samuel closed the distance, I kept the fork hidden from his view, waiting for the right time to strike.

  Yes, I said fork! Not a cross, not a gun, and definitely not the holy hand grenade of Antioch. Trust me on this one. For starters, forget what you know. Crosses by themselves don't do shit against a vampire. If you ever find yourself cornered by vamps and you think you're going to get out of it by holding two popsicle sticks together, you are going to be in for a major disappointment. But maybe you'll get lucky and they'll be laughing so hard at your idiocy that you'll be able to slip away regardless. I wouldn't count on it - but hey, I'm a glass is half full kind of guy.

  Anyway, Samuel crossed the distance between us almost faster than I could see. I just barely had enough time to brace myself before he hit me in the side of the head with a wild backhand swing. I went down. I have to admit that under normal circumstances the blow would have probably put me down for the count. But these weren't normal circumstances, and I'm not a normal vampire...if there even is such a thing.

  I was already juiced up from earlier. At the start of the fight, one of Samuel's goons had come at me first. I had stepped into his punch and sunk my teeth into his arm. I managed to suck down a few mouthfuls of his blood before he could pry me off.

  Now this might not seem significant to you, but in addition to movie lore, you also need to ignore the shit on your typical late night vampire erotica in which everyone is usually biting and sucking on everyone else. In reality, when a vampire bites down on another vampire, bad things happen to the biter. The effect is kind of like what you would expect if you were to drive down to Tijuana and drink your fill from the first water fountain you found, only amplified a couple dozen times. Forget fighting; most bloodsuckers wouldn't be strong enough to stand for several hours after drinking another vampire's blood. But not me.

  I'm what the other vampires call a Freewill. Apparently, they're rare...as in it's been at least half a millennium since anyone has seen another one. Personally, I think a good deal of what they say about me is a load of bullshit; however, it does seem to come with some perks. For starters, I'm immune to another vampire's psychic domination, or com
pulsion as they call it (hence the name Freewill, duh!). That’s one of the things some of the old Dracula movies got right. Older vampires can mentally dominate younger vampires, especially those they create. They can, more or less, force them to do whatever they want. Vampire society typically uses this to keep order within their ranks. But there are plenty of my kind who just use it to fuck around with the younger vampires.

  Perhaps even cooler than that power, though, is what happens if I drink another vampire's blood. Instead of puking my guts out and lying there whimpering, I get a boost like Pac-Man on a handful of power pellets. Basically what happens is I somehow temporarily add their strength to my own. How? Fucked if I know. I just know it works and that it's saved my ass on more than one occasion.

  I don't know how old the vampire I bit was, but I was easily running at about two-hundred percent of my normal level. Not powerful enough to engage Samuel directly, but strong enough to allow me to take blows that would otherwise turn my head concave. Thus I was able to shake his hit off and jump back to my feet. Maybe I was a little wobblier than I would have preferred (he hit me pretty damn hard, after all) but standing was definitely better than lying down and letting him go all ape-shit on me.