MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL By Larry Correia – Reviewed

I came across Correia’s name on social media in regard to the Puppies and the Nova awards. I didn’t particularly take much interest in the goings on, Correia may have had a point, but George RR Martin also wrote very eloquently about it. In the end I wasn’t bothered one way or another; that awards can be manipulated, or unfairly given to cronies isn’t a surprise to a former member of the British Fantasy Society.

Whatever politics were involved didn’t particularly interest me. I like to read lots of different types of books, different types of SF and fantasy, and I was looking for something action-packed and I remembered something I’d read about Correia’s novels and thought I’d give him a try.

This is the first book in the Monster Hunter International series, and here we meet Owen Zastava Pitt, a former bare-knuckle fighter and now accountant, whose life is turned upside down when his ass of a boss turns into a werewolf and tries to eat him.

As Owen recovers from his injuries, having managed to fight off and kill the werewolf, he’s offered a job as a mercenary monster hunter and that’s when the real fun begins. What follows is a quick boot-camp and then a race to save the world from a group of master vampires and a mysterious figure known only as the Old One…

If you like guns and action and urban fantasy set in a B-movie then you’ll love this. It’s straight-up action, no holds barred, but with decent characters, enough attention to detail to make it realistic, and a few twists and turns to keep things extra interesting. I liked this book. Is it likely to be award winning? In the same way that if it were a film it wouldn’t get an Oscar, no it’s not likely to win awards, but does it fulfil the role of entertainment, will it appeal to a mass market audience (like Fast and the Furious or Star Wars), damn it, yes it will!

Correia may be as well known for the wrong reasons, but try his books. Monster Hunter International is a powerhouse of a novel, it’s exciting, it’s intelligent, it’s fun.

Great stuff and I’ve already bought the second book in the series.

THE SCARLET GOSPELS By Clive Barker – Reviewed

It’s rare that I buy hardbacks, but I have quite a few of Barker’s. When I heard that the infamous Pinhead would be returning there was no way I was missing out.

Pinhead is one of the quintessential horror anti-heroes, like Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Freddy Kruger, he appeared in the eighties (ok, so Michael and Leatherface led the way in the seventies) when I was approaching my teens and basically robbed me of my childhood sleep and left indelible memories of terror that I still have today. Exciting recollections of terror that instilled my on-going love of all things horror.

Pinhead was the only character to actually originate in a book, one of Barker’s Books of Blood, which was a series of collected stories that really didn’t impress me at the time, but introduced the world to splatterpunk. The books were a gore-fest.

The story was adapted into a film, very loosely based on the original story. Barker wrote and directed a film that was already a classic by the time I saw it. When I did watch it I was underwhelmed, but the Chinese puzzle box and that vision of the lead Cenobite and his symmetrical “pin-head” stayed with me, and the violence and nastiness was impressive.

Here again, Barker impresses.

The first four chapters, before Book One starts, are one of the greatest character introductions in modern horror. A group of magicians is holding a meeting to discuss the rapid decimation of their kind, and call upon the ghost of one of their recently murdered number. But the meeting is interrupted by chains and hooks and the infamous Cenobite, known as Pinhead, who has been slowly tracking down and killing every magician in the world.

What ensues is, as you would expect, horrifying, terrifying, and exactly the kind of start to a Barker book that gets a horror fan excited.

Then things go normal very briefly, as Norma, a blind woman who talks to the dead, and her friend Harry D’Amour (private investigator) do a job for a dead man that ends up with Norma being kidnapped and Harry following her and Pinhead into Hell as the Cenobite sets out to kill Lucifer. I said very briefly!

It’s a bit of a strange one this. The best part of the book is the beginning, after that the mystic of the Cenebite begins to fall apart, despite his perversions and evilness being just as bad down in hell. You kind of get numb to it as he’s doing all his evil doings to demons, so there’s little sympathy. His treatment of Norma, a nice old lady, is pretty horrible and as times quite startling. Barker isn’t afraid to hurt his characters or his readers.

The ending is a bit strange, not really satisfying all that has gone on before.

But this is the return of Pinhead, and a nasty and deliciously twisted return it is.

Barker is back, returning to create a world of horror (hell) and then sending in a terrifying creature of chaos in the form of Pinhead to destroy it.

Good, nasty fun. Pinhead returns!

KILL CITY BLUES By Richard Kadrey – Reviewed

This is the fifth book in the Sandman Slim series, and a bloody good series it is. James Stark is Sandman Slim, a man sent to hell by a former friend and forced to fight demons in an arena. He eventually fights his way out of hell and ends up in LA where his chronicled adventures begin with the first book in the series.

With book five we have more of the same, and this is a great jumping on point if you really can’t manage to get the first four books. The background is explained and all that’s gone before is briefly detailed here, giving those who have forgone the previous books (don’t so it, you’re missing out on the most remarkable series of books, start at the bloody beginning!) enough of the backstory that everything falls nicely into place.

In this book Stark is searching for the mysterious 8 Ball, a god-killing weapon that has fallen into the hands of the god-murdering angel and Stark’s personal nemesis Aelita. With his rag-tag bunch of friends, including an ex-communicated priest, a Jade (vampire-like creature), an immortal Frenchman and a robot, he heads deep into Kill City, a former shopping centre and now hellhole. Throw in God with a personality disorder, Satan being an angel again, crazy old world gods intent on eating the world, a messed up hell in the midst of a make-over, and a whole mess of other stuff and you have the fifth Sandman Slim novel.

Kadrey’s in-you-face-style and never-let up pace make for exciting and non-stop reading. This is a freight train of a book and you just won’t want to get off. The misadventures of our anti-hero are riveting, with Kadrey unafraid to put him and his crew in various dangers.

The new paperback format has a filmic slant, which is echoed in the film references made throughout the books, and the film-like quality of the series: think Quintin Tarantino doing a Dennis Wheatley adaptation on acid, or an early John Woo (The Killer) and early Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) collaborating on the most epic B-movie of all time, and you’ll get the idea.

The Sandman Slim books really have to be read to be believed, no matter how much hyperbole I use to describe them it won’t do the books justice. They are awesome in a world of mundaneity.  You have not lived if you haven’t read a Kadrey novel.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME By Ian Fleming – Reviewed

Those expecting nuclear submarines and dastardly spy shenanigans are likely to be disappointed, as Fleming experiments with an almost non-Bond Bond novel. Here we have a book narrated in the first person by a young Canadian woman in an empty motel, Vivienne Michel, reliving her past loves (basically abuse at the hands of men), and whiling away the hours until dawn arrives and she can leave. But half way through the night two men (gangsters) turn up and things get nasty. They seem intent on giving Viv a hard time and one even beats her, the threat of rape and murder hangs in the air, and when Viv tries to escape she is shot at.

Fortunately, about three quarters of the way through the novel, Bond turns up and takes matters into his own hands.

So, not your standard Bond novel then. The use of Viv as a filter for the hardened Bond character works well, and was probably a nice change for Fleming, but it could be seen as a strange departure by fans expecting a typical Bond novel.

Although there is the subtle hint of menace throughout the book, this is a strange kind of love story, with Viv becoming besotted with her hero almost as soon as he arrives. The book is enjoyable enough, Bond is on hand to help ramp up the action for the final quarter, and the book is short enough and well-written enough, to keep your attention. But this seems like a step too far from the traditional Bond stories, Fleming’s evocative and stylish prose isn’t as effective here, and the lack of action and tension that normally drive the books is missing.

Fleming was by this time moving away from his pulp fiction beginnings and into detective/mystery territory with the novels, but apart from the love-story echoes this is pure pulp. The gangster criminals in the shape of Sluggsy and Horror could easily have come from a Charlie Chan or Spider novel. A departure from the Bond canon, but not a bad book, a more female view of the action hero that is James Bond, license to thrill.

THUNDERBALL By Ian Fleming – Reviewed

Possibly the most controversial of the Bond stories, as this story was developed for an original film, which wasn’t made until years later, and Fleming was sued by the film’s producers for stealing the story.

That story is of the terrorist organisation SPECTRE, overseen by Ernst Blofeld, who have stolen two nuclear bombs and are holding the powers of the UK and US to ransom. On M’s hunch Bond is sent off to the quiet islands of the Bahamas to try to find out where the bombs might be and stop the dastardly plot.

What follows is typical Bond, beautiful women, adventure and spy-shenanigans.

In David Wolstencroft’s short introduction (I’m reading the Penguin editions) he says this is possibly Fleming at his most accomplished as a writer.  And although certainly the plot could be considered one of the most impressive of the Bond novels to date, and the words brim with life, the action sequences are good, but where is the vivid description of local flora and fauna? Where are the luxury items that make you drawl with envy? Is this a slightly more grown up Bond?

Thunderball is a good book, Fleming delivers a more mature and realistic tale of terror, that apart from the racist and misogynistic comments, wouldn’t look out of place in a modern thriller.

Bond is Bond, and you have to love a man who will stop at nothing to save his country and the world. When the stakes are this high, who else would you look at to save us? Bond, the original and the best.

MARVEL ZOMBIES By Kirkman, Phillips, Suydam – Reviewed

I have a decent comic collection, but unlike books or films, they are a kind of take ‘em or leave ‘em thing for me. I’ll get into comic books for a few months, buy a load of graphic novels (stand-alone stories or mini-series are much preferable to the unending arcs of the regular issues), read most of them and then put them away in a box under the bed and not bother going to the comic shop for a few years.

I generally don’t read Marvel comics, I prefer my superheroes darker and more mature, like Batman and the Vertigo line. I like Frank Millar, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis. Traditional superheroes, like the Marvel characters, I prefer to watch now that films have surpassed the drawn page.

But Marvel Zombies intrigued me. The very idea is genius. Mix popular superheroes with zombies and see what happens.

This is not your average Marvel superhero story, and Marvel brought in none other than The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman to write it. The story seems to have already started when we enter the action, Magneto (normally a villain) is fighting for his life against the rest of the Marvel Universe who have been turned into zombies. They want to eat him. The Fantastic Four have been banished to an alternative dimension, and only The Black Panther (who is being held captive and slowly eaten) is available to stop the ravening hordes.

The Silver Surfer appears briefly, only to become more food.

Like The Walking Dead TV series (I’ve not read the comics), this is mostly about the character interactions and exploring (slightly) the zombie mythos.  It’s all fairly good stuff, nothing massively exciting, but it builds nicely towards a massive zombie battle and then, typical of comic books, leaves a nice cliff-hanger for the story to continue in the next episode (collected together in the appropriately titled Marvel Zombies 2) surprisingly enough.

The gruesome artwork and some quite shocking scenes beat out the weak story to make this book worthwhile. It’s the perfect introduction to horror comic books for those uninitiated and for fans of Marvel’s superheroes it is a stark and brutal reminder of the horror of zombies.

Good, but not great, the idea behind it is sheer genius. The execution is entertaining, and very dark, not what you would normally except from the house of ideas. Zombies rule, in the Marvel Universe too.

LOOPER – Reviewed

When I saw the poster for this I got excited. With the two figures holding guns in different directions, and a review quote stating the film was this decade’s The Matrix, nothing was going to stop me watching it.

Unfortunately the film is nothing like The Matrix. The 1999 Wachowski brothers’ classic is a SF action thriller. In no sense of the words is Looper an action thriller. It’s more a drama with SF at the heart of the story, but virtually ignored in visual terms.

Set in the near-future, the story follows Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a looper. Loopers are assassins working for some form of mob in the future, sent back in time (30 years) to await their victims, who are also sent back through time where they do not yet exist. The murders are therefore untraceable. Every now and then a looper’s older self is sent back to be killed by his younger self 30 years before with a nice big payoff, and 30 years of freedom until they are sent back in time to be killed by their younger self. You still with me? One thing the film does do well is explain this.

So, Joe’s older self is sent back in the form of Bruce Willis, and instead of killing him, older Joe escapes and tries to survive, and to change the future by killing the person he believes will grow into the murderer of his wife and himself. Meanwhile the mob are trying to track down both Joes to kill both of them to close the loop.

The film is set in a futuristic Kansas City, which is seen only briefly. Half of the film is set on a farm in the middle of nowhere, where younger Joe holes up, awaiting older Joe, and falling in love with the lovely Emily Blunt.

The story travels a fairly predictable path, apart from the premise there is nothing new here. Visually this is more of a farm story, it only gets a bit exciting when an old looking Willis goes on the rampage, which is fun.

Despite a mostly decent story, and some good actors, the film ultimately falls flat because at two hours it’s too long, too boring, too dull. The brief moments of action and excitement are too few. The future Kansas City is barely glimpsed instead of explored, too much time is spent with no action, and when you get to the end of the film you’re just a bit glad it’s all over.

Remakes

This blog is written in response to Simon Marshall-Jones column in the latest issue of the FREE Morpheus Tales Supplement: http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/18reviews

 

Too many remakes he says, and I can’t whole-heartedly disagree. In fact, in the main I agreed completely. Hollywood (and they are not alone in this) seem driven to re-hash, remake and ruin all of my favourite films. I would suggest, however, that the “magic” Simon talked about in his ramblings is actually a much more personal matter than the gods-aligning. The “magic” happens when you grow up with a film, when it becomes a part of your life, of your history and background, and it speaks to you at a time, on a level, that nothing else does.

In my mid-teens I watched a film called Total Recall, with that unappreciated thespian Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie was never a great actor, but I’d grown up watching his films, and this action-romp was (apart from Star Wars) one of my first introductions to SF (despite being a die-hard fantasy and horror only fan, apart from Star Wars!). I loved the over-the-top action, that Arnie’s wife was so hot (Sharon Stone before Basic Instinct), the incredible effects, there was even an alien with three boobs (this was my mid-teens remember)! The film spoke to me, it was great. But now, Sony in their infinite wisdom, have decided to remake it. Why? Because Total Recall (1990) is now over twenty years old, and apart from the money (I’m sure that’s the main reason), they want their film to speak to a new generation.

I have been quite prepared in the past to watch remakes, and give them a go as I would any other films. Unfortunately my past experience hasn’t always been pleasant, remakes of Halloween (rubbish, an extra forty minutes of pants and then a remake tacked on to the end), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (not too bad, not that I can remember any of it), King Kong (not terrible), A Nightmare on Elm Street I am just too scared to watch in case it’s crap. But sequels are the same, and yet lack the stigma of being another version of the original. I happily sat and watched the X-Men movies, Spiderman trilogy, all the Halloween films, A Nightmare on Elm Street (up to number 6), and even saw the Star Wars prequels at the cinema (rubbish, not bad, and ok, respectively [come on Disney, time to do something great with this franchise!]). Yet we don’t have the same disdain for sequels, which are (or can be) equally derivative. Like all films, or books, the first one is usually the best and the rest that follow (be they remakes or sequels) mere imitations.

So what about the book of the film, or, more likely, the film of the book? I like the first one best. Whether it’s the book or the film, the first time I discover the story is almost always my favourite. With Harry Potter it’s the books, although the films were also pretty damn good. The James Bond books are so very different from the films it’s difficult to make a direct comparison, the same with Holmes’ adventures. Guy Richie’s new Sherlock films, although I grew up with much older versions, are great fun. Stephen King’s adapted films, except perhaps for the excellent Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, are far better in written form. No, despite Stand By Me being one of my favourites of all time, the original story (“The Body”) is even better.

In my early years (before the age of ten, although I couldn’t narrow it down any more than that), I watched Conan The Barbarian. Classic Arnie action flick. Not the greatest film ever made, in fact, on re-watching it’s fairly tired and out-dated, but it’s still Arnie and it’s still Conan, and it’s still the original and it’s still the best. I’ve read the book too, and you’ve gotta love a Conan book. I watched the remake last year, and was pleasantly surprised. Plenty of action, well-muscled barbarian, buxom wenches, and swordplay. This is not a bad remake except for one small thing they seemed to have forgotten. Conan has blue eyes. How the hell can you make a mistake like that! It’s like taking Judge Dredd’s helmet off! (Oh yeah, they did that too). Can’t wait for that remake of Dredd though, Sly Stallone is no Judge Dredd.

Remake, sequel, adaptation, whatever the hell they do, they need to make it authentic. That’s what remakes generally lack. And that is what gets our goat. That’s what reins all those remakes, and sequels and adaptations.

But remakes are not for us. They are not made for the people who enjoyed the first version, or the second or third. They are for the new people, these films are meant to speak to them and make them feel how we first felt when we watched them. Yes, of course there should be more originality, but you can say that about publishing and TV too. Sequels galore, derivative are us, is there anyone unafraid of originality? Who will take a risk and put their money where their mouth is? Independents, small presses… If they are lucky their original work will be remade with a big budget by a soulless corporation…

The Hunger Games – Reviewed

Normally when a big budget adaptation of a best-selling novel comes out I would read the book first and then watch the film and not enjoy it as much as I did the book. I think that if the book is the original then you should read that before seeing the film based on it. The original is always better in my opinion, although the Harry Potter films were almost as good as the books. Almost.

So we come to another successful franchise based on a YA novel.

I don’t watch trailers of films I know I will watch, and so came to this film completely open minded.

To say that I was disappointed is an overstatement. Underwhelmed is more like.

Having a good knowledge of The Running Man (the film and the story it was based on), Lord of the Flies (the storyline rather than either the book or the film), Nineteen Eighty-Four (the book) and Predator (the film), it seemed there was nothing, absolutely nothing new for me here.

The film starts in a kind of post-apocalyptic rural community where, each year, a boy and a girl from each of the twelve community that make up this world (Panem), is chosen by lottery to enter the Hunger Games, a televised survival-of-the-fittest contest to the death where there can only be one winner. Katniss Everdeen volunteers when her younger sister is chosen, and goes through the training and popularity process (sponsors can help while you are in the jungle fighting for your life, but only if they like you). Then we have the games, which is basically a cross between The Running Man and Lord of the Flies (Battle Royale has also been touted as heavily influencing the story, but that’s basically Lord of the Flies with bullets and on a brutal scale), with some Predator (the jungle setting) thrown in for good measure, with fighting, gangs, hunting, traps and cheating. It gets quite exciting, and the characters are pretty good, Jennifer Lawrence does a solid job as our lead. The story manages to include quite a lot of back story and explanation without getting bogged back, but there is nothing original. We’ve seen all of this before, and apart from putting it all together in a nicely presented package nothing is new.

The Hunger Games would not have been a success if not for the best-selling book series. If the film had a lower budget and wasn’t connected to the books at all no one would have noticed its release. When the next film comes out I won’t be queuing to see it, but I might download a copy and check it out. More than likely I’ll pick up the first book in the series to see if that’s any better. Slightly disappointed.

SERIAL KILLERS INCORPORATED by ANDY REMIC – Prologue

This book is dedicated to

th3 m1ss1ng

with love and funky vibes, bruvs.

 

PROLOGUE

HEAVEN S(C)ENT

 

SLOWLY, I OPEN the skinning razor, marvelling at the craftsmanship of this delicate yet lethal antique blade. I smile. This is my brother, my soulmate, my working tool without which I cannot perform. Without which, indeed, I have no function. No purpose.

I place the shining crescent against reptilian flesh. I press to cut, to slice, my breath rising in pace with anticipation, but back away at the last moment.

No. Not yet. It’s not yet time.

I breathe deep, a low long hiss like a snake. I savour the moment, the long soothing ride like the instant before ejaculation when you hang in the balance, careering out of control, feeling barely human and feeling more alive than alive.

If only you people knew; if only you understood. But you’re mis–programmed, un–encoded, deviated and twisted from a perceived normality you no longer appreciate. Yeah. Fucking deviated. That’s right.

Now… to work.

There is one I must find. He’s out there, in the real world. In your real world, at least.

He is one of you. One of your… breed.

And his name?

His name is Callaghan.

 

I have three addictions in life. Whisky, adrenalin and sex.

Whisky is what kills bad memories. Adrenalin – well, I’ve always had a love of fast cars, killer bikes and snowboarding. And sex? Hell, sex is the evil that always kick–starts my pain.

And that’s why I’m here, standing on the eighteenth floor balcony of Glasgow’s Riviera 5–Star, staring down at the Clyde with my balls cupped protectively in both hands as the cold does its best to turn me into a corpse. I’m naked. Shit. That’s not good.

Let me introduce myself.

My name’s Callaghan, I’m a hard drinking, womanising, no good son–of–a–bitch. I live for today, take any designer drug in the world, fuck anything that moves and steal anything that doesn’t… and to hell with consequences! Baby, I’m the man who put head into hedonism. Sex into sexuality. The cunt into cuntinental. And… as I stand here, skin tinged blue, Glasgow lights fluttering like pearls scattered over velvet, the wind shrieks a surreal mocking laugh at my dangerous predicament in a rhythmical wail. A song for the condemned. Yeah. That’s me. Condemned.

I glance down at my own trembling, worthless carcass; can idly observe the wind has turned my fingers rigid, skin a network of disintegrating lace. My feet sit splayed on a plate of cracked ice and I’m vibrating so hard it hurts. I think my teeth will judder from my stupid, jack–hammer skull.

I squint miserably as short terriers of snow snap my face. I grimace, coughing ice–air, and wonder how long I’m going to have to wait, freezing, dying, and eventually I hear a noise inside the apartment and my thoughts drift back to Him. And Her.

Him. Vladimir. The bastard.

I half turn, scowl at the balcony doors with their delicate wooden shutters which, despite opulent triple–glazing, fail to muffle the sounds of grunting as Vlad mounts and ravages his beautiful wife. Only a few moments ago it was I – yes I – who brought her moaning and screaming and thrashing to a bed–thumping skin–tearing head–pounding teeth–grinding arching sweating heaving multiple fucking climax.

I try to close my ears to her mocking echoes of pleasure.

She better be faking it, I think sourly. But I know she isn’t.

‘That son of a bitch.’

I press iced fingers over my flapping mouth in horror as staccato words leap unbidden from twitching lips. What are you doing? I scream silently at myself, an internal mockery. The brainless, contemptuous of the insane. Do you want to get caught? And of course I don’t, because as much as I like fucking Vladimir’s wife, and as much as she thoroughly enjoys being fucked by me, and yes, much as I hate Vladimir with a venom more deadly than any rattlesnake… well, I have to admit it, Vladimir Katchevsky, former Bucharest gang–lord running guns between Romania, the UK and the Middle East in a cleverly constructed triangulation of players, contraband and excessive finance, is one superbly evil and dangerous bastard of a bastard. Carrying twin Techrim 11mm pistols he’s killed thirty–four people to date. Thirty four that I know about… dangerous information – of which I’d rather be ignorant – and obtained through intimate drunken bedside chit–chat with the pretty and prettily voluptuous Sophie. Ahh Sophie! She of the velvet hair, opal eyes and wide, generous (yeah, very generous) mouth.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ I mutter as I move to the balcony rail, burnished steel supporting square panels of toughened glass. The view below is sweeping, grand, a dark pastel vista stuttering beneath huge folding blankets of snow that whip first one way, then the other.

I lean against the rail, and it’s so cold it almost strips the skin from my fingers. I yelp and suck digits, injecting warmth. The muscles in my jaw tighten in anger. I glance back at the closed doors and the heat and love and sex – and death – within.

I am tempted to try and sneak through the room. Then I remember the 11mm Techrims.

Options? Well, arse–hole, in about three minutes you’re gonna freeze to death. Try and head through the hotel room and Vlad will beat you senseless – and, if you’re lucky – fill you full of 11mm rounds. But if you’re unlucky…

I shiver. I’d heard the stories.

So then. Avenues of insanity? Despite jumping, the only other option available to my skinny naked rump is to climb down.

The wind slaps me like an irate lover.

Savages me. Beats me. Rapes me.

Bare feet pad across marble and I glance down again, wishing this was all a bad dream and praying the horror would go away. I grit my teeth, try to be brave (but it’s hard, so hard!), grasp cold metal and lift my face to inhale fresh bright snow. I blink away tears and cock my leg over the steel bar, trying my best not to drag dangling vulnerable balls against liquid nitrogen. I wobble and shake for a few seconds, and my other leg manages the treacherous traverse.

And there’s me, stood on the bastard side of oblivion. I say to myself don’t look down, don’t look down because I know it’s the thing you’re supposed to say. But I look down anyway and whimper like a little girl as I realise, shit, I can’t do this. I just can’t do it. But I have to. I must. Or I’ll die.

I shuffle along the ledge. It feels like a 2mm concrete strip under fat stupid tip–toes. But hey, it’s 2mm I’m thankful for. Better 2mm than 11mm, right? I try to lick my lips but cracked skin brings an agony of burning.

Inside the hotel room Sophie wails a long, ululating song of pleasure. Yet more rhythmical thumping ensues.

Around me, the snowfall increases in density. Cold settles across my shoulders like a vellum shroud. My foot slips, toe–nails rasping harsh on concrete and sending sparks of pain igniting my shin. I struggle like a rape–victim, find my footing and grin like a masturbating baboon. Flurries of snow pulse across the sky, obscuring most of city. I’ve always loved Glasgow, but I never wanted to die there.

I slide my hands down the frozen rails and meticulously adopt a squatting position – like a Tibetan monk taking a shit over The Abyss. I fight my stubborn frozen knees onto the ledge and my penis, despite being horrifically retracted to resemble a limp worm in the snow–light, slaps painfully against a glass panel.

‘Yeah, thanks God,’ I mutter, tears freezing to my cheeks. I try so hard not to feel bitterness. I fail. ‘Thanks a shit–load, dickhead. Perhaps you’d like to make my life even harder, eh?’

I attempt to peer below me, below the balcony to which I cling. But the world is a shadow, zig–zagged with snow. I perform a strange backward shuffle, feel a momentary weightlessness as knees slide uncontrollably over the icy ridge and I emit a comedy squawk, funny to everyone except me, and then proceed to hang there, dangling, biceps and shoulders straining, rocked and buffeted by a merciless storm.

Fear is a fist of lead in my mouth. The balcony crushes my forearms and I feel numbed fingers sliding. My chin touches the balcony lip and I hang for a few moments, eyes at floor level, able at last to witness the luxury bedroom so recently vacated. I can see naked feet. Vladimir’s feet. They are joined by smaller feet, beautiful feet, Sophie’s feet. Feet which have lovingly caressed me, pampered me, stroked me towards moaning, groaning, beautiful ejaculation. Shit. And there they are: perfect, sculpted, the last damn thing I’ll see before I –

die.

I blink. I kick my legs, but hey guess what, it’s not my lucky day and whaddya know? I can’t reach the fucking lower balcony. I just cannot believe this, cannot digest this damn basic bad luck. I kick around aimlessly for a while, thrashing like a hang–victim, just knowing I have to reach the lower balcony because there’s no way I can climb back up and nowhere else to go. Except maybe down. By the quickest and most direct route. Yeah. As the Cal flies, so to speak.

This chills me. Chills me more, anyway.

I stop kicking and hang limp, a butchered carcass in the slaughter house.

I hear Sophie’s laughter, a ghost–wail sent to taunt me, haunt me, and make mockery of my foolish bloody existence.

I look up, snow settling on my skin and making eyelashes flutter.

What did I do to deserve this, God? What? What? What? But I know the answer to that very bitter question. It’s a simple one. And the answer is: everything.

I’m an absolute bastard.

That’s the simple honest truth.

I admit it openly to myself and I nod (or would had done, if my chin wasn’t bearing my bodyweight). I fuck anything that moves. I drink myself stupid. I take any drug on offer – and hey, don’t I just enjoy that social kudos? I treat my friends and family like shit. In fact, worse than shit, because I don’t even pause to scrape my sole after a good stomping.

I abuse my money, my power, my job, and I (whisper it in horror) defraud the tax man. I am a perfection of narcissism. A child of capitalism. A whore of the contemporary world. But listen, man, I’m just the way the world made me, right? A product: of social deviation, mental deprivation, and psychological masturbation. Everyone’s fucking doing it. So that makes it OK. That makes it sane.

‘Cal?’ The voice belongs to Sophie and I snap out of my dying reverie. I remember the pain in my arms. And bizarrely, I feel suddenly vulnerable with my useless shrunken tackle dangling over the void. My legs swim around a little, as if treading treacle porridge. ‘Callaghan? Where the hell are you?’

‘Down here,’ I growl through a throbbing jaw.

Sophie steps onto the balcony wrapped in a silk gown. Her face registers shock when she is witness to my bungling attempt at non–escape. That look at least gives me a tiny moment of pleasure; seeing her panic. It’s her fault, after all! She damn–well promised me Vlad was out of the country.

Sophie moves forward, hands outstretched to help me climb back up… and I congratulate myself at rescue, thinking, Thank God, yes! Thank you God, I owe you a double whisky! Hey, maybe even a triple! However, The Big Man has his own sordid agenda.

‘Petal, what are you doing out here?’

Sophie alters her rescue trajectory – so that she leans against the rail, turning to smile at her husband. I watch thick–set boots step onto the balcony behind her elegant, smooth legs. I glance up. The boots are all the huge, scarred Romanian is wearing.

‘Just getting some fresh air, my love. You make me so… breathless with your wonderful love–making!’

Vladimir flexes powerful hairy shoulders, takes exaggerated gulping lungfuls of Scottish chill, and laughs a booming laugh from the cavernous cavity of his broad, bullet–pocked chest. ‘Ahh, you behave a little strange tonight, no? Come inside, you will freeze to death out here.’

‘I’m OK, my sweet little Vladdy (I want to be sick!), I just need a moment to regain my composure.’

Yes baby yes! I cheer.

‘Then I will stand out here with you, you crazy, horny, sexual wife creature,’ he nuzzles her, runs a hot tongue down her cheek, ‘and we will both enjoy a refreshing cigarette, no?’ Vladimir disappears to get his smokes.

Oh shit, I groan.

‘I’m going to fall!’ I hiss at Sophie through clenched teeth. ‘Keep the dumb bastard inside!’

Vlad reappears with a packet of Sobranie Blacks, taps one free and manages somehow to light the smoke against the wildness of the storm. I catch a tantalising whiff, and nicotine craving sends me mad. God, what I would give for a smoke right now! A dying man’s last request? You bet. As if we ever get that luxury.

Sophie guides Vlad back inside by taking hold of his cock and  fluttering eyelash promises, and there is a distinctive click as doors shut. My arms are seriously numb and I curse a hedonistic lifestyle promoting muscular weakness as I struggle with slippery metal bars. I kick like crazy as I grunt and push and heave, and by some bastard miracle manage to get my elbows onto the balcony ledge. I take a moment to savour the irony of the situation, and acknowledge my grinding emulation of sex would have made quite a comical sight from below. Jackass? You bet.

Before the sweat can dry on my ice–rimed back I fight my way onto the balcony and hurl myself wearily over the rail to lie, shivering like a clubbed seal on the slick marble. I want to sob. So much pain! Instead, I curl into a foetal position, rock onto my knees, stagger to my feet and press myself against the door.

I’m coming in you bastards, whether you’re watching or not! I realise I have little option. I giggle to myself – in lunacy, and in idiocy. Now I’ll have to face the cobalt eyes of those Techrims. Shit and black death.

Slowly, my cumbersome sausage fingers fumble. I ease the patio door open and slide within accompanied by a gust of winter. But Vlad and Sophie don’t notice because they’re hard at it again, Sophie clawing her husband’s back and drawing blood, both of them wriggling and pounding like feeding thrashing eels in jelly.

I stand, allowing the welcome warmth to flood into iced limbs. It is an orgasm I never expected. I clench my jaw to stop teeth juddering. I totter forward a few steps and halt, shivering, wondering whether I have the time to search for my clothing… then I see the black gleam of a Techrim 11mm pistol on top of the TV and it brings me jarring back to reality. The gun has a terrible, worn look about it. Like it’s been used. A lot.

Despite everything (including stupidity) I don’t want to die.

I make a grab for where I think my clothing might be, then drop to my hands and knees and make for the door. I stand again, see the white oval of Sophie’s face peeking over Vlad’s shoulder. She is staring fixedly at me through the gloom, and suddenly starts to scream and claw in the throes of a covering ecstasy… as I open the door and ease free, closing it on well–oiled hinges.

I breathe… once more.

I stand in the corridor as the enormity of the last thirty minutes club me in the back of the head. Nausea swamps me and for a couple of minutes I lean against the wall, wheezing, debating whether or not to throw up. Then I realise my still highly dangerous location; I pull on DKNY jeans and my Dolce & Gabbana silk shirt with the black lace cuffs. I pat car keys in my pocket and head bare foot down the long corridor –

as the door at the far end opens to disgorge a muscular black–suited individual – could only be one of Vladimir’s bodyguards – bulky and struggling to hide sub–machine gun hardware beneath expensive Italian tailoring. He strides towards me purposefully and I consider urinating.

I keep my head down, mooch past the slab and risk a covert glance back but the man isn’t even looking at me. I’m just some rich drugged arse in jeans and slime heading for the bar. A stoner junkie dickhead worth not even a second glance. Threat? What threat? Not in the face of an Uzi!

I stumble through regulation fire–doors and into the lift; the journey nauseates and I shuffle like an armless leper into the hotel foyer. I locate the toilets and heave the remnants of a sautéed steak into a luxury basin. I spend a few minutes cleaning up, then stare at bloodshot eyes in the mirror. They are somebody else’s. Somebody who’s just crossed No Man’s Land. They stare back at me, accusing; as if to say you fucking idiot lunatic.

I head from the Riviera, pad down sweeping marble steps and locate my yellow Porsche 911 GT3. The blip of the alarm is a welcome friend and I sink into embracing leather, lock the doors – and breathe with release. My hand strokes yellow leather highlights by the handbrake. Ahhh. It’s good to be home, baby.

‘My God, that was close.’

I shiver, and for a while contemplate the concept of mortality.

I locate Malboros and ignite an evil smoke with shaking fingers. I inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. A rhythm of addiction. My head flutters with trapped butterflies. I feel sick again. Not in the fucking Porsche! I fire the motor and pull away, hands locked claws on the steering wheel as I contemplate and relive my close encounter with Mr Death. Then I laugh, a long hard yapping which seems to go on and on and on and has little to do with humour. It’s a brittle laugh. Like glass shattering.

‘Yeah.’ I nod like a nodding dog, and smoke like I’m on fire. ‘At least I got away with it!’

 

Snow dropped on surges of snapping wind and skittered like lace across black tarmac. A Mercedes CLK with tinted windows roared into life. Lights found ignition. Wheels cut economically through the slush as it accelerated discreetly after the dwindling tail–lights of the Porsche 911 GT3… away from the frozen banks of the Clyde and towards the beckoning M8 motorway beyond.

 

The full novel is available as an ebook from www.anarchy-books.com

For more information on the ultra talented Andy Remic  go check out www.andyremic.com

Serial Killers Incorporated PROMO VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXANP6GMzRQ

A review of Serial Killers Incorperated by Andy Remic will appear in the April Issue of the FREE Morpheus Tales Supplement! www.morpheustales.com