Guest Blog: Who’s Really Reading Your Manuscript Down At That Agency? By Julia Madeleine

Guest Blog : Who’s Really Reading Your Manuscript Down At That Agency?

By Julia Madeleine

In the mid 1990s when I was in college studying writing, dreaming of one day being an author, I got a job-placement for a few weeks at a literary agency downtown Toronto. My job was to sift through the enormous pile of manuscripts that were lucky enough to get requested, and see if there was anything worthwhile. At the time I was working nights as a bartender in a place where drinking on the job was a requirement. The boss didn’t allow us to turn down a drink if someone wanted to buy us one and usually those drinks were in the form of shooters. So, somewhere between a third of a bottle of Jack and 3am , I’d get home drunk and fall into bed. Then if I was able to, I’d grab a few hours sleep before having to get up hung-over, and hauling my skinny ass downtown to the agency.

There I would sit with a caffeine drip, in a little cubicle with a manuscript that some poor shmuck had taken years out of his life to write and submit to this agency in the hopes of getting representation. I was literally holding his dreams in my hands; his blood, sweat, and tears; his “baby”; of which all new writer’s think of their first book, until they release it to the world and discover that it was never a baby, but a product the entire time.  So here I was with the great responsibility of being the gate keeper to whether these manuscripts would get a second glance or be sent packing. And what was I doing? Sleeping. Most days I’d be slouched in the chair with the manuscript propped up in front  of me but the pages were not being turned because I was fully submerged in dreamland. I was an overworked student putting in nights trying to pay my bills and most days I was hung-over. And, I’m sorry, but caffeine does not keep you awake. At least not me. I could eat a bowl-full of espresso beans for dinner, wash it down with a six pack of RedBulls, and still sleep like a rock the entire night.

            On the days I actually got some decent sleep the night before, I would  read the manuscripts with an eye out for something I thought was good. Then when I found one that seemed to have merit I’d bring it to the attention of the agent whose wing I was under.  Her reaction was always the same on these occasions. Yet it always surprised me.  She’d give a heavy sigh or sometimes groan, and make a face, disappointment welling up in her eyes. She was already swamped and wanted nothing more than to send back all those manuscripts clogging her hallways with a standard rejection letter that told the author not to take it personally but “it’s just not right for our list at this time”. So it was with great reluctance that the agent would then take the recommended manuscript and put it on her to-skim-through list.

After college I continued to focus on my own writing; short stories and at that time (in my mid-twenties) I started my second novel. I had a computer by then which made writing a lot easier. I’d started my first manuscript at the age of 18, which I still have. It’s in a three ringed binder, hand written in pen on lined paper—all four hundred and some odd pages. The manuscript was a novel for a ghost story about a little boy who dies and comes back as an angry spirit to haunt his family. It was 100% pure limburger. But at the time I thought it was Shakespeare.

I also continued, after college, to attend any creative writing classes I could find in an effort to hone my craft. Then one year when my second novel was near completion,  I enrolled in a class that was offered by another Toronto literary agent. It was a two hour lecture on how to break into the publishing industry. Half way through the class, however, the instructor began to pack up her briefcase and got ready to leave. When we pointed out that there was still another hour left in the class, she became flustered. She’d made a mistake and thought, for some reason, the class was only going to be an hour. But there was no way she could stay, someone was waiting for her at the bus station to be picked up. Trying to figure out how to make it up to us, someone in the class (bless his creative little heart!) said, “Read our manuscripts.” She agreed.  She even offered us a full written critique. This was fantastic news! It was more than any of us could have hoped for. A true stroke of luck.

So I sent off the early hard-copy manuscript for what would eventually become my debut thriller, “Scarlet Rose”; the story of a psychotic former burlesque queen who forces her daughter into a life in the sex-trade and then tries to get her miserable hands on her murdered ex-husband’s fortune. Then I waited about six months.  As promised the agent sent back my manuscript with a three page critique. As soon as I read it I knew immediately she’d passed off all our manuscripts to one of her hung-over student flunkies who probably slept through the entire thing. Isn’t life wonderful how it works sometimes? Regardless of who’d done the critique, (I’m certain is was a drunk college student) they did offer me some valuable points that I actually took seriously and I made some significant edits to my novel as a result. But it was being able to have someone critique my manuscript in the first place that gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going with it.

All I have to say is, cheers to all the drunken student gate-keepers down at the literary agencies trying to catch some shut eye. What would would all us aspiring writers do without you?

Bio:Julia Madeleine is a thriller writer and tattoo artist living on the outskirts of Toronto. Her second novel, No One To Hear You Scream, is schedualed for release in May of 2011. Visit her here for more information: www.juliamadeleine.com

KILLING MUM BY ALLAN GUTHRIE

KILLING MUM BY ALLAN GUTHRIE

KILLING MUM is a short, sharp shocker.TRUE BRIT GRIT! 

The novella is  as tight as a nun's nasty and is a spin off from Guthrie's cracking novel SAVAGE NIGHT. It's the story of a  man who is paid to kill his own mother.

Like SAVAGE NIGHT, KILLING MUM takes a violently  absurd and tragically comic situation and gives it a couple of  dark and bitter twists. 

It's like having BLOOD SIMPLE transported to modern day Scotland and is a rush of a read. 

Five BLOODY stars. 

INTERVIEW: LOU BOXER - NoirCon Kingpin

Interview: Lou Boxer – NoirCon Kingpin.

Lou Boxer is the criminal matsermind behind NoirCon a bi-annual celebration of the life of David Goodis and all things NOIR! 

Q1: How do you think David Goodis would have coped with the amount of social networking that a lot of writers do today?

Not.

He was a loner.  Social networking would have cramped his style and his research.

Q2: Do you think Goodis was a product of his times?

Wow! 

Goodis was certainly a product of his times and so much more.

Post World War 2 America and for that matter the world was a time of great healing, introspection and redefining of culture.  Fresh from the horrors of Nazi Germany and nuclear proliferation in the pacific, the human race was left raw and ready to start again.  Goodis found himself at the crossroads of racial injustice, a public hungry to examine themselves and his own personal desire to have a good time on his terms. 

Never being one to capitulate to anyone, he grappled with racial injustice by pursuing life in Watts, Los Angeles and the less desirable neighborhoods in Philadelphia and New York and I suspect everywhere in between.  He was drawn to African American music (i.e. Duke Ellington, Herschel Evans, ), African American athletes (i.e. boxers - Billy "Chicken" Thompson) and one particular African American artist of international renown (i.e. Selma Hortense Burke).  He wrote about people that were down on their luck and with no particular hope of ever having a happy ending in their lives.  But these people seemed to adjust to their situation and in so doing learned to live and feel alive. 

Foremost, Goodis wanted to be a part of everything, experience everything but on his own terms.  This was his undoing in Hollywood, in his marriage and in any of the success he may have garnered when he returned to Philadelphia.

So yes, he was a product of his times.  He practiced his own form of  civil disobedience and I think that is why Esquire Magazine (July 1964: Love (Old Sentimentality)/Love (New Sentimentality)) called him the High Priest of the New Cult.  He had described man  as the anti-hero guy, the protagonist as the loser. For Goodis and probably the majority of people during this time period (extending to present day), good doesn't always triumph over evil.  Life is hard, difficult and sometimes absolute hell.  But I digress, Goodis was a product of his times, but his times are our times also.

Thinking further about the question, DG's middle class, Jewish upbringing and liberal disposition coupled with the rigid socio-political constraints of the late 30s to the 50s, shaped Goodis while at the same time allowing him to blaze his own independent trail into to the much more accepting and tolerant 60s.

Some may say he was ahead of his time in his approach to life.  He certainly marched to the beat of his own drum, maybe even his own parade. 

Q3: How did you first crash into the world of David Goodis?

I was hanging out my favorite book store in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia ( a favorite local of David Goodis) when I got into a discussion about famous noir writers from Philadelphia.  Of course there was Poe and Lippard, but I wanted to learn about a forgotten writer. Someone lost to time, but who had made a difference with his writing.  Maybe not as a commercial success, but someone who had left a mark in the literary world but had become overlooked by those not knowledgeable nor well read enough to have known him or her. 

Enter Duane Swierczynski.  Knowledgeable and well read.  "David Goodis of course is your man.  Not only is his writing first rate, but his life is equally as fascinating if not more."  This was late 2005, early 2006.  The rest is history. 

Goodis's published works were elusive as was his sole biography.  The biography was only available in French and his printed works were equivalent to searching for the Holy Grail.  I was not deterred.  I set out to find all of his works and learn about his life. 

So with obsessive compulsive drive, I embarked on an adventure that continues to this day.  Goodis had been an enigma, but I have spent a great deal of time reading his works and meeting as many family and friends that knew David Goodis.

Q4: What's your medical diagnosis of Goodis?

Although I am not a psychiatrist (I am the son of a psychiatrist), I have had the opportunity to be a student of a great deal of psychopathology, but I digress.  Let's examine David Goodis and his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities.

David Goodis was known for many peculiarities that were perceived as down right "weird" and often socially unacceptable to those who did not know him.  To those that knew him, these traits defined David Goodis.

From my "analysis", David was the oldest of three boys in a family clearly dominated by his mother, Molly.  His second brother, Jerome was born in 1919 and died in 1923 of meningitis.  His youngest brother, Herbert, was born in 1923 and died in 1971.  He died after being missing for 10 days.  His cause of death was malnutrition.  Herbert had suffered from a life long mental illness.  Today it would have been diagnosed as either schizophrenia or bipolar disease.  Given the stigmata attached to mental illness in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, Herbert remained undiagnosed, untreated and marginalized from the mainstream of society.   His plight was no different than millions of others that suffered from similar metal afflictions.  One thing he had going for him was the incredible love and attention that his immediate and extended family wrapped him in.

David Goodis was the Goodis brother that all hopes were hung on.  On the surface, Goodis was the epitome of success, creativity and congeniality.  He made many friends in Philadelphia that stuck by him until his demise in 1967.  The friends were few in Hollywood.  When he returned from the West Coast in the early 40s, he had been divorced, a persona non grata at Warner Brothers and in need of a way to provide for himself, his brother and his parents.

Okay, the stage is set.  I will run down the laundry list of myths and rumors that shroud Goodis as a man of mystery or just a very talented man with an undiagnosed mental condition.

His penchant for being verbally and physically abused by large, abusive Black women.  Referred to as going "to the Congo".

His desire to wear clothes until they were threadbare after dying them salmon pink or dark blue.  He is rumored to have had a "blue" tartan suit that he wore on the Warner Brothers lot.  He hated wearing new clothing.

He had an aversion to anything touching his waist.  He would purposely alter the waist band of his pants to prohibit the cloth from touching his midsection.  This necessitated the use and fondness of suspenders.

He would collect old jalopies and drive these cars into the ground.  He paid no attention to the upkeep or maintenance of his vehicles. He is rumored to have owned a 1936 AirFlow Chrysler, 4 door convertible that originally belonged to Betty Davis.

He was extremely frugal and rarely spent money.

He would wear a white robe and profess to being an exiled White Russian prince of the Blood.

He was very fond of shoving the red wrapper of Lucky Strike cigarettes up his nose to feign a nose bleed.

Making a medical diagnosis based on historical fact, rumor and innuendo is very tricky, but after talking with many of his friends and family members,  I would have to admit that Goodis did suffer from mental illness, certainly not to the degree that his brother did.  Not being a psychiatrist, I would say that he was manic depressive 

PS:  I have included a picture of Goodis at the piano in a pink suit that he called "Lox".  Yes, Lox, like the color of salmon.  The other picture is of Herbert, Molly and William Goodis.  These photos are not copyrighted so you can include them in the piece.

Q5: How difficult is it for a latter day writer to channel the Goodis spirit?

It all depends on the latter day writer.  Probably the best example of channeling or "projective verse" is Charles Olson's CALL ME ISHMAEL.  It opens:

I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America, from Folsom cave to now. I spell it large because it comes large here. Large, and without mercy… Some men ride on such space, others have to fasten themselves like a tent stake to survive. As I see it Poe dug in and Melville mounted. They are the alternatives.-- Call Me Ishmael by Charles Olson

The writer must engage with the SPACE.  Writing is not meant to be a passive process, but rather an active struggle that results in a breathing, living thing that has climbed out of the primordial soup.  I cannot say it better than Olson, himself:

"It comes to this: the use of a man, by himself and thus by others, lies in how he conceives his relation to nature...If he is contained within his nature as he is participant in the larger force, he will be able to listen, and his hearing through himself will give him secrets objects share.  And be an inverse law his shapes will make their own way....This is not easy.   Nature works with reverence, even in her destructions (species go down with a crash).  But breath is man's special qualification as animal.  Sound is a dimension he has extended.  Language is one of his proudest acts....I keep thinking, it comes to this: culture displacing the state."  

Looking forward to modern day writers that channel Goodis that include the SPACE that is our world, I would include Ken Bruen (Galway), George Pelecanos (Baltimore), Dennis Lehane (Boston), Al Guthrie (Edinburgh), Michael Connelly (Los Angeles), James Ellroy (USA), Philip Roth and Duane Swierczynski (Philadelphia).  By all means this list is no where complete and apologize for its brevity. 

It is difficult.  It is a struggle, but is Holy worth it!  

At the 2011 Memorial for David Goodis, I read an essay called WHO THE HELL IS DAVID GOODIS as an attempt to channel the voice and the breath of this man of mystery.  I had to go back to his beginning in order to come forward to January 9, 2011.  I believe it captures some of those secrets objects share:

 ‘Many have called me a pervert, a deviant, a masochist and a hack.  I have been called a man of mystery, a   loner and a forgotten soul.

 I am an artist, a writer, a joker, a non-conformist, a brother, a son and a lover.

 To my family, I am a doting brother, a loving son and a charismatic brother.

 To my friends, I am the ultimate prankster always searching for the shocking, off-color and bizarre.  I have been described as a Jekyll and Hyde personality – self-obsessed, eccentric, reclusive, sentimental, forgettable, mild-mannered, manic depressive, charming, tender-hearted and innocuous.  [correspondence with Sandy Schwartz] Sure, I had my idiosyncrasies and obsessions, but who doesn’t?

 My productivity was prolific and legendary!  10,000 words a day, 1,000,000 words a year with my two fingered typing technique.  Initially I sought to write solemnly and handle only the important issues.  But of course the most important issue of all is putting food in one’s belly and in order to that I deviated from the track most of the time and complied with the wishes of my editors and publishers, I admit that was a weakness.  I threw away a lot of time in Hollywood, although I must admit I had a lot of fun in Hollywood.

 I am an enigma, a riddle, a master of disguise.  I am a chameleon and I can change my color to suit any social situation.  I live and breathe the human condition.

 In my world, Good doesn’t always win over Evil.  You are on your own in this world.  Alone.  What happens is sometimes sheer luck or circumstance; it depends how you react or what you can get away with.  Losers are losers.  For us there is no comfortable redemption nor faith to sustain any reason in an unreasonable world.  In  our wretched condition, where today and tomorrow are a living hell, there must be violence.  For violence frees us from our loneliness and fear.  Though it I am able to feel! To live.

 I hold firm to the belief that the greatest works of art are those wherein the artist is unmindful of the time and effort spent and concerned only with the goal of creating a thing of truth and loveliness and perfection. {Correspondence with Anita Halpern Rosenau.]

 Maybe I wanted this mystery to surround my death and life.  Maybe I never really gave it any thought.  This was the hand I was dealt and I played it to the fullest.  Win, lose or draw.  I lost.  Was it the beating I received from the muggers outside of Linton’s cafeteria, or shoveling snow during big storm of the winter of 1967 or my genetic make-up that brought me to Roosevelt Cemetery some 43 years ago?  No matter.  At last I am with my beloved mother, father and brother for eternity.

I am David Goodis.  I am a writer.’

Q6: Is Noircon an obsession?

NoirCon is a passion.  My wife would disagree with me and say it was an obsession. NoirCon is a treasure map, a symposium, a mystery and an incredible collection of people from all over the world that share in this passion-obsession.   I have often said that NoirCon represents a modern day depiction of Raphael's School of Athens or Scuola di  Atene.  

It is a coming together of the Noir greats (i.e. Ken Bruen, Megan Abbott, Reed Farrel Coleman, Duane Swierczynski, Joan Schenkar (Patricia Highsmith), Charles Ardai, Mike Nevins, David Goodis, Ed Pettit (Edgar Allen Poe/George Lippard), Howard Rodman, Peter Rozovsky, Dennis McMillan, Scott Phillips, Christa Faust, Shannon Clute, George Pelecanos, Allan Guthrie, Johnny Temple, Laura Lippman,Robert Polito, Seth Harwood, David Corbett, Charles Benoit, Jared Case, David Schmid, Sarah Weinman (Dorothy B. Hughes), Jim Nisbet, Mike White, Sandra Ruttan, Kent Harrington, Don Herron, Eddie Muller, Jay Gertzman, Robert Truluck, George Anastasia, Anthony Bruno, Stacia Decker, Carol Mallory, Richard Sand,  Jason Starr,  Jeff Wong, Jen Siler, Rich Edwards, S.J. Rozan, William Boyle (George Simenon), Ken Wishnia, Deen Kogan, William Lashner, Gary Phillips, Cullen Gallagher, William Heffernan, Matt Louis, David Thompson and the list goes on.......

Whether it is an obsession or a passion, it always ends up being one hell of a good time!

Q7: Predictions for NoirCon 2012?

I predict that NoirCon 2012 will far exceed the excitement and drama of NoirCon 2010, 2008 and GoodisCon 2007.  In an age where the impersonal, mega-convention is king, NoirCon 2012 will continue to shine as a bright star where individuality and comradery are cherished  .  

There will be more scintillating presentations/discussions, classic noir movie presentations, amazing award recipients, raffles, and an ever growing family of noir aficionados. I predict that many old friends will meet many new friends as well.  The festivities for NoirCon 2012 will begin on January 7, 2012 as we mark the 45th anniversary of the death of David Goodis.

The celebration will culminate at NoirCon 2012 running from November 8th through the 11th of 2012.   To keep abreast of all activities evolving with regard to NoirCon 2012, follow us at www.noircon.info.  Make sure you mark your calender to come and join the NoirCon Party of 2012!

Friday's Forgotten Books: Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley

Friday’s Forgotten Books: Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley

Back in the 1990’s I lived in London. My then girlfriend was working in the kitchens at The Jazz Café in Camden. On night she phoned me to say that there was bloke on stage reading crime stories to a hip jazz accompaniment. She later told me he was called Walter Mosley. He was promoting a book called Devil In A Blue Dress.

So, I bought Devil In A Blue Dress. And, as they appeared, the next few Easy Rawlins books. Every one a gem.

A bit later, I read ‘Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned,’ which I liked even more than the Rawlins books.

Then nothing. For over ten years.

Until I picked up a copy of Fearless Jones last summer.

The hero of this book is a bloke called Paris Minton. He owns a book shop which he built through hard graft. Fearless Jones is his best friend.

The story takes place in 1950’s California and starts with Minton, a black man, being hassled by racist and corrupt cops. And then an archetypal film noir femme fatale’ walks in and Minton is caught up in a twisty-turny tale of murder, double- crossing, triple crossing and more and only Fearless Jones, who is in prison, can help him.

Fearless is a cracking creation and telling the story from Minton’s POV gives it a very human angle. Fearless is cool, and tough and damned good looking. Minton is not. He’s us.

This could have been a fairly okay story in someone else’s hands but that Mosley bloke can write more than somewhat and this is a smashing, punchy book.

There are more Forgotten Books at MYSTERIES IN PARADISE

Guest Blog: Dave Zeltserman - Vampires In A Noir Universe

Guest Blog: Vampires in a Noir Universe

By Dave Zeltserman

What do you get when you drop vampires into a noir universe? How about a wild ride filled with doomed lovers, stone cold sociopaths, heroin-snorting hedonistic vampires, a hardboiled PI, a secret lab conducting experiments that would sicken Josef Mengele, blood-splattering ultra violence and  drug dealing biker gangs. How about we just call it ‘Blood Crimes: Book One’.

The vampires in Blood Crimes aren’t supernatural creatures, but instead damaged and severely flawed individuals suffering from a virus that emulates vampire-like powers. At the center of Blood Crimes are doomed lovers, Jim and Carol. Jim’s infected with the vampire virus, Carol isn’t. Jim needs to kill to eat, and he and Carol travel the country finding the most dangerous predatory scum for Jim to feed on. In order to assuage his guilt over killing his victims, Jim further needs to catch these predators in the act of harming Carol so he can rescue her before killing and feeding on them. Carol has her own serious emotional and psychological baggage and she needs this every bit as much as Jim does. Hot on their trail is PI Donald Hayes. Hayes is smart, capable, honest; someone that Lew Archer would’ve probably enjoyed having a few beers with. Hayes has been hired to track Jim down and is beginning to suspect that Jim is a serial killer leaving dead dangerous bad guys in his wake. Hayes’s client is Serena—a beautiful and deadly femme fatale vampire who leads a clan of hedonistic vampires in Manhattan, and is not at all happy that Jim escaped from her compound (hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?? try Serena!). In the shadows of all this is Metcalf, my most sociopathic creation to date. In some ways Metcalf could almost be a twin of Victor Petrenko from Outsourced, but ultimately he’s scarier and more cold-blooded. This cast of characters end up colliding with a vicious drug biker gang in Cleveland for my most violent and highest octane book climax.

Here’s an excerpt that shows Jim’s indoctrination after being infected with the vampire virus:

The fever broke. Consciousness seeped in and he became aware of where he was and what was happening to him. God, he hurt. Especially his throat. Fuck, he was hungry.

A familiar woman’s voice, soft and amused, commented, “The butterfly has broken free from its cocoon.”

Blinking, he craned his neck. Serena sat naked on a chaise lounge pleasuring herself. He realized he was naked also, and even in his pain, felt himself growing hard.

She got off the chaise lounge. She noticed his erection and smiled thinly at him.

“The dead has risen from the ashes, I see,” she said in that same sing-song melodic voice he had heard in the club.

He tried to tell her how much his throat hurt, but he couldn’t get anything out other than a rasping sound. She shushed him.

“I know, my pet. You’re so thirsty and your throat hurts so much. Let me take care of everything.”

There was a baby’s bottle sitting on a table nearby filled with a thick congealing red fluid. She brought it to him and placed the nipple in his open mouth. He wanted to be repulsed at the thought of what she was offering, but he drank from that bottle as if his life depended on it. When he was done, he felt better, his throat less raw.

“That was blood,” he croaked out in a low whisper.

“Yes, my pet. How very observant of you.”

“What type?”

“What type do you think?”

At some level he wanted to gag, but at a deeper more fundamental level, all he wanted was to drink more blood. His wrists and ankles were still manacled. As he lay helpless, she crawled on him so that her pubic area pressed against his mouth, then started to fellate him.

He tried not to breathe in that sickly-sweet scent of hers.

He tried hard not to taste her.

Fuck, he wanted to throw her off him.

More than anything, though, he didn’t want her to stop.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that it was a different woman than Serena on him. He tried to think of his old high school girlfriend, and that he was someplace else entirely. It didn’t work. All he could think about was Serena and that night in the SoHo nightclub. About her biting him and the intense sickness that came afterwards. He knew he had changed. He could feel the difference in his body. He had seen on waking that he had become leaner and more narrow. He could feel that his head had changed shape. In his mind’s eye he could picture what he now looked like. At some level he knew what he had turned into. The word vampire kept bumping through his brain. He didn’t want to think about it. He tried not to think about it… He tried not to want Serena as much as he did…

Christ, he was hungry. Without even realizing it he had bit the inside of her thigh. It took a lot of effort to break the skin, and he just kept biting down harder, and it made her squirm and suck harder on him. Finally he broke the skin. He licked up the drops of blood that formed from her wound. A violent intense spasm wracked his body. For a long moment he couldn’t breathe. His body became so tense he couldn’t move. Then he started gagging.

Serena had rolled off him.

“If it was only that easy,” she said, sighing. “We can’t feed off of infected blood, my pet.”

She waited until he stopped gagging. Then caressing his cheek, asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

Jim nodded, his face contorted into a tight grimace.

“Good. You can bite me all you want. I like it. But if I bleed, don’t lick my blood. It’s not good for you.”

It didn’t take much effort on her part to bring back his erection. And then she was back to what she’d been doing, although with more excitement. Right before he was about to climax, he could feel the violence of her being ripped away from him. He opened his eyes and saw that Metcalf had a grip of her long black hair and was pulling her off the table.

“You son of a bitch!” she swore at him as she tried to pull free. Metcalf let her fall to the floor.

“Me?” Metcalf asked, grinning, although his eyes were as dull as sand. “For Chrissakes, Serena, can’t you even show an ounce of self control? You know full well we have an indoctrination protocol.”

“Asshole,” she spat.

She rubbed her head gingerly before grabbing a robe lying nearby and covering herself.

Metcalf’s eyelids lowered as he turned to her. She noticed it and moved over to the chaise lounge. Avoiding his stare, she told him to get on with his indoctrination.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t bother to respond, instead curled her fingers on her right hand and studied her nails. Metcalf turned his attention to Jim. He sat down on the edge of the table Jim had been manacled to, and pulled a stiletto knife from his belt. He let Jim get a long look at it.

“This is an incredibly sharp knife,” Metcalf said, admiring it. “You’d be amazed at how sharp this really is and what it could cut.”

Even though he knew what the answer was going to be, Jim couldn’t help himself from asking Metcalf what he was going to do with the knife.

“Only a demonstration,” Metcalf said. He looked bored as he ran his thumb along the edge of the blade. “If my skin were like any normal person’s my thumb would’ve been sliced open to the bone. But it’s not. And you’ve probably noticed you’ve changed also, am I correct?”

Without waiting for a response, Metcalf spun around and plunged the blade into Jim’s chest, and kept pushing downwards until the knife was buried. Jim stared dumbly at it. A low creaking noise escaped from him, then his body jerked into spasms. His back arched as if ten thousand volts were being shot through him.

“Right through the heart,” Metcalf said. “Hurts like hell doesn’t it? If you were normal you’d be dead now. But you’re not. And if you want the pain to stop, you’ll figure it out.”

Jim strained frantically against his chains. One of them snapped, and with his hand free, he pulled the knife out of his body.

“You fucking asshole,” he forced through clenched teeth.

Metcalf got a laugh out of that. “Only proving a point, guy,” he said. “My demo takes a hell of a lot less time than trying to convince you about the changes.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “My dear, Metcalf, I think you do this little demonstration of yours because you’re a sadist. No other reason.”

Any amusement Metcalf had been showing dried up quickly. He glanced impatiently at Jim and ordered him to break himself free of his other chains.

“You’ve got ten seconds to get off that table before I repeat my demonstration.”

Jim snapped the chain restraining his other wrist, then broke the chains attached to his ankles. He pushed himself off the table by the time Metcalf had counted to nine, and stood wobbly for a moment before regaining his balance.

“Why aren’t I dead?” he asked. The searing pain that had been slicing through his chest was now more of a dull ache. He found himself able to talk more normally again. “You stabbed me through the heart. What the fuck have I turned into?”

“What do you think?”

Half under his breath, Jim muttered the V word.

That brought a grim smile from Metcalf. “For your information, that’s a dirty word around here, but no, not in the classic supernatural sense. Thanks to Serena, though, you have been infected with a virus that mimics some of those legends.” He glared at Serena, his mouth shrinking to a small slit. Serena appeared not to notice. She had picked up a file and was nonchalantly sharpening her blood-red painted nails. Metcalf’s eyes dulled as he turned back to Jim. “That’s it for questions. Put some clothes on and follow me so we can finish your indoctrination. I don’t have all fucking day.”

The knife wound had already scabbed over. Only a scar the size of a quarter had been left behind. A pair of khaki draw-string pants and a matching color tee shirt were folded next to the table. Jim slipped them both on. They were several sizes smaller than his normal size, and they hung loosely on him. Metcalf waited impatiently. Serena looked up from her nails to eye the way he looked in the clothes, and licked her lips.

“Where the fuck am I?” Jim asked.

“The place you’re going to spend the rest of your life. Just shut up and follow me.”

The windows in the room had been painted black, as they were in the hallway Metcalf led Jim through. From the layout, the art deco decorations and the antique elevator that they stepped into, Jim’s thought was that this was a converted turn-of-the-century hotel. He had to guess they were still in Manhattan. With the windows darkened and only artificial light filtering through the hallway and rooms, he had no sense of time. It could be midnight or noon for all he knew. He couldn’t shake this image in his head that they were in a large coffin.

Metcalf had them get out at the basement level, and before too long they were stepping into hell. Emaciated men and women sat in cages, each looking withdrawn and defeated. The scene could’ve been snapshots from a Nazi concentration camp. Jim felt a sickening horror as he looked from face to face. None of the captives were able to meet his eyes. Metcalf casually explained that these were the cattle pens.

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Metcalf raised an eyebrow at his tone. “I’m giving you this one warning,” he said. “In a few minutes I’ll be making it clear to you what will happen if you raise your voice to me again.” He waved a hand toward the cages. “And before you act all high and mighty, didn’t you think about where the blood came from that Serena fed you earlier?”

Jim shook his head.

“Bullshit.”

“No. There’s no way I could’ve imagined something like this.”

“What did you expect then? That we turn on our faucets and blood pours out instead of tap water? Sorry, guy, it doesn’t work that way. But I’ll tell you what. If you’re so offended by this, you don’t have to drink the blood we milk for you. You can starve if you want—”

“I don’t get it. Why human blood?”

Metcalf smiled cruelly. “You want to try eating something else, you name it, sport. Steak, pizza, chocolate, anything you want, and I’ll get it for you. We’ll see how well you do with it. But all that’s besides the point. This isn’t why I brought you down here.”

Metcalf continued to the opposite end of the room where he unlocked a door and beckoned Jim to join him, a grim smile showing as Jim approached.

“This is my private lab. If you’re smart this will be the only time you get a chance to see it.”

Metcalf turned on the overhead lights. The inside of the lab was a chamber of horrors. What at first looked like grotesque armless mannequins cut off at the waist turned out to be living beings. Some were chained to the walls, others had spikes driven through their shoulder pinning them to tables. A few were sliced open as if they were in the midst of being dissected, but even these were still alive. They all seemed to be in agony.

“I use this lab to study the limits of our infection,” Metcalf said, his lips pursed with amusement as he observed Jim’s reaction to the room and its inhabitants. “It serves other purposes as you can probably guess. There’s one thing in particular here that I’d like to show you.”

He brought Jim to an empty area at a lab table between two of the dissection experiments. Jim caught the eye of one of the partially dissected vampires. It mewled softly to him before looking away.

“Any idea what this is for?” Metcalf asked.

Jim couldn’t keep himself from nodding.

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

Jim started to answer him, closed his mouth.

“Superstitious, huh?” Metcalf asked. “You’re afraid to say it? Okay, I’ll say it for you. This spot’s reserved for the next resident here who pisses me off.”

“It looked to me like Serena was doing a good job of that.”

A glaze fell over Metcalf’s eyes. “She has her privileges, but you sure as fuck don’t. If I were you I’d watch my mouth. Understand?”

Something about the way Metcalf was staring at him told Jim he was seconds away from being made one of his experiments. As shaky as he was feeling he knew he’d have no chance against this vampire. Maybe if he was feeling stronger and had a knife, he’d have a shot, but not now.

“Yeah,” Jim said, his eyes shifting downwards and away from Metcalf.

“So what did you learn here?”

“Don’t piss you off.”

My bio:

Dave Zeltserman won the 2010 Shamus Award for 'Julius Katz' and is the acclaimed author of the ‘man out of prison’ crime trilogy: Small Crimes, Pariah and Killer, where Small Crimes (2008) and Pariah (2009) were both picked by the Washington Post as best books of the year. His recent The Caretaker of Lorne Field received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, calling it a 'superb mix of humor and horror', has been shortlisted by ALA for best horror novel of 2010, Outsourced (2011) has already been called 'a small gem of crime fiction' by Booklist and has been optioned by Impact Pictures and Constantin Film.