Table of Contents
GODDAMNED FREAKY MONSTERS
Me, Myself, and I
Conversation with a Madman
A Shock to the System
The Devil You Know
Blood Bath
The Accidental Tourist
The Eyes Have It
While You Were Sleeping...
Escape from Alcatraz
Head Cheese
Sightseeing
A Problem with Customs
Upgraded Seating
Pit Stop
A Hell of a Souvenir
Homecoming
No Rest for the Wicked
A Good DM is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Showdown in Newark
Early Morning Commute
Back in the Saddle Again
Chick Fight
I’m Walking on Sunshine
Hail to the King, Baby
Elevator Music
Tactical Retreat
Calling in the Calvary
Class Reunion
Top Headlines for the Day
Stake Out
White Lies
The Cult of Ib
Sunset is Never Far Away
A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Ambush
Headquarters is Where the Heart is
It Sure Beats Driving
A Slight Detour
Forewarned is Four Armed
Giant Furry People Eaters
The Long Walk Home
The Office Park of Ultimate Doom
The Gauntlet
Meet the New Boss
Title Fight
Dead Office Drones Walking
Applying for Dismembership
The Aftermath of an Ass-Kicking
The Earth-Shattering Epilogue
HALF A PRAYER
Part 1
When a Stranger Comes Knocking
Send Me an Angel
Housewarming Gift
Shot Down Again
Beam me up, Scotty
The New Digs
All Settled In
The Newest Member of the Team
Training Day
A Rock Monster and a Hard Place
What Mother Wants, Mother Gets
Panic at the Strip Club
Damage Control
Bloody Good Smoothies
Going Down
Journey into Darkness
The Fellowship of the Muck
The Well of Assholes
Tale of the Terrors
X Marks the Spot
A Trip to the Zoo
Small World, Isn’t It?
Hairy Bedfellows
Break Out
The Boom Boom Room
When the Walls Fell
Onward and Upward
The Enemy of My Enemy is Still a Dickhead
Part 2
The Long Drive
The Men under the Mountain
The Gathering
Bring Out Your Dead
Wizard Duel
Unholy Rollers
The Defense Rests
Monologue with a Madman
Two Ships Passing in the Night
Ravenous
The Trial of the Century
The Peanut Gallery
The Chinese Connection
Demilitarized Zone
The War of the Three Factions
General Tso Tastes like Chicken
Five Against the World
That which is Dead Can Indeed Die
Deck the Halls
Old Boyfriends Die Hard
Quit Yer Bitchin and Get in the Kitchen
The Cleanup Crew
The Magically Mystifying Epilogue
THE WICKED DEAD
Prologue: Destiny’s Bitch
Part 1
Bartender in Training
Welcome to Crazy Town
Busy Little Bees Buzzing Around
The Mean Streets
Twenty Sides of Terror
The Douchetastic Four
Hunkering Down
Wrath of the Defilers
Meet and Greet
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
The Bitching Hour
The Telephone Game
Vamanos, Muchachos
A Rare Blood Type Indeed
Dreamscape
The Call of the Wild
Deal With the Devil
Fire and Brimstone
Like Oil in Holy Water
Uneasy Alliances
The First Step of Many
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Skull
Head Games
War Party
Catching Up
Down on the Farm
The Long Kiss Goodbye
Part 2
Raising the Stakes
Score of a Lifetime
Shit Storm
A Turd in the Hand...
Prisoners of War
The Last to be First
The Rebel Alliance
First to Escape
Not You Again!
Pound Puppies
The Monster Squad
War of the Gargantuas
Midnight Tryst
Pillow Walk
Gee, Didn’t See That Coming
Sight Seeing
Doctor’s Note
Pandemonium
Out of the Frying Pan
The Big Bad
One Shall Fall
Greasy Kid Stuff
A Small Problem
Infiltration
Undead Alive
Class Reunion
That Sinking Feeling
The Choice
The Sacrifices We Make
All Hell Breaks Loose
To Destroy The Destroyer
Freewill Versus Freewill
Face Off
Sting Like a Bee
The Cleanup Crew
Unexpected Company
First Base
The End Days
The Spine Crushing Epilogue
THE LAST COVEN
Part 1
Giving To Those in Need
Dickheads Anonymous
Back to the Big Apple
Home Again, Home Again
Did Someone Leave the Oven On?
Down Time in the Dumps
A Sunny Disposition
Impish Interrogation
Rise of the Day Spawn
Pint-Sized Problems
You Only Hurt the Ones...
Twat-Waffles
Two Mules for Sister Sheila
Of Fists and Feet
War and Piece
Don’t Use All the Hot Water
Maximum Adventure
The Nose Knows
Who Watches the Watchers?
Northern Exposure
Geneva Convention 2.0
C is for Cookie
The Negotiating Table
A Piece of Peace Take Two
The Brown Wedding
Shotgun Honeymoon
Hitchhiker’s Guide to Canada
Blade of Chaos
A Walk in the Woods
Part 2
Ejecting the Warp Core
Take Your Medicine
The Hidden Menace
Shifting Out of Neutral
Meet the New Cult, Same as the Old Cult
Wizard Sorting
Baked Beans and Brownstones
Paranoia Will Destroy
Ya
Thinning the Herd
Assassins in Armani
Dwarf Tossing
A Compelling Argument
Political Asylum
Hairy Palm and His Five Sisters
Defective Defection
Wood Versus Wood
Drachawk Down
Eyeballing the Competition
Stomping on the Feet
Open Mouth Insert Foot
The Gathering Storm
Watching the World Burn
Counterintuitive Attack
Part 3
Altared State
Holy Molars
Busting Those Bunkers
Rabbit Up My Sleeve
Give Me Liberty...
Shut Your Hole
Below
Meeting Up With Old Friends
In through the Backdoor
The Belly of the Beast
Well, That Was Easy
The New Breed
Seeing the Sights
First in Line
Decker the Halls
Origin of a Species
Monologuing for Fun and Profit
The House of Pain
Magic Circle of Life
Crotch Fruit
The VIP Room
The More the Merrier
Scary Monster All-Out Attack
Bringing a Wand to a Fistfight
Iconic Defeat
The Big Boys with the Big Toys
Playing to a Packed House
Pit Stop
Total Fucking Chaos
First to Die
Head Games
Showdown at the Earth’s Core
Dueling Beat Downs
Props to the Prophecy
The Main Event
This is How the World Ends
Dust in the Wind
The Hate Mail Inducing Epilogue
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THE TROUBLE WITH TOM
THE ROAD TO ARMAGEDDON
Christy
Gan
Ed
James (The Wanderer)
Colin
Alexander
THE TOME OF BILL
Volume 2
Rick Gualtieri
Books 5-8 of The Tome of Bill series
Goddamned Freaky Monsters
Half A Prayer
The Wicked Dead
The Last Coven
Bonus Material
Copyright © 2017 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 greatly appreciated.
All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, 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.
Visit the author’s website at:
www.rickgualtieri.com
Omnibus Cover by:
www.malloryrock.com
Published by Westmarch Publishing
www.westmarchpub.com
Goddamned Freaky Monsters
Half A Prayer
The Wicked Dead
The Last Coven
Edited by Megan Harris
Covers by Mallory Rock
GODDAMNED FREAKY MONSTERS
The Tome of Bill
Part 5
Me, Myself, and I
ARISE, FREEWILL!!
Ugh. There are few things that can fuck up a good night’s sleep quite like the goddamned alarm clock going off.
I stretched and sat up, feeling as if I’d slept for weeks. A yawn escaped my lips and I blinked several times as my body continued booting up. Once my head was clear, I put my glasses on - snapping things into focus.
Before it could go off again, I smacked the button on the clock - giving it a good whack to drive the point home. Jeez, what a stupid alarm. Who the hell would program something like that into a clock, anyway? It had to have been my roommates fucking with me...again. The dickheads seemed to have a hard-on for doing so.
Oh well, it was probably time to get my ass moving. It’s not like the work day was going to start without me.
I hopped right into my morning routine, pausing only momentarily as I tried to think of what was on the docket for the day. Surely there was some fire to be put out - a project due that was probably giving Jim, my manager at Hopskotchgames.com, a near aneurysm. It was the same thing week after week. Sure, it could get annoying, but there was a certain comfort in the routine of it all.
The only problem was that I had no idea which project needed tending to. Was it Farm Fury? No, we launched that already. Maybe Birds of War? Could be Doctor Dexter’s Daring Dash - that one was coming soon...I think.
Odd. Usually, I was pretty spot on for my schedule, but for the life of me, I had no clue what I was supposed to be working on. Hell, come to think of it, I had no idea what day it even was. It could have been the freaking weekend for all I knew.
But then, why the alarm clock? Oh well. It would probably sort itself out as the morning progressed.
Trying to ignore the concern that nagged at me, I grabbed my clothes and headed toward the bathroom. Hopefully, it would be unoccupied and there would still be some hot water left. Surely a shower would help clear my head.
♦ ♦ ♦
Just as I sat on the couch, a bowl of Cap’n Crunch in hand, a sense of déjà vu hit me. That was stupid. I mean, of course I’d done this before. I lived in this place, for Christ’s sake. I’d probably eaten hundreds of bowls of tooth-rotting cereal sitting right in this spot.
I shook it off as part of the general paranoia that had become a part of my existence ever since dying and rising from the proverbial grave as a vampire. The supernatural world was a fucked-up place, and it seemed that I couldn’t take a dump without some entity deciding that I needed to be vaporized. Such things tended to mess with one’s outlook on life after a while.
Well, fuck that shit. The worries of the underworld could wait until after I’d had my breakfast.
I flipped on the TV, enjoying the rare moment of normalcy. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Hell, a disturbing amount of my life remained mundane. There was my job, for starters - believe me, becoming one of the undead hadn’t been an instant lottery ticket to riches. There were also my roommates...
Speaking of which, where the hell were they?
I guess it made sense that Tom had either left early for his job in Manhattan or maybe slept over at his girlfriend’s place, but Ed worked from home like me. There wasn’t anything requiring him to be in the office today, at least that I could remember, and last night was...
I paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to my mouth. Last night was what? That was a blank too. It couldn’t have been too memorable. I mean, heck, the apartment wasn’t even close to being trashed. At the very least, I should’ve had some remembrance of what show I’d watched or video game I’d played, but there was nothing.
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t seem to be suffering from amnesia or any bullshit like that. The important stuff was all there: who I was, my job, where I lived - that kind of shit. It was just the recent past that eluded me for some reason.
I had to admit - it was starting to get odd.
Maybe we had all gone...
Come to think of it, when was the last time I had even seen my roommates?
No, that was stupid. We were the best of friends. We hung out all the time...even when the forces of evil were trying to collectively ass-fuck us.
Weird. Maybe I drank a few bottles of overly skunked beer last night and it was screwing with my brain. That didn’t sound so farfetched. If so, my vampire metabolism would take care of it as the day went on, hop
efully allowing the fog to lift from my head.
Yeah, I’d let things sort themselves out. There was probably no point in worrying.
I bit down with a satisfying crunch, then began scanning through the channels, hoping to find something worth watching.
Not wanting to burden my soul with Good Morning America or similar insipid morning shit, I quickly skipped to the cable channels - finally stopping on what looked to be some sort of action flick.
There was a battle taking place on a rooftop. Multi-colored lightning flashed in the background as the combatants recklessly tore into each other - gotta love low-budget sci-fi. Yeah, this had promise.
A glowing blonde angel was trashing the bad guys in the middle of it all. Damn, she was hot. Hopefully, this flick had some nudity in it. That wouldn’t exactly be a horrible way to start the day.
Another character, this one decked out in a SpongeBob backpack of all things, hopped onto the screen and began similarly kicking ass. She looked to be of roughly schoolgirl age. Maybe this was a Japanese fetish flick. Talk about a country that was seriously fucked in the head when it came to entertainment.
I was about to change the channel and see what else was playing when my hand paused on the remote. The walking Nickelodeon advertisement was tackled from the side and dragged screaming off the edge. It should have been hilarious. I mean, seriously, I’ve never seen a Wilhelm scream scene that didn’t crack me up. Something about this bothered me, though.
That déjà vu feeling hit me again like a brick to the forehead.
No idea why, but the whole thing felt oddly familiar, and not in a good way. Sadness filled me at the poor little character’s demise. As the rest of the scene unfolded before me, I actually had to reach up and wipe a few tears from my eyes.
I quickly glanced around, making sure neither of my roommates was present to see my sensitive side coming out to play. I’d never hear the end of that. After a few moments - satisfied that I was still alone - I turned back to see how things played out.
The battle seemed to be over. The angel stood there, victorious. She was still wearing too much clothing for my personal gratification, but nevertheless, I was tempted to stand up and cheer for her. Then I noticed one of the bad guys was still alive and approaching from her blind side.
I actually shouted, “No!” at the screen as he pulled out a ridiculously large gun and pointed it at the blonde Xena’s head. A bullet to her face ended the showdown.
I stared transfixed, wondering how the director could allow such a downer of an ending. Asshole should’ve been fired. Things weren’t quite over yet, though. Apparently in need of a fucked-up finale to finish things off with, a bad CGI monster - some kind of Hulk rip-off - jumped into frame from out of nowhere and began tearing shit up.
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 (Goddamned Freaky Monsters, Half A Prayer, The Wicked Dead, The Last Coven) Page 1