They

by J. F. Gonzalez

  His vision blurred through a haze of smoke. He felt the heat rise around him, comforting, warm. Below him he heard screams of horror, but he ignored them. He looked out over the vast city of skyscrapers, the people below resembling tiny ants in a network of veins now growing littered with debris. And then he drifted up through the smoke as a faint rumbling erupted below.

  He opened his eyes, the smell of smoke in the back of his throat. His smile grew wider. Al Azif’s funds were going to be well protected.

  Al Azif.

  Arabic for the Customs of the Dead.

  And a great fury will come from the Middle East, the great tribulations will open up, and the Anti-Christ will begin amassing his army in the Battle of Armageddon.

  The great fury was coming. Al Azif had funded it. Thanks to Samuel Garrison and his vast network.

  Vince Walters—Andrew—was orchestrating it. The stars were closer to being aligned than ever before. When the soul-cracking occurred, it would coincide with a military operation in Iran, an operation that would be conveyed to most of the world as a small-time bombing run to quell rising tensions between Muslim extremists and reformers.

  But it would be so much more.

  The Lord works in mysterious ways.

  But it was what he wanted. Even if most Christians tried to deny the fact, the simple fact of the matter was, it had to happen for their Savior to return.

  Otherwise, why call yourself a Christian?

  And why was he—the son of the Great Tempter—seen as such a bad guy in the Christian mythos?

  Andrew smiled. None of that mattered. Sure, it was all written in the great spiritual texts of old. Sure it was foretold that he and Samuel and the others who had helped set this end of the battle up would be defeated. That wasn’t the point. The point was, it was what He wanted, and Andrew and Samuel, and the rest of the Children who had helped orchestrate this would bask in the glory of the Lord. Was not Judas Iscariot doing the Lord’s bidding when he betrayed Jesus with a kiss? Wasn’t he fulfilling God’s prophecies in the old Hebrew manuscripts?

  Of course he was!

  And so were Andrew and The Children of the Night.

  And while he was at it, he was going to have some fun.

  He laughed as he watched Brandy Black’s white sedan rental car recede in the distance.

  June 17, 1997 – June 15, 2010

  Pasadena, California

  Lititz/Altoona, PA

  About J. F. Gonzalez

  J. F. Gonzalez is the author of over fifteen novels of horror and dark suspense including Back From the Dead, Primitive, Bully, The Beloved, Survivor, and is co-author of the Clickers series (with Mark Williams and Brian Keene respectively). His short fiction is collected in four volumes, of which the latest, The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales, is available as an exclusive digital title. He also works in other media including film, the technology sector, and other areas of publishing. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania and is currently working on his next novel. For more information, visit him on the web at www.jfgonzalez.com.

  Also by J. F. Gonzalez

  Clickers

  (Co-written with Mark Williams)

  Click Click Click Click

  Phillipsport, Maine is a quaint and peaceful seaside village. But when hundreds of creatures pour out of the ocean and attack, its residents must take up arms to drive the beasts back.

  They are the Clickers, giant venomous blood-thirsty crabs from the depths of the sea. The only warning to their rampage of dismemberment and death is the terrible clicking of their claws. But these monsters aren’t merely here to ravage and pillage. They are being driven onto land by fear. Something is hunting the Clickers. Something ancient and without mercy.

  Clickers II: The Next Wave

  (Co-written with Brian Keene)

  The first wave was just the beginning…

  The United States is in ruins. It has just suffered one of the worst hurricanes in history, the people are demoralized, and the president is a religious fanatic. Then things get really bad - the Clickers return.

  Thousands of the monsters swarm across the entire nation and march inland, slaughtering anyone and anything they come across. But this time the Clickers aren’t blindly rushing onto land - they are being led by an intelligence older than civilization itself. A force that wants to take dry land away from the mammals.

  Those left alive soon realize that they must do everything and anything they can to protect humanity no matter the cost.

  This isn’t war, this is extermination.

  Clickers III: Dagon Rising

  (Co-written with Brian Keene)

  They thought it was over, but the second wave was only the beginning. In the aftermath of the Clickers and Dark Ones’s siege and a coup against an insane President, America rebuilds. Change has come, and a better future is promised to all. But promises can be broken and there may be no future at all because deep beneath the ocean a new terror awaits. Dagon, god of the Dark Ones, is waking up…and if humanity doesn’t stop him, then mankind will face extinction.

  Trapped on a South Pacific Island, the cast of Clickers and Clickers II: The Next Wave join forces with a mysterious group of occult agents to face off against the Clickers, the Dark Ones, Dagon, and an all-new threat - the deadly obsidian Clickers. The stakes have never been higher. Dagon is rising…and humanity will fall.

  Survivor

  Author’s Preferred Edition

  Before Hostel…before Saw…there was Survivor.

  It was supposed to be a romantic weekend getaway. Lisa was looking forward to spending time alone with her husband, Brad, and telling him that they are going to have a baby. Instead, it becomes a nightmare when Brad is arrested and Lisa is kidnapped. But the kidnappers aren’t asking for ransom. They want Lisa herself. They’re going to make her a star - in a snuff film.

  What they have in mind for Lisa is unspeakable. They plan to torture and murder her as graphically and brutally as possible, and to capture it all on film. If they have their way, Lisa’s death will be truly horrifying…but even more horrifying is what Lisa will do to survive…

  It Drinks Blood

  New Castle, Pennsylvania, during the tail end of the Great Depression.

  Robert Brennan has never completely forgotten those days, even though he has tried to forget them. But when the nursing home he lives in receives a patient he remembers from those dark darks, it takes his mind back to a period marked by terrible, blood-soaked violence…the very kind marked by the twisted perversity of the stories he used to write for the weird-menace pulps…the kind marked by the real-life fiend that stalked the hobo jungles in search of fresh blood!

  Primitive

  It began as just another day for David Spires and his wife Tracy: coffee, breakfast, and getting the kids ready for school. Then the bottom dropped out of civilization.

  The world ends not with a bang or a whimper, but with a dizzying downward spiral. Instead of the rat race of commuters scurrying to beat the clock, humans are now packs of animals reduced to snarling primitives.

  David, Tracy and their daughter Emily, along with fellow survivors, leave Los Angeles for the safety of the country where fewer people means fewer primitives. But as they venture farther away from the city, they realize an unnatural force is at work. Civilization didn’t just fall apart…it was overtaken by an ancient evil that was present before the first cave paintings. Human history has no formal record of it, but the dark presence that’s fueled nightmares since time began has crept out of the shadows…and its influence is growing.

  The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales

  The Summoning contains seven collected tales of Lovecraftian-inspired nightmares from J. F. Gonzalez. Featured in this collection are two original pieces: “Holes” and “The Summoning” (co-authored with Mike Baker).

  This exclusive digital collection of stories includes:

  Opening The Way: An Introduction

  Tattoos

  Goi
ng Home

  The Revenge of Cthulhu

  Holes

  The Man Who Had a Death Wish

  The Summoning

  The Watcher From the Grave

  Each story contains special story notes penned by the author!

  Back From the Dead

  Tim Gaines was the town pariah. Mocked and teased continuously since he was in the sixth grade, he approaches his senior year of high school with a sense of cautious trepidation. Years before, when he was in the sixth grade, a group of boys led by Scott Bradfield - a popular, well-liked kid from well-to-do parents - spread a vicious rumor that he was a devil-worshipper. The rumor stuck, and is believed by most of the students and even a few of the teachers and administrators. It’s a rumor Tim can’t beat, and one he sometimes feels he’s brought on to himself due to his love of horror novels and movies.

  Now Tim has become friends with a loose-knit group of kids who have also become social outcasts thanks to other rumors about them by the student elite. With their mutual support, Tim has begun to come out of his shell. He’s going out with them, being invited to parties, and even begins to have a romantic interest in a girl, something he never thought would happen to him in high school.

  But all that will change when Scott Bradfield and his friends set their sights on Tim again. Only this time, they need his help. Like most of the student body of Spring Valley High School, they sincerely believe Tim Gaines is a devil-worshipper. And they believe he has a dark power. Now they want to use him and that power for their own sinister plight…

  …To bring back the dead homeless man they’d kidnapped and brutally beaten to a pulp in the guesthouse that resides on the Bradfield residence.

  They want him brought back not because they’re scared of getting caught for his murder, but so they can savagely beat and murder him again…

  …and again…

  Fetish

  Something is in search of human prey in the gang-ridden communities of Los Angeles…

  When the member of a notorious street gang is found decapitated and dismembered at the bottom of the LA River, it quickly becomes apparent something is amiss. Detective Daryl Garcia connects it with the murders of six other gang members killed in the same way. It looks like the work of a serial killer, but the gang members don’t think so. They believe the murders are the work of rival gang members.

  Someone has a dark desire of the most depraved fetish…

  Detective Garcia becomes determined to find the killer at any cost. Together with Rachael Pearce, a journalist he falls in love with, he searches for the killer through the gang underground and the world of prostitution and drugs. And as suspect after suspect is released with no solid evidence to connect them to the crimes, the search for the killer becomes more urgent as the gang-infested areas of the city reach a boiling point to the brink of rioting. In a community of gang members – who are killers themselves – how does Detective Garcia find the most monstrous killer he has ever encountered?

  Madness wears many faces…

  Do Unto Others

  Jim Cornell used to believe in God.

  But when things went bad – his daughter getting cancer, his layoff from his well-paying job, the strain of his marriage – he began to have no use for God anymore.

  When Jim’s forced into a situation that will require his participation in another man’s murder, his faith will be tested. Because while Jim used to believe in God, he’d never given that much thought to the Devil.

  Now he’s going to have to. Because, like it or not, Jim is involved with people who have a deep religious faith, too.

  Jim is about to discover that where there is light, there must be darkness. There’s more than one kind of religious faith and his is about to be put to the ultimate test.

  The Corporation

  Michelle Dowling found her dream job. The offer on her desk from Corporate Financial Consultants included a high five figure salary, generous benefits and cushy perks. Finally, after escaping the psychological abuse of an emotionally cold mother and a series of dead-end jobs, she could start planning for a future with her fiance, Donald.

  However, Michelle forgot the cardinal rule for any job offer; always read the fine print. She really should have gotten more details about her overtime hours, company policies, and exactly what they meant when they said “Welcome to the Corporate Financial Family”.

  Michelle isn’t afraid of hard work. She’s a dedicated employee, the kind any manager would want for his firm. But this Corporation requires much more than just dedication…

  The Beloved

  You’ve seen her before. Perhaps somebody you know is dating her, getting himself into debt by taking her out to fancy restaurants and buying her expensive gifts. Yet you see her for what she really is.

  Elizabeth Weaver saw it in her brother Ronnie’s new girlfriend, Diana. Something about the woman rubbed Elizabeth the wrong way. She refused to get a job and help Ronnie around the house and seemed to bask in the attention and expensive gifts he showered her with. And as Ronnie began neglecting the rest of his family, they finally took notice, only Elizabeth saw what the others didn’t - that Diana wasn’t quite human.

  And neither were her children.

  Don Grant has tracked the creature for years, ever since it turned his wife into something barely more than a living zombie. He’s traced its history through the centuries. It feeds off our lust for it, the violence it goads us into creating, and it grows stronger and seductive with each new victim. Now Don has caught up with it and he has to stop it fast, or the nightmare will be unleashed on a whole new family.

  Shapeshifter

  Mark Wiseman thought he had his curse under control. He thought he’d kept it secret.

  He was wrong.

  Bernard Roberts is a wealthy, influential man, and he knows all about the curse that runs through Mark’s veins. He knows how Mark’s parents were killed eight years ago. If Mark wants Bernard to keep this knowledge to himself, he’ll have to do what Bernard wants. He’ll have to use his curse to kill.

  But if Mark Wiseman begins to lose control of the curse, he will lose everything he has: his life and freedom, and the woman he loves.

  Acknowledgements

  My deepest appreciation and thanks go to a wide array of people who supported me during the various stages of writing this novel:

  My wife, Cathy J. Gonzalez, my daughter Hannah; my parents Jesus and Glenda Gonzalez, my in-laws, Joe and Lucy Becker; my friends Del and Sue Howison, Pete Atkins, Mark Williams, William Relling, Jr., Dave Nordhaus, Richard Laymon, David J. Schow, Gary Zimmerman, Debbie Daughetee, Kurt and Amy Wimberger, Glen & Emily Vasey, John Skipp, Buddy Martinez; to Sylvia Huth and company at Kaiser who kept me employed during the early stages of this project; to Paul at Thunderstorm Books for taking interest in the project and providing great feedback when I was tired of it; editorial peeps: Shane Ryan Staley, Don D’Auria, Jamie LaChance, Bob Strauss, and Tod Clark. To those who provided inspiration and support during the massive rewrite of this novel: Val Gunn, Michael Harrell, Bob Ford, Brian Keene, Cassi Keene, Chet Williamson, Geoff Cooper, Mike Hawthorne, Mike Oliveri, Ace and Jodi Martinez, Perry, Alex, and Carrie Martinez, Jesse Calleja, Richard Christian Matheson, John Skipp, Brian Emrich, Michael Lansu, Steve Calcutt, and Craig Spector.

  For my Aunt Irene

  Who still loves a good shiver

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored into or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other means now known or yet to be invented) without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact the author: www.jfgonzalez.com.

  Translation: no part of this book may be reprinted without prior written permission from the author; that includes uploading digital editions onto file-sharing or bit-torrent networks and/or scanning pages
of the paperback edition, creating a digital file, and uploading them to file-sharing/bit-torrent networks. Yes, this does constitute “reprinting”. It’s not the same as checking a copy out at the library or borrowing a copy from a friend. A copy of the book was made; hence, the “copy” in copyright. Committing any of these acts should result in your sudden death if done for financial gain on your part, or on that of the aforementioned file-sharing networks. If done out of ignorance of copyright law, I can cut some slack, and encourage you to either a) purchase a legal copy or, b) donate what I normally would have made had you bought your own copy ($2.99, pay-pal to jfgonzalez@jfgonzalez.com). Bottom line: if you do not have it in writing from the author, it isn’t authorized.