Limbus, Inc. Book II
Page 35
We didn’t say a word.
Not one fucking word.
The night seemed to last a million years.
In the morning, when Crow was awake, I said my goodbyes and left Pine Deep. All the way home I blasted music because I didn’t want to listen to my own thoughts. As I neared the bridge out of town, I saw a police cruiser parked by the side of the road. Mike Sweeney leaned against it, big arms folded. He had bandages on his arms, his throat, his face. They did not make him look weak or injured.
He stared at me with eyes that burned like fire.
He nodded to me.
I nodded to him.
And I drove out of Pine Deep under a morning sky that was dark with clouds and offered nothing but the promise of coming rains.
Epilogue
The story finished, but this time, the words did not fade away into a maelstrom of code. Instead, another story, one that Conrad somehow knew was to be his own, began to fill the screen. It read…
The fire had died away to embers as he sat alone in the darkened tavern ’neath the ageless mountains of that ancient city. But the noose was tightening around his neck. A man can’t run forever. Not from his past. Not from the dogs on his heels. Unless he escapes.
Unless he gets lucky.
The cursor on the screen blinked before him. He read the words. He saw the offer. He knew what he must do. There was a sound behind him, the creaking of footsteps on wooden floorboards. And yet he did not turn. Not yet. For to turn was to accept the contract that the man who left the card, the man who had written his name beneath the Limbus logo, the man named Hawthorne, would make.
But Conrad needed that chance. He needed that escape. He didn’t know what the job was or how in the world he would pull it off, but he knew that he was the perfect man for it, and he knew that he was just desperate enough to take it.
Conrad turned. The man stood before him, wrapped in a dark great-cloak, his eyes burning in the night.
“Hello, Mr. McKay,” Recruiter Hawthorne said. “I am sure that you have many, many questions. But I suppose there is only one that matters, only one that needs answering. Tell me Conrad—
“How lucky do you feel?”
About the Authors
Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and freelancer for Marvel Comics. His novels include Code Zero, Rot & Ruin, Ghost Road Blues, Patient Zero, The Wolfman, and many others. Nonfiction books include Ultimate Jujutsu, The Cryptopedia, Zombie CSU, and others. Several of Jonathan’s novels are in development for movies or TV including V-Wars, Extinction Machine, Rot & Ruin, and Dead of the Night. He’s the editor/co-author of V-Wars, a vampire-themed anthology, and was a featured expert on The History Channel special Zombies: A Living History. Since 1978 he’s sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, and poetry. His comics include Captain America: Hail Hydra, Bad Blood, Marvel Zombies Return, and Marvel Universe vs. the Avengers. He lives in Del Mar, California with his wife, Sara Jo and their dog, Rosie. www.jonathanmaberry.com
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella “Bubba Hotep” was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was adapted to film for Showtime’s Masters of Horror. He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.
Gary A. Braunbeck is the author of the acclaimed Cedar Hill Cycle of novels and stories, which includes In Silent Graves, Keepers, Coffin County, and the forthcoming A Cracked and Broken Path. He has published over 20 books, evenly split between novels and short-story collections, and his work has earned six Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, three Shocker Awards, a Black Quill Award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination. He doesn’t get out much, which everyone agrees is probably for the best. Find out more about his work on-line at garybraunbeck.com.
Joe McKinney has been a patrol officer for the San Antonio Police Department, a homicide detective, a disaster mitigation specialist, a patrol commander, and a successful novelist. His books include the four-part Dead World series, Quarantined, Inheritance, Lost Girl of the Lake, Crooked House and Dodging Bullets. His short fiction has been collected in The Red Empire and Other Stories and Dating in Dead World and Other Stories. In 2011, McKinney received the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. For more information go to
http://joemckinney.wordpress.com.
Harry Shannon has been an actor, Emmy-nominated songwriter, recording artist, a VP at Carolco Pictures and a Music Supervisor for motion pictures. His novels include CLAN, Daemon, Dead and Gone, The Hungry trilogy (co-written with Steven W. Booth), the thriller The Pressure of Darkness” as well as the Mick Callahan suspense series. He has won the Tombstone for Best Novel and the Dark Scribble from Dark Scribe magazine. His story “Night Nurse” and collection A Host of Shadows were each nominated for a Stoker Award by the Horror Writer’s Association. Otto Penzler selected “Fifty Minutes” (co-written with Joe Donnelly of Slake magazine) as one of the Best American Mystery Stories of 2011. He has recently published his novella “Biters” for JournalStone’s DoubleDown series. Readers may contact him via www.harryshannon.com
A native of the South, Brett J. Talley received a philosophy and history degree from the University of Alabama before moving to witch-haunted Massachusetts. When people ask, Brett tells them he writes for fortune and glory. But the truth is the stories in his head simply refuse to stay put. Brett loves every kind of fiction—from horror to literary to historical to sci-fi—as long as there are fantastic characters with a compelling purpose. Since his first novel, That Which Should Not Be, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist, he has contributed to the first Limbus, Inc. installment, published the sci-fi thriller The Void, numerous short stories, and recently released his post-apocalyptic novel The Reborn as part of JournalStone’s DoubleDown series. There’s still magic to be found in fiction, the mysterious and the unknown still beckon there, and the light can always triumph over the darkness, no matter how black the night may be. Brett writes when he can, though he spends most of his time working as a lawyer so that he can put food on the table. That is, until the air grows cool and crisp and fall descends. For then it is football time in the South, and Brett lives and dies with the Alabama Crimson Tide. Roll Tide. Brett can be found on-line at www.brettjtalley.com.