When I read that I couldn’t help but think of what Emily and Jeff Doyle do to ensure their daughter has a protector, one who would only come if her life were put in imminent danger.
One final note. You too can be a hero. Please consider making a donation to Protect (www.protect.org) or The Joyful Child Foundation (www.thejoyfulchild.org), two child protection groups that are close to my heart.
Addict
The idea for this one came in 2000. Michael Laimo had asked me for a story for his anthology Bloodlines and this is actually the first idea I came up with. It bothered me so much, though, that I stopped writing it and dug out a story I’d written a year or two before, revised it, and sent that to him instead. He took the story (“Fan Boy”), and all was good.
This is a nasty story. I used to work with a guy who had an addiction to internet pornography. Thankfully, he was into the normal T&A stuff, but my co-workers and I tried numerous times to get him to stop looking at naked women on the internet at work so many times, I can’t count them. Sad thing was, he was really a nice guy and he was good at what he did. Before they found out about his internet habits, his female co-workers liked him, too. Complaints to his boss fell on deaf ears because she didn’t care what he did, so long as he did whatever work was assigned to him. Eventually he was reported to somebody high up in the Human Resources food chain, and about eight months after I left the company, I learned he was fired.
When I first got the idea for “Addict” I thought about this guy, only instead of the usual T&A stuff I thought, what if he was into something more horrible? Like necrophilia or something?
I had just written Maternal Instinct and when I tried to write this story, I couldn’t. As mentioned before, I stopped, wrote something else for Michael, and went on to another project (actually, “Fan Boy” is pretty nasty too, but nowhere near as intense or gruesome as “Addict”).
Why I decided to take it out five years later and revisit it is beyond me. Maybe I wanted to see what happened. At any rate, I finished the story, not really expecting that ending to happen and it surprised readers when it appeared earlier this year in the magazine Insidious Reflections.
What Happened At Forest Green Cemetery
Judi Rohrig asked me for a story for her anthology Stones, which was to contain stories involving cemeteries. It was the first story I wrote in the house I now live in, and was written within the first few weeks I moved in.
The story has some autobiographical elements in it, as some readers have surmised. I really did attend Gardena High School in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and there really was a cemetery across the street. The abbreviated history of the city of Gardena is factual. The website classmates.com is a real website, one I found a year or so before. The characters are completely fictitious, but they very loosely resemble kids I used to hang out with in high school. Because I was drawing on my own high school years, this story was a breeze to write, and fun.
Judi really liked it, and said it reminded her of the classic Guy de Maupassant story “The Horla”. Come to think of it, I can see that too.
Girlfriend
My wife has this friend named Ann who is a sweetheart. She really is. She’s very cool, has a wry sense of humor that I dig, and she’s a very gifted photographer (she took the author photo that appears at the back of the Delirium edition of Maternal Instinct). Only there was a period for about a year where she drove me absolutely bugfuck. I think she even drove my wife a little crazy, and I started thinking these crazy ideas: what if Ann was a psychic vampire and was sucking the life out of my wife? That was the spark of the story, so naturally I had to write it. This is what came out.
Thematically, this novella is somewhat related to my novel The Beloved. According to my notes, it was written prior to that novel. This is probably my first attempt at tackling the themes both pieces touch on: psychic vampirism, relationships, addiction.
Ann doesn’t drive me crazy anymore. She hasn’t sucked the life out of my wife, and they’re still friends. In fact, Ann is probably going to visit us soon.
And there you have it: the stories behind the stories. I’d like to use this space now to give roll-call to the editors who originally bought these stories or, in some cases, dragged them out of me when they came calling for material: Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett, Paul Fry, the editorial team of Paul Danda, Chris Hedges, and Stephen Sommerville (twice), Jane Letty, Richard T. Chizmar (twice), Tom and Virginia Johnson, Selina Rosen and Lynn Stranathan, Pam Chillimi-Yeager, Steve Mazey, Judi Rohrig, and David Hobaugh. Acknowledgement must also be given to Craig Spector, Shane Ryan Staley, the late Mike Baker, and Michael Laimo for whom some of these stories were original written for but, as explained in the notes above, never bore fruit with them. But hey, if it wasn’t for you guys we wouldn’t have these gems, would we?
For all around encouragement, support, and inspiration, a tip of the hat to Cathy and Hannah, Buddy and Holly Martinez, the late Mark Williams, John Skipp, David J. Schow, Ramona Pearce, Brian Benison, Ann Leonard, Jesus and Glenda Gonzalez, Joe and Lucy Becker, Trish and Tim Chervanek and the munchkins, Peter Atkins, Del and Sue Howison, Gary Zimmerman, Debbie Smith, Brian and Cassi Keene, Geoff Cooper, Garrett Peck, Gord Rollo, Gene O’Neill, Victor Heck, Rikki Rockett, Apple One Temporary Agency and that company that paid me four hundred bucks to write “The Watcher From the Grave”, Brian Hodge, Kurt and Amy Wimberger, Sylvia Huth, Salpy Manjikian, and Shuff-A-Lump, all for providing much needed distractions, fun, and support during the decade plus period these stories were written.
JFG – April 19, 2006
About J. F. Gonzalez
J. F. Gonzalez is the author of over fifteen novels of horror and dark suspense including They, Back From the Dead, Primitive, Bully, The Beloved, The Corporation, 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 com
e, 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
Going 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.
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