My new novel, Touch the Night, comes out on June 16th, which is…very soon. Cemetery Dance is publishing the eBook and limited edition signed hardcover, while I’ll be releasing the paperback edition myself. Here are the two covers for the book, both designed by Dyer Wilk (the paperback edition cover also featuring a collaboration with Matthew Revert):
Before I get to the excerpt promised in this blog entry’s title, here’s how you can order the book:
Limited Edition Signed HC | Signed Paperback | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Bookshop.org
Okay!
Now let’s read the first chapter, shall we?
SATURDAY
OCTOBER 22, 2005
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Josh hears his friend but he doesn’t respond. He can’t. Alonzo’s mom moaning in the next room has him fully mesmerized. He’s helpless to the sound and he wouldn’t want it any other way, except maybe to be the one in the room with her. To be the required sacrifice for her forbidden ritual.
It doesn’t matter that it’s past midnight, that Josh’s parents would kill him if they found out he snuck outside, that they’d never let him stay at Alonzo’s again. His dad would beat his ass and ask him if he was stupid, ask if he’d paid attention at all to the stories they read about other black kids his age wandering the night, minding their own business. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t doing nothing bad.
“Josh?” Alonzo says, raising his voice. “I know you’re awake, man.”
Elsewhere in the house, Alonzo’s mom continues to moan. Bedsprings rattle in perpetual motion. It’s the loudest noise in the world, and Josh is in love. He wants to fall asleep to the sound of Alonzo’s mom like it’s his own lullaby. He wants to live in this sound for the rest of his life.
So he remains corpse-still, silently begging Alonzo to give up the idea and go to sleep. If Josh doesn’t say anything, then that means he didn’t hear the question, and if he didn’t hear the question then he isn’t chicken, he’s just tired.
They lie in Alonzo’s room—Josh on the floor, Alonzo on his own bed—listening to the strange, wonderful, scary sounds from the other room. The blue screen on the television set atop the corner dresser showers them in its radiance. The credits of the last movie they watched stopped rolling at least ten minutes ago. Josh had read every name involved, every role required to give a movie its magic, memorizing every character, but he’s already forgotten the majority of them save for the main stars. He looks at other, different stars now—pentagrams sloppily Sharpied across Alonzo’s ceiling. “Isn’t your mom gonna get pissed?” he’d asked a few months back, balancing the swivel desk chair with both hands as Alonzo stood on the cushion, gnawing on his tongue and drawing like the possessed. Alonzo had laughed then, didn’t answer, just continued worshipping devils with his marker. Studying the pentagrams now, they don’t come across scary or threatening like Alonzo intended. If anything, they’re relaxing. Like those airplane mobiles parents hang over cribs. A little too easy to get lost in their hypnotism and collapse into slumber.
Movement behind him. The sound of a body fidgeting under the covers. The sound of Alonzo crawling to the end of his bed and peeking his head over the edge. He stares down at Josh and it’s too late to feign sleep, he’s been caught with his eyes open, his head in the pentagrams. Alonzo’s puppy-dog stare is so on-point it’s ridiculous. The sound of his mom in the other room only adds to the pitifulness.
“Did you hear me?”
“I was asleep.”
“No you weren’t. You were trying to remember the names of who played all of those goddamn cenobites.”
“Well.” Josh swallows, paranoid the look on his face will reveal how much he’s enjoying the sound of Alonzo’s mom having a good time, doing all the things him and Alonzo talk about doing with girls from school. “I was almost asleep.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Alonzo jerks his head to the window. “Let’s go have some fun.”
Josh’s instinctual response is to ask, “Isn’t it kind of late?” but he can already hear Alonzo’s reply: “What are you—eight?” And he can’t suggest just going back to sleep, not now, not with Alonzo’s mom and the man she brought home from the bar only getting louder as the night progresses. There is no falling asleep to this sound. It will only bring years of therapy for Alonzo, and years of confusing and exciting fantasies for Josh. But still. Josh tries to imagine how he’d react if they were at his house. Would it be different because Josh’s parents are still married—still in love?
But are they really? When Josh is home, lying in bed, what sound does he hear more often from his parents’ bedroom—the sound of sex and fun that he hears now in his friend’s house, or the sound of two people who hate each other to the very core? How often has Josh woken up to his dad throwing something against a wall, or to his mom screaming loud enough to make her voice raw and worn out the following day?
Maybe there are worse noises in the world than your mom having sex.
But he doesn’t tell any of this to Alonzo. It’s not the kind of shit he needs to hear right now. What he needs is a distraction. What he needs are big fucking headphones.
Josh sits up, sliding the sleeping bag down. “Why don’t we play a video game or listen to some music?”
Alonzo sighs and collapses the rest of his weight into the mattress. “That fucking bitch is driving me crazy.”
Josh tries to imagine calling his own mom a bitch. The thought makes his stomach hurt. “Where . . . where do you want to go?”
“What does it matter? Why can’t we just enjoy the night, breathe in that delicious moon air? Come on, bring your camera. Never know what’s waiting out there for us.”
Josh pauses, licks his dry lips and tries to conjure an explanation that won’t reveal his cowardice. He can’t say he’s afraid. This isn’t the first time they’ve snuck outside while the rest of the world is supposed to be asleep, and he still hasn’t learned to not be afraid, but he has learned not to fight it. He’s seen enough horror movies to know life is about being unsettled.
So he says, “Okay, let’s go.”
***
They slip out of the window and flee the back yard like seasoned convicts. Their feet slide in gravel as they run through the back alley. Josh’s initial fear of abandoning the house momentarily numbs as the thrill of sudden freedom washes over him. Then, every dog in the neighborhood loses its shit at the boys’ presence, and the reality of what they’re doing sinks back in.
Over and over he asks himself what’s the worst that can really happen, and the possibilities stretch endlessly. Most seem unlikely, and some impossible outside the realm of movie magic, but that doesn’t make them any less inevitable. It’s only a matter of time before every bad thing that can happen happens.
Fiction is only fiction until it isn’t.
Josh warns someone’s gonna hear them if they’re not careful and Alonzo laughs and cups his hands around his mouth. “Everybody wake the fuck up! It’s time to have some motherfucking fun!”
Josh’s heart races faster than his feet as he shoves his friend. Alonzo stumbles and grabs a neighbor’s fence post just before falling on his face. He climbs back up and glares at Josh. “What’s your problem?”
“Nothing. Let’s just go before one of these rednecks thinks we’re trespassing and shoots us.”
Alonzo smirks. “Let ’em try. I fuckin’ dare ’em.”
Josh considers reminding him they aren’t in a Cronenberg movie, that bullets aren’t gonna melt into his flesh like butter, painless and smooth. Instead Josh continues forward, pretending like he couldn’t give less of a shit if Alonzo follows. When they reach the end of the alley, they pause, crouched like the petty thugs their middle school principal so often accuses them of being. Alonzo peeks over the corner of a fence and scans the suburban street in both directions, left to right, then down and up in case there’s any helicopters surveilling their activities.
“Where are we going?” Josh asks, and Alonzo shrugs.
“Nowhere. Everywhere. Who cares?”
“I was just wondering.”
“You scared we gonna get in trouble?”
He shakes his head, a little too desperate. “No.”
The night isn’t dark, not dark like Josh had imagined it being back in Alonzo’s bedroom. The moon hangs over the center of town, as round and bright as an eyeball devoid of its pupil. He debates pulling out his little camcorder but doubts it’ll pick up anything besides shadows. They avoid the glow of streetlights and instead sneak through front yards hidden in darkness and boobytrapped with sprinkler systems. He tries pressing one hand against his hoodie pocket holding the camcorder, adding a second layer of defense against the water.
“I didn’t bring a second set of clothes.” Josh grimaces at the way his feet squish in his shoes.
“Who says we’re ever going back home?” Alonzo laughs, no attempt to conceal his voice. “Shit, who says we even need clothes?”
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t like walking around naked.”
“What, you worried somebody might make fun of that tiny little pecker of yours?”
Josh tries to laugh, but it comes out as a weak little hiccup. He spits on the street and hopes it looks cool. “What do you want to do on Halloween?”
“I don’t know. Same shit we did last year, I guess. Blow some shit up. Get candy. Steal my mom’s vodka.”
“This is probably our last year, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re getting too old. We won’t be able to get candy next year.”
“Says who?”
“I don’t know.” He licks his lips, grimacing at the taste of dry skin. The night has a bad feel to it. The air’s heavy, suffocating. He opens his mouth wide and gulps oxygen like a fish abandoned on dry land. “That’s just how it works, I guess.”
“Well fuck how it works,” Alonzo says, voice rising in anger. “I’m gonna keep getting candy until the day I die. Even if I’m some cranky-ass old man. I’ll get my little walker and wobble all up and down the neighborhood ringing doorbells.” He hunches over and mimics an elderly gentleman. “Uh, hello, yes, sonny-boy, triiiick . . . or . . . tre—oh gosh, my back! My back! Someone call an am-bu-laaaance!”
They both bust up laughing and crash into each other. Josh trips into someone’s yard and slides on wet grass, but it’s no big deal, could have been worse if he landed on his frontside and crushed his camcorder. His clothes are already wet at this point so what does it matter. They’re having fun. Alonzo is Josh’s friend and Josh is Alonzo’s friend and together they are having a good time. What time it is doesn’t matter. Not really. If anything, the danger adds to the excitement, as much as he hates to admit it.
Alonzo helps him up and they keep walking.
“You gonna watch the game tomorrow?” Josh asks.
“What game?”
“C’mon, like you don’t know.”
Alonzo shrugs, sincere. “Baseball?”
“It’s the World Series, bro.”
He laughs. “You know I don’t give a shit about that. And you know I know you don’t give a shit about that, either.”
“It’s all my dad’s been talking about.”
“Man, fuck your dad.”
“Hey.”
He claps Josh on the back. “I’m sorry, but that guy’s an asshole.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Maybe.”
Josh spots a realtor sign in a lawn ahead and kicks it. It shoots up from the earth like a rocket and lands in the driveway, creating a loud twang aluminum echo.
Alonzo claps and tells him, “Now that’s the shit, baby,” and picks up the sign and Frisbees it toward the house. It bounces off the exterior and the darkness swallows it.
Josh retrieves a rock and throws it blindly. For a moment, it’s as if a tear in the sky opens up and gulps the little rock down into the surreal dimensions of its stomach. But then somewhere one street over glass explodes and they both shout, “Oh shit!” as they forget about sticking to front yards and book it down the middle of the road. They don’t dare look over their shoulders, knowing that not only is the Percy P.D. hot on their trail, but so is the military and national guard.
They cross Main Street without checking for passing traffic. A honk blasts to their right and tires skid on pavement. Alonzo flips them the bird and shouts, “Fuck you, car!” Josh considers joining in, but decides both of his arms are required to maintain Alonzo’s pace. He is not the fastest kid in town—hell, minus Wheelchair Kid in his Social Studies class, he’s probably the slowest—but he tries his best not to make it obvious. Nobody wants to wait for the fat kid.
Wheezing, Josh follows Alonzo through a deserted strip mall. All the shops are closed, the structure a series of black mirrors. Josh can’t take his eyes off of them, convinced there’s something standing on the opposite sides of the windows, watching them as they flee from government henchmen. Maybe they’re licking their lips, the sight of two boys making their stomachs growl. If this were a horror movie, Alonzo and Josh would escape the police by breaking into one of these. They’d lay low behind a mannequin display and explore their new playground, stealing whatever fit in their pockets. But the longer they lingered, the stranger the noises they’d hear, until eventually the mannequins opened their mouths and sank their teeth into the boys’ throats.
But this isn’t a horror movie, and they don’t know fuck-all about breaking and entering, so instead they pass the strip mall and head toward the gas station, the one they always steal chips and pops from after school.
Josh taps Alonzo on the shoulder. “Do you really think it’s okay that we go in here?”
Alonzo shrugs. “I don’t see why not.”
“Yeah you do.”
Alonzo isn’t an idiot. Twelve-year-old boys can’t just walk around past curfew. Not in a suburban town like this when nobody is awake. And you especially can’t walk around at night when you’re a black kid. You’re automatically a suspect. Anything goes wrong, there’s no such thing as an investigation. Your ass is getting thrown in the back of a cop car. Hell, nothing even needs to go wrong. The fact that you exist and choose to flaunt it is enough of a crime. Sure, Josh is only twelve, but that doesn’t make him ignorant of reality. Maybe the white kids in town can go on with their lives surrounded by cotton candy and bubble wrap.
But Alonzo just laughs and pulls open one of the doors. Alonzo understands all of this just as well, but the difference with Alonzo is, instead of being filled with fear, he’s instead consumed by rage.
Last month, the cops killed two people on a bridge in New Orleans, and it’s all Josh and Alonzo have been able to talk about. Obsessed isn’t the right word. Terrified’s a little closer, but still not quite. Hurricane Katrina’s destroyed the city and everybody is desperate to survive. Meanwhile, the cops there just seem eager to kill kill kill. This happened on the Danziger Bridge. Only a goddamn month ago. He’s seen photos of the bridge. Videos. It’s huge. On top of the two who were murdered, four others were shot and injured. All six black, all six unarmed. Of fucking course. As if that’s a surprise. As if that’s a shock. They’d watched the news story online at least a dozen times in Alonzo’s basement, yet the repeated viewings did nothing to desensitize the acidic burn Josh feels in his stomach whenever he thinks about it. One of the deceased, a fortysomething-year-old man, was revealed to have possessed the brain of a toddler. And the other one who died? Shit, he’d only been seventeen. Probably still in high school. Older than Josh and Alonzo, but not by much, not really, not when he thought about it. The other day, Mr. Grayson in his Social Studies class brought up the encounter, and had this to say about it: “If you’re going to live like a thug, you need to accept the consequences.” Josh is only twelve and even he knows this shit is fucked up. Ask any white kid in his class and they’ll claim the police are their friends, that they’re out to protect them. Ask Josh and he doesn’t know how to respond. Maybe they do protect, but they sure as hell seem awfully choosey about it.
If you’re going to live like a thug, you need to accept the consequences.
“Fuck that cracker cocksucker,” Alonzo had said later that day, after class. “Bitch doesn’t know shit about shit.”
“Yeah,” he’d agreed, but that hasn’t stopped him from obsessing over his words.
Josh usually doesn’t have a problem with shoplifting, but you have to be smart about it. Do it in the middle of the day, when the store’s busy with customers. Not at 1:00 A.M. when any customer activity is immediately suspicious.
A bell chirps as the door opens. The gas station clerk, some twentysomething-year-old, glares at Josh as he nervously waves and whispers, “Hi.”
The clerk doesn’t respond. He’s the same guy who’s typically working the shift after school. When does he get to go home? Maybe he never leaves—maybe he’s not even alive. If this were a horror movie, the gas station clerk would probably end up being a ghost. Maybe some desperate criminal held the place up and, not wanting to leave behind any witnesses, stole the security tape and inserted a bullet inside the clerk’s skull. Or maybe he didn’t give a good goddamn about witnesses, maybe he simply enjoyed the fame—the tabloid worshipping and Nancy-Grace hysteria, and he shot down the clerk for no other reason than it felt good, like cracking your knuckles or shaking your dick a few extra times after taking a leak. Now the clerk’s trapped here in this gas station, his spirit destined to remain imprisoned until justice’s served, until his murderer’s brought down like a rabid dog. If this were a horror movie, the spirit of the clerk would haunt Josh’s every waking moment, attach itself to his aura and negotiate Josh’s sanity with his willingness to carry out sweet vengeance.
“Can I help you?” the clerk asks, not a ghost after all.
Josh gulps and hurries down the chip aisle. Alonzo stands at the end, inspecting the back of a Doritos bag.
“Are you counting the calories?” Josh asks, trying to make it sound like a joke but only succeeding in reminding himself of the night two years ago his father stumbled into his bedroom, drunk, and tossed a stack of calorie charts on his bed. “Read up,” he’d said, “or you’re never gonna meet a girl who wants to fuck you.”
Josh nudges Alonzo. “He’s looking at us.”
Alonzo tilts his head, acknowledging the clerk with a forced smile.
“We can’t do anything.”
Alonzo laughs. “We can do anything we fuckin’ want.” He hands him the chips and continues past the junk food and into the drink aisle. Josh stands between Alonzo staring at the frosted glass doors and the clerk staring at the both of them, just waiting for one of them to slip.
Alonzo hums. “What do you want? I’m thinking about a cream soda.”
“Okay.”
Alonzo takes out two glass bottles of Jones Soda from the freezer and hands them both to Josh, who has to squeeze the bag of chips in his armpit to avoid dropping the pops.
Alonzo sidesteps three doors to the left, past the juices and beer, past the Hungry Mans and Lean Cuisines, and stops at the dairy section. The eggs.
“Boom.”
Alonzo places the items on the counter, still wearing that same stupid-ass grin. The clerk scans the barcodes, not sharing the same enthusiasm.
“Is that it?”
Alonzo leans on the counter, inspecting the wall of cigarettes behind him. “You know what, I think we’ll also take a pack of Kools.” He straightens his stance and elbows Josh in the ribs. “Some Kool cigs for some cool cats—ain’t that right, Joshy?”
The clerk doesn’t seem as amused. “I don’t suppose you little shits have any ID on you, huh?”
“Hell, mister, we ain’t even got cash.”
“Then what’s the plan here? Rob me?” Now it’s the clerk’s turn to laugh. “Because that’d be great. Seriously. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for a chance to test the shotgun we keep back here.”
“Bullshit.”
Josh slowly steps back, figuring nobody will notice him slip out the door if he moves only an inch at a time. Alonzo shoots his hand out without looking away from the clerk and grabs Josh’s arm.
“Do you really want to test me?” the clerk says, arms crossed over his chest.
Alonzo nods. “Well, yeah, kinda. But no. We’re here to propose a trade.”
The clerk raises his brow. “Oh, and what is it you have to trade?”
Josh is wondering the same thing. This is all a surprise to him. Which means Alonzo kept it a secret for a reason. Which means, whatever it is, Josh ain’t gonna like it.
Alonzo reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded photograph, then places it on the counter. The clerk unfolds it and examines its contents for a moment before looking back at Alonzo, disgusted. “What the hell is this?”
“You know what it is.”
“Why . . . why would I want this?”
“What, you don’t like girls?”
“Kid, you got no idea how much ass I get.” The clerk moves to return the photograph, then stops, holds it closer, really looking at it now. “Hey, wait. I recognize this chick.”
“She comes in here all the time.”
“That’s right. Holy shit, yeah. She buys condoms and beer like every Friday.” He glares at Alonzo, curious. “What are you doing with this?”
Alonzo cracks his neck. “Maybe I fucked her the other day.”
The clerk laughs. “Kid, I doubt you’ve even hit puberty yet. She’s probably like your mom or some shit.”
Alonzo lowers his head and doesn’t respond.
“Jesus Christ. She is, isn’t she?”
The clerk inspects the photograph one last time before snickering and tossing it across the counter. It slides off and lands on a patch of dirt-stained linoleum next to Josh’s feet. He looks down at Alonzo’s mom situated on her hands and knees at the edge of her bed, stripped to her dark, tattooed flesh as she peers over her shoulder, seductive eyes glued on whoever was holding the camera. One sagging breast peeks out from around her large bottom. At first glance, that’s all you can look at, then slowly your vision starts to travel down her crack and you discover something new, something weird and alien, and eventually it dawns on you this is what everybody’s always talking about. A pussy. And not just a girl’s pussy but a woman’s pussy and not just any woman’s pussy but your best friend’s mom’s pussy. Josh doesn’t need to look at the photo to know every single detail printed on it. He’s gone over the image enough times in his head to no longer require visuals. He and Alonzo had discovered the image a couple months ago on his mom’s computer while downloading stupid photoshopped .jpgs from eBaum’s World. An image they were never meant to see, something that’d been saved in a hidden folder. For the longest time neither of them spoke—then Alonzo eventually pressed—punched—the power button and told Josh to go home, to get lost, that he didn’t have time to sit around all goddamn day watching stupid-ass videos, he had a life to live, so maybe Josh better go find his own. The next day Alonzo decided to talk to him again, but for a brief spell Josh had feared the worst. Although they’d never discussed the incident again, it had never left Josh’s mind.
Now here it is again.
A million questions plague his mind but they go unanswered as Alonzo knocks over a Zippo display. “What, my mom’s not good enough for you?”
“All right, get the fuck out of here before you get hurt.”
Alonzo turns around and Josh sighs, relieved, thinking this nightmare is over, then chokes up as Alonzo retrieves the photo and waves it back at the clerk. “I’m not going anywhere until you agree to the trade.”
“What are you even talking about? I ain’t looking at your ugly-ass gorilla of a mother. That’s fucking gross. You shouldn’t even have that, you goddamn pervert.”
Alonzo drops his arm down to his waist, clutching the photograph tight enough to crinkle it. “What did you just say?”
The clerk exhales loudly as he brings out his cell phone. “Kid, I wouldn’t stick my dick in that STD cesspool if she were the last nigger on the planet.”
Alonzo scrambles over the counter, sending the drinks and eggs flying to the floor as he swats the phone from the clerk’s hands.
“Are you fucking ser—”
Alonzo bashes an awkward fist into his nose and the clerk shoots both hands to his face, moaning, “Oh, you motherfucker,” and backing up against the wall of cigarettes, “you goddamn nigger piece of—”
Alonzo tackles the clerk and cigarettes rain down upon them. Then they’re both out of sight, their presence evidenced by the sound of grunting and fighting. Josh struggles to move, caught in a freeze-frame of indecision, like a scratched DVD. Alonzo won’t be able to take the clerk alone for much longer. A sucker punch will not grant you the upper hand forever.
He hurries around the counter and finds Alonzo sitting on the clerk’s chest, shoving the photograph of his mom into his mouth.
“Eat it! Fucking eat it! She ain’t good enough for you? Fuck you, you ain’t good enough for her.”
The clerk gags as the balled-up photo proceeds past his resistant tongue and down his throat.
“Alonzo,” Josh says, tapping his friend’s shoulder. “Stop. Please.”
And he stops.
Trembling and breathing hard, he takes his hands off the clerk’s bloated face and the clerk spits out the soggy ball of paper. Alonzo looks up at Josh, eyes screaming, like he just awoke from a nightmare. “What am I doing?”
Josh holds out his palm. “Let’s get out of here.”
Alonzo stretches his arm out and just as their fingertips connect, the clerk moans and shoves Alonzo to the floor. Josh catches his friend and falls back on his ass. The clerk frantically climbs to his feet and if this were a horror movie, this would be the part where the clerk mutates into some supernatural carnivore, except this ain’t a horror movie, it’s real life, and the clerk just scrambles away from them in search of something underneath the counter.
The shotgun.
“Shit, he’s gonna shoot us,” Josh says, pointing and backing up against the wall. Cigarette cartons bounce off his head but it doesn’t matter, nothing is going to matter once the clerk finds what he’s after.
Josh pushes Alonzo and inertia pushes Alonzo into the clerk. He grunts and trips forward and bashes his head against the register. His body goes limp and collapses to the floor, leaving behind a sticky chunk of hair and gore on the edge of the cash drawer.
They stand over the motionless body, the sound of their own hearts beating loud enough to satisfy a rock concert.
“What have we done?” Josh whispers, thinking please be okay and knowing that he isn’t, not now, not ever—not just the clerk but also Josh and Alonzo. Their lives are ruined, there’s no walking away from something like this and living a full, healthy life, not after stealing someone else’s, and that’s exactly what they’ve done—stolen a life. They’re thieves. Murderers. Monsters.
Alonzo steps over the clerk’s body—planting one foot on his spine—and attempts to pull open the register, but it doesn’t budge, might as well be glued shut, just another prop displayed on the set of this poorly budgeted horror movie.
“Try hitting one of the buttons.” Josh hardly recognizes his own voice.
Alonzo gets it open and Josh collects a bag from the counter and holds it open while Alonzo empties the cash into it, moving on autopilot, minds frozen in carbonate and bodies operating under the guidance of malignant puppeteers.
“Some beer, too,” Alonzo says and Josh nods because why not? Why not take the whole goddamn store? Alonzo steps off the dead clerk and the dead clerk groans and starts sitting up and maybe he’s not dead after all, maybe Satan’s giving him a second chance to seek vengeance against the two cold-hearted kids who murdered him for no reason, no fucking reason at all.
“What . . . what happened?” the clerk asks, a deep gash on the side of his head, thick chunks of blood and gore dripping from his confused face.
But Josh and Alonzo are already fleeing the gas station, running as fast as their legs will allow, running, running, running, but no matter how fast or how long they run, Josh knows it will never be enough.
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