Excerpt
(teasers)


Robert Weinberg and Tina L.Jens—"ELVIS CAN’T DANCE"

Gnashing his teeth, Elvis pushed open the lid of his coffin and sat up. Angrily, he reached over and shut off the nearby radio, cutting off the song in mid-play. There was a limit to what even the dead could stand. And a rap group sampling his songs was two steps over the line.


F.Paul Wilson—"CUTS"

LA screenwriter Milo Johnson is having a bad day. The studio is busting his chops over his latest adaptation of a horror novel. More sex and violence they say. And even worse, he awakes to find his body riddled with abrasions and welts. Before Milo's doctor can make a psychiatric referral for self-mutilation, he discovers the awful truth ... revenge is the dish best eaten cold.

Tim Lebbon—"FELL SWOOP"

Jack groaned and raised himself up on one elbow, closing his eyes to try to purge his mind of hallucination and pain. When he opened them again the man was still there, hands resting on knees, long hair hanging over one shoulder in a ponytail. His eyes were black and he was staring directly at Jack.
“Wake up,” the naked man said. “It’s going to be a hell of a day.”
… and Jack turned and ran back down the sideroad he had emerged from, seeking the sightless, soundless blank oblivion of the previous night.
“I’ll find you,” Rook had said. The stranger who wore his face.

Richard Weber—“DEAD HEAT”

If looks could kill, they’d look like Madison Chase; blonde, appealing, deadly:

As the speedometer needle shivered past ninety, Madison squinted anxiously through the bug-splattered windshield of the stolen Shelby Mustang Cobra. The tour bus loomed on her right...

The driver turned toward her, sunlight glinting off his Ray-Bans, and suddenly pulled hard left. The bus careened across the centerline pummeling the side of the muscle car with a glancing blow.

Her teeth shook with the force of the collision.

Tortured sheet metal shrieked and buckled.

As the steering wheel was nearly ripped from Madison’s hands, she wrestled it and held tight as the pony car lurched onto the shoulder, kicking up gravel that sprayed noisily against the undercarriage. The steering wheel shook, sending bone-numbing vibrations up her arms.
Time and the world blurred into slow motion.

Don’t hit the brakes, foot off the gas, her mind coached matter-of-factly as experience overruled panic.

Regaining control, Madison hitched the wheel to the right and plunged back onto the blacktop. She stood on the gas, double-clutching through the gears, sending all 390-ft. lbs. of torque to the rear axle which caused the Mustang’s tail end to whip violently as she closed the distance in seconds.

Frantically, her eyes searched the dash gauges. They read normal. “Good boy, Frank,” she said, praising the Cobra’s stamina. “Now let’s frag their ass!”
As she tucked the Mustang tight on their butt and eased off the gas, the throaty bark of the dual exhaust empowered her. With unblinking eyes, she took in the red custom-painted letters scrawled across the back of the bus that read:
LEGION


“WOMAN-CHILD”

Now, as she lay in bed, her button-down nightshirt riding high on her firm thighs, her legs propped up, she gave Capt. Wiggly a horsy-back ride. “Ride a cock horse to Mulberry bush . . . ride a cock horse on . . .” she sang.

With each bounce of her knees, the inseam of the little clown's pants bulged slightly at the crotch.

She yawned and reached over, extinguishing the light.

“Good night, Capt. Wiggly.” As she began to drift into sleep, Phoebe pulled her legs into the fetal position, snuggling the clown firmly between her thighs.
Concealed by the cloak of darkness, Capt. Wiggly smiled like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. His form shape-shifted, elongating, stretching, rippling beneath the covers.


“The Black Spiral: Twisted Tales of Horror”Copyright©2003 by Richard D. Weber