Bad Moon Rising

Book 3: Pine Deep Novel

by Jonathan Maberry

Genres: Horror; Sagas

Synopsis

A new master of terror reigns supreme, and in his most horrifying novel yet, the clash between good and evil explodes in an apocalyptic showdown few will survive.

From a funfest to a bloodfest….

Each year, the residents of Pine Deep host the Halloween Festival, drawing tourists and celebrities from across the country to enjoy the deliciously creepy fun. Those who visit the small Pennsylvania town are out for a good time, but those who live there are desperately trying to survive.

For a monstrous evil lives among them, a savage presence whose malicious power has grown too powerful even for death to hold it back. Only a handful of brave souls stand against the King of the Dead and a red wave of destruction. Daylight is fading, and a bad moon is rising over Pine Deep. Keep watching the shadows.

Jonathan Maberry is the multiple Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Ghost Road Blues, the first of a trilogy of thrillers with a supernatural bite. A professional writer and writing teacher, he has sold more than one thousand articles, seventeen nonfiction books, six novels, and two plays.

Keep chilled: listen to more in the Pine Deep trilogy.

A Blackstone Audio production.

Release date: December 27, 2016

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 608

Sample

“One of the best supernatural thrillers of recent years.”

—John Connolly, author of The Unquiet

Praise for Dead Man’s Song

“This is an immensely entertaining American horror saga in the tradition of Stephen King or Robert McCammon. Just open the book and it’s Halloween.”

—Fangoria

“Maberry takes us on another chilling roller-coaster ride through the cursed town of Pine Deep. You might want to keep the night-light on for this one. Really.”

—Laura Schrock, Emmy Award–winning writer/producer

“A fabulously written novel that grips you from its first line to its last. Jonathan Maberry’s writing runs from dark and beautiful to sharp and thought-provoking, and his books should be on everyone’s must-read list.”

—Yvonne Navarro, author of Mirror Me

“What began as a classic ghost story evolves with Dead Man’s Song into something more of a classic monster tale. Ignore the curse of the second book of the trilogy. Dead Man’s Song keeps the reader rapt and moves quickly, leaving the audience hungry for the final chapter in the saga.”

—Dreadcentral.com

“New master of the macabre.”

—The Morning Call

“This is intense, creepy, and well written.”

—BookCrossing

“Jonathan Maberry roars back into the horror scene with a most worthy sequel to his Stoker winner, Ghost Road Blues.”

—Creature Feature

Praise for Ghost Road Blues Winner of the Stoker Award for Best First Novel

“Jonathan Maberry rushes headlong toward the front of the pack, proving that he has the chops to craft stories at once intimate, epic, real, and horrific.”

—Bentley Little, author of The Burning

“Reminiscent of Stephen King…Maberry supplies plenty of chills in this atmospheric novel…. This is horror on a grand scale.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Every so often, you discover an author whose writing is so lyrical that it transcends mere storytelling. Jonathan Maberry is just such an author.”

—Tess Gerritsen,New York Times bestselling author of The Mephisto Club

“It is hard to believe this is Jonathan Maberry’s debut novel because his writing is of such a high caliber and his storyline is comparable to that of a master writer of horror. Great action scenes, a growing sense of foreboding, and fine characterizations make this a one-sitting reading experience.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Jonathan Maberry writes in the grand poetic horror tradition of Poe and Robert McCammon. His novel is not just a frightening tale, but one in which the reader can truly identify with both the characters. The language and descriptions are vivid, threatening, and beautiful. Maberry belongs with the big names, including King and Koontz.”

—Stuart Kaminsky

“A chilling tale about the staying power of evil. As lyrical, melodic, and dark as the music that provides the imaginary soundtrack. Maberry breathes new life into modern horror fiction.”

—Scott Nicholson, author of The Red Church

“Maberry knows that true horror lies in the dark, hidden places in the human heart and to take this journey with him is genuinely chilling.”

—T. J. MacGregor, author of Cold As Death

“If I were asked to select only one new voice in horror fiction to read today, it would be Jonathan Maberry. Ghost Road Blues jumps so easily out of his blend of words, images, and characters you hardly realize you’re reading a novel rather than watching a movie.”

—Katherine Ramsland, author of Piercing the Darkness and The Blood Hunters

“If you think that small-town horror has nothing new to offer the reader, you have a surprise in store for you. Jonathan Maberry’s Ghost Road Blues, first in a trilogy, demonstrates that even the most haunted town in America is unprepared for the full depth of evil, either human or inhuman. A fine blend of authentic supernatural folklore and conventional villainy in a fully realized contemporary setting.”

—Don D’Ammassa, author of Haven

“Ghost Road Blues is a superbly woven, chilling tale that makes you wonder who the real monsters are—humans or the undead.”

—L.A. Banks, author of The Vampire Huntress Legends series

“As effective an opening as I’ve ever read, and the jolts just keep on coming.”

—Jeremiah Healy, author of The Only Good Lawyer

“Stunning! A fierce and new talent!”

—Ken Bruen, international bestselling author of American Skin

“A fun, fun read and creepy as hell. Jonathan Maberry serves up scares like pancakes at a church social.”

—Gregory Frost, author of Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories

“I read as much horror fiction as I can get my hands on, and it’s been a LONG time since I’ve read anything that I’ve enjoyed as much as Ghost Road Blues.”

—Stephen Susco, screenwriter of The Grudge

“Ghost Road Blues rocks. From the first page to the last, Jonathan Maberry displays the sure hand of a master of the craft. I can’t wait to see what this new king of horror has in store for us next.”

—Bryan Smith, author of Deathbringer and the House of Blood books

“Jonathan Maberry writes densely layered prose full of real characters and plenty of eerie atmosphere. He’s in tune with both the dark side of human nature and the simple goodness that can redeem us all.”

—David Wellington, author of Monster Island: A Zombie Novel

“Jonathan Maberry is the big guy you’d want to back you up in a fight. Now, he’s writing big, scary books that feel just right. Ghost Road Blues is dues paid in advance: read it now so you can say you were there at the beginning of a blockbuster career.”

—Bill Kent, author of Street Legal

“With Ghost Road Blues, Jonathan Mayberry lands solidly on his feet in territory once dominated by Manly Wade Wellman and Joe Citro; this haunting, complex, terrifying, and deeply humane novel is a heady feast for those who’ve been looking for something new and lyrical in horror.”

—Gary A. Braunbeck, Bram Stoker Award winner, author of Destinations Unknown and Prodigal Blues

“Ghost Road Blues reminded me why I’m afraid of the dark.”

—Charles Gramlich, author of Cold Is the Light

“Maberry will scare the bejibbers out of you!”

—John Lutz, Shamus Award winner and author of Chill of Night

“Dark, scary, and so darn well written, one might think this book something Stephen King wrote and forgot about many years ago.”

—Michael Laimo, author of Dead Souls and The Demonologist

“Maberry takes his reader to new and chilling places. If you read horror, you can’t miss this book.”

—H. R. Knight, author of What Rough Beast

“Ghost Road Blues is a hell of a book—complex, sprawling, and spooky…with strong characters and a setting that’s pure Americana Halloween hell. A satisfying chunk of creepy, visceral horror storytelling—I’d recommend this to anyone who loves the works of Stephen King.”

—Jemiah Jefferson, author of Wound

“Reading Maberry is like listening to the blues in a graveyard at the stroke of midnight—the dead surround you, your pounding heart keeps steady rhythm with the dark, melodic prose, and the scares just keep coming. You find yourself wondering if it’s the wind howling through the cold, foreboding landscape of gray-slate tombstones or whether it’s Howlin’ Wolf’s scratchy voice singing ‘Evil.’”

—Fred Wiehe, author of Strange Days

“Get ready to be totally hooked, because it’s all here: incredible atmosphere, characters you truly care about, and a level of pure suspense that gets higher with every page. Jonathan Maberry is writing as well as anyone in the business right now, and I’ll be counting the days until his next book.”

—Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award–winning author of A Stolen Season

“A remarkable first novel [that] delivers scare after scare, lulling readers into a sense of security before jolting them upright, squeezing them with the tenacity of a snake, and leaving them breathless and begging for more.”

—dreadcentral.com

“Maberry’s Ghost Road Blues leads with a hard left hook and never lets up, full of good, strong writing and complex characters who step right off the page and into readers’ heads. It’s a lyrical, frightening and often astonishing read. Although Pine Deep is not a place you’d like to call home, you’ll feel as if you’ve been there before. A wonderful novel from a fresh new voice in the genre.”

—Nate Kenyon, author of Bloodstone

“Maberry weaves words of mesmeric power. Gruesome, scary, and bloody good fun.”

—Simon Clark, author of Vampyrrhic

“A wild melange of soulful blues music and gut-wrenching horror! Through vivid characters and clever descriptions, Jonathan Maberry carefully crafts a very special town that any horror fan would love to live in—that is, until it starts to get ugly…really ugly. He brings terror to life in a uniquely contemporary way. I’ll be so excited to read the second book in his trilogy!”

—Brinke Stevens, horror actress and author

“Ghost Road Blues is epic horror that puts you in the mind of The Stand, It, Boys’ Life, and They Thirst, but beats its own scary path. Nicely tied to the blues and the dark magic of Halloween, it is the first of an impressive new trilogy by Jonathan Maberry, whose vivid prose hits the right rhythms and whose creeping horrors will feed your nightmares until the next installment—and maybe forever. High-octane storytelling meant for chilly, full-moon nights.”

—W. D. Gagliani, author of the Bram Stoker Award finalist Wolf’s Trap

“Prepare to be scared. Maberry frightens, amuses, and makes you think, often on the same page. The horror is pervasive, but so is a deeply entrenched sense of fun. Move over, Stephen King.”

—J.A. Konrath, author of Dirty Martini

“Jonathan Maberry writes with the assured hand of a veteran wordsmith. His voice is a confident one, his stories possessed of the kind of rhythmic, lyrical quality one might find in the work of Cady, Conrad, or even Faulkner. And yet such comparisons, though hard to avoid when sitting around Maberry’s campfire and hearing his voice, are not entirely fair, for there is a uniqueness here that is exciting to behold. Jonathan Maberry is reaping a crop all his own, and I, for one, eagerly await the fruit of future harvests.”

—Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Currency of Souls, The Turtle Boy, and Vessels

“Maberry writes a vivid, fast-paced prose, creating characters and events that are memorable and often frightening. If you like your fiction compelling and deliciously dark, this is an author you should get to know.”

—Bruce Boston, author of Flashing the Dark

“Ghost Road Blues begins with more horror than one can imagine, and ends savagely beautiful, intricately and deftly written. Don’t start this book unless you can finish it!”

—Jack Fisher, Flesh & Blood magazine; president, GSHW

“A grand work, really absorbing and highly recommended. Maberry uses the same sort of small-town storytelling as Stephen King. The action is exciting and fast paced. Maberry looks to be a strong force for future storytelling.”

—maximumhorrors.com

“Like Stephen King in Salem’s Lot, Jonathan Maberry creates a small town where the everyday, flesh-and-blood brutality of the citizens seems to call forth a deeper, more supernatural evil…. A cliffhanger ending will make you impatient for the next installment of this trilogy!”

—E. F. Watkins, author of Dance with the Dragon

“Terrifying. Maberry gets deep into the heads of his troubled characters—and ours. The small-town horror feels like it’s right next door.”

—Jim Fusilli, author of Hard, Hard City

“Ghost Road Blues is epic horror guaranteed to save Jonathan Maberry a seat among the great writers within the horror community.”

—Joe Kroeger,Horror World

“Stunning, powerful…a complex, heart-pounding read. It deserves the Stoker for Best First Novel.”

—Kim Paffenroth, author of Gospel of the Living Dead

“As a horror fan, I loved Ghost Road Blues with its great storytelling and memorable cast of characters. As a music fan, I loved Maberry’s references to classic blues and rock recordings. There may very well have been hellhounds on Robert Johnson’s trail.”

—Andrew Burns, deejay, and author of The Legends of Classic Rock

“Riveting, bristling with scares, rich with atmosphere…brings to mind early Stephen King. Highly recommended!”

—Jay Bonansinga, author of Shattered

“Without a doubt this prolific author is the next Stephen King. Maberry deserves more then a Bram Stoker Award for this; he deserves Bram Stoker to rise from his grave and shake his hand.”

—Chad Wendell,New World Reviews

“A must for anyone who enjoys a literary roller-coaster ride with a deliciously grotesque streak.”

—Litara Angeli,Dark Realms magazine

“This is a fat rich gorgeous tale that demands to be paid attention to. Maberry is not fooling around.”

—Cemetery Dance

Welcome to Pine Deep!

Bad Moon Rising is my third novel about the pleasant little town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, where a lot of un-pleasant things seem to happen. It can be read as a stand-alone novel or as part of the complete Pine Deep Trilogy. If you want to take the whole ride, start with Ghost Road Blues (which, I’m delighted to say, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel of 2006 and was also nominated for Novel of the Year, though it was edged out by Stephen King).

That book tells the story of Karl Ruger, a psychotic killer who wrecks his car in Pine Deep while on the run from both the mob and the law. In truth Ruger is drawn to Pine Deep by an even worse killer, Ubel Griswold, one who cut a bloody swath through the town thirty years ago and whose body is buried deep below the swampy mud of Dark Hollow. In Pine Deep, however, the dead don’t always rest easy and Griswold’s particular brand of evil is vast, powerful and ancient.

Griswold was brought down by an itinerant farmworker and sometime blues singer named Oren Morse, or as the kids called him, the Bone Man. The Bone Man recognized Griswold for the monster that he was and risked his life to stop the killer’s reign of evil; but although he killed Griswold the Bone Man was framed for the murders and beaten to death by the town fathers. He, too, rested uneasy in his grave and when Griswold’s power began to reassert itself the Bone Man returned as a ghost to try and stop him. The real problem there was that Griswold understands how to be a supernatural being and the Bone Man, sadly, does not. Alone, unseen, nearly powerless, the Bone Man has been trying to communicate with the living and help them in their fight against Griswold’s growing power.

Ghost Road Blues is also the story of a handful of people in the town whose lives were touched by the slaughter thirty years ago and are tainted again by more recent events. Malcolm Crow’s brother was one of Griswold’s early victims and Crow himself was very nearly killed (saved by a timely appearance by the Bone Man), and he alone understands that something dreadful and unnatural is still at work in his town. His fiancée, Val Guthrie, lost an uncle to Griswold years ago and more recently saw her father gunned down by Ruger.

Dr. Saul Weinstock, the chief medical examiner and Crow’s friend, has begun to suspect that something is seriously wrong in Pine Deep and has begun to compile evidence that points to an impossible and horrifying explanation.

Terry Wolfe, Crow’s oldest friend and the mayor of Pine Deep, lost a sister to Griswold and received terrible wounds himself. Now, as Griswold’s power reawakens, Terry feels his mind begin to fracture: is he going insane or is there some supernatural taint in his blood that is transforming him, night after night, into a monster?

And Mike Sweeney, a fourteen-year-old newsboy, has been caught up in the events as Griswold’s power grows. He is the victim of appalling ongoing physical abuse by his stepfather, Vic Wingate. Vic, unknown to everyone except Ruger, is the slave and right hand of Griswold; and it is Vic who has labored for thirty years to set in motions the events that will launch Griswold’s Red Wave: an attack on the town, and on humanity itself. But Mike is a much more complex person than anyone knows: he has a twisted bloodline that ties him to both the forces of good and evil, and as he struggles to survive the abuse and punishment he begins to undergo a transformation into something else.

Karl Ruger repeatedly attacks Val Guthrie and Crow, and each time—even though he is defeated—he seems stronger. Way too strong, as if death no longer has a hold over him. Even after Crow guns him down for the second time he lies in his morgue drawer, quietly waiting for Griswold to call him forth. Ruger’s companion, the normally mousy Boyd, has also been transformed by Griswold’s power, though, unlike Ruger, Boyd no longer possesses any traces of humanity. He becomes a shambling and murderous hulk.

In the second book, Dead Man’s Song, as Dr. Weinstock continues his investigation Crow decides to confront his demons by laying the entire story out to news reporter Willard Fowler Newton. He tells Newton about the massacre thirty years ago and then takes him on an adventure: a trip down into Dark Hollow, where Griswold’s abandoned house waits among the shadows. The two men are foiled in their attempts to penetrate the house and are ultimately driven off by a bristling wave of cockroaches—tens of thousands of them. They flee Dark Hollow in terrified defeat.

Throughout the entire Pine Deep story there is another tale, that of Tow-Truck Eddie, a brute of a man who believes that the voice in his head is that of God ordering him to track down the Antichrist. God tells him that Mike Sweeney is the Beast and Eddie tries over and over again to murder the boy. The voice he hears, though, is that of Ubel Griswold. Only the ghostly Bone Man—and Mike’s own developing powers—save the boy from slaughter.

Meanwhile death has come again to Val’s family. Her brother is savagely attacked by the now-monstrous Boyd, and after a bloody battle in which Val’s friends and family are torn apart, Val manages to kill the monster. It’s a very near thing.

The second book ends with the battle at Guthrie Farm.

Bad Moon Rising is the tale of the Red Wave and how ordinary people try and take a stand against an impossibly powerful and very dark enemy. Crow, Val, Mike, Dr. Weinstock, Newton and a handful of others are pitted against a true army of darkness. On Halloween night a very bad moon indeed will rise over Pine Deep.

There’s another note at the end of this book, so I’ll see you on the other side.

 

—JM

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, September 28

AMERICA’S HAUNTED HOLIDAYLAND

By Willard Fowler Newton

For most small towns a reputation for being haunted would turn away tourists and vacationers. But for Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, tucked into the wooded hills of Bucks County, the haunts are what draw the tourists by the tens of thousands. Several years ago Newsweek Magazine published a list of the “Most Haunted Towns in America,” and Pine Deep landed solidly in the top spot. More hauntings and weird happenings per capita than any other town in America, and that includes Salem, Massachusetts.

Since Colonial times Pine Deep has been the scene of strange happenings—murders, disappearances, odd behavior, and poltergeists. The town celebrates this reputation with a variety of spooky events designed to send chills up the spines of even the heartiest trick-or-treater. Pine Deep Authentic Candy Corn is the number-one treat for the little monsters that come around on Halloween; and pumpkin muffins and cakes are made locally and served on tables from Allentown to Philadelphia.

The Pine Deep Haunted Hayride, owned by town mayor Terry Wolfe, is the largest and most elaborate attraction of its kind in the country; and the accompanying Haunted House of Horrors has won the award for the Best Haunted House four years running from Attraction Industry magazine. All during October the Dead-End Drive-In features classic horror films from dusk till dawn, and the movie theaters in town and on the campus of Pinelands College hold continuous monster movie marathons.

The centerpiece of Pine Deep’s creepy celebrations is the Halloween Festival, which kicks off on Mischief Night and rolls on until dawn on November 1. This is a huge event that brings in many thousands of tourists and includes a parade, magic shows, dramatic re-enactments of classic moments from horror film, and much more. Topping the bill this year will be appearances by a number of celebrities from the world of horror entertainment, including special makeup effects master Tom Savini (who created the effects for most of the zombie films by Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero); Ken Foree (star of the original Dawn of the Dead), James Gunn (screenwriter for the remake of Dawn of the Dead), Stephen Susco (screenwriter of the Grudge films), film critic Joe Bob Briggs, Hollywood stuntman and haunted-attraction consultant Jim O’Rear, and a pair of femme fatale scream queens, Brinke Stevens and Debbie Rochon.

Malcolm Crow, owner of the Crow’s Nest Craft Shop—which sells everything from Halloween costumes to scary novels to DVDs of classic horror films, is the man responsible for much of Pine Deep’s ghoulish fun. “Mayor Wolfe’s an old friend of mine,” he told reporters during a press conference for the Festival, “and he knows I have way too much interest in these spooky kinds of things. So…he hired me to amp up the shocks and frights at the Hayride and I’ve been helping to bring in the coolest horror industry celebrities so that this year’s Festival will be the best ever.”

It promises to be a terrifyingly good time for all!

For more information visit the Festival’s website at www.ghostroadblues.com/pine_deep_halloween.

From CNN, September 29

BUCKS COUNTY MANHUNT FOR COP KILLER

PHILADELPHIA—Three men are being sought by police following a deadly shoot-out in Philadelphia that left several people dead, including one officer. Names of the victims are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Details are still sketchy, but sources close to the commissioner’s office say that a drug buy between members of the Menditto crime family of South Philadelphia and a posse of Jamaicans from West Philly ended in a gun battle that left at least eleven dead. An as yet unnamed Philadelphia undercover narcotics officer was caught in the crossfire and was pronounced dead on arrival at Episcopal Hospital.

Witnesses say that three men were observed fleeing the scene, and at least one of them appeared to be badly injured.

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, September 30

MURDER IN PINE DEEP

By Willard Fowler Newton

Tragedy struck Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, last night as three armed gunmen, fleeing from a shoot-out with police in Philadelphia, brought violence and bloodshed to this sleepy rural town. The suspects have been tentatively identified as Karl Andermann Ruger, Kenneth Boyd and Anthony Macchio—all reputed to be members of the Menditto crime family of South Philly,

Police sources say that the gunmen eluded police roadblocks but were forced to stop in Pine Deep when their car broke down. Macchio’s mutilated body was found by the wrecked car. It is speculated that Karl Ruger, the leader of the crew, killed Macchio after a dispute over the split of money and drugs. A few torn bags of cocaine and bundles of bloodstained money were discovered at the scene.

From here the story took a bizarre and tragic turn as Ruger broke into the farmhouse of Henry Guthrie, one of Pine Deep’s most prominent and important farmers. Ruger took the whole Guthrie family hostage, including Guthrie, 65; daughter Val, 41; son Mark, 38; and daughter-in-law Connie, 37. After brutalizing the captives for several hours, Ruger took Guthrie and Val out into the cornfields on the pretense that he needed their help with Boyd, whom Ruger claimed had broken his leg in a rabbit hole. When they reached the spot where Boyd was supposed to be resting, the other gunman was gone, along with all of the money and cocaine.

Ruger flew into a rage. Guthrie, fearing for his family, tried to lure Ruger into a chase through the cornfields while Val headed back to the farmhouse to free her brother and sister-in-law. However Ruger coldly gunned down Henry Guthrie, leaving him to die in the rainstorm that assaulted the town that night.

“It’s a great tragedy,” said Mayor Terry Wolfe, a close family friend. “Henry Guthrie was the finest man I’ve ever known.”

Ruger got to the farmhouse first and after savagely beating Mark Guthrie, he attempted to sexually assault Connie. Val was able to interrupt the attack and draw Ruger outside, but was unable to elude the killer, who caught her in the yard and attempted to strangle her.

Luckily for her and the others in the town, Val Guthrie’s fiancé, Malcolm Crow, owner of a local craft shop and a former Pine Deep police officer, arrived in the very nick of time. Crow and Ruger fought in the rain and though details of the encounter are sketchy, it seems clear that Crow was able to overcome the killer. Police arrived shortly thereafter and in the confusion Ruger managed to pull a gun. During a brief gun battle Office Rhoda Thomas was shot twice in the chest and shoulder and is listed in stable condition. Crow was grazed by two bullets and was hospitalized from wounds received in the fight. Val, Mark, and Connie Guthrie were also admitted for treatment.

Though Crow and officer Jerry Head, a Philadelphia officer in Pine Deep to participate in the manhunt, both claim to have shot Karl Ruger, the killer escaped.

“We’ll get him,” insists Pine Deep Sheriff Gus Bernhardt. “We have Detectives Frank Ferro and Vince LaMastra from Philadelphia working with us and we’ve put together a big task force to hunt these men down.”

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, October 1

SHOOTOUT AT PINELANDS HOSPITAL

By Willard Fowler Newton

Late last night Karl Ruger, the gunman sought by police for several murders including those of Philadelphia police officer Michael Johnston and beloved local farmer Henry Guthrie, made a second attempt on the lives of Val Guthrie and Malcolm Crow. According to a statement by Sheriff Gus Bernhardt, “Karl Ruger broke into Pinelands Hospital late last night. He attacked the maintenance supervisor and disabled the hospital’s main and emergency generators. While the lights were out he proceeded to the hospital room of Malcolm Crow and assaulted him and his fiancée, Valerie Guthrie. Ruger also seriously injured Norris Shanks, a Pine Deep volunteer police officer. During the struggle Crow and Ms. Guthrie managed to secure Officer Shanks’ standard sidearm and backup pistol, with which they fatally wounded Ruger.”

Sheriff declined to provide further comments but promised a more detailed formal statement after Crow and Guthrie were treated for wounds received in the fight and were able to give complete depositions.

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, October 1

CAPE MAY KILLER IN PINE DEEP!

By Willard Fowler Newton

The Karl Ruger murder case took a far more bizarre and chilling turn when this reporter discovered that the man responsible for the murder of Henry Guthrie has been positively identified as the mass murderer known widely as the Cape May Killer.

The Cape May Killer has been wanted by police and the FBI for the murders of eighteen senior citizens who were visiting the Cape May Lighthouse last year. Two of the victims, Maria and Vincent Menditto, were the grandparents of Philadelphia mob boss Little Nicky Menditto. FBI sources have speculated that the murders had been part of the turf war that rocked Philadelphia for three years following the death of the former don. One unnamed source in Philadelphia’s Major Crimes Unit speculate that the murders were an attempt to discourage Little Nicky from pursuing his goal of running the crime families of Philly, but that the extreme nature of the murders had an opposite effect, making Little Nicky more determined and causing the other crime lords to step up in support of him, as a way of turning the focus of blame away from themselves. Until now no suspect had ever been named.

This reporter has heard from a number of reliable sources within the investigation, however, that Karl Ruger was the leading—if not indeed the only—suspect in the case and that a warrant for his arrest was being sought when Ruger got wind of the suspicion and fled, more from the wrath of Little Nicky than from the police. It is now believed that Ruger orchestrated the drug buy between his crew and the Jamaican posses, then deliberately provoked a gun battle so that he could get away with both the drugs and the money.

Considering the extreme danger this madman posed to the citizens of Pine Deep, Black Marsh, and Crestville, it seems odd and perhaps criminal that the mayor and police chose not to inform the public. The Black Marsh Sentinel is calling for an immediate investigation into the mishandling of this case.

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, October 1

TWO OFFICERS SLAIN AT GUTHRIE FARM

By Willard Fowler Newton

Early this morning two police officers were brutally murdered at the Guthrie Farm, the scene of another murder just days ago. The officers have been identified as James Castle of Crestville Police Department—on loan to Pine Deep during the Karl Ruger manhunt—and Nelson Cowan of Pine Deep. The degree of savagery inflicted upon the officers was described by one witness as “beyond brutal.”

Sources close to the investigation indicate that Kenneth Boyd, a confederate of Karl Ruger, is being sought as the lead suspect in the murders, though this degree of brutality does not seem to fit the picture of Boyd given to the press during earlier statements by Detective Sergeant Frank Ferro of Philadelphia PD, who described him as “a relatively minor figure” in the Menditto crime family who was probably accompanying Ruger under duress. According to Ferro’s partner, Detective Vince LaMastra, “Boyd’s what we call a ‘travel agent.’ He arranges to get other criminals out of the country. He’s a small fish. It’s Ruger we really want.”

Now, with Ruger dead, that assessment seems strangely premature.

In a statement to the press, Mayor Terry Wolfe said, “Kenneth Boyd is now being sought as the primary suspect in the murders of Officers Cowan and Castle. Police departments in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York are working together to spread a net so finely meshed that I can guarantee you Boyd will not slip through.”

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, October 14

MORE TRAGEDY AT GUTHRIE FARM

By Willard Fowler Newton

Once more death and horror struck Pine Deep, and once more blood was spilled on the Guthrie Farm. Two weeks ago Henry Guthrie, 65, the patriarch of the Guthrie clan and the owner of the region’s largest corn farm, was brutally murdered by Karl Ruger, who was later revealed to be the infamous Cape May Killer. Two days later two police officers, James Castle of Crestville Police Department and Nelson Cowan of Pine Deep, were killed and mutilated by Kenneth Boyd, a known compatriot of Ruger. But last evening Boyd returned to Pine Deep and once more attacked the Guthrie family.

Boyd murdered Mark Guthrie, 38 and attempted to murder his sister, Val, 41, and Mark’s wife, Connie, 37. During the ensuing struggle three farm employees, José Ramos, 25, Tyrone Gibbs, 23, and Diego Santiago, 52, rushed in to try and overcome Boyd. However things went badly wrong. Boyd killed Gibbs and critically wounded Ramos and Connie Guthrie. Santiago received a head wound and is listed in stable condition. Hospital sources indicate that Ramos received severe spinal trauma and is feared to be paralyzed. Connie Guthrie received extensive throat wounds and is on life support.

In an ironic twist of events, Val Guthrie, who was also injured during the attack, was able to bring down the killer using the handgun once owned by her father.

From The Black Marsh Sentinel, October 14

PINE DEEP MAYOR IN CRITICAL CONDITION FOLLOWING SUICIDE ATTEMPT

By Willard Fowler Newton

Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, does not seem to be able to get a breather from the ongoing violence that has rocked the town since the end of September. In the latest chapter of this ongoing tragedy the town’s beloved and respected mayor, Terry Wolfe, attempted to take his own life last night by throwing himself out his second-floor window onto concrete flagstones.

Sources say that Wolfe has been under tremendous pressure since the beginning of this season’s crop blight that has brought many of the town’s farms to the brink of financial ruin. “The poor man’s been a wreck,” said Deputy Mayor Harry LeBeau. “First the blight and then the attacks on the Guthries. He’s always been very close with them, ever since he and Val were an item back in school.”

Sarah Wolfe, the wife of the mayor and a career politician herself, made only a brief statement: “Terry has been working night and day to try and save Pine Deep from economic ruin. This town means everything to him and I ask that everyone in town joins me in praying for my husband.”

Sheriff Gus Bernhardt released a brief statement: “Mayor Wolfe is in critical condition and is in surgery at this time. The nature and cause of his injuries are under investigation. It has been a very tragic night for the people of Pine Deep.”

(1)

The Bone Man was as thin as a whisper; he was a scarecrow from a blighted field. He stood on the edge of the hospital roof, toes jutting out over the gutter, his trousers fluttering against the stick slimness of his legs. His coat flaps snapped vigorously but silently around his emaciated hips. The only sound the wind made as it whipped by him and through him was a faint plaintive whine as it caressed the silvery strings of the guitar slung behind his back.

Far below, the parking lot faded back from the glow of the emergency room doors, spreading out in a big half-circle that had been cut acres-deep into the surrounding sea of pines. Even this late there were dozens of cars down there, dusted with moonlight but asleep. All around the town there was a ring of black clouds that were invisible against the night, but above the Bone Man the stars flickered and glimmered by the thousand.

For three hours he had sat cross-legged on the roof, playing his songs, humming and sometimes singing, coaxing the sad blues out of the ghost of an old guitar that Charley Patton had once used to play “Mississippi Boweavil Blues” at a church picnic in Bentonia, Mississippi. Another time the Bone Man’s father, old Virgil Morse, had used that guitar to play backup on a couple of Sun Records sides by Mose Vinson. The guitar had history. It had life, even though it was no more real than he was. A ghost of a guitar in a dead man’s hands, playing music almost no one could hear.

He’d sat there and played and listened to the whispers and cries and moans from inside the hospital, hearing the beep of the machine that breathed for Connie Guthrie. Hearing the sewing-circle whisper of needles and thread as the doctors stitched Terry Wolfe’s skin, and the faint grinding sound as they set his bones. He heard the whimper of hopelessness from the throat of José Ramos as the doctors stood by his bed and explained to his mother that his back was broken, and then the scream as the enormity of that pronouncement drove a knife into his mother’s heart. He heard the dreadful terror as Dr. Saul Weinstock murmured, “Dear God,” over and over again as he knelt alone in the bathroom of his office, hands on either side of the toilet bowl, his face streaked with tears and his lips wet with vomit.

He heard all of these things while he played, and then he heard the hospital slowly fall quiet as drugs or shock or alcohol took each of them into their private pits of darkness. That’s when the Bone Man had stopped playing and rose to stand on the edge of the roof, staring across blacktop and car hoods and trees at the moon.

It was an ugly quarter moon, stained yellow-red like bruised flesh, and its sickle tip seemed to slash at the treetops. The sky above the trees was thick with agitated night birds that flapped and cawed, hectoring him like Romans at the circus.

(2)

“Where are you now?”

Jim Polk cupped his hand around his cell and pitched his voice to a whisper. “At the hospital, like you said. Back loading dock.”

“Anyone see you?”

“Jesus, Vic, you think I’m that stupid?”

Vic Wingate’s voice tightened a notch. “Did anyone see you?”

“No, okay? No one saw me.”

“You’re sure?”

Polk almost mouthed off again, but caught himself. A half beat later he said, “I’m sure.”

“Then open the door. We’re here.”

The hallway was still dark and empty. He’d already disabled the alarms and the video cameras, permanently this time per Vic’s instructions. He pocketed his cell and fished for his keys, his fingers shaking badly. His nerves were shot and getting worse every time Vic asked him to do something like this. There was no letup, always some other shit to do, always something that was tightening the noose around his neck. The McDonald’s fish in his stomach felt like it was congealing.

He turned the key, but before Polk could push it open the door was whipped out of his hand and Karl Ruger shouldered his way in, pausing just enough to give Polk a slow, hungry up and down. He smiled a wide, white smile that showed two rows of jagged teeth that were wet with spit. The greasy slush in Polk’s belly gave another sickening lurch. Vic was bad enough, but looking into Ruger’s eyes was like looking into a dark well that was drilled all the way down to Hell. He fell back a step, stammering something useless, and twitched an arm nervously toward the morgue door halfway down the hall.

Ruger’s mouth twitched. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I know the way.”

Polk flattened back against the wall, not wanting to even let Ruger’s shadow touch him. Two other men came in—beefy college kids in Pinelands Scarecrows sweatshirts—their faces as white as Ruger’s, their mouths filled with long white teeth. Vic was the last to enter and he pulled the door shut behind him and stood next to Polk, watching the three of them pad noiselessly down the hall.

“Yo!” Vic called softly and the college kids turned. “Quick and dirty. Mess the place up, paint some goofy frat-boy shit on the wall, break some stuff, and then haul Boyd’s sorry ass out of here.” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes and we’re gone.”

The college kids grinned at him for a moment and then pulled open the morgue door and vanished inside. Ruger lingered in the doorway.

Vic said to him, “They can handle it, Sport. You don’t need to bother.”

Even from that distance Polk could see Ruger’s thin smile, and he felt Vic stiffen next to him. Jesus Christ, Polk thought, Vic’s afraid of him, too.

“Mark Guthrie’s in there.” Ruger’s tongue flicked out and lapped spit off his lips. “I want to pay my respects.”

With a dry little laugh Ruger turned and went into the morgue.

Polk looked at Vic, who took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and slowly screwed it into his mouth, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful. Absently Vic began patting his pockets for a match and Polk pulled his own lighter and clicked it. Vic cut him a quick look, then gave a short nod and bent to the light, dragging in a deep chestful of smoke.

“Vic…?”

Vic said nothing. Polk licked his lips. “Vic…is this all going to work out? I mean…is this all going to be okay for us?”

Vic Wingate exhaled as he turned to Polk, and in the darkness of the hallway his eyes were just as black and bottomless as Ruger’s. “Couple hours ago I’d have told you we were screwed. Royally screwed.” He plucked a fleck of tobacco from his tongue-tip and flicked it away. “But a lot’s happened since then.” He took another drag.

“Does that mean we’re okay now? Does that mean we’re safe?”

A lot of thoughts seemed to flit back and forth behind the black glass of Vic’s eyes. “Depends on what you mean,” he said with a smile, and then he headed down the hallway toward the morgue.

(1)

Malcolm Crow wanted to kill someone. He wanted to take a gun, a knife, his hands…and murder someone. He wanted it to hurt, and he wanted it to last. He wanted to run up and down the hospital hallways and find someone who needed killing, some black-hearted bastard whose death would mark the line between the way things were and the way they used to be. Or should be.

Waiting was excruciating. It had been hours since he’d ridden with his fiancée Val in the ambulance to Pinelands Hospital and then watched the ER team take her away. He’d tried to bully his way in so that he could be with her while they checked to see how badly she’d been hurt—Val and the tiny baby just starting to grow inside of her. Their baby. Crow had tried to stay by her side, but the doctors had been insistent, telling him that he needed to leave, needed to let them work. Yeah, well…what he really wanted was a villain he could find and hurt. He needed to have a big summer blockbuster ending to this madness, with explosions, CGI effects, a big body count, and the sun shining on the good guys as the bad guys lay scattered around them. Defeated, once and for all. That’s what he needed, and he needed it bad.

A snowball had a better chance of making it through August in Hell.

The voice in his head was giving him a badass sneer and telling him he’d come too late to this dogfight. It was all over and if the good guys won, it had nothing to do with him. Not in this latest round. He stood looking at his reflection in the darkened window, seeing a small man, barely five-seven, slim, with a scuffle of black hair. He knew he was tougher than he looked, but toughness hadn’t been enough to get him to Val’s side in time to help her. To his eyes he just looked as weak as he felt.

Karl Ruger was already dead—okay, to be fair Crow had killed him two weeks ago, right in this very hospital, but that was yesterday’s news. Kenneth Boyd was dead, too, but Crow had no hand in that, though he wished he could fly counterclockwise around the world like Superman and roll time back to last night so he could change the way things happened. It would have been so much better if he had been the one to face Boyd down there at the Guthrie farm. Him…rather than Val.

It was crazy. Ruger was supposed to be the stone killer, not Boyd—his crooked but relatively harmless chum. But after Ruger died Boyd suddenly steps up and takes a shot at being Sick Psycho of the Year by killing two local cops at Val’s farm, breaking into the hospital to steal Ruger’s corpse from the morgue—and Crow didn’t even want to think about what that was all about—and then, to really seal the deal, the rat-bastard tried to kill everyone at Val’s farm. It had been a true bloodbath.

Val’s brother, Mark, was the first victim. He’d stormed off after a spat with his wife, Connie, and had apparently been sulking in the barn where he’d run into Boyd. For no sane reason that Crow could imagine, Boyd murdered him. Tore his throat out with his teeth. Drank his blood. Actually drank his blood. Every time Crow thought about that a sick shiver rippled through him and gooseflesh pebbled every inch of his skin. He got up from his chair and stared out the window at the featureless black of the middle of the night.

Val was taking Connie out for a cool-down stroll when Boyd attacked them. Connie—poor Connie, who was never much cut out for the real world and had very nearly been raped by Ruger—was overwhelmed by Boyd. He bit her, too. Not immediately fatal, but bad enough. From what little Crow had been able to find out from harassed nurses, Connie’s throat was a ruin and she was fighting for every breath, every heartbeat. No one seemed hopeful about her chances.

Three of Val’s farm hands—big, tough sons of bitches—had come pelting up and tackled Boyd. They should have been able to stomp the living shit out of him, and that should have been the end of it; but two seconds later Tyrone Gibbs was dead, José was down with a broken neck—alive but paralyzed for life—and the foreman, Diego, was knocked senseless.

That left only Val.

Crow closed his eyes hard, trying to squeeze the image out of his head, but it worked on his mind like rat’s teeth. Boyd tried to kill her, and the thought of her facing down the murdering monster was too much to bear. Rage kept spiking up and Crow was sure his blood pressure could blow half-inch bolts out of plate steel. Thank God Val had been carrying her father’s old .45 Colt Commander ever since Ruger invaded the farm at the end of September. It was too heavy a gun for a woman, even a tall, strong farm woman like Val, but heavy or not she must have been pumping adrenaline by the quart. She held her ground and used that heavy pistol to blow the living hell out of Boyd.

The thing was—more gooseflesh rippled along Crow’s arms—Boyd didn’t go down like he should have. That .45 should have punched him down and dead on the first shot. Maybe the second, if Boyd was totally whacked out…but Val shot him over and over again until finally a shot to the head snapped off his switch.

While they were waiting for the ambulance last night, Val told him, “That’s when I knew.”

“Knew what, baby?”

“That he wasn’t human. That he was…dead.”

Crow understood. Who better to understand such things? The dread of just that sort of stuff had been haunting him since he was a kid, and it was almost funny because in Pine it was okay to believe in ghosts. Hauntings brought in the tourists. Problem was, Boyd was no ghost—he’d killed Mark for his blood. He tore grown men apart. He’d taken bullet after bullet and kept coming. Boyd was something else entirely.

Crow knew that, of anyone in town, he was the only one who was predisposed to accept that kind of thing as possible…even likely. During the Massacre when he and Val were kids, he alone had seen the face of the killer and had understood that the terrible menace in Pine Deep was not just a serial killer. Crow had looked into the face of local farmer Ubel Griswold and had seen that face begin to change from human…to wolf. Only the sudden arrival of Oren Morse, the guy all the kids called the Bone Man, had saved Crow. Griswold hadn’t completely transformed and, before he could complete the murder, the scuffle with the Bone Man had roused all the neighbors. Griswold had vanished into the darkness; no one else had seen what he was.

The truth was that no one else even suspected Griswold of the crimes. The man had immigrated to the States from Germany and had purchased a large tract of land in the borough’s most remote spot—way down past Dark Hollow. There he’d set up a cattle farm and stayed to himself, paying his taxes and maintaining only a few friends. But Griswold never sold any of the cattle he raised. Crow suspected that Griswold used them to satisfy his peculiar hungers; that he hunted them the way a wolf would, and that those killings kept his appetites in check. It was only after a season of blight and disease had wiped out all of the town’s livestock, Griswold’s included, that bloodlust forced Griswold to hunt beyond his own lands. Still no one suspected because Griswold was sly and careful.

It was only chance that the migrant worker and blues singer Oren Morse discovered Griswold’s true nature. Morse was hunting the killer that night years ago and had arrived in the nick of time to save Crow’s life; but no one was ready to believe the word of a homeless day laborer—especially a black one in mid-1970s rural Pennsylvania. Not that Crow was believed, either; he told his father about Griswold and was rewarded by a savage beating. The elder Crow was one of a select group of young men who were completely devoted to Griswold. The beating left the young Crow too afraid to tell the truth; and shortly after that Oren Morse tracked Griswold down and killed him, or so Crow believed. Crow’s father and a handful of other men—Vic Wingate, Jim Polk, Gus Bernhardt, and a few others—captured Morse, beat him to death, and hung him on a scarecrow post out in the corn. From that point on everyone believed that Morse had been the killer all along. The truth had never come out.

The town recovered from the disaster and changed, transforming from a blue-collar hick town into an upscale arts community. The Bone Man became an urban legend, the local bogeyman who was blamed for all of the killings of that Dark Harvest Autumn of 1976. The name of Ubel Griswold was forgotten.

Just yesterday, while death was stalking Val and her family, Crow had gone down into Dark Hollow, the remotest spot in the whole borough, dragging Newton along with him—the two of them on a stupid quest to somehow try and prove Crow’s tale of thirty years ago. Down in the Hollow they’d found Griswold’s house, but they hadn’t found a werewolf or even a man. Maybe they’d found a ghost, even Crow wasn’t sure, but when they tried to enter the house they were driven back. First by the porch roof that collapsed and nearly crushed them—strange timing for a roof that had been sagging for three decades—and then from the rubble a swarm of bristling black roaches attacked them. Hundreds of thousands of them. Crow and the reporter had dropped everything and run. Heroics be damned. It was only the presence of patchy sunlight that had given them a chance to escape. The insects would not cross from shadow into light, and so Crow and Newton ran back through the woods and climbed the hill.

Now, looking back on it with vision filtered through his rage, Crow realized that everything that had happened down in the Hollow must have been some kind of delaying tactic, keeping Crow out of play so that Val and her family would be vulnerable. It had worked, too. Crow got there way too late.

So, it galled Crow that Val had been forced to do it alone, just as it galled him that he wasn’t the one to swoop down like Captain Avenger and save the day. Val had done that. Pregnant, injured, grief-torn Val. Not him, not Crow. Her.

“You are a stupid day-late and a dollar-short chauvinist jackass,” he told himself. He burned to be able to step back one day and change this. Save Mark and Connie and the others if he could; but as guilty as it made him feel, those concerns were secondary to wanting to take that experience away from Val. It was beside the point, there were no villains left to kill. All the bad guys were dead. The show was over. All that was left for him to do was wait while the doctors and nurses did what they did; wait until Val was brought up here to her room…and even then it wouldn’t be Captain Avenger she’d need. Val would be grieving, and he would need to be her rock.

Behind him, Newton, the dumpy little reporter, stirred in his sleep and shifted to a less uncomfortable position in the comfortless guest chair of what would be Val’s room when they finally brought her up from the ER.

Crow looked at the clock. Three-thirty in the morning. What was taking the doctors so long? Was it a “no news is good news” deal? From his own memories of hospitals he didn’t think so. Val had been hit in the head by Ruger—first a pistol-whipping, then a punch that cracked her eye socket; then Boyd had hit her even harder. There was a danger, Crow knew, of her losing the sight in that eye.

Would she lose the baby, too? The thought sent buckets of ice water sloshing down through Crow’s bowels.

There was a discreet tap on the door and Crow leapt up, hope flaring in his chest that it was Val being brought in, but as soon as he saw the look on the face of the young doctor in the hall his heart crashed.

“Mr. Crow…?”

“What’s wrong? Is it Val? How is she, is something w. . .