PHICTION: Tales From the World of Phantasm
Author: Don Coscarelli; Aaron Lea; Joe R. Lansdale
Date: 2024-04-29 00:00:00+00:00
Description: “Electrifyingly tense and gruesome… Horror fans and cult devotees of the classic horror series will find Coscarelli’s ingenuity a rare treat.” - Kirkus Reviews ** “You are in for a treat. As with the films, these stories will give you what some people call chicken skin, and others call goosebumps.” -** best-selling author Joe R. Lansdale ** “It’s magnificent. An impressive collection of remarkable short-story horror fiction that I can proudly display on my bookshelf next to Poe, King, Dahl, Barker, Bradbury, and Lovecraft.” -** Nick DiGilio, WGN Chicago In 1979, filmmaker Don Coscarelli ( Bubb
Publisher: Molotov Press

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

PHICTION.

Copyright © MMXXIII by Don Coscarelli

All Rights Reserved.

www.phantasm.com

Artwork and design by Aaron Lea.

Special thanks to Scream/Press for production assistance.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request.

ISBN: 979-8-9882430-0-7

Bubba Ho-tep (screenplay)

Night Shade Books

True Indie: Life and Death in Filmmaking

St. Martin’s Press

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Life And Death In The ’Nam

Behind The Mortuary Door

He Was Home Alone

Tobe

The Rocky Road

Escape From New York

Afterword

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Phiction is lovingly dedicated to Andrea and Gabriella.

Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm universe, which he created quite early in his career, has proved durable. I remember seeing the original Phantasm film for the first time at a drive-in theater, and feeling as if all my cinematic expectations had been turned on their head. It didn’t take a film critic to tell me that Phantasm was unique and that Coscarelli was an enormous talent. An independent one at that. There wasn’t a big studio with big money or famous actors available to him. It was Don’s burning vision, as well as his strong independent nature that created that film.

With less money than the coffee budget for most corporate films, he plowed forward. And believe me, Don, sweet as he can be, can be a laser focused hard head when it comes to making his films. You don’t get the feeling Don became a filmmaker primarily for money or fame. And you don’t get the sense you’re going to boss him around and tell him how to shoot his picture.

In the end, however, Phantasm has become an enterprise. Don’s vision endures in multiple films, and now this collection of stories.

I already knew Don had writing chops, primarily from his adaptation of my story, Bubba Ho-tep, into an outstanding film, and from having read his memoir, but now I can confirm he can not only write screenplays, he can write fiction. These stories are all tight and original and as unique as his films. It would be nice if Don wrote more fiction.

You are in for a treat. As with the films, these stories will give you what some people call chicken skin, and others call goosebumps.

What it will do above all else, is entertain. Dive in. The dark waters are fine.

The Phantasm story started decades ago with the written word when, in a cabin up by Big Bear Lake in the mountains of Southern California, I literally put pen to paper to write an original screenplay. That screenplay became a film, and then another film and three more films after that. Now, I’d like to put pen to paper once more and return to the beginning.

The result is in front of you in the form of a collection of short stories featuring many of the fan-favorite characters from across the Phantasm films. These characters are favorites of mine as well, and I genuinely enjoyed spending time with them again, pondering where they might have come from and where they might end up.

In addition to stories featuring major Phantasm characters, I also wanted to explore some of the lesser characters from the original film. One story features the first person we see drilled and killed by the Tall Man’s deadly chrome sphere. In the end credits, he’s just the “Caretaker,” but since that first appearance, I’ve often wondered where this man came from and why he met his bloody fate on the cold marble floor of the Morningside mausoleum. I’ve also wanted to flesh out another minor character from Phantasm, Jody’s pal Tobe―pronounced “Toby”—who shows up early to provide some context and exposition of what is going on with the two Pearson brothers. In the film, after asking a few questions, he quickly departs and then we never see him again on screen. I decided to use Tobe as a different perspective on the strange events occurring in the brothers’ town and I think this unexpected point of view adds a few novel surprises to the traditional Phantasm narrative.

When making a film, I’m always extremely conscious of time. When writing the screenplay, I have to be mindful about not challenging the attention span of the studio executive with the power to give the thumbs-up or down. On the set, there is the constant pressure to get the necessary shots to tell the story and to “make the day,” i.e., to get the allotted work finished by wrap time. While editing, there is always pressure to tighten the cut and to tell the story in the leanest and most efficient way possible.

What I loved about writing Phiction is that I had the luxury to take as much time as necessary to develop each story. But more importantly, I could take that necessary time in the narrative to delve into the details of the characters and their world, time I could never justify taking in the final cut of a film. This was genuinely liberating for me and probably why writing Phiction was so much darn fun.

For each story, I have included a short prologue or epilogue. If I felt the reader needed some guidance as to where to place each story in the overall Phantasm timeline, I would position it at the beginning of the chapter. Those notes that risked divulging spoilers were placed after that particular story concluded. I hope these brief commentaries will light your path as you make your way through Phiction.

When I wrote Phantasm all those many years ago, my only hope then was that the resulting film would be good enough to play in a few theaters and jolt a few theatergoers. I had no clue that decades later anyone would still have interest in Phantasm or be thinking about it. I never dreamed that the film would have fans who would enthusiastically support four more entries in what became the Phantasm saga. The fan art, the fan fiction, and of course the fan analysis of the films has been a bit of a jolt for me, albeit a very satisfying jolt.

For me, the most bittersweet element of Phiction is the knowledge that I will never put any of these stories up on the big screen. There are some cool moments contained herein that would be phantastic to see brought to life by my talented Phantasm collaborators such as Reggie Bannister, Gloria Lynn Henry, or Angus Scrimm. But it is not to be. Folks keep asking when I will direct another Phantasm movie and the answer is that I won’t. I have closed that special casket.

But I’ve prattled on long enough. Thanks so much for joining me on this adventure and I hope you enjoy this book. So, on to the first story, where it starts, as every good Phantasm story should, with the exploits of our intrepid ice-cream vendor…Reggie. Only this is the Reggie prior to the events of the first Phantasm, in which we explore his first brush with the supernatural and the nature of true horror, experienced when he was a very young man.

Don Coscarelli

Los Angeles, CA

Reggie is the glue that holds Phantasm together. Originally conceived as a minor role, the ice-cream vendor friend of the featured brothers, the actor Reggie Bannister seized the opportunity and made this unique character resonate. I can still remember watching through the camera viewfinder as Reggie’s performance in the first film evolved into something truly magical. His powerful, “I’m gonna lay that sucker out flat and drive a stake right through his goddamn heart” monologue suddenly elevated this seemingly minor character in my eyes to potential action-hero status.

As the sequels continued, it allowed Bannister the actor to explore Reggie the character in even more detail, and take on the physical challenges of risking his life in ever more dangerous stunts. The crew had a saying on the sets of the later Phantasm movies that “the day wasn’t over until Reggie hit the floor.”

When I started thinking about writing Phiction, the first topic I wanted to address was where did this important character of Reggie come from? I was aware that Bannister the actor was drafted into the US Army during the Vietnam War and served a tour of duty during the height of the conflict. I know it came at great hardship for him personally and was a serious setback to his burgeoning music career. In his teens, Reggie joined what became a very popular folk band called The Greenwood County Singers. In fact, he was on a successful tour with them when his draft notice arrived from Uncle Sam.

In telling the “film Reggie” backstory, it seemed that the Vietnam War might be a good place to start. The war had a profound impact on my generation. I turned eighteen during the last year of the draft lottery for the war; drawing a number below 150 could easily send you to Saigon within a year. Luck was with me and my birth-date drew a high lottery number, so I was never called. Other friends were not so lucky.

In telling this character’s origin story, I figured that the challenges and adventures experienced overseas might serve as a crucible for character as war often does. “Life and Death in the ’Nam” is fiction. I don’t know what dangers Reggie Bannister himself faced over there; the two of us have never seriously discussed it. But in my imagination, I would expect that the Reggie character would probably face down the forces of evil in a war zone with good humor and a dogged resolve to accomplish his mission and take care of his friends.

Even though fiction, the following story is dedicated to Reggie Bannister the man, the terrific actor, and the one who has been my true and dear friend over several decades.

January 30, 1968

Reg gunned the 151’s engine and peeled out of the motor pool. Sure, he could get thirty days in the hole for vehicle theft, but the lure of a night in the big city, chasing the boom-boom girls and maybe even scoring some of that killer Afghani hash, was simply too much to resist. The bigger challenge would be getting through the base checkpoint with the stolen Jeep.

There were two vehicles ahead of him in line at the checkpoint. The eagle-eyed corporal manning the post was demanding red cards from all the drivers. Cursing his luck, Reg slumped back in his seat and resigned himself to being caught. Again. He forced a cheery smile when he pulled up to the checkpoint.

“Hey, dude. How’s it hangin’?”

The corporal was not having Reggie’s small talk. “Card and log entry,” he barked.

Reg let out a sigh and began the familiar checkpoint routine when he was startled by the large, wiry figure slipping into the passenger seat beside him.

“Get your stick in the air or my driver’ll bust through it,” Reggie’s new passenger grunted at the corporal.

“Yes, sir. Didn’t see you there, sir.”

The corporal crisply saluted. Reg eased the 151 through the checkpoint without another word. Once he accelerated the Jeep up to speed, Reg glanced over and saw it was a sergeant sitting beside him, staring straight ahead impassively.

“Uhh, where to, sir?”

“I got twenty-four hours of R n’ R and the clock is tickin’. How ’bout a ride to the Fun Zone?”

“You got it, sir.” Reggie smiled.

Steering the 151 over the Ben Nghe bridge and down into a lively section of District 4, Reg soon skidded the Jeep to a stop in front of a grungy little joint named Suzi’s. GIs were lined up out front, waiting to get in while ogling the bar girls on display up in the over-hanging balcony.

Reg flipped open the 151’s hood and surreptitiously disconnected the number six spark plug wire. It was a trick that his best pal, Jody, used back home in the States to keep hooligans from messing with his muscle car. District 4 car thieves loved jacking army-issue rides, and Reg did not want to end up thumbing it back to base. As he rounded the vehicle, he was surprised to find the sergeant fast asleep in the passenger seat.

“Excuse me, sir, but we’re here.”

The sergeant’s eyes snapped open and in an instant his hand was on the Ka-Bar combat knife in his belt. He surveyed the surroundings. “Place looks a little active.”

“Not to worry. Suzi’ll take care of us. You got any money?”

“I got money.”

Before Reg could reply, the sergeant was out of the Jeep and moving toward the entrance. Damn, this guy is tightly wound. A little voice in his head reminded him that the head cases were the ones to steer clear of, especially for a short-timer like he was. As usual, Reg ignored the damned little voice and sprinted after the sergeant.

Suzi always took good care of Reg. He’d once overheard her let slip that her daughter had been diagnosed with diabetes. As luck would have it, a few weeks later he just happened to spot an open truck servicing the base infirmary. On his next visit, he casually dropped four cases of insulin on the bar, and instantly became Suzi’s “number one customer.”

Reg followed Suzi through the crowded main floor with the sergeant trailing behind. They climbed the stairs and were ushered into the private lounge. The building was colonial, built by the French in the 1950s, and the lounge still had some semblance of elegance, with dark velvet drapery and rich jungle woods. The sergeant allowed a glimmer of a smile as he took in his surroundings.

“You run a tab tonight?” Suzi asked. Reg was reaching for his wallet when the sergeant slapped three crisp one-hundred-dollar bills into Suzi’s palm.

“On me, Private. Bourbon please, miss.”

“Your friend no Cheap Charlie,” Suzi remarked with a smile. “Ban moi,” Reg replied. “So, Suzi, let’s make that a bottle of Jim Beam, the real stuff, and a chilled six pack of 33. And you still have that vãi đái Afghani?”

“You know I take care of my number one customer,” Suzi laughed before she exited the room. Reg and the sergeant slumped into the comfortable, worn-leather armchairs. They took in the lushly decorated lounge, then regarded each other.

“I’m Reggie.” Reg reached out and the two young men shook hands.

“Wooten,” said the sergeant. Reg was about to ask which unit he was with when two gorgeous hostesses appeared with their drinks. Ever since Reg’s first visit to Suzi’s, he’d had a crush on Ngo. She was slim and graceful and always wore a distinctive cobalt blue áo dài dress. She opened the bottle of Jim Beam and poured drinks for both of them. The other hostess, Phuong, set them up frosty bottles of 33 beer as a chaser. Reg hadn’t intended to get into the hard stuff tonight, preferring the mellow high of the Afghani hashish, but if it was Wooten’s party, well… Wooten raised his glass and clinked with Reg.

“To absent friends,” said the sergeant before knocking the bourbon back in one drink.

Reg took a courtesy sip of his and washed it down with the 33. Suzi bustled back in and placed an ornate bamboo tray between them containing a small pipe and smoking kit, alongside an inch-square block of his favorite Afghani. Smiling, he crumbled some hash into the bowl of the pipe and toked up. He held the smoke in his lungs as long as possible and exhaled a long, fragrant cloud. Life in the ’Nam could be okay.

“Want a hit?” he asked, offering up the hash pipe to Wooten. The sergeant shook his head in the negative and chugged down another glass of the bourbon. The bar girls melted back into the darkness as they could see that each soldier was more enamored with their intoxicants than immediate female companionship.

Reg sank down into the plush velvet chair and let the warm glow of the Afghani sweep over him. As he disappeared into the bliss, he made a mental note to remember to get with his pal Tommy when he landed back in the States next month. Tommy always had the best connection. The last image Reg remembered as he slipped away was the stone-faced Wooten, still slugging down the Jim Beam like water.

A massive concussion ripped through Reggie’s reverie and he crashed hard to the floor. When he snapped back to consciousness, he found himself in total darkness. A heavy weight lay on top of him, and he figured correctly that the armchair must have flipped over on top of him. He struggled to squirm his way out from under the large piece of heavy wood furniture, but no soap. Reg was trapped. Although he tried to formulate some words, the weight of the armchair made it difficult to even breathe, let alone scream.

Strong fingers grabbed Reg by the back of the neck and he found himself dragged out from under the chair. As Wooten pulled him to his feet, Reg could barely make sense of what he was seeing. The street-side wall, roof, and most of the balcony were gone. The street outside was an inferno. Machine gun fire echoed in the distance. A cacophony of guttural shrieks surrounded him, and it finally sank in that dozens of bar patrons, GIs, and boom-boom girls lay sprawled among the wreckage, dead and dying. The horrible shrieks of agony coming from the gravely wounded pierced the night air.

What the hell? It looked like an errant five-hundred-pounder from a Stratofortress had somehow found its way to downtown Saigon.

How could that be?

Before Reg could even cogitate on that thought, a burst of gunfire from the street below tore through the room. He was knocked to the floor with Wooten landing protectively on top of him.

“You got a gun?” Wooten gasped in his ear.

“Uh, no,” Reg replied.

“Charlie’s got the streets.”

Reg poked his head up and sure enough, Wooten was right. In the street below swarmed dozens of Vietcong guerrillas, shooting anything that moved.

“We got the high ground, Private,” Wooten whispered. “But we need weapons. Come on!” He sprang to his feet.

Reg started after him but slipped and landed face-to-face with Ngo. She was dead on the floor in a pool of blood, half of her head torn off from an AK-47 round. Reg gasped. His hands flailed about, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. His fingers closed around something solid. It was the bottle of Jim Beam.

“PFC, get your ass movin’!”

Reg didn’t need any incentive and leaped after the sergeant, still clutching the bottle of liquor. At the staircase, Wooten shushed him and slunk behind the railing. Reg followed suit on the opposite side. They could hear the footsteps of soldiers charging up the stairs toward them. He noticed that Wooten was brandishing his Ka-Bar, its blade glinting in the firelight. Well, at least his newfound sergeant-pal had brought a knife to a gunfight. Reg had only brought the bottle of Jim Beam. You use what you got.

“I’ll take number one,” Wooten whispered. “You take number two.” Reg nodded. “After that, we improvise.”

The Vietcong sappers pushed up the stairs. As they reached the top, Wooten sprang into action. In a burst of savage fury, he stabbed the first soldier directly in the liver, again and again. Reg flinched back from the doomed soldier’s splattering blood. The second sapper charged in and took point-blank aim at Wooten with his AK. Wooten stopped stabbing. With a wicked snarl he stared up into the barrel of the VC’s gun. The soldier had him dead to rights. Boom! Reg bludgeoned the VC across the back of his skull with the Jim Beam bottle. The soldier hit the floor.

“Good work, Private.” Wooten pounced on the dead soldier’s AK-47. “Come on!”

Sweeping up the other fallen weapon, Reg followed Wooten, sprinting for what was left of the balcony.

“This’ll make a good sniper’s nest. Grab some furniture!” Wooten hissed.

Reg grabbed hold of a stoutly built, overturned wooden bureau and shoved it toward the sergeant. Together they quickly assembled some barriers to hide themselves and protect from incoming enemy fire.

“Bingo!” Wooten produced a brown case he had scavenged and opened it to reveal a pair of M-19 combat binoculars. He tossed them to Reggie.

“Okay, Reg, you’re gonna be my spotter,” he whispered as he checked over the requisitioned AK-47. “Not exactly an M-40, but better than nothin’. So listen up. We’ll clear the near-field first.” Reggie looked on, completely baffled.

“Take a deep breath, soldier. That’s the street below. Once we get control of this zone, we can start cutting out an escape route for your Jeep. I need you to scan the area, nothing farther out than fifty yards, and tell me how many and where. Just gimme the hours on the clock dial. Got it?”

Reggie nodded and raised the binoculars to his eyes. He scanned the street and quickly spotted three armed VC lurking in the shadow of a parked delivery truck.

“Three of ’em at ten o’clock. Behind the jitney.”

Wooten squeezed off three shots.

“Wow! Three down,” Reggie exclaimed.

“Do me a favor. If you can, give me a ‘left impact, right impact, or center impact.’ It’ll help me dial in this bitch. And if the breeze comes up, anything you have on direction or wind speed will help.” “Copy that. Okay, I’ve got a VC platoon entering from a cross street at two o’clock,” Reg whispered.

“Target acquired.” Wooten methodically fired four times and the front line of the platoon dropped.

“That would be center right, center left, and two centers. Good shootin’, Sarge.”

“Thanks, Private. It’ll be hot up here soon. Find me some targets on our exit road.”

Reg scanned the boulevard leading back to the Ben Nghe bridge.

“Only thing I’ve got is a lone scout about eighty yards down at four o’clock.”

“Target acquired.” Wooten fired.

“Full center. Body down,” Reggie said. This is one accurate motherfucker. He cradled the binoculars as Wooten lowered his gun. “Time to blow Dodge. We can try to grab a couple of our wounded on the way out, but triage ’em, only survivable wounds,” Wooten said.

Nodding, Reg charged for the staircase with the sergeant right on his tail. The first floor of Suzi’s was a gore-strewn kill zone, torn-up bodies everywhere. Reggie had seen some bad shit during his tour of the ’Nam, but not civilian carnage like this. Wooten rolled up beside him.

“Grab those scatterguns. Both of ’em,” Wooten barked out.

Reg spotted two Winchester double-barrel riot guns beside a couple of dead military police. He picked them both up, jammed a handful of buckshot shells into his pocket, and returned to Wooten. The sergeant had found a couple of wounded soldiers who were both still breathing. As Reggie returned to his side, he fumbled one of the shotguns and it fell to the ground beside Wooten, thankfully without discharging. Wooten grabbed up the shotgun and jerked the other one away from Reggie.

“Let me show you a little trick I learned from a master sergeant up in the Highlands.” Wooten put the guns together, flipped one on top of the other, and nimbly wrapped each shotgun strap around the other. “Why have two, when you can have four?”

Wooten tossed the shotgun rig back to Reggie, who checked it over and whistled in amazement. Reg shoved four shells of double-aught buckshot into the chambers and slapped the actions shut. Locked and loaded.

Shouldering the two wounded GIs, Wooten headed for the street. Squeamish, Reggie followed across the floor littered with corpses and body parts, which had been ripped off during the blast. Then he heard a soft gasping sound.

Under the dead body of a heavyset young soldier, he found Suzi, bloodied and burned, gasping for breath. Reg dropped beside her and checked her over for damage. He was surprised to find her in pretty good shape; the dead soldier had probably absorbed most of the concussive effects of the blast. Then he pulled her free and saw her left leg, gone from the knee down.

Choking back some vomit, he realized if he didn’t do something quick, Suzi would bleed out. His junior high school Red Cross first aid training kicked in and he squeezed off the stump with his fingers to stop the bleeding. He whipped off his belt and in seconds had cinched a tourniquet tight around what was left of her leg.

“Come on, baby. Keep it together. Reggie’s gonna get you out of here.” He hoisted Suzi over his shoulder and humped it for the Jeep. Wooten shoved one of his wounded soldiers into the 151 then dropped the other to the ground in dismay when he realized he had been lugging a corpse. Gently, Reggie laid Suzi across the back seat.

“You’re gonna be okay, honey,” he comforted her. Suzi reached up and clutched his hand.

“You still my number one customer,” she whispered. Reggie smiled, then heard a shout and spotted a squad of VC charging toward them from down the block. He jumped into the driver’s seat as Wooten dived for the passenger side.

“Stand on it!” Wooten cried. Reg cranked over the 151’s ignition key and… nothing.

“Awww shit.” He smacked himself in the forehead and leaped out the door and ripped open the hood. Quickly, he squeezed the ignition wire back in place and slammed down the hood. As he rounded the Jeep and started to climb in, he stopped in his tracks. Five VC were lined up a dozen yards away blocking their exit route. Reg looked over to Wooten, who shrugged in resignation. Taking a deep breath, Reg muttered to himself, “Goddammit.”

He slowly turned back to the Vietcong and called out, “Xin lỗi, amigos.” Without warning, Reggie jerked up the shotgun rig, yanked on both triggers, and unleashed four barrels of hot lead on the enemy. The buckshot ripped through the unsuspecting guerrillas. Reg started the 151, jammed it into gear and peeled out. The Jeep lurched and bucked as it ran right over several dying VC in the road. Reg gripped the wheel for all it was worth. Wooten cried out, “Get me the fuck outta Saigon.”

The letter read, “Your tour of duty has been extended by sixty days due to recent events.” Reggie cursed his luck. Technically he was still a short-timer, but the duty extension just had a bad luck vibe all around it. One thing he knew—in the ’Nam you had to keep lady luck on your side. He’d been so close to mustering out of this man’s army, and now nine more weeks of hell were still ahead of him.

In time, the “recent events” mentioned in the letter became known as the Tet Offensive, and later still, the Battle of Saigon. The Vietcong had thrown thirty-five battalions at the city, starting that night at Suzi’s. It lasted for two long weeks, particularly bloody and brutal ones, but by then most of the VC had been driven out of the region, with Reggie’s base in complete lock-down ever since. Cabin fever was at an epidemic level.

The orders came down directly from his company staff sergeant.

“You are requested and required to report at 1900 hours to Colonel Thomas Harring’s post for assignment,” Reg read. “…with full jungle kit and field armament at the ready.”

“Shit,” he muttered. Colonel Harring was a hard-ass intelligence honcho and any assignments coming out of his post were guaranteed to be difficult and dangerous. The gear requirement indicated a stretch in the bush, which meant stifling heat, mud, K-rations, mosquitoes, snakes, and VC sappers. Fuuuuck.

Reggie entered Colonel Harring’s office and, at attention, crisply saluted.

“At ease, Private.” Reg relaxed as Harring, seated at his desk, shuffled through a stack of interrogation reports. His office was the nexus of intelligence for the Saigon quadrant and it was rumored his fingerprints were all over the frequent political assassinations, targeted kidnappings and CIA wetwork that went down in the capitol. If you squinted, you’d see Harring bore a vague resemblance to Robert Mitchum. With eyes fully open though, you’d find his build was more squat and minus the movie-star good looks.

“Colonel? Can I ask a question?”

Harring nodded without lifting his eyes from the papers.

“I did some field ops when I first came in-country, but since June I’ve been assigned to the motor pool and my rifle and jungle skills aren’t exactly razor-sharp. Am I being assigned to a mission into the boonies?”

“Yep. An important mission, Private. You will be joining a sniper team heading out tonight at midnight. Your partner is the most highly decorated rifleman currently serving in-country. Over seventy-one confirmed kills.”

Reggie gulped.

“Again, sir, I have no experience in this kind of work. I would not want to be a liability to the sniper team or the mission and frankly, I just don’t understand how I was even selected for such a specialty assignment,” Reggie protested.

“Private, you weren’t selected, you were requested.” Reggie’s face mirrored his bafflement as there was a light tap on the door.

“Come in,” the Colonel said.

The door opened and in walked Wooten.

“Private, meet Staff Sergeant Kyle Wooten, the most decorated army sniper in all of the ’Nam.”

Reggie saluted Wooten, who sheepishly returned the salute. “Hiya, Reg. How’s it hangin’?”

The Huey soared through the moonless night. Reggie was firmly strapped into the center seat, staring out the open door and contemplating how much he hated riding in these birds. Well, not exactly birds—birds had wings. This thing just had rotors and if one went out due to ground fire or mechanical failure, you were SOL. Choppers didn’t glide very well. In fact, the only chance you had in an emergency was for the pilot to instinctively shove it into autorotate mode. The theory was that even powerless blades would still rotate on the way down and cushion the impact of landing. Common knowledge was that autorotate landings hit the ground hard, like neck-breaking hard.

Wooten leaned over and tapped his headset. Reggie fingered his to the “on” position; now he heard Wooten in his ear.

“We’ll be over the zone in ten. We need to run down the mission specs.”

Reg cursed under his breath and turned away.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just don’t understand why you had to invite me along on this little raiding party. Christ, I’m a short-timer. I was hopin’ to steer clear of the bush and get the hell out of the ’Nam with my skin intact!”

“Reg, you showed me somethin’ that night. You know how to improvise when things go sideways, and missions out here always do.”

Reg stared at him, still pissed, but there was something, a sense of pleading in Wooten’s eyes.

“Alright. Gimme the dope,” Reg relented.

Wooten unfolded a sector map with some markings on it. “It’ll be a quick insertion here at the LZ. Just a dust-off. We’ll hightail it a hundred yards to this forest break. It’s pretty dark, so it should be okay. We can follow the ridgeline here and that’s where our cover ends.”

Reg looked at the large open space indicated on the map. “How do we cross that?”

“Under the last cover there, we’ll camouflage up and skulldrag it across the clearing. Map says it’s a little over a thousand yards. Probably take us eighteen hours or so.”

“Skulldrag?”

“Crawl.”

“Crawl eighteen hours?! You gotta be fucking kidding me.” “With luck, we make it here to the FFP.” Wooten pointed as Reg looked up at him quizzically. “The Final Firing Position. If we’re gold and nobody sees us, we’ll set up right there, a seven-hundred-yard shot. Move any closer, we’re on a suicide mission.”

Now Reg looked at Wooten in dismay. “So, I just gotta make that shot,” continued the sniper. “What I need from you is to spot and confirm the target. And the kill, of course. But most importantly, I need you to cover our rear exit route. That’s where I’m most vulnerable. From behind.”

“Yeah, okay,” Reg nodded. “Who’s the target?”

“Not at liberty to disclose,” Wooten replied flatly. Reggie cursed under his breath again. “Sorry. It’s classified. But once we make it to the FFP, I’ll tell you anyway. You’ll have earned the right to know.”

The Huey’s skids never touched earth. Five feet from the ground, Wooten leaped out and Reg tumbled after him. As soon as their feet hit the red Vietnamese clay, they both sprinted for cover. The chopper pilot hit the throttle and the helicopter banked sharply before screaming off into the night sky. Guns up, on their bellies in the bush, Reg and Wooten waited tensely for the attack that never came. After a full twenty minutes, Wooten nudged Reg and they started climbing for the ridgeline in the darkness.

Reg poked his head up and stared at the vast open expanse of brush in front of them. This was the thousand-yard stretch they would have to crawl. It was past 4:00 a.m. and a crescent moon was about to dip below the horizon.

“Here, put this on,” Wooten whispered. He helped Reggie slip into a net vest he’d pulled from his rucksack. Wooten started shoving brush, twigs, and grasses into the netting. “It’s all about the camo, my friend.” When he finished, he began on himself.

Reg had some experience with military camouflage. When he was eight years old, he’d found a four-foot-square piece of camouflage canvas stashed in his father’s vintage WWII army footlocker. Reggie had cut a hole in the center of it and turned it into a poncho he could wear. All summer long he wore that camouflage poncho and loved the ability it gave him to sneak up on his friends undetected. It was like being invisible. He could stand next to any bush or kneel in any patch of ivy and no one could see him. He loved having that newfound superpower where he could see, but not be seen.

“You need some on your helmet.” Wooten gestured to Reggie’s head.

Reg grabbed some handfuls of foliage and stuck them into the webbing on his helmet.

“I feel like a fuckin’ Christmas tree,” he said.

“On the ground, you’ll be invisible,” Wooten said. “Charlie can walk up three feet away and he’ll never see you. Come on. Time for some skull-draggin’.”

Tossing Reggie a stick of gray camo makeup, he gestured to his face. Reg quickly smeared his face with it as Wooten moved out to the edge of the tree line. He dropped to his knees and started to crawl. Exasperated, Reggie sighed and followed after him.

The sun was directly overhead, and Reg cautiously took a sip from his canteen. He was flat on his belly and his elbows were already skinned raw. Thanks to the pair of carpet-layer kneepads Wooten had shared with him, Reggie’s knees were still in good shape. Wooten said his cousin back in Boston was in the carpet business and had mailed several sets to him after hearing Wooten complain about crawling through the bush. Slowly Reggie pushed himself up alongside Wooten and lay there for a while with his face in the dirt.

“Should I look up and take a bearing? We don’t wanna be crawlin’ in circles,” Reg quietly asked.

“Lookin’ up gets you killed. We’re on the right track. You gotta think like the African lion. Those mothers’ll slow-crawl all day long and that antelope will be in for one big fuckin’ surprise.” Wooten slyly chuckled. The two men lay there for a while.

“So back at base, that Colonel Sanders there, was he on the level? Did you really grease seventy-one of ’em?” Reggie asked.

“Probably a half dozen more than that,” Wooten replied somberly.

Reggie exhaled long and slow. “Jesus.”

“Just doin’ my job.”

“In my tour I don’t think I ever shot anyone, well, until that
night with you.” There was a long, awkward silence. “I’ve been thinkin’ about somethin’,” Reg started. “You think you’ll ever tell anybody about what we’ve done over here? I mean, back home?”

Wooten’s face was a mask of stone. “It’s quiet. Come on. Let’s move,” he responded.

As Wooten slowly pulled himself forward, Reggie followed.

The sun sank below the horizon and the oppressive heat slowly cooled. Wooten and Reggie continued to crawl. A dozen drags and then wait. A dozen drags, then wait. To the outside observer, they would appear as two small humps of brush amid a sea of it. They continued dragging themselves forward again. Wooten suddenly dropped flat, completely motionless. Reg did the same. A few feet in the distance, Reg could hear footsteps in the underbrush and then some phrases in Vietnamese. A squad of VC were humping satchels of ammo down an animal trail, coming directly toward them. Reggie quietly cocked his M16 and prepared for action. He could just barely hear one single whispered command from Wooten, “No.”

Pressing his face into the dirt, Reg tried to slow his breathing while his heart raced. One of the VC came so close that he could actually see the bunion where the soldier’s sandal strap had carved a groove in his leathery skin. Reggie stopped breathing entirely for what seemed an eternity. Then he could hear the VC a distance down the trail. For thirty long minutes, he and Wooten lay motionless.

“Go,” whispered Wooten and Reggie began dragging himself once more.

As night fell, they reached the FFP and took up position behind a perfectly placed rock. Reggie began cautiously pulling foliage around them to create a blind.

“You need to scan three sixty,” Wooten warned as he assembled his kit.

Reggie was jumpy and needed no inducement to recon their entire perimeter with his binoculars. “Clear all around,” he whispered. Wooten pulled the Winchester Model 70 rifle out of its case and screwed its suppressor onto the muzzle. He attached its bipod, affixed the telescopic sight, and then aimed the rig down the hill toward their target. Reggie focused his attention downhill as well, seeing a small Vietcong field camp about seven hundred yards in the distance.

“Time you tell me who’s the target,” Reggie said as he scanned the encampment. “Which one is he?”

“Not he—she. It’s a she. The highest-ranking female in the Vietcong. They call her Lady Cam.”

“We’re gonna kill a woman?” Reggie asked incredulously.

“She’s one tough bitch. Last month she tortured and killed two POWs just outside the razor wire of Camp Dien Buh. Guards on watch could hear their screams while she slowly bled them out.”

“Okay, well, I see your point, but I just don’t see us shootin’ a—”

“One of those boys was my spotter. During extraction from a mission, we got split up and he was captured. And then killed by Lady Cam. But before that, she cut off his eyelids. While he was still alive. Made him watch his buddy die first. That’s why I volunteered for this.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t. Two days ago I was packing to go home.”

“Is it that, or because she’s a woman?” Wooten asked. Reg looked away, his breath coming hard. “What’s it matter if they’re male or female?” continued Wooten. “Like it or not, we’re in a war and the VC are trying to kill us any way they can, which makes them the bad guys. And what’s our job? To kill bad guys before they kill us. And who is Lady Cam? One of the fucking bad guys.”

“Goddammit, I didn’t volunteer for any of this. I was drafted. I never wanted to kill anybody,” Reggie hissed.

“Well, you don’t have to, sunshine, just help me do it. That better not be a problem, right?”

Reggie swallowed, then looked at Wooten. “Right.”

“Good. Do your job, Private, and let me do mine. Just observe and report, and make sure I’ve got a clear lane of escape.”

Reggie tamped down his dismay and turned his attention back to the camp below. Through his binoculars, he spotted the target, a grim-faced woman in the traditional black VC “pajamas.” She was propped against a tree, a bowl of food in her lap, and appeared exhausted, seeming to stare vacantly into the jungle canopy above.

“Target acquired.”

“How do you know for sure it’s her?” Reg protested.

Wooten quietly slid a .30-06 shell into the rifle’s receiver and shoved the bolt home.

“Zip it and give me an assessment of our exit.”

Reggie turned and peered over his shoulder. The field was quiet and peaceful behind them. “Exit path clear,” he reported, raising the binoculars to his eyes.

Wooten slowed his breathing and moved his finger to the trigger. He was timing his breaths—a good sniper always shot in the pause before the next inhale. He watched Lady Cam through his scope. She was completely oblivious that she was living the last moments of her life. Wooten took his finger off the trigger for a moment, then placed it back on, then took it off again. Reggie looked over at Wooten, unsure what was happening.

“Reg, I, uh…” Wooten started. His face turned stony. “Ah, fuck it. Better a quick death than a slow one. That’s a form of mercy.” Decision made, he turned back to the scope, exhaled, and gently squeezed the trigger.

The firing pin popped free and sliced into the primer cap of the shell. The primer ignited the propellant and the 173-grain boat-tail bullet exploded out of the muzzle at twenty-five hundred feet per second. The aerodynamically shaped full-metal jacket round crossed the distance in .84 seconds and killed Lady Cam instantly.

Reggie grimaced as he witnessed the impact. “Center left,” he whispered. “Kill shot. Confirmed.” He knew they had to get the hell out of there and immediately began gathering up their gear.

Wooten remained transfixed at his scope, staring at Lady Cam’s corpse, still leaning against the tree.

Ripping the Winchester from Wooten’s hands, Reggie hissed, “Come on, Sergeant! We gotta go!” He pulled off the bipod and jammed it into the case.

Wooten roused himself and quickly broke down the rest of his weapon into parts, stowing them back in their case in seconds.

“Let’s beat it,” Reg urged. He turned and ran. There would be no crawling on the exit.

Reg and Wooten pounded across the clearing at full speed. Reggie was surprised he could even walk, let alone run, after the eighteen-hour crawl. But both of his adrenal glands were furiously jacking adrenaline into his arteries; he felt like he could probably sprint all the way back to Saigon if he had to.

They almost made it unhindered. The VC ammo squad they had run into earlier were lollygagging on their way back to camp when they spotted two fully armed American soldiers charging toward them. For a moment the VC stood there watching in astonishment. Then they started shooting. Reg felt a .762 bullet from one of the ammo squad’s AK-47s whiz by his ear. Fuck! He cut right and collided with Wooten just as they crossed over into the safety of the jungle cover. Reg figured that now they had a fighting chance.

“Go, go, go,” he screamed at the slower Wooten, grabbing him by his rucksack and urging him forward.

When Wooten looked up at him with a puzzled expression, Reggie knew something was seriously wrong. Wooten collapsed, causing them both to stumble forward. Suddenly the ground disappeared from under their feet and they fell.

Reggie’s eyes fluttered open. He was face down in the dirt. It was dark and quiet. How long had he been out? He gently moved his limbs. His right shoulder hurt like hell, but other than that he seemed to be in one piece. There was no sign of their VC pursuers. In fact, there was no noise at all. He slowly lifted his head and looked around to find himself in some kind of dark cramped cave. A glint of light filtered in from above, and it appeared that he was alone.

“Wooten?” Reg whispered.

“Over here,” came a grunt from the darkness.

Reggie looked over toward the sound and spotted Wooten sprawled against the cave wall.

“You okay?” Reg asked.

“Took a slug to the knee before we fell,” Wooten grunted. “Won’t be walkin’ again anytime soon.”

“How bad? Still bleeding?”

“Got it stopped. I’m okay, for now.”

Reggie could see that Wooten was pretty seriously wounded.

“Where the hell are we, Sergeant?” he asked.

“Best guess, we fell into an abandoned Cu Chi tunnel or somethin’.” Wooten coughed and laughed. “Pretty funny, actually. Those VC on our tails must’ve thought we evaporated into thin air, like ghosts.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” agreed Reg. “Their ghosts are serious business.”

Reggie started to sit up and let out a yelp of pain. His shoulder was seriously messed up. Dislocated or broken. Once he was sitting upright he felt better. Looking around he saw what was probably a goat skull amidst other animal bones littering the dirt floor. The tunnel entrance they had fallen through was about eight or nine feet above him, swathed in brush.

“Okay then. We’ll wait until dark,” Reg said earnestly. “Then I’ll try to climb up and find a rope or stick or something and pull you out. If that doesn’t work, I can go for help.” He looked over at Wooten and for the first time, noticed that Wooten had his Colt .45 Army-issue service pistol out and cocked.

“Nice plan, except I won’t be goin’ anywhere.”

Reggie didn’t understand, until his sergeant gestured with his pistol. “We’ve got company.”

Reggie whipped around to look at the other side of the cave and spotted two dark figures slumped against the opposite wall. Vietcong. One of them was clutching an AK-47. It was trained directly on Reg.

“Holy shit!” Reggie jumped back in surprise. The gunman’s left hand was wrapped in a bloody rag. The other VC appeared unconscious, or worse.

“I told you these missions always go sideways,” Wooten reminded him. “Looks like we’ve got us a bit of a standoff here. You speak any Vietnamese, Reg?”

“Nah, just enough to get me drinks and grub at Suzi’s,” he replied, wincing to himself as an image of her shattered body briefly filled his mind.

“I speak some, so I’ve been tryin’ to communicate with Fong here, best I can. His partner there is a goner. The funny thing is…”

“Funny?” Reggie questioned.

“It is, actually. They’re a sniper team too. Day before yesterday, they were bein’ hunted down by ARVN forces and happened to fall right into this hole. Just like us.”

“I guess that is funny,” Reg said, stone-faced. “Shit, this place is like a goddamn spider trap or somethin’.”

“Definitely in the or somethin’ category. Anyway, here’s where it gets weird. Fong is convinced there’s some kind of predator down that tunnel there, and that it’s gonna eat us.”

For a moment, Reggie stared into the darkness of the tunnel with trepidation, but his frustration and anger exploded. “Come on, Mr. Seventy-One Kills. Can’t you just pop a .45 into him so we can blow Dodge and call it a day?”

There was a long pause as Wooten simply stared at him. “I could do that,” he said and slowly hung his head. “It’s just that I’m gettin’ tired of killin’, Reg. How ’bout you handle this one?” Wooten offered up his pistol to Reggie.

“That’s not my style, man. You know that.”

Wooten turned serious. “Yeah, I know. Like all of ’em back home, everybody wants me, people like me, to do their killin’ for ’em.” Reggie knew there was more than some truth to that statement. He looked away for a moment, chagrined.

“When my tour is done and I go home, if I go home, everyone’ll know what I was. A fuckin’ stone killer. Not the kind of skill employers’ll be lookin’ for,” Wooten whispered.

“Aw, come on, man, don’t say that. You’re a fuckin’ American hero. And you got real-world leadership experience.” Reggie surprised himself with how much he actually meant it.

Wooten looked up and for the first time Reggie saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Still keeping an eye on the VC, Reg continued, “In fact. When you get back, every time you walk into a bar, for the rest of your life, someone’ll buy you a drink. ‘The greatest sharpshooter of the entire Vietnam War.’ That’s what they’ll say, and they’ll be right,” Reggie proclaimed. “’Cause while you were in-country, Sergeant, a lot of us’ll make it home. Safe. That’s somethin’ to be proud of.”

Wooten took that in and let out a sigh. “Thanks, Reg, but nevertheless I think I am done. That’s it. Shootin’ that woman back there was just plain fucked. You were right. Even if she did kill my friend, it didn’t make me feel any better.”

“Yeah,” Reg agreed. “Revenge is a sucker’s game. But some killers need killing in order to save lives.” Wooten heard a grunt from the Vietnamese and looked back into the darkness of the tunnel.

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but I’m startin’ to believe Mr. Fong here.”

Reggie looked at Wooten as if he had gone mad. “Come on, man. A predator? Like what? An alligator?” he scoffed.

“Did you clock his pal’s foot?” Wooten asked.

Reg looked over. “Holy shit…” The stricken VC’s entire foot and most of the shin appeared to have been gnawed off. And not by tunnel rats.

Fong, who was watching them, raised his left hand, pulled off the rag, and revealed the bloody stumps of three missing fingers.

“What the fuck?” Reggie exclaimed, horrified. “What is it? Like, like, some kind of jungle cat, like a tiger or somethin’?”

Wooten continued, “Fong keeps jabberin’ about something called Ma doi. Everything is Ma doi. Best I can translate is that it comes out as ‘Hungry Ghost.’ Some kind of local folklore, I guess. But there is a shitload of animal bones, goat skulls and shit littered around down here.”

“That’s just fuckin’ great.” Reggie gingerly rose to one knee. “Well, whether there’s a ‘hungry ghost’ that wants to chow down on us or not, I vote we make a motion and get the fuck out of here. Try to exit this spider trap somehow.” Reggie stood up as best he could and bumped his head on the rock of the low ceiling.

Fong started grunting at him in Vietnamese at a rapid clip.

“No can do, partner,” Wooten said. “I think Fong’s sayin’ he’ll shoot if you try to get out.”

Reggie looked over and saw Fong drawing down on him with the barrel of the AK. “Well, that just takes the cake,” he said and sat back down. “What’s he want? More meat for his carnivorous spook?”

“Safety in numbers, I’m guessing,” Wooten grunted.

Reggie noticed that Fong’s pal was rousing. “Fong’s buddy seems to be wakin’ up,” he said to Wooten. The injured VC jerked once. Could be a seizure, Reg thought, as the injured man’s torso bumped up against the cave wall again.

“Sorry to tell you, Reggie, but that’s not possible. That guy’s been dead since before we got here,” Wooten remarked flatly.

Reggie’s eyes went wide as he peered into the darkness behind the fallen Vietnamese soldier.

Wooten spoke to him very evenly. “Private, do you have control of your service weapon?” Reg noticed that Wooten’s aim with his .45 had moved from Fong and was now trained on the darkness behind the jerking VC. Peering into the shadows, Reggie’s eyes slowly adjusted, and he saw something he had a hard time processing.

A foot-thick tentacle-like thing was attached to the dead VC at the spine. Another tentacle appeared out of the darkness and snaked toward them. Reggie saw that its tip looked like a large lamprey’s mouth, with concentric lines of needle-sharp teeth. With a wet crunchy sound, the thing buried itself into the abdomen of the Vietcong’s corpse. Reggie struggled to keep silent while grotesque chewing and sucking sounds echoed through the cave.

“Ma đói! Ma đói! Ma đói!” Fong’s high-pitched shriek cut through the thick air.

“Này Fong, im đi! Di chuyển qua đây!”

Fong rapidly crab-walked over until he was sandwiched between Reg and Wooten. Neither American soldier noticed the VC sapper between them, or if they did, they didn’t care. Reggie dropped to his knees and frantically rummaged in the dirt for his M-16. Fuck me! he thought. But he could not find the weapon. Where the fuck is it!

“I’ve got nothin’…” Reg told Wooten, cautiously searching himself for any other kind of weapon. “’Cept I do have these two frag grenades in my rucksack. But it’d be suicide to use one in here.”

“Here,” Wooten whispered. He tossed his Ka-Bar knife to Reggie.

Without warning, the frantic Fong suddenly cut loose with his AK-47 firing at full auto. The rapid-fire rounds cut through his dead partner’s body and into the tentacle things feasting on it. Wooten followed suit and started blasting away with his Colt. The multiple gunshot concussions were deafening; the muzzle flashes blinding. Reggie threw himself to the ground, hands over his head. When their clips were empty, the cave was filled with gun smoke. Reggie coughed and pulled his neckerchief up over his face. All three of them peered into the darkness as the smoke cleared. The dead VC’s corpse was gone, along with the tentacle things. In their place sat an elderly Vietnamese man wearing typical peasant garb. Pointing at the man, Fong shrieked in terror.

“Ma đói!”

The elderly man just stared at them all impassively.

“I guess the ghost is still hungry,” Wooten said. He jettisoned the empty clip of his Colt and slapped in another one. “Last one,” he sighed ruefully.

Reggie looked back over toward the elderly man, but he had vanished. In his place stood four Vietcong, their faces and torsos riddled with buckshot wounds. They were dead, but there they stood. It dawned on the stunned Reggie that these were the victims of his four-barrel shotgun rig all those weeks ago in front of Suzi’s.

“What the…” Reggie gasped.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked back to find that the VC were now replaced by Lady Cam. Coagulated blood leaked from the rifle wound in her chest. Her dead eyes stared at him. At once, Reggie felt light-headed and he reached out to the cave wall to keep from keeling over.

Wooten let out a shriek of terror and recoiled back against the rocks.

“Sergeant! Sergeant!” Reggie cried.

Wooten was gasping for breath, then slowly got control of himself. He began to moan. “Oh fuck, oh my fuck.”

“Sergeant, what the hell is happening,” Reggie called out. “I’m seein’ some seriously fucked-up shit here.”

“Yeah, Private. Me too.” Gasping, Wooten rubbed his forehead and groaned, “Oh, Jesus.” He looked over to Reggie and some color returned to his face. “You just need…to…try not to look at it,” he implored.

Reggie followed orders and looked back over to Wooten. “All I can see is everyone I was responsible for killing,” he muttered.

“Yeah, but Reg, think on this. I’m Mr. Seventy-One, remember?”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Reggie said as it struck him that snipers carried a lot of baggage…including a shitload of ghosts on their tails.

Wooten glanced back at his apparitions and moaned again. “Oh God, I can’t take this.” He fell over on his side, his face pressed into the dirt, trying to hide from what he was seeing.

Reggie looked back at the undead Lady Cam still sitting across from him and his horror changed to wonder.

“Sarge, I see it all now,” Reggie muttered.

“Yeah? What?” Wooten asked anxiously.

“I get it, sir. I think I figured it out. What this ‘hungry ghost’ does. It’s just camo. You understand?”

“What? No.”

“This thing, this Ma đói creates camouflage by reflecting back its victim’s regrets and fears. Uses ’em to hypnotize their prey, like a cobra. Pretty fuckin’ neat trick,” Reggie said.

Wooten raised his head and looked back over at his undead apparitions.

“Jesus,” he said as he stared at them. “You’re seeing this too?”

“Yeah, same sick shit, just different ghosts,” Reg observed. “It makes some sense in a truly messed-up way, but, Sergeant, what are we gonna do here?”

Fong continued to whimper in horror, babbling in Vietnamese as he faced his own ghosts.

A look of grim resolve suffused Wooten’s face.

“Private, hand me both your frags,” he whispered.

Carefully, Reggie pulled the two fragmentation hand grenades from his rucksack and handed them to Wooten.

“Here’s the play, Private. You’re gonna scramble up that hole and then drop a branch down for Fong to climb up. He won’t be able to get up the wall with his wounded hand. You’ll need to help him.”

“You got it,” Reg said. He got to his feet, swiftly moved to the cave wall, and stood under the opening above, then stopped in his tracks. “But what about you, sir?”

“I’ll cover the rear this time. Now get goin’.”

“I can’t leave without you. You’re coming too,” Reg resolved.

“Ain’t gonna work. I got a busted wheel,” Wooten said quietly. “You and Fong go get some help or a rope or somethin’. If this thing gives me any trouble, I’ve got the six slugs in the Colt and the two frags.”

Reggie started back toward Wooten, determined to save his sergeant.

“Turn around and get your ass movin’, soldier,” Wooten barked. “That’s an order.”

Reggie stopped, then noticed the old man was back, simply sitting there. Reg looked at Wooten for a long moment, then turned back to the rock wall and started scrambling up. His shoulder was on fire, the searing pain making him gasp as he struggled to climb one-handed. Halfway up, he looked down and saw Wooten whispering some words to Fong. Somehow, Reg kept going up and made it out of the cave. Fong then crawled quickly over to the wall.

After escaping the claustrophobic cave it took Reggie a few moments to collect himself. He squinted in the sunlight, drawing in several deep breaths of the sweet jungle air. He could hear Fong’s pleading from down in the cave.

“Đừng quên tôi nhé!” Fong cried out.

Reggie reconned the area and spotted a long dead teak tree branch. He dragged it back to the cave entrance and dropped the branch down inside. Fong leaped onto it, but struggled to pull himself up. Reggie reached down with his good arm, grabbed hold of the Vietcong soldier and muscled him up and out. Slipping under Fong’s shoulder, he helped guide him away from the cave entrance.

And then it happened.

Both frag grenades detonated in quick succession. The explosions blew a huge plume of dirt skyward and knocked both soldiers forward. Reg landed on top of Fong as the entire cave roof collapsed behind them. They lay there stunned for a long moment, then disentangled themselves, slowly got to their feet and staggered back toward the blast zone. All that was now visible of the cave entrance was a deep depression filled with large rocks. Anything inside the cave was now entombed under tons of earth.

Reggie blinked back tears and Fong put his hand on his shoulder. For a long moment the two men stood there. Fong turned around and faced Reggie.

“Xin lỗi về bạn của bạn,” Fong intoned slowly. Reg had no clue what Fong said but knew they were words of solace.

“Thank you, man,” Reg said. Fong reached out and placed something in Reggie’s hands. He looked down and saw Wooten’s army-issue dog tags.

Fong started walking away and Reg just watched him. As Fong reached the top of the hill and turned back, he gave Reggie a friendly farewell wave. Reggie lifted his hand in salute and without thinking flashed him the peace sign.

“See you in the next life, my friend,” Reg whispered to himself. Fong disappeared over the hilltop. Reg fashioned a sling for his busted arm from a gun belt, looked around and surveyed his surroundings. He was in a spot, lost deep in the bush with a broken shoulder and no weapon, just a canteen and Wooten’s Ka-Bar knife. He figured there were probably a thousand VC in the area looking for their leader’s killers. And it must be at least thirty clicks of jungle between him and safety. He had no weapon, just a canteen and the knife. But Reggie was an optimist. He was certain he could do this.

Without a salute, Reggie walked into Colonel Harring’s office. Reg was lean and his skin tanned from his time in the bush. Like before, Harring was seated at his desk going over field reports. He didn’t even look up. It was as if no time had passed at all since their last meeting. With a clatter, Reggie dropped Wooten’s dog tags onto the colonel’s desk. Harring inspected them, then looked somberly up at Reg.

Reggie intoned flatly, “Target terminated. Staff Sergeant Wooten was KIA.” Turning, he headed for the door then stopped and turned back. “Sergeant Wooten gave his last full measure…for his country… and for me. Put that in your report.”

Without another word, Reggie turned and walked out of the office.

January 30, 1987

A black Hemi ’Cuda cruised past the Lincoln Memorial and pulled to a stop in a passenger loading area.

“Gimme a few minutes. There’s somebody I need to visit.”

“Take all the time you need, Reg,” Mike said. “I’ll find some place to park and meet you by the reflecting pool.” Reggie climbed out of the muscle car and stretched. The arthritis in his shoulder was a bit worse today. He turned away and quickly melted into the crowd of tourists.

Reggie rubbed the side of the pencil lead across the paper over and over. Within a few moments an etching of the name appeared in graphite on his white piece of paper. KYLE C. WOOTEN. Reggie took a step back and somberly scanned the long, black granite wall. So many names.

His sergeant was now at rest, or so he hoped. Together they had faced the horror of war—and the horror of the unknown. To himself, Reg prayed for his friend, with the fervent wish that Wooten’s ghosts were hungry no longer.

An older gentleman was standing beside Reggie with his finger touching a name on the wall of the Vietnam War Memorial close to Wooten’s. The man’s eyes were red and puffy and he choked back a sob. Reg was going to say something but decided to give the man his privacy. After a while, the old man reached into his jacket and pulled out a half-pint bottle of whiskey.

“Did you serve in the conflict?” the old man asked.

“I did,” Reggie murmured. The old man nodded and unscrewed the half-pint’s lid and paused.

“This here’s my son’s name. Craig. Died at age twenty-one. He was a good kid.” A long awkward moment passed and then the old man offered up the bottle. Reggie took it from him and eyed the label. Jim Beam. He smiled and was about to take a sip but hesitated and drew in a long deep breath. Before he took a drink, Reggie tipped the bottle toward the thousands of names on the long wall in front of him and then he whispered…

“To absent friends.”

Then

You had only worked in one place your entire life. The day after high school graduation you went to work there and never left. You started at the standard entry-level position: journeyman gravedigger. You had played some high school football, but it was your new job that really forced you into shape. For three straight years, you averaged two full ones a day; probably six or seven hundred of them. Now it’s all backhoes. But you dug every one of those graves the old-fashioned way, with a shovel in your hand and the sun on your back.

After three years, you sensed that, without knowing it, you had chosen a career. The owners, the Dooley family, were kind and generous people and one could probably do much worse in terms of a boss. There was an unspoken plan for advancement in the organization, so you took the next required step. You asked to work in the crematorium.

At first, you started in delivery. This meant preparing the corpse for cremation and then delivering it to the crematorium. In the embalming room, you would assist Ben the embalmer with what was called the “coffin swap.” Frequently, the bereaved would purchase a top-of-the-line casket for their deceased, even if they couldn’t really afford it. The Dooleys’ Morningside Mortuary had a terrific selection in their expansive showroom, everything from the finest twenty-gauge steel caskets to bespoke wooden caskets hand-carved from virgin maple and cherry woods.

Morningside’s crematory furnace dated to around the turn of the century. It did not have the modern technology for attaining the intense heat required to vaporize metal or the hard woods. Therefore, the staff turned to an age-old funeral business custom of conducting the viewing and services utilizing those high-end caskets, then after the bereaved had exited the mortuary premises, the deceased were gently transfer to the most efficient vessel for crematory work—the good old cardboard box.

It was your job to hoist the client, the deceased, out of the impractical posh casket and muscle them into that burner box. Not such an easy task, back then. In the early seventies, management modernized much of the mortuary infrastructure and purchased a hydraulic cadaver lift. But in the fifties, when you started working there, it was solely on you to “reposition” the deceased into their final container prior to cremation.

Obviously, from the Dooley family’s perspective, one of the best parts of this coffin swapping was reselling these expensive body boxes to the next bereaved family. Sometimes a premium casket could have three or four different “guests” before an actual burial removed it from circulation.

While working in delivery, you spent a lot of time with the embalmers, learning plenty about the steps in properly preparing a funeral-ready corpse. Many of the embalmers you worked with were gifted artists, able to “resurrect” the ravaged remains of suicides or devastating accidents and refabricate them into looking pretty darn close to human again. You learned many tricks and tools of the trade in the process. Like how superglue was the embalmer’s friend, perfect for sealing the eyelids and mouth, preventing them from unceremoniously popping open during a service. You’d seen it happen, and once was enough.

The buildup of gas inside the corpse was something that the embalmers you worked with obsessed over, for the biological processes inside a dead body frequently caused serious bloating. Embalmers might have no fear whatsoever of dead people, but they were absolutely terrified of corpses passing gas during a somber funeral service. There was no greater faux pas for an embalmer than having a loud grease fart blow through the chapel without having someone living to blame it on.

Your embalmer pal Ben had the best liquor, and like most of the embalmers, was a dedicated alcoholic. Since much of the embalmers’ work was done at night after the other staff had left, it was common for them to get raging drunk in the embalming room. You were often invited to join these late-night drinking parties, and most of the time you accepted. These were fairly solitary affairs with, at most, Ben, yourself, and possibly the night watchman joining in. Of course, the corpse was always there too, frequently becoming the center of attention at these parties.

Another part of your delivery responsibilities was to aid Ben with “foreign object” removal. Jewelry, watches, and the like would all need to be expunged from the corpse, but it was the implanted medical devices that could really become dangerous under the scorching heat of the crematory retort. If it was a busy day, you would sometimes be tasked with opening up the deceased’s chest and pulling out any coronary pacemakers or similar medical devices. Intense heat could make these items explode, but the worst offenders were silicone breast implants. Thankfully, the embalmer was responsible for removing those, and most of the time they did.

Around this time, you frequently worked with a young woman in the front office named Linda. She was quiet and a bit shy but looked great in the long black skirts that were the requisite “uniform” for her position. Linda worked as the assistant to the funeral director, who happened to be one of the Dooley sons. She would come downstairs, usually in the morning, with the manifest for the day’s work. Linda was always nice to you and respectful, and you responded by helping her whenever you had the opportunity. If the bereaved had a special request of Linda, usually having to do with attire or jewelry for the deceased, you made sure it was taken care of promptly and efficiently.

Watching Linda work with the families, witnessing her kind, caring, and thoughtful manner, was probably the reason you fell in love with her. She would hold these broken people in her arms as grief overwhelmed them. She genuinely cared about people. Working in the graveyard and the embalming room had hardened you, but Linda’s gentle nature brought some genuine softness into your life.

The day you asked her to lunch was one of the most nerve-racking of your life. It didn’t help that Ben was on a two-day bender and was passed out cold downstairs on the embalming table. You had no choice but to single-handedly move three large male corpses from gurney to refrigerator solely by yourself, which caused you to work up a shirt-soaking sweat. You’d just managed to intercept Linda in the hallway before she could see what was going on inside the embalming room. As you took the day’s manifest from her, you blurted it out…and were stunned when she demurely accepted your invitation with a smile.

The next day you had a picnic lunch together under the broad elm tree in the far corner of the north graveyard. You selected the spot not merely because it was scenic, but it was also the most remote part of the property and you would not have to worry about interruptions from other staff. It was a perfect day; you brought the sandwiches and she had baked some cookies. You spread a blanket out over the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Krzywicki, who both died in 1928, and you sat side by side with Linda, enjoying the serene quiet and the warm autumn afternoon. She spoke expansively about how she loved working in the funeral industry. At first, she was drawn to helping people in their time of need, providing comfort as they dealt with devastating grief. She admitted, however, that sometimes she secretly enjoyed feeling like a Hollywood producer, being responsible for mounting a major show every few days, an extravaganza with performances, music, wardrobe, and catering, all in front of a live audience. And when that show went well, she felt deeply satisfied. There was a spiritual dimension that pleased her.

After lunch, as you both walked back to the mortuary, Linda held on to your arm as you navigated the depressions in the grass from the sunken caskets. Spending time with her was so easy. She was warm and funny and genuinely interested in you and your life. She was the first person you had opened up to in a long time and it felt good. You loved her easy intimacy, and it was a day you would never forget.

A couple of months later, you followed her into the mausoleum as she made her rounds locking the exterior doors. The rest of the staff had long since departed and the grounds were deserted. The sound of her footsteps echoed down the long, empty marble halls. You surprised her in the columbarium, and she fell into your arms laughing in relief. You pushed her up against a wall of recessed crematory urns and kissed passionately. You were tempted to take her right there but resisted and kept with your plan.

“There’s something up with that urn there,” you said. She reached over and pulled an ornate silver urn from its niche and examined it.

“It’s empty,” she said as she judged its weight. “How could that be?”

“No, it’s not. Look inside,” you said.

She flipped open the lid and peered inside, seeing nothing. She tipped the urn over and the small velour-covered box plopped into the palm of her hand. In shock, she turned to find you on bended knee behind her.

“Linda, will you marry me?”

For a long moment, she stood staring at the ring and you thought you might have miscalculated. Then she looked into your eyes and smiled.

That spring you married in the mausoleum chapel. It was a lovely affair. Mr. Dooley officiated and many of your friends from the staff attended. Some key vendors were immensely supportive and provided delicious catering and a gorgeous flower display at no charge. Ben and his pals on the grounds crew donated the liquor. The mausoleum had never been so festive as that celebration, and you heard later that the inebriated carousing lasted well past midnight.

Mr. Dooley took a shine to you after the wedding and you were promoted to crematory operator, or, as the other staff referred to it, “the fireman.” Much like a baker, your job was to cook the remains for the proper length of time at the correct temperature. There was not much more to it than that. In the morning, you would fire up the retort and within twenty minutes it would be up to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and ready for business. Linda was experienced enough to know that the day’s manifest needed to be organized in order of weight. That way you could get the large bodies in before the retort became too hot. If that happened, the body fat of the obese would melt rather than vaporize and could ooze out of the retort to puddle on the floor. You only needed to make that mistake once.

After a body went inside the retort, you would have about an hour of downtime to straighten up around the crematorium or prepare the next client. If it was a slow day, you could read some of your preferred science fiction. Robert Heinlein was a favorite. After an hour, you’d open the oven door to check the results, always a hellish view of the proverbial “fire and brimstone.”

Generally, the prone corpse’s arms would appear to lift upward through the flames as they burned, as if beseeching the heavens. It was the simple mechanics of contracting muscles and tendons as they cooked, but the effect was always a bit creepy. Another hour or so and you would shut off the gas valves and let the oven cool. When the temperature had dropped to about four hundred degrees, you would rake the remaining ash and bone chunks into a chute that fed directly into the cremulator. On top of it was a wire screen to sift out any stray metal parts, from joint replacements to other large bone debris. Much like an industrial coffee grinder, the cremulator reduced the final remains to a fine ash. These cremains you would then decant into the customer-selected crematory urn, or if it was a county order, a medical-grade plastic bag and finally, a small cardboard box for delivery.

That winter things started to change. You first noticed it one afternoon when Linda came home from work feeling ill. She was short of breath and had a dull pain in her chest. You got her into bed and later she confessed she had overheard some devastating news at work. Some buyers from out-of-state had put in an offer for the entire Dooley family stake in Morningside—the mortuary, the mausoleum, the graveyard, and all the land. The office was in an uproar. Old Mr. Dooley was firmly against it, but his two sons were eager to cash out and they over-ruled him. Linda was beside herself with worry, certain that their lives were going to change in a big way, and not for the better.

A few days later, old Charlie Dooley was found hung by the neck from your favorite elm in the north cemetery. The neighboring sheriff from Vale investigated, and after some dickering with the coroner, finally pronounced his death a suicide. But you never believed it. Charlie was just not the type. Linda didn’t buy it either, blaming the two sons. But that didn’t sit right with you. Those boys may have been blinded by easy money, but they loved their father dearly and would never wish him harm.

Linda did not take it well and was beside herself with grief. One night she suffered what appeared to be a full-on panic attack and you had to drive her to the county hospital. She spent the night in the hospital under observation while the doctors waited for test results. The next day things went terribly wrong.

In the morning you learned that both of the Dooley sons had disappeared. Both families were just gone. It appeared they had packed their things and moved out, leaving their homes empty and abandoned. And in the afternoon, you received the devastating news that your beloved Linda had an inoperable brain tumor. She had only months to live.

You put on a brave face, attended to her every need, and cared for her day and night. Your friends and fellow workers helped too, bringing over food and sitting with her while you got some much-needed rest. Even Ben the embalmer stepped up, running the crematorium himself on the days when you were occupied driving Linda to see her doctors. On the surface she was stoic, but you knew that on the inside Linda was terrified. In the middle of the night, you could hear the sounds of her weeping.

You always assumed that working in the funeral trade would prepare one for death. It certainly did not provide any solace for you, and you could sense that all the platitudes Linda had been dispensing to her clients over the years were of no help to her now.

At work, there were some changes. The new owners arrived and let a few old-timers go, without concern or sensitivity to their tenure with the organization. One of Linda’s friends in the office stayed and managed to keep her on the payroll for two entire months, despite her never coming in, before anyone caught on. That illicit “sick leave” money definitely came in handy. For the time being, your job appeared safe, but you still kept your head down and made certain you cheerfully performed all the required cremations as assigned. The funny thing was, there seemed to be fewer cremations to do. The new funeral director, Mrs. Bates, seemed to be steering most of the clients to in-ground burials in the graveyard or in-wall entombments in the mausoleum. As the weeks went by, the percentage of cremations kept dropping. Bates was a cold, grim woman, and she seemed to take pleasure in telling anyone and everyone who would listen that upper management was keeping a close eye on their operation and that they would soon be arriving and woe be to the unfortunate employee who caught their attention by slacking off.

The truth was that “upper management” had been on the premises for quite some time. It started with strange shuffling sounds in the shadows of the mausoleum. You were never able to pinpoint what was causing the strange noises, but on two occasions you caught a glimpse of something that appeared to be a small, hunched figure down the dark hallway. When you followed, they seemed to disappear. Then one morning you found the cemetery vandalized; several graves had been dug up and the corpses disinterred from their caskets. For a while Ben made jokes about a “grave-robber on the loose,” but when he started drinking that night, he raved about meeting someone from the new ownership that he referred to only as “The Man.” Whatever occurred during the encounter, which Ben refused to elaborate on, had genuinely unsettled him. Things were quickly going from shitty to totally fucked.

A few days later, you arrived at work to find a new embalmer had replaced Ben and was working his shift down in the embalming room. You never received a straight answer when you asked about his whereabouts. Ben had simply “moved on” they said. When you tried to call, you discovered his line was disconnected, with no forwarding number. You tried to strike up a conversation with the new embalmer, only to be met with an odd silence. The man had a waxy complexion and vacant eyes, robotically going about his work. Either the new hire was deaf, or he had no interest in talking with a crematory operator. You suspected it was the latter.

At home, things took a severe turn for the worse. Because of Linda’s intolerable pain, the doctor prescribed her morphine. You had already been warned that once morphine therapy started, Linda would likely have mere days to live. For the first eight hours, she was a bit manic and spoke expansively about her love for you and her plans for the future together. But then she spiraled down, and you spent those hours cradling her, holding her hand, and whispering your love for her into her ear.

She passed on the second day. She took one long breath and just stopped. You thought she was dead. About thirty seconds later, she gasped once, then never moved again.

The next day when Mrs. Bates came downstairs with the manifest, Linda’s name was on the top of the list. You were determined to have her cremated and refused to entertain any notion of burying her or walling her up in the mausoleum. There were simply too many odd and strange things going on and the idea of having a loved one’s grave desecrated revolted you. You were also determined to perform the cremation yourself. The task needed to be done professionally and lovingly and you would not trust anyone else. You refused Bates’s offer of a funeral service; none of Linda’s friends were employed at Morningside anymore. They had all moved away. In fact, it felt like many of your neighbors were also moving out. You found it an odd coincidence—ever since new management’s arrival, fully half the residents of the surrounding town had left. Stores remained shuttered on Main Street and the place just felt depopulated, the town emptying itself out like a leaky bucket.

Linda’s cremation was anticlimactic; pretty much like every other one you ever did. You carefully washed and prepared her body. She would not be embalmed. Seeing her corpse naked on the embalming table was strangely comforting. She was dead. There was no color in her skin. The moment her heart stopped beating, the warm flush of her complexion had drifted away. The Linda you knew was no more.

You dressed her in her funeral best, including the long black skirt you loved seeing her in. You removed the wedding and engagement rings you had agonized over purchasing for her and dropped them into your pocket. After combing her hair, you gave the cold skin of her cheek a final kiss. Once you carefully placed her into her cardboard casket, you opened the heavy retort and, choking back tears, pushed it into the fire.

After an hour and the whirring of the cremulator had come to a stop, you poured Linda’s cremains into the same ornate silver urn you had proposed to her with. You personally carried her container down the long mausoleum hall and carefully placed it into the reserved niche in the columbarium. Despite never being a believer, you still uttered a short prayer of love for your wife. Letting out a long sigh, you stood and looked at her urn. Linda would be the last one you cremated.

You stopped going to work. What was the point? You hated working under Mrs. Bates and the new management. All your friends at Morningside had either left or were now dead. The remaining employees acted like soulless drones, grim and uncommunicative. The ongoing desecration of the graves had shaken you. By your last day on the premises, seven more graves had been torn open, the corpses spirited away. Inside the mausoleum, another three crypts had been ransacked. The night watchman had run off weeks ago, leaving no one to safeguard the place.

You had a cousin who lived up in Spokane. After a week of grieving and brooding, you came to a decision: it was past time to leave. The nice thing about crematory work was that you could find a job anywhere and there were no concerns about landing gainful employment up north.

Before you left, though, there was one thing you needed to do.

The moon rose over the open graveyard. You walked through the ground fog toward the mortuary ahead. Your plan was to get in and out without anyone seeing. The side entrance to the embalming room was frequently left unlocked, a courtesy for the coroner or local law enforcement should they need to stop in after hours with a body that needed refrigeration. Tonight was no different. You entered with ease, moving purposefully through the casket display room and into the marble halls of the mausoleum. Your footsteps echoed as you approached the columbarium.

Among the hundreds of urns, there was Linda’s, in the same place you had left it. You stood there for a brief moment of reverie. “I’m sorry, baby, but you need to come with me,” you said as you reached for her urn… then stopped. You sensed a presence behind you and turned to find that “upper management” had most certainly arrived here at Morningside Mausoleum.

The Man was exceedingly tall and reed thin, dressed all in black. He had a grim, pale countenance, and his eyes were pools of deep blackness that seemed to swallow you.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the Man intoned. His voice was deep with a rough edge, but the words seemed to disappear as he spoke. You felt yourself going deaf. All you could hear was your own pounding heart. You struggled to flee, but your muscles would not move. As you stared into those black eyes, you felt everything about yourself being sucked into them, your personality, your free will, your mind. You were no more.

Now
dig dig
lift and push
drag dig

BLACK EYES!

deep vibration droning dead and more dead

THE MAN walks. HE calls push and push and dig blackness.

hot wind corpses crushed again and again
drink deep blinding white
lift and pull
no intruders!

push and lift. scan the room
caskets empty

THE MAN calls

BLACK EYES! search the hall

The Boy!

Squeeze choke kill

He bites! Ahhhhh!!!! Blood

Whirring whoosh must flee

No!

Thunk! spinning drill crack Ahhhhh!!!!

As the pump started up, the boy squirmed free. But the Man had now arrived and escape would be difficult. In any case, the fate of the boy, or even the Man himself, did not matter to you anymore. You were bleeding out in the most ferocious way possible, and certain death was mere moments away. The chrome sphere stopped pumping. Your equilibrium was first to go. You fell backward, slamming into the marble floor. As your bladder and bowels let go, the Man’s mental grip on you began to loosen.

In the few fleeting moments prior to brain death you found that your mind was suddenly your own again. You were no longer under the domination of the sinister forces that now called Morningside home. Your thoughts immediately returned to Linda and your first date in the cemetery, her shy laugh, her slim waist, and those long black skirts.

As your eyes rolled up in your head, a single tear rolled down your cheek. The blackness swirled around you, choking away your visions of the woman you would always love. As the reality of your life slipped into the ether, you pondered a single, final thought. Would luck shine on you and send your body to your own crematory oven to vaporize into the cool blue sky? Or were you destined for somewhere else…across unknown distances, to be crushed down into a thrall in service of total evil?

The Caretaker in the original Phantasm was conceived with a single purpose: To take a sphere to the head, have his forehead drilled, get his blood pumped out, and then to die. And what a successful character he was! Who would have thought that movie audiences worldwide would love watching this character’s horrifying demise? But they screamed, they howled, and they laughed. I used to marvel at the impact Angus Scrimm’s character of the Tall Man had on Phantasm audiences in just three on-screen minutes. But Ken Jones’s Caretaker character had an even more pronounced effect and he was on-screen for less than one!

At a screening of Phantasm a few years back, while watching the audience go into a frenzy during this sphere sequence, it got me thinking about who this character was and how he might have stumbled into the Phantasm world. How did he come to work for the Tall Man, and how did he even get a job in the mortuary business? These were the questions I sought to resolve here, and I hope you have enjoyed my answers.

When I started thinking about writing a third Phantasm screenplay, I had a desire to return to the roots of the original film. In Phantasm II, our characters had grown and aged by a decade, and it seemed like it was high time to get a kid back into the story.

I have always been of the opinion that children are just small adults, without the psychological baggage we all carry. From back when I was young, I understood that most adults dismiss children and tend not to relate to them in a meaningful way. That’s probably why I made two films with twelve-year-olds as the main protagonists in both Kenny & Company and Phantasm. I found that I loved working with child actors; it was frequently easier to get a more natural performance from them than with adults.

Enter Tim. In Phantasm III, Tim—played by the wonderful young actor Kevin Connors—is an orphaned boy who is left to fend for himself after the Tall Man ravages his town and kills his parents. Reggie happens upon Tim by accident when three itinerant looters kidnap Reg and have the misfortune of stopping at Tim’s farmhouse in search of treasure. Tim ruthlessly and efficiently dispatches these three miscreants and frees Reggie from his imprisonment. Tim and Reggie quickly bond and head out together on a quest to seek out and exact revenge on the Tall Man once and for all.

Tim turned out to be a great character and for a long time I hoped there might be a way to one day tell a more detailed story on film about his adventures prior to Phantasm III. Unfortunately, that never happened. When the opportunity arose to write Phiction, I realized this was my chance to explore Tim’s character in more detail. He’s a tough little kid and we definitely left him in the lurch at the conclusion of Phantasm III. One day I hope to tell the story of what happened after he escaped from that mausoleum. But for now, what follows is Tim’s origin story prior to the events of Phantasm III. Enjoy!

He ran like hell. If he didn’t make it to the far-side bunker before it rounded the curve, that would be it for him. Did it see me? Clutching his war bag in one hand and his dad’s .38 Police Special in the other, he made a beeline across the empty field. No one had plowed this field since The Day, and now the soil was dry and hard―the perfect surface for running for your life.

He could see the culvert up ahead. If I can just make that, I’m home free. Behind him he could hear the accelerating engine of the vehicle. Three more steps! He leaped into the air and disappeared into the darkness of the culvert as the black hearse hurtled into view. Opening the camouflaged hatch door, he dropped inside the concrete pipe. He popped up his periscope, fashioned from a PVC pipe and two of his mom’s cosmetic mirrors, and watched the funeral coach motor by before it disappeared around the bend. Those hearses, and whoever was driving them, would have to be dealt with, but not today.

Before he exited the bunker, Tim rechecked his supplies. There was a week’s worth of canned and shelf-stable food, and a water drum with a month’s potable supply. He had a sleeping bag, spare clothes, and ammo for both the .38 and the .22 rifle stored here. The far side was in good shape, so now he could turn his attention to building out a near-side bunker.

Tim had been living in the farmhouse since it all began. His main worry was one of visibility. His residence was in such close proximity to the county road, drawing unwanted attention was a constant concern. That’s what had happened with the soldiers, and he had barely survived that scrape with his life. Now he was determined to get another bunker built nearby. Otherwise. he might need to abandon the farmhouse altogether.

Carefully he unpacked three of his latest creations. His plan was to distribute these new self-defense tools into the far-side bunker, the farmhouse, and the planned near-side bunker.

“Never put all your eggs in one basket,” as his mom used to say.

He carefully laid the devices out on the bunker workbench. It was in one of the abandoned houses on Centre Street (of course, all the houses in his town were abandoned now!) that he had found the stash of illegal fireworks. The prize was a box containing a dozen M-80s. Some people called them firecrackers, which was a joke. “A quarter stick of dynamite” was much more accurate.

Three of the little mini-bombs sat on the bench before him. Time to get to work. He glued the M-80s into paper cups, then poured three inches of a resin fiberglass mixture around them. Before the resin cured, he topped off each cup with metal BBs, hoping to reasonably mimic the effects of a military antipersonnel mine. He hoped he wouldn’t need to use them, but to survive, he had been forced to use skills no twelve-year-old should ever have to.

Around midday Tim was back at the farmhouse. All looked clear. He paused for a few moments, listening, trying to control his breathing. When he wasn’t working on defensive measures or scavenging for food, he believed it best to keep lookout from up in the farmhouse attic. The US government had its “Distant Early Warning System” for nuclear attacks; he had his peepholes and binoculars for marauders.

Set on forty acres of land, the house was an old turn-of-the-century three-story Victorian that had been lovingly maintained. Above the third story was a full attic where Tim had made peepholes at all points on the compass. He was proud of his woodworking craftsmanship, especially the fact that none of the viewing ports he had cut through the slanted roof had ever leaked water, even in heavy thunderstorms. Tim had cleared the attic and dragged his dad’s old office chair up there. It rolled around nicely on the plywood floor and he could zip around the attic and check each direction without leaving his seat. Today it was quiet: no one on the roads and no one in the fields.

If anyone with ill intent tried to come for him, Tim was prepared this time. A couple of months back, two AWOL soldiers with guns had knocked on his front door and ended up ransacking his place. They pushed him around some, threatening to kill him if he didn’t give up his valuables. After he wouldn’t comply, they smacked him around even harder, then locked him in a closet, which happened to be where his father stored one of his tool chests. It had been right there in plain sight but the soldiers were too dense to figure that it might be the means of his escape.

Within minutes Tim had the entire closet lock and deadbolt dismantled. He slipped out the front door unseen and fled into the woods. The frustration of watching from afar those interlopers rifle through his possessions had been infuriating. And spending a night in the forest with no jacket or sleeping bag was pretty miserable. By morning the soldiers had finished ransacking his house. Evidently they found what they wanted, including his dad’s booze stash, packed it into their car and driven off.

It had taken Tim a week to clean up the damage. Then, he went to work cutting small doors into the walls around the house, taking advantage of the vintage building’s large spaces, sometimes three feet wide, between the interior walls, for use in venting and insulation. He could use these spaces for making a quick and unseen exit from the premises, if necessary.

If he ever saw a threat while up in the attic, Tim could now enter one of these doors and slide down a sewage pipe to the second floor. Nearby was another entrance, and inside that was a slide to the first-floor hallway. From there, he could use a tiny exit tunnel he had dug in the basement. And in that tunnel was a bug-out bag waiting with a week’s worth of food, weapons, and survival supplies.

Tim figured if he ever needed to bail and escape the attic from a threat, he would be out and fleeing in those woods within thirty-six seconds. He didn’t have any of that when the soldiers came. He was completely unprepared and worse, gullible. But he had learned his lesson. Or so he thought.

Tim had been alone since The Day. His father had been the town sheriff and when his dead body showed up, the lazy fools in the department tried to pass it off as a heart attack. Then the coroner’s report came back inconclusive, there were whispers around the department of suicide. No way in hell would his dad have killed himself, and being the closest living soul to him, Tim was absolutely certain of that. His mom knew it too, but she was later killed seeking answers to his death. Maybe she had found them. That left him home alone.

Tim had been living the single life for five months. His nearest neighbors were a half mile away in either direction on the adjacent county road. The week before, while out on an expedition, he had found both their houses abandoned. It seemed like they had just walked out of their homes and never come back. Were they murdered like his father? He figured he might never know. It didn’t stop him from cleaning out both their pantries, though. Food was a critical necessity ever since the soldiers’ visit.

The next day was a day like any other. Until he heard their car. It had been weeks since a vehicle of any kind had driven by and Tim was cautious at first. Approaching at a moderate speed was an older car, a 1957 Ford Custom sedan. As it pulled to a stop, he could see an elderly couple in the front seat. They looked kindly and he had to admit, he was disarmed by their age. The old man rolled down the window.

“Hiya, sonny, what’s your name?”

Tim stepped out of the shadows.

“I’m Tim.”

“Pleased to meet you, Tim. I’m Abel, though folks just call me Abe. And this here’s my wife Margaret, although most folks call her Peg.” Abe reached a hand out and Tim shook it.

“What the heck is a kid like you doin’ out here in the middle of the road, Tim?”

“Nobody’s come down this road in a long time. My parents are gone and I’ve been living out here on my own. Do you know where everybody went?”

“It is awful quiet in this part of the state. We’ve been making our way through eastern Oregon and I don’t think we’ve seen a soul for the last couple hundred miles. Certainly unusual, but we like the quiet.”

Abe gestured for Tim to move out of the way and he pulled the car over to the side of the road. He and Peg got out of their car and stretched their legs.

“Do you think you might let a couple old folks use your facilities? We’ve been in the car for quite some time.”

“Sure. I’ll let you in the house.”

Later, Tim gave Abe a tour of the property. The old man seemed keenly interested in seeing the place and Tim enjoyed spending time with an adult who was attentive to what he had to say. When they returned to the farmhouse, Tim immediately smelled something coming from the kitchen and was surprised to find Peg cooking breakfast. Though the aroma of eggs and potatoes frying in the skillet was immediately tantalizing, Tim could not help but question the old woman.

“Excuse me, Miss Peg, but my food stores are pretty lean. One of my hens stopped laying and maybe we should…”

“Not to worry, Timmy,” Peg interrupted. “We all deserve a nice farm breakfast every once in a while and besides, Abe has his ways of finding more food.”

“You’ve had the weight of the world on you, son,” Abe said. “You need to relax some and let the grown-ups carry that load for you.” He put a kindly hand on Tim’s shoulder. Against his better judgment, Tim decided to follow the old man’s advice. Peg was an excellent cook and he chowed down with gusto on her big farm breakfast.

After she finished, Peg hung up the apron and headed for the stairs. Abe followed her.

“Peg always takes a nap after she cooks. We’re going to lie down for a little while upstairs,” he said and headed up the stairs. Tim plopped down on the sofa. He unbuttoned his jeans. He hadn’t had a meal that big since his mom died. These old people were pretty strange, but at least Peg could cook.

Tim heard something from upstairs. It was a soft moan. Then he heard a rhythmic thumping. He got to his feet. He could not believe the elderly couple was upstairs fucking in his house. They’d better not be in my bed.

Moving out to the front porch, he sat in the old rocker, disgusted that the old couple would be so brazen in his home. It was a cold afternoon and a heavy cloud bank had rolled in. The comfort of the rocker relaxed him and he forgot his anger and started to daydream. Then he heard her voice. At first he thought it was a bird. Then he realized it was a child. A girl. And it was coming from Abe’s Ford.

Tim walked down the steps and approached the old vehicle with trepidation.

“Help,” the voice called out softly, yet there was no one in the car. Then Tim realized that the girl’s voice was coming from the Ford’s trunk, so he quietly responded.

“Who are you?”

“I’m me. Can you let me out?”

“Why are you in the trunk?”

“Sometimes he puts me in here. I don’t know why.”

“Can’t you open it from inside there?”

“No. I need you to get the key. But don’t tell Abe or Peg that I asked. They’ll leave me in here.”

Tim did not know what to do. He just muttered an “okay” and turned back toward the farmhouse, mind racing. His creeping skills were pretty good. With luck he could sneak right into that bedroom and grab Abe’s keys while he slept. But then what? He had a hunch that bad things would happen. But heck, you can’t just leave a kid locked in a trunk.

Tim gently pushed open his parents’ bedroom door and found Abe and Peg sprawled across the queen-size bed. Their clothes were scattered on the floor. Both were fast asleep, and Abe was snoring. They had pulled his mom’s quilted comforter over themselves, sparing Tim the sight of seeing them naked. He slipped inside the room and silently moved to Abe’s pants. Reaching into the right pants pocket, he quickly found the key ring. He also found something else—a Smith & Wesson snub-nose .38 revolver. Tim gingerly extricated them both and pocketed them in silence. Keeping his eye on the two sleeping old people, he carefully backed out of the room and closed the door.

Tim put the key in the trunk lock and turned it. The trunk latch popped free and he lifted the lid. Inside the trunk was a pretty, raven-haired, girl of around twelve years old who covered her eyes as they adjusted to the bright daylight. Tim grabbed her arm and helped her climb out of the trunk. She was unsteady on her feet, so he held her hand until she regained her balance.

“My name’s Tim, by the way. What’s your—”

The girl was running full speed away from him.

“Hey!” he exclaimed and darted after her. He chased her through the remnants of the vegetable garden and into the barn. It was dark in there and after some searching, he found the girl cowering inside one of the empty stalls.

“Hey, hold on. You’re safe here. You don’t need to run. Not from me.”

“Where are Abe and Peg?”

“They’re inside my house, sleeping.”

“Then I’m not safe. Not when they’re around. And you aren’t either.”

Tim motioned for her to stay and crossed to the barn door, pushed it shut, and latched it.

“We’re safe in here. They won’t…they can’t come in here.”

Taking her by the hand, he led her over to the saddle bench and sat beside her. She was shivering, so without thinking, he reached over and put his arm around her. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Tim had only known two or three girls back at his elementary school and none of them were close friends. He had never been on a date with a girl and never had a girlfriend. He was too young for all that. But he was so starved for companionship with anyone of his own age for so long now, that this just seemed natural.

“Tell me your name.”

“It’s Emma. What’s yours?”

“I’m Tim.”

“You live in this whole place all on your own?”

“My parents are both dead.”

“Oh. So are mine,” Emma said matter-of-factly.

“Sorry to hear that. How come you’re with Abe and Peg? And how did you get in that trunk?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure, okay, that’s fine,” Tim said in as calm a manner as he could muster. It was clear Emma was getting more anxious by the minute.

“I’ve gotta get out of here. Where am I? What direction should I go?”

“Hold up, Emma. I’ll go back in and tell ’em to leave,” Tim said evenly.

“But they won’t. They’re both liars. You can’t trust anything they say.”

“Yeah, but this is my property. And if they’re trespassing, I’ll make ’em leave.”

“You will?”

“Don’t worry. You stay here. And don’t come out until they’re gone,” he said with resolve.

Tim exited the barn with no idea how he would evict these trespassers. He did know that the whole thing would go down a lot easier if Abe and Peg didn’t think he was conspiring against them. That made his first goal to get the keys and the gun back up there before they woke up. He tiptoed into the house and creeped up the stairs as silently as possible. The bedroom door was still closed, and he could hear Abe’s rhythmic snoring inside the room. It seemed too risky to sneak back into their room. Instead, he gently opened the bedroom door and slid the keys and then the snub-nose across the carpet toward the chair where Abe’s pants were draped. Abe and Peg continued to sleep as Tim closed the door and quietly returned downstairs. He hoped they would accept the logical excuse that the gun and keys had fallen out of Abe’s pocket when he undressed.

“I’m gettin’ hungry, hon,” Abe said as he came down the stairs. “I saw some steaks in the freezer. You think you could fry ’em up the way I like ’em, with some butter?”

Yawning, Peg appeared at the top of the stairs. Tim spotted it immediately from where he was waiting in the den. His mother’s two-carat diamond engagement ring was now sparkling from the fat ring finger of Peg’s left hand.

“Abe? I need to talk to you,” Tim said flatly.

“Yeah? What’s up, sonny?” Abe sauntered into the den.

“It was nice meeting you and Miss Peg an’ all, but I’d like you both to leave now. I’m a solo operator here and I’m not inclined to take in any boarders.”

“You don’t say?” Abe remarked.

“An’ I’ll need Miss Peg to return my mom’s ring. That’s a family heirloom that came from my grandma and the reason I didn’t bury it with my mom is that she always told me she wanted to save it for if I ever had a wife.” Abe just stared at him then let out a chuckle.

“Hear that, Peg? The kid wants you to take off that ring, so he can get married. Ha!”

“Why I sure like this ring. Fits me like a glove,” Peg said. She held it up to the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows and admired the sparkling rays it kicked off.

Abe let out another chuckle. “I’m sorry, sonny. Peg loves her jewelry and I’m afraid the only way you’re gonna be gettin’ that ring back would be to pry it off her cold, dead fingers, or however that sayin’ goes.”

Tim stood up. His war bag was on the sofa beside him. Picking it up, he slid the strap over his shoulder. He had done ride-alongs with his dad and witnessed dozens of his interactions with citizens. Now, he’d do it like his dad would.

“Well, that settles it. You folks are officially trespassing and if you don’t vacate the premises immediately, I’ll have to give you an incentive to do so,” Tim said as evenly as he could.

Abe simply stared at him, facing him down. Then he glanced back at Peg who was now standing in the kitchen doorway looking on.

“Hon, do you want me to shoot this kid or just throw him in the trunk with the other one?”

“Shoot him. I got no use for him,” she said.

Abe whipped out the snub-nose and cocked the hammer.

“Sonny, you and me are gonna take a walk outside.”

Tim stood his ground. He hadn’t expected it to get this far, this fast. Setting his jaw, he did his best Clint Eastwood snarl. “You’re the only one that’s gonna be leavin’ here.”

Abe took aim at Tim’s face.

“Suit yourself, sonny.” Abe pulled the trigger. Click!

Tim dropped the six .38 shells onto the floor between them.

Abe’s jaw gaped. As he realized his gun was empty, Abe shoved his left hand into his other pocket and came out with a knife. Snap! A switchblade. The old man lunged at Tim with the blade, but the boy deftly sidestepped. Abe missed, losing his balance, then fell to the floor. Sputtering in anger, the old man got to his knees, and Tim saw pure murder in his eyes.

“You don’t know who you’re fuckin’ with,” Abe said. He dropped the switchblade and leaped for the bullets in front of him. Quick as a chicken on a June bug, Abe grabbed one and shoved it into the cylinder of his revolver.

But Tim was quicker still. From his war bag, he pulled out his Native American-style tomahawk, complete with leather handgrip, feather tassel, and razor-sharp blade. As Abe snapped the snubnose’s cylinder closed, Tim swung the weapon and came down hard on the back of Abe’s leg, chopping clean through his left hamstring muscle. Abe let out a sharp grunt and the gun in his hand discharged. The slug whizzed by Tim’s nose, just missing him by millimeters.

Behind him, Peg let out a shriek as the bullet tore through her shoulder. The wounded old lady stumbled forward and lunged for Tim. She grabbed onto the tomahawk handle and tried to wrench it from his grasp. With her other hand Peg clawed at Tim’s face and clutched at his war bag. She snagged the strap and tried to yank it away from him. When that didn’t work, she shoved her hand deep into the bag. Crack! Peg shrieked in agony and pulled her hand out of the war bag to reveal three of her fingers crushed in the jaws of a large rat trap. Tim jumped out of her way and backed up to the door. Peg staggered toward him, while Abe crawled after her, leaving a wide swath of blood on the floor from his still-bleeding leg wound.

Tim exited the house and sprinted across the drive and into the barn.

“Emma!” Tim called out.

The girl came out of the barn and stood slack-faced as she watched the two wounded old people exit the house. Peg, blood flowing freely from her shoulder, staggered toward the Ford. Abe dragged himself down the front steps leaving a trail of blood behind.

Tim joined Emma. He now had his dad’s police revolver in his hand.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

Gun up, Tim walked slowly to the Ford. Peg was slumped in the passenger seat, mumbling, barely conscious. Abe had dragged himself up into the driver’s seat and was trying to start the car.

“You’re gonna need a tourniquet for that wound. And I guess I could field dress Peg’s shoulder before you leave, if you want. You both have lost a lot of blood,” Tim said.

The Ford’s engine cranked over and started. Abe threw the car in gear and the old man looked over at Tim through the open window.

“Fuck you.”

The Ford roared off down the road. For a hundred yards it went straight, then Tim and Emma watched it careen wildly and swerve into a telephone pole. The car’s horn sounded and never stopped.

Tim took Emma by the hand and led her into the house. He knew the symptoms of shock, so he sat her down in the kitchen, wrapped her in a cozy flannel blanket, and made sure she drank a big glass of water. Then he finished cooking the meal Peg had started. After Emma ate, he brought her into the den and made a bed for her in front of the hearth. Within a few minutes he had a fire roaring in the fireplace. Tim sat down in a chair beside her and waited. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep.

Later, Tim went into the barn and tossed a shovel into a wheelbarrow. He then headed toward the road and the incessant blaring of the car horn. Heeding Abe’s advice, he had brought along his father’s bolt cutters. Once he arrived at the wrecked car, he shoved Abe’s head off the steering wheel and the grating horn noise stopped.

There was no question that Abe and Peg were both dead, so Tim got busy. He struggled mightily to pull his mom’s wedding ring off Peg’s finger, but it was too fat, swelling up even more as the rigor mortise set in. After several minutes Tim realized there was no way it was coming off the normal way. Abe had been right, which was why Tim had brought along the bolt cutters. The ring finger snapped off easily and Tim retrieved the ring, then flung the severed digit into the woods just off the road. He rolled the wheelbarrow over to the passenger seat and slid Peg’s corpse into the tray. She was not a lightweight woman; it took some effort to push her over to the lawn on the side of the farmhouse. Once he found a suitable spot, he grabbed the shovel and went to work.

Three hours later, both old people were in the ground; crude crosses made of elm branches marking their shallow graves. Tim now had a graveyard on his property, and as he said a short prayer over the freshly turned earth, he also prayed that no one else would be joining Peg and Abe in there.

He put the tools back in the barn and washed up by the cistern.

When Tim returned to the house, Emma was still sleeping. He spotted Abe’s switchblade on the floor, quietly snapped it shut and dropped it into his war bag. Exhausted, he sat back down in his chair and waited. After another hour she awoke with a start.

“Hey, it’s just me,” he said quietly. “Everything’s okay.”

Emma’s eyes darted here and there, and she pulled the covers up protectively around herself. After a while, her breathing slowed and she relaxed.

“Are they dead?” she asked.

“Yeah. Don’t need to worry about them anymore.”

“Good. Tim, could you tell me where I am? They drove a long way with me in the trunk.”

“Well, you’re in my house. We’re on County Road 59, about eleven miles south of Holtsville. That’s in eastern Oregon,” Tim said.

She thought that over for a while.

“Do you have a phone?”

“Phones went out four months ago,” he replied.

His answer visibly affected her, so he didn’t press due to her fragile state. As they both sat in silence, Tim could actually hear his mom’s grandfather clock ticking in the other room.

“Thank you for letting me stay here,” Emma said at last.

“It’s nice to have some company,” he replied.

“And thanks for what you did to them. They deserved it.”

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered.

“Do you have a bathroom I could use?”

“Sure. You can use my mom’s upstairs. Come on. I’ll show you.”

Tim led Emma up the stairs through his parent’s room and into the bathroom. Luckily the old people hadn’t sullied it much.

“There’s towels in here, soap and shampoo in there. Take your time. I’ll be downstairs.”

Tim left the bathroom, quickly made the bed, and closed the bedroom door behind him. He sprinted to his room and started digging through his drawers. From his older clothes, he selected a pair of worn, comfortable jeans he had long since outgrown, figuring they might fit Emma nicely. The only pink he could find in his wardrobe was an old, long-sleeve Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tee with a few pink highlights inside an explosion graphic. He folded the clothes along with a clean pair of his underwear and some socks. From outside his parents’ bedroom, he could hear the shower still flowing in the bathroom, so he quietly crept into the room and deposited the folded clothes on the bed, then quickly left.

Tim was waiting down in the den when the freshly scrubbed Emma descended the stairs.

“You have a nice house here, Tim.”

“It’s a lot of work to keep it goin’, but yeah, I like it here. And I think it’s pretty safe. You know, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“That’s nice of you to offer. I might take you up on it. I don’t know how to drive anyway, so…”

There was an awkward pause.

“And thanks for the clothes,” she said.

“I hoped they might fit. Actually, they look pretty good on you,” he said.

Stopping, Emma looked at herself in the hall mirror. “I look just like your brother.”

They both laughed.

Emma stayed for two weeks and Tim loved every minute of it. It was so different to have someone to talk with living in the same house. He showed her every inch of the property, the attic, and even the far-side bunker. He explained to her all about his defensive plans and as the days went by, she became more relaxed and comfortable. Emma had some rudimentary cooking skills and for the first time in months Tim was eating a hot meal every night. When they figured out that they both had birthdays the same month, he pulled down from the shelf his mom’s old copy of The Joy of Cooking and together they baked a chocolate birthday cake to share. It was a perfect night.

It all came to an end the next morning. He was up in the attic scanning the perimeter and everything was quiet. He turned his attention to a list of tasks necessary to start the construction of the near-side bunker when he heard the rumbling sound in the distance. Shit! Tim grabbed the binoculars and quickly spotted Emma out by the vegetable garden, not far from the county road. He whippanned the lenses out to the highway in time to see the black funeral coach rounding the curve and barreling toward them at speed.

Tim snatched up his war bag, flew down the stairs and sprinted for the highway. Goddamn, I warned her about the threat! Gun in hand he skidded to a stop on the asphalt. The hearse was gone, and so was Emma.

Tim had always intended to investigate the local mortuary and graveyard and to get some payback for what the man up there had done to his parents. But he was a kid who liked to plan and meticulously prepare before he did anything. He always figured that if he was going to launch an assault on the forces of evil up at that place, it would be at a time and date of his choosing. It was not his nature to run off half-cocked. Today, he had no choice.

Tim dashed to the barn and tore the tarp off his dad’s Kawasaki Enduro. His dad had never let him ride the dirt bike; said he was too young. For the past two months, Tim had been teaching himself to ride it and now felt pretty comfortable on the machine. He flipped on the gas valves, jumped on, and jammed down the kick-starter. The bike roared to life and he fishtailed out of the barn and out to the highway.

The dirt bike accelerated down the empty road. Tim desperately hoped the funeral coach did not have an insurmountable head start. In the past few days he had grown close to Emma and now he could not comprehend returning to his isolated life without her. Up ahead was a curve in the road. Tim leaned into it and just managed to hang on as the tires of the powerful bike broke traction and drifted around the bend. He swerved back onto the straightaway, just managing to keep control. The hearse was now visible, several hundred yards ahead of him. When he twisted the hand grip to full throttle, the 250cc Kawasaki engine screamed. The funeral coach, with its big-block engine, was moving fast and the dirt bike could not close the distance. After a few miles of this, Tim wondered how he would ever catch up.

The hearse swerved onto an access road. As Tim approached, he noticed it was the entrance to Holtsville Cemetery, which he’d suspected was the funeral coach’s final destination. Tim saw an opportunity and took it. Swerving the bike across the pavement, he raced off road. With luck, he could close the gap with by cutting through the surrounding woods. He jumped the Kawasaki up onto a deer trail and sped through the forest. Breaking through the underbrush, he skidded the bike onto its side then sprang up and sprinted to a nearby stand of trees for cover. As he peered out through the pine needles, he saw an unconscious Emma being hoisted out of the parked hearse and tossed onto an old wooden gurney by two cemetery workers in overalls. One worker closed up the hearse, got in, and drove off. His partner turned and rolled the gurney into the building.

Tim shouldered his war bag and dashed across the open lawn toward the mortuary. He spotted an ornate stained-glass window up ahead. At the base of the window was a vent panel, which he muscled open. He tossed his war bag inside and slipped in after it.

Tim found himself in a massive, gray marble mausoleum. He looked down a long corridor but saw no sign of the caretaker. Then he heard it—the squeaky wheels of the gurney. He followed the sound to a corner in the hallway and looked around to see the caretaker push the wooden gurney through a door. As Tim approached the door, he sensed a powerful vibration emanating from the other side.

Before him was a heavy steel door that was built like a naval hatch. He reached out for the wheeled handle and grabbed hold of it. It was hot to the touch and a pulsing vibration came through it from the other side. Tim cautiously turned the handle and the door swung open.

The glow from the white walls inside the room was blinding, but it was the sheer force of the rhythmic electromagnetic surge that stunned him the most. It felt like he had stepped inside a massive cyclotron, as if he was in the center of a huge magnetic resonance imager on steroids. Powerful vibrations went right through his chest, and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. The pulsing effect was so strong that he struggled to maintain his balance.

Across the immense white room, he spotted the caretaker struggling with the gurney, shoving it toward the source of the energy: two large chrome poles set in the center of the room about five feet from one another. The caretaker stopped the gurney just in front of an imaginary line between the poles. It was as if he was afraid to move any closer. The cacophony from the energy source was so profound that Tim was confident that the caretaker was unaware that Tim was in the room. He moved closer and could see the caretaker fiddling with a latch on the gurney. He also noticed something strange. At the man’s collar line was a chrome hemisphere the size of a baseball implanted at the base of his skull, seemingly fused into his spine. WTF? The caretaker unlatched the gurney and Tim figured out what the man was up to. He was going to dump Emma into the space between the two poles and Tim was certain that would not be good for her.

“Stop!” Tim screamed over the loud, throbbing noise.

The pallid caretaker turned to find Tim drawing down on him with the .38. Tim struggled to hold onto the gun as the magnetic field seemed to be pulling it toward the chrome poles.

“Get back!” Tim yelled.

The impassive caretaker ignored him and reached over to the gurney to continue his work. Tim squeezed the trigger. A bullet exploded out of the gun barrel and shot straight toward the caretaker before suddenly veering off. The round was sucked directly into the gap between the chrome poles and disappeared into thin air.

Incredulous, Tim pulled the trigger twice more. Each time the bullets followed the same path, flying straight toward the man, then veering into the dead zone between the poles. His mind raced. My dad! He loved those steel-jacketed rounds from his army days. The magnetic field sucked the steel-covered lead right into…What was it? A portal of some kind? Damn!

Tim jammed the useless weapon back into his war bag. The caretaker moved over between Tim and the poles, clearly prepared to send Emma off to an uncertain fate. The girl seemed to be trying to shake herself back to consciousness. Meanwhile, Tim rooted around inside his war bag for anything else he could use to stop the malevolent caretaker, but there was nothing, and then…Tim pulled out Abe’s switchblade.

“Hey!” Tim screamed.

The caretaker ignored him, yanked down on the gurney lever and it started to tip forward. He turned back to the boy. Tim snapped the blade open with a sharp clack and deliberately opened his hand. The powerful magnetic field yanked the knife out of Tim’s hand and blade first the knife zipped toward the portal.

The oblivious caretaker was standing directly between the knife and the dead zone. Thunk! The switchblade sank up to its hilt directly into the left socket of his eye. The man shrieked once and flopped to the white floor.

At that instant the gurney toppled forward and Emma slid into the dead zone. Tim leaped forward and desperately grabbed for her as she disappeared before his eyes. He managed to snag her by the wrist as she physically disappeared into the portal. First, he slid with her into the void but at the last moment managed to wedge his feet into the wheel assembly of the gurney. They both jerked to a stop.

Tim was hanging directly above a fiery red abyss and the now-conscious Emma let out a gasp of horror as she dangled below him. Taking in their surroundings, he saw that they were suspended over an alien landscape, littered with black onyx bunkers recessed into the rocky surface. A howling red iron wind swirled around them and Tim struggled to breathe. It soon dawned on him that there was no oxygen in this atmosphere and he had literally moments of life remaining. Emma looked up desperately at him, her face suffused with terror as she choked violently. He yanked her up toward him and at the same time managed to squirm his way backward. As they both passed back through the event horizon of the portal, suddenly they could breathe again.

They both flopped backward onto the slick white floor beside the caretaker’s corpse. Staggering to his feet, Tim pulled Emma away from the portal. She was hyperventilating as he snatched her up and cradled her in his arms.

“Easy now,” he said gently.

Emma struggled to calm her breathing. Eventually it slowed and color began returning to her face.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“Hell if I know, but we need to find a way out, fast,” Tim said. He grabbed his war bag, then quickly moved to the caretaker’s corpse. Reaching down, he yanked Abe’s switchblade out of the bloody eye socket, folded the knife, and jammed it deep into his bag. A noise prompted him to look at the floor—something was happening there. The chrome sphere embedded in the caretaker’s spine was moving. On instinct, Tim jumped back. Instantly, in a spray of gore, the orb leaped out of the man’s flesh and up into the air. Tim grabbed Emma by the hand and they bolted.

They burst out of the white room, but blocking their path was the man, the Tall Man. Wearing a narrow black suit, he was skeletal thin and appeared to be seven feet tall. He grabbed Tim and Emma each by the neck and, with superhuman strength, hoisted them off their feet and up to his eye level. As he scrutinized the two of them, the man appeared to drift into a trancelike state.

“I can’t get loose,” Tim gasped to Emma.

The Tall Man came out of his trance and appeared to have come to a conclusion. He affixed his gaze on Tim.

“Someone is coming,” the man intoned slowly.

“What?” Tim asked.

“You will be the lure, boy.”

He tossed Tim like a rag doll against the marble wall. He hit the ground with a thud, his breath knocked out of him. The Tall Man turned his gaze on Emma.

“And you will stay with me,” he said.

The Tall Man turned and entered the white room, Emma still dangling in his grip. Her screams echoed off the marble walls.

Flat on the marble floor of the corridor, Tim gasped, trying to breathe. After a few moments of choking, he managed to reinflate his lungs and take a couple of small breaths. He groaned and rolled over, then grabbed hold of a marble crypt door, pulled himself to his feet and stumbled to the door of the white room.

Inside, the powerful magnetic field was still pulsating and the white walls were still blinding. But there was no one inside. The only evidence that anyone had ever been there was a blood trail left by the caretaker’s body. It led directly into the dead zone between the chrome poles, where it abruptly stopped. Tim approached the portal in dawning horror that he had lost Emma to the horrifying abyss on the other side. He stood at the precipice of the zone and for a few moments considered throwing himself through. But that would be suicide. Reluctantly he turned and walked away.

As Tim made his way through the dark mausoleum toward the exit, he saw several caretakers at work. Each one ignored him. He even saw some small brown-hooded creatures lurking in an adjoining corridor; they also took no notice of him. For unknown reasons, the Tall Man had given him safe passage.

Tim tipped up the Kawasaki and jammed down on the kick-starter. The 250cc engine roared to life. He climbed onto the motorcycle, cranked the throttle, and with an unplanned wheelie he tore back down the deer path. Riding hard toward home, Tim found himself blinking back tears. Since his parents’ death he had refused to allow his emotions to interfere with his own survival. The loss of Emma was devastating. With her, Tim saw a future. But the man had forced him down another path, one that seemed full of darkness and misery. Now, it was all clear to him: the mausoleum and that Tall Man were the source of the evil that had infested his world. He would need to do something about it and promised himself that tomorrow he would start planning out his revenge.

Tm was up early the next day. He managed to get his dad’s old tractor running and used it to push Abe’s Ford off the road and into an adjoining ditch. He chopped some branches and threw them over the car. From the road, Abe’s car was now invisible, and that was a good thing.

Later, Tim was up in the attic. Every fifteen minutes, he scanned in all directions, and as usual, nothing was going on. In one of his mom’s old storage trunks, he had discovered a vintage Halloween mask from her youth. Using a stapler and glue, he had fixed its strap. He pulled it over his face and looked at himself in the attic mirror. A fat, demonic cherub stared back at him. It was creepy and he liked it. For a moment it made him feel sad about how many Halloweens he had missed. But Halloween was a holiday for children and Tim could not allow himself to dwell on children’s things, so he took off the mask.

A distant engine sound rumbled through the attic. Grabbing the binoculars, he peered out through the eastern peephole and saw them. A long pink hearse was approaching, followed by a sleek black muscle car. Was this the “someone” the Tall Man had prophesied? Tim slipped his dad’s gun belt over his shoulder and grabbed his war bag. As he headed for the exit, on a lark, he donned the Halloween mask.

It was time to go to work.

The character of Tobe was Jody’s friend from high school and in the original Phantasm, he served simply to provide exposition as to why Jody had returned to his hometown after a long time away. That was pretty much it. (In the film, Tobe was played by my high school friend, and a terrific actor, David Arntzen.)

Astute Phantasm fans may note that I have taken liberty with the spelling of this character’s name. Not long ago I lost a near and dear friend and as a very minor tribute to the great Tobe Hooper’s film legacy I swapped the “y” for an “e.” (The pronunciation remains the same as before, toe-bee.) Tobe Hooper was a modest and decent man and responsible for one of the greatest horror films of the modern era. He is sincerely missed.

In searching for stories to tell in Phiction, it came to me rather quickly that Tobe is the one unexplored character who might be in close enough proximity to the pivotal plot points of the original Phantasm that he could give us a different and more complex view of events. Tobe could lead us through what might be the Rashomon of Phantasm. This was a fun one to write!

With grateful thanks to pal Justin Zaharczuk.

In two and a half years you can just about get over anything,” Jody muttered.

“After all that action on the road, how come you’re hangin’ around this dump of a town?” Tobe asked.

“Takin’ care of the kid.” Jody gestured behind himself.

Tobe looked over at the sleek black 1971 Plymouth ’Cuda parked in the driveway of the Pearson brothers’ two-story home. Under the muscle car, Tobe could see Jody’s younger brother, Mike, laboring on the exhaust system with a ratchet wrench.

“But he follows me everywhere,” Jody lowered his voice. “Like he knows I’m gonna leave. He’s a tough little kid. I love him. I’m gonna miss him.” “

If I wasn’t headed back to Portland today, I’d keep an eye on him for you, Jody,” Tobe said. “I’ve always liked Mike. He’s not like the other kids his age. He’s old beyond his years, and I mean that as a compliment.”

Jody nodded in agreement.

Tobe swung open the door of his Mazda. “Well, gotta hit it. You take care of yourself, Jody.” Tobe gave his pal a warm bro hug and waved goodbye to Mike as he climbed into his car.

Tobe’s blue Mazda sped down the highway away from Jody’s neighborhood of Morningside Heights and into the business district of Morningside proper. It had always been a one-horse town and Jody was right to want to get the heck out of there. Tobe had prided himself on earning his scholarship to OSU. Luckily, he drew a high number in the draft lottery and avoided the war. Jody had not been so fortunate and served a tour of duty in the conflict overseas.

Tobe had loved living in Corvallis for four years but always felt a twinge of guilt that his best friend had been sent to the jungles of Vietnam while he was stateside savoring the typical eighteen-year-old male’s college experiences of keg parties, girl chasing, and pot smoking. After graduation, Tobe had settled in Portland, lucking into a job he loved and never looked back.

Entering the business district, Tobe slowed the car. Damn, it looks like a ghost town. The Food Giant was boarded up; so was the diner. There were more “For Lease” signs along Central Avenue than operating businesses. Tobe remembered how few mourners had attended their friend Tommy’s funeral that morning. There was something off about his hometown, and he’d sensed it since his arrival the day before. And now, he saw no pedestrians. In fact, he saw no one.

With a growing sense of dread, he turned off Central and headed west on Highway 59. It was probably time for him to leave Morningside for good, like everyone else seemed to be doing. A small sense of relief ran through him when he saw the town exit sign posted on the side of the road: You Are Leaving the Township of Morningside. Come Back Soon!

Letting out a long, slow breath, he accelerated toward Portland. Up ahead he noticed an odd shadow slicing across the roadway. As the Mazda shot through it, there was a peculiar shimmer in Tobe’s vision. And then darkness. Total darkness.

When Tobe awoke, he found himself still sitting in his Mazda, but it was now parked on the side of the road. He checked himself over, touched his face. Yes, he was still alive and nothing appeared to be wrong with him. Slowly, he climbed out of the car, stood, and scanned his surroundings. It was now sunset, and the sun was sinking into the mountains. He checked his watch. Fuck! What the hell happened to me? Tobe got back into the car, flipped on the headlights, and continued driving.

As he got into the rhythm of the road, he started to relax. That’s when he saw it. The Mazda screeched to a stop and Tobe burst out of the car. There in the glare of his headlights he could read it plain as day: Entering the Township of Morningside. Welcome!

Tobe’s vision blurred as he stumbled back to the car, hoping not to lose consciousness in the street. What the fuck?? I’m peaceably exiting one side of town and then I find myself on the complete other side of town with no memory of the past three hours?

At last, he calmed himself by thinking in terms of his job at the large Portland financial services firm where he worked. Analyze the numbers, then do it again, and if it repeats, you have the answer. The only way for him to keep his sanity was to repeat this “experiment” and see if it happened again.

He cruised west along Highway 59. The closer he came to leaving the far side of town, the more nervous he became. After about twenty minutes of drive time, he saw the town limits exit sign up ahead. It seemed to taunt him with its cheery “Come Back Soon!”

Now it was almost dark. No mysterious shadow on the road. Holding his breath and white-knuckling the steering wheel, Tobe shot past the town exit sign. Again he felt a wave of dislocation, that peculiar shimmer in his vision. And then darkness. Total darkness.

When Tobe awoke, he found himself as before, still seated in his Mazda, safely parked by the side of the road. He checked himself over—nothing appeared to be wrong with him. He slowly climbed out of the car and scanned his surroundings. It was now dead dark. Crickets chirped from the surrounding forest. Ohhhh shit. I am either fully certifiable or most surely dead. Am I a ghost trying to exit this life only to be sucked back again and again? Tobe got back into his car and decided to give up his quest to leave town, for now. He needed more information, so he turned and drove back toward town.

Tobe got off Highway 59 as soon as he could and instead took the cutoff down Colton Road through the foggy redwood groves. His mind raced as he drove through the night. What the hell is going on?

Slamming on his brakes, he forced the Mazda to a stop. There on the side of the road was an overturned truck. He got out and sprinted over to find it was a white-and-red ice-cream truck owned by the coolest cat in Morningside, the inimitable Reggie. The freezer door was hanging open, the ice cream inside was melting, but there was no sign of Reggie anywhere. The Reggie I know would never abandon his truck. Ever. Best case, he’s probably on his way to the hospital. Tobe jumped back into his Mazda and steered it up onto the road. The Pearson brothers would know what’s going on.

A jumble of thoughts ran through his mind as he retraced his path back toward Morningside Heights. He felt like he was in the grip of an especially vivid nightmare and expected to wake to find someone telling him, “Relax, it’s just a bad dream.” But deep down inside, he knew he would not be awakening from this. It was real. And it was bad. And all he could do was speed down the dark road.

Up ahead Tobe saw headlights turn onto the highway and start to race toward him. The oncoming vehicle was accelerating at a very high rate of speed, and it was coming right at him! Though he tried to keep the Mazda on the road, at the last moment he was forced to swerve out of the way, throwing him into a spin. As he skidded off the road, Tobe managed to see a black Plymouth ’Cuda rip by him like a banshee. Was that Jody?! The Mazda came to rest in a bog of mud and weeds.

Tobe took a deep breath and collected himself. Shit was getting pretty damn strange right here in his hometown. Rolling down the window, he examined his predicament. It would take some clever navigation, but he just might be able to drive out of this mess.

Little by little, he moved the car back a few inches then forward, trying to gain some traction. After a few minutes of effort, he managed to get the front tires to bite on some dry ground and drove out of the bog onto the side of the highway. Tobe got out of the car and took a quick tour around it to survey its condition. He’d done nothing more than cosmetic damage to the front fender of his ride, which was a relief.

As he was about to get back into the Mazda, another vehicle appeared out of nowhere and rocketed right past him. It was a long white funeral coach, the same one he’d seen the day before at Tommy’s funeral! Only now, it was screaming down the road at a dangerously high speed. Wait, was that a kid trapped in the back compartment, beating at the windows?

His analytical mind took over again. Okay, I tried to leave town but got trapped in some kind of bizarre time loop. Then I find Reggie’s ice-cream truck flipped on its side and abandoned. Now Jody’s out joyriding in his ’Cuda like he’s out of his mind and… being chased by an out-of-control death hearse with a kid trapped in the back. Was that Mike?

Tobe’s calculations quickly narrowed his options. He had to act, and there was no other choice but to follow the cars. They must be speeding for a reason. His friends probably needed help. Maybe when he reached their ultimate destination, there would be answers.

Tobe had been following in their direction for about five minutes, when he rounded a curve and came to the wide-open entrance gates of Morningside Mortuary and Cemetery. He brought the car to a stop and banged at the steering wheel in frustration. What the hell am I doing? Going into a graveyard at night?? I need to straighten up, stop this goddamn goose chase and find a way home! He decided to head for the sheriff’s. Heck, maybe I am delusional and in the midst of a psychotic break right now. Should I be looking for a mental hospital instead?

Suddenly, a powerful, concussive explosion rocked his Mazda. Up the cemetery road a distance, a massive fireball roiled skyward. Damn! He stomped on the accelerator pedal and the Mazda burned rubber toward the fiery glow. Just past a stand of trees, Tobe swerved the car to a stop and gaped at the burning wreckage of the funeral coach. He grabbed a small fire extinguisher from his back seat, then hurtled out of his car and charged toward the inferno. He got as close as he could, but the heat was so intense that he was forced to back away. No one could have survived the blast or the fire. And the fire extinguisher in his hands was pitifully small and most probably useless.

Something caught his eye though, and Tobe spun to see a small figure in the distance dashing away toward the mortuary. Was that the kid who had been trapped in the rear compartment of the hearse? If so, he somehow must’ve been thrown from the coach and survived the blast. That sealed it. Tobe decided to follow the kid up to the mortuary and find out just what the hell was going on.

But his thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the thing grabbed his ankle.

At one time it might have been a human hand, but now it was a blackened claw, its skin burned off, the remaining flesh and surface hair still sizzling from the inferno. Horrified, Tobe recoiled. Yet as he tried to jerk away, the thing yanked powerfully, taking his feet right out from under him, and he crashed to the ground.

Once down at its level, he could see what he was dealing with. The thing was long, appeared humanlike, with a head, torso, and four limbs, but instead of walking, it was crawling. The thing must have come from the fire—its flesh was still burning and any clothes it once had were now completely burned off. There was no skin, just melting black and red flesh, a yellow pus oozing off its surface and draining into the soil.

Tobe tried to crab-walk backward, but the thing scuttled toward him. As he moved back some more, his leg bumped the fire extinguisher. He grabbed hold of it, and as the thing lunged for him, he slammed the extinguisher into what appeared to be its head. His blow stunned the thing, but its flailing claw managed to grab Tobe by the neck. Frantically swinging the extinguisher, he smashed the thing in the head, and then again, and again. The thing’s skull finally cracked open and the resulting explosion of grue splattered across Tobe’s face. He could hear it but not quite see it, as something, maybe a chunk of bone or wad of charred flesh, popped out of the thing’s head! In a flash of silver, the thing shot up into the sky. Tobe staggered to his feet and gaped at the creature he had just killed. Weird? Beyond weird.

Tobe drove slowly up the cemetery road, determined not to announce his presence. He pulled up behind a hedge and went the rest of the way on foot. As he neared the white mausoleum mansion, he noticed Jody’s car seemingly abandoned out front, driver door hanging wide open. He moved past the car and when he looked down the side of the building, he spotted a broken-out basement window. Inside the mausoleum, he heard the muffled echo of a shotgun blast. My friends are in there! They may need help. Tobe sprinted toward the window and peered down inside. It appeared empty, so he gingerly crawled through the open window and hopped down into the basement room.

It was so dark inside that he lit up the little flashlight on his keychain, which at least gave him enough visibility to maneuver. Reaching the center of the room, he glimpsed something illuminated in the tiny beam. It was an inanimate brown lump on the floor, the size of a child. Was it alive? Dropping to one knee, Tobe tried to turn the thing over to see what it was. He had to lean into it because the thing was so heavy. Finally, it flopped over. Tobe aimed his beam at its head, revealing a gruesome, misshapen human face.

This “dwarf creature” appeared to be dead, most likely from the fresh gunshot wound in its chest area. The grisly wound was leaking the same yellow ooze that he saw with the thing from the hearse inferno. He was looking at a humanlike creature that was barely three feet long, and it was hard shifting his gaze away from that hideous face.

Then its eyes popped open and the creature wailed a guttural shriek. Tobe yelped, tumbling backward in surprise. He scrambled through a door and into a deserted service corridor lined with cardboard boxes of funeral supplies. Sprinting up some steps to a landing, he found his path blocked by a large steel door. Tobe muscled open the door and entered to find himself inside a sprawling casket showroom. He looked around at all the shiny coffins on display, but what grabbed his attention was a strong, low-end drone sound. It seemed to emanate from outside the showroom, its vibrations penetrating right through the walls. The tone was so powerful he could feel it punching in his chest. What could make a sound like that? He reached the exit door and opened it.

Tobe stepped out into the corridor of the dark, empty mausoleum. The droning sound stopped and the place became eerily quiet. He moved forward with trepidation, his footsteps echoing off the white marble walls. The sudden silence caused him to question his motives. Sure, he had seen some bizarre things tonight, but he had now trespassed deep inside Morningside Mortuary with no sign whatsoever of Mike or Jody. What the hell am I doing?

Without warning, what seemed like a massive earthquake rippled through the mansion’s foundation. The concussion rocked him and he dropped to his knees, clutching at the marble wall to maintain his balance. The distinctive sound was back too, now stronger, increasing in intensity, its energy seeming to grow exponentially. Stumbling to his feet, he was about to round the corner when a heavy body slammed into him, hard. Tobe staggered backward, smashing into the marble wall and falling to the floor. He let out a groan and rolled over.

“Tobe?”

In front of him stood a hyperventilating and strung-out Reggie, clad in his signature ice-cream whites and a black vest.

“Reggie, what’s going on in here?”

His balding friend pondered for a moment. “Hell if I know, man. But I closed his gate. I think.”

“Gate?”

“The portal. The one inside the white room. Making the noise.”

“What?” Tobe asked in exasperation.

“Look, Tobe, I do know one thing. We need to get the hell out of here. Now.”

“Okay. But which way?”

Reggie wheeled around and started to move away, down the intersecting corridor. Almost as an afterthought, he called over his shoulder, “I don’t really know, man.”

Tobe was left alone in the hallway. Should I follow Reggie? He decided to take the safer path and retrace his steps. Yet when he turned to flee from the mausoleum, he stumbled. It felt as if gravity was in synchronicity with the growing drone sound and that he now weighed three hundred pounds. With each step, it was a huge struggle to lift his legs. He made it back through the casket room but then fell through the exit door and tumbled down the stairs, ending up in the service corridor.

By sheer force of will, he thrust himself to his feet, staggered down the corridor, and dragged himself back around the corner into the basement with the aim of getting back to the broken window he had entered through. A force that seemed to manifest from the ear-shattering drone noise sucked him close to the ground. Tobe had no choice but to crawl the final fifteen feet across the basement floor to the window. He reached up and clutched the windowsill, and began desperately pulling himself up.

He was partway out the window when something grabbed his foot. He cried out and looked over his shoulder. Fuck me! Still alive somehow, the dwarf creature from the floor was clutching tightly to his ankle. Rolling on his side, Tobe kicked out with his other foot, smashing the thing directly in the face. The dwarf creature howled and toppled back into the basement.

Tobe scurried up and out through the window. He landed on the surrounding grass and continued crawling, desperate to get away from the place any way he could. Totally exhausted, he finally flopped over on his back. The renewed sound emanating from Morningside reached an ear-splitting crescendo and Tobe thought he’d pass out or go deaf. But then he spotted a tall figure in a black suit climbing the front steps of the mortuary entrance, dragging a body behind him. It was the unconscious form of his pal Reggie.

Tobe watched the figure disappear with Reggie inside Morningside. Oh shit! As he tried to get to his feet a sudden pulse of electromagnetic energy knocked him back down. Something was happening to the mortuary mansion that was beyond Tobe’s comprehension and the accepted laws of physics. He stared up at the imposing building as its walls turned translucent, and he could see clear through the glowing three-story structure. Then, with a sharp, lightning-like snap, the entire edifice began to dematerialize and slip from view. At the moment of its disappearance, all sound ceased.

For a few moments, Tobe worried he’d been struck deaf after all. But slowly the night sounds returned and he could once again hear the crickets and tree frogs. What the fuck just happened? He clambered to his feet and was stunned to see—nothing. Where once stood the massive Morningside Mortuary mansion, all that remained was an empty rectangular crater, some thirty feet deep. The ground inside seemed molten. Wisps of smoke wafted from the crater. How can this entire place just be gone?

Tobe climbed into his Mazda and started it up. He noticed that Jody’s muscle car was no longer there, though two wide tire tracks were torn through the soft grass of the mortuary lawn. Somebody busted out of here in a real hurry.

As the sun rose in the east, Tobe headed for the highway. His head was filled with so many questions that he now firmly believed could never be answered. He whispered a few words of the “Serenity Prayer,” but then quickly bastardized it.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot understand.”

At first he intended to drive straight to Jody and Mike’s house again and try to get some answers from them, if he could even find them there. If they are still alive. Then he considered heading for the county sheriff’s station. No one will believe me. Letting out a long sigh, he decided to try heading back to his home in Portland one last time.

He turned onto Highway 59 and drove west. Approaching the city limits, he began to hyperventilate. Up ahead, he saw the familiar town exit sign posted on the side of the road leering at him: You Are Leaving the Township of Morningside. Come Back Soon! Tobe took a long, slow breath and accelerated toward Portland. Gripping the steering wheel, he anxiously peered through the windshield but could see no shadows up ahead. He passed the road sign, and this time there was no shimmer; there was nothing, just more road. He motored on through the seemingly endless forest and was certain of one thing—he would never return to his hometown. Morningside was now lost to him. But what about Reggie, Jody, or his brother Mike? Would he ever see them alive again?

One of the most beloved characters in the Phantasm films is Rocky from Phantasm III. Gloria Lynne Henry brought a unique spirit to this role of a recently discharged army vet who is fast with her fists and with her nunchucks. I’ve seen the fan-love for Rocky/Gloria at the horror conventions and it’s a genuine disappointment that we never had the financial support to give her character a stand-alone film of her own.

In writing The Rocky Road, I have attempted to depict the events in this character’s life, which directly precede Phantasm III. Personally, I was always curious about what Rocky had been up to from the time she left the army until she hooked up with Reggie (well, sort of hooked up anyway.) In the years since finishing Phantasm III, I also wondered if I made a mistake in killing off Rocky’s good friend Tanesha, played by the phantastic Sarah Scott Davis. The following story is my opportunity to right that wrong. In any case, I hope you enjoy your journey down “The Rocky Road.”

Piece of crap rental car. She pulled it over to the side of the road, climbed out, and watched with dismay at the gush of white smoke belching from the tailpipe. Her papa always told her, “Black smoke you can fix, but white—she’s gone.” It was probably a cracked head or even a thrown rod, and now coolant was sizzling inside the cylinders. She’d hitchhiked from Fort Hood all the way to Lufkin and then she fell for the sweet green Taurus parked out front of the used car lot. She knew it was from a rental fleet, what with the six-figure mileage, but on the test drive it ran smooth and it just needed to get her the seven hours to Mobile. The $699 sticker price should have scared her off, but with her separation pay burning a hole in her fatigues, the salesman had found his sucker. Now stranded fifty miles from Baton Rouge, she grabbed her duffel bag and out came the thumb.

The white folks all drove past without a look. Having grown up in the Deep South, she was accustomed to their backward ways. Before her enlistment, she had spent a few summers in Detroit, and there, a sharp-lookin’ girl like her with a thumb out would get a ride lickety-split. She felt the rumble of the 1960 Plymouth Fury before she saw it. Behind the wheel was an old codger with trim-cut gray hair in his late seventies.

“Girl, what you doin’ with that thumb hangin’ out on this highway?”

“My car here is eighty-sixed. Could you see fit to give a gal a ride into town, sir?”

“Why that, I can do. Climb yourself on in.”

She tossed her duffel into the back and slid onto the wide vinyl bench seat beside him and closed the door. The Fury rumbled back out onto the highway.

“My given name’s Griffin. What you go by, girl?”

“They call me Rocky.”

“Ahh, the sweet science. Rocky may a won that bout, but the Brown Bomber, he was my kinda style. Joe Louis…had one killer right cross. Hoo-wee!”

“Actually, Mister Griffin, boxin’ ain’t my gig. My guy is Bruce Lee. Know of ’im?”

“That chopsocky guy from the movies? Ha!”

“In the army, I had a sergeant there that schooled me in his discipline. He called it Jeet Kune Do,” Rocky said.

“This Jeet stuff. What’s it all ’bout? Some kinda Ka-Ra-Tay?” Griffin asked.

“Better. So simple. Jus’ three things. Minimum effort. Maximum effect. Lightning speed.”

“Boys’ll be runnin’ from you, girl.” Griffin chuckled.

Rocky smiled.

“Where you headed today?” he asked.

“My hometown, outside of Mobile. My daddy has an auto shop down there. Probably work for him for a while, till I can catch on somewhere else.”

The Fury entered Baton Rouge proper and pulled to a stop in front of the Greyhound Bus depot. Rocky opened her bag and pulled out some items.

“Since you’ve been so nice to me, Mister Griffin, please take these.”

Rocky handed him an envelope and some keys.

“What’s all of this?”

“Keys and title to my car back there. It won’t be drivin’ no more, but it should bring you a couple hundred from the scrapyard, if you got time to fetch it.”

“At my age, I got time.” The old man gave his statement some thought and then continued, “And at the same time, I don’t. But that sure is mighty nice of you, Rocky.”

“You take care of yourself now, sir.”

Rocky slid out of the car, shouldered her bag, and headed into the bus depot.

Rocky dreamed her way through Louisiana. Althea was the one that got away and seemed to haunt Rocky whenever she slept. Al was diminutive and sweet. She had a gymnast’s body, muscular and lean. They’d met in Germany, both serving in the Second Armored Division Forward, Third Brigade Mobile. They were driving supply trucks and both studying tank mechanics on the side. One night on a shuttle van back from a one-way run, they both fell asleep in the back seat and when Rocky awoke, she found Althea’s head cuddled in her lap. Al was mumbling as she slept and looked cute as a kitten. Rocky stroked her hair and fell in love. It quickly became a torrid affair that they were forced to hide from everyone. The law of the land was “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” and to be caught in flagrante delicto in a non-CIS relationship of any kind would be cause for immediate dismissal from the armed services on a dishonorable discharge. This risk just seemed to make the sex more passionate and they fucked just about every place imaginable on the base. Al called Rocky her “sexual napalm,” although Rocky was convinced it was a better nickname for Althea.

Their affair was suddenly interrupted by Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. There were only a few slots open for female soldiers in Operation Desert Storm. Althea was chosen. Rocky was not. It was just the way it worked. Althea immediately ended the romance. Rocky liked to think the reason was that Althea knew she was going into a war zone and wanted to spare her any worry. Once the war was over, she figured they would rekindle things back stateside. But Rocky never would know for sure. On a Monday night in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, an Iraqi Scud made a direct hit on Althea’s barracks. She was killed instantly along with twenty-six of her fellow GIs. Ninety-eight were wounded, some grievously. Rocky found out from the news reports. Not being family, she was forced into a desperate search to find information on Althea’s status, all the while not revealing the true nature of their relationship. Days went by before the death lists were officially published while Rocky maintained a stoic attitude, as if Althea was just another driver on the line who was unfortunate enough to be in harm’s way. But Althea was her world. When she finally received the news, she kept up appearances and simply said, “That’s too bad. She was a nice girl.” Then she retreated to her barracks and crumbled. That shuttle bus ride with Althea sleeping peacefully in her lap, a moment in time so full of love and promise, would become a reminder of a nightmare and torture her for the rest of her days.

The Greyhound bus ran over a pothole on the expressway into Mobile and Rocky awoke from her slumber to find herself alone.

The municipal bus dropped her off on the outskirts of the city in the township of Creola. Her papa had been the proprietor of Eugene’s Auto for the past twenty years, ever since his forward-thinking boss, Mr. Eugene, had retired to Florida and sold the business to him. Rocky had grown up around cars and engines and all things mechanical while working there during summers and weekends. Their family lived a short distance away in the smaller town of Le Moyne.

As Rocky rounded the corner onto Renfro Street, she could see her papa’s place up ahead. She immediately noticed something odd. The Eugene’s Auto sign had been altered, the “E” and “u” blacked out. It now read “Gene’s Auto.” Moving closer, she saw three hulking white men standing around a ’70s Camaro up on jacks. Rocky peered into the garage and saw no one else. The largest of the three, weighing in at over three hundred pounds, eyed her.

“Beat it, bitch. Nothin’ ’round here for you to steal,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m lookin’ for the owner. Name is Rodney. Know him?”

“Rodney’s not here no more. I’m Loy, and I’m the owner now. Rodney moved on, to greener pastures,” he said. His cohorts eyed Rocky and chortled derisively.

“You got a bill of sale or some documentation to prove that?” she asked.

“Who the hell are you anyway?” Loy took a threatening step toward her.

Rocky casually settled into a classic Jeet Kune Do stance, dominant foot turned slightly inward, hands at the ready.

“Take another step closer and I’ll drop you, motherfucker,” she stated calmly.

Loy just looked at her and he and his friends burst into laughter. This was going nowhere, so Rocky decided it was time to leave. She stepped back to the entrance, never once taking her eyes off the hulking men.

Every time Rocky dialed, she got the same recording: “This number is no longer in service and there is no new number. Please check your directory and try again.” Her parents must have moved, but it was the not telling her that bothered her the most. They had vehemently objected to her decision to enlist and it caused a major rift in the family that never healed. The last time they’d spoken was the day she left for boot camp and, to be charitable, it had been a seriously grim conversation. Although she did correspond by mail with her mother for a few months after, over time they both stopped writing. Rocky had to shoulder some of the blame for not taking the time to write.

She pulled some more coins from her pocket and dropped them into the pay phone. There was one person who would know her parents’ whereabouts. The one person in the family who prided herself on knowing everything about everybody.

“Auntie Velinda? It’s Rocky.” She heard a laugh.

“Quonesha baby? Is that you?”

“Yes, Auntie. I’m calling you from Mobile. And I’m tryin’ to find out where my folks have gone to. I didn’t even know they moved.”

“Oh, it’s just a shame. After what happened with your daddy’s business, he really had no choice.”

“Yeah. I met the new owners this morning.”

“Owners? Ha! Thieves be more like it. The fat one came in one day and just said the place was his and that Rodney best be movin’ on. He and his friends gave your daddy a pretty bad beatin’ and when he went to the sheriff, one of his deputies turned out to be the fat man’s uncle. And as they say, that was all she wrote.”

“But Auntie Vel, it’s 1993. This kind of thing can’t be happenin’ anymore.”

“Your mama was terrified that your daddy’d get himself killed by those men. You remember the dark times when you was a little girl?”

Rocky did remember those “dark times.” In 1981, when Rocky was ten years old, Michael Donald, a young man from nearby Lyons Park had been beaten and lynched by three Klan members for no reason other than he was Black. A jury had failed to convict a Black man for a policeman’s death and the Klan members decided that a Black man must die, any Black man. They had cruised around Rocky’s neighborhood until they found Michael, who was simply walking home from his job at the Mobile Press-Register. He was hung by the neck from a tree only four streets over. This fact horrified her mama and was the direct cause of the family relocating to a different neighborhood in Oakdale.

“Yes, Auntie, I remember. But that murderer is now sittin’ on death row, waitin’ for the electric chair. And these crackers will not be stealin’ my daddy’s business.”

“Quonesha, you be careful now. They talk about this bein’ the “New South” and all but there are a lot of “Old South” ways still bein’ practiced. Not all of them white sheets are tucked under bedspreads just yet.”

“Don’t worry, Auntie Vel. I’m gonna go have, as my white girlfriends like to say, ‘a little chat’ with those boys. But I’ll stay out of trouble.”

Before Rocky ended the call, she jotted down the new address and phone number of her parents who Auntie Vel told her had moved out to the township of Chunchula. It was about a half-hour drive north from Mobile. She would need to see if the local bus system went that far or else it would be back to hitchhiking for her. With her remaining coins, she dialed their new number on the pay phone. The phone rang and rang. No answer. Rocky decided to head downtown where she had heard about a nice USO-affiliated hostel. With luck there would be an open bunk for her. She would hold off on the little chat she had intended until tomorrow.

Rocky relaxed with a bottle of Budweiser in the USO lounge. It was almost midnight and there were only a couple of stray GIs using the place, playing video games and watching TV.

“That seat taken?”

Rocky looked up to see an absolutely gorgeous soldier in front of her, stylishly clad in camo fatigues and a tight black sweater.

“It’s all yours, please,” Rocky said.

The girl dropped her duffel and sat down beside Rocky. “Been drivin’ for what seems like a week. Name’s Tanesha.”

“Hey, Tanesha. They call me Rocky. Can I buy you a beer?”

“I thought the beers here were free?”

Rocky smiled demurely.

“That would be nice, actually,” Tanesha whispered.

Rocky stepped over to a nearby cooler and pulled out two icy Buds and a pretzel tray. She returned to her seat and placed them on the table between them. Tanesha took a long pull on her bottle and let out a sigh.

“Thank you, Rocky.”

“You in, or out?” Rocky asked.

“Mustered out yesterday,” Tanesha said between bites of pretzels. “On my way to the West Coast. Oregon, actually.”

“Long drive,” Rocky mused.

“I bought me a car this morning with some of my separation pay.”

“How’s that workin’ out, girl?” Rocky asked.

“Found a nice old lady in the classifieds with a clean, low mileage Honda. It purrs like a kitten.”

“Well, I just didn’t have the patience to shop around and blew my sep at a used car lot outside Lufkin. Didn’t get more than a hundred miles before the damn thing went belly-up.”

Tanesha burst into laughter at Rocky’s story. “Honey, you can’t be jumpin’ at the first pretty thing.”

Rocky smiled. I like this girl.

The two vets walked together arm in arm through the empty Bienville Square. It was a perfect autumn night.

“So what now?” Tanesha asked. “You got a plan?”

“Tomorrow, I need to go talk to somebody in town. After that I intend on going up to Chunchula to visit my folks.”

“How you gonna do that without a car?”

“Just put my thumb out. It’s how I’ve been gettin’ around since I lost my ride. I’ve met some nice people on the road.”

“That shit’s dangerous,” Tanesha remarked.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Rocky, you’re a prideful thing. You know that? Just ’cause you know some of those Bruce Lee moves, don’t mean you should be takin’ risks. Now, how about I pick you up after that meeting and I ferry you up to Chunchula in the luxury of my nice new Honda?”

“Girl, I was hopin’ you’d ask.”

Tanesha giggled, reached over, and pulled Rocky’s face in close. “You just should have asked me. But you are so damn prideful. And that’s what I like about you.”

Tanesha put her lips to Rocky’s and they kissed.

“Sir, I don’t believe you are the rightful owner of this here establishment,” Rocky said evenly.

Loy spun around from the workbench in surprise to find Rocky standing in the garage behind him, a pair of nunchucks held casually in her hand.

“Baby, I don’t give a good shit what you believe. An’ if you think you’re gonna scare me with a couple of those chainsticks—”

Rocky cut him off. “I wanna see that bill of sale with my daddy’s signature on it. You got that and I’ll leave here in peace. But I honestly don’t think you do.”

Before Loy could reply, two massive arms grabbed Rocky from behind and her nunchucks fell to the floor with a clatter. I figured you big boys would show up eventually.

“So you’re his daughter,” Loy mused. “That boy’s long gone. We done run your daddy off well over a year ago. An’ he left all of this for me, Jeter, and Corndog over there.” Loy laughed as Jeter moved up out the darkness of the office. “I dunno, Jeter. What’re we gonna do with her?”

“I’m afraid you got it all wrong, sir,” Rocky said as Jeter tightened his grip on her. “You won’t be the one doin’. That would be me.”

It didn’t even require any Jeet Kune Do at first. Rocky just used the simple stuff she learned in gym class back in high school. Stomp. Jab. Punch. She brought her bootheel down hard on the arch of Jeter’s foot. The big man screamed in pain as she let her right elbow fly to jab into his ribs. A resounding crack echoed through the garage and she was sure she’d broken one or two of them. As Jeter keeled over, she finished him off with a swift right uppercut and the punch landed square on his jaw. Jeter hit the shop floor like a heavy sandbag. Before the stunned Loy could move, Rocky pounced on her nunchucks. She leaped to her feet with the sticks already spinning through the air and let out a howl in her best imitation Bruce Lee, landing in a perfect, balanced fighting stance.

Loy stood there speechless. Corndog, like all cowards, turned and ran out the garage door. Loy decided to take the offense. He grabbed a sledgehammer off the tool rack and swung at Rocky. She dodged the blow, but the iron sledge came within an inch of her skull. As she came back up, Rocky unleashed her nunchucks and cracked Loy in the shins. The big man lost his footing and careened into a stack of steel oil drums. Rocky spun and as Loy clambered to his feet, she unleashed the coup de grace. The nunchucks snapped upward and with a sharp crack scored a direct hit between Loy’s legs. He let out a shriek and fell flat on his face. With both large men helpless on the ground, Rocky stalked toward the prone Loy, raised her nunchucks, and prepared to bash his skull in.

“Uh, Rocky?”

Rocky froze and looked over to find Tanesha waiting casually in the garage doorway.

“Girlfriend, isn’t it about time for us to take that drive?” Tanesha asked quietly.

Rocky looked back down at the defenseless Loy on the floor, took a deep breath, and relented. Slowly, she turned and walked toward her new friend.

“One of ’em got away,” Rocky muttered.

“No, he didn’t,” Tanesha replied.

As Rocky exited the garage, she spotted Corndog. The bulky brute was facedown on the sidewalk, unconscious, pants pulled down around his ankles. Tanesha opened the door to her new Honda.

“You’re not the only one around here who learned skills in the army, darlin’.” Tanesha winked.

Rocky let out a chuckle, climbed into the car, and they drove off.

“I think you may want to steer clear of Mobile for a while.” Tanesha laughed.

“When I find my daddy, we’ll decide how to handle it from here on,” Rocky replied.

The Honda hummed along US Route 45.

“I just don’t get why still nobody answers at their house,” Rocky pondered.

“Maybe your auntie got the number wrong,” Tanesha replied. “I’m sure they’re fine and they’ll be happy to see their new army vet struttin’ up with her brand-new girlfriend.”

“Oh, is that what you are now?”

“Mm-hmm,” Tanesha said with a tease.

“I’m glad about that,” Rocky said but then turned reflective. “But we’ll have to keep it all on the down low. My folks haven’t been enlightened to modern ways.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, baby. That’s always the drill,” Tanesha said ruefully.

As the Honda cruised through the outskirts of Chunchula, they could tell something was definitely not right. The streets were empty and there was no one around. Stores were closed, trash lay on the sidewalks, and the only sign of life was a single, skittish stray dog that darted away when it spotted them. As they turned onto Main Street, they found a car rolled up on its side, abandoned right in the middle of the street where it had crashed.

“This whole town looks like it was eighty-sixed,” Rocky said. Tanesha just nodded.

When they arrived at her parents’ house, Rocky could tell things were seriously wrong. The front door stood wide open, there was no car in the driveway, and the nearest neighbor’s house looked abandoned too. She stuck her nunchucks in her belt as she approached the house. Tanesha followed cautiously behind. Inside, they found the house empty. Rocky saw photos of her family on the walls, so she knew she was in the right place. Nothing appeared to be stolen; it was as if the residents had simply walked away from the house.

They returned to the front yard and Rocky looked up and down the street. No one.

“This is so fucked up,” Tanesha murmured.

“Girl, on that we agree. My mama would have never left those photos on the wall willingly.”

“Maybe we call the state police or county sheriff or somebody like that?” Tanesha asked.

“Can’t trust them for nuthin’,” Rocky said. “We’ll just have to figure this out on our own.”

“Where do we start then?”

Rocky walked back to the porch and closed and locked the front door.

“Where folks always go during a disaster. Hospitals and mortuaries.”

It was late afternoon when they arrived at the Chunchula Community Hospital, yet there was nothing for them there. The small facility was boarded up and abandoned. It looked like there had been a fire and one entire wing was a smoldering wreck.

The sun was setting as they headed up the highway toward the outskirts of the town. They saw no traffic whatsoever. Tanesha could tell that Rocky’s anxiety about her family was growing with each passing minute.

“Baby, just ’cause they’re missing, doesn’t mean they’ve met harm,” Tanesha said in as soothing a voice as she could muster.

“I’m pretty sure the reason they moved to this damn town was because my great-grandparents are buried here. I just want to make sure that now nobody else from my family is.”

They drove through the gates of the Chunchula Hills Memorial Cemetery and parked outside the mortuary building in the empty parking lot. Rocky and Tanesha exited the car and scanned their desolate surroundings.

“Feels like we’re walkin’ into Night of the Living Dead world,” Rocky muttered.

Tanesha reached into her rucksack, grabbed something, and tossed the bag back into the car. Rocky watched as Tanesha slid a Beretta M9 army-issue pistol into her waistband and pocketed two spare clips of 9mm ammunition. Tanesha smiled.

“Just in case we run into any vertical corpses we want to put horizontal again. Remember, headshots only.”

Rocky chuckled as they moved cautiously toward the Chunchula mortuary building. As they entered, they found themselves inside a massive mausoleum corridor. The sound of their footsteps echoed off the imposing gray marble walls. They passed hundreds of crypts lining the corridor. When they rounded a corner, Rocky found what she was looking for. The crypt marker read:

James Bradley (1891–1938) & Janice Bradley (1890 –1943) One with God.

Her great-grandparents’ crypt was centered halfway up the marble wall, and there were still several unmarked empty crypts on each side.

“My mama told me that my great-grandma personally selected this location so her crypt would be at her grandkids’ eye level when they came to visit,” Rocky said.

“There’s no sign of any recent internment of any other relatives,” Tanesha remarked while scanning the desolate corridor. “The adjoining crypts are blank.”

“Not much comfort.” Rocky sighed. “But I got what I wanted, so we’re now done searchin’ this place. Time to get the fuck outta here.”

Tanesha nodded in agreement and the two women turned and moved back in the direction they’d come from. As they rounded the mausoleum corner, they heard a scratching sound up ahead. When they moved nearer, it seemed the sound was emanating from behind a crypt door. The noise stopped. Rocky looked quizzically at Tanesha then tapped lightly on the marble with her nunchucks. The scratching sound resumed with more urgency.

“Freaky. Sounds like something’s in there. Maybe a rat…or a cat?” Rocky asked.

“That’s the magic word, baby. I’m a cat lover, so if a little one is trapped in there, we gotta let her out,” Tanesha said.

“How we gonna do that? That marble slab looks heavy.”

Tanesha sauntered over to the flower alcove and came back with what looked like a short, flat shovel.

“We use this. I saw somebody use one at my auntie’s funeral,” Tanesha replied. She jammed the blade of the shovel into the crypt wall gap and pried open the door. Dropping the shovel, she grabbed the heavy marble slab and lowered it carefully to the floor. The crypt was dark and appeared empty.

To be sure, Tanesha leaned into the darkness and called out, “Come on out, kitty.”

A low, guttural growl emanated from the darkness of the open crypt.

“What the hell?”

Tanesha suddenly shrieked and jumped backward as a robed, hunched creature shot out of the crypt. A fury of slashing claws and flailing short limbs smashed into her, knocking her backward and slamming her into the opposing marble wall. More of the snarling creatures scrambled out of the crypt and into the mausoleum.

Rocky leaped to her aid and dragged Tanesha to her feet. They turned to find themselves facing four hunchback dwarf creatures clad in brown robes and growling malevolently. A shaft of light illuminated one of the creatures’ misshapen and monstrous faces. Tanesha recoiled in horror.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “Just what the hell do we do here, Rocky?”

The snarling creatures were agitated and started scuttling toward them.

“Run!” Rocky yelled.

The two women sprinted in the opposite direction. The rabid creatures charged after them. The twosome hurtled around a corner and skidded to a stop. It was a dead end in the mausoleum.

“Fuck!” Rocky gasped.

“Now what?” Tanesha cried. The snarling beasts rounded the corner, coming at them fast.

“We stand and fight,” Rocky growled. “It’s killin’ time.”

Her nunchucks were out and whooshing through the air in an instant. She rained down a series of furious blows on the nearest creature, smashing her sticks into its brown-hooded head again and again, pummeling it to the floor. Another robed creature grabbed hold of Rocky’s nunchucks and ripped them from her grasp. Leaping onto her back, the thing sank its sharp teeth into her shoulder. Rocky grunted in pain. Her pit fighter instincts kicked in and she rammed herself backward into the marble wall. She could feel the thing’s rib cage crack on impact, so she grabbed it by the robe, tore it off her back, and hurled the creature to the floor. Rocky wound up and stomped on its face with her bootheel for good measure until the thing’s skull cracked like an egg.

Hearing a yell, she spun around to find Tanesha under siege by two of the creatures and being dragged around the corner. Rocky scooped up her nunchucks and made chase. She hurtled around the corner to find the screaming Tanesha being dragged into an open crypt. With a forward dive she grabbed Tanesha by her boot. She spun on the slick floor, jammed her feet into the wall, and using her powerful leg muscles, pried Tanesha loose. Rocky sprang to her feet and artfully clubbed the nearest remaining dwarf creature with her nunchucks. She then launched a series of rapid-fire hook kicks directly into the head of the other one. The balletic and savage onslaught caused both creatures to recoil off Tanesha.

As she regained her balance and got to her feet, Tanesha gasped.

“Behind you!”

Rocky turned to see two more of the dwarf creatures charging at her. She was out of options and would have to fight them with her fists. She dropped into her Jeet Kune Do fighter’s stance, but before she could attempt to mount any defense, two sharp explosions went off behind her head. The impact of the two headshots drilled through the two creatures, blasting them backward. They were dead as they hit the floor. Another sharp explosion went off and the last of the small, heavy bodies crashed to the marble.

Rocky let out a sigh of relief, looked over and there was Tanesha, striking a pose, Beretta in hand, gun smoke swirling up around her. A warm feeling washed over her and Rocky couldn’t help but smile. If it was legal in this country, baby, I’d marry you this instant.

The Honda pulled up and turned off the county road and headed out onto the highway in the opposite direction of Chunchula.

“I think I’m done with Alabama. My family’s gone. Their whole damn town’s gone. And the weird shit we’ve seen…” The rest of what Rocky said was just a bunch of curses under her breath.

“I’m so sorry for you, Rocky,” Tanesha said. She reached over and draped her arm lovingly around Rocky’s shoulders. “But baby, there’s something I haven’t told you about. My family comes from a small town as well, a lot like this one. And I’ve been calling them for the past month and nobody picks up the phone there either. I’m worried.”

Rocky took a deep breath.

“Well then, that’s our next stop. Where is your hometown, Tanesha?

“Oregon, Eastern Oregon. The town, they live just outside it. They call it Holtsville.”

As the Honda hummed west down the interstate, Rocky slumped back into the passenger seat and stared out at the passing scenery. It was almost sunrise and an unearthly glow was beginning to filter through the treetops. Rocky’s thoughts drifted to Althea, and then to her parents. When she turned to Tanesha, who was at the wheel, Tanesha looked over and flashed her the sweetest little smile. Rocky turned her gaze back to the windshield and out to the forest of Alabama pines surrounding the road. Funny how this life can sometimes be bad and good at the same time. I think I could go the distance with this girl. Maybe, just maybe, good things are waiting for us on the horizon.

A few years back, the talented director David Hartman and I had a terrific experience collaborating on the screenplay for the final film in the series, Phantasm Ravager. During the writing period, Dave introduced me to a New York actor who was a good friend of his brother-in-law and we decided to craft a role specifically for him in the film. The actor was Stephen Jutras and the role we created for him was called “Chunk.” This character was a tough hombre, loyal and fearless. Under Dave’s steady direction, Stephen played him to perfection. We set Chunk up as a foil for Reggie and the two of them had several great scenes together. Even though he was half Reggie’s size, Stephen would frequently go toe-to-toe with Reg and give him no quarter. During the takes, Dave and I would struggle to keep from busting out laughing while we watched these two talented actors at work.

As I witnessed the character of Chunk evolve and came to learn what a kind, decent, and resilient chap Stephen was, I definitely wanted to see more of him in the Phantasm world. Sometimes when Dave and I would fantasize and spitball up storylines for a possible sixth Phantasm, in my mind I’d fuse Stephen together with his character Chunk. It seemed to me that a great way to start that sequel would be with a flashback of Stephen as Chunk, trapped in a post-apocalyptic New York City after the horrors of the Tall Man’s initial invasion. I thought it would be fascinating to see how Chunk might escape that predicament and how his badass persona was forged. Unfortunately, with the passing of our dear Tall Man, Angus Scrimm, it became apparent that further sequels were not in the cards and, alas, this NYC scenario went into the scrap heap. That is, until Phiction came along. What you have before you is an expansive version of that storyline, which I would have loved to see in a Phantasm film.

1

As an adult, he stood just three foot eleven inches in his stocking feet. People had always underestimated him due to his short stature. And he always enjoyed proving them wrong. When he was a child, his parents had been loving and supportive as best they could. Achondroplastic dwarfism was a challenging condition, but they created a warm and nurturing household where he always felt safe. Outside was another story. Most of the adults he came across were generally kind and helpful. It was the children who could be the true savages.

He learned early. For his sixth birthday, his parents had given him a red wagon, a Radio Flyer. He loved that wagon. He used to pull it all over the neighborhood, helping neighbors to bring in their groceries and carting out their trash. Despite his diminutive size, he was still a physical kid. Like a daredevil, he would drag that Radio Flyer all the way up Airplane Hill, climb in, and race it all the way to the bottom. But on one blustery Wednesday afternoon, everything changed. It started with the taunts. His parents had taught him early on about the sticks and stones stuff, so that didn’t worry him much. It was when a classmate’s teenage brother and a couple of his friends joined in that things quickly went south. The older boys grabbed him and despite his struggles, they tore his shirt off and ripped his pants down. Then they forced him down into the Radio Flyer and paraded down Market Street for everybody in town to gawk at.

It took five years, but he got his pound of flesh. He knew those bad kids always hung out at Mr. J’s across from the high school on Friday nights. He talked his pop into taking him there one Friday night for a burger. He was a voracious reader and lately he’d been reading a lot of books on illusion, magic, and sleight of hand. He really enjoyed the parts about misdirection and how top magicians always got you to look in the direction they wanted you to. As he walked by the group of teenagers who were sitting inside showing off for some girls, he happened to “accidentally” spill his chocolate shake onto their table. They jumped out of the way and cursed at him.

“Fuckin’ piece of shit,” said the one who had ripped his shirt off.

But he didn’t care. The deed had already been done. Two doses of his grandma’s industrial-strength laxative had been slipped into two of the worst offenders’ chocolate shakes. It was a perfect misdirect.

He picked just the right table to observe from and enjoyed a leisurely dinner with his oblivious pop and waited. A half an hour later the fireworks began, and it was better than he could have ever hoped for. His nemesis suddenly let out a loud grease fart and keeled over in pain and shit his pants right there in the burger restaurant. Aghast, the kid’s friends jumped back from their table. The girls they were with were horrified. The other victim tried to make a run for the bathroom, but he never made it. Shakespeare was absolutely right. Revenge was a dish best served up cold, even if it was delivered in a fuckin’ milk shake.

At his sixth-grade parent-teacher conference, his imperious elementary school teacher, Mrs. Kelly, accused him of having both a bad attitude and a huge chip on his shoulder.

“Well, whaddya expect?” Pop shot back. His dad always defended him, no matter who the challenger was, and he always loved him for it. But it was true. He did have a bad attitude, and a big chip on his shoulder, and that chip made him who he was.

He had been working in the city for five years. He liked his job and he had made a lot of friends there. They nicknamed him “Chunk” because at the interoffice picnics, no one could stop him in the touch football games. His low center of gravity and muscular build made him virtually unstoppable. The nickname stuck.

On a beautiful day in autumn, Chunk was staring out the window of his office tower at the fall-colored leaves on the trees in Central Park. He was reminiscing about that fateful weekend last year when he and his girlfriend Sarah had driven upstate for her to introduce him to her parents. Sarah was the real thing and this trip felt like a genuine breakthrough for him. They had dated for two years until he made that fatal mistake. While strolling through Sarah’s hometown, Chunk spontaneously asked her to marry him. She thought about it for three long days before giving him her answer. At least she was honest. Sarah said she could not imagine spending her life with someone afflicted with dwarfism. When she had the nerve to blurt out, “My mom, Cora, agrees with me,” Chunk let the chip on his shoulder do the talking.

“Now why would I give a flying fuck what that old bitch thinks?” That was a year ago—the last time he’d spoken with Sarah.

2

Chunk woke up to a cold wind whipping through his apartment. As he roused himself and rolled to his feet, he lost his balance and almost fell back into bed. Damn that was one nasty virus. Still shivering, he grabbed his black hoodie and slipped it over his head. He lived on the twelfth floor and had been holed up in his apartment there for almost four weeks.

The first week was the worst. On the street they called it the “bag plague.” It had efficiently and ruthlessly swept across the continent and things changed forever. The virus had a fatality rate of over 98 percent. As many as 10 percent of the infected transformed into raving lunatics as their heads swelled. These were the super-spreaders. Eventually so much infection and pus migrated to the cranium that it finally popped. And when that happened, you sure as shootin’ did not want to be within the popper radius, which was generally considered to be about ten feet. Otherwise, you were guaranteed to be infected.

Hospitals and stores had been overrun and the dying and their caretakers had no choice but to hole up inside their homes. That’s when it got bad. All city services ceased and there were no coroners or morticians working. In his building, they were overwhelmed with corpses and decided to store all the dead on floor eight. They had put so many in there that the stench was overwhelming, making it impossible to stop the elevator on that floor anymore. The infected “poppers” were dealt with differently. They were just hurled out the windows from the upper floors to land with an explosive splat on the street below.

Chunk cautiously stepped out into his living room and his worst fears were confirmed. His last two friends in the world, Teddy and Maxie, were both dead. They had been waiting it out in a self-imposed quarantine together, hoping the plague would soon subside. But they all took ill. Well, so much for being the best man at their wedding in the spring. Now they were both cold meat on the floor and he was the only one left standing. At least they hadn’t turned into poppers. He could now officially be considered one of the lucky 2 percent who would survive the virus. But maybe it was not so lucky, he thought ruefully.

Chunk stepped over the bodies and moved to the broken window. The cool breeze wafted through the broken glass. Looking down through the bashed-out window, he could see the impact splat marks on 103rd Street, twelve floors below, from the neighbors-turned-swollens they had hurled out three days earlier. Who would’ve ever thought an alien virus could bring North America, and New York City in particular, to its knees?

In the distance, Chunk could see one of the “Orbitals” doing mop-up duty. It was a textbook invasion strategy. First, soften up the opposition by unleashing a widespread and virulent infection and then, mop up afterward with the big guns. Watching the Orbital was mesmerizing. It was an immense, mirrored chrome sphere, a football field in diameter, hovering over the cityscape and utilizing a red laser of god-knows-how-much power to methodically incinerate skyscraper after skyscraper. In the few minutes he stood there, he watched two major building complexes reduced to cinders.

If only for the smell, it was time to get out of the city. Doing some rough math, Chunk figured that upward of six million rotting dead would be putrefying in the metropolitan area within a couple more days. With only a vague plan to try to make his way upstate toward where he had last heard from Sarah, Chunk started getting his gear together.

Maxie had meticulously packed up two backpacks full of supplies for Teddy and her; they would not be needing them now. Chunk rifled through their stuff and cobbled together a pretty comprehensive kit for himself. Because Maxie had been a dynamite baker, he grabbed a couple of bags of her best chocolate-walnut brownies and Tollhouse cookies. He also made sure to include Teddy’s Buck knife and the 9mm Glock his pop had given him when he moved to the city.

His plan was to travel at night and keep to the shadows. He just needed to find a way off this damn island.

The dead were sprawled everywhere, but thankfully the streets were deserted of anything living. It was a moonless night and Chunk hustled through East Harlem, along 103rd Street, toward Central Park. He just needed to steer clear of any live swollens. Once in the park, he stayed off the streets and trails and bushwhacked it toward downtown. He was hoofing it through the Arthur Ross Pinetum, which was basically a small stand of pine trees, when he came face-to-face with a live one. The poor bastard was ready to pop and was sprawled against a tree trunk gasping for breath. The virus had bloomed inside his cranium, swelling his head to fully twice its usual size. He looked like a human pumpkin, with his eyes leaking blood.

“Help me,” the thing gasped.

Chunk had heard that this stage of the plague was stunningly painful. The worst part was that once a popper went off, its skull, brain matter, and everything else above its neck exploded into a fine mist of gore and goo. Even if you had antibodies to the underlying disease, if you were within popper radius your probability of infection was astronomical.. You sure as heck couldn’t shoot them, they’d pop off then, for sure. So what did Chunk do? He ran. Like hell.

He exited the park at 82nd Street and moved quickly west. Within a few minutes he could see the Hudson River and his destination, the 79th Street Boat Basin. He had decided to avoid the tunnels. The Holland and Lincoln were probably jammed with cars, dead drivers, and a few live poppers. No way was he getting trapped down there. The bridges would most certainly have similar issues. Now he just needed to find a boat.

The marina was devoid of people, so Chunk quickly scouted out the gangplanks. He spotted a suitable candidate right next to the crane lift. It appeared as if somebody was planning a day trip just as the pandemic struck and hadn’t gotten their Cobalt 23 off the trailer and into the water. If Chunk could get the crane working, this boat would be perfect. He managed to single-handedly maneuver the lift straps around the hull, then grabbed the crane control. After pushing the Lift button, he sighed audibly, relieved as the boat moved skyward. Once the boat was in the air, he muscled the crane out over the water and lowered it. As it hit the water, he dropped the straps, heaved his gear in, and jumped aboard. His face lit up when he realized the Cobalt was equipped with a 454 big-block MerCruiser engine. He checked the vitals—gas was full and coolant, oil, and other fluids were good. Chunk flipped on the bilge fans and was about to crank it over when he heard something on the dock behind him and spun around.

“Let’s just keep it casual there, little man.” Chunk froze. The figure in the darkness was aiming the barrel of an assault rifle at him. “Why don’t you come on up out of there, real slow.” With few options, Chunk pulled himself out of the boat and up onto the dock. He kept his eye on the rifle, all the while thinking about Pop’s 9mm pistol which was shoved into his waistband. Chunk’s shoulder chip was fully awake now and was starting to talk to him. If I make it through this next minute, I’m gonna find a way to fuck you up, brother.

“Take the boat, man. It’s all yours,” Chunk said evenly. He could feel the wind of the two-by-four before it hit him. Bam! He was down on his face. Chunk groaned as hands roughly searched him and ripped the gun out of his waistband. He pulled himself up into a crouch and saw four more figures. The Old Man had Chunk’s own gun aimed at him and between him and Assault Rifle Guy were three children tied up together like fish on a string.

“So you survived the virus, too?” AR Guy asked with no apparent interest in hearing an answer. One of the kids whimpered. Chunk noticed they were dirty, shell-shocked, and obviously terrified.

“Those your kids?” Chunk asked.

“They are now,” the Old Man replied. “Maybe good for some barter, maybe for some fun.”

“Look,” Chunk said. “How about we make a trade. I’ve got some nice stuff down in the boat…gear, food, even some fuckin’ killer walnut brownies. You take it all…my stuff, the boat, my gun, and you just let me and those kids walk away.”

The two men looked at each other, then down at the smaller man. AR Guy shrugged. “So what’re you thinkin’?”

“Tryin’ to figure if we need to add a midget to our little circus,” the Old Man said. After a moment of thought, the Old Man cocked the 9mm and approached Chunk, pointing the gun directly at his forehead.

“I don’t think we do.”

When Chunk left for college, his pop had a going-away present for him. Pop took great delight in telling his son that success in life was all based on confidence and advantage. And he reminded him that success did not come from using that advantage, but in the confidence of having it. Chunk had opened the box and saw that the going-away present from his pop was a belt with a black buckle. And contained in that buckle was a three-inch push dagger, always at the ready whenever he wore that belt. Pop told him that he might never need the weapon, but it would always be there, a nice source of confidence. Chunk had never had cause to use the push dagger, but his chip told him now might be the best time to make use of Pop’s gift.

Chunk’s hand flew to his belt. The push dagger was out and in his palm. An instant later it was impaled in the Old Man’s chest, one inch to the left of his sternum, directly into the left ventricle of his heart. Chunk’s powerful legs drove forward, pushing the Old Man into AR Guy, who lost his footing. His assault rifle fired a burst of gunfire, and one of the rounds pierced the Old Man’s shoulder and subsequently grazed Chunk’s temple. Chunk landed on top of the Old Man’s corpse and they both landed on AR Guy. Thank you, Pop!

The three kids, still tied together, fell to the ground alongside them. Chunk struggled to grab AR Guy by the neck, but his wiry adversary eluded his grasp and managed to pull his assault rifle out of the dogpile and once again aimed it toward him. The kids screamed as AR Guy squeezed off another burst, but Chunk grabbed the barrel and shoved it away from all of them. AR Guy yanked it back around then stopped. With his other hand, Chunk had the push dagger pressed directly into AR Guy’s ear.

“Stop,” Chunk whispered. AR Guy froze and let go of the gun. Chunk looked to the three terrified kids on the ground beside him. “Hey, kids.” Chunk gulped in some air. “You’re not gonna believe this, but out there in the water, I just saw a whale. Do you see it?” As the kids’ eyes snapped in unison out to the Hudson, Chunk deftly shoved the dagger deep into AR Guy’s ear canal. With a soft gasp, AR Guy went limp. Chunk sprang to his feet, shoving the Old Man’s body over in the process and covering AR Guy’s dead face.

Chunk lifted the kids up and, as he sawed through their bonds with his dagger, he casually examined them. There were two boys and a younger blond girl, none older than eleven.

“Did you see the whale?” he asked.

“I didn’t,” one of the boys said.

“I saw something,” the small blond girl answered.

“Any of you guys still got family around here?” Chunk asked.

The three kids somberly shook their heads. Chunk was thoughtful for a long moment. “Yeah, me neither. Wanna go on a boat ride?”

3

The Cobalt was a bowrider and every time the boat launched off a swell, the kids seated up front laughed with glee. The powerful boat had reached planing speed and they raced north up the empty Hudson, doing almost forty knots. Because Chunk had no idea if any of the kids could swim, he had clad them all in bright orange life jackets. He figured that once they rounded West Point, somewhere up there he’d find a spot to beach the boat and head upstate. But these kids complicated things. He had no clue what he would do with them.

The sun was rising as they made landing at a small boat dock just east of Marlboro. He instructed the kids to wait in the boat while he scoped it out. A few viral corpses lay scattered around the boatyard, but there were no apparent threats. He could not find a working car in the marina parking lot, so they were going to have to hoof it.

It was a beautiful morning as they hiked up the tree-lined Dock Road. He sensed that the kids enjoyed being out of the city and this new adventure took their minds off their recent trauma. Chunk always had an easy way with younger kids, probably because he was about their size. He figured they could relate better to an adult who could look them directly in the eye without having to stoop down.

None of the kids seemed to be related or to know one another prior to being “collected” by the Old Man. Eve seemed the most fragile of the three. It took some prying, but Chunk managed to get her talking and she told him that she had lived with her single mother in a walk-up off Canal Street. She had cared for her mom during her illness up until she died. Eve wouldn’t talk about what came after that, but Chunk surmised it had not been nice.

The two boys were harder to read but as they walked, the kids opened up. Malik came from a big family and when his mom, who had diabetes, passed, his older brothers took charge. When they took ill, it was up to Malik to care for the baby. A week prior, much like Chunk, he’d awakened to find everyone in their apartment dead.

Marco’s recent experience was more violent. He was a scrappy, mature-for-his-age kid and had been on his own, orphaned for the past two weeks. He had removed his parents’ virus-ravaged bodies from their apartment in Brooklyn, but then his building had taken a glancing blow from an Orbital and collapsed. Marco had been trapped under six floors of concrete and steel with no one to help him. It had taken him two full days of digging with his hands to finally squirm his way out.

They rounded the bend and reached the empty town of Marlboro. It was a one-horse affair: a main drag and that was it.

“You guys hungry?” Chunk asked. He was surprised by the chorus of affirmatives. “Well, then let’s get some breakfast.” Chunk headed for the only diner in Marlboro, the Town House Cafe. The front door was hanging open and he gestured for the kids to wait outside. Keeping his hand on the 9mm, he cautiously entered and was relieved to see there were no customers, living or dead, in the place. Following a hunch, he went into the small back kitchen and found the fry cook’s corpse slumped on the wooden slat floor. Doing his best to stay clean, Chunk grabbed the cook by the collar and dragged him out the back door. He slammed the door shut and locked it with the dead bolt. On his way back up front, he stopped in the walk-in refrigerator and found the compressor still humming nicely. Inside it was still cold with lots of food on the shelves.

“Come on in!” Chunk called to the kids. “Anybody like pancakes? I’m gonna cook you guys one big-ass breakfast.”

Eve ate a normal portion but each of the boys polished off eight thick flapjacks with gusto. Chunk made it to seven himself, all slathered in genuine Vermont amber maple syrup. The kids also went through a half gallon of Florida orange juice before they were done.

“So, here’s what I’m thinkin’, guys,” Chunk said as he dropped his apron and sat down beside them at the counter. “I’m headed north, upstate to visit my old girlfriend Sarah’s home. Her parents have a little farm up there.” The kids sat there quietly. Chunk started to riff. “They’ve got chickens and horses and I think even a tractor. You guys like horses?”

“I’ve never even seen a horse. Well, not in person anyways,” Malik replied.

“I rode one once,” Eve chimed in. “I love horses.”

“Horses are cool,” Marco said. He nudged Malik. “I can show you how to ride one.”

Malik brightened at not being left out. Chunk got serious.

“I want you guys to wait here for a few minutes. We’re gonna need some wheels to get up to Sarah’s place,” Chunk said. “Eve, I want you to stay here at the counter. Malik and Marco, I want you both to be my lookouts. Stay low and to the side of the curtains on either side. Marco, you look thatta way, and Malik, you look the other. You see anybody comin’, and I mean anybody, you grab Eve and you all hole up in the back room until I come back. Got it?”

As Chunk carefully exited the Town House, all he could think of was how trusting these kids were. He hadn’t known them for twenty-four hours yet and they were putting their full faith in him. Hell, he could take off north and abandon them and they would still be waiting in that pitiful diner for him to return. He felt a twinge of guilt that so much responsibility could fall into such flawed hands—his hands. But then he heard a whisper from the chip on his shoulder. Anybody fucks with me or those kids…dies.

There was a small used car lot at the end of the main drag and that’s where he found it. Chunk kicked in the flimsy office door and found the key safe. Hanging inside were the keys with a tag that read “2015 SRT Hellcat, lo-miles, one-owner, $42K.” The car was sitting on the lot, clad in a gorgeous B5 Blue Pearl paint job.

“I’ll take it,” Chunk muttered. After he pulled his pedal extenders out of his rucksack, he installed them on the brake and throttle, respectively. The car started right up, and the Apache engine purred nicely. There’s nothin’ like American muscle. He threw the car in gear and burned rubber all the way off the lot.

Directly beside the on-ramp to the main highway out of town was a small general store with a sign that advertised hardware and sporting goods. Chunk made a decision, skidded the car to a stop, and went inside to grab a few things.

He packed the trunk by category: food and water on the left, ammo and guns on the floor, medical, tent, and sleeping bags in the center, and automotive supplies including a couple jerry cans of gas on the right. With his new “purchases” they could travel the back roads, self-contained for a long while without replenishment. As he climbed back in the car, he gave the highway on-ramp one last wistful look and turned the car back toward the diner to collect the kids.

4

The Hellcat flew up the interstate. Chunk wanted to take the side roads but the longer he could stay on this highway, the shorter the drive would be. It was an equation of speed against danger. About twenty miles back, he was convinced someone had taken a couple of potshots at them, although the damage to the car could also have been caused by a piece of flying gravel. The turnpike was empty. Once in a while they would see a car on the side of the road with virus-dead drivers, but otherwise, it was deserted. Chunk decided to get off the interstate and make the rest of the trip along the back roads.

They were headed toward Wevertown, which was about a half hour southwest of Lake George. They would need to give Schenectady a wide berth and that would pretty much double their travel time. The kids were doing well; Malik and Marco were asleep in the back seat and Eve was staring blankly out the window of the passenger seat. Chunk had no idea what Sarah would say, if she were even alive, when they arrived. Dropping in unannounced would be rough. Their breakup had been bad, real bad. But he needed to face the fact that he had never really gotten over her. And what was the worst that could happen? Either Sarah had perished with the virus, and that would be good—but sad—closure for him, or she could be alive with a new boyfriend (or husband, god forbid!) and that would be a satisfactory ending also. He could deal with both of those outcomes. Heck, there was even that slim chance she might be there alone and thrilled to see him and they could start over. Or…her mother could be there waiting for him. That would definitely be the worst option of all. That woman had never liked him and had actively poisoned the mind of her daughter against him. Well, the good news was that all this old girlfriend baggage rumbling about his mind gave him something to ponder amid all the death and destruction around them.

“Mr. Chunk?” Eve asked softly.

“It’s just Chunk, honey. You and me, we’re friends now.”

“I’ve been wondering about those big silver balls in the sky that destroy things.”

“Well, the scientists called ’em Orbitals. I’ve been thinking about ’em, too. The good thing is that from what I’ve been able to find out, they’ve only been seen around the big cities. They’re pretty good at wiping out tall buildings downtown, but I don’t think we need to worry about ’em out here.” Eve took this in and stared out the car window at the passing forest. “What I could use some help with is the deer. Could you keep a lookout and let me know if you see any up ahead? I just don’t want to hit one, and the forests around here are full of ’em.”

“Sure,” Eve said and turned her attention to the front window.

The detour around Schenectady was uneventful. Chunk made one pit stop at a roadside gas station to refill and let the kids stretch and use the facilities. Thank god the power was still on, so the gas pumps were still working. There would probably be a time in the near future when the power went out, so he needed to be ready to siphon gas from other cars if that happened. The adjoining convenience store was untouched, with the appliances still running. He treated the kids to some ice-cream drumsticks and even let the boys have a second one when they asked.

They arrived late in the vicinity of Lake George, so rather than head straight for Sarah’s home, Chunk thought it prudent to make camp for the night and face up to that in the morning. He had been to the Rancho Pines Campground as a boy and loved it up there. As expected, the place was deserted, and Chunk pulled the Hellcat into a nice, secluded campsite and pitched their tent. The boys found some firewood and Chunk built a firepit. He sprinkled a few drops of gasoline on the wood, flipped open his Zippo lighter, and ignited it. Pretty soon they had a roaring campfire going. As the kids roasted hot dogs on sticks in the fire, Chunk carefully broached a subject that needed discussing.

“You know, from time to time we might run into some sketchy characters out here,” he gently opened.

“Like the bad men?” Eve asked.

“I don’t think we’ll see anybody as bad as them—maybe just some untrustworthy types we might want to steer clear of. Now in case we ever do, there’s a way we deal with them, as a team. Right?”

“We are kind of like a team now, aren’t we?” Marco asked. Malik and Eve nodded in agreement.

“Yes, we are. We’re the good guys. Now do any of you remember what they taught you in school about those school shooter kids?” Chunk asked.

“R-H-F,” Malik intoned quietly.

“Exactly. Run. Hide. Fight. In that order,” Chunk said. “Remember?”

“First we try to run away. If that won’t work, we hide. And if there’s no place to hide, we have to fight with everything we got,” Eve said brightly.

“I can tell you were a good student, Eve. So say somebody sketchy wandered into our campsite right now. Here’s what we would do. I‘d start things off by saying the password and…”

“Password?” Marco asked. “What’s the password?”

“Well, I’m gonna give it to you right now. Elvis Presley, my favorite rock ’n’ roll singer, had a saying he would use when he was excited or surprised. It was ‘Hot damn.’ If you ever hear me say the words ‘Hot damn,’ you’ll know that’s the password.”

“Hot damn,” Malik whispered.

“Hot damn,” Eve said.

“Hot damn!” Marco yelled.

“I know, those are fun words to say, but from now on, we only use them in emergencies as the password, okay?” Chunk said. The kids all nodded conspiratorially in agreement. “So when I say the password, it’s time to R-H-F. Now if it happened right here and right now, and that sketchy dude wandered into our campsite, I would say, ‘Hello there, dude. Hot damn, it’s nice to see a new face.’” The kids all burst into laughter at Chunk’s playacting. “Okay, well I wouldn’t sound quite that ridiculous, but what you guys would do is slowly stand up and, while keeping your eyes on the dude, you would start backing off into the darkness then turn and run like hell away. I’d say at least the distance of a football field or so, and then you’d find a place to hide.”

“Then what?” Malik asked.

“Well, if someone chases you, you find that hiding place and if there’s no place to hide, you turn and fight, like Eve said, ‘with all you got.’ But I don’t think you need to worry about that. Once it’s safe, I’ll give the all-clear signal, which is three of these.” Chunk put his fingers to his lips and made three short, sharp whistles that echoed into the woods. “And then you’d come back to me, but not until you heard the all-clear.”

“And what if we don’t hear you whistle?” Malik asked.

“Stay hidden for at least a couple hours, then circle around and find each other.” The kids looked at one another and nodded in agreement. “Oh, and I got somethin’ for each of you. I picked these up back at the store.” Chunk stood and pulled three items out of his pocket and handed one to each of them. “Scout knives. Boy Scouts for the guys and a Girl Scout for you, Eve.” The kids looked over the shiny new folding pocket knives they each held. “A good tool like that also comes in handy when you’re out here camping, like we are.”

5

The sun rose over the Adirondacks and its warmth fought off the night cold. Chunk blinked open his eyes and found himself inside the tent, swarmed by the three sleeping kids who had cuddled up to him during the frigid night. Hot damn, he thought. It’s like a wolf pack. An instant family. They’re good kids. If only I could find Sarah alive today, then life might be pretty sweet.

The Hellcat crossed through Wevertown and just up US Route 28, it turned down Montgomery Road. About a half mile up ahead was Sarah’s parents’ place. Alongside the road, Chunk spotted a natural hideout where snowplows parked during the winter. He pulled the Hellcat into it and shut off the engine. The car was now invisible from the street. As he opened the door, he started to regret his decision to come here. You’re putting these kids’ lives at risk to chase a fantasy.

“I want you guys to stay in the car until I check things out up at Sarah’s. And what do you do if somebody else comes along here?”

“Hide until you come back?” Marco asked.

“That’s the smart answer, Marco. Okay, I’ll be right back.”

A heavy cloud cover had rolled in and the temperature was dropping. They were not far from the Hudson Gorge Wilderness area and he could see the treetops of the nearby forest. It felt like rain as Chunk cautiously walked up the long driveway to Sarah’s. You’re unable to control your own curiosity. Can’t you get it through your fool head that the girl dumped you? Nine long months and she never called you once.

The clapboard house was two-stories and from Chunk’s current perspective, the place looked a bit rundown and was in need of some fresh paint. So much for Sarah’s mom getting up on her high horse. It’s not like she lives in the Hamptons. As Chunk walked up the steps, he kept one hand on Pop’s 9mm in his waistband as he peered inside the house. Everything looked in order. It’s just so quiet up here. Approaching the front door, he took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. He stood there for about five minutes with no response, rang again, then turned to leave. As he reached the bottom of the steps, the front door creaked open. Cora Ames, Sarah’s mother, stood in the doorway.

“I didn’t expect you,” she said slowly.

Chunk forced a smile. You can catch more flies with honey. “Hi, Cora. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop in and say hi.”

Cora stared at him stonily. She looked like she had been through some bad times. Shit, we all have.

“No, seriously, I survived the plague. Glad to see you did too. I managed to get out of the city and thought I’d visit and see if Sarah’s okay.”

“Sarah’s not here.”

His heart leaped. “Sarah’s okay? She survived? That’s fantastic!”

Cora stared at him, seeming shell-shocked.

“So where is Sarah?”

“She’s with her dad. I don’t know when they’ll be back,” she muttered.

Chunk was ecstatic.

“Your whole family survived? It’s a freakin’ miracle,” he said with a laugh.

Cora didn’t look too happy, which was odd considering her family had beat such overwhelming odds.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to wait around and say hi when Sarah comes back.”

She looked him up and down. Is that regret I see?

“You can come inside…and wait,” she said like she didn’t mean it. Despite her chilly attitude, Chunk eagerly accepted the invitation.

“Thanks, Cora. That’s very kind of you.” As he stepped into the living room, he figured he’d better accept the olive branch before it evaporated. “You know, when Sarah and I broke up, some words were exchanged…and I hope you’ll understand that emotions were running high and I didn’t mean some of the things I said. Ever since the first time you hosted me, I’ve always had only the highest regard for you and your family.” Cora nodded glumly and motioned for him to follow her down the hall toward the kitchen. Damn, this woman is a hard one. He continued eagerly, “It was quite a trip getting here, but I’d be happy to help out if there’s anything you need done around the house, here…”

The garrote dropped over Chunk’s head and was yanked tight around his neck. Fuck! He tried to break free, but he was being choked by a rope on a four-foot pole and there was nothing he could reach. He couldn’t even see who was choking him. I’m prattling on, worried about what this woman thinks of me, and I ignored the goddamn danger signs. Chunk grabbed for the 9mm in his waistband, but there was nothing to shoot at. The room was spinning into darkness and he fell headlong into it.

He heard the crickets first. The incessant and continuous chirping that reminded him he was in close proximity to a major forest. Then came the pounding headache. In the last few days his head had taken a pummeling—first the virus, then getting clocked by a two-by-four, and next being brutally choked out. He noticed it was dark outside. Where are the kids? Chunk tried to stand but found that his hands and feet were bound. He managed to sit up and realized he was on the floor of Cora’s living room. The lights were off. He tried to focus. Alright, take inventory. What do we know? There’s an evildoer on the premises, we know that. Cora is either working with him or she’s his prisoner. He kept me alive. Why? The kids are outside there, God knows where. All of the above were dire circumstances, but then the real body blow hit Chunk hard. Sarah is most probably dead.

“Chunk, are you awake?”

Chunk peered through the darkness and saw the silhouette of a figure sitting on the couch. He guessed it was Cora.

“Where’s the fucker who strangled me?” he whispered. There was a long silence and then a response in a soft, quavering voice.

“The Reverend? He’s out. He goes out collecting after dark.”

“Then untie me and let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“I can’t do that. He’ll come back and hurt me.”

Chunk cursed in exasperation.

“I tried helping someone once. It didn’t work. He hurt me really bad that time,” Cora said.

“So, this Reverend…he kills people?” She remained silent.

Chunk continued his questions anyway. “Have you seen the kids?”

“Kids? What kids?” she asked.

Chunk realized he had made a huge mistake to let anybody know about the kids and quickly backpedaled.

“Ah, nothin’. Forget it. I think I was hallucinatin’ or somethin’. Just tell me what I’m dealing with here. You gotta do that for me, Cora. Tell me about this ‘Reverend.’”

“I’ve said too much. I don’t want to get hurt again.”

“Well, goddammit. You lure me inside your house and let your pet serial killer choke me out and now you won’t help me? And where the hell is Sarah? She’s not coming back, is she?”

“No,” Cora said simply.

“The plague get her?” Chunk asked with growing anxiety.

“No. He did.”

Chunk let out a long, low, agonized gasp. The chip on his shoulder started to swell. Now it’s personal. I used to have big plans for the future. But those plans just vanished in Cora’s last few words. So, Mr. Reverend-Strangler, I’ve only got two goals left in my entire, pitiful life. One is to make sure those kids are safe. And the other…is to exact a violent, punishing, and excruciating vengeance from your sorry ass. Fair warning. Your days of playing house with my girlfriend’s mom are all over.

“She didn’t suffer,” Cora stuttered.

“Shut the fuck up, you old bitch,” Chunk muttered, turning away from her.

The front door opened.

“He’s awake!” called out Cora.

Chunk heard a grunt of approval from the mud room and a large-framed, porcine man stood silhouetted in the doorway. He’s a tub of lard. If I can get loose, I can outrun this fat ass. That’s the one advantage I got.

“What’s the little man’s name, Cora,” the Reverend boomed.

“Everybody calls him Chunk,” she whispered submissively. “Chunk!” the Reverend exclaimed and burst out with a loud chortle. “I like the little ones. Thank you, Cora, for bringing Brother

Chunk here inside.” The Reverend turned his sights on Chunk, sizing him up. “Tell me, Chunk,” he asked. “Are you a believer?”

“How ’bout we start with you untying me,” Chunk challenged.

“We’ll get to that. But first, tell me if you believe in Father-God or if you are a practitioner of the heathen ways.”

“Okay, Mr. Reverend, yes, I was born into a Catholic family and I do not practice the heathen ways. So could you please untie me now?” Chunk slowly responded.

“Ah, our Catholic friends. They may walk among us, but so many of them are just tools of the devil, but you already know that.”

“I’m nobody’s tool,” Chunk growled.

“Let’s prove it. Little man, will you accept, right now, the Lord Jesus as your one and only savior and as the only son of our almighty Father-God?”

“I would be happy to,” Chunk replied. “But even Jesus himself would not take an oath while bound hand and foot. Untie me and I’ll take that vow.”

“Spoken like the snake. Once upon a time, I was surrounded by the snakes. I preached to them every week to take the righteous path, beseeched them until I was blue in the face. And you know what?”

“What, pray tell?” Chunk asked with exasperation.

“Father-God smote them down with his plague. Every last one of them. And I alone survived. A shepherd without a flock. Was my life’s work in vain? Perhaps, but I have listened to Father-God and now my preaching days are over. Now I ask a single question on behalf of HIM. And if the answer is incorrect, I cut off the head of the snake.”

Chunk stared down the fat man. The Lord sure works in mysterious fuckin’ ways.

The Reverend withdrew a short, sharp machete from his belt and moved for Chunk.

“There’s gotta be at least one cop in this county that survived, somebody to hold you accountable,” Chunk said.

“It’s all part of Father-God’s plan. Not a single one,” the smiling Reverend said.

“Reverend, could I please be excused? I need to begin preparing our meal,” Cora begged anxiously.

“No, my dear. Please bring the towels to absorb the flow,” the Reverend responded cheerfully.

The Reverend approached Chunk, stopped, and stared down at him as if he were vermin.

Chunk looked over to Cora and asked, “So Cora, is this what you let him do to Sarah?” Cora turned her head away in shame and stiffly moved to the linen closet, eyes downcast.

Chunk stared back daggers at the Reverend and hissed, “You and me, Reverend? We ain’t done yet.”

The Reverend’s hand darted out and grabbed Chunk by the hair and yanked his head back. Chunk started to hyperventilate and the Reverend raised the machete over his exposed neck and…

The doorbell rang. The Reverend and Cora froze. He shot her a look and she moved toward the door.

The door swung open to reveal the three children standing there forlornly.

“We’re looking for our friend, Mr. Chunk. Is he here?” Eve asked.

Cora examined the children suspiciously. “Come inside. He’s in the living room.”

The three kids entered the house and followed Cora down the hall.

“In here,” she said as she gestured to the living room. The kids entered and stopped as the Reverend stepped in front of Chunk to greet them.

“Why, hello, children. Your friend is right here. He wasn’t feeling well so we were ministering to him,” the Reverend said.

Chunk looked up stoically at the kids from where he knelt on the floor.

“Hey, guys. Sorry it took me so long, but it’s good to see you. In fact, hot damn, it’s good to see you!”

For a brief moment the three kids froze, then suddenly they all bolted for the door. Cora snatched Eve by the collar and yanked her back, but Malik and Marco dashed down the hall and out the front door. Eve fought to free herself, reaching up and clawing viciously at Cora’s face. Cora howled and dropped her to the floor, but then the Reverend’s noose dropped over her head and the Reverend cinched tight the garrote.

“No! Please!” Chunk screamed.

The Reverend hoisted Eve off her feet and swung the child around in the air as he strangled her.

Chunk’s shoulder chip was white hot now. Just give me half a chance and I’ll fuck you up big-time, you fat shit.

The Reverend swung Eve over toward Chunk and dropped her roughly into his bound arms.

“Quiet her down or I’ll cut her right now,” the Reverend snarled.

Chunk embraced Eve and comforted her as best he could.

“It’s okay, baby. Just relax. It’s gonna be fine,” Chunk whispered.

Tears streamed down Eve’s cheek as, sobbing, she buried her face into his neck. Chunk felt something cold slip into his hand and realized it was the scout knife.

“With all you got, Mr. Chunk,” Eve whispered.

The Reverend looked over to Cora who was wiping blood from where Eve had scratched her face.

“Get some more rope for the girl,” he barked out.

While continuing to comfort Eve, Chunk surreptitiously flipped open the scout blade and quickly cut through his own bonds. He played possum as the Reverend returned, intent on tying up Eve. As he grabbed her arm, Chunk sprang forward and sliced. The small knife tore through the Reverend’s sleeve and cut through several tendons in his forearm. The Reverend shrieked in pain and staggered backward, blood rapidly staining his shirt. Chunk grabbed up Eve and charged for the exit. A gunshot rang out and whizzed by their heads. As he barreled toward the door, Chunk glanced up and saw Cora holding his own 9mm, blocking the door.

Like an NFL running back, Chunk straight-armed her in the kneecap, causing Cora to crash to the floor with a thud. He snatched his pistol from her hand as they dashed out the front door and down the stairs.

Chunk screamed for Malik and Marco as he ran, still clutching Eve. Approaching the Hellcat, he stopped in the middle of the street and scanned the area for the boys.

“Goddammit!” he muttered. Eve tugged on his sleeve.

“You forgot the all-clear,” she said quietly. Chunk smacked himself in the forehead and blew three short, sharp whistles that echoed through the trees. Pretty quickly, the two boys scurried out of the bushes and jogged down the street toward them. Relieved, Chunk grabbed up all the kids, pulled them close, and hugged them tightly. He pulled back and looked at each of them, checking them over.

“Nobody’s hurt, that’s good,” said Chunk. “I’m proud of you guys. And Eve, you saved my life in there. Thank you.”

Eve beamed with pride. A door slammed in the distance and Chunk could see Cora and the Reverend up on the porch, exiting the house. The Reverend was fumbling with a shotgun, but his bloodied arm was of no use.

“Come on! Time to blow Dodge!” Chunk yelled as he tossed Eve into the Hellcat. The boys piled in and Chunk gunned the engine and fishtailed the car out onto the street.

6

Back at the same Rancho Pines campsite, they settled in to eat in front of the roaring campfire. It was hot dogs again, but the kids loved them and there would be time later to transition to more healthy food.

“The man was bad and the woman was mean,” Eve pronounced and took a big bite of her hot dog.

“What happened?” Marco asked.

“She shot a gun at us, but Mr. Chunk knocked her down,” Eve related with a mouth full of hot dog.

“She shot at you?” Marco probed.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Wow,” Malik marveled.

Chunk intervened. “These were bad people. And it tells us we need to keep our guard up. I made a mistake and thought Cora was my friend because I was friendly with her daughter back in the day. She was mean then, but she’s even meaner now. ’Course you guys already know that,” Chunk said. He looked up from his food to make sure they were listening. They were. “This plague really changes people. We all gotta stay on our toes from now on.”

“My mom said the virus was alien. What does that mean?” Malik asked.

“It means it came from somewhere else. Before the world went bad, the scientists were trying to figure that out. But they didn’t have time. They got sick too. Then the Orbitals came and everybody started thinking it was an invasion from outer space.”

“What do you think, Chunk?” Marco asked.

“I don’t believe it really matters. I’m sure we’ll find out one day. But for the time being we just need to be smart, stay safe, and take care of each other. What do you guys think?” Chunk asked.

“We’ll take care of you, Mr. Chunk,” Eve said and smiled demurely. The boys chuckled and murmured in agreement.

Chunk changed the subject. “Look, there’s something I’ve still gotta do tonight. That Reverend is a real bad man. He’s hurt a lot of folks and if I don’t do somethin’ about him, he will hurt more innocent people.” The kids nodded in agreement. “I need volunteers…two of you to stay here and guard the campsite.”

All three kids eagerly raised their hands as if they were back in their seats at elementary school.

“Alright, Eve and Malik. Eve, I want you to decoy in the sleeping bag and keep this close.” Chunk handed back her scout knife. Eve followed orders and slipped into the bag by the fire.

“It’s okay if you drift off. You’re the decoy.”

Chunk paced away into the darkness about two dozen steps. He put his folding chair up against a tree.

“And Malik, you’ll have sentry duty out here away from the fire.

You keep an eagle eye on the campsite from here in the darkness and if any sketchy dude wanders in, you holler out the password. Eve you hear him yell, you sprint for the dark and then you both R-H-F. I don’t expect any trouble out here, but you remember the scout motto, ‘Be Prepared.’”

“What about me?” Marco asked, feeling left out.

“Climb in the Hellcat. You’re gonna keep me company.”

7

The muscle car cruised down the empty road, headlights off. Chunk was driving by moonlight.

“I figured out what you did with the kids back there. That’s a really safe campsite. You wanted ’em to stay and tricked ’em into volunteering,” Marco said.

“Yeah, you got me. I confess. I wanted you with me. You’re a capable kid, Marco. I know you’ve been through some rough times and learned a lot.” Chunk took a deep breath. “I’m gonna be straight with you. I’ve gotta end this Reverend, and if things go sideways, I’m gonna need you.”

“I’ll back you up, Chunk. You can count on that,” Marco offered.

That twinge of guilt hit Chunk again. They’re good kids. So trusting. And this kid will lay down his life just because I want some payback on the man who killed Sarah. It was true. In his heart, there was nothing he craved more than to roast that fat fuck. But in his mind, he knew the bastard would keep killing unless he was stopped.

Chunk stealthily crept up the driveway. The house was dark; its lights were off. The Reverend’s sedan was parked in the driveway, so Chunk knew he was inside. Marco followed thirty yards behind carrying the two red jerry cans. Chunk stopped at the porch steps, looked at the sedan, and signaled to Marco. Chunk moved quickly up the steps to the living room window. When he lifted the sash, he found it unlocked. Quickly, he slid inside. It was quiet and dark. Chunk moved through the living room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. He scanned the room, searching for something and spotted the basement door, next to the pantry. Inch by inch, he opened it and snuck inside. At the bottom of the basement stairs, he found more than he bargained for. Placed side by side were two deep chest freezers. Chunk approached, steeled himself, and lifted one of the lids. Even though he was expecting something bad, he could not help but gasp. Inside were packed a dozen severed human heads, all frozen solid. He dropped the lid and chose not to lift the lid of the other freezer.

“Why did you come back?” Cora asked.

Chunk wheeled around to find Sarah’s mother standing behind him, disheveled in her bathrobe.

“Cora, listen to me carefully. You never liked me, and the feeling was mutual, but out of respect for Sarah, you can come with me now to safety and I’ll protect you. But it’s your last chance,” Chunk whispered.

“The Reverend will hurt me if I help you,” she said stonily.

“I figured you’d say something like that. Is Sarah in there?” Chunk jerked his thumb toward the freezers. Cora stared back blankly at him. Chunk cursed and started backing toward the stairs.

The noose dropped from behind toward his head. Fool me once… Chunk’s hand darted out, snagged the rope, and yanked forward on it with all his might. The Reverend held on to the garrote and was tugged headfirst off the stairs. Chunk stepped out of his way as the large man fell. The Reverend tumbled to the ground but was back on his feet quickly, machete drawn. Chunk jumped to the stairs and started up.

“Run, Cora!” Chunk screamed.

The Reverend charged after him. Cora stood rigid, not moving a muscle, as the two men exited the basement.

Chunk burst into the kitchen and could feel the Reverend hot on his ass. Damn, this fat bastard can move. Chunk hurtled into the hallway, charged toward the front door, and stopped. He turned around as the Reverend thundered into the hall, waving his machete like a wild man.

“Stand your ground, Snake!”

“I never could abide you bible thumpers,” Chunk retorted.

“You, little man, are an abomination. A dwarf creature that crawled up from the hellscape. You must expiate to Father-God and then I will cast you back to…”

The concussion of the explosion boomed through the house. Chunk threw open the front door and the Reverend’s sedan was engulfed in a roiling fireball. Chunk and the Reverend were bathed in the fiery glow of the inferno outside. The Reverend’s surprise turned to fury and he raised his machete and stalked toward him. Chunk jerked up the pistol from his waistband and quick-fired. The bullet tore through the Reverend’s kneecap and dropped him to the floor. Chunk walked toward the wounded man flailing on the floor in pain. A hunk of shin bone extruded from the Reverend’s gunshot wound. Chunk cocked his pistol and drew a bead on the Reverend’s face.

“That was for Sarah…” Chunk intoned, gesturing to the Reverend’s torn-up knee. Then he uncocked the gun and slipped it back into his waistband. He walked out onto the porch as Marco came running up the steps with the remaining jerry can.

“Back porch is on fire, just like you wanted,” Marco said breathlessly. Chunk grabbed the can from him.

“Meet me by the car. Go!” Marco sprinted off into the darkness as Chunk tipped over the jerry can and spilled gasoline all over the wooden porch. Then he threw the half-empty can into the hallway where it landed with a thunk beside the prone Reverend. Gasoline gurgled out of the can and pooled around the Reverend, soaking into his clothing. Chunk walked to the stairs and turned back to reveal his open Zippo lighter.

“But this one’s for me.” Chunk ignited the lighter and tossed it into the pool of gasoline on the porch. The Reverend screamed.

8

As Chunk and Marco quietly exited the Hellcat, the moon was sinking behind them into the forest. After a short hike, they reached the campsite. The campfire was smoldering and everything was quiet. Eve was tucked tight in her sleeping bag, eyes closed.

“Look at this,” Marco whispered. Malik was still seated in his camp chair by the tree, but slumped over, fast asleep. “Some lookout.” Marco smirked.

“Help me get him into his bag,” Chunk whispered. The two of
them gently lifted Malik out of the chair and slipped him into his sleeping bag. Chunk pulled off the still-sleeping Malik’s shoes as Marco zipped the sleeping bag closed.

“Thanks, Marco. You did good tonight.” Chunk gave Marco a hug as the boy broke into a smile. “Come on. Let’s get some shuteye and in the morning we’ll figure out what we do next,” Chunk said.

As Marco climbed into his sleeping bag, Chunk grabbed a couple of logs and tossed them onto the campfire. He picked up Malik’s camp chair, brought it up close to the fire, and slumped into it. Damn, I’m tired. And it’s gettin’ cold. We may need to head south soon for warmer weather. Chunk frowned. How long will the electricity keep running? What about food? Will we be eatin’ canned for the rest of our lives? He looked over to the kids sleeping peacefully by the now-roaring campfire. I always wanted a family. My mistake was in thinkin’ I needed to find a wife first. Chunk chuckled to himself. Dating will probably be even harder than before, what with the plague, and me now having three kids. These kids deserved a mom. A good one. He decided that he’d make it his mission to find them one. As he looked at their innocent, sleeping faces Chunk also knew that the underlying causes of the worldwide plague and apocalyptic disruption would soon reveal themselves. Something evil had entered their world and the good folks left were in for a fight. This shitstorm’s gonna get worse before it gets better. That was the chip on his shoulder talking. Chunk smiled. Glad to have you along for the ride, partner.

Thanks for reading my first work of published fiction. If you enjoyed Phiction, I would love to hear from you. You can find me on social media here:

X/Twitter: @DonCoscarelli

Facebook: facebook.com/DonCoscarelli

Instagram: @Don_Coscarelli

I look forward to hearing from you!

Several people deserve mention for their kind assistance in completing this project.

There from the beginning, my good pal Jeff Conner provided sage advice throughout the process of creating Phiction. A terrific writer and publisher in his own right, Jeff was one of the key forces in specialty publishing during the so-called horror boom of the Eighties, receiving a World Fantasy Award for his work with Scream/ Press; always a great inspiration to me.

Sincere thanks to the talented artist Aaron Lea for creating the cover, slipcase and chapter art of Phiction. Aaron is a longtime friend and collaborator who has previously created simply phantastic key art for many of my films, including Phantasm and Bubba Ho-tep.

The very kind introduction from the terrific Texas author and friend, Joe R. Lansdale, was sincerely appreciated. I have known Joe for well over three decades now and in addition to being one of the great novelists of our generation, Joe is also a kind, decent, loyal friend who loves dogs. I have had the good fortune of being able to adapt two of Joe’s wonderful tales to film and working with him has been one of the genuine highlights of my career.

I would also like to thank dear friend Linda Wolvek for her early input to the rough draft and commitment to reading and re-reading Phiction again and again. Her thoughtful and creative suggestions were much appreciated.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with Nikki Busch who is a simply terrific line editor. Her comments and suggestions were extremely helpful and her knowledge of grammar is unparalleled.

Lastly, I’d like to pay tribute to the terrific actors from the Phantasm films whose performances have given me inspiration for these stories including Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Ken Jones, Kevin Connors, David Arntzen, Gloria Lynne Henry, Sarah Scott Davis, Stephen Jutras, and Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man.

The characters, places, and incidents portrayed herein are entirely fictitious and similarity to any real places or people, living, dead, or undead is purely coincidental. This book is protected pursuant to the provisions of the laws of the United States of America and other countries. Any unauthorized duplication, copying, distribution, exhibition, or any other use of any kind may result in civil liability, and/or criminal prosecution and the eternal wrath of the Tall Man.

DON COSCARELLI became the youngest filmmaker ever to have a feature film distributed by a major studio at age nineteen when Universal Pictures bought his first film, Jim The World’s Greatest. The independent, award-winning filmmaker is best known for Phantasm and its sequels, which spawned a dedicated cult of fans worldwide.

His other indie genre hits include The Beastmaster and Bubba Ho-tep. For TV, he directed the premiere episode of Showtime’s acclaimed series Masters of Horror, and his film John Dies at the End premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Don’s well-received memoir, True Indie: Life and Death in Filmmaking is now available everywhere.

For more information on the world of Phantasm please visit the official website at: www.phantasm.com

The world of Phantasm returns in:

BOOK 2

Coming Soon.

(Just kidding! Well, who the hell knows? Maybe…)

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Full Page Image
- Copyright
- Title Page
- Also By Don Coscarelli
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Preface

- Introduction To “Life And Death In The ’Nam”

- Full Page Image
- Life And Death In The ’Nam
- Full Page Image
- Behind The Mortuary Door
- Afterword To “Behind The Mortuary Door”
- Introduction To “He Was Home Alone”
- Full Page Image
- He Was Home Alone
- Introduction To “Tobe”
- Full Page Image
- Tobe
- Introduction To “The Rocky Road”
- Full Page Image
- The Rocky Road
- Introduction To “Escape From New York”
- Full Page Image
- Escape From New York
- Afterword
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Full Page Image
- Full Page Image