Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) (35 page)

Rashid was dead. Hennessy was dead. Sergeant Floyd was expected to recover in a couple of months.

The name of the wolf was Charles Turner. He was single, thirty-three years old, and had lived on West 10
^th
Street. He had worked for the same company since college as a data administrator. He possessed more acquaintances than friends and no family. By all accounts Turner was an unassuming man with an unremarkable life. Nowhere in his personal history was there any indication of the wolf that had gestated within him.

In death he retained the semblance of the beast.

Perusquia jacked into the Net from the hospital bed, leaving the aches and hurts of his recuperating flesh behind, pausing momentarily to delete a few kilos and to put on his gray pin-stripe suit and the crucifix. Two giant steps took him to the station.

The SIIU was meeting as usual in the Sixth Precinct detective offices despite the grumbling of the local operatives. Two new faces, temporarily on loan from downtown, brought the unit up to strength. Perusquia stood before them, scale models of Turner, as both a wolf and as a man, floating in a window behind him.

“Analysis has supported my assumptions,” he said, looking from one to the other of his squad. “Application of his
will
, in combination with his psychosis, allowed Turner unprecedented control over his personal physiology. The professors at John Jay, Columbia, and VNYU are going
loco
over the data. They believe we have a new kind of human on our hands, or at least a new kind of criminal. As far as I’m concerned, they can speculate all they want. What we have to do is figure out appropriate procedure to follow if we meet up with any more scumbags like him.”

“Loo? I thought it was silver that did the trick?” Today neither Brown nor Navas wore mustaches but instead were clean-shaven and bald.

Perusquia shook his head sadly. “I wish it were true,” he told Brown with a rueful smile. “But that’s only superstition. What happened was that I convinced Turner that silver was fatal to werewolves—to
him
. He believed it, and he died. Essentially,
amigos
, I think we can conclude that Charles Turner killed himself.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

T.J. MAY ~ has been writing professionally since 1998. He is an active member in the Horror Writers Association and the Director of the Events Committee for the New England Horror Writers. T.J. and his wife raise three sons in Massachusetts.

DOUGLAS SMITH ~ has appeared in over ninety magazines and anthologies in twenty-four languages around the world, including Tesseracts6, Cicada, Weird Tales, The Third Alternative, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, InterZone, Baen's Universe, Amazing Stories, On Spec, and anthologies from Penguin/Roc, DAW, and others. I was a John W. Campbell Award finalist for best new writer and have twice won the Aurora Award for best short fiction by a Canadian.  My first collection, Impossibilia, from PS Publishing was a finalist for the 2009 Aurora Award, and my second collection, Chimerascope, from ChiZine Publications was published in March 2010.

ANNA TABORSKA ~ was born in London, England. She was first caught reading horror at age ten, when a teacher, impressed that Anna was sitting at her desk during lunch break and reading rather than playing with other children in the school playground, found that Anna’s science book was actually hiding Guy N. Smith’s
Night of the Crabs.
Brainwashing at a posh girls’ school didn’t succeed in suppressing Anna’s horror obsession, and, alongside William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, Anna avidly studied such classic authors as James Herbert and Stephen King. Following a misguided attempt to wean herself off horror by studying Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, Anna went on to gainful employment in public relations, journalism, advertising and the BBC, before throwing everything over to become a filmmaker and horror writer.

DAVID BERNSTEIN ~ is a writer, mostly of horror and the plain ol' weird. His first novel, Amongst the Dead, is a zombie tale. His second novel, Tears of No Return, is an Urban Fantasy Horror tale. He also has novella entitled, Jane 76.

DAVID WESLEY HILL ~ is an award-winning science fiction writer with more than thirty stories published in the U.S. and internationally. In 1997 he was presented with the Golden Bridge award at the International Conference on Science Fiction in Beijing, and in 1999 he placed second in the Writers of the Future contest. Most recently, in 2011 Mr. Hill was invited to his third residency at the Blue Mountain Center, a writers and artists retreat in the Adirondacks. Mr. Hill studied under Joseph Heller and Jack Cady and received a Masters degree in creative writing from the City University of New York, as well as the school's highest literary honor, the De Jur Award. At various times he has been an executive chef for major hotels, a management consultant, and a website designer.

DAVID NIALL WILSON ~ has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties. An ordained minister, once President of the Horror Writer’s Association and recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for poetry and short fiction, as well as being nominated for long fiction and non-fiction, his novels include
Maelstrom, The Mote in Andrea’s Eye, Deep Blue, the Grails Covenant Trilogy, Star Trek Voyager: Chrysalis, Except You Go Through Shadow, This is My Blood, Ancient Eyes
and the upcoming supernatural mystery novel
Vintage Soul: Volume I of the DeChance Chronicles
. The Stargate Atlantis novel
Brimstone
, written with Patricia Lee Macomber was published in 2010. He has over 150 short stories published in anthologies, magazines, and five collections, the most recent of which were
Defining Moments
, published in 2007 by WFC Award winning Sarob Press, and the currently available
Ennui & Other States of Madness
, from Dark Regions Press. His work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines. David lives and loves with Patricia Lee Macomber in the historic William R. White House in Hertford, NC with their children, Billy, Stephanie, and Katie, David’s mother Jean, and occasionally his boys Zach and Zane.

JOHN EVERSON ~ John is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of the novels
Covenant
,
Sacrifice
,
The 13th
and
Siren
, and the short story collections
Creeptych
,
Needles & Sins
,
Vigilantes of Love
and
Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions
. He shares a deep purple den in Naperville, Illinois with a cockatoo and cockatiel, a disparate collection of fake skulls, twisted skeletal fairies, Alan Clark illustrations and a large stuffed Eeyore. There's also a mounted Chinese fowling spider named Stoker courtesy of Charlee Jacob, an ever-growing shelf of custom mix CDs and an acoustic guitar that he can't really play but that his son Shaun likes to hear him beat on anyway. Sometimes his wife Geri is surprised to find him shuffling through more public areas of the house, but it's usually only to brew another cup of coffee. In order to avoid the onerous task of writing, he holds down a regular job at a medical association, records pop-rock songs in a hidden home studio, experiments with the insatiable culinary joys of the jalapeno, designs photo collage art book covers for a variety of small presses, loses hours in expanding an array of gardens and chases frequent excursions into the bizarre visual headspace of '70s euro-horror DVDs with a shot of Makers Mark and a tall glass of Newcastle. For information on his fiction, art and music, visit John Everson: Dark Arts at www.JohnEverson.com.

JOHN GROVER ~ John is the author of
Feminine Wiles, Whispering Shadows, A Beckoning of Shadows
, and
Tandem of Terror
. Residing in Boston, Massachusetts, he previously studied creative writing online at Boston’s Fisher College. He is also a member of the New England Horror Writers––a chapter of the Horror Writers Association. His short stories can be found in
Northern Haunts
(Shroud Publishing),
Zombology
(Library of the Living Dead),
Alien Skin Magazine, Morpheus Tales, Wrong World, The Willows
, and
Flesh and Blood Magazine
. For more information, feel free to visit his award-winning website, shadowtales.com.

JONATHAN MABERRY ~ is a New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. His books have been sold to more than twenty countries. His novels include the Pine Deep Trilogy:
Ghost Road Blues
(Pinnacle books; winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 2006), DEAD MAN'S SONG (2007) and
Bad Moon Rising
(2008); the Joe Ledger series of action thrillers from St. Martins Griffin:
Patient Zero
(2009, voted one Best Zombie Novel of 2009; winner of the Black Quill Award and a Bram Stoke Award finalist),
The Dragon Factory
(2010; now available),
The King Of Plagues
(2011),
Assassin's Code
(2012),
Extinction Machine
(2013);
The Wolfman
(NY Times bestseller from Tor and winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation, based on the Universal Pictures film starring Benecio Del Toro, Emily Blunt and Sir Anthony Hopkins); the Benny Imura series of Young Adult dystopian zombie thrillers from Simon & Schuster:
Rot & Ruin
(2010) and
Dust & Decay
(August 30, 2011),
Flesh & Bone
(2012) and
Fire & Ash
(2013); and the zombie thriller
Dead Of Night
(October 2011).

JAMES NEWMAN ~ James lives in North Carolina with his wife, Glenda, and their two sons, Jamie and Jacob. James has several published novels to his name, including
Animosity, The Wicked
, and the coming-of-age fan favorite
Midnight Rain
.

JAMES ROY DALEY ~ is a writer, editor, and musician. He studied film at the Toronto Film School, music at Humber College, and English at the University of Toronto. He is the author of
Terror Town, Into Hell, 13 Drops of Blood, Zombie Kong
, and
The Dead Parade
. In 2009 he founded Books of the Dead Press, where he enjoyed immediate success working with many of the biggest names in horror. He edited anthologies such as
Zombie Kong - Anthology, Best New Vampire Tales, Classic Vampire Tales
, and the
Best New Zombie Tales
series.

JOHN F.D. TAFF ~ is an author with more than 25 years experience in all sorts of writing... public relations, marketing, sales, journalism and creative. He's a published author with more than 50 short stories and seven novels in print. His writing tends to be categorized as "horror," though most of it has a weird, pulpy Twilight Zone vibe to it. He also writes fantasy, suspense and some science fiction. Over the years, four of his short stories have been awarded honorable mentions in Datlow & Windling's Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. He has three fantastic kids whom he doesn't see as much as would like-Harry (or whatever his name is these days), Sam and Molly. They're great kids and he loves them very much. He also shares his life with his wonderful inamorata, Deborah, who puts up with a great deal from him.

MICHAEL LAIMO ~ is the author of the horror novels
Fires Rising, Dead Souls, The Demonologist, Deep In The Darkness
, and
Atmosphere
, and
Rare Cuts
, his newest (and fourth) short story collection. Visit him at www.laimo.com.

ROB E. BOLEY ~ earned his B.A. and M.A. from the English Department at Wright State University. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife, daughter, and three cats (the non-talking variety). They are wonderful housemates, though he wishes there were fewer shoes, crayons, and socks on the floor.

RANDALL LAHRMAN ~ hails from San Diego, California, and has ambitions for writing in the horror genre, of which he says he’s a huge fan.

ROB ROSEN ~ is the author of the novels
Sparkle, Divas Las Vegas,
and
Hot Lava
, has had short stories featured in more than 125 anthologies, most notably: Short Attention Span Mysteries; Modern Witches, Wizards, and Magic; Southern Comfort; Hell’s Hangmen: Horror in the Old West; By the Chimney With Care; Strange Stories of Sand and Sea; Damned in Dixie: Southern Horror; Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic; Ruins Metropolis; Don’t Turn the Lights On; Speculative Realms; Bloody October; and The Middle of Nowhere: Horror in Rural America. Visit him at www.therobrosen.com.

SIMON MCCAFFERY ~ is a Tulsa area based fiction writer, former magazine editor and telecommunications director. He has been writing and selling fiction since 1990. His primary interests are science fiction, horror and suspense. He has been married for 25 years and counting with three wonderful children, mini Rex rabbits, a miniature Dachshund named Bridget and two frogs.

WILLIAM MEIKLE is a Scottish writer with more than ten published novels and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries. He is the author of the ongoing
Midnight Eye
series, and his work has appeared in numerous anthologies.

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN ~ has been publishing science fiction, fantasy, and horror since 1982. Her fiction has been on the final ballot for the World Fantasy, Endeavour, Philip K. Dick, Sturgeon, and other awards. She has won a Stoker and a Nebula.

* * *

Preview of:

TONIA BROWN’S - BADASS ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP

Chapter One

Somewhere just outside of Buhl, Idaho

Dale Jenkins snored like a wild animal on the prowl. At first he chuffed in great swells of exasperated grumbles, mounting and climbing those scales of throaty growls until, as if spying his dream prey, he peaked with a gargantuan, heart-stopping roar. At the apex of this outburst, his snore would stall, his sleep engine seizing as Dale choked and sputtered. After this minor struggle, he would settle down again, and the whole process would recess for a few moments of blessed peace. Before long, the grumbles would begin anew, escalating into growling, and so on and so forth. Windows shook in their sashes, neighbors beat upon the walls, small animals wailed in the streets, and Dale always snored on in utter, somnolent bliss.