The Diabolical Conspiracy (16 page)

The other major case of something like this happening is for an in-progress novel called Go Kill Crazy!, which will be my second novel from Samhain Publishing. I had been in the habit of describing things that annoy me as causing me to “go kill crazy”. Just another goofy catchphrase, yet now it’s provided the impetus for an actual novel. What’s the novel about? Well, let me put it in Hollywood pitch-speak. It’s basically Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! meets the Manson Family.

Early in The Diabolical Conspiracy the character Nadia is described thusly: “The speaker was a pale-skinned young woman with shoulder-length black hair.” Everybody has a favorite type, they say. Well, this is my type. It’s why you’ll frequently see the femme fatale characters in my novels and stories described similarly.

The name of the protagonist is Mike Bradley. I know a dude whose last name is Bradley. Did I consciously name the character after him? Nope. But I suppose that’s likely where it came from anyway.

The Marnie character is a curious mixture of romantic interest and deadly antagonist. The name “Marnie” is actually the name of a girl I knew back in the mid-90’s. I have not seen or talked to her since then. Sometimes when writing these things I get stuck for names. I like to use things that are good and maybe sometimes a little unusual, but at the same time not too self-consciously exotic. This character is a prime example of that. Maybe you don’t run into Marnies every day, but you know they exist. So I happened to think of this name from the past when I was stuck this time and it felt right, definitely better than whatever standard girl name I was previously contemplating, so I used it. In the extremely remote chance that the Marnie I knew back in the long, long ago reads this, let me just emphasize that she is not remotely evil and the character in the story in no way represents her. Unless she has unexpectedly turned into a devil-worshipping serial killer in the intervening years. But that’s not likely.

All of the female members of the Diabolical Conspiracy are stunningly gorgeous. Is this likely in real life? Of course not. But this isn’t real life. It’s a story. Moreover, it’s
my
story and I can have my bevy of Satan-loving, lust-crazed babes be jaw-dropping beauties if I want. And I do want. So there.

There’s a character named Blake in the story. He’s kind of a weasel when you get down to it. He’s a minor character, really, and him being a bit of a weasel serves a purpose. The reason I mention him is because he’s yet another one named after someone I actually know. The real Blake, however, is no weasel. He plays guitar in a cool doom metal band called Brother Ares. Look them up on Facebook if you feel so inclined.

More than once Mike is described as thinking of the members of the conspiracy as being mundane or deceptively ordinary. If you grew up in the 80’s, odds are you had an image in your head of Satanists as dope-smoking teenagers, the kind of kids who wear black all the time and listen to heavy metal and goth music. My own novel
The Dark Ones
examined a similar scenario, minus the blatant Satan-worshipping. But this time I wanted to turn that notion on its head and have the Satanists be a group of average-seeming working adults living in suburbia. Sort of a modern day
Rosemary’s Baby
scenario, only with more sex and gore.

If you have read
The Dark Ones
, you may find what could be interpreted as a couple of loose connections if you look hard enough.

There’s also a vague connection to my earlier novel
Queen of Blood
. This is in the form of Nadia’s reference to the so-called “real” Satanic bible, which is also mentioned in
Queen of Blood
. This book is a fictional creation of mine, so don’t bother researching it. It doesn’t exist. So far as I know. So just read Anton LaVey’s book instead.

Mike Bradley’s memories of Donnie Wilkerson having drinks with his father on the deck outside their house is another instance of inspiration being drawn from something that actually happened. My own father was a businessman of some import in the town I grew up in. I recall this one time in particular when the mayor showed up at our house to talk with my father. My friends and I nervously observed them having drinks by the pool out back. I say “nervously” because the previous evening we’d been chased through the woods by police after spray-painting punk rock graffiti on an under-construction house. In our youthful paranoid naivety, we were worried that maybe the cops had lifted our fingerprints from our discarded beer cans and the mayor was there to talk to my father about it. Never mind that none of us had ever been arrested and our prints weren’t in the system. And never mind the hilarity of the idea of small town 80’s cops going to the trouble of lifting fingerprints from beer cans to track down juvenile delinquents. Anyway…turned out the mayor was just there to see if my father could help a relative or friend get a job somewhere. I have no idea if this mystery person got the job he was after. My guess is…yes.

All this stuff in the story about the “infernal circle” and the “Thirteenth” and all the other stuff relating to Satanic ceremonies is made up off the top of my fucking head. This may come as a huge shock, but I have never been to a Satanic mass or whatever you call such meetings. This is one of the perks of writing whacked-out horror fiction. The whole scenario is so inherently crazy at its foundation that you are free to invent the rites involved from whole cloth. It has to have a consistent internal logic, of course, but no foundation in anything real is necessary.

At the beginning of chapter seven, Mike strains to describe an unfamiliar piece of music. He doesn’t name the band because he doesn’t know them. However, in my mind the music he is hearing actually exists. He’s hearing a song called “Tyrant” from the album
Wyllt
by Black Math Horseman. The music is very dark and haunting, veering from ethereal to heavy. I recommend it.

Twins Of Evil
, the movie screening on the TV during the orgy at Nadia’s house, is a real movie. Most of you probably knew that. It is from 1971 and stars horror legend Peter Cushing.

Regarding the Frankenstein meal Mike vaguely recalls eating when he wakes up the morning after the orgy…well, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? What, you haven’t? Well, some of us have, trust me. Have a late-running party with a bunch of people who are just drunk or stoned enough and the motherfucking munchies will eventually set in. And occasionally when this happens, such culinary horrors occur. On a related note, I recommend checking out Hannah Hart’s
My Drunk Kitchen
on You Tube.

The scene where Mike and Marnie have a tense discussion on the porch outside Nadia’s house was another opportunity to heighten the sense of an ordinary suburban landscape. You may also have noticed that at no point did I name the city where these characters live or even refer to what part of the country they’re in. This was no accident. My stories are typically set in the American south, which makes sense given that I grew up there. But with this story I wanted to convey a sense that it could be happening anywhere. Maybe even in your town.

In chapter ten we get a look at what Mike Bradley does for a living. He works in the customer service center for a major national chain of some type. This was another thing I left intentionally vague, again in order to heighten that impression of universality. Some of his insights are drawn from my own experiences. I worked in customer service for Borders Books for five and a half years before the center was shut down. The company Mike works for is not a bookstore chain. In truth, I’m not sure what his company does. I just know that it’s another big operation requiring a national contact center. What they actually do doesn’t matter much. A lot of what you encounter in call center settings is the same from industry to industry.

When I sent Mike out on his mission to eliminate all the conspiracy members, my original plan was to have him successfully kill them all, with one eventually obvious exception. The final scene would have been him arriving home after killing the last target on his hitlist (who would have been Nadia). He’s weary and drenched in blood. He knows he’s left a trail of damning evidence behind him, but he doesn’t care because now he knows his loved ones will be safe. He doesn’t try to run because he’s too weary and knows he’d never be able to get away. He just wants to rest some prior to his inevitable apprehension. So, intending to crack open a beer, he goes to the refrigerator in his little apartment…but when he opens the door, he sees his sister’s severed head resting on the top shelf. He screams and staggers backward. And then Marnie appears. This scene would have been an intentional homage to the opening scene of
Friday The 13
^th
Part 2
. If you’ve seen that movie, you know what I mean. But I started thinking about what a massive undertaking this would have been for Mike. He has a lot of targets scattered at various locations across town. There would have been so many potentially unanticipated complications he would have encountered along the way. I wound up illustrating this point with his struggle with the mystery girl at Blake’s apartment. I knew by then he would not be able to kill them all. Sure, it’s fiction, I could have had him do it anyway, but I went with what felt right to me. Mike was doomed from the beginning no matter what, whether he killed them all or just a couple of them. Mike’s struggle was futile and he knew it likely would be, but he tried anyway. Despite his shortcomings--and despite the terrible things he did--this, to my mind, is what partially redeems him. He really did try to do the right thing when it counted most. Unfortunately for him, the cards were too stacked against him.

The one other thing that would have been constant regardless of which direction I went was Marnie’s reappearance. Bottom line, Mike fucked up and didn’t finish the job on her. You could consider the events I’ve outlined above as an alternate timeline, a slightly different version of how things might have gone. In the world of
The Diabolical Conspiracy
, however, all alternate timelines eventually culminate in Marnie surviving and Mike dying.

The child character, Brittany, is named after a real person, too. But which one? I know a couple of Brittanys. My good friend Brittany Hudson and Brittany Carothers-Hembree. They’ve both suggested I use their names in fiction before, so let’s just say this is for both of them.

I’m sure there’s an actual restaurant named Fat Sam’s somewhere in this country, but mine is a fictional creation. There
is
a local place called Fat Mo’s and the name of my fictional restaurant sort of derives from that, although the restaurant in the story is very different from Fat Mo’s. Fat Sam’s is supposed to be a TGIF-type place, whereas Fat Mo’s is smaller and has no bar. They do make a mean burger at Fat Mo’s, though.

And
of course
Marnie would eventually go into government. If you are truly, with all your heart dedicated to spreading the cause of evil, what else would you do?

SEMI-OFFICIAL (okay kinda, sorta, but not really) SOUNDTRACK FOR THE DIABOLICAL CONSPIRACY

Look this stuff up and compile a play list. Then you’ll have the soundtrack for this book.

1. Cavity-First Communion by Christian Death

2. Tyrant by Black Math Horseman

3. Origin Of Savagery by Black Math Horseman

4. Heroin by Velvet Underground

5. Ultra by KMFDM

6. Brute by KMFDM

7. A Daisy Chain 4 Satan by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult

8. I Walk The Line by Alien Sex Fiend

9. Long Way Back From Hell by Danzig

10.Nemesis by Shriekback

11.Fiend Club by the Misfits

12.Death Valley 69 by Necrophagia

13.Queen Of Pain by the Cramps

14.Black No. 1 by Type O Negative

15.See You In The Boneyard by the Flesh Eaters

16.Boneshaker Baybee by Wumpscut

17.Hellfire! by the Electric Hellfire Club

18.Cake And Sodomy by Marilyn Manson

19.Spookshow Baby (Black Leather Catsuit Mix) by Rob Zombie

20.Thunder kiss ‘65 by White Zombie

21.Sin City by Genitorturers

22.Fun With Drugs by Velvet Acid Christ

23.I Sit On Acid (Original) by Lords Of Acid

24.Every Day Is Halloween by Ministry

25.March Of The Pigs by Nine Inch Nails

26.Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Black Sabbath

27.Say You Love Satan by Toxic Coma