Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions Read online

  Praise for Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions

  “…John Everson has to be congratulated for having the courage of his nightmares. Not every writer would be able to convert his most freakish and kinkiest imaginings into neatly plotted narratives as Everson does here… Can you say 'the Stephen King version of American Pie'?”

  – Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

  “… a wonderfully nasty little collection of twenty dark, and often erotic, horror tales. Everson has a clear and sometimes poetic style that lulls and enthralls, drawing you in comfortably only to snap you up. The stories here are all good. Some suspenseful, others gently persuasive.”

  – Painted Rock

  “Sex and death. Death and sex. What better themes, what greater mysteries can be explored by the arts, by fiction in particular? In the hands of a skilled writer the veil can be lifted, the mystery exposed and experienced vicariously, safely. John Everson is such a writer, and a very willing guide. Each of his stories is a dark and tantalizing show well worth the price of admission.”

  – Twilight Showcase

  “John Everson has crafted an incredible collection that will surely “move” you in ways you never knew possible from a horror story.”

  – 1000 Delights

  Books By

  John Everson

  NOVELS:

  Covenant

  Sacrifice

  The 13th

  Siren

  The Pumpkin Man

  NightWhere

  Violet Eyes

  NOVELETTES:

  Failure

  SHORT FICTION COLLECTIONS:

  Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions

  Vigilantes of Love

  Needles & Sins

  Creeptych

  Deadly Nightlusts: A Collection of Forbidden Magic

  Christmas Tales

  For More Information Visit:

  www.johneverson.com

  Copyright Information

  CAGE OF BONES

  & Other Deadly Obsessions

  Cover art copyright © 2000 by Andrew Shorrock

  Foil stamp / "endbug" design copyright © 2000 by Colleen Crary

  “Introduction” copyright © 2000 by P.D. Cacek

  “Yellow” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  “Long Distance Call” © 2000

  “Cage of Bones” copyright © 1994 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Into The Darkness #2

  “Dead Girl on the Side of the Road” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  “Pumpkin Head” copyright ©1999 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Grue #19

  “Direkit Seed” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  “Every Last Drop” copyright © 1998 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Bloodsongs #10

  “When Barrettes Brought Justice to a Burning Heart” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  “The Mouth” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Delirium Magazine #1

  “Creaks” copyright © 1994 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Crossroads #9

  “Remember Me, My Husband” copyright © 1994 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Terminal Fright #6

  “Anniversary” copyright © 1995 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Dead of Night #13

  “Wooden” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  “Swallowing the Pill” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  “Broken Window” copyright © 1998 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Xoddity #3

  “Tomorrow” copyright © 1998 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Shadowland #7

  “Mirror Image” copyright © 1999 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in the British anthology Nasty Snips

  “Murdering the Language” copyright © 1995 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Outer Darkness #2

  “The Last Plague” copyright © 1996 by John Everson

  Originally appeared in Outer Darkness #8

  “Bloodroses” copyright © 2000 by John Everson

  Afterword copyright ©2013 by John Everson.

  Cage of Bones was the 6th hardcover collection released by Delirium Books. It was a signed edition, limited to 300 copies. An e-book edition was released by Delirium's sister company, Darkside Digital, in 2010. The 2013 Dark Arts Books edition re-instates the original cover, story introductions and adds an Afterword.

  Except for fair use for purposes of review, the reproduction of material from within this book for the purposes of personal or corporate profit, by photographic, digital, or other methods of electronic storage and retrieval, is prohibited. This book consists of works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  For more information on this and other John Everson titles, please visit www.johneverson.com

  First Print Edition, 2000

  Darkside Digital e-Book Edition, 2010

  Dark Arts Books e-Book Edition, August 2013

  www.darkartsbooks.com

  Dedication

  To the E3 Club core – Bill Zukley, George McQuary, John Tomkowiak and Dave Chrudimsky – who, for better or worse, have read my twisted imaginings from the very first.

  And to my wife, Geri, for showing me that reality can be a better place than I could ever imagine.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Failure

  Books By John Everson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  STORIES:

  Yellow

  Long Distance Call

  Cage of Bones

  Dead Girl On The Side Of The Road

  Pumpkin Head

  Direkit Seed

  Every Last Drop

  When Barrettes Brought Justice to a Burning Heart

  The Mouth

  Creaks

  Remember Me, My Husband

  Wooden

  Swallowing The Pill

  Broken Window

  Tomorrow

  Mirror Image

  Murdering The Language

  Anniversary

  The Last Plague

  Bloodroses

  ABOUT:

  About The Author

  Afterword

  Introduction

  I. Guilty Pleasures

  Ah, that got your attention, didn’t it? Well, it was supposed to.

  Given the thrust (no pun intended) of the stories in this collection – “mature content” and deadly obsessions – I wondered how the heck my poor little introduction would stand a chance. I mean, let’s be honest… why would anyone want to take the time to read my mental meanderings when the lure of sexual misconduct with vegetables and unbridled passions beckons just a few pages further on?

  Answer is no one would… unless they were tricked into it. Hence the Guilty Pleasures tag. Of course, now that you know the trick, there’s nothing to keep you here… or is there? I was going to explain how reading this book is a guilty pleasure, but you it’s your choice if you want to know or not. Take your time, I’ll wait.

  You decided to stay. Cool. Now about that guilty pleasure – As I mentioned before, the book you’re holding if filled with stories about things most of us would never attempt in real life (and which will, forever more, make you look at carving Halloween pumpkins in a whole new light)… but that’s not going to keep us from reading about it. In fact, we might very well
go out of our way to read about it even though we might suddenly blush and snap the book closed should a minor or less liberal thinker walk by. Why? I mean, all we were doing was reading, we weren’t actually doing anything (at least I wasn’t!), but we still may feel a little guilty if anyone knew we liked this kind of thing.

  Not that we going to stop, mind you. One of the true joys of giving into a guilty pleasure is that no one, including you, gets hurt. Because guilty pleasures, like truth, beauty, and sex, are only in the minds of the beholder.

  Huh? What part of that last statement didn’t you understand? Oh, that sex is only in the mind. Yeah, I can see where this might be confusing, but the truth of the matter is that no matter where the actual act takes place (and you might want to take notes while you’re reading the stories that follow), sexual urge begins in the mind. The mind sees or reads something provocative and the procreative juices begin to flow. We might feel a bit guilty about it… but you have to admit it’s a pleasurable sensation, right?

  Guilt + Pleasure = You get it.

  Lucky you!

  II. Erotica vs. Pornography

  Well, there is a difference, trust me.

  I know. If you listen to the “Moral Majority” in this and other countries, you might be under the impression that the words are only different terms for the same thing: Nasty things, i.e. dirty pictures and bad words. But the truth of the matter is that even though both pornography and erotica strive toward the same goal, that being sexual arousal in the viewer/reader, the methods are different.

  Let me try to demonstrate with two descriptive passages:

  I. The two dogs boinked each other senseless on the front lawn.

  II. The great golden mutt lifted his head and sniffed the warm summer wind. He could smell her scent long before he saw her – the rich, moist musk permeating his senses with desire. And then he saw her, his goddess. She was all beauty, her long, silky hair shimmering in the bright light, the wanton glint beckoning in her luminous brown eyes. A moment’s pause and he rushed at her, leaping high as they came together, his hot, throbbing…

  Okay, you get the idea. Besides, who knows the kind of trouble I could get into with PETA if I continued. So… which of the above is pornography and which is erotica?

  I know, it’s not really a fair question, I doubt if anyone could get sexual aroused by either (and if you did, I don’t want to know about it). What I was attempting to do, in a round about, but highly entertaining way, was show the basic difference between pornography and erotica.

  Still don’t get it, huh? Okay, let’s try this… pornography is intended to sexually arouse without artistic merit. Erotica arouses from the mind down (remember my earlier statement) by using as many of the senses as possible. Erotica is tactile. Erotica is sensual. Touch, taste, smell… those are the things that qualify erotica and those are the things you’ll find in John Everson’s stories. These are stories that are not so much read as experienced.

  Granted, some of the experiences won’t be very pleasant, but you’ll feel them and I guarantee you’ll not soon forget them.

  Please return your seats and tray tables to their upright and locked positions.

  It may be a bumpy ride.

  III. Obsessions, Deadly and Otherwise

  Romantically inclined gourds, genetically created love machines, see-through chests, succubus roadkill, self imposed moralists, killer television, real “boners,” demonic possessions, freaks, geeks and forlorn rotting vampires seeking revenge. Looking at the stories like this, it’d be hard to come up with a connective tie… but if there wasn’t, would I be writing anything right now? No.

  Regardless of the diverse (and remarkable) settings, these are stories of obsession, the kind that will crawl under your skin and make themselves at home. Obsession, like sexual arousal, is one of those things that we humans are pre-programmed for… and John Everson not only knows that, but plays with it. Of course, because this is a collection of horrific tales, the obsessions don’t turn out well. But do they ever?

  And there, my friends, is the hook. We know that what the probably outcome of these stories will be and yet does that stop us or even slow us down? Nope. If anything, we grip the pages a little tighter, look over our shoulders a little more often to make sure no one is watching, and (again, pardon the pun) plunge in deeper. Have we ourselves become “obsessers?”

  I’ll let you answer that yourselves.

  You may not find yourself agreeing with or even sympathizing with the characters in these stories, but more times than not, there will be a tiny spark that’ll recognize. And once you do, there’s no getting away.

  When you finish this collection, you may hate the stories or love them… but like I said before, you won’t forget them.

  IV. Conclusion and Other Sins

  Yes, I’ve come to the end of my introduction, and hopefully, I’ve, dare I say it, aroused your curiosity about the stories in this book. Hope so. In Cage of Bones and Other Deadly Obsessions John Everson shows us a world that exists, or could exist, just beyond the one we’re comfortable with. We’re lucky to have him as our Tour Guide.

  Please have your tickets ready.

  But, if you’re still having a hard time swallowing the things I’ve written about John and this book, don’t worry. You’re not the only one… as you’ll find out when you read “Swallowing the Pill.”

  Enjoy!

  – P.D. Cacek

  Arvada, Colorado

  January 2000

  I’ve always been fascinated with caves – the dark hidden spaces of the earth where the buried and forgotten successes and excesses of the past lie hidden. Caves are treasure trove and crypt combined. In “Yellow,” the hidden lore of the earth’s interior counterpoints a couple’s interior quest to save their marriage. Relationships are tricky balancing acts at best, and so often weighted down not by the visible disagreements in taste and style (I hate Chinese, couldn’t we eat Italian tonight?), but with unseen and unspoken baggage. By private obsessions. And by unconquered cowardice that doesn’t allow both to face the dark together.

  Yellow

  n the cool kiss of a sun-drenched dawn, so much can be dismissed, so much forgotten. But it’s hard to dismiss the empty space in the bed beside me last night.

  It’s hard to ignore the brick-red stains that mar the otherwise bleached pebbles on the dry stream bed down the hill.

  And it’s impossible to still the voice behind my eyes that screams “yellow, yellow, yellow” without pause or compassion. The voice names me truly. I can brook no argument.

  Ostensibly it was solitude for my writing which brought Rachel and me to this backwoods cabin two months ago, but there was an underlying agenda to our relocation as well. We hoped that – no, we wondered if – spending time together could pump vigor back into our flagging marriage. I can’t say that we both wished that our life together could be saved. Call it wistful curiosity. We treated it more as some kind of psychological experiment in human emotion. Consign the two rats to an otherwise rat-free cage and what will they do? Reproduce, or consume each other. It was a move of joint desperation, not hope.

  Perhaps it was that lack of hope that ultimately caused Rachel’s doom. If we had acted together, as one, so many things might have been different. But the two rats found a third alternative. They neither mated nor chewed each other. Instead, amid the lazy bird songs of the forest, we simply retreated to our own corners of the cabin. She withdrew into a correspondence course on computer languages, and I, as many “retreat” writers may admit, did not write. Instead, I spent an increasing amount of time away from the cabin, exploring the miles of hilly wooded trees around us.

  The upshot of all this is, when I discovered the cave during one of my daily walks along the dry stream bed, I didn’t, as many a mate would, run back to drag Rachel out to the spot. I held it to myself jealously.

  It seemed a small cave, when I first pushed the cascade of weedy leaves aside and peered within. My stomach trembl
ed, as I expected at any moment to hear the growl and meet the unforgiving jaws of a black bear or some similarly unfriendly animal. But I could smell no spoor as my head hung just inside the lip of the opening. I ducked and slowly poked my body in, now adding snakes and scorpions to my “to be worried about” list.

  “Hello?” I called, and then listened intently for any telltale movements. There were none.

  I couldn’t see how far the cavern extended to the sides, but I could, from the dim light the cleared entrance allowed in, see that the front cavern of the cave narrowed to a tunnel that continued into the mountainside. It took every bit of restraint I owned to not barrel into that corridor right then. I was a child again, and I had found a secret place to call mine.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I called out loud, and smiled as my voice vaguely echoed in the hidden recesses of the cave.

  I don’t know what Rachel thought when I got home that evening. I’m sure my face beamed with secret pride at my discovery. She glanced at me oddly a couple times over dinner.

  “What is with you tonight?” she asked at one point.

  “Just a beautiful day, I guess,” was my empty reply.

  That night as she lay beside me in bed, I reached out to massage her chest, but she pushed my hand away.

  “No,” she whispered. A while later as I fumed in unfulfilled lust beside her, I felt the bed shake in a rhythm I recognized. It was not erotic. She was crying.